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Freivalds: Warning to the West |
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By John Freivalds
Published March 29th 2020
Roanoke Times, Roanoke, Virginia
Freivalds runs an international communications firm in Lexington.
“Warning To the West”: This is the title of a 1975 book by Nobel Prize-winning author Alexander Solzhenitsyn. (“The Gulag Archipelago” is perhaps his best known book.) I started reading it anew to gain a better understanding of the Russian soul and how to deal with its current president Vladimir Putin. “Warning to the West” is full of eternal truths and dire warnings relevant to today’s Russia as we go into 2020. It’s almost as if Solzhenitsyn, who died in 2008, is saying “I told you so.”
In his book Solzhenitsyn wrote about the true nature of the Russian soul and its government that has never been a democracy. And any attempt at trying to create a détente between the United States and Russia is seen as a weakness. He notes “Whether you like it or not, the course of history has made you the leaders of the world. Your country can no longer think provincially.” But it is the provincial world view Trump is proposing to his base. It’s hard to understand the logic of how withdrawing from the world would increase the U.S. standing. But why is Trump doing this?
It’s about the money, Stupid! Trump is no geopolitical strategist, John Bolton his former national security advisor was one but Trump got rid of him. According to the Moscow Times, since Putin came to power, $1 trillion in flight capital has been taken out of Russia. And a lot of this has passed, i.e., laundered, through my native country of Latvia and ended up as loans to the Trump organization or purchase of properties (in cash no less).
How much is a $1 trillion? That’s two million houses that are worth $500,000 each — Roanoke just has 41,000. And where has some of this capital gone? It has gone to Trump properties around the world according to an analysis by the Baltic Times. In the old days the Russians thought they needed a nuclear edge to confront the West, but now they just use their vast energy surplus and wealth to spread corruption, cyber attacks, disinformation; real fake news.
Putin knows that American politicians of both stripes need money more than ever to increase “recall” and Trump needs it to maintain his businesses. Putin’s actions recall the Abscam scandal of the 1970’s when seven congressmen were convicted of taking bribes in an FBI investigation. That’s where the famous quote comes from which seems to be Putin’s mantra “money talks bull---- walks.”Trump needs the Russian source of capital according to Bloomberg News and is going out of his way not to cast any aspersions on the Russians. And he even wants to invite Putin to the White House. Putin sees this as a sign of weakness. As Solzhenitsyn notes “Russians only respect firmness and have contempt for persons who continually give in to them.”
Whether Russia is governed by a czar, communism, or today a dictatorship headed by Vladimir Putin, it has always been autocratic and dangerous. And any attempt to foster détente (Bill Clinton), peer deeply into Putin’s eyes (Bush), reset relations (a la Hillary Clinton), or based on smiles or verbal concessions (Trump), Russia has not changed much. I remember on one of my many business trips to Moscow I met an oligarch. He told me “Under communism I had a Mercedes, and I have Mercedes now. No difference.”
Trump calls Putin a strong leader and is jealous of how he controls Russia. Political opponents are jailed or poisoned, there is no free press, judges are appointed by Putin as are all the governors, and Putin determines who can be representatives. And when people complain that things are tough, Putin brings out “mother Russia” and protecting it was the reason they seized Crimea, invaded eastern Ukraine and ramped up the disinformation campaigns against the Baltic’s and Poland. Of Putin’s kind of leadership Solzhenitsyn said that “there is no consideration what is good or evil. Morality is relative.” As Trump has said, his base doesn’t care if he shoots people on Fifth Avenue.
And did Solzhenitsyn foresee in 1975 what is happening now? “Adults deferring to the opinion of their children; the younger generation carried away by shallow or worthless ideas; professors scared of being unfashionable; journalists refusing to take responsibility for the words they squander so easily; people with serious objections unable or unwilling to voice them; the majority passively obsessed by a feeling of doom; feeble governments; spiritual confusion leading to political upheaval.”
Fascism is on its way to America warned Solzhenitsyn. And warned us “When it happens to you, you know it will be true.”
Here is what the people are saying
Ed R Mar 29, 2020 10:13am
Another Brilliant and Insightful Commentary, John. Thank you. Trump's Republican base , from Moscow Mitch down, seems oblivious to this dangerous, simpleminded and illicit "Connectivity"....that Trump and his Cronies have established...and subordinately, yes near-criminally, seek to maintain......
Over the last three years, the Trump "machine" has been more than complicit in helping the American "Conservatives" forget who Putin and Russia "Were, Are, and Will Always Be.".....
Worse than "Unpatriotic"..how about "near-treasonous." edr