Why do American "anti elite" types think the Kremlin is OK?

[Bob Butler 54]

(08-10-2016, 12:17 PM)Cynic Hero Wrote: Compare what the boomers created with what their predecessors the missionaries/lost built and you can clearly see the subpar performance of the boomers. The last saeculum had strong leaders like the Kaiser, Hindenburg, Ludendorff, Lenin, Stalin, Hitler, Mao, Chiang, Antonescu, Pavelic, Tito, Kim-il-sung, Ho Chi Minh, Gloriu-dej, Ceaucescu, Sukarno, Suharto. While the boomers and their selfish "awakening ideals" rammed worldwide mediocrity down our throats. Only in remote regions of the world did the old glorious values survive in leaders such as Idi Amin, Khomeini, Saddam, Milosevic, Tudjman. The first 2/3rds of the 20th century (and basically the entire century in remote regions such as the middle east, the balkans and southeast Asia) was a "bureaucratic adventurer's" Dream world: Adventurers such as Beria, Himmler, Heydrich, Tsuji, Shiro Ishii, Lin Biao, and countless lower ranking Generals and Colonels from numerous different countries (many of these countries often warring against each other) over the decades were able to make names for themselves as liquidators: The worldwide selfish Boomer awakening put an end to all of this. THIS is the era the TRUMP movement seeks to restore, do not see the trump movement in isolation, All those forces worldwide that lost out when the Boomers decided to wreck civilization are backing Trump. Think of the Joker from the movie "the dark knight" and you will see the leading edge of the manifestation, TRUMP 2016.

Sometimes one can take a really out there post and use it as a take off point to say something meaningful.  This particular post poses a challenge in doing that.

In the Agricultural Age of one man rule, the only time and only way one could achieve peace and plenty was with a very strong leader who could suppress infighting and greed among the middle levels of government.  This style of strong man tyranny has its merits in a country that has never seen democracy or human rights.  Many Agricultural Age cultures and their modern decedents just don't have the values that make democracy work.  Thus, The Donald spoke truth in his not so long ago praises for how Saddam Hussain was a praiseworthy leader...  Assuming Saddam was practicing Agricultural Age values, that Iraq was saturated with people immersed in Agricultural Age values, and assuming Trump is championing Agricultural Age values.

This rather ignores the fact that Industrial Age cultures centered on democracy and capitalism have kicked the butts of Agricultural Age style countries and governments.  Tyranny is a particularly weak and inefficient form of government.  Modern tyrannies vary from impoverished to failed states.  See Syria and North Korea as examples of how well tyrants run their economies... and without an economy one isn't going to have a strong boots on the ground type military.

In other threads I've tried to distill the essence of the Red and Blue patterns.  The GIs initiated the Blue.  Americans working together for the common good can achieve great things.  "Let every nation know, whether it wishes us well or ill, that we shall pay any price, bear any burden, meet any hardship, support any friend, oppose any foe to assure the survival and the success of liberty."

The Red?  Government is inherently corrupt and inefficient.  Any attempt to do any good through government action is apt to fail.  To prevent such failures, cut taxes, cut entitlements and do as much as possible in the private sector.

I've been struggling to say how both approaches have merit, have their place in American values.  Towards the end of the 1960s, the Democrats had been in power too long, were a bit too ready to throw money at problems, were allowing their bureaucracy to get too corrupt and inefficient.  The GIs and to some extent other generations had been bearing too many burdens, paying too many prices, for too long.  Try to keep that up indefinitely and you get into political trouble.  Through the 1970s a lot of folk watched the government's efforts repeatedly fail.  

I believe it possible to have government that is too big, and too small.  I can see successes in both sets of values, and I can see both approaches taken to very destructive extremes.  Both factions have some merits.  Both sets of ideas, if they are not limited and moderated by the presence of the other, can be highly problematic.

Anyway, we have Red Boomers, we have Blue Boomers, and they are very very different.  We also have Xers and Millies in both colors, also very different.  Anyway, anyone who is looking at generation gaps as our basic inherent problem rather than finding the proper balance between FDR and Reagan isn't seeing our problem.  

Anyway, I see blaming a certain age group is no more constructive or meaningful than blaming and making enemies of people who have a particular shade of skin, or who worship God in a different way.  We have problems of economic inequality, a racially unequal justice system.  The Middle East has similar problems with economic inequality, 'governments' enforcing religious prejudices and a culture of fighting conflicts by terrorizing the civilian population.

And there is a hint of Truth in what Cynic Hero is saying...  Only a Stalin, a Saddam Hussain, a Genghis Kahn would be a ruthless enough terrorists to intimidate everyone but his own people into cowering in fear and surrender.  Assad is dropping barrels full of explosive into market day crowds of civilians.  That makes him a 'good guy' as he is using the only sort of tactics that have worked in those countries?

I'm not ready to become that sort of 'good guy' or endorse that sort of 'good guy'.  The world has been slowly shifting away from Agricultural Age tyranny.  It is a long, slow, painful and deadly process.  How many revolutions and civil wars did the English and Americans have to fight in establishing their current styles of government?  I think the French are on their Fifth Republic?  Do we need a recount?  Russia is struggling with its First, and China hasn't really got that far yet?  How ugly were their Revolutions, and how far have they yet to go?

It's not going to be any easier in the Middle East.  It might well be easier in the short term to cling to the past than to try to move forward.  That's in effect what the Baathists and Islamists are both trying to do, cling hard to various flavors of yesterday's tyranny.

Moving forward isn't going to be easy and isn't going to be fast.  It should still be attempted.  It isn't going to get done by putting enough boots on the ground to suppress any and all insurrections.  Bush 43 demonstrated how expensive that approach is in blood, iron and gold.  It is not going to happen.  We are not going to be able to force cultural change at gunpoint.  Obama and Hillary have at best been muddling along, using force with much moderation, not achieving anything decisive through force, and persistently attempting to cool things down using diplomacy.  That's not an approach that will be satisfying if you are naive and impatient enough to think there are quick and easy solutions.

But that's the way we've got to go.