Historian Niall Ferguson on whether 2022 will be a turning point in history like 1066, 1914, and 1989. Ferguson takes the optimistic with the pessimistic pointing out something I never realized - that 1989 was not just the fall of the Berlin Wall it was also the year of the Tiananmen Square massacre. As it turns out the latter event was probably more historically significant.
Ferguson takes the long view of a historian but also the short term political view that, "The world is now facing its most serious inflation problem in a generation and domestic bread-and-butter issues generally trump crises in faraway countries." So true. In the US I imagine that inflation and out of control gas prices will be much more important to voters this November than the war in Ukraine.
Also thanks to Niall for giving me the word "splenetic" (bad-tempered; spiteful). I had never seen that word before.
It's fascinating how many otherwise sensible people simply cannot break free from the "Putin is a warmongering thug" theme and examine the situation without emotion. It's quite possible that Putin really does want to rid his country of Western influences that have weakened it. Why would anyone rational want to import wokeness or the myriad perversions we see being mainstreamed into our own culture? At least he seems to be acting in what he believes to be the interests of Russia's citizens, unlike his counterparts here in the West.
ReplyDeleteYou do have a point. Maybe he sees the New World Order shit and he says "Nope." Because of the way the media is run - chances are we'll never know the truth.
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