If one steps back and looks at the scene in Russia today, taking an average Russian family, Olga and Ivano and their two kids, do you really think that Olga wants to send her husband off to kill Ukrainians because she personally wants to take over the Ukraine in the name of “Mother Russia”.
Do you really think that Ivano wants to die somewhere in Ukraine and never see his kids again, that his “loyalty” to Russia runs so deep that he would sacrifice his life to expand the “empire”.
I don’t think so. Not any more than Jane and Joe, in Milwaukee, having deep aspirations for the U.S. to take Greenland, Canada or the Gaza, as if either of those wild and crazy aspirations, would benefit their lives.
These wars, these acts of aggression are NEVER the aspirations of the individual Russian or American - they are agendas driven by and pawned off on a populace by ego-centric sociopaths and their supporters, like Vladimir Putin and Donald Trump.
I dare say that Olga and Ivano would prefer to live a calm and happy life and watch their kids grow up, and that Jane and Joe in Milwaukee have the same notion about their lives.
To get people to run off to other lands, to kill people they don’t know and who are not a threat to them personally, requires propaganda and a real brain-job. Putin is a master at deception because he cuts off all the other information channels, the media and internet, and he controls the narrative, the story being fed to Olga and Ivano about how their “brothers and sisters” in Ukraine, (who Putin is currently murdering by the thousands) need to be freed from the “Nazi” state regime. All lies, but then again, when you don’t have access to the truth, what conclusion do Olga and Ivano come to? Play ball or end up in a Russian state prison somewhere?
Trump is busily doing the same thing right now. While he casts out delusional agendas to move into other territories that do not belong to him, he is busily arranging all the ducks around him so that no one can defy him, getting rid of the “surplus” and of course, decrying any media that says anything about him that tarnishes his idea of his “perfection”. Jane and Joe, in Milwaukee, still have the freedom of choice - search for the truth, or buy Trump’s version and that of his mouthpieces at FOX News and elsewhere.
Trump has clearly declared himself ABOVE the law, and the American system has bowed to him, having cancelled all the legal cases and pronouncements about his proven criminal activities (which costs the taxpayers HUNDREDS of millions of dollars in legal costs) - all of which simply lends to a dictatorial state - just like Putin in Russia, where no one will act or speak up against him.
When I look at the Ukraine war, at the thousands upon thousands who died, both civilian and military, I know that most of those Russian soldiers are not fighting and killing in Ukraine because they believe what Putin has rammed down their throats; they are simply fighting to survive, more or less like Stalin’s Order 227 during WW II - “Not a step back” - where you either fought, or if you retreated, the Russian command would put a bullet in your head on the spot.
I think that Olga and Ivano have a lot in common with Joe and Jane - the only difference being that Trump has not yet escalated up to a full dictatorship - but he’s on that road and Americans need to wake up to that reality before he reaches the point where he can call in the military, the Army Reserve and the privatized security forces to keep the American population at bay - because you know, “Trump knows what is best for everyone.”
Réal Laplaine
Author of high-concept thrillers
Comments