Party over People
Russia suffered a major setback in its history in 1917 when Bolsheviks took power and kept it at the cost of the Civil War that started in 1918 and ended in 1920 in European Russia, and in 1922 in the Far East. The Bolshevik coup and the civil war that followed cost the country millions of lives, taken by both hostilities and famine.
The Communist rule has changed the course of the country forever. Without it, according to some political experts’ opinions, Russia would have achieved a population of up to 600 million people by the end of the XX century. Why? Because, demographically, no lives would have been taken by the Civil War, a series of famines, Stalin’s repressions, and, finally the Second World war. The number of casualties that the Soviet people suffered during WWII even officially ranges from 27 to 40 million people!
This chain of disasters and victims was triggered by the so-called October Revolution in 1917.
The whole thing was set on fire because of the Party over People situation provoked by Bolsheviks. Lenin and Trotsky were political fanatics with an addiction to power. They shook up the whole country, literally killing millions of people, and destroying the economy for the sake of their mad, inhuman ideas. I am not sure that WWII would have been possible if Russia would have stayed Communist-free and remained the West’s ally like it was before 1917. This meant no Cold War after that, too. Even today’s war in Ukraine is a distant echo of the 1917 events, historically speaking.
The world would have been a different place now. And the only reason that it didn’t happen is the Communist party that prevailed over the Russian people from 1917 to 1920 by lies and terror.
So no more party over people, me thinks. We’re fed up. I guess during the whole 21st century Russia will still be licking its wounds. We have a century-long nightmare that, I hope, will end when Putin is finally gone. Then there will be time to re-unite the nation based on a new approach: freedom, democracy, economic success, and, of course, peace, as the main pre-condition to heal the country.
Why Party before Country?
In the U.K. right now, we have a blisteringly good example of how a political party and its fortunes are deemed far more important than the future of the country it is intended to serve.
There is shortly to be an election to decide who shall be the leader of the Conservative party, and therefore Prime Minister. The voting is by some 160,000 Conservative members.
The man being replaced is none other than the arch-idiot and narcissistic swine called Boris Johnson. He has always been a lousy politician, in fact, I would go on to say he has always been an extremely lousy person.
But here’s the rub. At the time of his potential elevation to party leader in 2019, his beloved Conservatives, knowing all about his flawed characteristics, also knew that he would win the party the next General Election. He, apparently, had this charisma and bluster, and the British public, having already covered themselves in glory by voting for Brexit, would welcome his buffoonery and wicked self-interest. They did, the Conservatives easily won the following General Election, and kept those wicked Labour politicians at arm’s length.
Before too long, the party then realised that Johnson’s consistent lying and cheating was not going to win them the next election, so he had to go.
The race for the top job now is between two equally incompetent parasites, Richi Sunak and Liz Truss. So, history is repeating itself. While the Conservative Party members are well aware that neither will make a good leader, more likely a totally inept one, they do know that one of them will almost certainly win them the next election.
Those two are at each other’s throats in their miserable efforts to land the top job; they look into the cameras and spout bare-faced lies at the pudden-head public that bothers to watch or listen. There is no creditable opposition, with the Labour party basically a complete waste of space and time.
Sod that the country is rapidly falling to its knees and needs brilliant statesmanship and political integrity to survive, no, no, what is far, far more important that the Conservative party is still in power. Nothing else matters. Long live the Tories!
My country is truly fucked.
Moscow Mitch!
For most of my life I was quite naive, I honestly believed that most politicians cared about their country. Members of Congress who promoted Donald Trump’s big lie showed me just how wrong I was. I now understand that most politicians care about power and getting re-elected is all that matters.
If you believe what you read in the press, and I do, most of these people understand the last election wasn’t stolen. They promote the idea anyway because it plays well with the ignorant base. The truth or the health of the Republic play no role in their public statements.
Least you think I’m being partisan, the liberal party, the Democrats, are just as bad. They are now pumping resources into crazies spouting this obvious bullshit because they believe these guys (all of them are Republicans) cannot possibly win a general election. Some of these wild-eyed MAGAs think they won their party’s nomination because they are right so they continue spreading poison. At no point is doing what’s moral the deciding factor.
The poster child for Party before Country is Mitch McConnell. For our non-American readers, he runs the Republican Party in the US Senate; a powerful position. He personally killed any and all legislation that would stop Russia from interfering in US Presidential elections. Putin preferred Trump, a member of McConnell’s Republican Party so we need to be sure Putin has full access to the election apparatus. This earned him the nickname Moscow Mitch.
His most damaging attack on America was stacking the Supreme Kangaroo Court with MAGAs. Example: a year before Obama was to leave office there was an opening on the Court. The President nominates a new Judge and the Senate confirms, assuming the candidate is qualified.
McConnell decided the way to stop this was to not allow the hearing to take place so the Judge could not be confirmed. So, he refused to put the hearing on the schedule – for a whole year.
On the other hand, only days before Trump was to leave office, there was a death in the Court. McConnell called Trump that very night and told him which person to nominate. McConnell got his new Justice before the old Judge was even buried so that there would be another MAGA in the Court. The process normally takes weeks but this had to be finished in tens of hours. The integrity of the highest court was secondary to getting hard-core partisans from the Party onto the bench.
Result: last year the Court made several controversial and unpopular rulings. The Justices need real security and a big fence had to be installed to keep Americans away. McConnell’s wish has come true: America is divided and Evangelical Nationalist are legislating from the bench. This one man destroyed the US Supreme Court in the name of Party victory at all cost.