Russian social engineering; Netanyahu defends Gaza war

Since late in 2017, it seemed that global authoritarianism has sharpened its focus on attacking democracies everywhere. The most potent authoritarian forces come from within the border of democracies. In the US it is DJT and his Republican Party. The WaPo published an article about Putin mobilizing his entire society into an aggressive military force built to attack democracies everywhere by any means possible. In essence, what Putin is doing now looks a lot to me like what Hitler did with German society to prepare for war. The WaPo writes (not paywalled):

Under Putin, a militarized new Russia rises to challenge U.S. and the West

 

As Vladimir Putin persists in his bloody campaign to conquer Ukraine, the Russian leader is directing an equally momentous transformation at home — re-engineering his country into a regressive, militarized society that views the West as its mortal enemy.

Putin’s inauguration on Tuesday for a fifth term will not only mark his 25-year-long grip on power but also showcase Russia’s shift into what pro-Kremlin commentators call a “revolutionary power,” set on upending the global order, making its own rules, and demanding that totalitarian autocracy be respected as a legitimate alternative to democracy in a world redivided by big powers into spheres of influence.

“Russians live in a wholly new reality,” Dmitri Trenin, a pro-Kremlin analyst, wrote in reply to questions about an essay in which he argued that Russia’s anti-Western shift was “more radical and far-reaching” than anything anticipated when Putin invaded Ukraine but also “a relatively minor element of the wider transformation which is going on in Russia’s economy, polity, society, culture, values, and spiritual and intellectual life.”

In “Russia, Remastered,” The Washington Post documents the historic scale of the changes Putin is carrying out and has accelerated with breathtaking speed during two years of brutal war even as tens of thousands of Russians have fled abroad. It is a crusade that gives Putin common cause with China’s Xi Jinping as well as some supporters of former president Donald Trump. And it raises the prospect of an enduring civilizational conflict to subvert Western democracy and — Putin has warned — even threatens a new world war.

The WaPo article cites some of the efforts Putin is employing to re-engineer Russian society. For example, he is building an ultraconservative, puritanical society indoctrinated against liberal freedoms. That movement is very hostile to gay and transgender people. Putin is also reshaping all levels of education to indoctrinate hyper-patriotism among the young. Textbooks have been rewritten to reflect Putin's propaganda and re-written history. The state now requires compulsory military lessons to be taught by soldiers called “Basics of Security and Protection of the Motherland.” That education includes training with handling Kalashnikov assault rifles, grenades and drones. 

In addition to those efforts, Putin (i) is poisoning cultural life using blacklists of liberal or antiwar performers, directors, writers and artists, and (ii) abolishing women’s reproductive rights and access to abortions. Putin's anti-abortion demands are backed by constant propaganda about the need of young women to give birth often. Feminist activists and liberal female journalists are being arrested and charged with terrorism, extremism, discrediting the military and other offenses. Andrei Kolesnikov, a senior fellow at the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center commented on Putin's preparation for war, “they need cannon fodder for the future.”

Q: Is it just me, e.g., self-delusion, or does the morally rotted, dictator DJT and his morally rotted, authoritarian Repub Party look a way too much like the morally rotted, murdering dictator-thug Putin and his murdering dictator enabling thugs and military? 

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At about 1:52 of this 3 minute video (produced by the Times of India) Netanyahu, defends his and Israeli government treatment of Palestinians in Gaza. In essence he refers to the holocaust of the 1940s and a current existential threat to Israel's existence. He says he will defeat Israel's “genocidal enemy” with or without foreign aid from any country and in the face of international criticism of how Israel conducts the war.

It is interesting that Netanyahu points to past history and the holocaust as part of the justification for what is happening in Gaza. One can wonder if Palestinian civilians point to history since ~1947 as justification for resisting Israel, but not justification for the Oct. 7 attacks, murders and kidnapping by Hamas. No one cannot justify the Hamas killings and kidnappings of Oct. 7. 

But does the horrible wrong by Hamas justify the horrible wrong Israel is committing in Gaza? Do two horrible wrongs make a right?

Opinions will differ.