I promised an article on the pro-Kremlin faction of the oligarchs, but that will have to wait until we get a final head count of who fled and who stayed in Russia. Friends today, enemies tomorrow — such is life in… well just about anywhere nowadays. Instead, we should probably say a few words about corruption, the security services and the way business is done in Russia to set the stage better for when we get into the nitty- gritty of it all soon.
Corruption is a buzzword in Eastern Europe in a way that it simply is not in the West. This is because in the West, corruption is legal and understood to be part and parcel of the Liberal Democratic process, whereas in the East, people still have the capacity to feel outrage at it. But in Washington, professional corrupters occupy seats in offices of prestigious lobbying organizations on K Street and no one denounces them. As we all know, these professionals help foreign interests, big business and ethnic grievance groups grease the wheels of political bureaucracy with nothing more than innocent handshakes, playful winks and well thought-out suggestions. In other countries this would be called corruption, but because America is a Human Rights Freedom-Loving Liberal Democracy we know a priori that corruption simply cannot exist because that’s not our values — that’s simply not who we are.
But take Nancy Pelosi and her son, who allegedly supports youth soccer programs in Ukraine. They’ve managed to extract staggering sums of loot from the poorest country in Europe. Then take Joe Biden and his son, who allegedly invest in shale gas extraction in Ukraine and, according to the recently revealed laptop emails, were involved in biolabs pathogen research. They’ve also made a tidy profit. This is, of course, considered normal and no one so much as shrugs in Washington or in the controlled media. One doesn’t even have to look abroad to American politicians fleecing failed states to see what Liberal Democracy is really about. Again, Joe Biden, for example, has had a long and storied career as an insurance industry representative. His home state of Delaware has had many companies come in to take advantage of tax loopholes and the like, and Joe Biden has gone to Congress for decades to push for legislation that is agreeable to their continued profits.
Again, this is normal. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature. This is how the system works.
“Corruption!” The proles cried.
“Simply the cost of doing business!” The oligarchs replied.
Fundamentally, Liberal Democracy is based on the premise of giving the merchant/business class control over the political process. People with money at some point wanted to convert their currency into political power, which they were barred from accessing by the existing system of hereditary titles and a “services-rendered” based reward system run by the monarch. To give their money a voice, they had to change the political structure of their host countries to make them more amicable to the interests of their business caste, which led to the modern system of Liberal Democracy as we know it coming into its own.
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