- Vladimir Putin
IGNOBLE LIE: How The New Aristocracy Masks Its Privilege. “The ruling class denies that they really are a self-perpetuating elite that has not only inherited certain advantages but also seeks to pass them on. To mask this fact, they describe themselves as the vanguard of equality, in effect denying the very fact of their elevated status and the deleterious consequences of their perpetuation of a class divide that has left their less fortunate countrymen in a dire and perilous condition. Indeed, one is tempted to conclude that their insistent defense of equality is a way of freeing themselves from any real duties to the lower classes that are increasingly out of geographical sight and mind. . . . Our ruling class is more blinkered than that of the ancien régime. Unlike the aristocrats of old, they insist that there are only egalitarians at their exclusive institutions. They loudly proclaim their virtue and redouble their commitment to diversity and inclusion. They cast bigoted rednecks as the great impediment to perfect equality—not the elite institutions from which they benefit. The institutions responsible for winnowing the social and economic winners from the losers are largely immune from questioning, and busy themselves with extensive public displays of their unceasing commitment to equality. . . . That the ruling class today is more prone to denounce inequality from its manicured campuses than promote among its own denizens belief in a common civic life is not a sign of its greater enlightenment and progress, but a sign of a new aristocracy that is unconscious of its own position and its concomitant responsibilities.”
FROM RUSSIA WITH COLD WAR RIVER LOVE: It appears the Kremlin used a nerve agent named Novichok A-230 in the botched assassination attempt in Britain targeting a former spy. It’s highly toxic. “One of the group of chemicals known as Novichok – A-230 – is reportedly 5-8 times more toxic than VX nerve agent.” Some variants are liquid, other types can possibly “be dispersed as an ultra-fine powder as opposed to a gas.”
Putin: The New Tsar review – a portrait of a lonely, lying narcissist
Stuffed with insight and bizarre anecdotes, this documentary about the Russian president could almost be funny if it weren’t so scary
If Saakashvili was travelling to Britain today, Lukashenko might advise him not to visit any Italian restaurants in the Salisbury area. And this film, timed to coincide with the run-up to the forthcoming Russian elections, suddenly takes on even more poignancy. It’s an excellent portrait of the man who is certainly going to win at the ballot box, from a boy growing up poor in a St Petersburg flat, to a low-ranking KGB officer with no political ambitions, to accidental power and wealth that he then got a taste for. He accumulated power and wealth at an exponential rate, as well as the ego and narcissism that go with them.