The Frightening March Into March.

Another of Putin's political opponents is gunned down and the commentary surrounding it is as shallow as a rain puddle after a spring shower.

Boris Nemtsov, murdered on the streets of Moscow.

Bush 41 made it clear to the Russians that neither the communists nor communism nor Russian imperialism would ever be held accountable for its crimes.  Why then should we be surprised at the criminal behavior of a cabal of "former" communists running the latest iteration of the Russian Empire?  Russia has no history of honest democratic or republican institutions.  The only alternative they have ever known to dictatorship has been chaos.

That Putin almost immediately announced he would be "taking over" the investigation is in itself damning.  I doubt there will ever be an believable resolution to yet another Russian tragedy.  The only things that are certain is that both the Kremlin and Washington will do their best to exploit the event to their best advantage and more innocent people will die for Russia's latest cult of personality.

Pooty Love

It seems that humans never learn from history.  Putin is just the latest iteration of that greatest of historical disasters, the clever, exploitative populist. From Augustus to Napoleon to Obama and Putin, they pay lip service to the past and leave nothing but a legacy of destruction.  Augustus neutered the Roman Senate and destroyed the Republic. Obama and his minions seek to do the same. Putin wants to (and has largely succeeded) in making sure that any hope of liberty in Russia is strangled in its cradle.  I don't know if Nemtsov was Russia's Cicero but they sure could use one.

Slavery, degradation and subservience has always been the "normal" human condition. The interludes of freedom and self determination have been the exception and all to brief.  Both East and West are in a state of deterioration, both economically and politically.  We will be lucky, very lucky, if the world does not blunder its way into a global conflagration.  The stench of 1914 burns in my nostrils.