Yeltsin's Death

The Death of Boris Yeltsin is a reminder to us all of the conditions that lead to revolution. When the Soviet Union fell, Yeltsin stepped in. Under the guise of promoting democracy, a number of oligarchs were able to buy up the privatizing Russian Industries. These oligarchs were on the verge of promoting a revolution in Russia when Putin took power. Putin expelled them or put them in jail, with the idea of stabilizing Russia and its economy, in the hopes of building up, over time, a stable society that could support republican institutions. The oligarchs, from their perch in exile, have been doing all they can to promote "democracy" or even now revolution, as a way of getting back their piece of the pie.

What happened under Yeltsin, oligarchs using the guise of democracy to seize power, is a typical movement in the direction of revolution.

John Adams, Lover of Aristocracy

I have re-read my notes on John Adams and the French Revolution. He thinks that there will always be an aristocracy in society, the question is, on what will this Aristocracy be based?

In the Old regime, it was based on land and birth. He thinks that in the United States, it will be based on talent, genius, and merit. He fears that anyone who is blind to the fact of aristocracy will fail to see and check the aristocracy of wealth, or oligarchy. Over time, the wealthy are able to insinuate themselves into and control the political system.

This is why Putin has governed the way he has over the past eight years and why the US is trying to demonize him. Putin has expelled from Russian society or put in jail the oligarchs who were in the process of taking over Russia throughout the 1990s. For this, he is being demonized by the West. He is being demonized by the West, especially because the US is effectively run by the aristocrats of wealth, who control both parties, the media, the music industry, and sports. Any country that opposes this oligarchy is percieved as an enemy.

Finally, Adams was perhaps unwilling to disuss what seems to accompany oligarchs and revolutionaries, the unleashing of the lust for pleasure which results in the lust for power. The children of oligarchs tend to be democrats, which means equal access to all the passions. Democrats become blind to the demagogue, who appeals to the passions as a way of installing himself as a brutal tyrant.

The passions always present themselves as liberators, but when they rule in the soul, they rule with despotic tyranny.