Control

February 25, 2022

I was about to write about this for a few months but, as usual, free time does not appear.

We live in different times, but there are things that never change. Power, money and pleasure continue to drive humanity as they have for thousands of years, and most people reduce their existence to just that. Of course, with its consequences.

The issue of power is already complicated in itself, those who have it do not want to lose their privileges, and that makes them do everything to stay there. It is for this reason that some nations (after many civil wars, dictatorships, etc.) decided to distribute it, so that it touches less, and thus ensure that the destiny of all does not depend on just one -or a few.

Over time, these countries became consolidated democracies, encouraged private entrepreneurship and created societies with a high welfare state. Many others tried, without success, almost always plagued by corruption, that old Latin American pandemic.

And it is that in the end all the powers want to control in a certain way. While the communists take everything from you and then tell you that they are giving away so that you are eternally grateful, the capitalists invite you to earn it yourself, with your sweat, and they do not put a ceiling on your progress, and then they charge you in taxes. It is true that they are not perfect societies, but anyone who knows a bit of history (or has traveled a bit) can see that capitalisms have brought much more progress to the world than socialisms.

But the tale of left or right -capitalism or communism- is already old. Today, 30 years after the fall of the USSR and the socialist bloc, there are still two opposing sides. But then why doesn't the thing end up being fixed? What are those irreconcilable differences?

It's pretty straightforward. In the world there are countries that respect the individual right of each citizen to decide his future, and others that do not. While some can choose their leaders from time to time, in others power is concentrated in a single person, or in a small group, who intend to have it forever.

And those are -broadly speaking- the sides of today.

While Europe, the United States, Canada, Australia, etc. they have well-established democracies, with elections every 4 or 5 years; China, Russia, and all their satellite states (Iran, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba, and all the "-tan" of Central Asia) have totalitarian leaders who suppress freedom of speech, demonstration, and the press; they persecute and imprison opponents and maintain strict control over their populations.

It's simple, in these countries they assume that people are idiots and that it is better that they (the little group in power) decide for everyone. And with that story of "we do it better" they condemn entire nations to hardship, scarcity and -in the best of cases- lack of freedoms.

And we're going to make some clarifications here. Russia is a country with a capitalist economy, and so is China; with the small detail that in Russia the owners of all the big industries are Putin's friends, and in China some of the heavyweights of the communist party are billionaires. Yes gentlemen, the old tale of socialism that distributes equally to everyone is an absolute lie, it always has been.

But what are we going to do, as long as there are still people who admire and support selfish subjects who do everything for their asses... we will have to deal with these things.

In recent days we have seen how Russia invades Ukraine under the pretext of "demilitarizing and denazifying" the country. And to achieve this they have sent a third of their military force in the purest style of the Hitler Wehrmacht, how paradoxical. The pretext they have used for this is that Ukraine aspires to become a member of NATO, and they know that the question of Donbas would be complicated for them if this happens. But you know what? That story is longer...

Russia has spent years funding pro-Russian separatist groups in Ukraine and buying their affections by giving them Russian passports and social benefits. Thanks to Russia, Donetsk and Lugansk are today two people's republics in the style of the old Soviet communism, with destroyed economies and persecution of opponents, journalists, etc. And of course, Putin feels entitled to declare those two Ukrainian regions as part of the Russian Federation. It is as if Cuba now decided to annex Miami and Uruguay, because they are full of Cubans. Doesn't make much sense, does it?

I have seen many opinions and positions on this issue. Everyone is free to defend what they like, of course, but I think it is important to listen to all parties and above all to know the objectives that each one has with their actions. Zelenskyy (the Ukrainian president) is trying to defend the sovereignty of his country, and logically he sees that belonging to NATO gives him a tremendous guarantee (he already had a bad one with Crimea in 2014), and Putin is a dictator who rules with a hand their country strong, empowering an oligarchy that supports them, and repressing opponents and journalists. I believe that good people do not have to think much about which side they are on.

Hopefully this nightmare for Ukrainians ends soon. I hope ours ends too.