Tuesday, April 18, 2023

Get out of Russia and stay out of Russia. NOW!

Since the invasion of Ukraine (click here) began, we have been tracking the responses of well over 1,200 companies, and counting...

There is nothing that is going to change the path Russia is on. I have watched Vladimir Putin for most of his time in the presidency of Russia. In his early years following presidents that truly realized the impossible nature of national security for Russia, Putin was more than a reasonable man and a friend to the Free World. I think the Free World was mostly in denial of the sincere nature of Vladimir Putin except for the Late Senator John McCain who stated,
"He's an old KGB aperachik who wants to restore the Russian Empire". McCain was the only one that got it right.

The current state of affairs in Russia has been rolled out over the past decade. It is all documented on this blog. The appeal to the Russian diaspora to come home only to be met with gradually contracting rights to dual citizenships. The citizens of Russia have witnessed their country become a pariah in the world and now they have witnessed the annihilation of at least thousands of young Russian men if not tens of thousands. It is at least tens of thousands when considering those that fled the country.

Vladimir Putin has invested in the Communist Party in Russia. As a party it was on the back burner until the election of 2012 when the communists began to migrate to the Communist Party candidates in an impressive way. By 2018, Putin had played to the communists and they migrated their vote back to him. It was since the election of 2012 that Putin has sold his soul and made the communists his primary focus.

The advancement of Putin's Russia to retake the old Russian Empire has always been at the center of his ambitions, but, until 2012 it was a distant dream that was mostly unrealistic in the modern world. Putin was a dyed in the wool capitalist by then and the Free World seemed to have economic viability right as far as the communists of Russia and China were concerned. The two largest communist countries mimicked capitalism as they slowly turned away from any hint of democracy to autocracy. China made it obvious to all Wall Street companies that they would always receive government supervision and take over if necessary with the arrest of Jack Ma (click here).

If any entity that values their freedom and life actually thinks Russia is in flux and this will pass is in profound denial. If the entity is a Wall Street company, the CEO needs to realize Russia is a losing proposition and the money ain't worth it. If a Wall Street company is still trying to balance communism into policy for the sake of a bonus this year, forget it, that CEO doesn't value human life and their employees should register human rights violations. The taking of Evan Gershkovich is a human rights violation. He should not have been allowed to stay in the country and every other Free World journalist needs to leave NOW! The Duma has set laws in place to oppress any expression of the truth. It is the place of the Russian people to run their communists out of power, not that of the Free Press!

April 15, 2023
By Stan Brooks

Experts (click here) say Evan Gershkovich may face harsh treatment in Russian custody....

...For the next four years in Maine, (click here) Simon and Evan were inseparable, always roommates, and became the best of friends. Every visit Tanya and I made to campus always started with a trip to Evan’s room or a meal with him. We learned that he was the son of Russian immigrants that had both fled the Soviet Union when Russian Jews left en masse in the late 70s to find a better way of life, that his first language was Russian, and that he was a true romantic. Any visit with Evan included a heartfelt discussion on the state of his love life. Their sophomore year he and Simon wrote a screenplay together. It was clear, back then, both of them could really write. I’m still not sure they loved getting my notes.

Whenever he traveled west, Evan stayed at our home, and when he got his first job interning at the New York Times, he gave me a tour of their offices, sneaking me into places he wasn’t supposed to take guests.

“What the hell. Let’s go up there. What’s the worst thing that can happen? They’ll kick us out? It’s not like they’re gonna fire an intern over it.”

I remember when Evan got his first article published. I found a back and forth set of correspondences from 2017 where we talked about our excitement for his initial human interest columns that ran in the Paper of Record. That same month I was headed to his hometown, on a college tour with my youngest, and Evan wrote me an impressive dissertation on the joys of Hoagie Haven in Princeton. We made sure to try it and, not surprisingly, it was a little piece of culinary heaven. The name was accurate....