We explore real-life reformation here in this informed, online community.
The original, altruistic intentions and noble-sounding slogans of [Socialists] are irrelevant. Once they are no longer constrained by law, it’s just a matter of time—and usually a very brief time—before they become tyrants. Initially their tyrannical actions will be directed at their political opposition, and then at anyone who criticizes or even questions them.
At the end of Arthur Koester’s 1940 novel Darkness at Noon, the protagonist Rubashov is so worn down with the interrogations that he accepts his fate with the following rationalization and resignation.
"And so every leap of technical progress brings with it a relative intellectual regression of the masses, a decline in their political maturity. At times it may take decades or even generations before the collective consciousness gradually catches up to the changed order and regains the capacity to govern itself that it had formerly possessed at a lower stage of civilization."
John Leake
"If I were fierce, and bald, and short of breath
I’d live with scarlet Majors at the Base,
And speed glum heroes up the line to death.
You’d see me with my puffy petulant face,
Guzzling and gulping in the best hotel,
Reading the Roll of Honour. “Poor young chap,”
I’d say — “I used to know his father well;
Yes, we’ve lost heavily in this last scrap.”
And when the war is done and youth stone dead,
I’d toddle safely home and die — in bed."
“Base Details” by the British World War I poet Siegfried Sassoon
People in every single one of the top US allies now think it’s better to depend on China than the US.
The global balance of power is clearly tilting away from the US and toward China.
Yes. According to The Guardian, Britain’s national security adviser Jonathan Powell attended the final US-Iran talks in Geneva and believed Tehran’s nuclear proposal was significant enough to keep diplomacy on track and avoid escalation. Sources said progress had been made and that the Iranian offer was unexpectedly substantial.
The report also highlights concerns about the US negotiating team led by Jared Kushner and special envoy Steve Witkoff, both closely linked to Israel. One diplomat with knowledge of the talks told The Guardian: “We regarded Witkoff and Kushner as Israeli assets that dragged a president into a war he wants to get out of.”
