Saturday, March 29, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.30 2025

 

Lost time is never found again.

- John H. Aughey



Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.29 2025

 

Science is simply common sense at its best - that is, rigidly accurate in observation, and merciless to fallacy in logic.

- Thomas Huxley



Friday, March 28, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.28 2025

 

In free countries, every man is entitled to express his opinions - and every other man is entitled not to listen.

- G. Norman Collie



Thursday, March 27, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.27 2025


"A billionaire-stacked government writing policies for... billionaires. Shocking! Tax cuts for the rich, scraps for the rest—yet you wonder why 'caravans' march toward the so-called 'holy land'? America’s motto was never 'In God We Trust'—it was always 'Get rich or die trying.' And guess who’s holding the scissors?"

- Adaptation-Guide




Where Is Your Resistance Now?

The United States is experiencing its own Putinization. Russians are openly mocking how Americans seem powerless against their president’s rampage.

In 1828, Russian philosopher Pyotr Chaadayev wrote that Russians existed only as a grand warning to the world. He described Russian society as indifferent to good and evil, truth and lies, while being recklessly bold and astonishingly resilient to hardship. According to him, Russians lacked any real sense of duty, justice, law, and order—traits he attributed exclusively to the West.

Fast-forward two centuries, and Chaadayev’s analysis is disturbingly relevant—not to Russia, but to the U.S., where political transformations that took decades in Russia are unfolding at lightning speed. 

Russian history is a case study in what happens when a state abandons democracy’s humanistic foundations or never embraces them in the first place. The ever-disillusioned and hyper-patriotic Russian population has now turned its gaze westward with a smug sense of vindication.

Russian Schadenfreude

The parallels between Russia and America are so glaring that even Russia’s opposition figures can’t help but revel in the irony. 

“Westerners have loved telling us Russians to take to the streets and protest, claiming our slavish nature prevents us from overthrowing Putin—and now?” journalist Nikolai EpplĂ©e sneers on Facebook, receiving a flood of approving comments from Russia’s liberal circles.

The Trump administration has rolled back civil rights, cracked down on free speech, academic research, and corporate independence, purged the state apparatus, and threatened neighboring countries with military force. So, where’s the resistance? 

Americans argue that they will take to the streets only after exhausting all legal avenues—an excuse that Russians now mock with glee.

Even if Americans don’t deserve the scorn, their response mirrors Russia’s failed pro-democracy movement, which washes its hands of any responsibility for allowing tyranny to flourish. 

And nothing exposes the complicity of a society in its own oppression more than its attitude toward war.

The Comfort of Denial

Even in Russia’s police-state conditions, surveys—whether conducted by the state or independent groups—consistently show that about 70% of Russians support the war against Ukraine. About 15% are outright war hawks.

Liberal circles contest these figures, claiming that opinion polls in dictatorships are unreliable or that only the hawks truly support the war, while the rest are merely opportunistic or afraid to speak out. 

But this vision of a passive, victimized population is no different from the paternalistic attitude of the ruling elite. It mirrors the widespread mentality of helplessness: We are just little people; we can’t change anything.

The argument that “about half” of Russians support peace talks is often cited as proof that the public opposes the war. 

Yet, the real question—whether Russia should withdraw from Ukraine entirely—is never even asked. In Putin’s Russia, you must support the war, but you can’t call it a war. Sound familiar? 

The Trump administration’s attacks on statistical agencies and its bans on politically inconvenient terminology are eerily reminiscent of this strategy.

The Tyrant’s Winning Formula

During the first Chechen war under Boris Yeltsin, public protests erupted. Back then, the Russian leadership discovered the magic formula that Putin later perfected and that now enjoys global adoption: 

Ignore every scandal, counter every accusation with a bigger lie, and never hold anyone accountable. Then, win elections anyway.

Each successive Russian war met with less resistance and more public enthusiasm. The 2014 annexation of Crimea sent nationalist euphoria soaring, and even opposition figures like Alexei Navalny and Mikhail Khodorkovsky downplayed its importance. Still, for many, rejecting Crimea’s annexation became a litmus test of political allegiance.

This is one reason why many Ukrainians believed the full-scale invasion in 2022 would spark mass protests in Russia. In reality, thousands—not millions—protested, making it easy for the regime to crush resistance with brutal efficiency. 

The U.S. audience should take note: If Trump floats annexing Canada or Greenland and your biggest media outlet, The New York Times, calmly debates the electoral consequences for the Republican Party instead of screaming about a descent into outright fascism, you’re already halfway down the Russian path.

The Quiet Normalization of Insanity

This is how even independent media are tamed long before full censorship kicks in: by engaging in critical affirmation. This is the process of treating even the most insane, unlawful government actions as if they have a legitimate basis, as if they merely serve some misunderstood national interest. Gradually, this normalizes authoritarian rule.

Soon, even the most outrageous acts—like invading a peaceful neighbor—stop being seen as unspeakable crimes and instead become questionable political decisions. And society, exhausted by the domestic crises its own government creates, merely watches in weary detachment.

At that point, protests shrink to smaller issues: 

civil liberties, minority rights, pensions, abortion, climate change. 

There’s suddenly so much to fight for—and so little hope of winning—that people redirect their energy to tangible, small-scale relief efforts: 

charity for sick children, help for the elderly, aid for homeless veterans.

Russia’s recent past looks alarmingly like the near future of America—and perhaps Europe.

Poverty as a Political Resource

One last lesson Russia is offering the world: The impoverishment of the masses isn’t a crisis for the government—it’s an opportunity. Throughout the 2000s, economists warned that rising personal debt would drive millions of Russians into financial ruin and destabilize the state. Then, war solved the problem overnight.

Instead of imposing mass conscription, it was far easier—and cheaper—to recruit a mercenary army from society’s most desperate and indebted. 

High casualty rates didn’t even spark unrest. Families were silenced with death payouts, while entire rural regions—especially those populated by ethnic minorities—were quietly depopulated. 

Meanwhile, life in the major cities carried on largely unchanged. The only real differences? 

People now drive Chinese cars instead of European ones and take flights through Istanbul or Belgrade instead of Paris or Berlin.

Chaadayev was right: Russians are adaptable.

Your Resistance? Your Knowledge and Your Wallet

The political trajectory of the U.S. is grim, but there’s no excuse for complacency. Many Russian dissidents are now proof of how irrelevant opposition figures become when they avoid real criticism of their own society and choose symbolic protests over real action.

Russia’s history is one of producing—and imposing—tyranny. Maybe it cannot be otherwise. 

But let’s not pretend Russia is uniquely doomed. Tyranny isn’t Russian—it’s human. And it thrives wherever people are too passive to fight it in meaningful ways.

So, where is your resistance? 

It’s in your knowledge—stay informed beyond mainstream spin. 

And it’s in your wallet—fund those who fight for democracy, refuse to support institutions that enable authoritarianism. 

You don’t have to take to the streets to fight back. You just have to stop feeding the beast.

Sincerely,

Adaptation-Guide


ADAPT OR DIE! 

WE ARE READY! ARE YOU?

Wednesday, March 26, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.26 2025


The path of sound credence is through the thick forest of skepticism.

- George Jean Nathan 




Tuesday, March 25, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.25 2025

 

United we stand, divided we fall.

- G.P. Morris




Monday, March 24, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.24 2025

 

The automobile has not merely taken over the street, it has dissolved the living tissue of the city ... Gas-filled, noisy and hazardous, our streets have become the most inhumane landscape in the world.

- James M. Fitch




Sunday, March 23, 2025

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, Mar.23 2025

 

As long as our social order regards the good of institutions rather than the good of men, so long will there be a vocation for the Rebel.

- Richard Roberts




US jury orders Greenpeace to pay $660 million over protests, threatening the organization's future

Dear Daily Disaster Diary, April 2 2025

  To tax and to please, no more than to love and to be wise, is not given to men. - Edmund Burke Trump tariff war set to ramp up Trump’s Tra...