In the Name of Love of Country

OBAMA AND PUTIN had their get together in ireland, and obama got his sound byte on the east side of the berlin wall, so, all is as it should be. The two leaders agreed that a negotiated settlement would be preferrable in syria, but unlikely, since they are on opposite sides of the conflict. Duh...

Obviously the syrian dictator is not going to go peacefully, especially with the russians in his corner, and his position evidently much improved on the battlefield. The russians would probably be willing to gently ease away from their support if and when the rebels get the upper hand, with american support.

Because of this situation, and others, relations between the united states and russia are not particularly good right now; russia is also an ally of the iranians, which doesn't help. However, the newly elected iranian president sounds like a reasonable person with whom it might be possible to talk, and who has already expressed a willingness to negotiate with the united states.

There are almost as many russians reading this blog as there are americans, which has always seemed a bit surprising. Also noticeable is the fact that the more critical a given article is about the united states, the more russians who read it. Maybe they like to see an american taking a jab at his own country; the russians themselves are good at it; criticizing the united states, and criticizing their own country.

Both countries, russia, and america, ar governed by an elite class of pro military empire builders, in countries in which there is a great gap between rich and poor, and there are many, many poor at the bottom of the pyramid.

IN world war one lenin encouraged the working class masses in all warring nations to stop fighting the working masses of other countries, and redirect the violence in an uprising against their own wealhty elite pro military government.

but old habits are hard to break, and the workers uprising  only happened in russia, though there were mutinies and desertions throughout the american, english, and french militaries. The poorest people in russia doubtless have much more in common with the poorest people in america than they do with their own rulers, and the same is doubtless true of american poor.

So maybe an international poor people's political party isn't such a bad, or impossible idea after all. But, at least for the moment, we still cling to our old corrupt forms of patriotism, in which the rich rule the poor, in the name of love of country.