Quote of the day

What’s amazing is this urge to take the slogans of the various parties, clans, mafias, banditti, liberation fronts, etc, and treat them as at least the first draft of “what they’re fighting for.”

People fight because they expect to win, or think they have at least a reasonable chance of winning. “Winning” can mean a lot of things, but presumably it involves an increased level of either money, power or both. Of course the leaders are elites – this is more or less a tautology.

World peace 101: if you want to stop people from fighting, make it clear to them that they won’t win.

I suppose the approach of actually listening to what people say is better than the “social justice” theory. But you have to realize that when you’re starting from a point of complete detachment from reality, a small improvement doesn’t do you much good.

…

‘Mencius’, from a comment here. Kasparov makes a related point in the youtube video I linked to earlier today: Don’t look into Putin’s eyes to figure out what he wants – look at his record.

4 timer og 9 minutter til kickoff…

Go Giants!

(Hvor ville det dog være fedt, hvis det var Elming-brødrene der kommenterede i stedet for de fjolser på 3+)

Garry Kasparov and Stephen Cohen on Russia

Garry Kasparov and professor of Russian studies at New York University Stephen Cohen debates Russian politics here. The program lasts an hour, and I don’t expect the link to continue to work indefinitely (because of the 10 minute limit on youtube videos), so if you’d like to watch you should not hesitate to click the link. The debate itself lasts approximately half an hour.

In case you were in doubt, Kasparov is not a crackpot. It’s far too easy to just discard his views like this – on some points I must admit I agree far more with Kasparov than with mr. Cohen, especially when it comes to his evaluation of Gorbatjov. Yes, if you look closely you’ll find some stuff you don’t like, but that’s just the way it is no matter who you’re dealing with, especially if you’re actively looking for the flaws (Kasparov has a few of those of course – ie. his obsession with oil prices). Remember by the way when watching this debate that English is his third language (after Azeri and Russian).