A little introspection is in order

Recently it occurred to me that I write extensive comments on other blogs. While it is clear that I am heavily engaged in events of our time, I wondered why I spent so much of my time on comments. Part of the answer was simple narcissism. I write at popular blogs because I want to be read.

A few of the blogs I haunt are focused on the events that most interest me. It's fun to engage in a lively debate with some sniveling, slab sided, grass combing, dutch built bugger. But sometimes my thinking goes beyond the topics presented by the other bloggers. Highjacking a thread is considered impolite. Further, the commenting can become addictive and I have a lot of work to do.

So my hope is to post here more frequently and comment at other sites less frequently. If I can limit myself I should be more productive.

Finally, I hope to use this as a method to flesh out some of the ideas that pop into my brain while engaged in living this life of mine. There's nothing like standing hip deep in water waving a stick in the air to refine one's thinking about life, the universe and everything. So it is my intention to post some embryonic theses and see where they takes me.

The first such thesis is my belief that there is a parallel between the behavior of Russia in 2006 and the actions of America during the period 1914 to 1917.

Here's what I'm thinking,.

In the pre war era America's economy was in a deep depression. Charles Tansill, writing in 1938 notes that factories were working at 60% capacity and unemployment was widespread. The outlook for recovery when the war broke out was gloomy. But, the beligerents needed all sorts of material. As Andrew Carnegie (yes that andrew carnegie) wrote in a letter to President Wilson "The allies purchases from us from Horses on down are certain to be great."

It is my opinion that Russia finds itself in a similar situation. WE now have a war between beligerents to which it is not a direct party. Russia faces an economy ravaged by the stupidity of Communism and barely able to sustain itself. Unemployment, discontent and malaise abound. But the beligerents need "stuff" and some of this stuff is military equipment. Purchases of hardware like the Kornet anti tank missle that showed up in Lebanon mean hard currency for the Rodina and work for its unemployed.

If you read the quote from Carnegie carefully you'll see the seed of the issue that lead to America's ultimately becoming a beligerent. Carnegie mentions only the "allies". Would we have sold to the Germans? I believe we would have and the reasons that we didn't are both complex and revealing. Sufficient for my purposes now though is the simple fact that we supplied only one side with material.

Russia is NOT selling material to us, the israelis or any of the other involved parties. Their clients are the despotic states of the Middle East, most notably Iran and Syria. That one sided customer base makes neutrality almost impossible. Wilson couldn't sustain it in the prewar era and he was a dyed in the wool Princeton peacenik. Certainly Putin with his own despotic proclivities will not be able to sustain even a pretense of neutralities and the fighting drags on.

At this point I'll quit. The darling daughter and I are going to catch an early movie. She's going to drive so I must fortify myself with more coffee and a whole bunch of ibuprophen.