I'm not sure you have to keep pointing to the boogie man of soviet infiltrators to explain power hungry bureaucrats. Those have existed in literally every society since at least the early bronze age.
Those that will do anything for power have an advantage over others, ergo people at high level positions are disproportionately those types of people.
One thought is that we could try to fix that problem with some type of screening, but that would be another system to game or corrupt. Also, those kind of people (high ambition and drive) can be really useful in those positions so long as they don't go off the rails.
So the new most powerful position is the person that knows who runs the galaxy and talks to her/him. That person can make up things or sway the ruler.
If you have many people, you now just have an oligarchy.
Once a single war lord controls the “security” of the Emperor, they then wield power and justify all of there actions based on sole access to the Emperor.
1. Very extreme militaristic response that will surely cause many deaths. Clearly unacceptable.
2. Very weak bordering on non-existent response. Clearly unacceptable.
3. What pentagon has already decided to do. Clearly the “only” viable option.
Bueracrats are sort of like neurons in the organism of society. They don't have a lot individual intrisic power, but gain power by moving to common (albeit very complex) beat, and commanding the other types of cells according to the machinations of that emergent beat. That manifests as both groupthink as they attempt to play their part in the neural system as a whole, and "ends justify the means" mentality as they look at the rest of us as other specialized cells that exist to serve the societal organism as a whole.
I guarantee you that on average a 15th century BCE Egyptian bureaucrat trended the same way, as it's core to the space.
No, I'd say power hunger is one thing, but what you face now is unique to this poisonous "Soviet Culture." A very special, aggressive brand of social nihilism at the apex of civil society, characteristic of one party/social class governments.
Putin put his own spin on the timeless demoralisation tactic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA ,) an even more aggressive targeting of both the new elites, and the establishment (see Biden Jr. adventures with in Ukraine.) Or plainly speaking playing both sides.
Seeing the ghosts of soviets in every dark corner is something that these very elites we're talking about use to control you and your perceptions of reality.
This is what they want the West to believe. They want you to lower your guard, they want you to start working with them, and put thoughts like "hey, maybe those guys are a lesser evil than communists" into your head.
They rely on people who they call "useful idiots" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) in communist lingo to perpetuate, and spread such ideas to the West.
They're doing a terrible job then. They've somehow created an even worse society for Russians as far as I can tell.
> They rely on people who they call "useful idiots" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) in communist lingo to perpetuate, and spread such ideas to the West.
You realize that your citation of Useful Idiot literally points out that there's no record of the term actually being used by the soviets, but instead appears to have been first used by the New York Times?
That's not true. Postmodernism and Frankfurt School of Marxism are synonymous in todays culture. However I agree that late stage postmodernism is almost indistinguishable from Real Politik. End result is the same if your worldview reduces everything to power plays between collectives.
Lyotard in fact defines postmodernism as "incredulity to meta-narratives".
It's full of performative contradictions in practice.
Hence the need for "safe spaces". It doesn't stand up to logical discourse when its application is confronted.
I would suggest you dig deeper into these concepts, as you seem to have basic misunderstandings about what they mean.
And there's nothing wrong with safe spaces. You're not owed "logical discourse" on your terms. People sometimes just want to occasionally not be bothered by every bro who thinks that because they've watched a lot of Jordan Peterson videos that they're suddenly on the pinnacle of philosophical thought. It's tiring in a way orthogonal to the validity of any points being made. Additionally safe spaces aren't typically where instruction is held, and, despite the propaganda, not an effective way to avoid topics completely by design.
Sure that's the theme. A theme that's intertwined with Marxist meta-narratives. Like I said, performative contradiction.
>I would suggest you dig deeper into these concepts, as you seem to have basic misunderstandings about what they mean.
Internet stranger trying to appeal to his own authority. Great argument
>And there's nothing wrong with safe spaces. You're not owed "logical discourse" on your terms.
There's nothing wrong with it. It's in the context of Marxist meta-narratives that it becomes toxic.
What you're describing is late stage capitalism.
""Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes," Keith McCoy, the Exxon (XOM) lobbyist, said during a covertly filmed job interview recorded by Greenpeace's UK investigative platform.
"Did we join some shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true," McCoy said in the video, which was published Wednesday by the UK's Channel 4. "But there's nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. we were looking out for our shareholders."
https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/business/exxon-tape-video-kei...
The reframing of a company's purpose to "generate shareholder's wealth" is a relatively recent development (1970's) that came on the heels of right wing economic ideas gaining widespread adoption in American universities (Chicago School, etc). This is one of the reasons companies use to justify destruction of society and the planet in the pursuit of more, wealth, power, status, etc.
There is nothing "Soviet Culture" about this or myriad other examples such as the tobacco industry or pharmaceutical companies and the opioid epidemic.
Exactly this is a very good example of it being Randist, and Soviet.
They believed in extreme social darwinism, in kratocracy, in moral legitimacy of their economic parasitism to feed off "weak bourgeois, civil society idiots, and lumpen-proletarian serfs"
I other words, you have to feed fat communist bastards because of their self-proclaimed "class superiority."