An imperative choice
Olga Lautman and Andrea Chalupa speaking truth to power
Regarding this New Year’s message, a disciple wrote to the Mother: “You say that the choice is between truth or the abyss. The abyss seems to be gaping just in front, yet there is a confidence that it will be removed from the way.” To this the Mother replied: “The confidence is quite legitimate. The message is only for those who are still asleep and quite satisfied with their sleep.”
Asked about the meaning of “abyss” in this message, she wrote:
Right now there is a great tension. They have all taken positions as if to start war. It is the blind passion that men put into their international relations. At the base of all there is fear, general distrust, and what they believe to be their “interests” (money, business)—a combination of these three things. When these three lowest passions of humanity are brought into play, that is what I call “the abyss”.
When asked why this choice imperative, she replied:
Because we are at one of the “hours of God” as Sri Aurobindo puts it—and the transforming evolution of the world has taken a hastened and intensified movement.
Once again, the Abyss is staring us in the face, to be faced or else….
Many dire warnings haven been sounded, to a few of which I posted links, some with excerpts, in my Notes. The following excerpts from a conversation between Andrea Chalupa and Olga Lautman seems particularly relevant and worth sharing.
Andrea Chalupa is the writer and producer of the award-winning journalistic thriller Mr. Jones, directed by Agnieszka Holland and starring James Norton, Peter Sarsgaard, and Vanessa Kirby, about Stalin’s genocide famine in Ukraine. This is a fantastic movie. Here in India it is available on Amazon Prime Video; in the US it is available for rent. Andrea is the co-host of the popular podcast Gaslit Nation and the co-author of the graphic novel Dictatorship: It's Easier Than You Think!, both with Sarah Kendzior.
Olga Lautman is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Center for European Policy Analysis (CEPA). Her research focuses on the cross-section of organized crime and intelligence operations in Russia and Ukraine, their impact on the West, and the monitoring of active measures campaigns conducted by the Kremlin to destabilize democratic practices and influence foreign elections. Olga publishes the newsletter Russia’s War on Democracy, and together with Monique Camarra she hosts the Kremlin File podcast series, which features expert discussions on the Kremlin’s internal affairs, global operations, and tactics used from their hybrid warfare toolkit to destabilize Western democracies.
Andrea Chalupa: Over the holidays, in just five days, Russia targeted Ukrainian civilians with over 430 supersonic missiles and drones, causing mass death and destruction in cities across the country. Some of the victims included an 11-year-old celebrated pianist, a professor of environmental studies and a professional beloved basketball player who competed in European championships and was a beloved popular basketball coach in Lviv. Meanwhile, Russian athletes are getting to compete in the upcoming Olympics. You have North Korea, Iran, China pumping Russia full of ammunition, and being a big ATM machine of all that Russia needs to keep its war machine going. What are we in return doing, Olga, to stop the genocide in Ukraine?...
Olga Lautman: Look, okay, you know better than I that Ukraine will win in the end. I mean, there’s absolutely zero Ukrainians, for all those pushing the Kremlin bullshit propaganda of “We need peace talks and negotiations!” Russians want to eliminate all Ukrainians. Ukrainians know what it is like to live under Russian occupation. They have lived under Soviet occupation, under Russian Imperial Empire occupation, and in 2014, they saw a very, very hard reality of what happens when Russia illegally annexed Crimea and set up concentration camps and disappeared Ukrainians and tortured them. And they did the same in Donbas....
Ukrainians are not going to live under Russian occupation. The problem is at what cost? If the West continues to hesitate like they have been, frankly, I am beyond.… I don’t even have words for what Europe and the United States are doing the past several months. That means more Ukrainians will die. That’s the only difference. Ukrainians will prevail in the end, but it’s a matter of how many have to die before Russia gets defeated. And frankly, if the United States and Europe provided more weapons, you know, over the past year, last spring, if Ukraine was fully equipped with tanks and F-16s and everything, we wouldn’t even be discussing this.
This war would've been over. Russia would've been defeated, potentially Putin’s regime would have collapsed, even though this war is bigger than Putin. This is the whole Russian system and everyone who is part of it, who is conducting this war. So I am extremely disgusted with what I’ve seen both in the United States and frankly in Europe. Ukraine is the second largest country in Europe. Europeans know that if Ukraine should fall (as Russia has claimed) that Moldova will be next, that the Baltics will be next....
If we fail with this, we are going to have an unrecognizable Europe and frankly, an unrecognizable world.
Because the past week was one of the deadliest weeks that we have seen, with the most missiles falling on Ukrainian cities across the whole country. This could have all been avoided.... I didn’t have to be on the phone with one of my friends and listen to missiles exploding in the background. This can be all avoided. We just need Ukraine to get all the weapons and aid they need.... If we fail with this, we are going to have an unrecognizable Europe and frankly, an unrecognizable world....
And what happens now with all the dictators globally uniting, and now they are all supplying weapons to each other. They’re assisting in atrocities across the globe. And at this rate, they will be preparing their own invasions. And we cannot have an unstable world where one country says, “Look, my neighbor has these resources. I think I’m going to go and move in and take that part of the territory.” We can’t have that. We have international laws and norms post World War II for a reason, and the West really, really needs to start abiding by them.
Andrea Chalupa: George Orwell wrote in his letter to Ukrainian refugees, which became the preface to the Ukrainian translation of Animal Farm, and this was all at the end of World War II, George Orwell wrote to these Ukrainian refugees that were one of the earliest batch of Orwell fanatics because they discovered his book over radio and so on, he wrote to them, “The West, the average citizen in a western country, cannot imagine what it is like to live in a dictatorship.” There’s just a total disconnect. That’s why you have so many in the West, especially on the far left/the far right, screaming about how Ukraine just needs to negotiate, Ukraine just needs to give up land for peace and so on. “Why can’t Ukraine just stop taking our money and just lay down and die already? Just get this over with. Give Putin his off-ramp to save face and just let him keep the massive amount of land he seized where people are living in the Soviet prison detentions systems and so on.”
If Russia gets Ukraine, what you are essentially doing is letting the whole world operate by those rules: The biggest, the meanest, the richest dog in the fight wins…. On a global level, we will all be living by Russia’s rules.
When you live in a kleptocracy, when you live in a dictatorship, there’s no rule of law anymore. It is the law of The meanest, biggest, richest dog in the fight wins. So if Putin, if Russia gets Ukraine, what you are essentially doing is letting the whole world operate by those rules: The biggest, the meanest, the richest dog in the fight wins. Do you understand? On a global level, we will all be living by Russia’s rules, no matter where we live, no matter where we are in the world, because that emboldened violence is going to breed more violence. And one of the ways they fight their war against us, as we’ve seen, is through propping up candidates like Trump, by allying with other aspiring autocrats like Orbán in Hungary, who is holding up EU aid to Ukraine right now....
Olga Lautman: In Russia, you could murder your wife, pay a cop a few bucks—not a lot—and say, “Hey, just say she fell down the stairs.” Is this what we want here? Because once the corruption is at the top, it goes down and trickles down to everything. One grateful thing we have for Russia’s corruption is their horrific performance on the battlefield. Because like I said, Putin has stolen everything from the country with all the bandits surrounding him. It all trickled to the bottom. So literally every single person in the defense ministry is pocketing something. And this is why we saw, I mean, the Russians are extremely evil because when they fight a war, they target specifically civilian targets. But from a military perspective, zero logistics, zero discipline…. And this is exactly the system that Trump tried to bring in. And I am not a public person. I frankly never wanted to be a public person. I got involved after Russia’s illegal annexation of Crimea. But when I saw the same tactics being used to install Trump in 2015 that were used in Ukraine over the past few decades, I was like, “Oh my God, we are under attack.” And we were under attack....
And this is why, for me, it is so mind blowing how our media, knowing the danger, knowing that they will be shut down, knowing that reporters will be arrested if Trump gets back into power, how they make this into a normal election, and how they cover Trump almost as a normal candidate.... The man uses everything he has learned from his dealings with Russian mafia for the past 40 years and dealings with the Russian system, and frankly, all the corrupt systems....
I have a very huge critique for the Biden administration because his National Security Council, Jake Sullivan and crew, have to go. They have this unfounded fear of the collapse of the Soviet Union, that if we give Ukraine too much, if they win too much, then Russia will collapse. First of all, Russia’s heading for a collapse anyway. I mean, it’s an unsustainable country and there’s just too much corruption…. But what do we care? Why does Sullivan and why do others in national security care if Russia collapses? We should have an isolation and containment policy for Russia because, I mean, if anyone is under any impression that Russia will ever be a democracy in this lifetime, definitely not in my lifetime it’ll happen. And at the same time, we need to prop up countries that want to be democracies, that value Western human rights and the Western system....
[T]he United States under Biden and Germany hesitated with sending Ukraine tanks. Six months, they haggled back and forth: “Should Ukraine have tanks, should they not? Is it going to make Russia angry? What’s going to happen?” You know what happened in those six months? Russia fortified the front positions. They dug in and they mined the hell out of everything. So by the time we finally did send tanks to Ukraine, then you have all our armchair generals, saying, “We don’t understand. Why is the counter offensive not going as fast as it can?” Well, maybe if you wouldn’t have spent six months negotiating over tanks, Russians wouldn’t have had a chance to mine the whole front lines, and you wouldn’t have Ukrainians who have to sit there and methodically pick out mine after mine after mine. So, I mean, this could have been over....
Andrea Chalupa: There’s a textbook inside Russia for 11th graders that claims Donald Trump lost the 2020 presidential election in the United States due to the corruption of the Democratic Party. So you have textbooks inside Russia teaching Trump’s Big Lie to the next generation of Russian leaders. So if anyone’s placing their chips on Russian society, don’t.
Olga Lautman: They’re training little kids on weapons. I mean, this is not what you go to first grade for, to learn how to put together weapons....
That’s where we’re headed. Just a total escalation of more and more war, more and more refugees, more and more global destabilization, more and more candidates like Trump around the world.
Andrea Chalupa: The Democratic party under Obama’s foreign policy team, which includes the same people we’re dealing with now—Jake Sullivan and Biden—they abandoned Syria. They drew a red line and never enforced it. And lo and behold, that gave the green light for Russia to launch a total invasion into Ukraine. So do you understand the stakes?.… That’s where we’re headed. Just a total escalation of more and more war, more and more refugees, more and more global destabilization, more and more candidates like Trump around the world....
You’re going to have the Russian mafia coming in for the nukes, trying to grab what they can when no one’s looking. You’re going to have the locals selling off the nukes for a bottle of vodka.
Putin plans on his cult outliving him. That’s why he brought back the cult to Stalin, to be arm in arm with Stalin, attaching himself to this great immortal leader for Russians to look up to forever. And that’s what Putin sees for himself. And so, Stalin failed at the game of succession, and Putin will inevitably too, leading to some sort of war between the survivors. And that leaves a blind eye on the nukes. And you’re going to have the Russian mafia coming in for the nukes, trying to grab what they can when no one’s looking. You’re going to have the locals selling off the nukes for a bottle of vodka. You’re going to have Iran and China and North Korea trying to grab what they can at that yard sale....
Somebody needs to get through to Jake Sullivan because you are leaving behind a legacy of bones, okay? You are leaving behind generations of trauma and furthering the cycle of violence. You need to wake up…. And you need to be very clear that Ukraine will win. None of this “as long as it takes.” You need to say, “Ukraine will win and Putin’s not going to last forever, and we’ve got a plan in place for when things inevitably collapse under that house of cards corruption.” What do you think the plan should be to prepare for Russia's collapse? How can the Jake Sullivans sleep at night and stop being afraid of their shadow?...
Nothing has changed and nothing will change in a very long time because there’s zero civil society inside of Russia, despite the West romanticizing this civil society.
Olga Lautman: I want your listeners to understand this is not about Putin. I know the West loves to put everything, package it pretty, and put a little bow on it and like, “Oh, Putin removed. Everything is perfect now.” No. This is the way Russians have been for centuries. Nothing will change….
It’s a combination of imperialism and victimization, which is the most two dangerous traits that one can have.
[T]he systems, whether it was the tsarist system, the Bolsheviks, Stalin and other communists, and now the Putinists, I mean, it is still the same system. Nothing has changed and nothing will change in a very long time because there’s zero civil society inside of Russia, despite the West romanticizing this civil society. You don’t see a civil society in Russia. Other countries—Kazakhstan, Georgia, obviously Ukraine—you see something goes wrong and in a minute’s notice people are literally burning sh&t down. There, there’s nothing. They come out a handful. 1%, 2% of the country might come out for protest, and people are like, “Oh, look at these big protests in Russia.”...
It’s a combination of imperialism and victimization, which is the most two dangerous traits that one can have. On one point, you think everything is owed to you and that you own everything. And then on the other hand, if someone points out, “No, not really,” then you go into victim mode. And this is the same thing. And then trickle in the paranoia that has existed for centuries, and I think by now it’s probably in the DNA. I think everyone’s born with these traits. This is what it is. For us, frankly, we shouldn’t care what it is inside of Russia. If Russia collapses, what the United States and Europe need to do is make sure all the borders are sealed. That’s it. They need to put parameters and say, “Here are the borders. You step one inch outside of your borders, there will be repercussions.” And show them that there will be repercussions....
I still don’t understand why the State Department has not designated Russia even a state sponsor of terror. They’re kidnapping American citizens. Another one was kidnapped yesterday in Moscow, although I don’t know why Americans are still there. They are supporting, financially and with weapons, terrorist organizations. They carry out terrorist attacks in Ukraine, across the Middle East, in Africa. They commit the worst mass atrocities wherever Russians—
Andrea Chalupa: That’s where the refugees are coming from that are flooding our southern border. Russia does not need to fly them there or transport them there themselves. Russia’s committing atrocities in Africa, in Syria—
Olga Lautman: Everywhere.
Andrea Chalupa: Everywhere.
Olga Lautman: There’s not one place that Russia has stepped foot in. You mentioned China and Russia, just to give a little difference between the two. Russia walked into African countries and, I mean, there were reports of the massacring villages. Massacring…. Chinese walk in, they try to buy everything. They’re trying to funnel money there and buy everything and find a way to get the resources. But you don’t see them walking in, raping everyone and committing these mass atrocities. This is Russia’s tactic and that’s why Russia needs to be designated a state sponsor of terrorism at a minimum. Personally, I’d designate it a terrorist state....
We—us and the Brits—promised Ukraine in 19, what was it, 94, with the Budapest memorandum, “Give up your nuclear weapons, Ukraine, and we will make sure your borders have sovereignty.” In 2014, when Ukraine’s borders were breached, did anyone step up? No. The United States looked the other way. Britain didn’t do a thing, and that’s it…. And the only thing that Russia got in return was increased deals on energy and various resources and whatnot.... [T]he West has a very Russia-centric vision. We need to stop worrying about Russia. Stop thinking about Russia, but—
Andrea Chalupa: But they have all the money, Olga. Putin and his court of oligarchs combined are the richest entity in the world. And he has those oligarchs under his thumb. They’ve all pooled their money together.
Are we going to have a clause that we abide by Western values unless a trillion dollars is injected in blood money?
Olga Lautman: Well again, and this is why Europe and the United States need to figure out what their foreign policy is.… And what the values are. Are we going to abide by our Western values? I mean, or are we going to have a clause that we abide by Western values unless a trillion dollars is injected in blood money?...
So, for people who do not care about what is happening in Ukraine, at least care what’s happening in your own country. We are under attack.... Russia is so desperate right now. They will do everything to attack our election this year and to cause the biggest chaos we have seen in the United States that will make 2016 look like child’s play. So we really need to be on point, very vigilant, be on top of our congressional people, and not only make sure that Russia is defeated abroad, but that Russia is defeated here.
In discussing the dysfunctional American political system, and the policy of what he calls “disjointed incrementalism” (i.e muddling through), as opposed to a synoptic approach centred on long term goals, William Ophuls observed in 1977:
“[..] disjointed incrementalism is not well adapted to handling profound value conflicts, revolutions, crises, grand opportunities, and the like -in other words, any situation in which simple continuation of past policies is not an appropriate response. Most important, because decisions are made on the basis of immediate self-interest, muddling through is almost tailor-made for producing policies that will generate the tragedy of the commons. [..] Indeed, in its purest form, muddling through is policy making by default instead of by conscious choice -simply an administrative device for aggregating individual preferences into a ‘will of all’ that may bear almost no resemblance to the ‘general will’. [Cf. Rousseau]”
“[..] we Americans have taken muddling through, along with laissez faire and other prominent features of our political system, to an extreme. We have made compromise and short-term adjustment into ends instead of means, have failed to give even cursory consideration to the future consequences of present acts, and have neglected even to try to relate current policy choices to some kind of long-term goal. Worse, we have in fact taken the radical position that there can be no common interest beyond what muddling through produces. In brief, we have elevated what is an undeniable administrative necessity into a philosophy of government, becoming in the process an "adhocracy" virtually oblivious to the implications of our governmental acts and politically adrift in the dangerous waters of ecological scarcity.” (EPS, p.192,193)
Independently of what he has later said about the causes of our current predicament, which are impossible to obviate, and what many people nowadays repeat, knowingly or not, by way of disconnecting from this harsh reality on both sides of the Atlantic; there is one element that prevails and will always prevail, for as long as there is anyone ready to fight for it. This was clearly seen by Sri Aurobindo at a crucial moment in history, to his enormous credit, and is perfectly expressed in the last point of Goeffrey Jackson’s code, written in the midst of his obscure captivity:
“I represent in this place a great and honourable nation, which is a force [..] for good in the world.”
That force for good must now act.