> ultimately it bothers me that all of the legitimate critiques of the status quo US power structure are being brought into the limelight simply to enable a

> ultimately it bothers me that all of the legitimate critiques of the status quo US power structure are being brought into the limelight simply to enable a different set of looters who are even more shameless. Me too. It's the self-reproachment then self-cannibalising following darks periods that is tragic and painful to watch. In my own conservatism I am exasperated by iconoclasts toppling statutes and badmouthing our values as if that could put things right or undo acts of a few whose ideas were clearly wrong even at the time. Going back to the German experience, they more or less had an "intergenerational war" in the 70s. Not to over-psychologise but Tolstoy would clearly name the devouring guilt of our own crime and self-punishment. Nations that wage unjust wars are as traumatised as those they destroy, just in a different way. Again with the Russians, I can't help but think the ghosts their boys brought back from Afghanistan ate a good portion of the values they needed to keep people like Putin out of power.