My new article on Linkedin “What Happens When Everything Is Skin-Deep”

When you do not see the person beyond the skin, you do not see the person. Instead of worrying about who people are, they need to think about how they feel about each other.

When you look at today’s American society and the ideas it is trying to install in people’s minds, you realize that something is seriously wrong with it. When under the guise of “liberalism,” one can determine one’s gender identity according to what one “feels inside,” without even undergoing any medical procedure, and, according to ACLU, “government agencies that serve the public cannot stop you from using the restroom or other sex-segregated facility that matches your gender identity, or ask you to provide ID to prove your gender in order to use a restroom or other sex-segregated facility,” things cannot go right. It is simply not natural.

But it isn’t only gender identity issues that plague American society. The obsessive occupation with identity politics leaves no room in people’s hearts and minds to actually see the human beings behind the categories where we place them.

The preoccupation with people’s skin and identity started a long time ago, but it accelerated over the past decade or so. Along with the intensification of the ego, various distortions of society overtook common sense. Take the participation of transgenders in women’s sports, for example. In the name of transgender rights, women’s rights are being crushed and trampled. I don’t see how this can end well.

I have no magic formula to cure this situation, but it seems to me that one of America’s problems is that it never experienced a revolution, not in the real sense of the word. I am not referring to a revolution like the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 Russia. In those days, the Russians were completely unprepared for a revolution and the results were accordingly miserable.

Rather, when I speak of a revolution, I mean an ideological transformation that the entire nation undergoes. Take the French Revolution, for example, or similar processes that took place in England or Germany, in various forms, and you will see what I mean.

If you cannot go beyond skin-deep, it leaves you with nothing but obsession about people’s skin color. This attitude then radiates to every aspect of people’s lives. Instead of thinking about connecting with others, they focus on power over others, which makes them obsess over wealth and power. This is why America’s God is the dollar.

In order to grow, people’s hearts must be shaken to the core. Their values must be challenged and they must rethink everything they think is right. Changes may be frightening, but they are an inseparable part of maturation.

Once people learn to see reality from more than just one angle, they develop a more serious and moderate attitude to life, and especially to other people. Otherwise, their worldview remains unchanged, unchallenged, and they cannot think about anything other than superficial (and divisive) labels or accruing wealth in order to gain power, not realizing that beyond the provision of necessities, more money will not make them happier.

In the end, excessive power makes people lonely, and loneliness makes people sad. This contradicts life’s purpose, which is to be happy.

Therefore, I think it is time for America to go back to the basics. People need to be who they are because they are fine the way they are. Instead of worrying about who they are, they need to think only about how they feel about each other.
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My new article on Linkedin “Mutual Responsibility – the Foundation of Society”

Today’s society worships the ego. Everyone who is “someone” shows himself in the most egocentric way. This is true of social media icons as it is true of sports stars, pop stars, politicians, and even money moguls. However, a society that worships selfishness undermines the very meaning of the term “society.” For a society to exist, it must focus on the social rather than on the individual. If it focuses on the latter, it will disintegrate, which is what we are seeing around the world today.

Social relations can exist only when all the parties recognize that they have a mutual benefit from each other that they cannot achieve on their own. The benefit must be big enough for them to relinquish some of their independence in return for greater rewards, such as greater chances of survival, better child rearing, or solidified economic prosperity.

For this reason, a society whose idols are those who contribute to the cohesion of society strengthens itself and the well-being of its members. Conversely, a society that idolizes people who focus on themselves and often act against the interests of society pulls the rug out from under itself. Such a society will collapse sooner or later since it fails to meet the most basic requirement of a society: mutual responsibility.

Once a group of people has established a basic level of mutual responsibility, it can begin to build more complex structures such as clans, cities, and nations. The higher the level of mutual responsibility in society, the more it can grow and expand.

Nevertheless, it is a challenge to maintain mutual responsibility because human egoism is not static, but is constantly evolving. Therefore, cultivating mutual responsibility must be a constant task for society. Otherwise, it will collapse. Since we have neglected this for many decades now, we are witnessing an increasing degree of disintegration and dissolution in society.

Humanity has reached a crossroads: It can continue to avoid cultivating mutual responsibility in order to rise above the growing ego, or it can return to cultivating it until it becomes stronger than the current level of egoism. If it chooses the latter, it will achieve such a level of cohesion that people will stop feeling separated from each other. They will reach a new level of closeness, as if they were inseparable in their hearts, in their souls.

Once they achieve that level, the struggles among people that we see today will become internal struggles, where people grapple with their own egoism, which separates them from society. People will attain a completely different level of perception; they will experience oneness on levels they never thought existed.

This is where the current struggle between egoism and mutual responsibility is leading, and it will end in one of two ways: unity or war.
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Medium published my new article “A Good Slap to Calm Us Down”

The latest strain is really turning everything we’ve known about handling the pandemic on its head. It is super contagious, generally mild, and no vaccine seems to protect against it. In short, it has taken two years of unprecedented efforts and unmatched investments and made a mockery of them. It is just the slap we needed in order to wake up from our delusional efforts to maintain our previous way of life. Instead of fighting a doomed war, we should put our heads together, and design a safer and calmer way to live.

I don’t regard the virus as an illness; I regard it as a cure. The healing process must begin with rethinking about our lives: what we want to achieve, what will make us happy, what is truly meaningful in our lives, and how to build a society where people do not undermine others’ dreams but support them, so that everyone can realize their dreams instead of only a select few, at the expense of everyone else.

The fact that the virus is disrupting our previous way of life is nature’s gift to humankind. We were drowning in hubris, and now we’re shown our limits. Nothing is healthier than knowing the truth. If you know the truth, you can start building better from it. But if you don’t know who you are and where you live, everything you do will come out crooked and collapse.

Because we want to show everyone that we are the bosses, nature shows us who is the real boss. For this reason, until we bow our heads and get in line with all other elements of creation, nature will continue to forcefully and painfully “explain” to us the truth.
In fact, we are witnessing the collapse of our old way of life. The fact that nature is destroying it is proof that it was unsustainable. If we are smart, we will take the hint and not try to go where nature will not let us.

Governments have already spent trillions of dollars on rescue packages and other relief programs. They can continue doing so and take advantage of the fact that people are quitting their jobs by the millions every month to install countrywide, and even worldwide, programs that re-envision human society. On every level — personal, community, national, and international — we should rethink the structure of our society and our relationships with others.

Science will not defeat the virus. It mutates faster than scientists can develop vaccines or medicines. Even if scientists were able to develop new vaccines every few months, what kind of life is it if you have to get a booster shot against a new variant three times a year?

Worse yet, these viruses are our own making. We are basically walking-talking bags of microbes, and there are so many we don’t know yet until they become pathogenic. If you take the multiple cases of cruise ships whose crews and guests are all fully vaccinated, yet repeatedly suffer from outbreaks, and the (absolutely bizarre) case of the polar research station whose crew is fully vaccinated, checked frequently, quarantined, and located in the North Pole, hundreds of miles from other human beings, yet two thirds of them have suddenly come down with Covid, you will realize that the virus is within us, not outside of us, and this is where we need to find the cure.

The element within us that is noxious and generates every noxious element in reality is our attitude. Our abusive and exploitative approach to everything and everyone around us makes everyone sick. It warps every level of reality and turns it from benign to malignant.

If you look at every other part of creation, you will not find that any of them is evil, ill-meaning or malevolent. All parts of nature function just as nature has created them. We are the only element that consciously aspires to take more than we need, to deny others what they need, and not in order to sustain ourselves, but for the joy of making others suffer and the feeling of superiority.

Because we want to show everyone that we are the bosses, nature shows us who is the real boss. For this reason, until we bow our heads and get in line with all other elements of creation, nature will continue to forcefully and painfully “explain” to us the truth.

When we stop being abusive, we will not be abused. When we stop wishing harm to others, we will not suffer nature’s harm. If we seek to live calmly and pleasantly with everyone around us, this is exactly the life we will have. This is nature’s lesson to humanity.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The Plain Truth – Israel Has No Friends”

Painful as it may be for Israelis, neither the EU nor the US is friends with Israel anymore. The Jewish state must come together and unite in the face of hatred and isolation, or see the dream of Israel disintegrate.

B’nai B’rith International recently released an alarming report that exposes the extent of the anti-Israel activity among purportedly friendly EU countries. The report, titled “Aligning Principles and Practice: EU Assistance to the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian NGOs, Rethinking the Approach to Meet Normative Goals,” exposes the EU’s tacit support of terrorism against Israel. Coupled with the waning support of the US, it is clear that Israel has no friends left in the international arena. This leaves Israel with a very hard choice: Unite over its deep divisions and face the headwind, or disintegrate and vanish from existence.

Despite a press release by the EU, stating that it “has never and will never finance or support any terrorist organisations,” and that “it exercises maximum diligence to avoid any such situation and takes such allegations extremely serious,” the reality is very different. The B’nai Brith report quotes Member of the European Parliament David Lega stating that the EU “has … aided and abetted persistent human rights abuses by the Palestinian Authority and has turned a blind eye to unconscionable practices such as the payments to families of convicted terrorists, considered martyrs for the killing of Israeli civilians. The European Union has for the longest time also failed to hold both UNRWA and the Palestinian Ministry of Education accountable for gross anti-Semitism and incitement to violence against Jews and Israelis in Palestinian textbooks.”

No one likes bad news, but I always prefer being painfully aware to being blissfully ignorant. The financial (and other forms of) support that EU countries give to terror-supporting Palestinian organizations expresses their genuine view: They would like to see Israel gone.

Nevertheless, it cannot be otherwise before we realize our task here in Israel. In 1929, Dr. Kurt Fleischer, leader of the Liberals in the Berlin Jewish Community Assembly, sensed why the Germans were becoming increasingly antisemitic. He stated, “Anti-Semitism is the scourge that God has sent us in order to lead us together and weld us together.” Regrettably, the awareness of the linkage between antisemitism and internal disunity did not penetrate deep enough, and the result was catastrophic.

Division has always plagued the Jewish people, as has antisemitism. Yet, if we look at history, and if we notice what our own leaders have been telling us since the inception of our people, we will see that the two are inseparable: When division intensifies, so does antisemitism.

We do not have the privilege of testing history; the house is on fire, and we are bickering over every petty issue, just to spite our antagonists. We may not realize it, but it is precisely the malice among ourselves that is evoking the world’s hatred toward us. As Fleischer said, the purpose of antisemitism is to weld us together, to fuse us into a nation whose members transcend all divisions, love one another, and care for one another without denying or suppressing the differences among them.

This is our vocation—to rise above our divisions and form the union that our ancestors pledged to form, “as one man with one heart.” If out of 19 condemnations that the UN completed in the previous year, 14 were against Israel, and 5 were against other countries, it means that the world holds us to a different standard than it holds the rest of the world.

We, too, have it in our core values that we aspire for Tikkun Olam [the correction of the world], so we, too, demand of ourselves more than we demand from the rest of the world. Yet, we must realize that the Tikkun begins at home, with one another. This is the example that the world needs to see from us, and the lack thereof is the reason it condemns us so much more than any other nation.

We do not need to correct anyone else, and the nations of the world do not need us to love them. They need us to love each other. If we let it sink into our minds and hearts that this is what we need to do, the world will change its attitude toward us and will be happy to see us living here and setting an example of love that covers all the crimes, as King Solomon put it in Proverbs (10:12).
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My new article on Linkedin “One Year Later—Polarization Is Still Sinking America”

A year after the storming of the U.S. Capitol on January 6th during a 2020 election protest, polarization prevails in the United States and lack of trust has only deepened. Only 20% of Americans have faith in the integrity of its election system (a nearly 50% drop from the previous year) according to a new ABC/Ipsos poll. Finding a common ground between Republicans and Democrats to recover public confidence looks impossible, but there is no other alternative in this matter of existential importance.

Exactly one year ago former President Donald Trump’s supporters invaded Capitol Hill in an attempt to prevent the ratification of Joe Biden as the nation’s leader. At that time the country was fraught with deep political divisions and social tensions that ripped Americans apart into two factions. While half of the nation exuberantly celebrated, the other half felt disenfranchised, frustrated, and angry which boiled over into vehement questions of fraud in the electoral process.

Nothing has changed much. The wounds are deep, still raw, open, and bleeding. America remains torn apart and the social divide has intensified. A recent University of Massachusetts poll reveals that 71% of Republicans consider Joe Biden’s victory illegitimate, and on the other side, 91% of Democrats believe Biden was duly elected.

There is no problem with different camps being in disagreement as there will always be differences in opinions. The real threat is the extremism. The current mistrust and strong mutual accusations are eroding America’s social fabric. The situation is so bad now that it is hard to believe it could get even worse. But the current breakage being revealed now in US politics and between its citizens actually poses a unique opportunity for all to realize that there is no way to survive and thrive unless the country unites.

The alternative scenario is an unbearably explosive situation of constant strife that is on course to erupt into the total internal disruption of America. This will clearly not benefit any side or any individual. In the interdependent and interconnected reality we live in, breaking the boat that keeps everyone afloat will only sink and drown all so quickly that no means of bailing out will remain. Currently each side is too busy paddling in its own direction to even notice there is a hole in the boat.

What is needed is to reveal something that currently does not exist: a common denominator to repair the breakage. The disparate positions can yield this together, and only together. The Republicans lean to the economic side, to industry, and the military, and Democrats lean toward social movements, massive protests, rousing pretty words to achieve their agendas. Can one live without the other? No, that is impossible, one side cannot wipe out the other; they need to be balanced in such a way that the trust in the democratic system is restored.

The two opposite parties and their followers that are currently in a trajectory of greater separation need to do the opposite of their current inclinations and instead get closer, not because they profoundly love each other or even agree with each other, but because they need to find their shared interest, the nation. It is in everyone’s common interest to overcome their differences to keep America afloat.
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Michael Laitman, On The Times of Israel: “The True Touristic Magnet of the Land of Israel”

Travel and tourism is among the sectors most affected by the Covid 19 pandemic around the world. Israel is no exception. Last year, only 300,000 tourists visited the Jewish state due to travel restrictions, in contrast to the record-breaking 4.5 million tourists reported for 2019. But even as the virus comes under control worldwide and the situation normalizes, we must recognize that what Israel has to offer is much more than breathtaking landscapes and iconic sites.

Among the victims of Israel’s battered tourism industry are tour guides and travel agents who have been virtually unemployed for the past two years as travel bans have been repeatedly imposed to control new variants of the coronavirus imported from abroad. Hundreds of tourism workers demonstrated in the heart of Tel Aviv a few days ago to demand compensation for the long period during which they could not work regularly. The protests erupted after the finance minister advised them to “change jobs,” but in the end a financial aid package was approved.

Nevertheless, love of the land and enjoyment of the profession are not enough to try to keep tourism the way it was. In general, tourism today has undergone a kind of distortion. There is a tourism that encourages shopping, a tourism that encourages entertainment, and another that encourages prostitution. The original tourism, which was based on traveling to different places, especially abroad, and learning about the culture there, has already lost its appeal. Therefore, I do not believe that the tourism industry should be artificially revived.

It is also a mistake to blame all the problems of tourism on Covid-19. Without Covid-19, some other disease would have occurred or some other natural phenomenon would have brought down the tourism industry, which needs to be revamped.

If we were to see the big picture of reality, we would realize that the goal of the human race is to achieve the unity of all and join together as one big family. If we use tourism as a means to come closer, to get to know other peoples, to overcome differences, then this means is helpful to us. But if we, especially Israelis, allow ourselves to be captured by the magic of foreign cultures, abandon our ancient Jewish culture and tradition and replace them with new, foreign worldviews in our social fabric, then there will be no more room for tourism and it will insidiously continue to dwindle.

We Jews have a true treasure in our hands. If we were to tap into the exemplary sources of the Jewish people that speak of brotherly love as a way of life, and unite “as one man in one heart,” we would serve as a magnet for all in the world. “The Land of Israel is not some external entity. It is not merely an external acquisition for the Jewish people,” as Rav Kook wrote, but “rather, the Land of Israel has an internal meaning. It is connected to the Jewish people by the knot of life. Its essence is imbued with extraordinary qualities.” ( Lights, The Land of Israel)

The power of mutual connection between us is capable of evoking a greater positive force, a force of the highest nature. With its help, it is possible to open a new tourism, such as has never existed before – a tourism that connects the spiritual level with the physical level, between the Land of Israel from above and the Land of Israel from below, a sublime feeling that will be transmitted to every person in the world.
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My new article on Linkedin “If You Run Over “Signposts,” Expect Accidents”

Now that we are facing a fourth jab, or a second booster shot, pick your term, it is obvious that we are going about the pandemic the wrong way. It makes no sense to get vaccinated every six months or so. We cannot beat the virus because we do not understand that it is not an external enemy, but emerges from within us for a reason. Until we understand why it is here, we will not know how to deal with it.

SARS-COV-2 is a signpost. Like all signposts, it is in the ideal place to keep us on the right path. However, instead of following the sign, we think it is an obstacle in our way and try to run over it.

To know how to deal with the virus successfully, we first need to know what it is for. Why has it come specifically now and not before or later? For example, just recently, a combination of new algorithms and technologies identified hundreds of previously unknown microbes that live in our bodies. There are countless more that we do not know about, and many of them are viruses.

A virus is not necessarily pathogenic. It becomes noxious when we excite it to act against us.

In other words, our negative behavior induces negative change in the virus, just as it induces negative changes in all of nature. The virus is a signpost in the sense that it indicates that we have gone astray. If we return to the right path, the virus will disappear. If we do not, it will stay until we do, or another painful signpost will take its place until we understand.

The only way we can stay on track is to lead a balanced way of life. If we switch from coal to solar and from gasoline to electricity, but do not change our abusive and exploitative attitude toward other people and the environment, nothing will change for the better. We will see escalating disasters on all levels, from earthquakes, tsunamis, floods, and fires, through droughts, storms, and rising sea levels, to epidemics and finally to social breakdown, chaos, and war.

They are all signposts. They will stop harming us when we stop bumping into them. When we adopt a balanced way of life, where we live in harmony with one another and with all of nature, when we nurture reciprocity and mutual development instead of swagger and degradation of others, we will not be at odds with one another or with nature.

As long as we set ourselves on a collision course with the people around us and with nature, we will have accidents. When we foster mutual consideration in society and align ourselves with the planet we live on, our lives will be a smooth and joyful ride. It is basic common sense.
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My new article on Linkedin “The UN against Israel (Again)”

Once again, the United Nations exposes its antisemitic face. A few days ago, the UN General Assembly approved permanent and robust funding for a committee established by the Human Rights Council to investigate Israel’s alleged human rights violations and “war crimes” against Palestinians in the wake of “Operation Guardian of the Walls.” That military operation was launched by the Israeli army in response to last May’s massive rocket attacks on the Jewish state.

Just recently, rockets fired at Israel from Gaza struck the coast of Tel Aviv. Consequently, the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) carried out retaliatory airstrikes to hit Hamas targets. According to the UN’s ongoing criticism of Israel’s actions, it asserts that Israel does not have the right to defend itself.

It is already clear that hatred of Jews sets the agenda at UN. It clearly is not based on visible reality, but springs from uncontrollable antisemitism that leads the member states of the UN to set up committees, compile documents, and organize meetings that will eventually lead the organization to reconsider the establishment of the State of Israel. They will say, “We reverse the same decision we agreed to and hereby abolish the State of Israel. We have no idea why we agreed to the establishment of the Jewish state in the first place, but the last few decades have convinced us that it was an historic mistake. So all we have to do is decide what the process of abolishing the state and returning the land to the Palestinian people will be.”

This is what I expect to happen in the future. The international community will happily take Jerusalem and the surrounding areas from Israel and hand them over to the Palestinians. Exactly how soon will this happen? It’s hard to say, but with the support of the UN it could happen very quickly.

Everything is ready, the departments are ready, and the forces are ready. There is no problem at all. The truth is that I fear that many Jews in Israel will not lament the decision, but will even support it wholeheartedly.

How can such a phenomenon arise? It is because we lack education and awareness of our role as the people of Israel. We do not have a clear educational plan that makes it clear to everyone who they are, what their heritage is, and what their role is. We give up our principles and roots until one fine morning someone in Israel gets up and thinks, “The UN decisions are democratic and liberal, we have to take the other people (the Palestinians) into account. They deserve the land, and us? We can handle it, we will give them the land they claim.” Any Jew who gives up this piece of land is not connected to Israel and does not feel that it belongs to him or her.

Not all Jews are like that. There are many good people who love the land and will try to stand up and fight against anti-Israel decisions, but the question is how strong they will be. When the UN decides, armies of the neighbors will come here, and then what will we do? How will we fight when the whole world rises up against us?

Ultimately we can triumph over any threat and prevail only when we use the help found in our people’s, the Jews, special spirit. We can tap into it only when we connect together and really become Israel (Isra – El—Yashar Kel [straight to the Creator]). When we fight together for the Jewish ideology and spirit and awaken the forces of connection between us, we forge the connection with the upper force, the supreme power. And then the war from below will be a “war from above,” the war of the evil forces against the good and benevolent power that rules the world.
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Medium published my new article “When Violence Is Not a Crime”

There is an increasingly common phenomenon among sex offenders: They videotape themselves committing the crime and post it on social media. Back in 2017, criminologists Sveinung Sandberg and Thomas Ugelvik published a paper through Oxford University Press where they wrote, “At first glance, an offender videotaping their crimes seems like a counterintuitive and counterproductive thing to do. After all, when offenders reach for their cameras, they may inadvertently contribute to their own capture and conviction. …Yet, publicly available … higher court decisions suggest that, despite the apparent lack of logic, it is becoming increasingly common.”

Since then, the phenomenon has gotten worse. In trying to understand its causes, Sandberg and Ugelvik write, “When offenders reach for their cameras, it is a socially and culturally embedded choice. In short …these offences must be understood in the context of (1) the sexualization and pornographication of society, (2) a new culture of online humiliation and (3) a culture of instant picture-taking fueled [sic] by new technologies.”

These reasons may incentivize offenders to document sex-crimes, but there is a deeper, more pernicious reason for doing it: The offenders do not regard these acts as crimes at all. They see nothing wrong with what they do.

Worse, I believe that even the older generation does not think of sex-crimes as appalling as it pretends to think. For the most part, the attitude is, “It happens; they’re kids, what can you do?” Of course, no one says that, but this is the undercurrent.

For this reason, I believe that the problem is not with the perpetrators, but with us. When the education system focuses entirely on memorizing information, and devotes no time at all to building healthy social relationships, the current situation is the only possible outcome.

We need to rethink the way we look at education. We need to put human relationships—the ability to function as constructive, positive elements in society—at the top of the ladder. We have not seen the worst. If we leave matters unattended, they will deteriorate to the point where we will not dare set foot outside the door.

Human nature is destroying every bit of good that is still left on this planet, and we are worried about anything and everything besides our own nature. Even if there were any benefit in addressing environmental issues, our egos would not let us implement any solution if it demanded the smallest displeasing change in our narcissistic behavior. This, in fact, is exactly what is happening today.

It isn’t air pollution that is poisoning us; it isn’t opioids that are killing us; it isn’t SARS-COV-2 that is sickening us, and it isn’t hunger that is starving us. It is what stands behind them all, what induces all those plights. Our only enemy is our own wicked nature, and the only way to fix our nature is by teaching ourselves mutual responsibility and mutual care for every single person on the planet.

We have tackled each problem one at a time, and none of them have been solved, not one. Some problems may have abated a little, but they have come back, or will soon come back with vengeance.

It is time we dealt with the root cause of all these problems, our own ego, and solved the problem once and for all. Until we admit to ourselves that we are our own worst enemies, that we cause all the problems that we then try to fight, we will not be cured. If we understand where the problem lies and agree to work together, we will have a fighting chance.
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My new article on Linkedin “30 Years after the Soviet Union Dissolved, Did the World Benefit?”

30 years after the disintegration of the Soviet Union, it is still looking for a new path. Its disintegration has rocked the world, but it has not made it safer or more stable. Humanity is still in the midst of a global change.

30 years ago, on December 26, 1991, to be exact, the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), aka the Soviet Union, dissolved into the states that comprised it. The republics left the union and Russia’s subordinate states became independent and began to fight against each other or joined their former arch-rival, NATO. Thirty years later, Russia is still looking for its way, and still craving world dominance.

I cannot say that the disintegration of the USSR has made the world a better place. Although it was a poor superpower, it was a superpower nonetheless, and the member-nations in it knew where they stood.

Although it was not a democracy, it was solid, and in today’s tumultuous times, that, too, has merit. It may be good that the countries that comprised the Soviet Union have become independent, but until they reap the benefits from their independence, they will continue to be perilously unstable.

No one knows what the future holds for Russia, but it is clear that the situation is becoming increasingly precarious and threatens its stability. At the same time, the US is also losing steam. Despite being a democracy, and having economic superiority, America, too, is falling.

So, on the one hand, the Russian economy is unstable, and on the other hand, the American democracy does not meet the demands of today’s world. As a result, China is stronger than both America and Russia.

The European Union is completely out of the picture. The “union” has become a composite of thirty or so countries that cannot agree on anything. As a result, the EU has lost its status as a significant player in the world arena.

This leaves the world with many question marks. If we add to it the Middle East, which is a snake pit, there is not much to look forward to, despite the temporary quiet.

I cannot say that the world would be any better had the USSR not been dissolved. Nevertheless, it is clear that while it was intact, it had advanced science and industry, and it sustained itself, even if poorly, and toward the end very poorly.

Still, times are changing, and there are always fluctuations between states. The new state will bring with it rejuvenation. In the meantime, however, the world is at a loss. It does not know where to go economically, politically, or in the military sense. People and countries are simply trying to hang on.

It may be an unorthodox view but I think that by and large, the Cold War was a good thing. At least people knew where they stood and how to conduct themselves. It was good for the superpowers, the rules were clear, and when the rules are clear, it is easier not to break them and cause horrendous accidents.

Today, there is nothing but confusion. If the stress continues to build up within and between countries, they will have no choice but to release it the way they always release pressure: by going to war.

Now that 2022 has begun, I think that we are starting the new year in great bewilderment. Russia is in a terrible condition, so is America, and although China seems like it is on top of the world, it is completely dependent on America’s purchasing power. The whole world is in a state of collapse. The ideologies that had kept countries going are all manifesting their irrelevance and weakness, and cannot offer humanity an appealing way of life. Indeed, the world is ready for change.
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