Poker Rockets
Poker as in life, timing is everything! Knowing when to make a move to get the desired outcome is such a finite quality that sometimes you cannot measure it and it therefore becomes an art. Some people like Machiavelli and Schumpeter tried to quantify this ability, but, in the end as Shakespeare said:
All the world’s a stage,
And all the men and women merely players;
They have their exits and their entrances,
When you get a great hand in poker it is hard not to over play that hand and not maximise the potential return. Same as having a first date and no matter what anyone says you are never entirely ‘…being yourself…’!
When you finally reveal your hand it is great to know that the outcome was a foregone solution, especially when your best laid plan was an over whelming success.
As you know I see politics as poker by another name and the big thing at the moment is Valdimir Putin is playing the part of ‘big banana’. In recent months he persuaded the World not to do anything in Syria, he gave sanctuary to Edward Snowden, he beat up women who wore silly hats and sang god awful music, outlawed homosexuals and lesbians, he helped his friends rob the Russian people blind with the Sochi Winter Games and finally, so far, he is lining up the annexing of Crimea.
Crimea already has autonomous because of historical situation but there was an agreement that there would not be any military intervention in the Ukraine. No matter what Putin states, Russia has intervened in Ukraine without provocation and are effectively telling the people of the Ukraine that they do not have autonomy of there own country.
Choosing ones own future is the sign of a free country. If Russia feel that they can decide what future the people of Ukraine should have then it will ultimately end in catastrophe for the people and Putin himself.
Putin argument that the Russian speakers of the Crimea have been attacked has not been born out by facts and is nothing but a smoke screen. At least Hitler got some agent provocateurs to stir up trouble before taking over the Sudetenland.
Being an old fashioned dictator and historical monster is totally out of time and will come back to bite Putin on his ass, even though he has been nominated for a Nobel Peace Award! Satire is not dead .