We sit here and watch as Russian President Vladimir Putin pretends his leadership is good and our leadership is bad. This is anything but the truth. The majority of people in Russia suffer extreme poverty and abuse and corruption by the political leaders, right down to the local police and gestapo-like gangs.

The average wage in Russia is far less than in the U.S., while huge wealth is being amassed by Putin and his oligarchs. Putin is thought to have amassed as much as $200 billion.

Putin is a classic dictator suffering the same paranoid narcissism of the tsars and Joseph Stalin.

It is that paranoia that prevented the Reagan-Gorbachev effort to bring Russia into the real world. The attempt at capitalism failed miserably and resulted in Boris Yeltsin ushering in Putin to continue Russia’s history of dictatorship. The paranoia that comes with wealth and power somehow changes a man's mind from using that power for public good to brutal suppression and narcissism.

This is true of every dictator in history. That fact alone should make every American suspicious of any person or group ever having too much power, and we should be especially suspicious of Putin/ President Trump’s relations. Many say Trump is a Putin wannabe.

Alfred Fritzche

Mystic