One summer when I was a teenager I worked in a book warehouse where one of my fellow packers was a refugee from the Hungarian uprising of 1956. He had been a lawyer, but could get no related work in the US since the legal systems were so different.

From him I got the distinct impression that the situation in eastern Europe was hopeless and that Soviet domination would last as far as the eye could see. That was 1959. That things changed in the next 30 years is my point.

Why haven't things changed fundamentally in the 60 years since the creation of Israel? Is it because the oil is still flowing and supporting the oligarchs?

Perhaps if the Russian oil fields had been developed earlier the USSR never would have collapsed. An idea for someone else to speculate about.

Policies not Politics
---- Daily Landscape