I have A LOT of time to listen to great podcasts on my job. You think "40 hours" is the standard? Lolz. Try closer to 60. Such is the life of a truck driver. Anyways, yesterday I took a dive into the Russian Revolution. The fall of the Romanovs and the ultimate rise of communism. I realized I didn't know much about what occurred just over 100 years ago. It was fascinating... And frightening. Not that the Romanovs fell (damn straight they were corrupt and terrible) but that the despair and struggle by the people opened the door enough to allow the evils of communism to take hold in a monarchy's place. For example, when Czar Nicholas "allowed" the people to form a parliament (Duma) he demanded they meet him on his grounds. Then capitulated but he always showed them who was boss by blocking, censoring, and cherry picking who would be "in control". Classic illusion of the power of people. That Lenin, Trotsky, and Stalin were able to even get a revolution off the ground while being in and out of exile or in jail in Siberia, seeding the thoughts of revolution through illegal pamphlets and Pravda paper (published in Austria, not in Russia itself), all while being tracked by the Czar's secret police, is astounding. And, yet, here we are today with an Internet and ability to publish and connect with anyone anywhere... The battle for ideology has amplified and the noise is trying to crowd out the signal.