April 2022 Archives

Dear America,

Let me preface what I am about to write by pointing out that I am a conscientious objector, not just by self-proclamation, but by designation by Local Board 1 during the Vietnam War.  I continue to subscribe to my beliefs in that regard, but the longer the Russo-Ukraine war goes on, the more apprehension I feel about our country's and NATO's abstention from entering the conflict.  My consternation isn't a function just of what is going on in Ukraine, but rather is the product of what went on in Georgia, Chechnya and in other Russian invasive behavior as well.  A pattern has developed with regard to Russian foreign policy, and its worrisome nature is only exacerbated by the leadership in those endeavors of Vladimir Putin; he is the 21st century version of Adolf Hitler in this respect.  He does not necessarily evince racism or anti-Semitism, though plumbing the mind of an autocrat, I fear soon to be totalitarian, who seems to feel that he enjoys some kind of impunity, which he exercises it in the most brutal, senseless, aberrant and abhorrent atrocities that we have seen since the last world war is plumbing an enigma.  I understand imperialism as a motivation, deplorable as it is whether pursued by Russia, Israel or the United States.  There is wealth in occupation of other nations...wealth and power.  But in Putin's case, it seems that his motivation is paranoia, fear of his own and his nation's inadequacies, and most perplexing of all, pride.  I sometimes feel alone in recognizing pride as the foremost and most damnable of sins.  As a nation we deride those without pride, whereas in terms of religious doctrine, the station of pride among sins is millennia old.  St. Augustine said it unequivocally: "it was pride that changed angels into devils; it is humility that makes men as angels." It is a rampage of pride that the world is witnessing in Ukraine, and it has turned Russians into devils.

Consider the origins of the feelings that have precipitated Putin's and apparently 70% of Russians' animus toward Ukraine,  and its parallel in the late 1930's that motivated Hitler and Nazi Germany.  Sudetenland, Hitler told Neville chamberlain and the rest of diplomatic Europe, was the extent of his aspirations in Europe.  After all, it was populated by autochthonous German speakers, many of whom were amenable to incorporation into Germany despite the fact that the area had been part of Czechoslovakia for a thousand years or so.  Similarly, Ukraine has many citizens who's mother tongue is Russian, especially in it eastern reaches now known as the Donbas region.  After the putatively autochthonous Russian speaking constituency in the Donbas, and following the annexation of the similarly populated Crimean peninsula in 2014, the war in Ukraine was initiated with pretextual claims of Nazi influence in Ukraine that Putin claimed must be extirpated by replacing the extant government despite the fact that it was led by a Jewish president who's parents were persecuted by the Nazi's when they invaded the area during World War II.  But that regime change turned out to be overreaching on Putin's part, leading to massive casualties and abject strategic failure leading in turn to withdrawal from the region of Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, after infliction of vast, mindless destruction on the people of the city.  Those troops have now been redeployed to Donbas, and the mindless, savage, troglodyte brutality of Russian soldiers is now being redirected toward the Ukrainian resistance to the Donbas rebellion.  Hitler was ceded Sudetenland, as Crimea was to Putin, which makes the Donbas the parallel to Hitler first salvo against the rest of Europe a couple of years later, all of which raises a question.  Is the outbreak of war against Russia carried out by NATO, Britain and the United States an ineluctable eventuality?  And if so, why shouldn't we spare the people of Ukraine more suffering and just intervene.

The injury to German pride by the draconian Treaty of Versailles that ended World War I seems to be analogous in Putin's mind to the aftermath of the Soviet Union--pride again.  And in consequence of Hitler's and Germany's injured pride, World War II became inescapable as Hitler's lie that Sudetenland was the extent of his ambition was belied by his subsequent invasions of Poland, Austria, etcetera.  Is the 1935 debacle of Hitler's ally, Mussolini, in Ethiopia the equivalent of Putin's failures in Ukraine?  Is Ukraine's abject failure in Ukraine a parallel to Ethiopia? Are Putin's adventures in Georgia, Chechnya, Crimea and now Ukraine just preludes to what Hitler wreaked on the world?  It makes me despondent to confront the real question: is war with Russia just as inevitable as war with Germany was?  And then, if we can't escape the carnage, should we just get it over with in the hope of minimizing it?  I am as torn by the horns of this dilemma as we all are.  What shall we do?

Your friend,

Mike

Dear America,

Now that Katanji Brown Jackson has been confirmed to the Supreme Court seat for which she was nominated by our Democratic president, it seems eminently appropriate to comment on the Republican performance during the confirmation process.  But first, a little history.  Chief Justice Rhenquist was confirmed on June 20, 1986 on a vote of 65 to 33, and he was hardly any Democrat's dream candidate.  Scalia was confirmed four days later 98 to 0, and I need not repeat myself regarding Democratic preferences in his regard.  In 1987, Robert Bork was rejected by a vote of 42 to 48, and while I can't say out of personal knowledge, it is pretty safe to say that that vote was bipartisan, though surprisingly ten senators seem to have abstained.  Kennedy, who took the seat intended by Reagan for Bork, was confirmed 97 to 0, and Souter, the elder Bush's first nominee, was confirmed 90 to 0.  Then came Clarence Thomas in 1991.

Thomas was confirmed 52 to 48, suggesting that there were a lot of reservations about him, and I think his performance over the decades has justified them.  But for me--and I listened to almost all of the hearings--he wasn't a fit candidate...not because he thought that gross sexual innuendo was the appropriate way in which to woo a woman (I'm no expert when it comes to wooing either), but because he was asked about whether he had ever discussed Roe vs. Wade when he was at Yale.  It is important to remember that Roe was decided on January 22, 1993 and Thomas didn't graduate until the spring of 1994.  Everyone was talking about Roe vs. Wade.  It changed American society at the level of fundamental principles of law.  And granted, Thomas may not have had any friends or anyone to talk to given his personality, but it is unlikely that he didn't discuss Roe with ANYONE AT ALL.  Thus, it was clear to me as of those hearings that Thomas is a liar, and his denial of the Anita Hill conversations was just additional proof of the fact.  In summary then, there was plenty of reason not to vote for Thomas, so like Bork, the lack of inter-party comity is understandable.

But next came Ginsburg in 1993: Clinton's first nominee.  As had been the case in the past, with the exceptions of Bork and Thomas, the decision to confirm was overwhelmingly bi-partisan...96 to 3...despite the fact that she was certainly not any Republican's dream justice.  Same with Breyer: 87 to 9, and Roberts, though there were more than twice as many presumably Democrat nays for him as Republican nays for Breyer, W's first pick, followed by Alito, who got twice as many nays again as did Roberts, but still at least a technical bi-partisan choice.  Then came Obama's two picks, Sotomayor and Kagan, both of whom got fair bipartisan support, but following them came Merrick Garland, and he was the death knell of bipartisanship in the confirmation process.  Garland was nominated during Obama's last year as president, and Mitch McConnell, then the majority leader of The Senate, refused to give Garland so much as a hearing on the pretext that the voters should speak as to the appointer, that is the president, who's election would occur in November of that year, before another nominee was considered.  Well, the voters picked Hillary Clinton, but Donald Trump became the appointer in chief thanks to Alexander Hamilton's practical joke on democracy, the electoral college.  And the rest--the Democratic retaliation with Gorsuch (51-49, Cavanaugh (51-49) and Coney-Barrett (52-48)--is history.  Bipartisanship is officially dead, which is significant for Jackson's appointment only in that the degree of casuistry has now been elevated to the point of absurdity by Republicans like Cruz, Graham and Hawley, which brings me to my point.

The Republicans have demonstrated a shamelessness worthy of the Mad Hatter and the Red Queen.  Their contrived, erstwhile eristic caviling with Jackson over the issue of her sentencing of child pornography possessors...not creators but possessors...in line with that of federal judges everywhere was the only issue they could seize upon, despite the fact that the record on the issue of any other federal judge nominated would have been the same was captious and a stain on any claim of integrity that Republicans might have had left.  Neither Justice Jackson, nor I for that matter, condone consumption of child porn, but everyone is appalled by sexual assault, which Brett Kavanaugh was proven to have engaged in, as well as lying to senate committees as Clarence Thomas did.  And as to Kavanaugh, Lyndsey Graham's flamboyant histrionics not only in defense of Kavanaugh but now over Jackson as well, demonstrate only one thing: he goes to bed every night with some sort of lie in his teeth.

The Republicans are a stain on our democracy.  I reiterate: we should eliminate the party designations Democrat and Republican in favor of Liberal for the Democrats and...I don't know what for the other guys.

Your friend

Mike