May 2022 Archives

Dear America,

I try to avoid bellicosity as a matter of general principle.  But every time I hear on the news that Vladimir Putin has brandished Russia's nuclear arsenal, the bile rises in me and a bellicose response comes to mind.  Now, with Sweden and Finland applying to NATO for membership, Putin is feeling more hemmed in, but continues to refuse to acknowledge that he has left the rest of the free world, particularly the parts within his reach, no choice but to fine ways in which to ensure their own independence and the integrity of their borders.  Thus, when Putin threatened Sweden and Finland with placement of Russian ICBM's within Russia but on their borders, Dirty Harry slipped into my consciousness. 

I thought first of Ronald Reagan tossing around Harry's signature line all the time: "Go ahead.  Make my day."  He said it more than once, and at least once to congress when something he wanted didn't seem to be coming his way.  It seems an apt way of implying to Putin, despite what seems to be his density on the subject of his own vulnerability in the event of nuclear conflagration, that he is as vulnerable as anyone else in that respect, and he should probably keep nuclear threats unspoken in his own interest.  But beyond his imperviousness to the peril to which he has exposed his whole nation is his lack of verity as a matter of general practice.  It started with his insistence that his amassing of troops on Ukraine's borders was just a military exercise, and persisting in the lie until the invasion actually occurred, then looking for a way to convince the world that it was provoked by the government in Ukraine.  No one bought the lie in the first place, and Putin's efforts to float a pretext that would lend credibility to his crocodile tears over being previously accused of the invasion preparation by the United States and the rest of the western alliance in NATO fell on deaf ears, further impugning the little Napoleon.  There must be some point at which the rest of the world will say to him, enough is enough.

President Erdogan of Turkey seems to be an ally of Putin's on the issue of Sweden and Finland matriculating in NATO.  He claims that Sweden has been arming and supporting Kurdish terrorist elements that are trying to undermine his government, and he also insists that one of those elements was implicated in the coup that was attempted against his authoritarian government in 2019.  All of it seems as pretextual as Putin's claims of Ukraine being rife with Nazi sympathizers, this despite the fact that Ukraine's president, elected with a large majority of the vote, is Jewish and lost family to the Nazi's during World War II. I wouldn't bemoan NATO cutting Turkey loose in exchange for Sweden and Finland, both of which have genuine democratic governments as opposed to Turkey, which has one more of the autocracies that seem to be eventuating now at the beginning of the twenty-first century. 

It comes to this.  I think the next time Putin tells The West that it better watch out, the West...NATO...should respond that Putin should be careful what he wished for regarding nuclear threats and the submission he thinks he can gain on account of them.  Someone should say to him through back channels that NATO and the western nations would be devastated by a nuclear attack, but Russia would become just a footnote in history that would never be permitted to emerge as a world power again, and that from the point of a Russian nuclear attack on, Russia would be a hinterland devoid of prosperity, or even the pursuit of happiness by its people...that no one would ever take anything a Russian said at face value again, much less deal with a Russian without onerous safeguards that would guaranty what ever the Russian promised.

That kind of consequence of Russia's actions to date may already be the fate of the Russian people.  I know that I will never take it for granted that a Russian is telling the truth in that the nation, by a large majority, keeps reelecting Putin, a proven, obtuse and shameless liar.  The Russian people's tolerance of a leader, an icon like Putin suggests values that are not consistent with trust and comity.  So, the next time Putin blandishes his nuclear arsenal, someone should send him an anonymous email telling him to go ahead, and make everyone else's day.

Your friend, 

Mike   

Dear America,

It seems like all the news lately is bad.  There is the war in Ukraine, which is as much an abomination as anything that has happened since the Holocaust.  The only things that have come close are other genocides, like those in Africa and the middle east since the 90's, and the other wars perpetrated by Russia, which has been anathematized worldwide by its wanton cruelty and indiscriminate murder and devastation.  Add to those crimes the fact that the closest Russians seem to come to telling the truth is prevarication, though outright lying seems to be almost the Russian native tongue, and it becomes apparent that Russia will be an international pariah in virtual perpetuity.  As to the Russian people, they continue to reelect and support Vladimir Putin in what seems the direct analog to the "national socialism," or Nazi movement in pre-war Germany, and they are likely to personally suffer the derogation that their nation has earned.  Who is going to trust anyone or anything Russian ever again?

Then there is the Ohio Republican senate primary in which our miscreant president-emeritus, Donald Trump, is playing a starring role.  The candidates he is endorsing nation-wide are as repugnant as his choice in the state's senatorial primary, who takes pride in the verisimilitude of his politics to those of his patron while he equivocates about his "never Trump" position during the 2016 election.  All over the country politicians are competing with one another to represent themselves as the closest thing one can get to the Trumpster, outside of the gutter rat himself that is.  And now the fear of the non-Republicans across the country isn't just the loss of control of The Senate and The House, but the possibility that if these Trump protégés succeed at the polls, Trump himself may try to re-inflict himself on the nation in 2024...a legitimate fear.

The roll played by a lack of verity in the success of all these criminals and wannabes is grounds for abject consternation.  What have we become, not just as Americans, but as a species?  How can so many vermin ascend to power and even prestige at the same time, evincing the same lack of human virtue and integrity?  If aliens are viewing what is happening from afar, are they seeing us as intelligent inhabitants of the planet or as a virus that spells its doom?

As for this country in particular, we now have a purported preview of a Supreme Court decision to reverse Roe v. Wade hot off the pen of Samuel Alito, conservative dolts swarming school board meetings spewing the same nonsense about "cancel culture" and "wokeness," objectiing to teaching children about the civil war and the evils of slavery, and ranting about the trans-gender poisoning of their children, the same nonsense as their mentors in the conservative Republican Party have been trying to foist on the nation for the past six years.  We have Kevin McCarthy being caught in a lie about telling Trump he should resign after the January 6 insurrection, but still being the presumptive next speaker of the house if the Republicans win in the mid-term elections, presumably not in spite of but because he is a Trumpist liar.  Then there's the continuing travesty of Trump himself insisting that he won an election that he clearly lost and being believed by 70% of the members of one of the only two major political parties.  Granted, 70% of Republicans is only about 17% of the electorate, but that's a lot of people who can that easily be deceived.  As P.T. Barnum putatively said, there's a sucker born every minute.  But my question is, how did the rest of them get here?

These are hard times.  President Biden is being blamed by Republicans for everything from inflation to the weather, and most Americans are buying it.  We're heading for another housing bust and no one is talking about it.  They're all just counting their money.  Economic inequality is at an all-time high and social inequality itself is not receding in any appreciable way.  Working people's pay is not keeping up with inflation, largely because people like Jeff Bezos have to have half-billion dollar yachts that are 300 feet long, so Amazon can't afford, or just won't, pay its workers a fair wage.  Professional athletes make multiples of what even the best doctors earn, not to mention the best teachers.  Where are we headed?

My hope is that somewhere between now and this November, the American people will pull their collective head out of the dark place it's been in since Donald Trump made it acceptable for our people to unleash our worst selves.  I hope that we, America, realize en-masse that Trump is the American Putin before he becomes the American Hitler.  I hope the good people of America vote.

Your friend,

Mike