Sunday, 2 March, 12:29 CST
I don't remember what I planned to write about - as some have observed contemperaneous history is moving at
the speed of Trump.
Since it's the most recent kerfluffle as the talking heads say is President Trump's close encounter with the Ukrainian despot.
Notice how I avoided using his name - with or without the double-y - but I probably won't be able to get through this without
doing so. A friend explains his refusal to use actual names of certain people thus:
To use the name of a person implies some measure of respect - even if it is only an acknowledgement of their
status as a human being. Some people are so contemptible that I will not accord them even that much respect.
They are unworthy of being human.
Enak@MyndCryme
Wow. I understand it though and agree but I'll try to get through this without being unpleasant. So, (starting sentences with
'so' like a millennial) President Trump has the Ukrainian president (so far so good) at the White House. As usual the purpose
of the visit was to get more money for the war. What he plans to do for cannon fodder is another matter and I suspect that
some young men in Europe are about to find out if this doesn't stop soon but at least they won't be American young men.
In January 1974 I had just turned eighteen had been dreading the draft notice. Whatever else he did Richard Nixon has a place
in my heart and the hearts of many men because he put an end to it. My father served in WWII and one of the men who died was
from his small hometown. An uncle served in Korea and I lost a cousin in Vietnam. When people talk about that special place
in Hell - that's where the people who make these wars will be.
Enak@MyndCryme
At this point what does one say? Others have said it better than I can.
War is an ugly thing, but not the ugliest of things: the decayed and degraded state of moral and patriotic feeling which thinks that nothing is worth
a war, is much worse. When a people are used as mere human instruments for firing cannon or thrusting bayonets, in the service and for the selfish purposes
of a master, such war degrades a people. A war to protect other human beings against tyrannical injustice; a war to give victory to their own ideas of
right and good, and which is their own war, carried on for an honest purpose by their free choice, — is often the means of their regeneration. A man
who has nothing which he is willing to fight for, nothing which he cares more about than he does about his personal safety, is a miserable creature who has
no chance of being free, unless made and kept so by the exertions of better men than himself. As long as justice and injustice have not terminated their
ever-renewing fight for ascendancy in the affairs of mankind, human beings must be willing, when need is, to do battle for the one against the other.
John Stuart Mill
said a lot of things better than I or most people can. When was our last 'good war'? Most say WWII but some say that at least the involvement of Japan could have
been avoided but that is a long story at least for now. Korea and Vietnam and Afghanistan make me think of Joe Haledman's
The Forever War
books.
"The 1143-year-long war hand begun on false pretenses and only because the two races were unable to communicate.
Once they could talk, the first question was 'Why did you start this thing?' and the answer was 'Me?"
The Forever War - Joe Haldeman
Haldeman served in Vietman and the novels were reportedly inspired by his experience. Human beings - Russian, Chinese, American or various Europeans - have no such excuse.
The explanations for the Russo-Ukraine was vary by political camps and trying to convince either side with facts is pretty much like trying to teach a pig to sing.
This is typical of the majority of western European and much of U.S. thinking:
"I don't think there was anyone who could stop Putin doing what Putin did, given the frame of mind that we all expect him to be in. He wasn't believing
history. He wasn't logical. He wasn't rational. He isn't rational, so I don't know how one prevents that."
readthemaple.com
One need only watch an interview with Putin by an unbiased interviewer (those can be hard to find - try Tucker Carlson) and see that the man is intelligent, educated, and lucid - unlike
the U.S. president at the time - and certainly not a ranting Hitler. Probably not a nice guy and those who oppose him get short shrift but his interest is not in reassembling the Soviet
Union - it is the survival of Russia. Whatever his ambitions to reclaim parts of the old Soviet Union it are not feasible now or any time in the foreseeable future. Had not the US/NATO
cabal installed a literal clown as ruler of Ukraine (in an attempt to put a NATO state in Putin's front yard) the war probably would not have happened. The biolabs and trafficking in drugs
and human beings offended him but probably would not have been sufficient provocation for an invasion. In any case the war was on and as far as the U.S. under Biden and NATO under its
current rulers was fine with that - a profitable forever war.
Thus we have Zelnskyy (yeah, I know) coming to beg for money to continue the war and being humiliated and leaving empty-handed. Whether or not he was set up by his U.S. handlers or is just that
dense I have no idea - both are possible. The people who put him in power were the Obama/Biden crowd and appear to have the minds of seventh-graders. Now Zelenskyy is out of options - either
he comes back and grovels and agrees to end the war under pretty much whatever is offered. That means no NATO membership and possibly giving up some territory. The war was effectively over
in November - the rest is doing the paperwork.
Zelenskyy is obviously more dissociated from reality than Putin could ever think about being - he seemed to think that Donald Trump would be a pushover or at least not much of a
problem. He can be forgiven for not yet realizing that Donald Trump is inevitable. I began to realize it when he literally dodged a bullet and the election confirmed it. I can
still be wrong but sure hope I'm not.
I seem to remember I was planning to write about the Epstein files but since nothing happened I'll wait until something does happen. If it does.
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And what, incidentally, do you think integrity is? The ability not to
pick a watch out of your neighbor's pocket? No, it's not as easy as
that. If that were all, I'd say ninety-five percent of humanity were
honest, upright men. Only, as you can see, they aren't. Integrity is
the ability to stand by an idea.
Ayn Rand, The Fountainhead
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If you have always believed that everyone should play
by the same rules and be judged by the same standards,
that would have gotten you labeled a radical 50 years
ago, a liberal 25 years ago and a racist today.
Thomas Sowell
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