Change that tune! (3 minute 30 second read)

 

Praise band

            Across Europe, Asia, The Middle East, Africa, the Americas including the United States there are admirers  of former President Trump and Putin. In France the far right candidate Marine Le Pen a former FOP (Friend of Putin and Russia) is now distancing herself from him in her messaging. Let’s face it. It just doesn’t look good sucking up to the new Hitler when there’s an election coming up. Trump is slow on the uptake on doing the same because he’s been a FOP  for many years. He still is. At this link  you can hear Le Pen talk about agreeing with Trump, taking Russia’s side, blaming the US for Putin invading Ukraine and abolishing NATO and pulling out of the European Union.

            Prime Minister Orban of Hungary didn’t hesitate to criticize Zelenskyy just as soon as he was reelected. Now he can continue being a FOP. I believe that Le Pen of France will do the same if elected. She will rule according to her true nature and will undermine NATO as well. I believe the same will hold true everywhere that right wing nationalists achieve power, including the United States, if Trump or someone like him waiting in the Rashist (Russian Fascist) wing attains power. Like Trump, they will quickly return to undermining NATO—the main impediment to Putin’s onslaught.

Putin obviously fears NATO.

Messaging

            It all comes down to messaging. It isn’t that a man like Trump or woman like Le Pen have changed their views. They just changed their messaging to appeal to a wider group of people than just fascists. Their nature and ideology remain the same. The only epiphany that they and those like them have had is that is that their extreme nature doesn’t appeal to a wide enough voting base. If anything they have only become worse and more adept at selling their hateful divisive agendas. People that admire Putin or those like him don’t act like Gandhi when they attain power.

            Once in power they consolidate personal power like Trump did when in office and continues to do out of office. All across the nation in appropriately named “Red” states, the Republican Trump Party is consolidating their power by taking complete control of the election process. They are creating laws that made heretofore illegal acts of suppression “legal.”

The writing is on the wall.

This time around.

            When Hitler started his rise to power he had his admirers and detractors. The admirers won. Detractors like Dietrich Bonhoeffer lost. Hitler, like Putin, had the support of the Russian people just like Stalin did. Hitler also had his supporters in the West along with those that said the United States should stay out of war in Europe as he laid waste to the nations of Europe.

            Now Putin is laying waste to Ukraine. Tens of thousands dead. Millions of peaceful Ukrainians have had their lives destroyed for generations to come. Did Hitler stop with one country? Did appeasing Hitler work? Did the Vichy government of France installed by Hitler have the support of French citizens? Hitler had the Japanese. Putin has the Chinese. Alliances are being made.

            This time around Putin has been actively involved in building alliances in Western nations as well as working their populations with propaganda. Hitler tried that in the United States. He failed. Will Putin succeed where Hitler failed? Do the admirers of Putin ever talk about admiring those that aren’t like Putin or Hitler or that don’t excuse their actions?

The letter “Z” is the new swastika.

“If I sit next to a madman as he drives a car into a group of innocent bystanders, I can't, as a Christian, simply wait for the catastrophe, then comfort the wounded and bury the dead. I must try to wrestle the steering wheel out of the hands of the driver.”

--Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Blue Fingernail Polish

 

            The picture was of a body lying on the ground dressed, wearing a brown winter coat, head obscured with their hands tied behind their back could have been male or female except for the blue painted fingernails that caught my eye. Dead bodies crumpled up on the ground somehow look smaller to me. All that their life was is gone. Their dreams, hopes and aspirations gone.

            The images being sent from Ukraine of the atrocities that Russians have committed are horrific. We’re only seeing a fraction of the horror that has been visited upon the Ukrainian people. Murdering. Torturing. Pillaging. Looting. Raping. Using civilians as shields. Killing people at point blank range.

            What kind of human shoots an innocent person riding down the street on a bicycle? From the visuals coming out of Ukraine that’s a popular sport. That and running over people with tanks. Maiming people is also popular. What kind of humans do such things?

Putin’s Russian soldiers.

Dark Path?

            A human that kills innocents without qualms or remorse. Some cultures more than others encourage this kind of brutality and thuggery throughout their society. Those that engage with it are rewarded and exalted. Their dark natures are emboldened. Their leader rules with fear.

            Remember when Trump stood up for Putin? It was after Bill O’Reilly said that Putin was a killer during his interview  with Trump. Here’s what Trump said, “There are a lot of killers. What Do You Think? Our Country's So Innocent?” Trump is saying that we are the kind of people that would do what Putin’s Rashists (Russian fascists) are doing in Ukraine. Trump’s followers agreed with him and praised him in their comments. Shooting people is funny to them.

            Remember when Trump praised Putin for invading Ukraine? Sure you do. It was at the same time that Trump said that we should do on our southern border what Putin did and is doing in Ukraine. In Texas the Trump Party wants immigrants on our southern border to be declared invaders and that an invasion is taking place.

            It’s about time that people stop entertaining the idea that Trump is joking about wanting to be President for life. He staged a coup. His followers violently stormed our nation’s Capitol in order to try and keep him in power. The majority of the Republican Trump Party went along with the failed attempt. It’s little wonder that they don’t want the coup attempt investigated. They were a part of it!

            The upcoming election is really about what dark path they will lead us down when there is no one to stand in their way and the society that they will impose on non-believers. They aren’t kidding when they talk about firing squads and shooting people.

It isn’t just talk.

A time such as this

 

Biden’s Steady Hand

            President Joe Biden has provided exactly what we need at a time such as this. A steady hand. We need this. The country needs this. There’s no daily or hourly spewing of insults or denigrating our nation’s institutions, intelligence community, allies or armed forces. No spewing of perceived slights or grievances against all and sundry on Twitter. There aren’t any despots being praised. Biden’s doing what needs to be done.

The daily chaos is gone.

            He is using his time in office to put our government back together and get it functioning properly. He hasn’t put people in charge that have the opposite agenda and goals of the departments they’re in charge of. So far he has avoided the revolving door turnover of personnel that President Trump’s Administration had.

            President Biden hasn’t attacked news media as being “fake”, like Trump and his idol Putin do, or the “enemy of the people” even though media has been critical of Biden’s Presidency and the missteps that he has made. President Biden is the polar opposite of Trump in how he presents himself. He doesn’t go on ad nauseam about how he’s being treated and play the victim nor is he a braggart.

            President Biden is a journeyman. Years of experience in government have taught him his craft. He understands the nuts and bolts of our Republic and how to conduct business in a way that befits our place in the world arena. He has worked behind the scenes and in public to repair our relations with our allies that President Trump had undermined. He succeeded in pulling NATO back together. Some people have conveniently forgot that Trump undermined NATO at every turn and held up military supplies to Ukraine that had already been approved.  Trump questioned the very usefulness of NATO and threatened to pull out.

Then Putin invaded Ukraine.

State of War

            An expert on Russia and Putin commented that we were already engaged in World War Three. I really had to stop and think about that. It’s a comment that definitely gives one pause.

            The last time the United States declared War was World War Two. Constitutionally Congress reserves the right to declare war. We’ve been at war a lot of times since then but war was never declared. Kind of hard to believe isn’t it? Well, perhaps not but that’s the way it is.

            World War Two started well before the US declared war. Germany invaded Poland in 1939. Japan seized Manchuria in 1931 and allied with Germany and Italy on September 27^th, 1940. The United States didn’t declare war until Japan bombed Pearl Harbor on December 7^th, 1941 followed shortly thereafter by our declaring war on Germany on December 11^th, 1941.

            Putin has invaded Ukraine. Nations are choosing sides. Other nations, including ours, are supporting the war effort of Ukraine against Russia. Once again a state of war exists in Europe without declarations of war being made. The same thing happened and is ongoing in the Middle East. The technicalities don’t really make any difference.

We are at war.

The state of the state of.

            I watched President Biden’s “State of the Union” address to Congress. In addition to fulfilling a Constitutional requirement of the President the “State of the Union” is grand theatre! The President’s party cheers them on while the other party sits mostly on their hands. The President touts their accomplishments both real and perceived and provides their agenda to achieve goals they have deemed important.

            It is important. We get to see the President unfettered before a captive audience. We get to hear what they want out of life. Sometimes we even learn things about them on a personal level. For instance I did not know that President Biden was a college professor. So I looked it up. He was a for real adjunct professor.

            What he did that’s really important to the world is present a calm, measured response to what is taking place in Ukraine. No hyperbole or unnecessary personal posturing in a time of worldwide crisis. President Biden laid out what we would and would not do as much as others might want to have us set in motion an escalation that no one will win anywhere. I’m talking about the use of nuclear weapons. The old cold fear is now upon us again.

Putin did that.

Where to from here?

            Man! That is the question du jour for quite a while. Republicans and some Democrats are wanting to shut off oil purchases from Russia because that is a major source of income. What that will do is raise fuel prices in this country. Prices are already climbing and nothing has happened to supply lines or production yet. It’s hard to even hazard a guess as to what diesel and gas could cost other than to say records will be broken. So far Biden is saying no.*

            The world economy is going to tank. Okay, that’s a strong statement but I don’t see any way around it if history provides any kind of a guide. Just to up the ante Putin is now saying that sanctions amount to a declaration of war. As I already mentioned above I certainly believe that we are now at war even though people will go to great lengths to say that we aren’t. Technicalities.

            War brings hardship. Hardships are coming. Are people ready for them? The Ukrainians certainly are. They’re living them. They are living with the horror visited upon them through no fault of their own. Europe is being flooded with soon to be millions of Ukrainians fleeing the horror that Putin brought upon them. They are without food and water. They have lost it all because of Putin.

            Will people in this country be willing to put with higher prices of anything, everything? The very Republicans clamoring for Biden to stop the purchase of oil from Russia are and will continue be the ones blaming him for the higher prices at the gas pump and elsewhere. (Only 2% of our oil imports come from Russia.) I base this upon some Republicans taking credit for the good done by popular bills that they have voted against.

            Hardship always hits the poor the hardest. EVERYWHERE. Traditionally Republicans aren’t all that great when it comes to helping the poor. They would rather give money to the wealthy pretending that they will give it to the poor.

They don’t.

 God takes sides

            Evangelicals that claimed Trump is a man of God are also claiming that Putin is a man of God called to invade Ukraine. Putin also doesn’t like Muslims or LGBTQ people. Putin is tailor made for them! Hard to believe but true nevertheless. Actually it isn’t that hard to believe. They have created a mythology to support their outrageous beliefs along with the white nationalists that supposedly want to help Evangelicals establish a Christian theocracy.

            Then we have all the millions of Republicans that say they trust Putin over Biden. Putin. The guy that invaded Ukraine and threatens the world with nuclear war. That’s the guy they trust. They worship a man that even 50 years ago they would have been calling a “Godless Communist.” While they do that, they also call our free press fake news just like their hero Putin does. They have created their own news sources that validate their beliefs. What’s more they will continue to attack the institutions of our Republic and our form of government.

It’s what their comrade Putin wants.

 

 *3/8/22, The Biden Administration has now shut off oil purchases from Russia.