Anyone who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities.”
Voltaire
I didn’t know much about the frenchman Votaire until Congressman Jeremy Raskin invoked the above quote at the second Trump impeachment trial. But, how painfully meaningful it is now as we watch Vladimir Putin, the embodiment of evil in the world, wreak destruction on the little country of Ukraine simply because it shares a border with Russia. Maybe the fact that it is a democracy also has a little to do with it .
It’s also not surprising that China has jumped in to help Russia by buying the oil that the West will no longer buy from the Russian oligarchs. Oligarchs and Communists don’t like Democrats. They just can’t be bothered by the opinions, wishes and needs of their citizens.
Blaming the Russian people for their ignorance is naive. They are subjected to disinformation and often times no information from the Kremlin elite. The old saying “Garbage in, Garbage out” applies. Putin lies and Kiev burns.
Ukrainian bravery and the willingness to fight tooth and nail for Democracy is a an example that those of us in the West, particularly the United States, should take to heart. Their democracy is hard earned and recent. Our democracy has gotten stale. Perhaps because we haven’t had to fight for it lately. It’s time to fight for it now.
Russia and China have found that time is ripe to try and end representative democracy as a political system. COVID disinformation, climate change denial, the injection of Putin’s poison directly into the veins of American democracy through social media disinformation campaigns during our 2016 and 2020 election cycles and the spreading of propaganda and flat out lies from Fox News and other wealthy, white, right wing Communist sympathizers acting as Putin’s assets within our own borders.
Don’t forget Putin’s campaign to arm Americans with automatic weapons and foment racial discord. Remember Maria Butina, the Russian agent that infiltrated the NRA? She’s now busying herself by saying that Ukrainian children should not be given guns because they don’t know how to use them.
Then there was the election of Donald Trump as president in 2016. Where did Donald Trump come from? Putin had his asset in Trump. Trump loves money. Putin knew Trump wanted a Trump Tower in Moscow. Putin say a way to inject his poison using Trump’s greed and thusTrump became the needle.
Voting rights. What happened to voting rights? A cornerstone of the American Constitution. The latest effort to strengthen voting rights was unilaterally denied, maybe sabotaged is a better word, by the American Republican Party en masse. Why? Did Putin have anything to do with it? You can likely guess how I would answer that question. That’s when my conspiracy theory goes to another level, but that will have to wait for another day.
One more thing and then my rant is done. Why didn’t Putin invade Ukraine while Trump was in office? Why didn’t they finish what they started in 2014 in the Crimea? After all, Trump had already made clear that he didn’t want the US to honor its NATO commitments and his propensity to mysteriously take the side of the Oligarch supported Authoritarian thinly-veiled Communist Putin over his own government seemed a golden opportunity for Putin to do exactly what Hitler had tried to do in the 1930s and 40s. Continue his march beyond Ukraine and on into the rest of Europe.
Well, maybe one more thing. Where does the wealthy, white, elite right Billionaire class fit into this scenario? People like Paypals Peter Thiel or The Koch Brothers (now brother)? What do they have to gain from the fall of democracy? More absurdities and atrocities await exposure to the light of day. More on those later.
In the meantime, let me leave you on a positive note just to remind you that I express my support for democracy through other platforms as well. Check out this song composed by John M. Ector and performed by the Alegria Singers of the First Unitarian Church of San Jose. It is titled “Love is.” I think you will recognize some familiar musical themes in it. Enjoy.
Remember to read the underlined text. I have linked the text to additional information.