Last night my wife and I attended a guided tour of an exhibition of contemporary works by Ukrainian artists. It was held in an abandoned automobile showroom next to the city’s largest cemetery here in Cologne. At the end, we went outside to another building that housed a huge video screen on which President Zelenskiy spoke of the trials and suffering of the Ukrainian population at the hands of Russia.
The screen was composed of roughly 50 boxes each of which flashed with images too horrific to be shown as stills. Each image remained on the screen for one second, two at most. They were each so horrid, so painful, so graphic that the effect was quickly overwhelming and I had to turn away. The Germans in the room did not.
The artworks in the main building provoked contemplation – they were images and sculptures of the type one is accustomed to seeing in a museum or collection, political, yes, but familiar in their forms and methods.
The immense screen of suffering and carnage housed in the smaller, darker building was aggressively confrontational – heartbreaking, provocative, undeniable – real to the point of pain, washed as it was in the blood and tears of Ukrainian citizens.
And their suffering continues, even as we stood before that screen we knew, all of us gathered there, that this was happening now, even as I turned away to walk out into the cold, wet night there was no turning away for the millions who last night, today, tomorrow, face the relentless pounding horror being visited upon them by Russia, the madman Putin, and those across the globe who give him aid and comfort.
Will those who make this killing possible, as many Germans did immediately following World War Two, assert they did not know or could not resist, the extermination of millions by their government?
Last night, in this German city that welcomed Adolf Hitler in March of 1936 as he marched across the Rhine with 20,000 soldiers to reclaim authority over the Rhineland, an act he was forbidden by treaty from doing, one can well imagine these children and grandchildren of those who stood and cheered the Nazi soldiers as they crossed the river, recognized what is happening in Ukraine for what it is.
Professor Timothy Snyder has organized a fundraiser to provide air defense against the Iranian-made Drones bombing Ukrainian cities. It is called, Shahed Hunter, and can be found here: https://u24.gov.ua/shahedhunter
It is good of you to point out the suffering of another people who are fighting for their freedom of choice! I just wanted to let you know that I have also donated to U24 fund.
Even at my age, it is still shocking the inhumanity of humans we visit on each other! It reminds me of one of my first folk songs I learned as an adulesuant, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone". The refrain goes " When will it ever end, when will it ever end! "
Hi Louise, that song was part of my youth also. It is so easy to lose hope as wars and the horrific suffering they cause rage in the world. These conflicts are caused by people that have a lack of love that they try to fix by getting more of something that can not be hoarded but needs to be protected and shared. ‘Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.” Robert Anton Wilson. In order to Immanentize the eschaton - create utopian conditions on the earth every person would have to be able to choose love over fear. Every single one.. for even just one apple of evil spoils the whole barrel. We all choose either the light or dark to enter our souls every day. I don’t know how long it will take for everyone to choose the light. Time might be something that we don’t quite understand yet as humans. But I do know that eventually, in it’s fullness that the light and love will be victorious. A place of evil and darkness and isolation - hell, will not be a place anyone wants to dwell in for eternity.
There was also, "When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn." My feeling is that we will always spawn narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths, so it can't end and we can't learn our way out of this.
I agree. We as humans have capacity for both great good and great evil. It does make me really angry that a few egos are causing so much pain in today's world along with the fundamentalists in Iran and here as well.
My feeling is that USians in particular refuse to acknowledge the extent to which our economic system consistently and continuously rewards people for being antisocial and anti-society: those who wind up with power are too often those who are incapable of using it wisely, with "we the people" in mind.
Government is our best mechanism for curbing the mindless operation of corporate capitalism, and if the decades since Reagan -- not to mention the current state of the GOP -- haven't shown us what happens when corporate capitalism is left to its own devices, I wonder if we are capable of self-government.
Capitalism, by definition is exploitive. Why do we think it's okay for business to earn a profit? That profit comes at the cost of exploitation of workers and consumers. You always pay more for a produce or service than it's actually worth. Business probably began as a vehicle for people to work and earn a living, but has metamorphized into a way for those at the top to get huge paychecks and to keep stockholders happy.
I think it's okay for businesses to plan ahead for improvements, research, etc., that often can't be covered out of the operating budget, because the return on investment doesn't come immediately. They need to finance them out of their profits, and/or by borrowing (which means, more or less, financing them out of the profits of others). However, as the dismal performance of supply-side economics showed, and continues to show, this is not what businesses generally do with their profits if they are free to do whatever the hell benefits those at the top.
I guess I wouldn't call the financing for improvements, part of the profit. It's one of the costs of doing business. It's the excess that's the problem, as it comes at the cost of exploiting others.
Yes, and we all should listen to two Bob Dylan classics also: "It's Alright, Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," and "Masters of War." I think our president and congress need to listen to all protest songs and understand what leaders are doing.
The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. We need closer inspection of the complexities and ambiguities of our own human nature. How does natural and necessary self-interest become negligence or cruelty? Excessive power, and there are many forms of it, tends to corrupt, and excessive narcissism humanity's tragic flaw. How narcissistic do you have to be to fly planeloads of terrified people into occupied buildings and feel like a hero? And yet there are many manifestations of subtle (or not) sociopathy to be found in our own society and it's history. It's human and if not better managed, could undo our entire species. We are broadly admonished to be clever, but do we encourage one another, our own selves included, to be wise? Are we encouraged to identify our own limitations?
I wonder how much of this antisocial behavior emanates from the squelching of empathy in childhood, and never being helped to both accept and understand ourselves. The more we identify and accept the unsavory aspects of our own nature, the less likely we will need to subject others to it.
It seems to me that all human traits emerge from the de facto experiment which is our species. All serve or have served in some way our own species existence. That includes compassion as well as cruelty, cooperation as well as competition, a sense of beauty, an appreciation of poetry, if only in the form of song. The entire compass of our interests, expressions and emotions. We are so often so invested in identification with an ideology, enough that many will die for it. But what is really real, and how do we establish that? And what most matters, to us as individuals and to us as an aggregated society and species? What will be our death-bed solace and regrets?
To address your question about what is real - nothing because human beings can't see anything completely accurately, so we construct reality. All human beings know or think is a social construct- something a number of us agree must be the truth. The constructs change over time, some are useful for the majority of us, while others are just cruel. Some gain dominance, while others fall by the wayside. I would guess that the closest we get to anything like absolute truth must be in mathematics or physics. But, I'm no mathematician or physicist, so I might be wrong. The other thing about us is our very complex brain, also a result of evolution. However it takes many years to mature, because of its complexity -26 years. In the meantime, with immature brain functioning, and our complete dependence at birth, (partly due to our large craniums) we are at the mercy of our environment for a long time before we can really think well. We are vulnerable to all kinds of insults in that time, that can result in a lot of sociopathy.
OK, but look how much evidence we have around us of people devoting their energy and time to enterprises like family and community that don't pay, that even cost the individual in tangible and intangible ways. And although there are certainly female narcissists, sociopaths, etc., what you describe as "human" seems much more often exemplified by men, and not just in our particular culture.
I'm intrigued by the idea that "fly[ing] planeloads of terrified people into occupied buildings" is narcissistic. Annihilating oneself is narcissistic? The 9/11 hijackers, and other suicide bombers, see themselves as serving a higher cause -- but OTOH, that higher cause is generally a male deity and a male-dominated religion, so the potential connection *is* there. I think.
Narcissistic means that the person has assumed themselves to be superior, without flaws, and more important than others. This can take many forms. It is accompanied by a lack of empathy for others, since the person is usually preoccupied with themselves and their own agenda. Most human babies are born with the capacity for empathy, but many, often boys, are taught to ignore that aspect of themselves because it's not "masculine". In traditional societies, organized around rigid religions, where women have no voice, boys and men spend most of their lives in the company of other men, learning how to squelch their empathic tendencies. The first people they learn to dismiss and lose their empathy for are their mothers and other women. This is toxic masculinity and the cause of much of the suffering in the world.
Based on my experience as male, I think that men are in particular trained to never under any circumstances to express fear, or admit that they are hurt; and where those feeling cannot be ignored, to convert them into rage. Perhaps that is advantageous on a battlefield, but it also may be the underlying basis of the war.
And of course there are advantages (and costs) to predatory behavior which I suspect you will see acted out in almost any schoolyard, as children vie for social power. Responsible stewardship discourages predation by addressing its roots.
I also find examples of what is labeled "religion" that assures it's membership that they are inherently superior to everybody else, so much so that that others have no human rights worth bothering about; although other strains of religion focus on humility and compassion. Humility does not indicate a sense of inferiority, but rather being non-complacent, non-supremacist.
Our culture does not set up people for success, rather people succeed in spite of. And too many people are subjected to traumatic and otherwise troubling childhoods and get the message to "buck up" or take out their grievances on others. Generations of dysfunctional family life has been hardwired into our brains. Native Americans could probably do quite well if they augmented their casino offerings with "raising healthy children" offerings. Our children are not getting what they need: not enough love and too much criticism or neglect or downright abuse. We have to look at the origins or we will get nowhere and we have been getting nowhere for a ridiculous amount of time. Our medical care system separates physical health from mental health and you can't have one without the other. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611?i=1000587705799
I agree. I was a mental health professional working with adults with traumatic childhoods. Much of their trauma, and accompanying psychological scars were intergenerational. The research indicates that childhood trauma can result in many different physical problems in adulthood and reduced longevity. Some of this may be about our glorification of violence, gender silos, and many people not understanding child development.
Catechism Episcopal Church, memorization required for confirmation, Ten Commandments, subtext for Second Commandment: “And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children until the Third and Fourth Generation of them that hate me …” Someone understood it many years ago. Then science “proved” it.
The root of abiding wisdom is often quite ancient, but so also is much misunderstanding. Science cannot answer every question, but it can often inform and refine our view of our circumstances. Science never proves anything once and for all, but it provides a testable basis for confidence in certain interpretations.
That's so interesting J. Nol. Thanks you. I really wish this would come up more in our contemporary discussions. For some reason our society seems to not want to deal with/look at/acknowledge/help this type of thing. (Maybe because there's no money in it??? They talk about the drug industry steering doctors and procedures.) The first thing after a mass shooting is "What was the motive?" My feeling is that just because a person says what their motive is (race, homophobia, etc.), that doesn't make it the truth. Perhaps the motive was a reaction/acting out due to generations of trauma!
We need tactics to fight and guard against criminally irresponsible or predatory behavior, but also strategies to reduce it. It's the strategy part that societies seem to give the short shrift.
Some of the neurons that are part of our brain are a meter long. We are vastly more interactive internally than the highest tech we cobble together. Mind and body only seem like maybe two different things. There is not much training for child-rearing apart from what one experienced in one's family of origin. I think a much of the root of authoritarianism is projected from an authoritarian upbringing. I recall reading in the local paper some years ago that a one year old was beaten to death by his father and a pastor for "disobeying" a command to touch his toes, a victim of malignant narcissism. I think we grow as a species by flexing our (what some people call) "mirror neurons" (in any case empathy) and comparing notes.
Agreed. Although those meter long neurons are motor neurons. Some animals have neurons even longer, because of course, they're longer. Anyway, agreed that mind and body are one, the mind being encompassed by or part of the body. Alice Miller wrote about how an entire country can be held hostage by a leader who's had an authoritarian upbringing - Romania and Ceaușescu, or how a whole nation will be convinced to follow an authoritarian leader largely due to the child rearing expert of the day - Germany in the 1800s and early 1900s. "For your own good: The hidden cruelty in childhood and the roots of violence". She writes eloquently about how we humans perpetuate this by passing it on to subsequent generations.
R Dooley, as a fellow Ex Pat, I am interested in your take on why the Germans at this exhibition were able to not look away. I've been here in Wiesbaden, working at the Ev. Bergkirche, which was the only "resistance" church in the area.
I think of the white population of my childhood in Florida and its, at best, patronizing attitude toward the black people who cleaned their houses and chopped the sugarcane and all the other dirty work. As I've said in other posts, my great-grandfather was a Klansman, building Southern Baptist churches in NE Florida.
Hoods covered a lot back in those days, now the Proud Boys and their ilk are well, proud. Doing genealogy in my N.C. Hometown, I uncovered more white bull Schitt than I was expecting. All from good Baptists, of course.
I am now reading a bio of Mrs. Frank Leslie who made up her own bio despite being probably half black and illegitimate. It describes the turmoil in the country before the Civil War, particularly in NYC. So far that has included lynchings of black people, riot by firemen, yellow fever, workers basically supporting white supremacy, the hatred even in the North for Lincoln when he was elected and so forth. It was also a time when 90% of the country lived in poverty. She became a successful business woman and ran Frank Leslie's publication empire and found success during the Gilded Age. I am just where she has met him despite being married to someone else. Then I thought about all the complaints I hear today about crime, drugs, antifa, BLM, COVID, and realize once again that nothing changes except that we know have weapons that kill much more efficiently.
Yikes... how racism and christianity (small c intended) denies love for all of humanity. How do they read their bible and carry out hooded crimes against humanity? Hurts my brain and sensibilities about life.
“Dehumanize” is a big word. As a Virginian, I knew racism, but not dehumanizing. Thank you for adding this word to my understanding of fierce hatred of “the other” which I am thinking is based on fear of the unknown. My daughter just spent Krystalknacht in Berlin and told me of all the lighted candles. She spoke at the same time of the Ukrainians taken in by the Germans and how everyone is organizing to get through the winter (it has already snowed) with the least possible use of fuel.
We need some of that spirit in America. Interesting that Krystalnacht and WWII and Putin’s war in Ukraine all come together and we are not talking about US WWII sacrifices, but are desperately trying to deal with our own fear of “the other.” How do we “get human” in the face of climate change and being a melting pot of everyone (think Statue of Liberty and sing Irving Berlin’s setting of Emma Lazarus’ words)?
Yes. I wonder about those hoods. Were they worn because even those racist people knew at some level that they were in the wrong? Why hide your face if you believe your behavior is acceptable?
I have known several Baptists who were splendid, so have to put in a good word for them. With the exception of the Baptist preacher who was in the local Baptist church (who may not have been a Virginian) all the rest were. There were three churches in my small Virginia neighborhood: Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist. I was brought up in the Episcopal Church, but summer camp was Bible School, and the Baptists had the best because we sang and I learned about Baptist teaching without prejudice. All our parents were joined in WWII patriotism and in various neighborhood clubs and the kids at public school. I left the area at 17, having had neighbors and friends from all three denominations.
My "at home" church, Judson Memorial Church, is Baptist and UCC, with many other cooperative arms. The whole notion of the Baptist denomination is that people who want to be baptized have to make that decision themselves, based on their own spiritual path.
Judson opened its doors at the end of the 19th century, serving the poor, mostly italian, immigrants. In the 1960s, it opened its doors to the arts communities, had a help center for women seeking abortions and also had a medical bus for prostitutes.
We were at the front of Occupy Wallstreet (remember the Golden Calf? That was a Judson artist) and continue to be engaged in all manner of helping where help is needed.
Take a look at Judson Memorial in Greenwich Village. There are Baptists and there are Southern Baptists, which is the branch that split off with the confederate states. And they are the ones that have made most of the nastiness.
Hi Rosalind, I too grew up in the South. but moved North as a young man and remained there for many years. We have that, and our current German residence, in common.
I don't know the answer to your question. It was a moment - an observation. I could not stand before that screen any longer, while the others in the room continued to study it.
Perhaps many or some of them left shortly after I did, but when I turned to go, the image of the group remaining there - front-lit before the flashing screen - was quite powerful.
Yes, they have. I was just in Germany for two months visiting family in the Bonn area. I did not know of this exhibit but it would have been very difficult to view. There is still a shadow over the country for what took place during WWII. Last week at 10 pm, a knock on the door of our Airbnb from police, telling us we must evacuate immediately and leave a note on the door that we had left. a WWII bomb had been found 150 meters from our apartment, it was 500 kilos. They were breaking ground for a new home just around the corner. We left within 10 minutes and off to our daughter's home. About 900 bombs are found every year. There is still a great sorrow in this country. I don't know what Putin would want with a completely decimated country. A power play. I also gave to Timothy Snyder's U24. The past week or two, Russia has been relentlessly pounding Ukraine and I'm very fearful.
It is not true power but the lack of the ability to see or feel love. True power does not need to take but gives from the fullness of a being connected to a higher source. Guided and protected by the light.
I think that predatory sociopathy, that which pleasures in subjugating and harming others, pretty much covers what is also called "evil". It's the monomaniacal self-absorption on sees in Putin ally, Donald Trump. While advising labeling of behavior rather than individuals a page on Healthline offers:
"There’s no standard list of sociopath signs, but the signs and symptoms of ASPD include a persistent pattern of disregard for others. For example:
> ignoring social norms and laws, or breaking rules at school or work, overstepping social boundaries, stealing, stalking and harassing others, and destroying property
> dishonesty and deceit, including using false identities and manipulating others for personal gain
> difficulty controlling impulses and planning for the future, or acting without considering the consequences
> aggressive or aggravated behavior, including frequent fights or physical conflict with others
>disregard for personal safety, or the safety of others
difficulty managing responsibilities, including showing up at work, handling tasks, or paying rent and bills
> little to no guilt or remorse, or a tendency to justify actions that negatively affect others
People with ASPD* generally show little emotion or interest in the lives of others. They might:
>come across as arrogant or superior, with firmly fixed opinions
>use humor, intelligence, and charisma to manipulate
>seem charming at first, until their self-interest becomes clear
People with ASPD* generally find it challenging to maintain friendships, relationships, and other mutually fulfilling connections. This difficulty may stem from traits, like:
>low empathy and emotional intelligence
>difficulty learning from mistakes
> lack of concern for the safety of others
> a tendency to intimidate and threaten in order to maintain control "
* AntiSocial Personality Disorder which is an official clinical diagnosis, while psychopathy and an sociopathy are not. I think excessive personal power often reinforces it (tends to corrupt). Certainly an all-consuming lust for power appears in that landscape.
Yes, MaryPat. That is not to say that there is no antisemitism. But for the past decade or more, there is a project of remembrance: the Stolpersteins, or stumbling blocks, are bronze blocks that are put into the pavement in front of the homes of the Jewish families who were murdered or fled or took their own lives. The story of each person is read allowed and attested to. This is not only in Germany, but also 30 European nations. Young people are encouraged to help in the research - a way to keep the memory of the holocaust alive.
It seems that white nationalism is an international virus. Oddly, the political party with the biggest mouth that is pushing back on immigration in Germany is the CDU - the Christian Democratic Union. Goes to show that Christian isn't a good badge to wear if one is interested in the advice of the Jewish rabbi of two millenea ago. Some of the biggest big-mouths are the most arrogant - and stupid as well because Germany is in need of more people in the workforce.
Hopefully the screen will remain front lit further exposing "mob boss" Trump and his band of thugs, cut out of the same racist cloth as you good people encountered growing up.
My uncle was a Klansman deacon of his Southern Baptist church in East Mississippi.
I've seen KKK pray before getting into robes & hoods. To whom are they praying? Surely not Jesus. If they are all Southern Baptists, does that make it a tax exempt Terrorist Org?
The problem is "Christ" which is an easy way to erase Jesus - Jesus, the Jewish rabbi. I go to great lengths to minimize christing Jesus, who is said to have said, "Why do you call me good? There is only one that is good and that is God." Christ makes an easy icon, halo and all. Put him on a pedestal and pray whatever you want. Go into what the rabbi Jesus had to say, and there's no room at the inn for him and the other outcasts he was close to.
The Dutch West India Trading Company traded in everything, including human beings. There's some controversy over how much they were involved, but suffice it to say, they were active in moving people from Africa to the "New world" between the 1500s and the 1800s. They opened up the sugar market, which also used slaves. There were only minor protests in The Netherlands against it. So, the whole country, as many European countries were, was complicit in the practice.
Go to the coastal areas in the Netherlands where the ruins of the massive stone holding tanks that the Dutch built to hold the slaves for transport. Horrifying.
You make some good points about who might have been complicit. But, I have a less generous perspective, in that silence means complicity. Anyway, horrible part of Dutch history for sure. Most of the North East, around New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, had a lot of Dutch settlers, and the names of places have roots in the Dutch language. That same Dutch West Indies Trading Company sold off New York. If they hadn't, we all could have been speaking Dutch! See the book Island at the Center of the World by Russel Shorto for a great description of the history of that area.
Thanks, R Dooley, for sharing your perspective on the exhibits in Köln and for sharing Prof. Timothy Snyder's response.
I recommend to the attention of members of the LFAA community the Guardian's article on Prof. Snyder's fundraiser - not least because it contains a link to his Yale course on the millennium-plus history of Ukraine.
Quizt, a forum commenter, spoke of a fundraising effort by Timothy Snyder, the Yale prof. It works to purchase drone hunters to aid in Ukraine’s air defense. If you want to check this out, here’s the site: https://u24.gov.ua/shahedhunter
What rises from your writing above, RDooley(NY), is the awareness of the inexplicable capacity within our human species towards destruction. How the horrors of violence and wars, which is only now transmittable world-wide as never before, has gone on for centuries. How do we evolve beyond this? What final straw brings transformation such that such vast costs and resources weigh into negotiation and mutual betterment vs. destruction and slaughter? I grieve for all of human history.
Thank you for putting in this link. It is another thing I can do besides writing the Biden administration and the Scholz administrations asking them to help shield the Ukraine. I have also asked that non gas power generators be sent in huge numbers, and have made some energy suggestions as well, for energy sources that are not fossil fuel and underground. I have suggested that they develop a shield that can boomerang the drones back to where they came from, because of course, once people realize that the missiles they send out come right back to them, they will stop shooting them.
I have been reading about Kherson and the horrific experiences of people there. On a hopeful note, I read three articles that claim that 1) Foreign Affairs titled "Don't Panic About Putin: Even Desperate Leaders Tend to Avoid Catastrophe," which is saying Putin is unlikely to risk the negative reactions of everyone, including all of this allies and his people, to using nuclear weapons particularly since there is blowback.
2) The Atlantic has an article, "The Future of American Warfare is Unfolding in Ukraine" where the authors say that aiding countries without getting directly involved in combat is a better model for us, and that Ukraine has been much more effective than Afghanistan because it is the fight they are motivated to have and we are supporting with weapons, aid, and intelligence.
3) Yesterday Meduza said that the Ukrainian Intelligence has evidence that Russia is going to leave the area around the Zaphorizhzhia nuclear power plant. Today they say the Russians claim that Ukrainians were going to plant a bomb in Zaporizhzhia. If the Russians leave I assume and a neutral party takes over, that would hopefully make inroads into peace.
I’ve been trying for days to donate to this fundraiser but each time I try, with a credit card payment, I get a message that my donation was unsuccessful. Does anyone know why this would happen and how I could make it work?
I don't want to offend anyone, but when that issue happens to me, it is always because my card has reached it's credit limit. It happens to me frequently enough that I just automatically either enter my other card, or wait until I have made a payment. If you think that you are not near your credit limit, you had better call your credit card company and ask for recent charges on your card! Definitely check right away!
Gina, I had no problem using a credit card.I did not use apple pay It did take quite a while to process my donation, but it finally went through. Do you have another credit card you could try?
Thank you for taking time from your holiday weekend to acknowledge the plight of the long suffering Chinese people. They have the right to be heard -- to cry out from the depths of totalitarian control and abuse.
My wonder is if the protests are happening in Xinjiang province because the people there are feeling that the lockdown-life is similar to the incarcerated life of the Uyghurs that are in that province? And they are starting to panic at the foreshadowing.
6 months ago, who would have predicted popular widespread protests in Iran and China. Certainly not me. Both brutal dictatorships not afraid to use harsh measures to put down "insurgencies". Any predictions about which authoritarian leader will next find his country facing widespread unrest. I vote for Putin.
I might be somehow psychically affected by what I see on TV, but what I can't understand is why out of all the powerful governments and organizations for good around the world, why someone can't just take the murderous Putin out! One man. The cause of death and torture of more than many. God help us!
Heather, thank you for this wonderful synopsis of what I saw last night (Sunday in India...) on social media, WAPO, NYT and news streaming. I was astonished and really moved by what I was watching. Students and other protesters holding up white blank sheets of paper to protest what you have described. The lockdowns have been going for THREE YEARS all over China. I read that in Shanghai, the largest city in the country, there were thousands of protestors. This is really incredible. On June 4, 1989 I watched on TV the protests at Tianamen Square (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre) and subsequent massacre. Most of the demonstrators were young students. My heart is with the people of China. They are speaking loud and clear to the entire world and to their government, enough is enough! Thank you, Heather, as always.
Heard Dr Fauci yesterday on Meet the Press talking about the need for China lockdowns, as a result of refusal to create or use more effective vaccines. Someone said in an earlier Comment today that it was also because they hadn't invested in new hospitals to treat covid patients.
Fauci said more than their failure to develop effective vaccines- which was in part due to their reluctance to accept outside help. He was critical of China for never developing guidelines for masking and distancing that could have allowed Chinese people to live lives and to work. They relied on lockdowns, which not only shut down the Chinese economy, but led to further societal and mental health problems. An explosion waiting to happen, and it apparently has.
Elizabeth, I was in China in late 1987. In the larger cities English speaking students would often serve as local guides. I remember one young man who, despite the ubiquitous presence of the "national guide" ( really a group monitor with little English) , began passionately telling us of the growing student unrest. I was astonished. I said to my husband, " something is about to happen here." Tiananmen happened in 1989. That young man, if he survived, would be in his 50's today.
It’s human nature to want to have self-determination and to breathe freely. Democracy offers hope for those things and more. I pray our country doesn’t lose a grip on what our Declaration declares as it’s aim to provide “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
"It’s human nature to want to have self-determination and to breathe freely."
Jen, what you say is true. However, there is a distinction to be drawn between “freedom” and “selfishness”. I get so sick of hearing the argument here in the US that school and business closures or quarantine or enforced masking are impositions on our freedoms as a people. While the Chinese have been very heavy handed with their population, perhaps they observed what happened here, determined that with their much more dense population they couldn’t afford to leave mitigation of a deadly pandemic up to individuals and tried something more extreme. It hasn’t worked out well for them. Our approach hasn’t worked out all that well for us either, and we aren’t done with this pandemic by a long shot, no matter how much people are in denial right now.
Look, If I smoke cigarettes and have had a lifetime habit that I can’t kick, that’s nobody’s problem except my own, right? Now if I get the urge for a smoke after a good restaurant meal or on a bus and you tell me I can’t light up in a public setting, then you’re stomping on my God given constitutional right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”, right? Dead wrong! Your “freedoms” end where my lungs begin. So much more the case for a deadly pandemic. Left to their own devices, people at large often prove themselves incapable of or unwilling to act in their own best interest and that of their neighbors. It’s a legitimate function of government to impose rules and restrictions in these cases and is the reason we have laws, courts and cops.
As we all grieve for so many across the globe who are struggling for fundamental rights, the clarion call repeatedly sounded for “Democracy and the rule of law” and for “Freedom of expression” understandably might focus the mind on our own 2020 election and on the knowledge that had only 40,000 votes, give or take, from Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia gone to Trump, he still would be President.
Consequently, however hopeful we might feel about the 22 results, a bit further down the road, Republicans plausibly could regain control of both chambers of Congress and also win the White House, conceivably precipitating both a near-fatal weakening of American civic institutions and also a Presidency eager and able to consolidate power, wherein the rule of law could be subjugated to an individual.
Adding conceivably unsettling state and local outcomes to the fray, I find it hard to imagine the stakes could be more pressing to justify staying in the fight post-election to protect the key mechanisms of democracy both at home and abroad.
Barbara Jo, the fact that so many of these midterm fights were squeaky close against such horrible gop candidates, signals to me that there is “something else going on” that we do not fully, clearly, nimbly understand how to counter. “Social Media” and “the Internet” are weapons-grade mind-control devices in the hands of the amoral and immoral. They are an ether-manufactured Bull for the China Shop of civil society. I read yesterday somewhere ( David Troy post on Medium?) this quote: We do not love in a ‘Post-Truth’ era. We live in the Age of Influence….Truth is not a social construct. But Belief is.” I agree that we cannot let our guard down and stop fighting. I also wish we could fight more effectively. It’s like fighting cholera in the 19th century. They thought it was “bad air”. They held this “Miasma Theory” because they did not know about germs. We still need to find the “germ” of our current social-destructive-power epidemic.
MLRGRMI, Your reply is extraordinarily perceptive and one I will continue to mull over. An observation I will offer is that too often supposedly well-intentioned journalists seemingly permit Washington officials to set the agenda for journalism, failing to subject said officials’ words and deeds to critical scrutiny. Instead of acting as filters for readers and viewers, sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and anchors frequently neglect to provide adequate context, background, or any sense of which claims hold up and which are misleading. Additionally, I sense journalists, unless they are fearless in their belief in democracy, withhold certain stories people in high places don’t want told.
Barbara Jo, I also have come more and more to view that below all the journalistic short-comings lie a pro-profit, need-to-stay-employed-to-pay-my-mortgage reality. Everyone is trying to stay “in business”. An intrepid journalist, with the moxie to “tell-it-like-it-is” AND meet unrealistic deadlines under duress, is a rare breed. We expect selfless loyalty to “WE the People”, but the system they must work under - like teachers and healthcare workers - does not support their reality of daily living/ raising a family/ paying the bills. We cannot get from them what we need: Factually, agreed upon Truth that people will bother to read instead of a clickbait headline and article. This makes the time we are living in, and the struggle we are wrestling with all the more difficult. I see those journalists let off Washington officials, and despair also (Chuck Todd letting Kellyanne Conway claim “Alternative Facts” without the Hammer of Thor coming down on her, comes to mind). These journalists pussyfoot around to keep access to these individuals. Why? To stay employed. Knowing this limitation, the burden is on all of us to question and seek confirmation. And boy is that time consuming!
Watched an excellent interview with Sec of States Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice on The Trouble with Jon Stewart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xutIA4HzGqA Though the discussion focused on U.S. policy regarding gun sales to other countries, all three agreed that our government's humanitarian efforts, like food and medical assistance world wide, are never mentioned in the press.
@MLRGRMI, Thank you for a second highly perceptive reply. As for my thoughts, admittedly, the media constitute a commercial, profit-driven enterprise. Still, while it also should serve the interests of citizens and prioritize strong, honest, and accurate reporting, its contribution, in my view, ultimately boils down to two questions: Can the media meaningfully engage in public service and nurture the fundamental discourse critical to maintaining a democratic republic while also sustaining itself and remaining solvent, or will the desire to make bigger profits drive media owners to provide expedient rather than useful content?
I suppose the answer partly rests with whether ordinary citizens take note of and really care whether the media are fair and accurate and are guided by democratic principles.
You've packed a lot into a single paragraph! Both the view of the "Social Media/Internet" as mind control devices in the hands of the a/immoral, and the differentiation between truth and belief. I must think on these things.
Just as I was reading your post an image came up on CNN showing a map of China with four video boxes, one for each of the cities with large protests. It just struck me that were it not for the interconnection of mostly cell phones we would not be seeing these images. There was a time, not that long ago, that we would not have seen anything this timely or on this scope coming out of China. ( at the same time I fully take your point about the destructiveness of social media.)
And yet the race between him and Warnock was so close that there's going to be a runoff. It used to be that people would've laughed their heads off at the idea of an idiot like Walker running for political office.
And in 2016 Trump should not have won the presidency. That voters chose him to lead the most rich and powerful country on the planet has ramifications we are not exploring enough, perhaps because it's too terrifying. Too many people have treated Trump like a normal politician, this is true - but what put him in the WH? What social and political moment turned Americans away from conventional politics and towards a fascist mindset where walls on the southern border, some states abolishing most gun laws, the proliferation of mass shootings and the legitimization of hate have all become mainstream? Read or listen to Trump's announcement speech for 2024, and his inauguration speech in 2017. He talks about carnage and American cities' streets flowing with blood. How did we get here, and why?
If I recall correctly, didn’t he update the MAGA meaning in his announcement to “Make America Great And Glorious Again”…..hmmmmm, so now it’s MAGAGA? [with sincere and profound apologies to Lady Gaga!]
Jeri, I would note even the more fatalistic prognosticators are not portraying us as “on the brink.” In fact, since the 22 midterms, they have reset the clock from 2 minutes to 10 minutes to midnight. Paraphrasing another Substack host, we have good reason to be hopeful, but not complacent.
Please🙏 let me have a few months of R and R. I need time to be able to take a deep breath, and do some fun things, read a few novels, watch a few games, Etc! Then I hope I will be ready to re-engage in protecting American and by extension World Democracy!
I think we have to do these things concurrently, taking a deep breath and keeping an eye on our democracy and doing what we can to assure the GOP doesn't make gains in the next election. I just finished writing letters for the Georgia runoff, urging people to vote. The last batch of letters went in the mail this morning.
My wife and I were reflecting yesterday that other than the re-election of an incumbent, the only time in the modern age a U.S. President has been replaced by election by another member of his own party has been when Reagan was succeeded by H.W. Bush. This would imply that unless Pres. Biden, despite his advanced years, gets re-elected, we will probably have a Republican President in 2024. I do hope that some wise, popular Democrats can arise to beat that trend.
Speaking of reflecting, I am becoming less of a trend fan and more of a surprise around every corner guy. The retention of the Senate and the mini majority of the House are examples. Barack Obama was a surprise. And now under the most repressive regime in modern history, the Chinese people are rising up. How high and how far they will go is anybody's guess. But a surprise none the less. Are the Russians next?
Could Biden surprise us by deciding to "retire"? Will he put the country over his ego? I have no idea. For the record, once again, I am a HUGE fan of Joe Biden and what he has done. It's just time for a young face.
I hold out hope that in 2024 we can roar with youthful power and fully dispatch the haters and deniers.
I do find that I can best predict the future in hindsight, that's for sure. I also am a fan of Pres. Biden -- I just feel sorry for him. How did our leadership pool become so shallow that we have to hound our elder statesmen all the way to the grave?
You can't become "the leader of the free world" without a substantial ego. But there are different versions of ego. One is exemplified by totalitarian monsters like Putin or Trump. The other is more altruistic. I think President Biden would run again primarily because he is uncertain that another candidate could beat Trump. In other words, he is worried about the nation - which is why he ran the first time. I love him on that basis.
The question for Democrats is IMO, what candidate would garner the most enthusiasm and votes. I worry most about Gen Y and Z. If you were in your 20's would you want to vote for a guy in his 80's? And...there is a lot of generational resentment towards boomers. And they have a lot of justified complaints.
Dirk, I believe Zella, who is part of this thread, is spot-on particularly regarding GenZs, who voted 63% Democratic and Millennials, 51%. Regrettably, GenXs and Boomers were low 40s. While these percentages offer a partial blueprint for 24, for example raising the percentage (now about 27%) of GenZs who vote (about a million more will be eligible in 24), until we have a candidate, our best shot is involving increasingly more people in the political process, starting with helping us to hold Warnock’s seat and to cure ballots. I’ve also been introducing mostly young people to Jessica Craven’s inspiring opportunities-for-action newsletter “Chop Wood, Carry Water.”
I imagine we’ll all have far more to say after the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3rd.
We need a JFK - in that, we need someone who can say “I can lead WITH YOUR HELP. YOU need to ask what YOU can do to help keep democracy. ONLY TOGETHER can we do this!” I feel this style is also Zelensky Democracy.
The collapse of the East German government, breach of the Wall and subsequent unification of Germany was remarkable for its relative bloodlessness. in short order, the entire Soviet Union collapsed, leaving individual countries to chart their own courses forward. Most grassroots rebellions, regardless of what triggers them, come at very considerable cost to the protestors, as autocratic governments swing into action to suppress them by ever increasingly draconian steps, usually involving arrests, incarcerations, and killings. Recent events in Iran, Russia, China all include brutal government action against protest arising from events intolerable to the public. And, history has shown that protest CAN lead to regime change, if the movement is sustained, supported by the broad majority of the population and adequately resilient to absorb the punishment by the regime and it's military, paramilitary, police force and any other arm of government capable of going to battle against the civilian population. The price of regime change is often loss of life on a large scale in the course of turning public opinion to the point that the regime is simply ignored and loses the capacity to control the public with violent repression. It seems that only a small fraction of uprisings reach critical mass and result in regime change.
My Iranian friend, in tears, is telling me about the messages her cousins in Iran send her about the brutality and torture that is happening there right now, as well. The young people are being deliberately shot in the eyes with rubber bullets to blind them and taken to prison to be systematically raped and tortured. But the courageous young people continue to protest. The courageous Ukrainians continue to fight the depraved Russian army. ....While half of America is devoted to Trump....
Outbreaks of democracy in Iran, now China, and even, judging from its last election, in the good old US of A! There’s popular anti-war rumblings in Putin’s Russia added to his floundering, failed invasion of Ukraine. And Ukraine! An entire nation of democracy-loving heroes!
The forces promoting fascism and autocracy are being met by spontaneous movements toward open democracy that are going to be difficult, maybe impossible, to contain.
2023 is shaping up to be a very interesting time in human history.
Yes, so, we will have to keep a close eye on the wealthy (foreign funds included) and where and how they send their money to subvert the middle and lower economic classes back toward fascist, kleptocratic, authoritarianism (take your pick of those names) any of which Trump, and it may not be him but he has built a movement, and the GOP are moving America.
Lockdown in China IS working. Their current outbreak of Covid is 40,000 cases per day. Given their population, that’s minuscule compared to western countries. I’m not saying that their lockdown is great, or well managed, but it is effective. If we think supply chain issues are bad now, just imagine where we would be if millions of Chinese people caught Covid now. Where do we think most of our medicine comes from?
There should be a middle path between China’s draconian lockdowns and our let ‘er rip attitude. We have had almost two years to improve ventilation in public buildings, but we haven’t done it. The CDC is still talking about washing hands to combat an airborne virus that moves like smoke in the air, and not a word about masking effectively. We have failed too, and the suffering we will see over the next decade is frightening to contemplate.
I’m immunocompromised, and that’s because of treatment for, if you will, “Long HPV.” We can have no idea (yet) what the long term effects of Covid will be, but having experienced the long term effects of another virus, I’m appalled at our national policies. Even in the shorter term, the avalanche of sudden deaths from heart attack and stroke in people in their 30s and 40s isn’t being linked to previous Covid infections - but it is. The high rate of pediatric hospitalization for respiratory illness like RSV isn’t being linked to previous Covid infection - but it is. I could go on and on and on. The Biden administration, which I mostly admire greatly, has failed us in their Covid response. So has the media. And we will be paying the price for decades.
I have had 5 COVID shots and I continue to mask when out in public. I live in the Chgo area. I see very very few people masking, and while I don't have the statistics right at hand, the rate of people getting their boosters is incredibly low. Don't blame Biden, blame us all.
Me too, Miselle. I actually lay the blame for our failure squarely at Trump’s feet. It was he who made masking a political issue. But the Biden administration hasn’t done a damn thing to try to change that narrative, and when the CDC director tweets about washing hands to prevent Covid, doesn’t mention masking at all, and then tests positive herself two days later and disappears for 16 days - all while the CDC still doesn’t even recommend masking or testing to exit isolation and does allow exit from isolation after five days when the majority of Covid patients are still testing positive - I call that a failure.
You make excellent points. The culture in China allowed the government to totally "lockdown". Try it here and we would see a lot of armed rebellion - we do have a lot of "arms".
Speaking of arms, JMO, but it is stunning to me that the Chinese did not employ effective vaccines in combination with their other policies. Had they done so, the pandemic in China would be at an even smaller level and the lockdown could have applied to the unvaccinated. Kinda dumb when you consider that the vaccine technology is almost open sourced now.
True, Bill. I suspect that they thought there would be an effective pan-coronavirus nasal vaccine by now, which would have allowed them to avoid all of the acute and long Covid problems. They absolutely should have an MRNA vaccine by now, even if they have to import a western one. But the problem is that vaccination works well to prevent hospitalization and death in the acute phase of Covid, but it doesn’t do that well in preventing infection as Covid continues to mutate. Even mild cases of Covid can cause deadly and dangerous sequelae. It’s an airborne vascular disease, even if we all think of it as a respiratory virus. And our entire bodies are composed of blood vessels, down to the capillaries. Covid causes micro clots - but most of us don’t know that.
It’s all over Twitter, but not anywhere else that I’ve seen. I follow a couple of trustworthy epidemiologists and they’re screaming into the void about it. The CDC has failed us.
Interesting the choices governments make when faced with a crisis, pandemic. Always the calculation "What opportunity is presented here to advance our ideology?" In the case of China, I wonder if control (to improve its authoritarian control) when Covid came along might have been determined to be the better political choice over a humanitarian one, to create better vaccines and treatments than other nations.
I read recently that 80% of the Chinese population supports their zero Covid policy; what they want is better financial support during the crisis. My nephew lives in China, and he says the same. Interestingly, his life, and his child’s life, has been far more “normal” than ours over the last three years. They do have periodic rolling lockdowns, but in his case, it’s managed well. Of course, he works for a western company with western wages, which makes him well-off in China.
Thanks for that post. Here in Melbourne, where I'm now living, there were three strict lockdowns. It was very hard to take. Small businesses which had just reopened after nearly a year suddenly had to close again and went to the wall. The (leftist) Premier of Victoria (like a governor in the US) was criticised by the whole of Australia, but held fast, and he governed. He was re-elected last weekend by a sweeping majority. We've all been vaccinated, three, or four shots. The boarded up shops are starting to reopen. We wear masks on public transport and in the supermarket, it's no longer mandatory but most people do it, and we are kept informed of the current count of cases. We've all got testing kits at home, and if you get sick, you self-isolate for a week.
Anne-Louise, you’re miles ahead of us. I wear an N-95 mask in public, but I’m usually the only one masking. Today I went to the grocery store, and there was a scary chorus of coughing all around me - all unmasked. Schools here are a big vector of infection. No mitigation at all, anywhere. Australia has done a much better job than the US, you should be proud.
A big problem for the Communists is that their Covid vaccine doesn't work very well, a difficult problem in a society with a large number of elderly who aren't in wonderful physical shape to begin with. A massive die-off wouldn't look too good, particularly in a society in which the old are venerated.
Bad news for the ChiComs = good news for the rest of us.
But China is not (and never was) a communist state. Even under Mao, it was a totalitarian regime, as was Stalin's Russia (try Pol Pot etc). But these regimes have always been sold to the US as "Communist" - one under every bed. Maybe the world needs real communism - "from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs". Not Bloody likely! (sadly).
I was taught in history that politics is a circle not a horizontal line. At the 12 o'clock mark is the meeting of the far left and far right, which always results in a police dictatorship or tolatarianism. At 9 and 3 o'clock are the left and right, and at 6 o'clock is a moderate democracy. I suspect that a pure Communist State that you would like to see, is not possible, because humankind isn't capable of it. There are too many flawed people like narcissists and psycopaths to be able to make it work!
Louise, I like the clock metaphor which includes both the "Right" and the "Left" with dictatorships from either side at the top. What troubles me about the metaphor is the implication that it runs clockwise. It seems we in the USA are stuck with more of a pendulum swinging from one side of 6 to the other side, always trying to balance (or restrain?) the creativity, energy & productivity of capitalism (and its pervasive influence via "dark money") on the one side with the needs and protection of the rest of society by a tempered democratic socialism (think Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) on the other. Most recently it seems we nearly swung the pendulum off its democratic suspension point to the right.
Our situation requires a newer creed for successful corporations which includes the welfare and fair wages for the workers who ultimately create the capital along with the bottom line - they still have to make SOME profit. It would seem that would be the role or function of a government of, by and for the people, both the common worker AS WELL as the capitalist. Call me naive, but those Northern European democracies (Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, even Germany seem to come closer to this ideal balance point than our dear, younger USA. We seem to be more successful in many measures but at what cost? My observation (hope?) is that is the direction the Biden administration is trying to take, to swing the pendulum more toward the left.
I'm not against profit for companies/corporations. I am against obscene profit that erode the middle class by moving manufacturing overseas and keeping wages low in the US.
Ah - the important distinction. Communist vs communist. I'd like to see your 6 o'clock option, with a substantial amount of the "communist" (or socialist) mindset built in. Absolutely NOT the Communist one! So do please work out which one you are referring to!
communist is what I am referring to. My tablet accidentally capitalized the first time. Yes as to what you would like to see, I would too. Everyone seems a lot better off between 6 and 9 or 10. Sharing resources and talents. Poverty is so traumatizing to a person's development and psyche! On the other hand, Isn't what business organizations refer to as synergy what we get when we have that left of center government? As Biden says, " When the Middle Class boats are lifted, Everybody's boats are lifted! "
I remember that diagram too. It's not based in how things really are but was simply a stereotypic distraction meant to make us picture the US as the rational option. Baloney then and more so now. In reality, much of the US is just above what we used to call "third world" (another form of stereotyping), while we pretend otherwise. Many nations and societies operate under forms of socialism that incorporate aspects of what we think of as akin to communism. Of course, no nation has achieved the abstract form of communism, but many have been able to front the needs of their people without coming apart at the seams. Perhaps the problem we have with narcissists and psychopaths is because we live in a kind of capitalist system that fronts people like that without the necessary controls. We even know what is needed, but cling to a fantasy about what economics is and what the role of politics is in maintaining guardrails on those who exploit our fantasies.
I am old enough to remember the days of so called big government. Income inequality was nowhere near what it is today. And yes, most people in this country do live in a much worse economic condition than what it used to be. Yes we have been pushed to the right by our American oligarchs like like the Murdochs and Uileins, Koch Brothers etc, that we have lost our synergy! We are now swung so far to the right, that we most be careful not to over react and swing violently to far to the left too fast! Along with the diagram of the clock, my teacher said ,"The genius of America has always been keeping the pendulum from swinging too violently too fast from the center. Thus no violent revolutions. " circa 1968.
Revolution is always destructive to a country, setting it back. We need to keep moving that hand to the left in incremental steps, to make up for the greedy American Oligarchs using racism as a weapon, from grabbing all the wealth with unfettered capitalism!
TC, we saw a comparable refusal by the 2020 US administration officials to use the WHO Covid testing, opting to us only US-developed testing. It seems that any time that nationalism trumps pure science, people suffer. Where the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are more than 90% effective against hospitalization, the Shinovac vaccine is only 68% effective against hospitalization and only 69% effective against disease severe enough to require intensive care.
Xi’s harsh authoritarianism has major downsides in a country with diverse provinces, major industrial centers, and a population less and less willing to subsist in poverty.
Xi’s single-minded approach to Covid is his latest Achilles’ heel. He has shut down cities with multimillion populations for weeks in an effort to ‘wipe out Covid.’ This has caused massive personal inconvenience and economic disruption. Also, it means that Chinese haven’t developed Covid antibodies and, thus, are more susceptible to current Covid outbreaks.
China has produced several pandemic vaccines that are less effective than Pfizer and other Western vaccines. Though these could be purchased, Xi’s nationalism refuses to acknowledge that Chinese vaccines are second rate.
Now there are unprecedented protests in Xi’s police state. Also, the just-in-time supply of products to Apple and others is disrupted and an increasing number of companies are looking for more stable suppliers elsewhere in Asia.
I have stated earlier that the nature of Xi’s authoritarianism is likely to diminish the rate and scope of China’s economic development over the long run [‘China 4 feet rather than 8 feet tall’]. You are already seeing this happen.
I was part of an American Environmental group that visited Southern China in 2013. Almost a decade ago when development was opening and tourism as well as educational exchanges and global economic expansion were taking place. We started in Shanghai and traveled deep into rural areas, as well as towns. Yunaan Province. High into the mountains, rice paddies and rural communities. Both American and Chinese groups had jointly developed a rural environmental alliance. The paperwork bogged down in the system. We funded it and started paperwork and sponsorship and both Chinese and American environmentalists were committed. The contrast of economic and social development was stark in some areas, but we did have an experienced Chinese guide. We believed we could work together. It was a hopeful time. And then a disappointing time.
Xi not only admires Mao but in intent on achieving the same level of control. I have viewed his strict Covid policies as partially his form of a "cultural revolution" allowing him to take stricter control of the country and finding those that he can rely on to implement his power consolidation.
What we may be seeing is the reaction of young people realizing that there ability to have free discussion cut off and sensing dictatorial suppression. I am afraid that the reaction of Xi's government
Last night my wife and I attended a guided tour of an exhibition of contemporary works by Ukrainian artists. It was held in an abandoned automobile showroom next to the city’s largest cemetery here in Cologne. At the end, we went outside to another building that housed a huge video screen on which President Zelenskiy spoke of the trials and suffering of the Ukrainian population at the hands of Russia.
The screen was composed of roughly 50 boxes each of which flashed with images too horrific to be shown as stills. Each image remained on the screen for one second, two at most. They were each so horrid, so painful, so graphic that the effect was quickly overwhelming and I had to turn away. The Germans in the room did not.
The artworks in the main building provoked contemplation – they were images and sculptures of the type one is accustomed to seeing in a museum or collection, political, yes, but familiar in their forms and methods.
The immense screen of suffering and carnage housed in the smaller, darker building was aggressively confrontational – heartbreaking, provocative, undeniable – real to the point of pain, washed as it was in the blood and tears of Ukrainian citizens.
And their suffering continues, even as we stood before that screen we knew, all of us gathered there, that this was happening now, even as I turned away to walk out into the cold, wet night there was no turning away for the millions who last night, today, tomorrow, face the relentless pounding horror being visited upon them by Russia, the madman Putin, and those across the globe who give him aid and comfort.
Will those who make this killing possible, as many Germans did immediately following World War Two, assert they did not know or could not resist, the extermination of millions by their government?
Last night, in this German city that welcomed Adolf Hitler in March of 1936 as he marched across the Rhine with 20,000 soldiers to reclaim authority over the Rhineland, an act he was forbidden by treaty from doing, one can well imagine these children and grandchildren of those who stood and cheered the Nazi soldiers as they crossed the river, recognized what is happening in Ukraine for what it is.
Professor Timothy Snyder has organized a fundraiser to provide air defense against the Iranian-made Drones bombing Ukrainian cities. It is called, Shahed Hunter, and can be found here: https://u24.gov.ua/shahedhunter
This article explains the project in more detail: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/nov/28/russia-wins-by-losing-timothy-snyder-on-raising-funds-for-ukrainian-drone-defence
It is good of you to point out the suffering of another people who are fighting for their freedom of choice! I just wanted to let you know that I have also donated to U24 fund.
Even at my age, it is still shocking the inhumanity of humans we visit on each other! It reminds me of one of my first folk songs I learned as an adulesuant, "Where Have All the Flowers Gone". The refrain goes " When will it ever end, when will it ever end! "
Hi Louise, that song was part of my youth also. It is so easy to lose hope as wars and the horrific suffering they cause rage in the world. These conflicts are caused by people that have a lack of love that they try to fix by getting more of something that can not be hoarded but needs to be protected and shared. ‘Under the present brutal and primitive conditions on this planet, every person you meet should be regarded as one of the walking wounded. we have never seen a man or woman not slightly deranged by either anxiety or grief. we have never seen a totally sane human being.” Robert Anton Wilson. In order to Immanentize the eschaton - create utopian conditions on the earth every person would have to be able to choose love over fear. Every single one.. for even just one apple of evil spoils the whole barrel. We all choose either the light or dark to enter our souls every day. I don’t know how long it will take for everyone to choose the light. Time might be something that we don’t quite understand yet as humans. But I do know that eventually, in it’s fullness that the light and love will be victorious. A place of evil and darkness and isolation - hell, will not be a place anyone wants to dwell in for eternity.
There was also, "When will we ever learn, when will we ever learn." My feeling is that we will always spawn narcissists, psychopaths and sociopaths, so it can't end and we can't learn our way out of this.
I agree. We as humans have capacity for both great good and great evil. It does make me really angry that a few egos are causing so much pain in today's world along with the fundamentalists in Iran and here as well.
My feeling is that USians in particular refuse to acknowledge the extent to which our economic system consistently and continuously rewards people for being antisocial and anti-society: those who wind up with power are too often those who are incapable of using it wisely, with "we the people" in mind.
Government is our best mechanism for curbing the mindless operation of corporate capitalism, and if the decades since Reagan -- not to mention the current state of the GOP -- haven't shown us what happens when corporate capitalism is left to its own devices, I wonder if we are capable of self-government.
Capitalism, by definition is exploitive. Why do we think it's okay for business to earn a profit? That profit comes at the cost of exploitation of workers and consumers. You always pay more for a produce or service than it's actually worth. Business probably began as a vehicle for people to work and earn a living, but has metamorphized into a way for those at the top to get huge paychecks and to keep stockholders happy.
I think it's okay for businesses to plan ahead for improvements, research, etc., that often can't be covered out of the operating budget, because the return on investment doesn't come immediately. They need to finance them out of their profits, and/or by borrowing (which means, more or less, financing them out of the profits of others). However, as the dismal performance of supply-side economics showed, and continues to show, this is not what businesses generally do with their profits if they are free to do whatever the hell benefits those at the top.
I guess I wouldn't call the financing for improvements, part of the profit. It's one of the costs of doing business. It's the excess that's the problem, as it comes at the cost of exploiting others.
Yes, and we all should listen to two Bob Dylan classics also: "It's Alright, Ma, I'm Only Bleeding," and "Masters of War." I think our president and congress need to listen to all protest songs and understand what leaders are doing.
The devil hath power to assume a pleasing shape. We need closer inspection of the complexities and ambiguities of our own human nature. How does natural and necessary self-interest become negligence or cruelty? Excessive power, and there are many forms of it, tends to corrupt, and excessive narcissism humanity's tragic flaw. How narcissistic do you have to be to fly planeloads of terrified people into occupied buildings and feel like a hero? And yet there are many manifestations of subtle (or not) sociopathy to be found in our own society and it's history. It's human and if not better managed, could undo our entire species. We are broadly admonished to be clever, but do we encourage one another, our own selves included, to be wise? Are we encouraged to identify our own limitations?
I wonder how much of this antisocial behavior emanates from the squelching of empathy in childhood, and never being helped to both accept and understand ourselves. The more we identify and accept the unsavory aspects of our own nature, the less likely we will need to subject others to it.
It seems to me that all human traits emerge from the de facto experiment which is our species. All serve or have served in some way our own species existence. That includes compassion as well as cruelty, cooperation as well as competition, a sense of beauty, an appreciation of poetry, if only in the form of song. The entire compass of our interests, expressions and emotions. We are so often so invested in identification with an ideology, enough that many will die for it. But what is really real, and how do we establish that? And what most matters, to us as individuals and to us as an aggregated society and species? What will be our death-bed solace and regrets?
To address your question about what is real - nothing because human beings can't see anything completely accurately, so we construct reality. All human beings know or think is a social construct- something a number of us agree must be the truth. The constructs change over time, some are useful for the majority of us, while others are just cruel. Some gain dominance, while others fall by the wayside. I would guess that the closest we get to anything like absolute truth must be in mathematics or physics. But, I'm no mathematician or physicist, so I might be wrong. The other thing about us is our very complex brain, also a result of evolution. However it takes many years to mature, because of its complexity -26 years. In the meantime, with immature brain functioning, and our complete dependence at birth, (partly due to our large craniums) we are at the mercy of our environment for a long time before we can really think well. We are vulnerable to all kinds of insults in that time, that can result in a lot of sociopathy.
how true that is!!
OK, but look how much evidence we have around us of people devoting their energy and time to enterprises like family and community that don't pay, that even cost the individual in tangible and intangible ways. And although there are certainly female narcissists, sociopaths, etc., what you describe as "human" seems much more often exemplified by men, and not just in our particular culture.
I'm intrigued by the idea that "fly[ing] planeloads of terrified people into occupied buildings" is narcissistic. Annihilating oneself is narcissistic? The 9/11 hijackers, and other suicide bombers, see themselves as serving a higher cause -- but OTOH, that higher cause is generally a male deity and a male-dominated religion, so the potential connection *is* there. I think.
Narcissistic means that the person has assumed themselves to be superior, without flaws, and more important than others. This can take many forms. It is accompanied by a lack of empathy for others, since the person is usually preoccupied with themselves and their own agenda. Most human babies are born with the capacity for empathy, but many, often boys, are taught to ignore that aspect of themselves because it's not "masculine". In traditional societies, organized around rigid religions, where women have no voice, boys and men spend most of their lives in the company of other men, learning how to squelch their empathic tendencies. The first people they learn to dismiss and lose their empathy for are their mothers and other women. This is toxic masculinity and the cause of much of the suffering in the world.
Based on my experience as male, I think that men are in particular trained to never under any circumstances to express fear, or admit that they are hurt; and where those feeling cannot be ignored, to convert them into rage. Perhaps that is advantageous on a battlefield, but it also may be the underlying basis of the war.
And of course there are advantages (and costs) to predatory behavior which I suspect you will see acted out in almost any schoolyard, as children vie for social power. Responsible stewardship discourages predation by addressing its roots.
I also find examples of what is labeled "religion" that assures it's membership that they are inherently superior to everybody else, so much so that that others have no human rights worth bothering about; although other strains of religion focus on humility and compassion. Humility does not indicate a sense of inferiority, but rather being non-complacent, non-supremacist.
Our culture does not set up people for success, rather people succeed in spite of. And too many people are subjected to traumatic and otherwise troubling childhoods and get the message to "buck up" or take out their grievances on others. Generations of dysfunctional family life has been hardwired into our brains. Native Americans could probably do quite well if they augmented their casino offerings with "raising healthy children" offerings. Our children are not getting what they need: not enough love and too much criticism or neglect or downright abuse. We have to look at the origins or we will get nowhere and we have been getting nowhere for a ridiculous amount of time. Our medical care system separates physical health from mental health and you can't have one without the other. https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-gray-area-with-sean-illing/id1081584611?i=1000587705799
I agree. I was a mental health professional working with adults with traumatic childhoods. Much of their trauma, and accompanying psychological scars were intergenerational. The research indicates that childhood trauma can result in many different physical problems in adulthood and reduced longevity. Some of this may be about our glorification of violence, gender silos, and many people not understanding child development.
Catechism Episcopal Church, memorization required for confirmation, Ten Commandments, subtext for Second Commandment: “And the sins of the fathers shall be visited upon the children until the Third and Fourth Generation of them that hate me …” Someone understood it many years ago. Then science “proved” it.
The root of abiding wisdom is often quite ancient, but so also is much misunderstanding. Science cannot answer every question, but it can often inform and refine our view of our circumstances. Science never proves anything once and for all, but it provides a testable basis for confidence in certain interpretations.
That's so interesting J. Nol. Thanks you. I really wish this would come up more in our contemporary discussions. For some reason our society seems to not want to deal with/look at/acknowledge/help this type of thing. (Maybe because there's no money in it??? They talk about the drug industry steering doctors and procedures.) The first thing after a mass shooting is "What was the motive?" My feeling is that just because a person says what their motive is (race, homophobia, etc.), that doesn't make it the truth. Perhaps the motive was a reaction/acting out due to generations of trauma!
We need tactics to fight and guard against criminally irresponsible or predatory behavior, but also strategies to reduce it. It's the strategy part that societies seem to give the short shrift.
Some of the neurons that are part of our brain are a meter long. We are vastly more interactive internally than the highest tech we cobble together. Mind and body only seem like maybe two different things. There is not much training for child-rearing apart from what one experienced in one's family of origin. I think a much of the root of authoritarianism is projected from an authoritarian upbringing. I recall reading in the local paper some years ago that a one year old was beaten to death by his father and a pastor for "disobeying" a command to touch his toes, a victim of malignant narcissism. I think we grow as a species by flexing our (what some people call) "mirror neurons" (in any case empathy) and comparing notes.
Agreed. Although those meter long neurons are motor neurons. Some animals have neurons even longer, because of course, they're longer. Anyway, agreed that mind and body are one, the mind being encompassed by or part of the body. Alice Miller wrote about how an entire country can be held hostage by a leader who's had an authoritarian upbringing - Romania and Ceaușescu, or how a whole nation will be convinced to follow an authoritarian leader largely due to the child rearing expert of the day - Germany in the 1800s and early 1900s. "For your own good: The hidden cruelty in childhood and the roots of violence". She writes eloquently about how we humans perpetuate this by passing it on to subsequent generations.
wow
Not only will we spawn narcissists and sociopaths as leaders, we will also produce compliant soldiers who will operationalize the madness.
yes
I thought the refrain was "When will we ever learn? When will we ever learn?"
I think that’s right.
Gone to soldiers every one...
Well, not everyone… lots of my friends went to Canada or feigned mental illness or homosexuality.
R Dooley, as a fellow Ex Pat, I am interested in your take on why the Germans at this exhibition were able to not look away. I've been here in Wiesbaden, working at the Ev. Bergkirche, which was the only "resistance" church in the area.
I think of the white population of my childhood in Florida and its, at best, patronizing attitude toward the black people who cleaned their houses and chopped the sugarcane and all the other dirty work. As I've said in other posts, my great-grandfather was a Klansman, building Southern Baptist churches in NE Florida.
Hoods covered a lot back in those days, now the Proud Boys and their ilk are well, proud. Doing genealogy in my N.C. Hometown, I uncovered more white bull Schitt than I was expecting. All from good Baptists, of course.
I am now reading a bio of Mrs. Frank Leslie who made up her own bio despite being probably half black and illegitimate. It describes the turmoil in the country before the Civil War, particularly in NYC. So far that has included lynchings of black people, riot by firemen, yellow fever, workers basically supporting white supremacy, the hatred even in the North for Lincoln when he was elected and so forth. It was also a time when 90% of the country lived in poverty. She became a successful business woman and ran Frank Leslie's publication empire and found success during the Gilded Age. I am just where she has met him despite being married to someone else. Then I thought about all the complaints I hear today about crime, drugs, antifa, BLM, COVID, and realize once again that nothing changes except that we know have weapons that kill much more efficiently.
Not surprised... I've quoted my great-grandfather's tombstone here before:
"A lover of Christ and a friend to his fellow man"
KKK
Yikes... how racism and christianity (small c intended) denies love for all of humanity. How do they read their bible and carry out hooded crimes against humanity? Hurts my brain and sensibilities about life.
How indeed? A question for the ages.
When you dehumanize people it seems to become easy.
“Dehumanize” is a big word. As a Virginian, I knew racism, but not dehumanizing. Thank you for adding this word to my understanding of fierce hatred of “the other” which I am thinking is based on fear of the unknown. My daughter just spent Krystalknacht in Berlin and told me of all the lighted candles. She spoke at the same time of the Ukrainians taken in by the Germans and how everyone is organizing to get through the winter (it has already snowed) with the least possible use of fuel.
We need some of that spirit in America. Interesting that Krystalnacht and WWII and Putin’s war in Ukraine all come together and we are not talking about US WWII sacrifices, but are desperately trying to deal with our own fear of “the other.” How do we “get human” in the face of climate change and being a melting pot of everyone (think Statue of Liberty and sing Irving Berlin’s setting of Emma Lazarus’ words)?
Like the Q-Anoners, they think they're purifying the race. Like the midaeval grand inquisitors: get baptized or die - or maybe both.
I agree and it is still happening today!
Whatever God may be to you or to me, God isn't the posession of folks who call themselves christians. What a small god that would be...
Yes. I wonder about those hoods. Were they worn because even those racist people knew at some level that they were in the wrong? Why hide your face if you believe your behavior is acceptable?
I think the whole costume was designed to scare black people....
Sadly expected given etiology of Baptists.
I have known several Baptists who were splendid, so have to put in a good word for them. With the exception of the Baptist preacher who was in the local Baptist church (who may not have been a Virginian) all the rest were. There were three churches in my small Virginia neighborhood: Episcopal, Methodist, Baptist. I was brought up in the Episcopal Church, but summer camp was Bible School, and the Baptists had the best because we sang and I learned about Baptist teaching without prejudice. All our parents were joined in WWII patriotism and in various neighborhood clubs and the kids at public school. I left the area at 17, having had neighbors and friends from all three denominations.
Dear Citizen60,
My "at home" church, Judson Memorial Church, is Baptist and UCC, with many other cooperative arms. The whole notion of the Baptist denomination is that people who want to be baptized have to make that decision themselves, based on their own spiritual path.
Judson opened its doors at the end of the 19th century, serving the poor, mostly italian, immigrants. In the 1960s, it opened its doors to the arts communities, had a help center for women seeking abortions and also had a medical bus for prostitutes.
We were at the front of Occupy Wallstreet (remember the Golden Calf? That was a Judson artist) and continue to be engaged in all manner of helping where help is needed.
Just saying...
Each individual Baptist community may serve as chosen, but the etiology of “Baptist” as a faith tradition the US is unchanged.
Of course, Baptists did not overtly state theirs was to be an all-white white faith, but presented as one in it’s early years.as
Take a look at Judson Memorial in Greenwich Village. There are Baptists and there are Southern Baptists, which is the branch that split off with the confederate states. And they are the ones that have made most of the nastiness.
Hi Rosalind, I too grew up in the South. but moved North as a young man and remained there for many years. We have that, and our current German residence, in common.
I don't know the answer to your question. It was a moment - an observation. I could not stand before that screen any longer, while the others in the room continued to study it.
Perhaps many or some of them left shortly after I did, but when I turned to go, the image of the group remaining there - front-lit before the flashing screen - was quite powerful.
Haven't the Germans, as a nation, been taught to face and acknowledge their horrific past, even in grade school, so it shall never happen again?
Yes, they have. I was just in Germany for two months visiting family in the Bonn area. I did not know of this exhibit but it would have been very difficult to view. There is still a shadow over the country for what took place during WWII. Last week at 10 pm, a knock on the door of our Airbnb from police, telling us we must evacuate immediately and leave a note on the door that we had left. a WWII bomb had been found 150 meters from our apartment, it was 500 kilos. They were breaking ground for a new home just around the corner. We left within 10 minutes and off to our daughter's home. About 900 bombs are found every year. There is still a great sorrow in this country. I don't know what Putin would want with a completely decimated country. A power play. I also gave to Timothy Snyder's U24. The past week or two, Russia has been relentlessly pounding Ukraine and I'm very fearful.
I agree....but it is the power that causes him to do what he does. He is evil clear through the bone!
It is not true power but the lack of the ability to see or feel love. True power does not need to take but gives from the fullness of a being connected to a higher source. Guided and protected by the light.
I think that predatory sociopathy, that which pleasures in subjugating and harming others, pretty much covers what is also called "evil". It's the monomaniacal self-absorption on sees in Putin ally, Donald Trump. While advising labeling of behavior rather than individuals a page on Healthline offers:
"There’s no standard list of sociopath signs, but the signs and symptoms of ASPD include a persistent pattern of disregard for others. For example:
> ignoring social norms and laws, or breaking rules at school or work, overstepping social boundaries, stealing, stalking and harassing others, and destroying property
> dishonesty and deceit, including using false identities and manipulating others for personal gain
> difficulty controlling impulses and planning for the future, or acting without considering the consequences
> aggressive or aggravated behavior, including frequent fights or physical conflict with others
>disregard for personal safety, or the safety of others
difficulty managing responsibilities, including showing up at work, handling tasks, or paying rent and bills
> little to no guilt or remorse, or a tendency to justify actions that negatively affect others
People with ASPD* generally show little emotion or interest in the lives of others. They might:
>come across as arrogant or superior, with firmly fixed opinions
>use humor, intelligence, and charisma to manipulate
>seem charming at first, until their self-interest becomes clear
People with ASPD* generally find it challenging to maintain friendships, relationships, and other mutually fulfilling connections. This difficulty may stem from traits, like:
>low empathy and emotional intelligence
>difficulty learning from mistakes
> lack of concern for the safety of others
> a tendency to intimidate and threaten in order to maintain control "
* AntiSocial Personality Disorder which is an official clinical diagnosis, while psychopathy and an sociopathy are not. I think excessive personal power often reinforces it (tends to corrupt). Certainly an all-consuming lust for power appears in that landscape.
💞
Yes.
Yes, MaryPat. That is not to say that there is no antisemitism. But for the past decade or more, there is a project of remembrance: the Stolpersteins, or stumbling blocks, are bronze blocks that are put into the pavement in front of the homes of the Jewish families who were murdered or fled or took their own lives. The story of each person is read allowed and attested to. This is not only in Germany, but also 30 European nations. Young people are encouraged to help in the research - a way to keep the memory of the holocaust alive.
They are powerful reminders ... Thanks for mentioning this, Rosalind.
Yet White nationalism increasing again in Germany.
It seems that white nationalism is an international virus. Oddly, the political party with the biggest mouth that is pushing back on immigration in Germany is the CDU - the Christian Democratic Union. Goes to show that Christian isn't a good badge to wear if one is interested in the advice of the Jewish rabbi of two millenea ago. Some of the biggest big-mouths are the most arrogant - and stupid as well because Germany is in need of more people in the workforce.
Hopefully the screen will remain front lit further exposing "mob boss" Trump and his band of thugs, cut out of the same racist cloth as you good people encountered growing up.
We seem to have a lot in common...
My uncle was a Klansman deacon of his Southern Baptist church in East Mississippi.
I've seen KKK pray before getting into robes & hoods. To whom are they praying? Surely not Jesus. If they are all Southern Baptists, does that make it a tax exempt Terrorist Org?
The problem is "Christ" which is an easy way to erase Jesus - Jesus, the Jewish rabbi. I go to great lengths to minimize christing Jesus, who is said to have said, "Why do you call me good? There is only one that is good and that is God." Christ makes an easy icon, halo and all. Put him on a pedestal and pray whatever you want. Go into what the rabbi Jesus had to say, and there's no room at the inn for him and the other outcasts he was close to.
YES!
"minimize christing Jesus"!!! Yes!!
I'm 100% Dutch, so I know well what my ancestors did to bolster their wealth through the slave trade. Not a proud moment for a whole country.
The Dutch West India Trading Company traded in everything, including human beings. There's some controversy over how much they were involved, but suffice it to say, they were active in moving people from Africa to the "New world" between the 1500s and the 1800s. They opened up the sugar market, which also used slaves. There were only minor protests in The Netherlands against it. So, the whole country, as many European countries were, was complicit in the practice.
Go to the coastal areas in the Netherlands where the ruins of the massive stone holding tanks that the Dutch built to hold the slaves for transport. Horrifying.
You make some good points about who might have been complicit. But, I have a less generous perspective, in that silence means complicity. Anyway, horrible part of Dutch history for sure. Most of the North East, around New York, Connecticut, Massachusetts, had a lot of Dutch settlers, and the names of places have roots in the Dutch language. That same Dutch West Indies Trading Company sold off New York. If they hadn't, we all could have been speaking Dutch! See the book Island at the Center of the World by Russel Shorto for a great description of the history of that area.
Thanks, R Dooley, for sharing your perspective on the exhibits in Köln and for sharing Prof. Timothy Snyder's response.
I recommend to the attention of members of the LFAA community the Guardian's article on Prof. Snyder's fundraiser - not least because it contains a link to his Yale course on the millennium-plus history of Ukraine.
Holocaust 2.0
Yes, a genocide directed at ALL the people of Ukraine.
😣
Oh, we're well past 2.0 by now.
Quizt, a forum commenter, spoke of a fundraising effort by Timothy Snyder, the Yale prof. It works to purchase drone hunters to aid in Ukraine’s air defense. If you want to check this out, here’s the site: https://u24.gov.ua/shahedhunter
It is the same effort to which I referred above.
Sorry for being redundant If someone does not read the full expanded post, they may miss it.
Never hurts to reiterate.
What rises from your writing above, RDooley(NY), is the awareness of the inexplicable capacity within our human species towards destruction. How the horrors of violence and wars, which is only now transmittable world-wide as never before, has gone on for centuries. How do we evolve beyond this? What final straw brings transformation such that such vast costs and resources weigh into negotiation and mutual betterment vs. destruction and slaughter? I grieve for all of human history.
Just donated $100... Thanks for creating awareness of Timothy Snyder’s important fundraiser.
Snyder has a sub stack "Thinking About....." since the invasion started. Worth subscribing to..
Thank you for putting in this link. It is another thing I can do besides writing the Biden administration and the Scholz administrations asking them to help shield the Ukraine. I have also asked that non gas power generators be sent in huge numbers, and have made some energy suggestions as well, for energy sources that are not fossil fuel and underground. I have suggested that they develop a shield that can boomerang the drones back to where they came from, because of course, once people realize that the missiles they send out come right back to them, they will stop shooting them.
I have been reading about Kherson and the horrific experiences of people there. On a hopeful note, I read three articles that claim that 1) Foreign Affairs titled "Don't Panic About Putin: Even Desperate Leaders Tend to Avoid Catastrophe," which is saying Putin is unlikely to risk the negative reactions of everyone, including all of this allies and his people, to using nuclear weapons particularly since there is blowback.
2) The Atlantic has an article, "The Future of American Warfare is Unfolding in Ukraine" where the authors say that aiding countries without getting directly involved in combat is a better model for us, and that Ukraine has been much more effective than Afghanistan because it is the fight they are motivated to have and we are supporting with weapons, aid, and intelligence.
3) Yesterday Meduza said that the Ukrainian Intelligence has evidence that Russia is going to leave the area around the Zaphorizhzhia nuclear power plant. Today they say the Russians claim that Ukrainians were going to plant a bomb in Zaporizhzhia. If the Russians leave I assume and a neutral party takes over, that would hopefully make inroads into peace.
https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/11/27/head-of-ukraine-s-state-nuclear-power-company-on-zaporizhzhia-plant-russians-are-packing-their-bags
https://meduza.io/en/news/2022/11/28/fsb-says-it-prevented-a-series-of-terrorist-attacks-in-russian-controlled-zaporizhzhia
Thank you for this source material.
R Dooley, I just posted the link to U 24 on Facebook. Fingers crossed that it helps.
Thank you for this. I just donated, and am sharing in hopes some of my friends will do the same. ❤️👍
I’ve been trying for days to donate to this fundraiser but each time I try, with a credit card payment, I get a message that my donation was unsuccessful. Does anyone know why this would happen and how I could make it work?
I don't want to offend anyone, but when that issue happens to me, it is always because my card has reached it's credit limit. It happens to me frequently enough that I just automatically either enter my other card, or wait until I have made a payment. If you think that you are not near your credit limit, you had better call your credit card company and ask for recent charges on your card! Definitely check right away!
Gina, I had no problem using a credit card.I did not use apple pay It did take quite a while to process my donation, but it finally went through. Do you have another credit card you could try?
I don’t know what to tell you. I had no problem today when i donated. Perhaps try this the main link :
https://u24.gov.ua/shahedhunter
Thank you for taking time from your holiday weekend to acknowledge the plight of the long suffering Chinese people. They have the right to be heard -- to cry out from the depths of totalitarian control and abuse.
My wonder is if the protests are happening in Xinjiang province because the people there are feeling that the lockdown-life is similar to the incarcerated life of the Uyghurs that are in that province? And they are starting to panic at the foreshadowing.
An interesting --and hopeful -- thought!
6 months ago, who would have predicted popular widespread protests in Iran and China. Certainly not me. Both brutal dictatorships not afraid to use harsh measures to put down "insurgencies". Any predictions about which authoritarian leader will next find his country facing widespread unrest. I vote for Putin.
In China, there is more than meets the eye with ostensible restraint by police, as the government has a pervasive facial recognition system.
Oh! I thought that was only in scary novels!
True, but that doesn't seem to be stopping ordinary folks from filling the streets.
I might be somehow psychically affected by what I see on TV, but what I can't understand is why out of all the powerful governments and organizations for good around the world, why someone can't just take the murderous Putin out! One man. The cause of death and torture of more than many. God help us!
Killing Putin won't stop anything. There's an entire authoritarian regime in power. They put Putin in office but they don't need him.
Putin is owned and operated by a mafia din named Magilioni or something like that. I can't look it Iup right now. .
It can't happen fast enough.
Heather, thank you for this wonderful synopsis of what I saw last night (Sunday in India...) on social media, WAPO, NYT and news streaming. I was astonished and really moved by what I was watching. Students and other protesters holding up white blank sheets of paper to protest what you have described. The lockdowns have been going for THREE YEARS all over China. I read that in Shanghai, the largest city in the country, there were thousands of protestors. This is really incredible. On June 4, 1989 I watched on TV the protests at Tianamen Square (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_Tiananmen_Square_protests_and_massacre) and subsequent massacre. Most of the demonstrators were young students. My heart is with the people of China. They are speaking loud and clear to the entire world and to their government, enough is enough! Thank you, Heather, as always.
Heard Dr Fauci yesterday on Meet the Press talking about the need for China lockdowns, as a result of refusal to create or use more effective vaccines. Someone said in an earlier Comment today that it was also because they hadn't invested in new hospitals to treat covid patients.
Fauci said more than their failure to develop effective vaccines- which was in part due to their reluctance to accept outside help. He was critical of China for never developing guidelines for masking and distancing that could have allowed Chinese people to live lives and to work. They relied on lockdowns, which not only shut down the Chinese economy, but led to further societal and mental health problems. An explosion waiting to happen, and it apparently has.
Thanks so much, yes, exactly, all of that, Annie D.
Just wondering if the distance between the proletariat and the oligarchy are light years away and don't even know how each other exist.
Elizabeth, I was in China in late 1987. In the larger cities English speaking students would often serve as local guides. I remember one young man who, despite the ubiquitous presence of the "national guide" ( really a group monitor with little English) , began passionately telling us of the growing student unrest. I was astonished. I said to my husband, " something is about to happen here." Tiananmen happened in 1989. That young man, if he survived, would be in his 50's today.
It’s human nature to want to have self-determination and to breathe freely. Democracy offers hope for those things and more. I pray our country doesn’t lose a grip on what our Declaration declares as it’s aim to provide “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness.”
"It’s human nature to want to have self-determination and to breathe freely."
Jen, what you say is true. However, there is a distinction to be drawn between “freedom” and “selfishness”. I get so sick of hearing the argument here in the US that school and business closures or quarantine or enforced masking are impositions on our freedoms as a people. While the Chinese have been very heavy handed with their population, perhaps they observed what happened here, determined that with their much more dense population they couldn’t afford to leave mitigation of a deadly pandemic up to individuals and tried something more extreme. It hasn’t worked out well for them. Our approach hasn’t worked out all that well for us either, and we aren’t done with this pandemic by a long shot, no matter how much people are in denial right now.
Look, If I smoke cigarettes and have had a lifetime habit that I can’t kick, that’s nobody’s problem except my own, right? Now if I get the urge for a smoke after a good restaurant meal or on a bus and you tell me I can’t light up in a public setting, then you’re stomping on my God given constitutional right to “Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness”, right? Dead wrong! Your “freedoms” end where my lungs begin. So much more the case for a deadly pandemic. Left to their own devices, people at large often prove themselves incapable of or unwilling to act in their own best interest and that of their neighbors. It’s a legitimate function of government to impose rules and restrictions in these cases and is the reason we have laws, courts and cops.
Agree with you 100%!!!!
As we all grieve for so many across the globe who are struggling for fundamental rights, the clarion call repeatedly sounded for “Democracy and the rule of law” and for “Freedom of expression” understandably might focus the mind on our own 2020 election and on the knowledge that had only 40,000 votes, give or take, from Wisconsin, Arizona, and Georgia gone to Trump, he still would be President.
Consequently, however hopeful we might feel about the 22 results, a bit further down the road, Republicans plausibly could regain control of both chambers of Congress and also win the White House, conceivably precipitating both a near-fatal weakening of American civic institutions and also a Presidency eager and able to consolidate power, wherein the rule of law could be subjugated to an individual.
Adding conceivably unsettling state and local outcomes to the fray, I find it hard to imagine the stakes could be more pressing to justify staying in the fight post-election to protect the key mechanisms of democracy both at home and abroad.
Barbara Jo, the fact that so many of these midterm fights were squeaky close against such horrible gop candidates, signals to me that there is “something else going on” that we do not fully, clearly, nimbly understand how to counter. “Social Media” and “the Internet” are weapons-grade mind-control devices in the hands of the amoral and immoral. They are an ether-manufactured Bull for the China Shop of civil society. I read yesterday somewhere ( David Troy post on Medium?) this quote: We do not love in a ‘Post-Truth’ era. We live in the Age of Influence….Truth is not a social construct. But Belief is.” I agree that we cannot let our guard down and stop fighting. I also wish we could fight more effectively. It’s like fighting cholera in the 19th century. They thought it was “bad air”. They held this “Miasma Theory” because they did not know about germs. We still need to find the “germ” of our current social-destructive-power epidemic.
MLRGRMI, Your reply is extraordinarily perceptive and one I will continue to mull over. An observation I will offer is that too often supposedly well-intentioned journalists seemingly permit Washington officials to set the agenda for journalism, failing to subject said officials’ words and deeds to critical scrutiny. Instead of acting as filters for readers and viewers, sifting the truth from the propaganda, reporters and anchors frequently neglect to provide adequate context, background, or any sense of which claims hold up and which are misleading. Additionally, I sense journalists, unless they are fearless in their belief in democracy, withhold certain stories people in high places don’t want told.
Barbara Jo, I also have come more and more to view that below all the journalistic short-comings lie a pro-profit, need-to-stay-employed-to-pay-my-mortgage reality. Everyone is trying to stay “in business”. An intrepid journalist, with the moxie to “tell-it-like-it-is” AND meet unrealistic deadlines under duress, is a rare breed. We expect selfless loyalty to “WE the People”, but the system they must work under - like teachers and healthcare workers - does not support their reality of daily living/ raising a family/ paying the bills. We cannot get from them what we need: Factually, agreed upon Truth that people will bother to read instead of a clickbait headline and article. This makes the time we are living in, and the struggle we are wrestling with all the more difficult. I see those journalists let off Washington officials, and despair also (Chuck Todd letting Kellyanne Conway claim “Alternative Facts” without the Hammer of Thor coming down on her, comes to mind). These journalists pussyfoot around to keep access to these individuals. Why? To stay employed. Knowing this limitation, the burden is on all of us to question and seek confirmation. And boy is that time consuming!
One thing we can do is NOT click on Trump articles, posts etc. Reduce the demand.
YESSSSSSSS!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Watched an excellent interview with Sec of States Hillary Clinton and Condoleezza Rice on The Trouble with Jon Stewart. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xutIA4HzGqA Though the discussion focused on U.S. policy regarding gun sales to other countries, all three agreed that our government's humanitarian efforts, like food and medical assistance world wide, are never mentioned in the press.
@MLRGRMI, Thank you for a second highly perceptive reply. As for my thoughts, admittedly, the media constitute a commercial, profit-driven enterprise. Still, while it also should serve the interests of citizens and prioritize strong, honest, and accurate reporting, its contribution, in my view, ultimately boils down to two questions: Can the media meaningfully engage in public service and nurture the fundamental discourse critical to maintaining a democratic republic while also sustaining itself and remaining solvent, or will the desire to make bigger profits drive media owners to provide expedient rather than useful content?
I suppose the answer partly rests with whether ordinary citizens take note of and really care whether the media are fair and accurate and are guided by democratic principles.
Excellent assessment on where journalism "is" these days.
Thank you, Ally. I greatly appreciate praise from you.
You've packed a lot into a single paragraph! Both the view of the "Social Media/Internet" as mind control devices in the hands of the a/immoral, and the differentiation between truth and belief. I must think on these things.
Just as I was reading your post an image came up on CNN showing a map of China with four video boxes, one for each of the cities with large protests. It just struck me that were it not for the interconnection of mostly cell phones we would not be seeing these images. There was a time, not that long ago, that we would not have seen anything this timely or on this scope coming out of China. ( at the same time I fully take your point about the destructiveness of social media.)
“Bad air” like Herschel Walker opined drifted here from China (?) and replaced our “good”air (his take on climate change)? Jeez.
And yet the race between him and Warnock was so close that there's going to be a runoff. It used to be that people would've laughed their heads off at the idea of an idiot like Walker running for political office.
What a joke. I'm embarrassed for him. He doesn't even realize he's being used. Or maybe he just doesn't care.
And in 2016 Trump should not have won the presidency. That voters chose him to lead the most rich and powerful country on the planet has ramifications we are not exploring enough, perhaps because it's too terrifying. Too many people have treated Trump like a normal politician, this is true - but what put him in the WH? What social and political moment turned Americans away from conventional politics and towards a fascist mindset where walls on the southern border, some states abolishing most gun laws, the proliferation of mass shootings and the legitimization of hate have all become mainstream? Read or listen to Trump's announcement speech for 2024, and his inauguration speech in 2017. He talks about carnage and American cities' streets flowing with blood. How did we get here, and why?
If I recall correctly, didn’t he update the MAGA meaning in his announcement to “Make America Great And Glorious Again”…..hmmmmm, so now it’s MAGAGA? [with sincere and profound apologies to Lady Gaga!]
We are on the brink, the threat is real, old, rich, and ruthless.
Jeri, I would note even the more fatalistic prognosticators are not portraying us as “on the brink.” In fact, since the 22 midterms, they have reset the clock from 2 minutes to 10 minutes to midnight. Paraphrasing another Substack host, we have good reason to be hopeful, but not complacent.
"we have good reason to be hopeful, but not complacent." Yes.
Dear Jeri,
Please🙏 let me have a few months of R and R. I need time to be able to take a deep breath, and do some fun things, read a few novels, watch a few games, Etc! Then I hope I will be ready to re-engage in protecting American and by extension World Democracy!
I think we have to do these things concurrently, taking a deep breath and keeping an eye on our democracy and doing what we can to assure the GOP doesn't make gains in the next election. I just finished writing letters for the Georgia runoff, urging people to vote. The last batch of letters went in the mail this morning.
Putting mine in the mail today.
Thanks so much, Joanna, for writing the letters!
Thank you Sandra. We all do what we can do. I would have written many more had I not been overseas and had access to a printer.
Yay!
Louise, I hope my reply to Jeri affords some reassurance.
And white.
My wife and I were reflecting yesterday that other than the re-election of an incumbent, the only time in the modern age a U.S. President has been replaced by election by another member of his own party has been when Reagan was succeeded by H.W. Bush. This would imply that unless Pres. Biden, despite his advanced years, gets re-elected, we will probably have a Republican President in 2024. I do hope that some wise, popular Democrats can arise to beat that trend.
Interesting. Thanks for this.
Speaking of reflecting, I am becoming less of a trend fan and more of a surprise around every corner guy. The retention of the Senate and the mini majority of the House are examples. Barack Obama was a surprise. And now under the most repressive regime in modern history, the Chinese people are rising up. How high and how far they will go is anybody's guess. But a surprise none the less. Are the Russians next?
Could Biden surprise us by deciding to "retire"? Will he put the country over his ego? I have no idea. For the record, once again, I am a HUGE fan of Joe Biden and what he has done. It's just time for a young face.
I hold out hope that in 2024 we can roar with youthful power and fully dispatch the haters and deniers.
I do find that I can best predict the future in hindsight, that's for sure. I also am a fan of Pres. Biden -- I just feel sorry for him. How did our leadership pool become so shallow that we have to hound our elder statesmen all the way to the grave?
Agreed. I also feel that way about the Supremes. Let's stop giving them life sentences.
As to the pool of Presidential possibilities...it is huge. Two terrific Presidents came out of nowhere to be excellent leaders - Obama and Garfield.
My long list would start with a woman...
Do you think it is his ego?
You can't become "the leader of the free world" without a substantial ego. But there are different versions of ego. One is exemplified by totalitarian monsters like Putin or Trump. The other is more altruistic. I think President Biden would run again primarily because he is uncertain that another candidate could beat Trump. In other words, he is worried about the nation - which is why he ran the first time. I love him on that basis.
The question for Democrats is IMO, what candidate would garner the most enthusiasm and votes. I worry most about Gen Y and Z. If you were in your 20's would you want to vote for a guy in his 80's? And...there is a lot of generational resentment towards boomers. And they have a lot of justified complaints.
Thank you, Zella.
It is Joe Biden's decision, for sure. I am in his corner, either way. I am just impatient to get a woman in the White House.
Dirk, I believe Zella, who is part of this thread, is spot-on particularly regarding GenZs, who voted 63% Democratic and Millennials, 51%. Regrettably, GenXs and Boomers were low 40s. While these percentages offer a partial blueprint for 24, for example raising the percentage (now about 27%) of GenZs who vote (about a million more will be eligible in 24), until we have a candidate, our best shot is involving increasingly more people in the political process, starting with helping us to hold Warnock’s seat and to cure ballots. I’ve also been introducing mostly young people to Jessica Craven’s inspiring opportunities-for-action newsletter “Chop Wood, Carry Water.”
I imagine we’ll all have far more to say after the new Congress is seated on Jan. 3rd.
We need a JFK - in that, we need someone who can say “I can lead WITH YOUR HELP. YOU need to ask what YOU can do to help keep democracy. ONLY TOGETHER can we do this!” I feel this style is also Zelensky Democracy.
YES!...to MLRGRMI
Together we must work, vote, serve as we are able to keep
democracy alive. The enemy is cruel and brutal...I bet Zelensky would like a break too but evil does not give us a break. We can not rest.
The collapse of the East German government, breach of the Wall and subsequent unification of Germany was remarkable for its relative bloodlessness. in short order, the entire Soviet Union collapsed, leaving individual countries to chart their own courses forward. Most grassroots rebellions, regardless of what triggers them, come at very considerable cost to the protestors, as autocratic governments swing into action to suppress them by ever increasingly draconian steps, usually involving arrests, incarcerations, and killings. Recent events in Iran, Russia, China all include brutal government action against protest arising from events intolerable to the public. And, history has shown that protest CAN lead to regime change, if the movement is sustained, supported by the broad majority of the population and adequately resilient to absorb the punishment by the regime and it's military, paramilitary, police force and any other arm of government capable of going to battle against the civilian population. The price of regime change is often loss of life on a large scale in the course of turning public opinion to the point that the regime is simply ignored and loses the capacity to control the public with violent repression. It seems that only a small fraction of uprisings reach critical mass and result in regime change.
My Iranian friend, in tears, is telling me about the messages her cousins in Iran send her about the brutality and torture that is happening there right now, as well. The young people are being deliberately shot in the eyes with rubber bullets to blind them and taken to prison to be systematically raped and tortured. But the courageous young people continue to protest. The courageous Ukrainians continue to fight the depraved Russian army. ....While half of America is devoted to Trump....
Man's inhumanity to man, worldwide.
Paleface Man’s inhumanity to women... and people of color...
No, not 50% - just 30%!
Outbreaks of democracy in Iran, now China, and even, judging from its last election, in the good old US of A! There’s popular anti-war rumblings in Putin’s Russia added to his floundering, failed invasion of Ukraine. And Ukraine! An entire nation of democracy-loving heroes!
The forces promoting fascism and autocracy are being met by spontaneous movements toward open democracy that are going to be difficult, maybe impossible, to contain.
2023 is shaping up to be a very interesting time in human history.
Yes, so, we will have to keep a close eye on the wealthy (foreign funds included) and where and how they send their money to subvert the middle and lower economic classes back toward fascist, kleptocratic, authoritarianism (take your pick of those names) any of which Trump, and it may not be him but he has built a movement, and the GOP are moving America.
Very interesting developments, perhaps a sign that even government officials are weary of lockdown.
Particularly as it's not working. Is this population-control?
Lockdown in China IS working. Their current outbreak of Covid is 40,000 cases per day. Given their population, that’s minuscule compared to western countries. I’m not saying that their lockdown is great, or well managed, but it is effective. If we think supply chain issues are bad now, just imagine where we would be if millions of Chinese people caught Covid now. Where do we think most of our medicine comes from?
There should be a middle path between China’s draconian lockdowns and our let ‘er rip attitude. We have had almost two years to improve ventilation in public buildings, but we haven’t done it. The CDC is still talking about washing hands to combat an airborne virus that moves like smoke in the air, and not a word about masking effectively. We have failed too, and the suffering we will see over the next decade is frightening to contemplate.
I’m immunocompromised, and that’s because of treatment for, if you will, “Long HPV.” We can have no idea (yet) what the long term effects of Covid will be, but having experienced the long term effects of another virus, I’m appalled at our national policies. Even in the shorter term, the avalanche of sudden deaths from heart attack and stroke in people in their 30s and 40s isn’t being linked to previous Covid infections - but it is. The high rate of pediatric hospitalization for respiratory illness like RSV isn’t being linked to previous Covid infection - but it is. I could go on and on and on. The Biden administration, which I mostly admire greatly, has failed us in their Covid response. So has the media. And we will be paying the price for decades.
I have had 5 COVID shots and I continue to mask when out in public. I live in the Chgo area. I see very very few people masking, and while I don't have the statistics right at hand, the rate of people getting their boosters is incredibly low. Don't blame Biden, blame us all.
Me too, Miselle. I actually lay the blame for our failure squarely at Trump’s feet. It was he who made masking a political issue. But the Biden administration hasn’t done a damn thing to try to change that narrative, and when the CDC director tweets about washing hands to prevent Covid, doesn’t mention masking at all, and then tests positive herself two days later and disappears for 16 days - all while the CDC still doesn’t even recommend masking or testing to exit isolation and does allow exit from isolation after five days when the majority of Covid patients are still testing positive - I call that a failure.
You make excellent points. The culture in China allowed the government to totally "lockdown". Try it here and we would see a lot of armed rebellion - we do have a lot of "arms".
Speaking of arms, JMO, but it is stunning to me that the Chinese did not employ effective vaccines in combination with their other policies. Had they done so, the pandemic in China would be at an even smaller level and the lockdown could have applied to the unvaccinated. Kinda dumb when you consider that the vaccine technology is almost open sourced now.
True, Bill. I suspect that they thought there would be an effective pan-coronavirus nasal vaccine by now, which would have allowed them to avoid all of the acute and long Covid problems. They absolutely should have an MRNA vaccine by now, even if they have to import a western one. But the problem is that vaccination works well to prevent hospitalization and death in the acute phase of Covid, but it doesn’t do that well in preventing infection as Covid continues to mutate. Even mild cases of Covid can cause deadly and dangerous sequelae. It’s an airborne vascular disease, even if we all think of it as a respiratory virus. And our entire bodies are composed of blood vessels, down to the capillaries. Covid causes micro clots - but most of us don’t know that.
Why is this not made public?
It’s all over Twitter, but not anywhere else that I’ve seen. I follow a couple of trustworthy epidemiologists and they’re screaming into the void about it. The CDC has failed us.
Interesting the choices governments make when faced with a crisis, pandemic. Always the calculation "What opportunity is presented here to advance our ideology?" In the case of China, I wonder if control (to improve its authoritarian control) when Covid came along might have been determined to be the better political choice over a humanitarian one, to create better vaccines and treatments than other nations.
I read recently that 80% of the Chinese population supports their zero Covid policy; what they want is better financial support during the crisis. My nephew lives in China, and he says the same. Interestingly, his life, and his child’s life, has been far more “normal” than ours over the last three years. They do have periodic rolling lockdowns, but in his case, it’s managed well. Of course, he works for a western company with western wages, which makes him well-off in China.
Thanks for that post. Here in Melbourne, where I'm now living, there were three strict lockdowns. It was very hard to take. Small businesses which had just reopened after nearly a year suddenly had to close again and went to the wall. The (leftist) Premier of Victoria (like a governor in the US) was criticised by the whole of Australia, but held fast, and he governed. He was re-elected last weekend by a sweeping majority. We've all been vaccinated, three, or four shots. The boarded up shops are starting to reopen. We wear masks on public transport and in the supermarket, it's no longer mandatory but most people do it, and we are kept informed of the current count of cases. We've all got testing kits at home, and if you get sick, you self-isolate for a week.
Anne-Louise, you’re miles ahead of us. I wear an N-95 mask in public, but I’m usually the only one masking. Today I went to the grocery store, and there was a scary chorus of coughing all around me - all unmasked. Schools here are a big vector of infection. No mitigation at all, anywhere. Australia has done a much better job than the US, you should be proud.
A big problem for the Communists is that their Covid vaccine doesn't work very well, a difficult problem in a society with a large number of elderly who aren't in wonderful physical shape to begin with. A massive die-off wouldn't look too good, particularly in a society in which the old are venerated.
Bad news for the ChiComs = good news for the rest of us.
But China is not (and never was) a communist state. Even under Mao, it was a totalitarian regime, as was Stalin's Russia (try Pol Pot etc). But these regimes have always been sold to the US as "Communist" - one under every bed. Maybe the world needs real communism - "from each according to their abilities, and to each according to their needs". Not Bloody likely! (sadly).
I was taught in history that politics is a circle not a horizontal line. At the 12 o'clock mark is the meeting of the far left and far right, which always results in a police dictatorship or tolatarianism. At 9 and 3 o'clock are the left and right, and at 6 o'clock is a moderate democracy. I suspect that a pure Communist State that you would like to see, is not possible, because humankind isn't capable of it. There are too many flawed people like narcissists and psycopaths to be able to make it work!
Louise, I like the clock metaphor which includes both the "Right" and the "Left" with dictatorships from either side at the top. What troubles me about the metaphor is the implication that it runs clockwise. It seems we in the USA are stuck with more of a pendulum swinging from one side of 6 to the other side, always trying to balance (or restrain?) the creativity, energy & productivity of capitalism (and its pervasive influence via "dark money") on the one side with the needs and protection of the rest of society by a tempered democratic socialism (think Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, etc) on the other. Most recently it seems we nearly swung the pendulum off its democratic suspension point to the right.
Our situation requires a newer creed for successful corporations which includes the welfare and fair wages for the workers who ultimately create the capital along with the bottom line - they still have to make SOME profit. It would seem that would be the role or function of a government of, by and for the people, both the common worker AS WELL as the capitalist. Call me naive, but those Northern European democracies (Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, even Germany seem to come closer to this ideal balance point than our dear, younger USA. We seem to be more successful in many measures but at what cost? My observation (hope?) is that is the direction the Biden administration is trying to take, to swing the pendulum more toward the left.
I'm not against profit for companies/corporations. I am against obscene profit that erode the middle class by moving manufacturing overseas and keeping wages low in the US.
AMEN says I !
Ah - the important distinction. Communist vs communist. I'd like to see your 6 o'clock option, with a substantial amount of the "communist" (or socialist) mindset built in. Absolutely NOT the Communist one! So do please work out which one you are referring to!
communist is what I am referring to. My tablet accidentally capitalized the first time. Yes as to what you would like to see, I would too. Everyone seems a lot better off between 6 and 9 or 10. Sharing resources and talents. Poverty is so traumatizing to a person's development and psyche! On the other hand, Isn't what business organizations refer to as synergy what we get when we have that left of center government? As Biden says, " When the Middle Class boats are lifted, Everybody's boats are lifted! "
I remember that diagram too. It's not based in how things really are but was simply a stereotypic distraction meant to make us picture the US as the rational option. Baloney then and more so now. In reality, much of the US is just above what we used to call "third world" (another form of stereotyping), while we pretend otherwise. Many nations and societies operate under forms of socialism that incorporate aspects of what we think of as akin to communism. Of course, no nation has achieved the abstract form of communism, but many have been able to front the needs of their people without coming apart at the seams. Perhaps the problem we have with narcissists and psychopaths is because we live in a kind of capitalist system that fronts people like that without the necessary controls. We even know what is needed, but cling to a fantasy about what economics is and what the role of politics is in maintaining guardrails on those who exploit our fantasies.
I am old enough to remember the days of so called big government. Income inequality was nowhere near what it is today. And yes, most people in this country do live in a much worse economic condition than what it used to be. Yes we have been pushed to the right by our American oligarchs like like the Murdochs and Uileins, Koch Brothers etc, that we have lost our synergy! We are now swung so far to the right, that we most be careful not to over react and swing violently to far to the left too fast! Along with the diagram of the clock, my teacher said ,"The genius of America has always been keeping the pendulum from swinging too violently too fast from the center. Thus no violent revolutions. " circa 1968.
Revolution is always destructive to a country, setting it back. We need to keep moving that hand to the left in incremental steps, to make up for the greedy American Oligarchs using racism as a weapon, from grabbing all the wealth with unfettered capitalism!
TC, we saw a comparable refusal by the 2020 US administration officials to use the WHO Covid testing, opting to us only US-developed testing. It seems that any time that nationalism trumps pure science, people suffer. Where the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines are more than 90% effective against hospitalization, the Shinovac vaccine is only 68% effective against hospitalization and only 69% effective against disease severe enough to require intensive care.
Xi’s harsh authoritarianism has major downsides in a country with diverse provinces, major industrial centers, and a population less and less willing to subsist in poverty.
Xi’s single-minded approach to Covid is his latest Achilles’ heel. He has shut down cities with multimillion populations for weeks in an effort to ‘wipe out Covid.’ This has caused massive personal inconvenience and economic disruption. Also, it means that Chinese haven’t developed Covid antibodies and, thus, are more susceptible to current Covid outbreaks.
China has produced several pandemic vaccines that are less effective than Pfizer and other Western vaccines. Though these could be purchased, Xi’s nationalism refuses to acknowledge that Chinese vaccines are second rate.
Now there are unprecedented protests in Xi’s police state. Also, the just-in-time supply of products to Apple and others is disrupted and an increasing number of companies are looking for more stable suppliers elsewhere in Asia.
I have stated earlier that the nature of Xi’s authoritarianism is likely to diminish the rate and scope of China’s economic development over the long run [‘China 4 feet rather than 8 feet tall’]. You are already seeing this happen.
Your “quick notes” are always way more important than that description and are much appreciated!
I was part of an American Environmental group that visited Southern China in 2013. Almost a decade ago when development was opening and tourism as well as educational exchanges and global economic expansion were taking place. We started in Shanghai and traveled deep into rural areas, as well as towns. Yunaan Province. High into the mountains, rice paddies and rural communities. Both American and Chinese groups had jointly developed a rural environmental alliance. The paperwork bogged down in the system. We funded it and started paperwork and sponsorship and both Chinese and American environmentalists were committed. The contrast of economic and social development was stark in some areas, but we did have an experienced Chinese guide. We believed we could work together. It was a hopeful time. And then a disappointing time.
Compare & contrast Xi Jinping's Covid 19 policies with the successes & failures of South Korea. Yesterday, I had just read an article by Michelle Cortez & Herein Kim from Bloomberg News Daily "This Nation [South Korea] Was Ready for Covid-Now It's Eyeing The Next Threat" https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-11-24/this-nation-was-ready-for-covid-now-it-s-eyeing-the-next-threat
Xi not only admires Mao but in intent on achieving the same level of control. I have viewed his strict Covid policies as partially his form of a "cultural revolution" allowing him to take stricter control of the country and finding those that he can rely on to implement his power consolidation.
What we may be seeing is the reaction of young people realizing that there ability to have free discussion cut off and sensing dictatorial suppression. I am afraid that the reaction of Xi's government
is going to be bloody and violent.