Here's the deal. Every family has its moments. This one talks about that one and that one won't talk to the other. Seating at family affairs becomes difficult even as the cause of these feuds is forgotten. No reason, but feuds persist. Like it or not, believe it or not, the war in Ukraine is just that: A feud amongst the families of the region. Russians and Ukrainians are members of the same family, relatives on both sides of the feud. Many Russians are equally as opposed to this blatant invasion as are the Ukrainians, the members of their family who are living on the other side of a border line.
"Shame for the insane tyrant." Thus sayeth many liberal Russians who never quite believed that Putin would defy the world, edge us ever closer to full nuclear disaster, as he boasted of his nuclear capacity and the willingness to use it. Those of us who drilled for nuclear war in the fifties and sixties know of the uselessness of those drills, and the futility of supposed sheltering facilities. Even if one were deep, deep underground, what is the point? In fact, the point is that there would be little, if anything left, after a MAD - mutual assured destruction - event. The Day After has been universally portrayed as a catastrophic turn of events and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki pale in comparison.
It used to be that we depended on the sanity of the leaders of the world to recognize where to get off that runaway train of destruction. Why not, for there are no winners in such a war. In fact, there are no winners in any war, as the death toll, the damage done to people, to infrastructure is too often beyond the worst calculations.
Today, the world seems to reverberate with threats and posturing of these deranged people, these oh so not leaders. Deranged, self-important, unthinking, these insane narcissists plunge ahead determined to carry out and on regardless of consequences. Our hope resides within the hearts and minds, the strength of ordinary Russians to do something, after 20 years of being ruled by an insane person.
““This is a fratricidal, predatory war, unleashed by an insane tyrant. We are sorry, Ukraine!” We are in grief. Our country started a war with Ukraine upon Putin’s order. And there is nobody to stop it. That is why we experience shame along with grief … Would the next step be a nuclear attack?”
Buttressed by the blatant insanity and weakness of the American former president, Donald Trump, we too have our own shame to contend with. Such is to where we have been led, by our willing noses, by unseeing eyes, wracked by fear and overloaded with dread of the future.
This dangerous situation is our fault. Together. All of us. We refused to see the forest for the trees nor the trees for the forest. We ignored dead end politics. We refused to recognize the dangerous insanity of these crazed leaders, making allowances for their destructive policies. We blocked the reality of these threats, of their determination to carry on and well, here we are. Now where do we go.
The hyperbole is rising. The danger increasing even as war fever, desperation, build. People are dying. Plain and simple. Frankly, I see no pathway out unless Putin is taken down. Once and forever. And finally, may the Russians discard their long- time history of needing a dictator at the helm. Enough already. The dangers are too grave and too realistic, almost unavoidable - unless we wake up and not smell the coffee, but down huge quantities of it.
When the Russians wake up and realize that they have declared war on their own family, when they realize that the power to end this is within their own hands, well, maybe, just maybe, we can hope. In fact, we all must accept that humankind is all related, the same beneath the coloration of skin, or religion, or place of origin. Our dreams are the same. Our love for our children is the same. Why cannot we see that, penetrate the bluster and the fog obscuring it all, much to the delight of warmongers and haters.
I pray, I hope, I plead with all, that we remain on this side of the border of sanity, that we understand deep within ourselves that we all lose in this situation, no matter who started it, where it began. What the excuse of the time was. Family. Family. Like it or not. One shared home - a fragile Earth.
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