TUESDAY 15 MARCY 2022
It’s another day in which Americans sit in front of their televisions and watch Ukraine destroyed. As much as I know, as cynical as I am, I felt somewhere deep inside me that America would stand up and defend people in this situation. I suppose it’s because I am part of (the last of) that WWII generation that grew up with the knowledge that our fathers and mothers participated in a grand epic struggle against authoritarianism and fascism. That struggle is in our DNA, in our consciousness, in our souls.
I suppose we believed that all the rot we have seen take hold in the past fifty years was superficial, that underneath it all, we were a decent people. We are not. We must face what we have become – a population that has no grasp of logical thinking, evidence, decency, community. We have become everything the Soviet Union taught its citizens we were – greedy, mercenary, superficial, selfish. This refusal help Ukraine with meaningful sanctions before the invasion because it would upset big money interests, and a unilateral taking off the table of putting forces into Ukraine after the invasion is the final demonstration of the rot that has taken over the population.
We are dealing with Putin just like we are dealing with Trump, his cronies and the Republican party – we make concessions, try to appease, try to make friends, ignore the devastating damage they have caused, allow them to escape free of any accountability. We must face it, we are afraid to hold power accountable. That is who we have become. Afraid.