agriculture

Here’s Why


Take a look at this downloadable PDF map of NATO countries – they’re the ones in BLUE – and follow along.

Putin has made it clear that the greatest tragedy of the 20th century was not WW I, WW II or the 1918 influenza pandemic, each of which killed millions of people. No, he’s certain that the fall of the Soviet Union was the very worst thing that happened over those 100 years. He has dedicated his grandiosity to reconstructing that paragon of repression and cruelty or perhaps creating something even more dreadful. I’m sure that in his dreams he hears the sound of Soviet tanks crushing the pavement of the streets of downtown Budapest and has visions of Khrushchev pounding his peasant shoe on a lectern at the United Nations, where Putin hopes to pound his Gucci loafers.

He claimed there are lots of Russian speakers in Ukraine, which means, he says, that Ukraine isn’t a real country, but rather, it’s part of Russia. Using that logic, San Francisco should be ceded to the Chinese, Montreal should become the property of France and Texas, New Mexico and Arizona should surrender to Mexico.

In 2014 Putin grabbed the entire Crimean peninsula and large swaths of the Donbas, the southeastern part of Ukraine. That’s where you can find the rubble that was the city of Mariupol. That’s where you can still find Mariupol’s besieged steel plant, with its hundreds, perhaps thousands of wounded fighters and noncombatants who can’t get food or medical supplies, who can’t get out and who the Russians bomb every day.

When the brutalizing of Ukraine started I said that the Moldovans must be shaking in their shoes because surely they would be next. Sadly, Putin is proving me to have been right. He has announced that he will sweep up the entire east and south of Ukraine all the way to Moldova, where he’s already dropped bombs. Moldova has no army, although they do have a few traffic cops, so stopping Putin’s thugs will be more than difficult for them.

Go back to that NATO map and look at the countries in GREEN that border Russia. These are nations that are not NATO member countries. Looking north from Ukraine and you’ll find:

Belarus

Finland

Sweden

Counter-clockwise from Ukraine there are:

Georgia

Armenia

Azerbaijan

Kazakhstan

The southern “-stans” of Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan,Tajikistan, Kyrgyzstan

Left off this list are Mongolia, China and Afghanistan. Surely, not even Putin is dumb enough to invade China or Mongolia. Or Afghanistan – again.

Finland and Sweden are likely to become NATO members by June. But the rest of the GREEN countries would be easy pickings for Putin. Belarus is already a vassal state and he can gobble up the rest without fear of a direct confrontation with NATO.

If you were the leader of any of these GREEN countries, what might you be thinking about NATO membership right now? Maybe that you’ve waited a bit too long to request membership?

Putin thinks that Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania are legitimate parts of Russia, just like his claim about Ukraine, but they are NATO member countries. I suspect that it’s in these Baltic states where the inevitable Russian confrontation with NATO will occur. Putin and the world will quickly learn whether Article 5 of the NATO Charter means anything. Meanwhile, here’s the reason for this geography lesson.

Some are asking why.
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The U.S. is in the process of authorizing another $33 billion of aid to Ukraine and some are asking why we would spend our treasure this way. After all, they say, this is Ukraine’s war, not ours. That’s where I and many others disagree.

Set aside the humanitarian imperative to help people who are suffering or the important need to right a wrong. It’s more solidly connected to self-interest than that.

Putin’s actions threaten the entire world. He’s upsetting the carefully crafted and tended political peace and economic order that have lasted since 1945. That threatens America.

The Ukrainians are fighting for their country, their democracy, their freedom and their independence. Those are the same reasons every one of those GREEN countries will resist. But they can be picked off one at a time by Putin’s inept but numerically overwhelming forces and his threats of chemical and nuclear war. So, the world either stops Putin in Ukraine or we will have to fight him in the next country and then the next and the next. There will be no appeasement of this monster. Reference: Neville Chamberlain’s Munich appeasement of Hitler in 1938. That didn’t work out too well for the Brits or for the world and attempting to appease Putin would be a similar disaster.

The Ukrainians’ struggle is an existential fight for all democracy and freedom in the world and if Putin isn’t stopped there this will eventually become our own fight. We can either help to stop Putin in Ukraine or we’ll have to stop him later as he directly threatens our own shores.

That’s why.
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And that begs the question of why Representatives Biggs (AZ), Taylor Greene (GA), Bishop (NC), Gaetz (FL), Gosar (AZ), Norman (SC), Massie (KY), Perry (PA), Tiffany (WI) and Davidson (OH), all Republicans, voted against the Ukraine Democracy Defense Lend-Lease Act of 2022. They and others also voted against the resolution of support for Moldova. Just guessing that they’ll vote against the additional $33 billion of aid for Ukraine requested by President Biden. And they’ll do so with the enthusiastic support of the supreme, authoritarian loving, Putin and Viktor Orbán suck up, Tucker Carlson.

Here’s the key question:

If all those Ukrainians are doing the fighting and dying so we don’t have to, why would these elected officials oppose supporting them?
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President Biden’s Call To Action, by speech writer JA
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“We’re calling on all Americans to pony up all the necessary military and humanitarian support for the Ukrainian people, who are fighting for all freedom loving people. That’s good, and it isn’t enough.

“Because of Putin’s war, there will be precious little agricultural output from Ukraine this year. That country was formerly the supplier of 10% of the world’s wheat, and that’s just a placeholder for all the disruption of food supplies the world will see this year. That’s why I’m calling on all of US agriculture to maximize production. No fields lying fallow. Find ways to produce more. This is your patriotic duty.

“European nations are already moving to get off the Russian gas and oil umbilical cord and move to renewables. We need to make similar changes here to maximize pressure on Putin.

“I’m calling on our fossil fuel companies to stop drilling and start building a carbon-free power infrastructure. I’m calling on Prime Minister Modi of India to do the same.

“And I’m calling on all Americans to support the switch to electric transportation, with all the infrastructure implications that means. This is war and we must lead the way for the world to end its dependence on fossil fuels.”

Hey, It’s Just a Draft

Yeah, but if its provisions become law, as it appears likely they will, we’ll take a giant leap back to women dying from complications of back alley abortions, women dying in childbirth, women delivering their rapist’s child – or their father’s incest child – ruined lives and more. It takes us back to brain-free, iron fisted patriarchy. It opens the door to making birth control measures – even within a marriage – illegal. Having a miscarriage could result in murder charges. And this draft opinion opens to door to reversing marriage rights and more. The Republicans in Congress and the Supreme Court stand steadfastly in their Dark Ages ignorance and will use their legal spears to kill everything they fear.

All of this is the proud result of the extremist, control freak Republican minority and of Supreme Court justices lying, dissembling and snow jobbing through their confirmation processes, falsely claiming that they believe that Roe v. Wade is settled law. Plus, there’s Mitch McConnell’s cheating, refusing to even hold a hearing for Obama’s SC nominee following the death of Antonin Scalia. The depth of their dishonesty is breathtaking.

So, congratulations to the many people who have worked so hard for so long to force their misogynistic way to control others. They think they should be in charge of making decisions for we lesser people, much like the result of the Dred Scott decision that said that Blacks had no rights and which put all power into the hands of White supremacists. Those 1850s guys really liked being in control of others, just like today’s Republicans.

But, hey, it’s just a draft. Who knows? Maybe between now and June one or two of the justices who now favor witch burning will relent. But don’t count on it. Instead, get to work making sure that all the people who otherwise would stay at home on November 8 learn what is being done to them. Inspire them to get off their butts and vote for Democrats, unless, of course, they want some primitive, rich old White guys controlling their lives.

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  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. There are lots of smart, well-informed people. Sometimes we agree; sometimes we don’t. Search for others’ views and decide for yourself.
  3. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling and punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
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JA


Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

A View From The Other Side


Reading time – 5:01; Viewing time – 6:41 .  .  .

Kevin Dowd

Maureen Dowd is a liberal opinion writer for the New York Times. Her brother Kevin is a Trump supporter. She gives him her column space every Thanksgiving and I urge you to read his current piece. I have tried to explain Trump voters several times, but Dowd does a better job by declaring his views, so let’s let him provide the clarity.

As you read his essay, think about whether his views and attitudes seem familiar, perhaps similar to what you’re seeing in Congress as they wrestle with impeachment.* And consider where leadership for this comes from. My notion is that it’s all of a piece.

Here are a dozen of Dowd’s claims (in plain text) and my comments (in italics). I’ve done my best to stick to naming Trumpian reality, rather than demonizing it. If I’ve failed, it’s on me.

  1. Dowd says that Trump is better than the alternative (Hillary). That is (or at least was) a reasonable view for nearly half of all voting Americans.
  2. He claims that liberals sneer at religious conservatives. That’s a profound and completely unsubstantiated, victim-y claim.
  3. He gives all credit for the improved economy to Trump, even though it was set up by 8 years of continuous economic expansion under Obama.
  4. In a “support the police” context, he says that Michael Bloomberg should stop apologizing for his stop-and-frisk policy when he was Mayor of New York. In doing so, Dowd unmasks his attitude of white privilege, which doesn’t sound too good to those who live with black privilege.
  5. He thinks Trump has done a great job with North Korea and Iran, this offered in a sweeping, unsupported claim. Note that Trump has done so well with those countries that Iran is now preparing to enrich uranium again and North Korea is set to test fire its first intercontinental ballistic missile that could reach the U.S. mainland.
  6. He likes Trump’s court picks, especially for the Supreme Court. Fair enough. Except for the long list of district court judges who were determined to be profoundly unqualified by the American Bar Association and who now have an appointment to the bench for life.
  7. He defends Trump by claiming no harm, no foul because the military aid for Ukraine was released without a Ukrainian investigation of the Bidens or a search for the fantasy Ukrainian/Crowdstrike 2016 server. This defense ignores the salient facts, such as that the release of aid only happened after Trump was caught and publicly outed. And it ignores the facts that the months long withholding of aid was illegal and using it to pressure Ukraine to smear the Bidens was illegal and soliciting foreign interference in our upcoming election was illegal.
  8. He baselessly attacks Adam Schiff solely with snark. He attacks yet others solely with snark – no facts. Then he attacks all of the Democratic presidential candidates with – you guessed it – snark. It’s playground bully name calling used as a political tool to smear opponents. I think I know where he learned that.
  9. Dowd claims the House Intelligence Committee impeachment hearings were full of second- and third-hand information. He ignores the mountain of firsthand testimony and the stonewalling by Trump to prevent still more firsthand testimony.
  10. He hopes the I.G. report is devastating to Comey, McCabe, Brennan and Clapper; i.e., he wants Trump opponents to face legal prosecution. That reminds me of an acquaintance who, shortly after Obama was elected said, “I hope he fails.” That’s deeply disturbing and can reasonably be called unpatriotic. How come Kevin Dowd and other Trump supporters wish for such things?
  11. He’s clearly anti-abortion. Okay, that’s where he’s at.
  12. He attacks the press, although his claims are almost entirely fact-free. Because of the enormous reach and impact of demeaning the press, I can think of few things as unpatriotic.
Short Summary:

Some of Dowd’s views are legitimate, since we’re all entitled to our opinions on such issues as abortion, judicial appointments and political preferences. Some of this is just plain meanness, treating those who disagree as though they’re sub-human. Some of this is corrosive to democracy itself.

Specifically, there are sweeping assertions that are absent of fact. There is attacking of our basic institutions. Victim-hood is interlaced with almost everything and there are unwarranted assaults, both verbal and legal, on political opponents.

Life must be simpler in that stridently black-and-white, exclusionary world. The only problem is that a lot of people get hurt in it and so does our country.

Here’s what is most important about this right now: some members of Congress, Trump supporters and some independents will be judging the impeachment proceedings through this alternate reality, victim attitude lens.* That doesn’t bode well for America.

Finally, a Snark Thing Of my Own  .  .  .

Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Hunger

Once more the Trump administration has cut food stamps from nearly a million people. Apparently, we’ve become lax and allowed a lot of lazy freeloaders and welfare queens to stick a hand in our wallets. Well, that stops right now.

This bold new program should teach those seasonal workers, impoverished rural people and their lazy children a lesson. And the really good news is that this will eventually stick it to two million more of those losers. The really fun part is that we’re effectively using the billions these cuts will save to increase welfare payments to corporate farms.

Three cheers for Sonny Perdue, Secretary of Agriculture, one cheer for each million people he makes go hungry!

* President Trump has been offered the opportunity to take part in the House Judiciary Committee hearings. Counsel to the President Pat Cipollone sent a rant of a letter in response that apparently means that the offer is rejected. What’s important to see is his string of fact-less claims and accusations. It is typical of Trump and Trump supporters. Download it here and see for yourself.

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NOTES:

  1. Writings quoted or linked from my posts reflect a point I want to make, at least in part. That does not mean that I endorse or agree with everything in such writings, so don’t bug me about it.
  2. Errors in fact, grammar, spelling or punctuation are all embarrassingly mine. Glad to have your corrections.
  3. Responsibility for the content of these posts is unequivocally, totally, unavoidably mine.

Copyright 2024 by Jack Altschuler
Reproduction and sharing are encouraged, providing proper attribution is given.

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