Debra Sweet | October 20, 2022
I am deeply saddened by the new and ongoing challenges to humanity; I had hoped not to be passing on to my children/grandchildren such a desperate state of affairs. Here is my quick, not very well thought out response to your question. You may well be right that the U.S. should be a pariah. Despite having been disillusioned many times by the U.S.’s ill-informed and cynical, even criminal, approach to world problems, I still cling to hope. (That, despite its many original sins, beginning with annihilation of its first inhabitants, alas.) …
Perhaps I delude myself entirely in the thought that the U.S. at least has the idea of free elections (an amazingly naïve observation, given the incredible state of current affairs: it almost beggars belief to watch the paralysis of democracy in this country, its ongoing inequality and racism, etc. Who in the world, watching the US, would believe democracy actually works, though, as my wife says, ‘It hasn’t been tried and found wanting; it hasn’t been tried’).
Our military might and willingness to use it over and again in deluded ways, among the latest its use of drones to remotely destroy enemies without due process and with huge collateral and unacknowledged damage, is obscene. So much better to see it used in humanitarian efforts.
I too have hope, although it doesn’t come from faith that the governments involved will somehow wake up and do the right thing. The basis for hope is in people of the world waking up and taking unified action to protest, to not accept this aggression on the part of both Russia and the US.
But we have to shed ourselves of the idea of choosing “sides” between Russia and the U.S. Both are aggressors in this war; both are imperialist powers violently pursuing their own interests. Both are escalating, trying to drag more countries to their “side,” making more open and ominous nuclear threats to humanity.
Last week, Putin’s military began targeting energy installations, and hit residential targets with bombs designed to make Ukraine unlivable this winter. Biden replied by promising more offensive missiles to Ukraine in a move meant to be understood as an escalation of the war. The U.S. sees the plight of the people in Ukraine as useful in limiting Russia’s global influence.
- The War in Ukraine This Week—Dangerous Escalations on the Ground, in the Air, with Words – Revcom.us
- 60 Years After Cuban Missile Crisis, Activists Demand World Leaders “Defuse Nuclear War” – Norman Solomon on DemocracyNow.org
>> I invite you to watch The RNL – Revolution, Nothing Less! – Show on YouTube
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How to understand the stakes of the war in Ukraine, Biden & the Democrats’ provocations against China, and what are the interests of humanity in relation to all this…