Well. That was a helluva wakeup this morning. Turn on the TV and there is Jonathan Capehart telling people they might not want to watch the video he’s about to show. And he was right. Which is why I’m not going to link any of that here. But feel free to google them - it’s not hard. But don’t do so while your stomach is full.
There’s going to be a point when we will have to get more involved for the sake of humanity, not just the Ukrainian’s but our own. Our president didn’t make a gaffe when he said that Putin needed to be removed from power, he was speaking as a human being for all of us, I know he was speaking for me. What we are witnessing is an unspeakable evil being visited upon a people, at some point we will be bound by our common humanity to put an end to this nightmare, that will not come without a cost, and it may well be steep, but none of us are going to be able to avoid passing so we might as well put our weight on the scale, better to have our heirs speak in wonder at our courage than curse our cowardice in the face of pure evil. We have had an inkling that what we woke up too today has been happening since the beginning, I don’t think we can turn our back on it much longer, not and be able to look into a mirror.
I think the veneer of civilization just might be thin period. People will do anything, anywhere, anytime they think they can get away with it. Ravaging armies have always targeted the women and girls.
Tom, it is extraordinarily frustrating to see the level of atrocities and realize that directly we can do little but ratchet up the sanctions and add more people in Russia to the list of potential Nuremberg 2.0 trials. Most of the people involved will never leave Russia anyway. But I do have an idea, based on what was done after WW2.....because of the truly excessive level of war crimes committed by the SS and Waffen SS units in the war, the entire SS organization, including the Waffen SS army, was declared a criminal organization, and the senior members subject to various penalties. We should have the International Criminal Court in The Hague conduct a trial in absentia for Putin, all his advisors and oligarch supporters, members of the Duma, etc., and after a trial, find that they are all war criminals subject to immediate arrest and punishment, and the Court should also find that the entire Russian Army is a criminal organization like the SS.....
My mother was from Linz, Austria. She rarely spoke of the war, but told me a few stories. During the bombings of Linz, she took her two-year-old son and moved to the country. As the war progressed, the village where she was staying was in the area where the Allies and Russians would meet. As rumors flew about the Russians raping any female between 8 and 80, and looting everything from jewelry and silver to toilet fixtures, the villagers prayed that the Allies would reach them first.
At word that American troops were headed toward the village, they sent my mother, who had studied English in high school, out to meet the troops and quickly escort them to the village. She met the convoy and welcomed them. However, the retreating Germans had left roadblocks and ambush blinds along the road. My mother’s high school English classes had not included words for things like roadblocks and ambush blinds, but she struggled to explain with words she could remember. They placed her in the backseat of the lead Jeep, and she said as they approached each obstruction, it felt like the pistols of the soldiers seated on each side of her dug deeper into her sides. The Americans reached the village first, by less than a day.
'Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared virtually at the Grammy awards on Sunday, begging the famous crowd not to "be silent" amid Russia's vicious, unprovoked attacks on his country. John Legend gave a special performance as part of the show's special tribute to Ukraine.'
"What is more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people."
"Our children draw swooping rockets, not shooting stars. Over 400 children have been injured and 153 children died. And we'll never see them drawing. Our parents are happy to wake up in the morning. In bomb shelters. But alive. Our loved ones don't know if we will be together again. The war doesn't let us choose who survives and who stays in eternal silence," he said.
'Zelenskyy Introduces John Legend-Led Ukraine Tribute Performance at 2022 Grammys:
'Legend then took the stage for an emotional performance with Ukrainian musicians, Siuzanna Iglidan, and Mika Newton, whose sister is serving in the Ukrainian army.'
SORRY FOLKS CBS BLOCKED LINK OPENING TO JOHN LEGEND'S PERFORMANCE.
Gristly detail that must be read and comprehended, as the current atrocities become visible. I fear for the hundreds of thousands already taken back to Russia as hostages. Thank you, TC in LA for raising the alarm. What can be done?
How do you suggest the Russian military and Putin be stopped by military means? Could any other method save the country and its people before much more carnage takes place?
This is a hard read. I did my usual social media sharing, but I also tweeted the link to Meidas.Touch.com with a suggestion to "do something" to get this word out. Hope they follow up.
The fate of Democracy … here, in the U.S., in Ukraine and also in Hungary, Serbia and France is not decided. We have reason to worry about free and fair elections in our country given state laws, recently passed, which suppress the vote and can nullify election results. We are not the only ones to worry.
‘In these countries, politicians who are friendly to Putin — and share his right-wing, nationalist outlook — are trying to win power.’
‘Two of them appear to have succeeded yesterday. In both Hungary and Serbia, incumbent leaders who are supportive of Putin won re-election. A bigger test will occur this month in France, which will hold its own presidential election — and where a victory by the far-right candidate would be a geopolitical earthquake.’
‘While Macron has focused on trying to find a diplomatic solution in Ukraine — and is failing, so far — his leading opponent has instead focused on the French economy, my colleague Roger Cohen explains in a preview of the election. That opponent is Marine Le Pen, a hard-right candidate.’
'As Roger writes, “Her patient focus on cost-of-living issues has resonated with the millions of French people struggling to make ends meet after an increase of more than 53 percent in gas prices over the past year.”
'Le Pen has a long history of friendliness to Putin. Her party has taken loans from a Russian bank, and she met with him in 2017 in an attempt to strengthen her political image, Elisabeth Zerofsky writes in a Times Magazine story about the French far right. Until the invasion, Le Pen largely supported Putin’s policies. Even now, she largely opposes hard-line policies toward Putin.’
‘Le Pen trails in the polls by roughly six percentage points — a small enough margin for an upset to be conceivable. If she wins, the autocracy-friendly caucus within Europe’s democracies would become far larger than it already is.’
“A victory by her,” Roger writes, “would threaten European unity, alarm French allies from Washington to Warsaw, and confront the European Union with its biggest crisis since Brexit.”
• In China, Xi Jinping’s government is trying to build popular support for Russia by spreading the message that both countries face the same threat: Western-led insurrection. (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
There’s going to be a point when we will have to get more involved for the sake of humanity, not just the Ukrainian’s but our own. Our president didn’t make a gaffe when he said that Putin needed to be removed from power, he was speaking as a human being for all of us, I know he was speaking for me. What we are witnessing is an unspeakable evil being visited upon a people, at some point we will be bound by our common humanity to put an end to this nightmare, that will not come without a cost, and it may well be steep, but none of us are going to be able to avoid passing so we might as well put our weight on the scale, better to have our heirs speak in wonder at our courage than curse our cowardice in the face of pure evil. We have had an inkling that what we woke up too today has been happening since the beginning, I don’t think we can turn our back on it much longer, not and be able to look into a mirror.
I think the veneer of civilization just might be thin period. People will do anything, anywhere, anytime they think they can get away with it. Ravaging armies have always targeted the women and girls.
Tom, it is extraordinarily frustrating to see the level of atrocities and realize that directly we can do little but ratchet up the sanctions and add more people in Russia to the list of potential Nuremberg 2.0 trials. Most of the people involved will never leave Russia anyway. But I do have an idea, based on what was done after WW2.....because of the truly excessive level of war crimes committed by the SS and Waffen SS units in the war, the entire SS organization, including the Waffen SS army, was declared a criminal organization, and the senior members subject to various penalties. We should have the International Criminal Court in The Hague conduct a trial in absentia for Putin, all his advisors and oligarch supporters, members of the Duma, etc., and after a trial, find that they are all war criminals subject to immediate arrest and punishment, and the Court should also find that the entire Russian Army is a criminal organization like the SS.....
My mother was from Linz, Austria. She rarely spoke of the war, but told me a few stories. During the bombings of Linz, she took her two-year-old son and moved to the country. As the war progressed, the village where she was staying was in the area where the Allies and Russians would meet. As rumors flew about the Russians raping any female between 8 and 80, and looting everything from jewelry and silver to toilet fixtures, the villagers prayed that the Allies would reach them first.
At word that American troops were headed toward the village, they sent my mother, who had studied English in high school, out to meet the troops and quickly escort them to the village. She met the convoy and welcomed them. However, the retreating Germans had left roadblocks and ambush blinds along the road. My mother’s high school English classes had not included words for things like roadblocks and ambush blinds, but she struggled to explain with words she could remember. They placed her in the backseat of the lead Jeep, and she said as they approached each obstruction, it felt like the pistols of the soldiers seated on each side of her dug deeper into her sides. The Americans reached the village first, by less than a day.
'Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared virtually at the Grammy awards on Sunday, begging the famous crowd not to "be silent" amid Russia's vicious, unprovoked attacks on his country. John Legend gave a special performance as part of the show's special tribute to Ukraine.'
"What is more opposite to music? The silence of ruined cities and killed people."
"Our children draw swooping rockets, not shooting stars. Over 400 children have been injured and 153 children died. And we'll never see them drawing. Our parents are happy to wake up in the morning. In bomb shelters. But alive. Our loved ones don't know if we will be together again. The war doesn't let us choose who survives and who stays in eternal silence," he said.
'Zelenskyy Introduces John Legend-Led Ukraine Tribute Performance at 2022 Grammys:
'Legend then took the stage for an emotional performance with Ukrainian musicians, Siuzanna Iglidan, and Mika Newton, whose sister is serving in the Ukrainian army.'
SORRY FOLKS CBS BLOCKED LINK OPENING TO JOHN LEGEND'S PERFORMANCE.
Gristly detail that must be read and comprehended, as the current atrocities become visible. I fear for the hundreds of thousands already taken back to Russia as hostages. Thank you, TC in LA for raising the alarm. What can be done?
How do you suggest the Russian military and Putin be stopped by military means? Could any other method save the country and its people before much more carnage takes place?
This is a hard read. I did my usual social media sharing, but I also tweeted the link to Meidas.Touch.com with a suggestion to "do something" to get this word out. Hope they follow up.
The fate of Democracy … here, in the U.S., in Ukraine and also in Hungary, Serbia and France is not decided. We have reason to worry about free and fair elections in our country given state laws, recently passed, which suppress the vote and can nullify election results. We are not the only ones to worry.
‘In these countries, politicians who are friendly to Putin — and share his right-wing, nationalist outlook — are trying to win power.’
‘Two of them appear to have succeeded yesterday. In both Hungary and Serbia, incumbent leaders who are supportive of Putin won re-election. A bigger test will occur this month in France, which will hold its own presidential election — and where a victory by the far-right candidate would be a geopolitical earthquake.’
‘While Macron has focused on trying to find a diplomatic solution in Ukraine — and is failing, so far — his leading opponent has instead focused on the French economy, my colleague Roger Cohen explains in a preview of the election. That opponent is Marine Le Pen, a hard-right candidate.’
'As Roger writes, “Her patient focus on cost-of-living issues has resonated with the millions of French people struggling to make ends meet after an increase of more than 53 percent in gas prices over the past year.”
'Le Pen has a long history of friendliness to Putin. Her party has taken loans from a Russian bank, and she met with him in 2017 in an attempt to strengthen her political image, Elisabeth Zerofsky writes in a Times Magazine story about the French far right. Until the invasion, Le Pen largely supported Putin’s policies. Even now, she largely opposes hard-line policies toward Putin.’
‘Le Pen trails in the polls by roughly six percentage points — a small enough margin for an upset to be conceivable. If she wins, the autocracy-friendly caucus within Europe’s democracies would become far larger than it already is.’
“A victory by her,” Roger writes, “would threaten European unity, alarm French allies from Washington to Warsaw, and confront the European Union with its biggest crisis since Brexit.”
• In China, Xi Jinping’s government is trying to build popular support for Russia by spreading the message that both countries face the same threat: Western-led insurrection. (NYTimes) See gifted link below.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/04/briefing/putin-allies-hungary-serbia.html?unlocked_article_code=AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAACEIPuomT1JKd6J17Vw1cRCfTTMQmqxCdw_PIxftm3iWka3DJDm4eiO4PAoWO-kHCIrJ-e9o1mj2fQN5MK_ovWfp9x_VOeldgUQOpq92EhJEBaW0TmL6EY1kXjdjLTKxqtnjjdHW4I-Nyg-bg70rdb2TgRKWO1SU-IF4xoI9udVqpxXEIx6vAFOYj2NN0juwzRcwvHUd2byKAuPXuDB97KY_GOkmasl9qLrkfDTLDntec6KYCdRFQDD_FTHB_5mU96rBMKY9dffa_f1N7Jp2I0fhGAXdoLYypG5Q2W4HS8r1purXJohaNo9GkG7k6s-7r6mtqHxiO56Uy5g&smid=url-share