Bob Shepherd is our resident polymath.
What have they done to you, Mariupol?
To your beautiful theatre with its park, your many museums, your galleries, your grand churches and synagogues and mosques, your restaurants, your 81 schools, your football club and water polo team and canoeing club and basketball club, your 60 hospitals and medical offices, your stunning beach on the Sea of Azov, your 20 newspapers, your 7 television stations, your nightclubs, your gardens, your parks and play facilities, your cinemas, your restaurants and cafes, your libraries, your marina and its sailors, your 500,000 men, women, teenagers, children, toddlers, babies? Where are your old men playing chess, your young people strolling and in love, your children at their games, your gorgeous, friendly people dancing and singing at one of your many festivals? Where are your guilds of artists, journalists, poets, novelists, dramatists, actors, musicians? What has become of your monuments? Your homes?
Where are Alla and Anatoly, Vasylyna and Vitali, Yeva and Ivan, . . . Maryna and Maksym, Natalia and Nazar, . . . Sofiia and Stepan, Titiana and Tymur, . . . Yuliia and Yakiv?
Gone. Obliterated. Turned into smoke and ashes and body parts and blood by war criminal Chekist reptile Tsar Vladimir.
Diane Ravitch's blog 
How many different civilizations could have mourned with this lament. The stuff of civilization, overtaken by the barbarism of hate, fear, tyranny, dominance, and exploitation. The unyielding, destroying rather than compromising, killing rather than accepting.
The images are revolting. https://metro.co.uk/2022/04/14/devastation-of-mariupol-laid-bare-in-before-and-after-invasion-photos-16468298/
The UN should help defend some of Ukraine’s ports as having access to a some ports is essential to the Ukrainian economy. Ukraine is major wheat exporter.
As you know, Russia is making the ludicrous claim that it is in Ukraine to “liberate” Russian-speaking Ukrainians from “Nazis.” Well, Odesa is primarily Russian-speaking, and the people of Odesa now HATE the Russians. It’s a fabled city of great beauty and cultural significance. The question is now whether, in order to secure complete control of the Black and Azov Sea ports and of the South generally, all the way to Moldova, they will Mariupol Odesa–that is, completely obliterate it because they can’t easily take it.
The Russian M.O. is to reduce villages, towns, and cities to rubble.
Exactly. As you have pointed out many times here, Diane, it’s what they d0.
They are almost impossible to look at, though we should, we should look at them. Thank you for posting these, RT. Ukraine is also rich in minerals and metals. And yes, yes, yes, there needs to be a UN force in and around Odesa NOW.
Putin is a medieval despot with no moral compass. Like Trump he will say and do anything to expand power.
From what I’ve been reading about what Putin the Barbarian’s hybrid WW1 era, incompetent army is doing to Ukraine, there are many cities, towns and villages being bombed into rubble.
Mariupol is only one of them, but it’s getting the most media attention because of the drama taking place in the bunkers under the steel plants where the far-right, nationalist troops from the Azov battalion are holding out.
The Ukrainians that Putin the Brutal claims are neo-Nazis that control Ukraine (population 44.13 millions in 2020) are based on the 1,000 far-right, ultra-national, all-volunteer infantry militia that’s been accused of harboring neo-Nazis (there’s no evidence this is a fact).
I never thought we’d see the brutality of WWI era trench warfare again.
“Neo-Nazi, far right and xenophobic groups do exist in Ukraine, like in pretty much any other country, including Russia,” Finkel said. “They are vocal and can be prone to violence but they are numerically small, marginal and their political influence at the state level is non-existent. That is not to say that Ukraine doesn’t have a far-right problem. It does. But I would consider the KKK in the US and skinheads and neo-Nazi groups in Russia a much bigger problem and threat than the Ukrainian far right.” …
“In the 30 years since Ukraine’s declaration of independence, Mierzejewski-Voznyak wrote, “its radical right’s national electoral support only rarely exceeded 3 percent of the popular vote …”
https://www.factcheck.org/2022/03/the-facts-on-de-nazifying-ukraine/
Putin the Cruel controls the media in Russia and what the people see and here more than even China controls what it’s people do. So, the majority of Iven the Inhuman’s followers are being fed FOX style fake news 24/7.
Imagine how bad it would be in the U.S. of Traitor Trump gained control of the media as Putin the Uncouth has done in Russia.
In late February, when Putin invaded Ukraine without provocation, his defenders on this blog said that he was justified, echoing his claims, because 1) the Azov Battalion is comprised of neo-Nazis; and 2) Putin felt encrcled by NATO, which was our fault because we encouraged former Soviet satellites to join NATO.
I responded that there were likely more neo-Nazis in the US than in Ukraine (armed militias, white supremacists, Proud Boys, etc.;
And the former Soviet-controlled nations voluntarily and eagerly joined NATO to be part of an alliance to protect them in case Putin decided to restore the USSR. They were wise to do so.
Re NATO: Both Estonia and Latvia border Russia and have been NATO members since 2004. Putin’s irrationale that Russia can’t abide a NATO member as a neighbor is a lie.
Both Finland and Sweden have expressed interest in joining NATO since the invasion of Ukraine. Great Britain announced that it would defend Sweden if Russia were to attack.
“Without provocation”. You realize that even the Pope admits NATO provoked Russia, right?
No, NATO did not provoke Putin. He is an egotistical maniac who had an opportunity to create a modern nation that was integrated into the global economy. He has made Russia a pariah state by his unprovoked attack on Ukraine and restoration of dictatorship in Russia, threatening anyone who tells the truth with a 15-year jail sentence and closing down every independent source of news. Do you admire a state that silences dissent and jails peaceful protestors?
Thanks to Bob for the cri de coeur, and to all the respondents for the illuminating commentary. Vlad the Irredentist, a k a Vladimir Abitchovitch, is headed for a depth of Hell Dante could not have imagined. Only Georg Cantor, with his infinities of infinities, could have created Putin’s conditions of eternal unrest.
Abitchovitch. LOL. This post as a whole is really well said, Bill, and thank you. I had to look up the term irredentist. Superb, perfect. Le mot juste.
As bad as we thought–and President Zelinskyy thought–Putin and the Russian army were, none of us could imagine the scale and intensity of destruction and random hate directed against civilians that we now know to be common. For me, this is just another lesson of how unimaginable American fascism might well be. Perhaps we won’t have flattened cities, but really, nothing is unimaginable anymore.
Trump repeatedly screamed at his senior staff members, calling them various names in meetings for not approving use of the military to shoot BLM protestors and innocent asylum seekers. There are many accounts of this, now, from former staff members. He was stopped from acting on his impulses because courageous people like Milley and Esper stood up to him. Even Barr did so, after first tentatively fielding his own little green men against the BLM folks. Trump berated Kirstjen Nielsen, his Secretary of Homeland Security, for not being willing to shoot asylum seekers, and while doing this, ofc, in his sexist Trump way, referred to her repeatedly as “Honey.” And, ofc, Trump wanted to withdraw from NATO and to bomb Mexico. His people restrained him.
We were saved only by the fact that Trump is an imbecile. He wasn’t smart enough to have enablers in place who were willing to carry out his instructions, his Albert Speers and Adolf Eichmanns and Roland Freislers and Carl Schmitts and Heinrich Himmlers.
The next guy will have Trump’s level of criminal amorality and commitment to autocracy, but he won’t be as ignorant and stupid as Trump and will have these people in place. And he’ll have an Extreme Court to back him. And clearly, he won’t have a Republican Party with any spine to stand up to him.
This is my fear.
Unfortunately, people like Esper and Barr—who knew that Trump was making illegal demands, kept silent during the 2020 election.
Yes. Tragic, that.
Exactly, Diane. By doing so, they made their present criticism rather weak. Of course they knew better at the time.
Because of the horror show in Ukraine, Finland has decided to join NATO. Finland has had several wars with Russia ( and the USSR) and was once part of the Russian Empire. Finland lost about 12% of its land area as a result of its wars with the USSR during the 1940s. Finland shares an 830 mile border with Putinlandia.
Finland just announced a new plan to get off Russian gas and oil. In addition to driving more countries into NATO, Putin is damaging the economy as Finland and other European countries do not want to be beholden to Russia for energy.
The Russian invasion of Ukraine and the atrocities committed there have led to very strange bedfellows. The anti-American Left opposes U.S. assistance to Ukraine, as in their minds any American military involvement anywhere is evil; elements of the far Right admire Putin for not being “woke” on various cultural issues; and isolationists of all stripes either want the U.S. to greatly downsize its military presence in the world and/or fear Putin responding to a looming defeat with nuclear weapons.
On the other side, the not reflexively anti-U.S. Left wants to see Russia defeated because of their loathing for Putin’s dictatorship. And almost all not-far-Right conservatives are appalled by Putin’s aggression and atrocities and favor vigorous American aide to Ukraine; an example is the writer and Fox host Mark Levine who is very pro-Trump on most issues and strongly conservative. Levine has several times passionately called for Putin’s defeat and expressed his horror at Russia’s evil doings in Ukraine.
You make a really good argument for discarding the terms “left” and “right” to describe politics. “Anti-American Left” is a silly term in and of itself. Categories make for difficulty.
I think that Jack was saying that there are some leftists who are not reflexively anti-U.S., and that’s demonstrably the case.
And as we have seen from the Putin apologists who pop in here from time to time, there are people who style themselves leftists who are indeed reflexively anti-American. But I resent the right laying claim to patriotism and love of freedom.
Mr. Shepherd:
It has come to our attention that you have been using the words freedom, liberty, and truth in your posts and comments on posts. These are jointly registered trademarks, under the alternative legal code of the rightful Trump Government in Exile (TGE), of The Repugnican Party, The House Freedumb Caucus, Faux News, and The Trump Organization RICO. Wiretaps in our possession (thanks, Vlad!) also reveal that you have been spreading facts, rather than alternative facts, and practicing “freedom of speech,” properly called truthing, without a license from the Government in Exile of Glorious Leader Who Shines More Orange Than Does the Sun. It goes without saying that “Trump Says Law” properly applies here because it is WELL KNOWN that Extraterrestrial Socialist Venus-uelans used voting machine software to steal the 2020 election. Be advised that unless you cease and desist, you will be prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law as rightful president Donald J. Trump momentarily conceives of it yesterday, today, tomorrow, or whenever because he has “an Article 2 that says [he] can do whatever [he] wants as president.”
–Toady, Finkle, and Skank, Esqs.
And as my comments indicate, Jack isn’t one of those who thinks that all people on the left are reflexively anti-American, as his post indicates.
Anti-American left?! Huh? That’s a term that right wingers might throw up, as if righties are the only true patriots. It’s pure McCarthyism to come up with such baloney as anti-American left. Criticizing Trump, the right wingers, the GOP, in my opinion, makes you pro America.
You got that right, Joe. There is not an American Left to speak of. There is a fringe far left whose agenda eerily corresponds to that of a much, much larger far right. What the media, self-professed “centrists”, and the right will never acknowledge is that the U.S. has no “Left” to speak of. There are no “leftists” plotting to silence, kidnap, or worse to public figures. There are very few “leftists” who support replacing capitalism lock, stock, and barrel.
The real centrists–look it up, substantial majorities support “leftist” issues as they are defined by the usual suspects. The American spectrum is not a Bell Curve. I is an “M” curve with the peak of the left, taller spike exactly on the center of the American political spectrum. There are few to their left. The right spike is the solid-to-far right, representing about 40% of the population. We know who they are. Many, if not most of them are representative of the Duke Effect: saying one thing in public or saying nothing and have people think you are with them and the vote exactly the opposite in the voting booth.
That’s the group to watch, in that “gully” between the spikes, that 10-15% of the population that can (wants desperately to?) be swayed up either spike. The have the unearned advantage–especially since they sit on the center-right–of being portrayed by the usual suspects as being centrists. So when blithely accept both attributed and self-identified centrist, remember that we have shifted the “center” of a political debate. According to recent Pew data, 60% supported some sort of gun control two years ago, that number is now down to 53%. In another Pew poll, 63% of Americans favored either national health insurance of a mix of government and private health care. Interestingly, of the 36% who did not want the government involved in healthcare, but 30% of that number supported Medicare/Medicaid! And at least 59% support abortion rights. And these are not, by definition, centrist issues? How are they left, much less far left? And how much higher might those majorities if people were not exposed to and accepting of the lies and constant fear-mongering the right is spoon-fed by its limited, partisan sources?
The problem with the usual suspects’ framing here is that they not only describe realities that never existed, they want people to believe that those mirages can be made better next time around. Rich folks won’t have to worry about the pesky poor, they’ll be separated by space, gated communities, and private police forces and schools. White folks won’t have to worry about fair housing restrictions because the ones on the books that have just started to be enforced weakly will not be enforced at all. But the new penalties of not joining the majority will not be violence for all, but for the few hidden from view. Intimidation plus adherence will be the best way to get by.
No one in the American political center, the ones mischaracterized as leftists, is engaging in those tactics. That noise you hear about them is pure propaganda.
Agreed, Greg. The “far left” is a tiny fraction. The Republicans call every centrist Democratic proposal “socialist” and “radical.” Another lie. Protecting the right to vote is “socialist” and “radical.” Spending on climate change is “socialist” and “radical.” On and on with lies.
There is not an American Left to speak of.
True. But it’s coming, I think. It’s fascinating to listen to what young people in the US have to say. They are Social Democrats and don’t even know it.
Joe Jersey, GregB, Diane and Bob,
This thread is so full of so many important ideas that cannot be said enough. Thank you all for expressing them so clearly.
Except I wish they didn’t have to be expressed, because I continue to be more and more concerned about the danger we are in.
My problem is with Jack’s “almost all not-far-Right conservatives.” I wish that were the case. Doubtless, Jack knows some people to whom that characterization applies, but I would point out that almost half of the American electorate voted for Trump in the last presidential election, for the guy who wanted to bomb Mexico and to have the police, the military, and the Border Patrol shoot BLM protestors and unarmed, innocent asylum seekers, for the guy who thought that stealth airplanes were actually invisible and thinks that there are no limits whatsoever on presidential power.
But back to the topic at hand. Channeling Stalin and his current incarnation in Tsar Vlad, the Russians are stealing Ukrainian wheat and attempting to peddle it outside the country. Kleptocrats steal, and people go hungry. That’s today’s Russia. Outside the major cities, almost everywhere, dire poverty.
When I wrote “almost all not-far-Right conservatives…” I had in mind polling that shows large majorities of Republicans, Democrats, and Independents favor aiding Ukraine. Whatever Trump’s views on this matter, most of his 2020 voters support helping Ukraine. To clarify another point: there is definitely a reflexive anti-American Left, but that is not most people on the Left or most Democratic voters.
Thanks for that clarification, Jack.
There is indeed a reflexive anti-American left. On Ukraine, they sound like the far right.
I never thought I would live to see a Republican Party whose de facto leader is a guy who wants us out of NATO. But here we are. Insane. I have zero respect for Trump enablers.
Yep, war is hell!
Not that America hasn’t done its fair share of obliterating cities over the years.
War Is a Racket
Smedley!
For those who don’t know Smedley = Butler
https://religionnews.com/2022/05/03/pope-francis-says-nato-barking-at-russias-door-faciliated-ukraine-conflict/
I guess that makes Pope Francis a Russian asset too. Whodathunkit?
Dienne,
Every nation that joined NATO asked to be admitted, as Finland is doing now.
Pope Francis also warned the head of the Russian Orthodox Church not to be Putin’s “altar boy.” I guess you missed that.
I am patiently waiting to hear one word of criticism from you of Putin’s vicious invasion of Ukraine. Do you think Russia improved its security and stature in the international community by flattening Mariupol and other Ukrainian cities? When this brutal invasion ends,thousands of Russians and Ukrainians will have died. And Russia will still have NATO members on its western border.
There is no convincing cultists. Like alcoholics, they come to it on their own, or they don’t come to it at all.
I never stop trying, although some commenters who are pro-Putin were blocked for the past several weeks. I got tired of responding to them.
And yes, unlike the Warsaw Pact and Putin’s envisioned Greater Russia, NATO is a defensive alliance that people freely choose to join, primarily because Russia as proved again and again and again that it will invade its neighbors, kill their civilians, and establish fascist puppet security states there.
If the pope manages to visit Russia, he should make a stop in Ukraine on his way there. I want him to have a picture in his mind of what the Russians have done before he listens to Russian justifications/excuses for their brutality. Putin is killing the very people he claimed to be saving and destroying everything he coveted. However, if the pope hopes to be any sort of ambassador for peace, he has to leave an avenue open for discussion. I don’t know what he hopes to accomplish, but he is trying very hard not to limit his options.
Putin is a mobster at heart. He is the Boss of Bosses of a vast government-as-criminal racketeering operation. Ukraine offers a) naval bases on the Azov and Black Seas, b) vast agricultural resources, and c) vast resources of minerals and metals to be plundered. Even as this war is going on, the Russians have started the plundering, and not just the wholesale pilfering done by a Russian army made up of untrained teenaged thugs but wholesale, organized plundering–harvest and transport and sale overseas of Ukrainian wheat. Theft of farmers’ crops. It’s the Holodomor all over again, but the ones who will suffer most from this are people in African countries that depend upon imports of Ukrainian wheat. More Crimes against Humanity under international law.
Several leaders have negotiated with Putin, such as Macron. They got zero. Good luck to the Pope. Putin will seat him 40’ feet away and concede nothing. He is determined to “save” Ukraine by destroying it.,
I don’t doubt it but the pope needs to see who Putin is.
Here is another headline from the same Pope interview:
“Pope Seeks Putin Meeting And Compares Russian ‘Brutality’ To Rwandan Genocide”
I guess the Pope is a Biden-loving Democrat! Whodathunkit?
I guess the Pope knows that people who keep defending Putin are pro-genocide! Whodathunkit?
lol