A Bridge Too Far: The UN Resolution

This was unsettling to write, and will be hard to read.

This was Monday —>

CNN:

The United States joined Russia to vote against a UN General Assembly resolution condemning Russia’s war against Ukraine Monday in a stunning shift from years of US policy.

I saw this, and it broke me.

Truly.

I consider all the domestic stuff, and believe, REALLY BELIEVE, that a lot of it will turn out okay.

But this abandonment of morality, decency and any knowledge of history is devastating.

When the info popped on both my phones, I turned off my computers, tablet, phones, and laid down. And cried.

I kept thinking about this state of being, in 1942.

While that aggressor was the Nazi Axis, and not Russia, it should be obvious what happens when fascist power is unbridled.

An alliance between the US and Russia would be World War 3. And if you think that Putin’s end game excludes the US, you haven’t been paying attention.

There are people who read this blog who are old enough to remember living through WW2. The victory gardens, the women off to the factories to support the war effort, the men and boys sent overseas. The knocks on the doors to tell parents their sons weren’t coming home.

There are even more people who read this blog of my generation: we know the stories, we grew up with the empty chairs at family gatherings, we saw the tattooed numbers on the arms of survivors. And we know Imperial Russia, which included countries now free, like Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and others. For those of us (of a certain age) who are Jewish, a lot of our parents and grandparents fled the pogroms. For those unfamiliar, “pogrom” is a Russian word meaning “to wreak havoc, to demolish violently”. It was mobs sent into towns to rape and murder Jews, a form of ethnic cleansing. More info here.

But for those who are younger, you don’t necessarily know about pogroms, and WW2 and the Holocaust, and what it took for the decent world to rise up and defeat the Axis powers.

That success would not have been possible if not for the United States. We are the world’s biggest economy, and have been since the 1890’s. Until the 1980’s we manufactured more than anyone else - including the arms and hardware necessary to successfully fight a war. Times have changed, and I hope with all my heart that Europe can pull together the people and hardware they will need to fight Russia. And the United States.

It is inconceivable to me that our entire country is on the side of fascism and imperialism and opposed to democracy. I certainly know that not all Americans feel that way, but that is now official US policy.

I wonder how people feel about aligning with Putin. Do “regular people” care? Do they understand? Do they know how average people live in Russia? Do they know what it looks like in Russian cities? Do they care if that becomes their day-to-day? I think the answer, for most people, is “no”.

Too many Americans are ignorant of history, and lack the ability to think things through. They will follow along, and so it seems like a good time to remind everyone that “I was only following orders” was rejected as a defense at the Nuremberg Trials.

It is Tuesday morning, and the sun has not yet risen. I am writing this for publication tomorrow, Wednesday. I had something else planned to write for tomorrow, and then I wanted to email a few volunteers to deploy to petition parties later this week, go to my regular job, and then “pretty up” for the political fundraiser I’m attending tonight.

But all I can think about is how aligning with Russia is far worse than anything else the fascist regime has done. Funding can be reauthorized. People can be rehired. Idiot illegal EOs that aren’t worth the paper they’re written on can be invalidated in court.

But this? I can barely breathe. My heart is broken.

Thanks for reading my rant. I hope when it comes time to write tomorrow morning, I will be in better spirits.