Putin miscalculated public opinion and human compassion
We should really appreciate the world’s unity in opposing Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, and glad it has temporarily united the Left and Right in this country – although, there’s plenty of finger pointing going on in the blogosphere and social media.
I believe Putin miscalculated how the democracies of the world would be so united against Russian military aggression and how it would solidify the Ukrainian people to fight (although reports indicate some 500,000 in this nation of 44 million have fled to other nations). Airbnb is picking up the slack by offering its hosts to refugees
How can any human not show any compassion when we see video of children crying, reports of 16 kids dead, and other innocent lives lost?
Even liberal Sean Penn is in Kyiv to do a documentary to dramatize the great brave Ukrainians and pump up support for more U.S. military action
And, we see in Ukrainians ourselves – a European country fighting for its independence and freedom from a would-be dictator.
However, the cynic in me finds irony about how the American Left has come to post all these “Pray for Ukraine” and yellow and blue flags on their Facebook pages. I don’t think many understand this country’s past.
Liberal mobs stormed through Richmond and other cities the last two years defacing and tearing down monuments to Confederate generals and Christopher Columbus. Even statutes of Thomas Jefferson and Abraham Lincoln were not spared in other cities. Democrat politicians in Virginia and other states didn’t say boo.
It seems anyone who owned slaves, even for a hot minute like the Declaration signer John Witherspoon in my hometown of Princeton, NJ, was destined to have their name removed from a school. It’s now Princeton Middle School.
Ukraine, if you didn’t know, has erected monuments to a number of nationalist leaders, who, unlike Confederate generals, committed genocidal acts against Jews, and also Poles and other minorities. A few of their faces are on the currency. You can read about Bohdan Khmelnytsky here and Stepan Bandera here .
My guess is that Putin, in his madness, thought that some peoples would remember Ukrainian complicity with the Nazis (whom they viewed as liberators from Stalin), and respond favorably to his neo Nazi charges against Ukraine’s leadership
I guess Vlad forgot that today’s Left has a double standard when regarding the oppression of Jews vs. “brown people.” The woke who control academia, the media and Hollywood also rejoiced when communism fell in Eastern Europe – -although they fought President Reagan’s nuclear buildup in the 1980s which pushed the Soviet Union over the edge.
Of course, Ukraine has turned the corner. Its president, Vlodomyr Zelensky, a Jew, is a hero for his resolve. Ukraine’s Jews live peacefully and frankly, face fewer anti-Semitic acts than Jews in France. So, as a Jew (whose grandmother was born in Odessa but filed with her family to America) I forgive, and Israel is backing Zelensky
But the American South has turned the corner on segregation and slavery of blacks, but its monuments, buildings and streets named for Confederates are being erased by Leftist revisionist “cancel culture.” Folks who descended from Confederate veterans or slave owners, who have no ounce of racism in their blood, are fearful of speaking up. Italian Americans who helped erect Columbus statues are silent in face of the Leftist mobs.
In addition, it’s funny seeing liberals look the other way at Ukraine’s government arming its citizens. Their national legislature the day after the invasion allowed citizens to have not just any old handgun, but semi-automatic rifles. Open carry in Ukraine is now legal! Interesting that the Left whines about Americans owning guns, especially after a mass shooting, ignoring the fact the purpose of the 2nd amendment was not to protect you from criminals, but tyrants and foreign invaders.
In addition, it’s amusing to see liberals wrap themselves around the “democracy flag” when it suits their own political interests – i.e., the January 6 “rebellion’ by “white supremacist Trump supporters,” but turns a deaf ear to complaints about cancel culture and the stifling of free speech, and excessive expansion of government under Biden.
One thing I do doubt – Democrats will take no ownership over how their anti-fossil fuel policies facilitated this crisis, and same goes for Europe kowtowing to the radical environmentalists by closing nuclear power plants – thus making countries, notably Germany. more dependent on Russia for natural gas
Finally, I really do not believe Democrats have any fire in their belly to send troops into combat or escalate this matter. Liberals like Nancy Pelosi have equated the late February invasion as “Putin’s Sudetenland” – a reference to Hitler demanding the heavily German-speaking area of the former Czechoslovakia be brought into the Third Reich in 1939. You can’t on the one hand make the 1939 comparison without backing it up with boots on the ground, can you?
However, we need to welcome liberals to the pro-democracy, pro-free speech, pro-gun ownership fold and can only hope they will stay consistent for liberty. I hope this is not just a fad or phase like: “Bring back our Girls” in Nigeria. Boko Haran, which kidnapped those kids, is still around committing acts of terror.
