Author: Peter

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Getting a Clue


Sometimes when I explain my actions when I was young I will say, “I was young and dumb, with an emphasis on dumb.”   As I have gotten older, I have come to see just how little I knew when I was young, and how good it would have been if I had had a few more clues than I did.  I am going to try, in no particular order, the present what a few of those clues should have been.

Clue One:  Everything will be all right.  When I was just 10 years old my father had his first heart attack. Until that time everything had been all right.  But his heart attack brought into sharp focus how unpredictable life can be.  My mother, a registered nurse, took really good care of him.  But we were told that he might not live.  Fortunately he did, and for another 11 years at that.  But it was at that point I really needed to hear my first “everything will be all right.”  This was not a short-coming of my mother but a societal short-coming.   Parenting was a strictly on-the-job training experience.   And in this case, no one was there to tell my mother that everything will be all right.  My point is:  we really have very little control over what happens in our present and our future.  In reality we can only control our own actions, reactions and thoughts.  After that, we really have only a little control over our kids, our pets, and pretty much everything else.  Kids, pets and everyone else are going to do what they want regardless of how we feel.  But if we take care of ourselves and do our best along with doing the next right thing, for the most part, things will be all right.  Still, we need to hear that reassurance from those closest to us.  And in that respect, we need to choose our friends wisely.

Clue two:  Learn to study.  I went through 12 years of public school and 7 years of college without ever running into a course on how to study.  For that reason, at the end of my junior year in high school I had to transfer to a prep school, repeat my junior year, and continue on with my education.  Part of my problem was, as my mother use to put it, I was just too smart for my own good.  That is, from grades one through five I existed entirely on my own intelligence and ability to grasp what was put in front of me.  That meant I did not need to study to get an A.  The change started in the fifth grade.  My grades went from all As to Bs, Bs and Cs and in high school Cs and Ds.  As things got more difficult, I had no process for overcoming the challenges before me.  The only thing prep school did was it took away television and mobility from me.  By restricting some of my actions I was, in effect, forced to work harder on my school work.  My grades improved and in my senior year I was doing well enough to get into a very good college.  Once in college, however, I was entirely overwhelmed and it took only a semester for me to drop out.  Over the next decade and a half I struggled to get through college, but finally did.

There is nothing natural about studying.  I think some people, a very few, are self-motivated enough to be single minded about education which carries them through their education.  But for most of us, someone needs to tell us how to successfully study.  It turns out that study is not difficult, but it does require a degree of structure and commitment.  Without that, most of us flail around until we either “get it” or fail.  One of the most effective study techniques is really just asking the teacher/professor questions relative to those things we do not understand.  But this requires our belief system to understand that, regardless of how our questions sound or the other person’s reaction to them, they are necessary and we will be all right.

Clue Three:  Always be honest.  Most people will say they are honest.  And to some degree that will true.  The problem is simple, our perception of what being honest is like.  If you were to ask those same people if it is all right to tell a lie to save someone’s feelings, most would say that it is.  But what that statement really says is that they are willing to compromise with the truth.  If you asked that same group of people if they have ever exaggerated things they have accomplished they would probably say they had.  Again, honesty is compromised.

I believe there are two main reasons people lie, shame and fear.  We do something that we feel ashamed of and when confronted with what we’ve done, the tendency is to deny and effectively lie.  The other thing, when we do not want to say something which may hurt someone’s feelings, is to tell them what we think they want to hear.  But the dishonesty there is that we deny the person the right to deal with their own feelings speculating that our judgment is superior to their ability to handle bad news.  We tell ourselves that we are doing the right thing when in fact we are not.  But since we tend to repeat such actions over and over, in time we convince ourselves that it is the right thing to do.  We have become dishonest with ourselves, a truly fatal flaw.

Clue Four: Take care of yourself.  That phrase, take care of yourself, is rather commonly used when two people are parting ways, another way of saying good-bye.  But my meaning is the literal, take care of yourself.  That means in mind, body and spirit.  Of those three, the spirit is by far the most important.  I look as spirit as that part of ourselves that when things get tough, we find the inner strength to push through, and in the end, expect that everything will be all right.  That can be really tough, particularly when we are facing life altering or even possible life ending things.  But in the mundane, everyday things, our spirit is what tells us that we need to get out and exercise, go to the doctor when we feel sick, and tell someone of our problems, particularly when we are feeling overwhelmed.

Self-care becomes particularly difficult when the thing we are up against is somehow shameful in our mind.  It is at that exact time that we need to confide in someone and unless we have trained ourselves to do that, we will opt for pushing down inside ourselves, totally contrary to the ideal of self-care.

It took me a long time to figure out something which should have been obvious.  If I take care of all the little things in my life, the big things will work out and everything will be all right.  Feeling good about myself and my future is all about taking care of myself today.

Clue Five:  Give a damn!  I think one of the reasons I embraced liberal politics was this inner belief that when reasonable, we need to help other people.  There are times in our lives when we need to be selfless and give of ourselves to another person.  Simply put, it means that when someone needs our help, within reason, we help them.  A friend of mine once told me of an experience he had with his mother.  They were out one day when they came across a homeless man.  His mother gave him twenty dollars and told him to give it to the man.  He objected saying why not ten or five, thinking twenty was too much.  She told him that was God lying there.

But helping is usually much easier than that.  Most of the time it simply means we listen to someone who is troubled, trying to understand them, and help them, where possible, through their trouble.  Because if we do take the time to listen to someone else is means, for us, everything will be all right.

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Could My Childhood Survive in Today’s World?


When I was pretty young, I was rummaging around in our barn and found a pair of old wooden skiis.  I goaded my parents into buying me a pair of ski boots and ski polls and headed for the nearest hill.  It was a hill upon which I also used to go sledding.  In the summer it was a pasture for grazing cows.  Sadly, they are gone today.  Anyway, I pretty much taught myself to ski on that small slope and graduated to a larger hill in a different part of town that had a rope lift on it.  My skiing career was launched.

Behind our house there were several large pine trees which I used to climb and eventually built a tree house and towards the top of the tree another ledge.  I used to climb it all the time and look off into the distance at a nearby city and marveled at how far I could see.  The summer also found me riding my bicycle, going to the swimming pond and fishing at the local lake.  Also, every summer my father had a portion of our field plowed and made it into a vegetable garden.  I loved helping him with it.

One day, right after a winter storm, a boy who lived next door told me we could earn a quarter if we went and shoveled a neighbor lady’s  driveway.  I was astonish because such tasks were always done without compensation at my house.  Such non-compensated duties extended to lawn mowing and leaf raking, both of which I did, and actually enjoyed.  To this day I enjoy such activity.  But as with the snow shoveling, I learned that I could grow a bit of a business around the neighborhood by mowing lawns and raking leaves.

Some years later, I expanded my money making to delivering the local newspaper, a six day a week operation that cost each customer the enormous sum of 42 cents a week.  Most people would give me 50 cents and tell me to keep the change.  It was great!  I never ran out of candy bars or Dairy Queen milk shakes.  There was a Dairy Queen along my route.

Once I entered high school, things changed, though not greatly.  Most Friday and Saturdays nights there was a dance held either at a local community center or the high school.  Of course, this was before CDs so the music came via records.  Everyone went to the high school football games in the fall, basketball games in the winter, and a smaller subset to the baseball games in the spring.

Television was not a big part  of our lives because daytime tv was mostly soap operas and games shows.  We did watch evening tv.  The exception to afternoon tv were the Mickey Mouse Club and American Bandstand.

We boys seemed to know everything about cars including how to fix them.  Many of us got jobs working in service stations when all gas was pumped by the service station attendant.

When I was a kid the big  threat by my parents was being sent to my room. I think today’s threat is being sent outside.

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Rails to Trails Conservancy


On October 2, 1968, the US Congress passed the “National Trails Act.”  Then on January 1, 1976, the Railroad Revitalization and Regulatory Reform Act under which the “Rails to Trails” program was inaugurated.  From there the Rails to Trails Conservancy, a not for profit organization, was founded and has actively worked to transform over 9000 miles of abandoned railroad right-of-way to trails which the public can use for both commuter transportation and recreation.  Today, there are more than 1,600 preserved pathways that form the backbone of a growing trail system that spans communities, regions, states and, indeed, the entire country. (http://www.railstotrails.org/aboutUs/index.html)

In my own state, Massachusetts, I regularly use the Minuteman Bikeway, an 11 mile route which extends from Cambridge to Bedford via Arlington and Lexington.  There is also a 2nd spur, not part of the Minuteman, which extends from Cambridge to Somerville, approximately 2 miles.  Both these paths are heavily used.  During the winter months Cambridge, Arlington, Lexington and Bedford plow the path following snowstorms.  The Cambridge to Arlington portion is particularly heavily used by commuters who take the subway to its end in Cambridge and then walk the route to their homes in Arlington.  This trail is over 20 years old and its heavy use to testament to the vision the Rails to Trails Conservancy has.

The building of such a trail requires a local and state commitment to construct such a path on an abandoned railroad right-of-way.  Although there is a funding requirement from the state, the federal government provides the majority of the funding under the Rail Revitalization Act.  To be certain, this is a very simplified version of what must be done however I point to it as being eminently doable with a reasonable level of backing from state and local authorities.

To my dismay, Massachusetts has not done very much with its hundreds of miles of available rail lines while other states, Ohio, Indiana, and Michigan, to name a few, are very actively extending their system of paths.  The value of these paths is obvious to even the casual observer.  I write the recommending that any who read this actively support the building of new trails in their own states.  The following link will take you to the Rail to Trails Conservancy.

http://www.railstotrails.org/aboutUs/index.html

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An Art Philistine Wonders


hassam

My wife used to called me a food Philistine because of my very narrow pallet.  She has since educated me quite well on the merits of expanding my pallet and that has worked out quite well.  But I still consider myself a Philistine in one respect, art.  Most art I just do not get.  Things they call art which looks like paint splatters leaves me at a loss.  I get, although do not particular care for, the art works of Chagall and Picasso.  The art piece above, however, is the form I most love.  That piece was done by Childe Hassam and is called Boston Common at Twilight.  I am very familiar with the scene having walked it thousands of times albeit 125 years later.  But it also speaks to me.  It tells me the story of a Boston long past.  I speaks of childhood and motherhood, of a cold winter’s eve, and of more peaceful times.  But this case, for me, is an exception rather than the rule.

renoir

The picture above is by Renoir.  It is an 1875 piece called “Woman in a Garden With a Parasol.”  I believe, although I lack the proof, that Renoir had some akin to an obsession over the female form.

renoir 2

He was no stranger to the nude, as shown above.  Curiously, I would call his subject as being rather “Reubenesque.”  But I cannot help wonder what Renoir was thinking when he painted these and all the other paintings he did.  I think, as with the first painting, that each is a story unto itself but a story untold by the painting itself.  I understand that artists like us to make of their painting what we will, but I find it more interesting to know what was on their mind at the time.

monet

The painting above is one of Monet’s many water lilies paintings.  Having visited the Museum of Fine Art in Boston, I have be privilege to see many of his water lilies paintings and have marveled at the subtle differences between them.  It seems to me that Monet too had a bit of an obsession going as well.  But was he trying to perfect his water lilies setting or just obsessed with the changing character of the pond upon which they sat?  I have not a clue but would love to know.

manet

The painting above is by Manet, not to be confused with Monet although I seem to confuse them with great regularity.  How could two men, a single letter removed in family name, become such giants in the art world.  Manet was Monet’s elder by a mere 8 years and both lived in France their whole lives.  It is difficult to believe they did not know each other and exchange ideas.  Manet seems to have shared Monet’s obsession with the female form but he does not seem to have the same proclivity towards landscapes.  Still, what was his motivation with his subjects and what was he thinking?

fitzgerald

Norman Rockwell’s art work graced the covers of the magazine The Saturday Evening Post for the greater part of the 20th Century.  His artwork spoke to us on a level we could usually understand.  The above piece is of F. Scott Fitzgerald and is one of his earlier pieces.  I am sure he has his detractors who claim he was just an illustrator and not a true artist.

grace

The piece above, “Saying Grace,” last sold at auction for $46 million.  Hard to believe an illustration would sell for such a price.  His is a special sort of art many pieces of which are displayed in the Normal Rockwell Art Museum in Stockbridge MA.  When you visit this museum and view the many pieces there, you are taken aback by the man’s absolute genius in capturing “everyday” scenes.  Because Rockwell was so accessible,  we are not left to wonder what was on his mind.  He told us exactly what he was thinking although his pictures speak volumes all by themselves.

 

 

 

 

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The Deplorable State of American Politics


enemy

The cartoon above, from the strip “Pogo,” first appeared in 1952.  Walt Kelly produced this comic strip from 1948 to 1975.  Pogo Possum was a humble, personable and philosophical character who spoke on many subjects.  This particular one, I believe, speaks most tellingly about the state of our present politics.

In 1994 a Republican think tank came up with the idea of the “Contract with America” which all its members in both the senate and house signed.  In its most basic form it was a wonderful and powerful idea.  But those behind it had other ideas, sinister ideas.  Certain non-elected people had a very deep hatred for President Bill Clinton and this was supposed to be their open foray into removing him from power in 1996.  It failed simply because Clinton co-opted them by endorsing certain portions of the contract, most especially balancing the budget.  But those power brokers knew quite well how to win wars while losing a battle or two.  Clinton gave them that opportunity by having an affair with Monica Lewinsky and then denying it ever happened.  For the first time since Andrew Johnson a president was impeached.  Clinton’s crime?  Not that he had the affair but that he lied to Congress.  With attack dog Kenneth Starr at the forefront running a broad and unrestricted investigation, it was game on.

Who was behind this?  It was not the members of Congress but those moneyed interests behind the Congressional powers.  To be certain, David and Charles Koch were two of them.  Other powers behind the scenes were Republican strategists such as Karl Rove and talk show hosts Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly.  What each of these men knew, and relied upon, was the average American’s disinterest in discovering the truth about any particular subject.  They knew their target audience would take them at their word despite the use of hyperbole, exaggeration and out right lies.

The Democrats have been equally as bad though usually not in the same way.  While Democrats love to use hyperbole, exaggeration and out right lies too, they are not nearly so well organized as Republicans and other conservatives.  And while the Democrats certainly have their share of moneyed interests, the do not have a strategist who approaches the ability of Karl Rove and have virtually no presence, let alone following, on the air waves in the form of an O’Reilly or Limbaugh.

Although I am a life-long registered Democrat, of late I have made a habit of voting Republican in Massachusetts elections.  This has been because of my disgust by state-wide politics as a whole, and those who are running for office in particular.  The brilliance of Senator Elizabeth Warren is unimpeachable but she is an uninspiring academic who had previously no civil experience.  She won, not on her merits, but because she was the Democrat who opposed Republican Scott Brown.  This sort of politics exists in every state which holds a large majority in one party, Idaho, Utah, and Wyoming for Republicans, Rhode Island, New Jersey and Michigan for Democrats.

I find it troubling that the Republican Party has found itself split between their long standing moderates and those who have given their allegiance to the Tea Party.  But if you look at it closely, you will find the Tea Party is simply a reincarnation of the old Libertarian Party with a new platform.  The Democrats have their own group on the far left who, although without name, are equally as polarizing.  It is this polarization that causes intransience over issues which desperately need resolution.

The only resolution to these issues is for all Americans to hold their elected officials, those who the voted for, to back up their stands with absolute truth, to work in the best interests of their constituents and not the PACs, and to always work towards a common ground with members of the other party.  I would say that any member of Congress who votes in excess of 75% along party lines should deemed as of suspicious designs.  Each senator and representative should be able to report back to his constituents on a regular basis how each of his votes worked to the favor of the majority of those he represents.

Americans seem to be of a mind that politics as a whole are disgusting, but until each American decides to hold those he has voted into office to a higher standard, then nothing will change.

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Freedom Isn’t Free


soldier

On July 5 1776, one day after the Declaration of Independence was made public, our new-born nation was a mess.  Mostly, we had been clashing with the British since April 19 1775.  The Battle of Bunker Hill was the one exception where large numbers of men on both sides lost their lives.  But in truth, neither side was yet prepared for a full out war.  The British troops were the best trained, best armed, and had the best leadership by far.  England had the ability to fund a short war and defeat almost any enemy she desired.  That British confidence of an impending American defeat was high was understandable.  The single thing that kept America viable over the next 7 years was its dogged desire to prevail.  The be sure, the Continental Congress was bankrupt, unable to pay its soldiers as promised.  The new American army suffered through a very high rate of desertion.  Conversely, the British Army suffered virtually no desertions.  Gen. Washington looked upon the British commander, Gen. Howe, with envy.  His troops were well fed, well armed, well trained, and supremely confident.  While the Battle of Yorktown was the finality of the war, it had truly ended long before by greatly diminishing the English war coffers and the distance at which the war was fought.  Also, sentiment in England was of a country weary of a civil war, that being that Americans had previously been viewed by the English public as brethren who had previously been an integral part of their country.  But the cost of that war, on both sides, lingered for decades after 1783.  For the first time, America had to deal with its war veterans and the promises it had made to them.  Some of those promises were not fulfilled until well into the 19th century.

When Thomas Jefferson took office he took offence to the large standing army he inherited and did his level best to entirely disband it, claiming that such an army was entirely unnecessary.  And although his feeling about the American Navy was not quite so draconian, he still reduced its size as well.  But then came the War of 1812.  The war was started over the impressment of American sailors in the British Navy.  And even though the war was started at sea, it was entirely completed on land.  Britain had entertained the idea that it could recapture this country that had slipped its rule only 30 years prior, well within the memory of most in government and power.  But again, the cost of a protracted war at a great distance proved too much.  Britain had actually conceded the war prior to the Battle of New Orleans because of that reason.  But America had quickly reassembled its army but not before the British army lay waste to the new American capitol at Washington and ran with impunity for well over a year.

 

The American army was relatively stable, well trained, and well equipped until the end of World War 1.  Many called that war, “the war to end all wars.”  It was believed that after WW1, a war which counted its casualties in the 10s of millions, there would never again rise the desire of any country to war upon any other country at such a scale.  The allies, America, Britain, and France agreed upon the size of the world’s navies.  It was believed that only a navy could transport large armies to other countries and by limiting those navies would necessarily limit any country’s desire to do war.  That, of course, proved hugely fallacious  By Americans, gripped by isolationist ideas, reduced its army by such large numbers that had the Japanese attacked the US mainland 1940 with its marines and armies using it large naval fleet, we would have been in serious trouble.  Couple that with its ally, Germany, and an invasion by Germany, American’s 458,000 men in uniform would have been severely tested and, in many cases, eliminated owing to poor training, being poorly equipped, and marginally led.  I mention that number because it was only due to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s belief that the US entry into the European war being eminent, he increased the size of the military to 1.8 million in 1941.  Even so, that military was not particularly well trained or well equipped.

Soldier-World-War-I

That 1940 number is worthy of note because it is the number at which today’s Army stands.  The total number in today’s military, all branches and both active and reserve, stands at about 1.3 million but declining.  Since 1988 the US Congress has been hell bent on reducing the size of the military, and the number of its installations when there were about 2.1 million men in uniform.  People viewed, and still do, our defense budget as out of control, over-burdening, and unnecessary.  The present day public has this view that we can somehow conduct a war at a distance and with a “World of Warcraft” mentality.  We have smart bombs, high tech aircraft, and cutting edge equipment at every point.  But what the American public forgets is that in the end, it is the individual soldier would fights and wins, or God help us, loses the war.  High tech equipment is rendered useless without men to operate and maintain it.  But even more importantly, and something we all should be intimately aware of right now, is that today’s war, today’s battles, are largely fought and won by the rifleman.  We fight large numbers of enemies who do not wear any uniform, are terrorists who blend in with the local population.  We should have learned that lesson back in the 1970s when in Vietnam we had to fight the Viet Cong who did the same.  But it seems we have forgotten and so we have doomed ourselves to repeating our past mistakes.

Today, the US Army has a total of 13 divisions, 1 armored, 1o infantry of various sorts, and only 2 reserve/national guard.  During the conduct of the Vietnam War, the Defense Department guaranteed each soldier that he would be required to serve in a war zone for only one 12-month period in his career.  Today, soldiers are required to serve 2, 3 and even 4 tours in our present-day war zones.  We have known since World War 1 the hugely negative effects of war upon soldiers and we strived for 50 years to protect our soldiers against such circumstances.  What in World War 2 and Korea was called “battle fatigue” is today known as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.  Most, if not all, our soldiers today who have served in Afghanistan and Iraq suffer for some degree of PTSD.  This too is a cost of war.

PH2008011502336

We have two choices right now, as I see it.  We can either withdraw all our troops for the worlds battle grounds or greatly increase the size of our military.  Our military is extremely stressed and stretched far too thinly for the mission it has been given today.  Too few are being asked to do too much.  And since I do not see us withdrawing from the world’s battlefields at any time in the near future, it is our duty, an imperative, to adjust the size of our military to fill those needs.  And as distasteful as the American public may find it, the best deterrent to terrorist and like activities in countries such as Iraq and Afghanistan is the presence of a large infantry force until that country is capable of defending itself.  Clearly neither Iraq nor Afghanistan is ready to defend itself.  This is exactly what we did at the end of World War 2 in Germany and Japan, and it worked extremely well.  Why is it we cannot commit ourselves in the same manner today?

Americans really need to consider its mindset towards our military and those we serve.  While it has become common practice to thank those who serve, those words ring rather hollow when we do not back them up with actions that show our support.  Americans should insist that soldiers not be forced into harms way more than once in their military service and back that promise up with the dollars it takes to keep that promise.  Americans need to suck it up, bite the bullet, or whatever cliché you care to use, and commit to a force that not only serves our country in general, but those who serve within it as well.  Right now we are asking too few to do too much.

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How To Eliminate Personal Income Taxes


There is an irony to the income tax debate going on today.  The Republican Party attacks income taxes as being too high, and how they restrain investment.  The irony is, it was their own party that developed today’s personal income tax under President Howard Taft.  In 1913 the 16th Amendment was passed creating a permanent income tax.  That amendment says, “The Congress shall have power to lay and collect taxes on incomes, from whatever source derived, without apportionment among the several states, and without regard to any census or enumeration.”  And that is it.  There is absolutely no language saying what form any tax must take, just that Congress has the power to levy them.

The fix is actually very simple and ultimately fair, a national sales tax.  Consider, every person pays taxes as he goes with certain exemptions, which I will get to.  If that sales tax were 5%, it would meant all transactions would be subject to that tax, and a person could not claim exemption for any reason.  Now, so it would not unfairly impact the poor, certain items would be exempt from taxation, food, medicine, medical services, clothing up to a certain price per article, and other such items.

To make it even more fair, transactions between businesses would take three levels, 5% for small business under 100 employees, 10% for businesses 100 to 500, and 15% for businesses about 500.  Businesses, unlike individuals, would have no exemptions, particularly, but not limited to, transactions outside the United States.  There is one really interesting aspect to this and that is that political donations would immediately become taxable.  Since such donations are little more than paying for a service they would not gain an exemption from the still existing 503(c), not for profit, agency.  Such agency would be limited to museums, charitable foundations, etc.

The first group who would complain about this setup will be tax accountants and lawyers.  Since an automated point of transaction system can be set up to immediately feed funds into the U.S. Treasury, the need for lawyers and accountants to oversee individual and corporate taxation would plummet.  A simple set of electronic transactions laws could be set up to insure tax collection.  Corporations, however, could gain a lot of ground on the tax rate they now pay, upwards of 43%.  If, for example, it was determined that the corporate transaction rate should but put at 30%, they would still gain.  But corporations would still be eligible for certain right offs for things like capital equipment depreciation and claim a tax refund at the end of each fiscal year.  Individuals would be eligible to do the same, however, their tax rate being so low that the threshold to get such a refund would generally be too high.

There could also be written in a transaction threshold before a tax is levied.  For example, there might be a $5000 threshold for the purchase of any first vehicle in a family.  If a guy buys a $10,000 car, he pays a $250 tax for the next $5000.  This helps keep an undo burden on the poor.  Now if a guy buys a $105,000 car, he is going to pay $5000.

By instituting a national income tax and eliminating the personal income tax, April 15 would become a memory as no individual would ever be required to make out a 1040 or any of its brothers, no more W-2, no more W-4, no more 1099, etc.  That all by itself will greatly reduce the IRS bureaucracy.

The fairness of such a plan should be evident but the willingness of Congress to even consider such an idea may be too much.

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Putin Escalates the Crisis in the Ukraine


Vladimir Putin said he would respect the vote taken in the Eastern Ukraine.  Well, of course he will!  It suits his purposes!  NATO, the United Nations have once again taken an entirely impotent stance.  Let’s work this out diplomatically, they say.  Are you kidding me?  Have you seen those masked cowards who have taken over the cities in Eastern Ukraine?  Do you really believe they care a wit about negotiations and diplomacy?  They care about one thing and one thing only, being annexed by Russia.

But let us be very clear about one thing.  Soldiers, even in a civil or revolutionary army do not cover their faces.  The fight openly and proudly for their cause.  You can take two things by these masked cowards:  they are cowards, or, they are actually Russian military sent in to disrupt proper Ukrainian law and order.  I am betting on the latter.  But I also believe there are some cowardly Ukrainian citizens who want to be a part of Russia who are masking their face.  Still, if Russia had any respect for another country’s sovereignty, it would categorically declare itself neutral and stay out of the fight.  I suspect that quite the opposite is happening.  I suspect Russia is supplying arms and other assistance to the rebel cause.

What’s in this for Russia.  In truth, I do not think they are all that interested in the eastern portion of the Ukraine but rather that part of the country which borders the Black Sea.  Their taking of Crimea was only the first step in realizing that goal.  The Russian regime is little more than a bunch of thugs and bullies with Vladimir Putin leading the charge.

As much as the U.S. and its allies do not need another war right now, we have an ally in the Ukraine and they are almost in desperate straits.  How long before we, NATO, UN, ask Ukraine exactly what and how much help they need, and then send it to them in force.

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Is History Repeating Itself in the Ukraine?


It is said that those who do not remember history are doomed to repeat it.  In 1938 Adolph Hitler annexed a part of Czechoslovakia called the Sudetenland.  His claim was that it was mostly inhabited by ethnic Germans which was true.  The Czech government lacked the military authority to resist the takeover.  England and France railed at this action, which Hitler called Anschluss, but did nothing of consequence.  Of course that was only the first step in Hitler’s desire to control all of Eastern Europe which history tells us he eventually did by late 1939.  In 1940 he turned on his “ally,” Stalin, and invaded the Soviet Union.  Prior to Hitler’s invasions of Czechoslovakia and Poland he amassed his troops along the borders of those countries.  He invaded Poland on the premise that the Poles had actually attacked first, a total fabrication of course.

It is scary to watch the events taking place along the Russian and Ukraine border and not find the parallels with 1938 and 1939.  Putin has send at least 40,000 troops to that border region.  What are his intentions?  The Ukrainians have shown absolutely not hostile intent towards Russia.  To wit, thus far, they have acquiesced to Russia’s takeover of the Crimea.  To be sure, Crimea is mostly ethnic Russians but the land itself belongs to the Ukraine.  Russia has with malice taken territory sovereign to the Ukrainian republic.

Respect of a countries borders though a time-honored tradition is replete with skirmishes and wars over those borders.  Russia’s history tells us they have been particularly pugnacious is that respect.  The Czars of Russia felt it their right to occupy Poland and other lands they claimed some ancient, albeit specious, right to.  The old Soviet Union occupied much of Eastern Europe after 1945 by simply refusing to remove its troops following the defeat of Germany.  While countries like Poland, Hungary, and Lithuania continued to exist as entities, the did so only as puppets of the Soviet regime.  And even when Soviet troops were removed, those troops of any particular country were always subservient to the Russian army and the desires of the Kremlin.  The Hungarian uprising of 1956 showed the desire of the general population to remove itself from Soviet control only to be put down.

It is my fear the Putin and his Russian government is seeking a return to the days of the old Soviet.  We must remember that Putin is a product of that old regime.  He rose to prominence within the KGB.  The despotism and authoritarianism of the old Soviet seems to still exist within the likes of Putin.  It would not be surprising to find that Putin’s true desire is to return Russia to the old Soviet style government.  Wise men caution us that the best way to judge what a person is going to do is by what he has done in the past.

As much as I despise the idea of war, I think the United States and its allies need to ask the Ukrainian government if it would like a NATO presence in its country to protect against any Russian ideas of invasion.  If there is one thing NATO learn well, hopefully, during the cold-war years, is that a strong military presence facing its foes is an excellent deterrent.  The United States, in particular, needs to state that it is willing to at least offer, and follow through, such support.

The people of the Ukraine have the right to self-determination and the Russian government has absolutely no right to any land sovereign to the Ukrainian people.

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Crisis in the Urkraine — Part 2


Depending upon who you ask, the Crimea is either still a part of the Ukraine or a part of Russia.  Fortunately the events which brought about this situation all happened in the past 6 months meaning they should all be fresh in everyone’s mind.  It started with the Ukrainian people toppling their pro-Russian President and replacing him with a popular official.  This unrest within the Ukraine gave President Putin all the ammunition he needed to stir up a little trouble in Crimea, and that he did.  And just to put a sharp point on his intensions, he sent thousands of Russian troops to the area.  He was obviously provoking the government of the Ukraine into doing something aggressive.  But he was also offering solace to the large population of Russians who live in Crimea.  The message being, “Feel safe.  We are here for  you.”  It did not matter to him that any incursi0n on the sovereign soil of the Ukraine was an act of war, regardless of the vote the Crimean parliament took.  Crimea was, and is, the lawful territory of the Ukrainian people.  Putin has snubbed his nose at a country’s right to sovereignty by placing his troops on the Ukrainian military compounds while running out the Ukrainian troops.  He is daring the Ukrainian government, and anyone else, to do something about it.

The U.S. response to all this was to first put sanctions of many Russian businessmen who do business in the U.S.  Then they made a number of Russian diplomats persona non grata who were ordered to leave the U.S.  And finally, we are sending troops to Lithuania and the Ukraine.  It would not surprise me that troops will be placed in Poland as well.  The Ukraine is not a part of NATO however it borders countries which are to include Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, and Turkey, all of whom have a vested interest in maintaining peace in their sphere of influence.  And all, except Turkey, have no desire to once again fall under the rule of Moscow after they worked so hard to escape it.

One fear I have heard is that this could be the beginning of a whole new “cold war.”  I hope not but having armed camps along the Russian, Ukrainian, and Crimean borders certainly makes things look that way.  Is this Russia testing the waters to possibly re-occupying a country like Belarus?  Estonia? Latvia?  Putin has absolutely no good excuse for sending his troops into a foreign country regardless of what the residents of that area voted.  No only is it an act of aggression, but an unmistakable act of war.

But we in the U.S. have declared ourselves to be the ally of the Ukrainian people.  And to that end we must give them all the support, within reason, that they need.  This is a case, however, where war materials, along with adequate training are about as far as we should go.  This is not our war but the Ukrainians are our friends, and we must respect all their requests.

The only acceptable result is a total Russian withdrawal from Crimea.