Call Me Surprised
The Last Character I Expected to Sound and Act Reasonable Made Sense.
This is an AI generated image by Dall-E. AI apparently didn’t want to show only two countries, the USA and Russia…technical difficulties, you see. So don’t assume AI has no biases!
Call me surprised. I never would have expected Donald Trump to sound reasonable re the Ukraine conflict. He even identified the culprit, which I knew of, back in 2014, when Biden gave the go ahead for the Maidan coup, which triggered this 11 year long disaster for the people of Ukraine. I talk with Ukrainian friends. With one notable exception who is well aware of the forces that brought about the conflict, they (like their American counterparts) were hooked into the conflict, just like the other wars the US started in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq. Heavy doses of propaganda have unfortunately been very effective, except for the few people who take the time to understand the many factors that caused it. My Ukrainian friend now living in a city that has been traditionally Russia, is anxiously waiting for her city to be liberated by Russia.
Just like a disease, wars are the result of unhealthy life decisions. So now out of the blue, Trump admits the root of the problem: The West reneged on its agreements with the USSR with the clear purpose of destroying Russia, and stealing its resources.
What changed is that Russia recovered from the disastrous 1990's and gave the genetically Russophobic Europeans and the many equally blinkered Americans who've watched too many 'Russian gangsta' movies to see Russia objectively, a nasty surprise. Russia's surprisingly strong economy did not crater under sanctions, and its revitalized and technologically superior weapons and a military culture going back 240 years, defeated every ruthless adversary.
It is too soon to tell. Let's recall that Trump sent his envoy, Witcoff to demand a ceasefire in Gaza. But then he threatened to break the ceasefire that his team negotiated! So, although the basic elements are being put into place to resolve Ukraine, we are hardly out of the woods. Following breakthroughs under JFK's arms control treaties with Khrushchev, and Nixon's arms control treaties with (I think) Brezhnev, the US backtracked. Under Reagan we nearly had a nuclear war but a strong peace movement knocked sense into his head.
Nevertheless, when the USSR disbanded and voluntarily disarmed, the Collective West moved in for the kill in 1990. The world has been in constant turmoil with multiple wars in Yugoslavia, Iraq, Afghanistan, Iraq twice, and numerous coups and brushfire wars.
Now, the tide has turned. And it looks like Trump and/or some elements of 'the Real Owner Class' in the USA, realize that it can't defeat Russia and have to come to terms with it. At least for the moment.
Nevertheless, the bipolar nature of the US, what I call 'The Empireholics', will find it difficult to break the Hegemony Habit, the EmpireHolic addiction to war.
Trump astounded me by suggesting a 50% cut in military spending by the US, Russia and China. However, the US military budget is TWO TIMES the combined Russia and China military budget. It is OUR military industrial complex that is out of control, just as President Eisenhower warned us about in 1960.
So, while the peace overtures Trump is offering are pleasantly surprising, it's no time to be complacent. Oddly, it is the libertarian Right leading the way, while the formerly progressive left (with some exceptions like myself) has promoted Russophobia, and cancel culture.
Those of you reading this who consider yourselves liberal, please get up to speed on what and who actually caused this war. And come together to cut the military budget by 50% (or more), stop developing new nuclear weapons, and fix our own problems. Crumbling infrastructure, wasteful health care systems, predatory banking, shredded social safety net, massively corrupt bribe ridden political system, and decades of Manufactured Consent by a bought and paid for major media outlets, that purposely deliver a highly distorted and false narrative.
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Dear Prof. Doctorow,
Note the first principle of Trump's proposal. Stop fighting ASAP.
In other words, we are losing, please don't take all the land with the rare earth minerals.
The US fomented this war. Trump added fuel to the fire by providing lethal weapons and breaking treaties. But instead of paying reparations and going to prison for the Supreme crime of crime against peace and the million dead and the country depopulated, he expects to get monetary pay back!
A true sociopath.