This won’t be a post about the current status of the war. By the time I write it, the status will change. And, in reality, I don’t know the status. The one thing that has served me well is to not believe anything from the legacy media or any government mouthpiece.
It also won’t be a regurgitation of why Russia took the action it did earlier this week. Those who care to know already know; those who pretend they know, don’t. I don’t write this because I glory in war and death, however Russia’s actions are clearly understandable.
Let’s just call it a reverse Cuban Missile Crisis, and consider how desperately one will fight if doing nothing is viewed as the equivalent of suicide by cop. When Putin says all options are on the table (my paraphrase), I believe it. As long as he feels the situation is existential…why not?
I have good friends from Ukraine. They live here now, and have for many years. But they have family still there. I have been speaking with them regularly during these days. The sadness, bitterness, desperation – it is all on display in the voice.
They, of course, see the situation as very one-sided – just as the legacy press and the US government present it. I don’t spend any effort to convince them otherwise. This is not the time for this. They see their home country attacked; they see their family at risk. Now is just time to listen.
I am reminded of a book by Timothy Snyder, Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin. Ukraine figures prominently in this story. I have written several posts based on this book, but the one that will never leave me is regarding the famine. The scene that will never leave me is the silence:
In Soviet Ukraine in early 1933, the communist party activists who collected the grain left a deathly quiet behind them…Ukraine had gone mute.
All life stripped – human, livestock, birds, cats, dogs…all dead and gone. When I got to this part of the book, I just had to stop reading it for several days.
All of this is just a reminder – those pulling the strings, making the decisions, initiating action, they don’t pay any consequences. They push the consequences onto others, people with no political power, people with little means to fight back, people who are less than pawns. Because, to be a pawn implies that you have utility in the game – something useful to those moving the pieces.
These people, and the same is true for most of us, are just collateral damage. Consider them the plastic wrapper that the chess game came in when new – irrelevant to the game, trash to be thrown out.
Conclusion
When I get off the phone with my friend, I pour myself a nice scotch with a little ice. I’ve got to wind down. It is his turn to be the one crushed by unaccountable madmen, helpless. It has been my turn before; it will be again. It sucks. He is ready to go fight. I know the feeling, as I have had it. Emotional? Sure. Will he? Would I? I doubt it. But the feeling is real.
Blame Russia, blame NATO, blame whoever you want. It is irrelevant, in reality, to those on the receiving end.
Hope the peace come back Ukraine soon!
ReplyDeleteAmen.
DeleteBeing a slow reader, I am plodding my way through David Chilton's Days of Vengeance for the second time. It is an exposition on the Book of Revelation written by the Apostle John.
ReplyDelete(Which BTW is available as a free download at the late Gary North's site.)
I'm about in the middle of the book and it is now clear to me, as Chilton wrote, that the entire Bible from Genesis to Revelation is about the war on Christ.
Revelation is NOT about the end times - it is about the years leading up to and including the ultimate destruction of apostate Israel in 70 AD. That's all I will say now - you can prove or disprove that yourself.
My point in bringing this up is that unless we can identify who our enemy is, we end up fighting each other. Think 20th century - "you and him go fight" - Christians fighting Christians!
I noticed for instance some church denominations have started appeals to aid Ukrainian Christians - where were they when the Ukies were bombing the Russians in Donbass, including Christians...for many years? Since our popular press ignored that travesty, our churches were silent.
So who is our enemy? Who wants war? Who rules us? These are questions that are rarely asked and I am convinced that Hosea 4:6 nails it - "My people are destroyed from lack of knowledge...."
We in the churches of Western Civilization have lost our ability to discern between good and evil - Hebrews 5:11-14 - and thus have become unwitting dupes of the enemies of Christ - just as Bionic wrote about Ephesians 6:12 some time ago.
That's what I have to say and I'm sticking to it!
Crush, Bruce Gore walks through the preterist view of Revelation. In other words, it was directly written regarding 70 AD, etc. As a good minority of Biblical scholars believe the book was written in about 65 AD, the timing works.
DeleteFor me? The battle is perpetual until Christ returns. This is when the madness will end.
To your other comments...we agree.
Forgot to add the link re Gore:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=10FRxJ4_yJo
I think we have a miscommunication on my part - Chilton's book jibes with Gore - DoV is also an exposition on the years leading up to 70 AD. What Chilton does so well is relating the Old Testament imagery as described by OT prophets to John's letter of Relevation.
DeleteThe reference to the war on Christ from Gen to Rev was just a passing comment and focused on the Satan led human actors who tried and are still trying to carry out their mission as servants of Old Scratch. In other words - nothing new.
Crush, I did understand your comment as pointing to 70 AD, etc. I should have made that more clear, that I was just offering something along the same lines.
DeleteI think we are one the same page about the perpetual battle.
I am not in contact with Ukrainians now. But I was during the 2014 Maidan revolution and they expressed the same kind of one sidedness. Understandable, but doesn't help the bigger picture. I think one reason for this one-sidedness is fear based on the Soviet era. I think there is possibly an understandable feeling in Ukraine that this is their opportunity to deal death back to Russia for what Moscow did to them in the 20s and 30s. I wouldn't argue about it with them but it doesn't help the present situation.
ReplyDeleteThe only goal worth pursuing is a negotiated peace between Ukraine and Russia without Western or Chinese interference. They have to find common interests that they can develop. They need to find a situation where peace is stable.
None of that happens with the NATO getting involved or outside countries being involved in the negotiations or any side escalating for any reason.
Neocons in the US are already saying Russia will attack the Baltics. Poland and the Baltics are freaked out and aiding Ukraine. If no one de-escalates the situation could quickly escalate to nuclear war. God save us all.
thecrosssectionrmb.blogspot.com
I agree, it doesn't help the bigger picture. Yet, they, like us, are just fodder.
DeleteWW1 in 1917 ... combatants in a stalemate, struggling to come into an agreement.
DeleteHistory is written, nothing is learned, all is repeated, setup for the next conflict.
Jaime, I guess we could say "lather, rinse, repeat."
DeleteGet the people up in a "lather."
"Rinse" the blood out of their veins.
Repeat.
"Blame Russia, blame NATO, blame whoever you want. It is irrelevant, in reality, to those on the receiving end."
ReplyDeleteThere is certainly a lot of blame to go around on this one. Fred Kagan (yes, he's one of those Kagans) recently went on Jordan Peterson's podcast and laid the pro-US/NATO propaganda on thick. Talk about a one-sided assessment. No surprise that the military industrial complex is a big donor to this guy's think tank, the American Enterprise Institute.
Jordan didn't push back much on Kagan's assertions, nor did he bring up inconvenient truths about past US interventions. I would say that JBP has a pretty big weak spot here. He pretty much accepted all the lies and omissions at face value. For instance, there was no mention of the 2014 US backed coup in Ukraine, which was engineered by Fred's brother's wife Victoria Nulan Kagan.
Here's what I'm fairly confident happened. The West backed the Russia into the corner over the course of decades of NATO advancement and aggressive talk, and then fed Ukraine to the angry bear in order to justify whatever they have planned next. I'm going to go out on a limb and say it is radically increased military budgets (just like Fred openly suggested on Peterson's show), restricted freedoms, and scores of innocent people dying or being horribly maimed. NATO should have been disbanded when the Soviet Union collapsed.
Like Trump, Peterson still does not understand who is enemies are. Don't give these bloodthirsty Neocons any more voice than they already have. Peterson needs to put on people like Scott Horton, Philip Giraldi, Stephen Cohen, or at least John Mearsheimer to give a countervailing point of view. I guess we'll have to leave that to Rogan.
Last thing. Everyone is saying to pray for and support the Ukrainians, which is all well and good, but just ummm...be more specific. Are we talking about the Ukrainians who've accepted the quasi-fascist regime put into power by the US backed coup in 2014, or the ethnic Russians in Eastern Ukraine who have not accepted it and have been seeking independence ever since? The correct answer is both. Also pray for the people of Russia. I know I am praying that America, especially conservative America, remembers who has been lying to them constantly for at least the past 2 years over a flu outbreak.
ATL, as you will see by the time you read this, I too have noted the referenced Peterson discussion. It was a poor show, however the comments section was very uplifting and also showed that Peterson's listeners are not a bunch of drones.
DeleteAs to prayer...prayer for peace will cover them all, but if God has other designs on some of the perpetrators, I won't stand in His way!
"John Perkins once told me a story of bringing a group to have an audience with the Dalai Lama. A woman asked him, “Is it important to pray for peace?” The Dalai Lama said, “Yes, praying for peace is very good, but if that is all you do you are wasting your time.”"
Delete"What he meant is that prayers will have no effect if they are not aligned with action."
-- from The Field of Peace by Charles Eisenstein, 2/28/22. https://charleseisenstein.substack.com/p/the-field-of-peace
"RUSSIA BAD! RUSSIA BAD! RUSSIA BAD! RUSSIA BAD! RUSSIA BAD! RUSSIA BAD!"
ReplyDeleteThis is so deeply ingrained into Americans' cultural DNA and collective psyche that even the most critically thinking among them can't seem to overcome the impulse. Just about the only hope of this ever reversing itself will be a turn of events that completely demolishes the "America good" facade once and for all time and that exposes the lies for what they are in such stark terms that even the most self-deluded of normies can't ignore it anymore.
It has to do with the American idolatry of democracy. So long as Americans continue to hold up democracy as the ideal, the little devils of war promotion, like the Kagans, can paint anyone they wish as un-democratic, and thus worthy of judgement from on high. How often was Trump's campaign and administration, or any political initiative seeking election integrity, bemoaned as an attack on democracy? Anything that opposes the advance of the state is now deemed un-democratic.
DeleteWhere do we learn to worship democracy? Well, it's no surprise that our children choose democracy over God, when God gets their ear on Sunday for an hour (if that), and democracy gets their ear for 30+ hours a week for the most formative years of their lives. And on top of this, the vast majority of God's shepherds have become democratized as well. So even God nowadays is filtered through the vision of 'We the People'.
I don't know what the solution is exactly, but I know it's going to take a mass exodus from the public education system and some truly heroic parenting.
Nature abhors a vacuum. So does the spirit. If God is dead, then a vacuum exists which must be filled and the obvious candidate to fill it is man, generally speaking, but in particular, one man--myself. I am God. If I am God and everyone is equal, then everyone else is also God. All are gods equally and democracy, a la Animal Farm, is only a means of deciding which god(s) are more equal than the others.
DeleteThere is only one solution to our current situation which will work--abandon the idea that God is dead and that we have taken His place. This will never happen as long as mass indoctrination centers exist to preach the message and parents willingly sacrifice their children to it. It will not happen collectively, but only as individuals break the habit one by one over time.
We really can't blame the kids for embracing this fallacy because they are endowed with the same flaw that all of us are: sinful human nature and the desire to be as God. Nevertheless, the kids are going to suffer throughout their lives for toeing the line. The sins of the fathers really are visited on the children.
This mindset will not change on its own. People do not generally change the way they think or their lifestyle willingly. They change because the reality of the present becomes more painful than the prospect of the future. Better the devil you know than the one you don't, until the devil you know begins to hurt really, really badly. In our world society, it will take an extreme amount of pain to change the understanding of Who (who) is God (god). That pain is here now in many parts of the world and is rapidly growing everywhere.
"You shall not bow down to them or worship them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on their children to the third and fourth generations of those who hate Me,..." -- Exodus 20:5
ATL: I don't know what the solution is exactly, but I know it's going to take a mass exodus from the public education system and some truly heroic parenting.
DeleteThat is the solution, or at least the start of one.
RJ Rushdooney, father-in-law of Gary North and champion for homeshcooling, said something like "Conservatives complain about a few percentage points in the tax rate, and then tithe their children to the state."
“The State did not own men so entirely, even when it could send them to the stake, as it sometimes does now where it can send them to the elementary school.” - G.K. Chesterton
DeleteWhen a son saw his father taken to the stake, at least the son would understand that the father stood for something - and that the father considered that something to be important.
DeleteNow, all the son sees - consciously or subconsciously - is a father who is too busy to be bothered with the health of the son.