Power to the Emotionally Disturbed

Maureen Doud wrote an interesting article on how often nations end up with delusional leaders dedicated to harming others. Hitler, Trump, Putin were elected.

Doud did not discuss why this occurs, but one reason, I think, is that power attracts one kind of emotionally disturbed people. They want power over others. They will do what it takes to gain the power to make other people obey them. They seek public office, something most humans never consider. 

Nearly all of us want to make our own decisions, but we don't want to boss other people around. So we get the bad bosses fairly often, petty versions of Putin. They work their way into positions of power. Then, running on empty, they try to justify themselves. 

The Ship Is Sinking

On television I am watching a monumental humanitarian catastrophe unfold, a war crime like the Bush assault on Iraq. I am sadder this time around, perhaps because I am older. 

Ukraine is the largest nation in Europe. Half of my wife's family came from Tetiev.

I went out many times to protest what the idiot Bush did to the ordinary human beings of Iraq. I was safe doing that, unlike the war protesters in Putin's Russia, who get beaten unconscious. 

The Ukrainian President turned down an offer by America to rescue him. He has chosen to die with his country. 

Putin miscalculated, I think. He believed that Russian speakers in Ukraine would welcome his army; instead they are, for the most part, shooting at the Russians. This morning I watched a Ukrainian man kneel in front of a Russian tank in an attempt to stop it. I saw Ukrainian women running for shelter clutching children and pets.  Ukraine is being shredded for no sane reason. 

What Is It Good For?

It's 1939 again. 

It's happening again, only this time the paranoid megalomaniac is armed with nuclear weapons. Putin talked about his stockpile yesterday, reminding us.

Like Hitler, Putin is germaphobic. He seats people ten yards away. They shout back and forth, but his advisors shout only what he wants to hear. Putin is not the genius Trump claims he is. Putin has lost touch with reality. 

War

Putin apparently intends to start a war with Ukraine. War is Hell, Gen. Sherman wrote. 

Like all nations Russia has a history of relationships with other countries. Stalin signed a pact with Hitler, the United States sent an army into Russia after World War One, solemn pledges were broken and so on. But right now Putin gets to decide how many Slavic children, women and men will die in an attack on and occupation of Ukraine. 

When George W. Bush, unprovoked, attacked Iraq, he committed a war crime. Bush went unpunished. Putin may follow the example Bush set.   

Shoes

Shoes

When I bend down to tie my shoes, I run out of breath. When I sit back up, I’m tired.

Canadian Truckers

In my capacity as a former member of the Teamsters Union, I have taken some interest in the crusade by Canadian truckers against covid mandates. I am reminded of what Grant wrote about Confederate soldiers. It was something to the effect that the Confederates had fought very well, and no one had ever fought for a worse cause. 

The Confederates were fighting for freedom, of course, the freedom to own women and men. 

The truckers have been fighting for freedom, too, the freedom to spread a disease. That may qualify as the second worse cause ever fought for on this continent. 

Power

One weakness common to countries like ours is that many (not all) of the candidates fighting for office are seeking power over other people. That seems built into the system . 

Elections are contests for control over others. It isn't so much that power corrupts as it is that politics attracts the power hungry, the Diannes and Mitches of the world. Most of us do not want to boss people around, and we do not like most politicians.

Why People Marry

Why people marry--

My wife of nearly 60 years: "I don't understand how, after a bath, you can use the same towel that I used."

Me: "I love you."

My wife: "No! No no no no!" 

White Supremacy Month

February is Black History Month in Democratic states and White Supremacy Month in most but not all Republican states. We are teetering toward a new kind of Civil War, according to Barbara Walter, who wrote HOW CIVIL WARS START.  

No one is going to fight the federal military, but if Crybaby Trump loses in 2024, racist militias may go for the the city halls and state houses. In a few states, I suspect,  Republican governors may join the militias with their National Guard. In other states the National Guard may oppose the militias. 

I see the militia movement as lame types playing soldier in the town park. The January 6 insurrection was astonishing in its murderous inhumanity and violence; it was also badly shaped and stupid, like the people who participated. But we have been warned. If we want to keep the aspects of democracy we still have, we'd better get ready.