Consider this possible headline: 146 Million Russians Tremble Before Ukrainian Onslaught.
Unlikely? Highly improbable? Impossibly ridiculous? I'm going with "that dog don't hunt".
Let me suggest a notion linking Putin's latest craven gambit with your day-to-day life. Russia produces 11% of the world's oil, which makes it #3 behind the US and Saudi Arabia, and is the second largest producer of natural gas, again behind the US.
Turmoil in the world drives up oil and gas prices. Good for Russia, and good for oil and gas firms around the world. Not so great for your fuel costs. But, perhaps I digress too much.
Of course, Comrade Putin is a humble public servant earning around $136,000 annually. And there is that 1600 sq. ft. apartment in Moscow. And a garage. All that talk of a net worth between $80-200 billion--unlikely? Highly improbable? Impossibly ridiculous?
I know, I know, I've come untethered from the lede.
Back to the 'M' word. Set aside all the geopolitical posturing, all the diplomatic verbiage, all the scuttling about by heads of states and representatives. If any Ukrainian is killed by any actions of the Russian military or its proxies, the word that needs to be spoken is murder.
Say it out loud, Russian troops murdered children. Murdered grandparents. Murdered shopkeepers. Murdered soldiers.
I can't help but wonder how some of the stand-your-ground folks look away, but there I go again a-wandering.
Remember the "tear down that wall" rhetoric in 1987? How about "stop murdering Ukrainians"?
Hey, I've read Orwell.
Murder, murder, murder, murder, murder.
Will be interesting to see if all the hand-wringers and virtue signalers waving the Ukrainian flag—the vast majority, I suspect, who, unlike you no doubt, could not point to Ukraine on a map or name a single meaningful export from that country, and who wave the flag so as to belong to something, anything, go along to get along—will soon be flying the Israeli flag and “standing with Israel.”
ReplyDelete