Still struggling over the Thuy Linh Tu article...

 I'm not sure how well I expressed my confusion, my doubts in my blog posting yesterday.  I probably should have waited to post until I had given it more thought. What I tried to say is that while I agree to a large extent with what Thuy Linh Tu had to say about the sad irony of her father's fate - running from American bombs only to end up making them himself - I fear that as we tell our stories of outrage and disillusionment with America and the state of the world in general, we way too often slant things so badly that we distort them. That we need more nuanced thinking, in other words. That we should make greater efforts to tell both sides of the story (if there are two - and often there are not) and that clarity is important and cannot be achieved without the time it takes to make those efforts.

I watched the Zelenskyy interview on 60 Minutes last night in tears. I don't remember a time when I felt more torn by a moral dilemma. The Realpolitiker in me wants to go along with those who advise the Ukrainians to surrender, to live to fight another day. Putin is a bully of the worst kind. He is on a par with Hitler in his ability to kill masses of people without batting an eye. If there were a god in heaven the world would rise up and stop him. But there is no god. We are on our own. (OK, maybe there is a god and he has a purpose in all this, but let's not get distracted.)

 

And when somebody sticks a gun in your face, you give them your wallet. You don't sacrifice yourself for honor, in my book.

But then I listen to Zelenskyy and the part of me that I value the most, the part I think of as my better self, my moral self, the part that contains dignity and a sense of justice, feels the tears coming. Thank God (note the capital G this time) I got to live in the time of Mahatma Gandhi, Nelson Mandela, Martin Luther King and Volodymyr Zelenskyy. I got to experience heroes in action.

When I listen to Zelenskyy and to other Ukrainians begging the world to step up and help them resist the Russian invader I find myself wanting to go to war. I don't like the argument that war is wrong, plain and simple, ever and always. I think the world was wrong not to step in and stop the Holocaust. And I agree with most people that Chamberlain was played for a fool in Munich. And I think that if you saw what happened in Bucha and still argue against war you probably need a heart transplant. Heart acquisition operation, rather.

That's what I was trying to get at. Thuy Linh is a soulmate. She grew up in my hometown. She sees American imperialism for what it is and she is right to call out the United States as a warmongering state. I'd like to meet her and shake her hand.

But what am I to do about the part of me that not only still loves the U.S. on some level, especially when it engages in the pursuit of democracy, as it does when it doesn't let the Ted Cruzes and the Lindsey Grahams and the Marjorie Taylor Greens run the show but tries to patch together a more equitable state and extend rights and extend a democratic consciousness to ever more of its citizens. That America is still there and can not and should not be dismissed.  

What am I to do about the desire to support heroes in the fight for democracy and not simply toss a little cash and a billion or two dollars worth of armaments their way and say, "Best I can do. From here you're on your own, kid..."

Hope you make it?  Seriously?

Anyone who wants to read the original NY Times article that started me down this path can find it here. They may require a subscription, and if so, sorry about that.