Or who is taking your time, occupying your land and denying you liberty?
Residents of Melitopol, a city in southern Ukraine, gathered to protest the arrival of Russian troops on March 2 as Moscow continues its military invasion for the seventh day. Shots can be heard in the background of an amateur video shot by a protester who says, “They are trying to intimidate us.” The shots appear to be fired into the air by Russian forces in an attempt to disperse the protest, while demonstrators remain defiant.
We all take are freedom for granted as Boris Yeltsin says we don’t appreciate what we have when we have it. I would go further and say like oxygen we need it in order to sustain life and breathe. Some of us only can imagine waking up to the sound of shelling or even worse a shell falling on our home. But that is no longer left to the imagination in Ukraine.
Imagine waking up and finding an occupying tank from a foreign force on your doorstep, stealing from your county the right to vote, for who you believe in Your right to say and do what you believe to be right. Or go to where you want, when you want. These are all rights that as a reader of this article you and others in your country have and like air those rights are all around you and like oxygen your society needs them in order to sustain a healthy political ecosystem.
Hope and Prayers for Salvation for the people of Ukraine.
My mind is racing and my fears and thoughts go out to the people of Ukraine.
It’s incredibly scary being a witness to the horror unfolding in Ukraine live on TV and I have been guilty of watching it nearly around the clock taking short breaks to sleep at night and fortunately working during the day so as to not be watching the news then also.
No matter how scary or fearful I am concerning the people of Ukraine it does not even touch the tip of the iceberg compared to what those unbelievably brave souls are going through themselves in their own country. That is why I promoted the donation page on my website and also donated to International Medical Corps last night one of the organisations providing medical support on the ground in Ukraine.
There are so many what if’s and buts’ at the moment about how this will all unfold and too many scenarios to write about coherently or sensibly. It feels right now that to save Ukraine is to save the world.
I am not a Christian so do not believe there will one day be an anti-Christ, my father told me when I was young that many people believed that Hitler was the anti-Christ due to the amount of atrocities he had willingly committed and this to me seemed plausible.
One of my fears concerning anti-Christ theory’s is that they are constantly looking for one and accusing others that they are one and that we therefore are living in the end of days all the time. At the time of Jesus some of his believes then truly with all their hearts also belived that they to were living in the end times and 2000 years later the debate still rages on amongst people of strong religious beliefs across a whole spectrum of religions about when are they going to happen and who is the anti-christ or leader of evil. So I hope and pray that there is no anti-christ and that Putin is therefore not one to.
Darth Putin
Putin is weaving us down his very dark path through time immemorial. He is building his legacy on the bones & bodies of the dead ordered at his command. The non-believer in the freedom of thought, action and expression of individuals. The denier of Sovereignty to states and denier of democratic rights of his own citizens as well as those of others, well he does not have my vote.
His actions are not those of someone that wishes to protect others, but punish them from straying from his hell bent perception of the world. The strength of will of the people of Ukraine really shames Putin and all that he stands for.
I thought you could not kill an ideal once born into this world. I now know thanks to Ukraine you can’t kill a nation that knows it has the right to exist.
It looks like the capital of Ukraine could be occupied this evening. Putin’s potential intensions and what his agenda really might be in the longterm for the world and for Ukraine is chilling and leaves me cold. Putin does not lay his cards on the table, but keeps them guarded close to his chest, if he were to reveal his true nature and agenda it would likely be chilling to his own citizens and also leave them cold too as well as the rest of the world.
What I believe about Putin is that he believes the cold war never ended, the Soviet Union should still exist and although the west thought it won the cold war and defeated Russian communism, he still wishes to reignite a spark of war across the continent of Europe and fight a cold war.
Putin has murdered and jailed political opponents, does not accept the rule of international law or accept peoples rights to govern themselves or the sovereignty of other nations and believes in the power of a totalitarian one man state of power over the power of the people.
He believes he can do what he can get away with and that his might is right and you don’t tell the truth in order to try to win a good argument or inflict your will on others. He has no respect for the international community or rule of law. I don’t think there is any way now of appeasing Putin and the only solution to stop his blooding of other nations and the citizens therein will be when he is removed from power. For someone that has cemented his own power base in such a way that he has it will not be easy to hold Putin accountable or to stop him in his tracks.
I just don’t see his thirst being quenched when and if Ukraine falls.
A grim milestone in the history of Russia as a ‘special military operation’ or invasion by any over name unfolds live on the TV. Watching the UN security council live on TV which crazily Russia happens to be the ‘chair’ of the council at present allowing people to speak condemning it. Chairing a meeting about its own aggression and war mongering seems most bizarre.
It seems more likely now that Putin will invade a sovereign nation or is as I type is invading a sovereign nation live. The 23 February in Russia was Defender of the Fatherland Day, it should instead be known as the blooding of thy neighbour day.
Inflicting regime change on Ukraine a sovereign and democratically elected state, government and people is basically a way of Putin sticking up two fingers to the rest of the free world, while again blooding his hands with the blood of his neighbours.
I am not a Christian but am a god fearing man and Christianity and Christ teachs us all a great deal at times of peace as well as things to reflect at a time when you know that one man (Putin) has ordered the deaths and is off to war with others.
As Russian troops mass on the Ukrainian border and worries of the invasion grow, Russian President Vladimir Putin continues to peddle a familiar Russian line about the conflict: that Ukraine belongs to Russia and that the two are “one people — a single whole.”
All men are created equal [but some are more equal than others]
Not only that but his peddling his hate for the west from his regurgitating of his view of the history of the world he also now extends his views into the perception that he is the enemy of the west and he is the righteous good guy in the unfolding history of the world. Democracy smocracy who cares if you have freedom of thought for your people, freedom to vote by your people, freedom of speech about people, when in the past you used to be the bad guys right you gave birth to slavery, Hitler and colonialism.
Russia on the other hand has in the past starved and murdered its own people under the leadership of past Tsars and Communist leaders in the name of power and progress. No one is innocent under the magnifying glass of a historian, whilst at the same time no one should be tard with the same brush and we should certainly not aspire to repeat the mistakes of the past. If Putin has no intentions of rights wrongs of the past it’s all about power it has only ever been about power and will always be about power.
Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. Great men are almost always bad men. -John Dalberg.
In reality, Ukraine has long been distinct from Russia, and Putin’s current mythologizing of the Russia-Ukraine relationship fits a pattern of falsehoods designed to reconstitute imperial glory, and more importantly, to shield Putin from the threat of democracy in former Soviet republics — and possibly in Russia itself.
Putin is not the only old fossil on the block as he has huge reserves of natural gas to play with and presently supplies 40% of the European market. The more he has a hissy fit and continues to turn the screw on anyone he deems fit to then the greater the power to inflict pain on others he can flex.
Ukraine, for its part, is distinct from Russia in many ways and has been influenced by a number of different cultures, including by Central European countries in the west, and present-day Greece and Turkey in the south. Over the centuries Ukraine was also conquered by a number of different groups, including the Mongols, Lithuanians, Poles, Austrians, and Swedes, as well as, eventually, the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great.
You would not see Britain reinterpreting its own history to reinvade Ireland simply because some people in Northern Ireland see themselves as British and end up starting World War 3 off the back of it. Well that is exactly the position Putin is putting the world in due to his beliefs and propaganda around the Ukraine.
If those at the top of a countries political structure are ruthless and power hungry or weak and incompetent does it really matter whether you live in a democracy or a dictatorship? Of course it does as in a democracy if you perceive your elected leader to be ruthless and power hungry or incompetent and weak, if you don’t like what their policies or disagree with how they impact on you then you can legally express opposition to them, protest against them and also vote against them. Where as in a one party/person state to disagree with the leader or the state you very much risk your own liberty or life.
How do we measure a successful state? If by economic productivity alone then should we all be in factories controlled by the state mass producing products to sell to the rest of the world or rampant free market capitalism with no rules on how to make money or exploit people and places or even state controlled factories with no limits to damaging the natural environment or constraints on impacts to citizens health and wellbeing?
Are citizens merely guinea pigs caught and put into cages, running around on exercise wheels as pets to those in political and/or economic power for their service and amusement? Are young angry men sent to war to die to keep down the population of young angry men and give them something to do whilst giving the deaths meaning at the sacrificial alter of the righteous state at the expense of the right to life of said young men.
A strong and vibrant political ecosystem should be a balance of enabling the potential and practical achievement of the greatest good, determined by the greatest number and extended to the largest amount of people within the boundaries’ of what is fare and justified to do and how people are entitled to live according to what a citizens human rights are or should be aspired to be. A fare system is not one that spends beyond its means in order to provide everything to everyone, but one that legislates and governs within its means in order to ensure those that it serves are served as best as they can be. This might be on the local level of a town ensuring that we live in safe communities with a roof over our heads and an ability to earn to provide for ourselves. Or at a global level where we have sustainable seas and affordable drinking water, electricity and goods, where we are not at war or starving and can breathe clean air and live in places with healthy natural environments.
No person or state is an island and if you thing you can survive on your own without any state intervention or rules then sooner or later you will run into a brick wall of reality that will stop you from believing you can do everything for yourself or on your own. For example when you become ill how will you get well, who will look after you and pay your health costs? When there is a global pandemic who will help your society live with its impacts or enable you to go about your business again?
The people, places and political structures of the 21st century are diverse and complex but if you choose not to have a say or opinion or not to vote in the power structures that governs you, then all that that happen instead is that some one else takes your vote for you and they probably won’t have your best interest at heart.
Dictators do not merely give greater powers to themselves they steal it from their own citizens. Dictatorship is political theft! So what makes for good government and governance? Well in my eyes it’s a society in which you can and do participate in the political process with a free will and freedom of information and freedom of expresion where you do no harm to others and they do no harm to you.
“I’m mad as hell and I’m not going to take it anymore” declared the longtime news anchor Howard Beale in the 1975 film classic Network. In the picture, people everywhere toss open their windows and repeat the catchphrase with a barbaric yap. They rush to the streets in maddening throng to air their grievances.
Quite fitting for our own time even though it’s from 1975.
With my own Prime Minister or so called leader of Britain Boris Johnson having had a birthday party, which he did not remember having or going to and then after remembering that he did actually have it and attend then deciding it was not after all a party! In the meantime he is trying to spread out the time it will take to admit what the hell was going on and what he has actually done or not done, that by the time the truth is finally out there we might not be so mad with him anymore as we have had to move on to the next bit of drama or TV rating fodder that we are following instead.
Leader of Britain – Boris Johnson
The present piece of TV rating global drama is the potential invasion of Ukraine by the new age Tsar Putin – the man is a power hungry monster, who will only be happy when the blood sweat and tears of other members of humanity, suffer and surrender at his throne. He really wants to make people suffer whether it’s by interfering and spreading disinformation in democratic countries or poisoning or imprisoning potential political threats in his own country. I used to just think he was a Russian mafia man but he has far greater ambition than to be the local god father of mother Russia.
European powers very much rely presently on Russian gas for fuel and energy of homes and businesses and if he flexes his muscles to cause a confrontation in Ukraine just to prove a point and invade a sovereign nation it will be a line in the sand that once crossed can never be taken back.
Well since I have returned from Ireland the new Covid-19 variant seems to be travelling through to new countries and lighting up warning lights of all those across the globe that it seems to comes into contact with. There seems to be an attempt in the UK to resist the locking down of society until we have spent enough festive season money in order to give our retailers and leisure industries enough time to make enough cash to still hopefully be in a position to remain viable business even if the economy needs to lockdown again in the new year.
You hear on the news, health professionals advising us to get another jab of the antivirus, work from home and wear masks and reduce mixing in public and they also advocate the introduction of further lockdowns in order to reduce the spread of covid-19 and reduce the pressure on our health services and reduce the risk of death for citizens.
But it seems a little mad to type, let alone contemplate an opposite to a health professionals view but you have others on the opposite side of the health advocacy spectrum saying continue to go to work, party and buy presents. Because if we don’t we might risk the collapse of our economies which would result in even greater suffering and potential lose of livelihoods and lives.
I hope that there is some kind of middle ground rather than a crash and learn approach which seems very popular by UK government politicians. I think we should already have some kind of covid-19 passports and proof of covid-19 status in place as they have in Ireland for when entering hospitality venues. Ireland is very much more restrictive than the UK. I believe they have now implemented bars being closed and people out of them by midnight. Table service for no more than six people.
We do need to learn to live with covid-19 but at what cost to our economy and/or health is still to be measured. I have yet to have a booster jab and I know as I am in a vulnerable group I need to book one in at some time in the next month or two. But I feel very guilty for the luxury afforded to me living in a modern rich county on how I am pampered with covid-19 jabs and it feels slightly sickening to be being offered my third when many people in poorer countries have yet to even be offered their first chance of having a jab.
Also many on those counties have no access to healthcare services to find out if they have covid-19 let alone getting treatmetn for covid-19 and even if they could find out if they have it might have to continue working with it for risk of losing a job or having a job that if they don’t work they don’t eat. It also feels like these are all fixable situations buy wealthier nations make a calculated choice to not to help others with as much help as they could or should.
The wealthy nations or the world that I happen to live in one of are in no way free nations, when it comes to poorer nations, they are not free to trade with us as equals or to travel to us as tourists, or live amongst us as equals. They are not able to have free access to the medical benefits and advancements that we have, and they certainly don’t have as much stability in their lives as we are blessed to have due to the place we were born into not due to the people we are made up from.
I fear if covid-19 sticks around in the long term, it will just be used as another economic statistic to prove how great wealthy countries are compared to poorer nations that will be made to suffer greater under its rain of infectious terror.
COVID-19 Outbreak World Map Total Deaths per Capita
Or Money for nothing and contracts millions given to friends and party donors for free.
I normally don’t get my news from Facebook but today a meme was doing the rounds about the lack of news on an important story.
Matt Hancock the UK Health Minister has been found guilty of not disclosing NHS contracts to the UK public. Now at first you might think well he had a lot of other stuff to do, with say saving the population and all that. But the more you dig into the news (or lack of news item the worse it gets).
The Government unlawfully failed to publish details of billions of pounds’ worth of coronavirus-related contracts, the High Court has ruled.
There looks to be a battle at the heart of government to not give money to local councils and health services for fear of waste and not trusting them to do the jobs they are they are there to do. Or for fear of them doing such a good job they might end up asking for even more money or powedr and control.
Prior to the pandemic we have been force fed for many years the lie that spending money on public health, local government and public service should be cut back, year on year for it is never affordable or practical to spend money on others and not really needed and civilisation itself might even collapse and our capitalist way of life grind to a halt if we try in any way what so ever to fairly fund government services with tax payers money.
Then a real crisis comes along in the shape of the pandemic, which results in a very real scenario of civilisations being put to the test and grinding to a halt and suddenly were all bloody socialist regardless of where you stand on the political spectrum, spending money as a left-winger, centralists or even right-winger on life saving society enhancing services and treatments is now seen as a normal way to do business..
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