The shameless years

When the COVID pandemic started I thought it might continue with world war III. Has it? I hope not. But I am not sure. My friends from the US write me messages of condoleances as if Romania was already lost. Is there some hidden napkin that has redivided the world? or is it a digital drawing in Ms. Paint shared on Zoom?

I look at the news and my children play with cars. They see the Russians as the bad guys. So they have a toy car that's Russian and hits the other cars. James is 5. So he sometimes takes the bad car and throws it out of the room. Ira is 1 and 1/2. He can say a few words. One of them is shoe, another is war. Edward is 11. But the young men and women from the military are never all bad or even bad on average. They are young people doing their job. I am in Spain now, but I have a ticket to return to Romania for a few weeks in March. Will the conflict escalade by then? Will it stay in Ukraine? Will I be able to go? will I be able to return?

What do I think of world politics? I think political decisions range from shameless to criminally shameless. I can say that about

-- the Monica Lewinski scandal.
-- the election of George W. Bush twice . Luckily he quit politics and switched to painting.
-- the invasion of Iraq, Syria, and Afganistan...and of other countries who had their sovereignty breached.
-- the trial against Julian Assange followed by his continued mistreatment and arrest with no regrets and no thought to appologize or simply to let him go
-- the migrants left to cross the sea in inflatable boats to escape war
-- the camps built for migrants in such a way that people leave with any price and die crossing from France to England
--the election of Donald Trump as president. He proudly stated in his electoral champaign that he could shoot sombody on 5th Avenue and be elected. He still won.
--the invasion of the US capitol by people with Bufallo horns, and the calls for the arrest of "via Getty" and the chanting of "hang Mike Pence" who retaliated by saying he won't speak with President Trump again.
--Brexit, Boris Johnson
--American's withdraw from Afganistan without prior notice or any kind of plan for those left behind and without mentioning their plan to other NATO countries followed by America's decision to simply take the Afghan relief assests without worrying about the humanitarian crisis left behind
--the management of the COVID-19 pandemic.
--the election of a comedian as president in Ukraine
--Putin's move to recognize the separatist regions in Ukraine followed by the invasion of troops
--giving automatic weapons to civilians in Ukraine.

Why give weapons to civilians? I am not a politician or an expert in anything other than the physics of stars and that of dead stars. But it seems such an awful thing to do. It justifies the murder of civilians in any number by the ocuppying army. It will lead to murders. People could shot each other by mistake. They could shoot their neighbors (some might be of Russian origin so why not shoot them dead, some might be Nazis, or Jewish, etc), their wives (there has been an increase in domestic violence during the pandemic), their children, their pets. It's like saying there are not enough deaths. We want more theater, more people to die, and yes, Ukraine will fall, its fate is decided in advance, but we want the bloodshed, we need it. Why? Russia installed pro-Russian goverments in most of Europe (e.g., in Hungary) and in the US (e.g., president Trump). It's hard to imagine they could not do so in Ukraine where they speak Russian and part of the population is of Russian origin. Is it to scare Western Europe? Russia produces 40% of Europe's gas and several pipes run through Ukraine. Who could benefit from war in Europe? China?, the US? whoelse? perhaps Russia but only if it suceeds in re-expanding?

Shouldn't the world stop the various wars and focus on dealing with climate change? i.e., work together to tackle climate change? Any kind of destruction of infrastructure is yet another proof we don't give shit about the climate. Or about each other, about freedom or human rights. War is a degradation beyond words. It's a return to a period before the stone age where people are turned into something worse than beasts. They kill each other so that some weapon manufactures get richer and so that the class divide grows even more.