Apuleius Books

To begin with, just because Putin doesn’t want what the USA wants does not make him evil. It may, however, make him our enemy.
Russia has always favored an authoritarian executive. That is their business, not ours so long as it does not injure us.
The goals of Putin are the same as Russian goals have been for centuries under the czars and the Communists.
A warm water port
Respect
security from invasion.
Having been a KGB agent does not make him evil. Rather it means he was a Russian patriot.
He and Russia do see the West as the eternal enemy, as much as the west sees Russia in the same light.
Having given the Devil his due what is to be done about the guy?
People quote ad nauseam Santayana ‘s statement about those who do not remember their history having to repeat it. I have seen this over and over again in my lifetime but probably no clearer than here. If the allies had confronted Hitler over Czechoslovakia he would have had to retreat. Not doing so while Germany was militarily weak just emboldened him.
Looking at what I said above one may say that Putin is no Hitler, and he would be right. Hitler was evil. Putin is simply a man trying to fulfill Russia’s long term needs or what Russian governments have always perceived as needs. It doesn’t matter whether Putin is good or bad any more than it matters who was leading Germany, a patriot or a tyrant, when it set out on a path of conquest.
It should be realized that sanctions cannot effect a patriot or a tyrant. They haven’t changed the Cuban government. They never effected Mao’s world view for China. Nor did they cow Saddam Hussein or Bashar Assad. What they understand – and perhaps more importantly what their generals understand – is military confrontation.
For 60 years there has been peace – albeit a cold one – between the two halves of Korea not because of the number of troops on their border but because the North cannot attack the South without also attacking American troops, something that the American people would never permit.
The same holds in the Ukraine. Russia has legitimate historical and economic reasons for insisting that the Caucasus be in her orbit. She cannot consider herself a great state otherwise. Likewise although they may remain independent, the other Balkan states must be within her sphere of interest and to some extent of influence, just as the USA isolated Cuba and Venezuela and Nicaragua in our sphere. Since Caesar Augustus it has been the geographical misfortune of the Balkans to be frontier states that dare not offend either side in the 2,000 year old cold war on their borders.
NATO should put troops on the Ukrainian border, not to fight but to separate the pro Russian militants from cross border support by Russia. Like Hitler and Czechoslovakia, Putin is not capable of actually interfering militarily unless the West folds. All those tanks the newsreels showed of German movements were only the best the Reich had. Mostly Hitler’s army at the time used horses for transport. This is likely the case with Russia now. If NATO separates the Ukraine disputants from the Russian border than it will be up to the Ukrainians themselves to settle their differences, hopefully peacefully but somehow. Putin will not fire through a British or Norwegian or French flag. (I suggest Germany stay out of it. Nothing would bring the two sides together better than German interference.)
Mr Putin knows his history and is relying on the West repeating the Munich mistake. The West is so used to peace and prosperity now that it has forgotten that patriots like Putin cannot be assumed to put their economic well being first.
I recall after the fall of the USSR that most Americans seemed to think that Russia would become some third world (or at least second rate) nation. That was absurd. The goals of the various Soviet leaders were always more traditional Russian ones than Communist. It was ridiculous to expect that Russia would for long accept a humiliating secondary place in the world which denied her the security of sympathetic border states and the industrial might of the Caucasus. A Greater Russia was a certainty; The only question being when. Confrontation over political and economic interests was a given. What must be achieved today is a peace line tolerable to both sides. That will not be achieved by confronting apparent military strength with sanctions. No one, including Putin, wants actual war. The Russians better than the west recall the horror of two invasions (three counting Napoleon). But military strength and a willingness to use it is a key element in forming a post cold war agreement which will hold despite being subject to tension as it always has been. The first thing both sides must acknowledge is that while everyone has national interests, this is not a story of good guys and bad guys – just like in our Congress.
NATO is unwilling to risk economic losses, or so it seems. Putin looks back on the best of the Soviet empire. We in the West just saw people living three generations in a tiny apartment and a sense of sameness and grayness in the cities. Putin knows how far an authoritarian regime brought the Russian people. Stalin industrialized the USSR. He confronted and defeated Hitler. The people were fed, not well it is true, but fed. The housing built after the destruction of WW II was gray and simple and without originality, but the Soviet Union housed all those left homeless by the war. Everyone had a job even though many of those jobs were non productive. I expect he also realizes how much of the national wealth was wasted in a confrontation with the USA that could not be won. Putin believes in an authoritarian government. It is a mistake to think that other Russians don’t. He is also a patriot who no doubt blames the West for the humiliation his country suffered after the fall of the soviet empire. But like other Russian leaders of the past he is a realist more than an ideologue. He wants economic security for his country and is willing to wave a sword to get it but will back away if the second does not advance the first. He does not expect some kumbaya peace in the Balkans. That has always been a myth of the West. But he does not want war either and the best way to avoid war is for NATO to confront him militarily now before he has more well equipped battalions to scare everyone with. We must also keep in mind that this is essentially Europe’s problem, not America’s and it is primarily for Europe to settle it or pay the consequences. The cost of not confronting Hitler in Czechoslovakia was immensely higher than any perceived gains of appeasement.

From Arnold Silcock’s Verse and Worse:
The Budding Bronx
Der spring is sprung
Der grass is riz
I wonder where dem boidies is?
Der little boids is on der wing,
Ain’t dat absoid?
Der little wings is on de boid!

Pete Seeger has died, another nail in the coffin of the Greatest Generation. Though I might sometimes think he was a bit naive, one cannot argue with his success in the limited areas he tried to effect. In a world wracked by political cynicism and self interest, Seeger reminds us that there are large issues which the average person can effect for good, one by one, by being involved on his or her local level. His contributions to folk music – and especially its revival in the 1950s-60s cannot be underestimated. When today’s rock is forgotten, children will still be singing his songs. Like many liberals of his day He was enamored of revolutionary Russia until the truth of the Stalinist regime became public. In time he learned to effect change – a bit at a time – within the system, never forgetting that the people are what the system should be all about. Being attacked by Joe McCarthy has become a badge of honor for those, like Seeger, who love their country enough to speak truth to power. He was also a devoted family man. Marrying his wife Toshi in 1941, raising three children, and building their own home in Cold Springs. I have friends there and he is loved and respected even by the powerful men of that wealthy town where he himself has always been involved. His wife died last July. I know that just a few days later he was again giving school concerts. RIP.

The ethics that I learned made it clear that being right in retrospect does not give an individual the right to break the law. That would be anarchy with everyone putting his own take on things above the common consensus (law). When one sees a wrong he has a right – in some circumstances a moral duty – to speak out against it; but with the understanding that the society will protect itself. One accepts that he will face punishment when he does so and cannot complain that he is being abused. The best he can hope for is a pardon but he has no right to be held innocent just because his actions had a positive outcome.

When did I give stores permission to keep my credit/debit card information? I buy something. I pay. End of transaction. But, of course, no politician has dared to ask that question. Nothing matters in the good old USA except doing business. It isn’t government that I worry about interfering with my privacy, its business – and don’t get me going about when I authorized telephone invasion of my home. For the record, I’m neither a leftist nor right wing, just an American who is disturbed that anything goes these days if it is business – gambling, porno, TV obscenity. None of this has anything to do with individual liberties but is only business using freedom as a mask.

I was just listening to Rep. King sounding off about Iran again and demanding sanctions. Don’t he and his ilk realize how insulting they are being, or are they only concerned with politics? Iran is Persia, the oldest great power in western Asia; the land “of the Medes and the Persians whose law changeth not.”. Every time he or Netanyahu open their mouths to speak of Iran they speak as though it is a third world country that they can humiliate at will. This only makes the Iranians dig in. Yes, Iran wants the bomb, but no, they can’t use it on Israel without killing a bunch of coreligionists in and around Israel and without polluting their own holy places. Iran wants to be treated with respect, not be constantly insulted. In the world today that means having a nuclear weapon as do Israel, India, China, North Korea, and Pakistan. How I wish Ike Eisenhower had been able to persuade the Soviets to put the damn things under international control. Until, that happens however, one should recall the words of the king in The King And I : “Unless someday somebody trust somebody they’ll be nothing left on earth excepting fishes.” A little less knee jerk anger and suspicion and a more positive approach to an ancient people might do wonders. No. I haven’t forgotten how Jimmy Carter was willing to be humiliated by Khomeini in a search for middle east peace. Don’t get me started on what I think should have been done about Iran then. Yet that was then and now is now. Much as I’d like to hold onto my anger it would serve no purpose. I recommend a NY Times article by David Patrikarakos: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/09/opinion/iran-from-enemy-to-ally.html . As with the Khomeini business, life moves on and there is nothing to be gained by perpetuating the present deadlock. If everyone downplayed the nuclear aspect, with improved relations the problem might solve itself. In ten or so years, Iran might decide that it doesn’t need to prove its importance by having a useless weapon. Guys like King and Netanyahu need to think in terms of decades and centuries and in terms of seeking a long term peace, not constant confrontation and some sort of victory.

GUNS ARE TOOLS NOT TOYS

The latest horror video is some knock out gang punching a girl. Really brave. When I was young – in the days of West Side Story -there were gangs, there were knives, and an occasional zip gun. There were even girl gangs and sometimes someone got killed; but not when a guy was with his girl. If he had his girlfriend with him a guy could walk anywhere without being harmed, even on a rival gang’s turf. There was a code of some sort and it did not involve punching out women. It makes me wonder if the conventional certainty about modern ethics being better than the old fashioned because individual behavior is less constrained is, in fact, true.

It seems to me that on many subjects where the Catholic Church has boxed itself in, Francis does not intend to change the teaching now, but to open them to reexamination. The worst example is not celibacy which will go in time (at least on the diocesan level), but abortion where at present both sides are committed to sloganeering and half truths. (For example: Thomism admits of vegetative, animal, and human souls and does not insist that the human exists until late in pregnancy. On the other hand, a potential human life is not simply a growth to be excised for no good reason.) Likewise birth control. By emphasizing the wisdom of the people as a whole, he diminishes the self-importance of conservative Vatican theorists and their authority to overrule the consensus of the people of God. it is very interesting: what he is attempting; and refreshing. He is the first pope that I’ve liked since John XXIII. If he dares to consecrate some bishops who won’t just parrot the Vatican line, a pope after him might be able to again call a council that isn’t just a rubber stamp.

Next Friday will be the 50th anniversary of the assassination of President Kennedy. Bad as things may seem today, I reflect upon the state of our nation fifty and more years ago.
Negroes were a subculture. When most people though about America – both our citizens ad foreigners – unless they themselves were black that meant white America. Nearly the only place that Negroes were highlighted in US newsreels were as an individual “credit to his race” or in some Harlem hop – and then with a superior and dismissive attitude. People weren’t intending to be insensitive that was just as it was. Most of those I knew in those days did see civil rights as desirable – but gradually. How strange that seems to me today, that a right be considered something to be acquired gradually as though it were a gift. Equality was seen as something to be earned and full integration as a mere dream. Black Americans shared this view, hence Black Power and separatism were to develop in the 70s, for a time threatening Dr King’s vision of a white and a black boy sitting together on the red hills of Georgia. Even well meaning whites thought of full participation in American life as something to be earned by individually pulling themselves up by their boot straps, ignoring the fact that Blacks had little opportunity to have the boots of equal education or opportunity in labor union. They certainly did not think that equality meant living side be side, hence the panicky flight to the suburbs in the nineteen-fifties even by those who were not racist by the terms of the day; for they envisioned their property values plummeting. There was discontent but little support nationwide for the extremes of the Klan or white citizens groups, in part because the same media which had ignored the plight of African Americans hated such obvious racism. They had seen enough of that a few years before in Nazi Germany. Yet all who were short sighted, white and black, were wrong and Dr King and the other true civil rights leaders in large part fulfilled their unbelievable dream. Personally I find it unfortunate that Dr King’s birthday is commemorated as such rather than as a rights day on which we remember all the leaders; Justice Marshall, Whitney Young, A. Philip Randolph, Ralph Abernathy, Roy Wilkins, James Farmer, and dozens of others including whites like Mrs. Malcolm Peabody the mother of the then-governor of Massachusetts, the Berragan brothers who were priests, and Viola Liuzzo who was murdered in Alabama. These only occasionally made headlines. Thousands of other local leaders and workers, white and black, never did get into the national newspapers unless they were jailed or killed.
President Eisenhower, whom I revere above any other American of the 20th century was typical and conventional in his thinking; and not just about American Negroes. He supported civil rights but was a gradualist. It was President Truman who had ordered the armed services to be integrated but it didn’t happen until the president was also a five star general. Eisenhower did not like the speed with which Negroes were urging desegregation but he did believe in enforcing the law, as he did in Little Rock where he sent in the national guard to enforce school desegregation.
Ike also failed to see the anti colonialist writing on the wall in Asia. He disdained the Stalinist Mao Zedong in China in favor of supporting the western puppet warlord Chiang Kai-shek. He ignored Ho Chi Minh as a possible partner in South east Asia, instead supporting French colonialism for fear of a communist “domino effect” of peasant revolutionaries across Asia. In this he was like Winston Churchill, a giant who was King Arthur returned in Britain’s darkest hour, but who could not bear to “preside over the dissolution of the British Empire” in Asia and Africa.
It was the Texan, President Johnson who named the Negro civil rights attorney Thurgood Marshal to the Supreme Court. It was he who first acknowledged that Negroes were a full part of “American” society. After the killing of the three civil rights workers in Mississippi he went onto radio and television. He did not mildly say that the federal government would no longer tolerate killing Negroes. Angrily, he said: “WE shall overcome. “That was perhaps the first time that a president had spoken of our African American population not as an “other” in America but as us. Much as I loved JFK and revered Ike I cannot see either of them using the word “We” when speaking of Negroes and American society. Whatever else he may be blamed for, LBJ was the first president to openly, consciously, and forcefully associate himself and the presidency with the nation’s oppressed minority and its poor. His “war on poverty” including the food stamps and Head Start programs improved the lot of Negro-Americans while appearing to be about Appalachian whites, at that time still more politically palatable.
It was not an easy trip. 1968 was the worst year in my lifetime. Bobby Kennedy and Dr. King were murdered. Bobby had seemed to be the only hope for a kinder and gentler future. Now Vietnam was pitting Americans against each other not only on race at home but in the army, which was disproportionately composed of Black draftees. In that country the Viet Cong launched the Tet offensive which seemed in the press at the time to be an American military defeat. There was rioting at the Democratic National convention and the Chicago mayor presided over what came to be known as a police riot against self-important antiwar protestors calling themselves Yippies. Our own troops committed the infamous Mai Lie massacre of Vietnamese civilians including children. Later, our own President Nixon, was to appear sympathetic to the only officer to ever face court marshal for that atrocity and he got off with a wrist slap.
The nation has come a long way and today’s disputes between Americans seem manageable by comparison. We’re only angry with Congress.