80 years demonizing Russia long enough…time for détente

 80 years demonizing Russia long enough…time for détente

Last time US and Russia were buddies was 80 years ago at the end of WWII. Russia coughed up over 25 million dead in defeating Nazism in the East. In return for shedding that blood, the US coughed up several billion in military aid that kept the Russian war machine functioning in a Russian economy largely destroyed by Germany.

 That friendship was blown up, literally, on August 6, 1945, when the US dropped the first of 2 atomic bombs on Japan. One of several reasons was to inform Russia (than USSR) that as new boss of the world America would brook no interference from a Russia we falsely assumed was bent on expanding communism everywhere on earth.

Had FDR lived there may not have been a Cold War. FDR recognized a prostrate Russia needed a buffer from a third German invasion from the west in the 20th century. He wisely surmised Stalin had no agenda whatsoever to conquer the world. So, he acquiesced in Stalin’s authoritarian control of his neighbors.

Alas, FDR’s death ushered in profoundly inexperienced Harry Truman. Woefully uninformed on foreign affairs, Truman was easy pickings for Russophobes Jimmy Burns, James Forestall, Dean Atchison and others who not only wanted to vanquish communist Russia, but desired a permanent war economy to prevent another Great Depression.

That wasn’t needed as pent-up domestic demand began the fabulous growth of the post WWII middle class. But Truman’s foreign policy handlers convinced him to promulgate the Truman Doctrine in February 1947, opposing communist expansion everywhere on earth even if meant demonizing as ‘communist’ any progressive movement that might make life better for downtrodden peoples.

But Russia never, for a single day between 1945 and the USSR’s implosion 46 years later, represented a serious existential threat to America. That’s because Russia had neither the desire nor the capability to attack America without suffering its utter destruction from an overwhelming American nuclear capability.

Instead, imaginary US obsession with Russia promoting communism in every corner of the earth including America, led to millions of deaths from hot wars such as Korea and Vietnam, and from US support for dictators killing dissidents threatening their regimes in over 20 countries. The million leftists Indonesia’s General Suharto killed with America’s help gave the grisly name to this murderous foreign policy…The Jakarta Method.

So, the Cold War was on till l1991 when the USSR went poof. Time to disband a now obsolete NATO? ‘Ha ha’, said the US national security state. ’We’re just getting started.’ Between 1999 and 2020 NATO expanded from 16 to 30 members, including 2 on Russia’s borders.

Beginning in 2007 Russia, requested, pleaded, begged the US and NATO to cease expansion. A year later the US response was to pledge NATO membership to the one country Russia would never allow in…neighboring and partially Russian cultured Ukraine. It took 14 years for an astonishingly patient Russia to say ‘enough’ and launch its ‘special military operation.’  That will not only prevent Ukraine NATO membership, it will effectively destroy Ukraine as a functioning state. All thanks to deranged anti-Russian US policy.

But America’s clearly lost proxy war against Russia sacrificing Ukraine is not the worst of what should be termed Cold War II. In 2019 and 2020 the US withdrew from two critical nuclear treaties with Russia: INF (Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces) and Open Skies. The third and last, New Start, expires in 4 months with no substantive ongoing negotiations. Why? Because America has abandoned negotiations extending New Start and reinstituting the others during its senseless, failed proxy war to weaken, isolate Russia from the European political economy. The US has put peoplekind at increased risk of nuclear confrontation due to refusal to negotiate nuclear disarmament.

Eighty years of America’s Russian Derangement Syndrome is 80 years too long. Time to shut down the lost proxy war against Russia by ceasing all aid to Ukraine till they negotiate the war’s end. Time to begin disengagement from European security including NATO. Time to embrace diplomatic relations with Russia to end all sanctions, explore mutually beneficial trade relations, and most importantly, reinstitute and renew nuclear agreements to prevent our collective annihilation rom nuclear war. We can’t wait another 80 years, 80 months, 80 weeks…even another 80 days.

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn IL 

Mimicking Biden family, Trump family propping up mentally and physically disintegrating president

Mimicking Biden family, Trump family propping up mentally and physically disintegrating president

Last year a President Biden tepidly approached the podium at his presidential debate and verbally self-destructed before a feisty Donald Trump. At that moment everyone in America knew Biden was unfit to remain in the election. Everyone that is except Biden’s wife Jill, son Hunter and likely the entire Biden family. They remained in denial till the horrified Democratic elite forced Biden to drop out.

Why the Biden family persevered to hasten Joe’s inevitable self-destruction trying to stay in power will forever remain a mystery.

But here we are just a year later and we’re facing the same horrifying situation as a physically and mentally disintegrating President Trump is self-destructing in public with no family intervention is sight.

Within a few days his disintegration was on display at two high profile events followed worldwide: the UN General Assembly meeting in New York and the bizarre, valueless US generals summit in Quantico, VR. The clips going viral are a sad testament to the unfitness of Trump to continue even one more day as President and Commander In Chief.

Since they are near totally silent in public, we have no idea what goes on in the minds of Melania, Don Jr., Eric, Tiffany, Baron and the extended Trump family. What is truly inexplicable is how any family members can allow a clearly failing 79 year old patriarch remain in an office now far beyond his mental and physical powers to manage.

This is not a partisan viewpoint. Every American, whether right, left or center should demand Trump resign to allow a physically and mentally capable successor handle the vast, critical issues of war and peace, economic prosperity, climate change, domestic uplift, among others.

It may be too early for Vice President Vance and a majority of the cabinet to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Trump from the presidency. But it’s long overdue for the Trump family to stage an intervention to force Trump’s resignation. Maybe Jill and Hunter Biden, hopefully chastened by their cruel enabling of debilitated Joe’s refusal to step down, can lend first-hand experience to the Trumps of what truly constitutes familial love.

There is not a day to lose. As disastrous as delay will be for the Trump family, it pales to that facing America and the world.

Chicago Tribune editorial: ‘Kamala Harris should have thought more of her fellow Americans’ a complete mischaracterization o Harris campaign

 Chicago Tribune editorial: ‘Kamala Harris should have thought more of her fellow Americans’ a complete mischaracterization o Harris campaign

 

The Trib is aghast Kamala Harris decided against selecting her first choice, Pete Buttigieg, as her running mate because he is gay. They falsely use that decision to demean her judgment and obsession with identity politics.

 

Everything the Trib posits is nonsense and Monday morning quarterbacking. The nonsense is claiming Harris ran a campaign based on identity politics which includes Democratic belief that “the American electorate is filled with racists, antisemites and homophobes, even the swing voters who obviously mattered the most to Harris from an electoral point of view.” The Trib Editorial Board clearly did not spend much time, if any, analyzing Harris’ campaign content. Having followed it closely it was clear identity politics were a non-element of her voter appeal. What she focused on were bread and butter issues, domestic justice issues, inequality issues, health care issues, climate change issues among others that are of vital importance to every voter, swinging or static. Time for the Trib to stop repeating the scurrilous Republican meme that Democrats demonize straight white folks to promote every other voter segment.

 

The Monday morning quarterbacking assumes Pete Buttigieg would have been a better VP pick than Tim Walz, and that Harris’ pick reflects her grievous misunderstanding of the electorate. Bunk. VP picks historically have never been a deciding factor in the outcome. Knowing that, VP picks are simply based on one likely to have least negative effect. That’s purely a political decision, not related to an obsession with identity politics or character.

 

A better Trib postmortem on Harris should have zeroed on her refusal to break with Biden’s wholehearted support of Israel’s genocide in Gaza. That cost Harris millions of Biden’s 2020 voters. As a leader in the peace community, I can attest to that understandable phenomenon.

 

Any editorial deconstructing Harris’ overwhelming loss should shed light and add value. The Trib’s editorial focused on imaginary identity politics and Harris’ character does neither.

 

Walt Zlotow, West Suburban Peace Coalition, Glen Ellyn

Deconstructing Justice Dept. statement deleting study of escalating right-wing violence

 Deconstructing Justice Dept. statement deleting study of escalating right-wing violence

The Justice Department ran afoul of Boss Trump’s deranged obsession totally ignoring right wing violence while blaming it all on the “extreme left.” Justice’s transgression was posting a study laser focused on the real threat to America, escalating right wing violence. Left wing violence was barely mentioned as there is very little.

A recent ADL study of political violence backs up the Justice study. It revealed that of 429 political murders from 2015 through 2024, 76% were attributed to right wing extremists while just 4% were carried out by the left.

After being taken to the woodshed by Trump, Attorney General Pam Bondi had her Justice Dept. release this statement about scrubbing its right wing violence report:

“Notice: The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs is currently reviewing its websites and materials in accordance with recent Executive Orders and related guidance. During this review, some pages and publications will be unavailable. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”

What did Justice scrub from public scrutiny in the report? “Militant, nationalistic, white supremacist violent extremism has increased in the United States. In fact, the number of far right attacks continues to outpace all other types of terrorism and domestic violence extremism.”

Deconstructing AG Bondi’s obtuse, false and dangerous statement reveals what her statement should have told us Americans under threats of violence incited by her boss:

“Notice: The Department of Justice’s Office of Justice Programs is deleting any mention of escalating right-wing violence on its websites and materials. This is in accordance with President Trump’s demand we must align our research with his position that all political violence be attributed to the extreme left so he can rid America of his left-wing critics. We don’t apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.”