There have been some problems with this blog recently. Some virus protection apps have found it threatening. The only ones it really threatens are foes of democracy.
While I am not a ‘techie,’ I’ve
been able to make a few changes to fix that. While the blog is often referred
to as JacksPotpourri, its full name and correct location on the internet is https://jackspotpourri.blogspot.com/ . If links to
JacksPotpourri appearing in email I send don’t get you there (they should) and
you get lost, that link is where you will find it. Don’t leave any of it out and forget about
‘www.’ For any questions, my email
address is jacklippman18@gmail.’com.
JL
* * * *
Ukraine, Unsimplified
The war in
Ukraine is not as simple as it looks. It
is not merely a matter of Russia invading another country. While Vladimir Putin’s actions are
reprehensible and inexcusable, they are nonetheless understandable. There is a method to his madness. Ukraine and
Russia go back a long way together, but let’s start with a quick review of
Russia’s geopolitical situation.
All nations
try to be protected from invaders. The
best protections, throughout history, have been geographic and
demographic, Russia being an illustration of both. Over the centuries, what we know as Russia
has been protected from invaders to varying extents by the Arctic to the north,
the Ural Mountains to the east, and the Caucasus Mountains to the south. To its west, however, there is a broad flat
plain which makes it easier for potential invaders. European history shows that Russia faced
overland invasions from the west in 1605, 1708, 1812, 1914, 1941. Overly
extended supply lines defeated most of these invaders.
 |
| Ukraine, directly above the Black Sea on this map, is on the 'plain' leading into Russia. Note the effect of mountain ranges serving as walls. (Above Ukraine is Belarus, which is friendly to Russia.) |
A major
portion of that plain which starts at the Baltic Sea and the Arctic Ocean and
ends in the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas includes
Ukraine, and it always has. That is why
a Ukraine that is friendly to Russia is essential to Russian foreign
policy. They once had that, but with the
breakup of the Soviet Union in 1989, it no longer was a certainty.
Many, many
years ago, the pre-Russian East Slavic tribes that inhabited this plain in a
loose federation recognized that they could not consistently defend it. Ultimately, nine centuries ago, they
retreated northward to a much smaller more easily defended area, called the
Grand Principality of Muscovy. This was the beginning of what we know as
Russia.
While easier
to defend, however, it still recognized its weakness against invaders. Rather
than waiting to be attacked, Russian leaders have consistently turned to
attacking those on its borders first, to keep them under control, as its best
defense. Along with controlling the
land, they also tried to ‘Russify’’ those living in those areas which they captured
and encouraged settlement there by those who spoke Russian as their first
language. And this was their approach for centuries toward the largest entity
on that broad, flat, plain, Ukraine.
Let me quote
from ‘Prisoners of Geography,’ in which author Tim Marshall sums this up by writing:
‘In a speech in 2014, President
Putin briefly referred to ‘Novorossiya’ (translated as ‘New
Russia). The Kremlin watchers took a deep
breath. He had revived the geographic
title given to what is now southern and eastern Ukraine, which Russia had won
from the Ottoman Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great in the late
eighteenth century. Catherine went on to
settle Russians in these regions and demanded that Russian be the first
language. ‘Novorussiya’ was ceded to the
newly formed Ukrainian Soviet Socialist Republic only in 1922. … In
his speech he listed the Ukrainian
regions of Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, Mykolaiv, and Odessa before
saying “Russia lost these territories for various reasons, but the people
remained.’
Don’t those
place names sound familiar from today’s headlines? Putin counted on the people there. Primarily, they spoke Russian, as did their
parents and grandparents and loosely, at least in Putin’s mind, could be
considered to be ethnic Russians.
Remember that
the old Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR), although viewed by the West
as functioning as one country, subservient to Moscow, was supposedly made up of
many theoretically independent ‘republics.’ When the USSR fell apart in 1989,
this structure changed radically, with areas like Ukraine asserting its
independence. Being subservient to Moscow was no longer guaranteed.
Officially,
back in 1954, thirty-five years earlier, Moscow had even felt it safe enough to
let the Crimean Peninsula, which contained Russia’s only warm water port,
Sevastopol, its access to the Mediterranean Sea, become part of the
subservient Soviet Republic of Ukraine.
But after 1989, even with that ‘republic’ no longer automatically
subservient to Moscow, so long as the Russians controlled the politicians in
Ukraine, the situation was not intolerable for them. But that was not the same
locked-in, permanent control, as they had once possessed in the old,
now-defunct, USSR. Eventually, Russia
felt is its southern geographic barrier, Ukraine, slipping away.
In view of the
expansion of NATO to its west in countries that were initially subservient to
Russia after World War Two, and a now totally independent Ukraine, Russia
wanted Crimea back and took it in 2014, the West not willing to risk war to
stop them. They feel the same way today
about adjacent parts of Ukraine, the provinces mentioned above by Putin. They
don’t want that broad flat plain open to invaders, and they have NATO in mind. (Critics of the United States’ defeated
former president sometimes think his opposition to NATO was inexplicably and
overly sympathetic to Putin.)
Over the
years, if not centuries, these areas, which are clearly part of Ukraine,
developed Russian-speaking majorities which would not object to closer ties to
Moscow. That’s what Putin meant by
‘Novorussiya,’ continuing the demographic policies of Catherine the Great
centuries ago. The Germans took the
‘Sudetenland’ from Czechoslovakia in 1938 using the same argument, and
famously, British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain let it happen as the price
of peace.
But the rest
of Ukraine prefers independence and is willing to fight for it. The more
Ukraine looks westward for help, the more obstinate a paranoid President Putin,
who wants to restore to Russia the bordering areas it acquired as defensive
buffers, becomes. We are certainly not emulating Neville Chamberlain's 1938 behavior, but real diplomacy is necessary for dealing with an obstinate paranoid with nuclear weapons.
Things are not
as simple as they seem. Russia and
Ukraine have a long history, based on geopolitics and demography, which is
behind today’s headlines. Understanding them will help to understand the headlines.
JL
*
* * *
To How Many Have You Forwarded This Blog Posting?
* * * *
Bad News for Cable TV
The moving of Thursday Night NFL football from a regular cable channel (Fox) to streaming on ‘Prime’ for which there is a substantial monthly charge (although it is free to those, like me, who pay for Amazon’s ‘Prime’ delivery service) is more than merely annoying. It is a harbinger of further change.
This is despite the remaining availability of
such games on regular cable TV but only locally for their hometown fans who
don’t have access to ‘Prime,’ and only on strange, rarely viewed channels,
often requiring a phone call to an internet provider to locate.
Not so lucky are the daytimes viewers on cable
of the generations-old daytime soap opera, ‘Days of Our Lives,’ which NBC is
moving to their streamlining platform, ‘Peacock,’ only accessible to those who
pay for it.
These events are the beginning of changes as significant as our getting rid of rabbit ears and rooftop antennas once used to pluck television transmissions out of the air, and replacing them with signals carried by fiberoptic cable. (Elaborate rooftop antennas are still in some use, but the signals they pick up are limited.) And now, it looks like it is cable’s turn to succumb to internet-based transmissions, today referred to as ‘streaming.’ Ability to receive these signals is dependent on features built into ‘smart’ TV sets and internet applications, neither of which are free.
Complicating it is that cable TV service
usually comes along ‘bundled’ with internet service. That marriage is the key to internet-based
streamed programming, mostly with price tags attached, replacing traditional
cable TV, which has its own price tag but which it appears will eventually go
the way of ‘rabbit ears.’ The
handwriting is on the wall and it appears to be indelible.
Reassuring, however, is that I still can listen
to radio broadcasts free, although I know that many choose to pay for even that
via Sirius Radio, the broadcasting cousin of TV streaming.
* * * *
To How Many Have You Forwarded This Blog Posting?
*
* * *
The following
is the message posted on this blog on September 25, 2022. As we draw nearer to Election Day, its
importance grows.
* *
* *
In Regard to the Upcoming Election, Only a Few Weeks
Away:
·
If you support the right of
a woman to choose to have an abortion, or
·
If you support increased gun
control measures to reduce the frequency of mass murders, or
·
If you support a broadening,
not a narrowing, of access to voting for all Americans, regardless of race or
ethnicity,
In Florida, your choice is a simple one. Democrats, like Val Demings and Charlie Crist SUPPORT these things. Governor DeSantis, Senator Rubio, and almost all Republican legislators in Congress and State legislatures OPPOSE them.
(And if you are not a Florida voter, the same kinds
of simple choices will be on your ballot in your State.)
That is why you should only vote
for Democrats and get your like-minded friends and relatives to do the same. Please remember
that a vote for any Republican
who does not denounce the defeated former president, in any election
whatsoever, is actually a vote for the replacement of democracy with the
authoritarian rule he represents.
In addition, you should make a
commitment to personally work hard to bring about the election victories on
November 8 that are necessary to help democracy survive in the United States of
America. Your help is sorely needed. Without your efforts, these
victories just will not happen, and democracy will suffer.
It comes down
to:
·
Registering
voters,
·
Making
telephone calls,
·
Sending
emails,
·
Writing
postal cards,
·
Knocking
on doors.
Here
is some contact information to help you do these essential things:
activateamerica.vote …. Visit this
website to connect with national phonebanks, email, and postal card writing
campaigns keyed to crucial races.
Palm Beach County Democratic Party
- 561 562 8102 (sign up for local programs in which you can
participate.) Elsewhere, just call your
local Democratic Party.
Palm Beach County Supervisor of
Elections - 561 656 6200 (for registration
and voting location information). Elsewhere, just call your local Supervisor of
Elections.
The websites of candidates such
as Val Demings and Charlie Crist both offer the opportunity to make donations
to pay for their campaigns. TV ads and
signs are not inexpensive.
Get to work now. Don’t put it off until tomorrow. Too much is at stake. I’ve given you all the contacts you
need. Democracy depends on you!
* * * *
To How Many Have You Forwarded This Blog Posting?
* * * *
And While on the Subject of Politics:
Is there any
rational reason why anyone would vote to put Herschel Walker into the United
States Senate? Party affiliation aside,
he has no qualifications whatsoever.
This is how supposedly democratic nations throw away their democracy in
exchange for leadership no longer answerable to them, but which has sold itself
to them as being better than what we have now. That’s what this MAGA nonsense that has
captured the Republican Party is all about.
* *
* *
The New York Times’ Maggie Haberman is coming out with a new book, ‘Confidence Man: The Making
of Donald Trump and the Breaking of America.’ She has interviewed the defeated former
president many times and has great insight into his thought patterns. Here’s an excerpt from an interview of Ms.
Haberman by David Leonhardt, also of the New York Times:
|
David: As I listened to the clip, it felt like part of a
pattern with him. He was certainly not being straightforward. But he was also
being just vague and confusing enough that it was hard to pin down exactly
what he was saying. As the journalist Joe Klein has written, referring to this larger pattern, “He deployed
words with a litigator’s precision — even if it sounded the opposite.” |
|
Maggie: That’s exactly it, and one of the difficulties of
interviewing him, or tracking what he says, is he is often both all over the place
and yet somewhat careful not to cross certain lines. This was a hallmark of
his business career, when he would tell employees not to take notes, although
behind closed doors with employees he tended to be clearer in his directives. At his rally at the Ellipse on Jan. 6, he told people to go 'peacefully and patriotically' but also directed them to the Capitol with apocalyptic language about the election. Frequently, people around him understand the implication of words, even when he's not being direct. |
JL |
* *
* *
To How Many People Have You
Forwarded This Blog Posting?
That’s Not Enough!
* *
* *
No comments:
Post a Comment