Author: patd

“But I don’t want to go among mad people," Alice remarked. "Oh, you can’t help that," said the Cat: "we’re all mad here. I’m mad. You’re mad." "How do you know I’m mad?" said Alice. "You must be," said the Cat, "or you wouldn’t have come here.” ― Lewis Carroll, Alice in Wonderland

The Winds of War Words

President of the United States Joe Biden:

“We have reason to believe the Russian forces are planning to and intend to attack Ukraine in the coming week, in the coming days. We believe that they will target Ukraine’s capital of Kyiv, a city of 2.8 million innocent people.”

“We’re calling out Russia’s plans loudly and repeatedly not because we want a conflict, but because we’re doing everything in our power to remove any reason that Russia may give to justify invading Ukraine and prevent them from moving.”

Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin:

“Again, I don’t believe it’s a bluff. I think he’s assembled the right kind of – the kinds of things that you would need to conduct a successful invasion.” 

“I want everyone in Lithuania, Estonia and Latvia to know – and I want President Putin in the Kremlin to know – that the United States stands with our allies.”

Want What You Have

The Dalai Lama advises “We need to learn how to want what we have, not to have what we want in order to get steady and stable happiness.”

We have a democracy, at least for now. Do we really want it bad enough to ensure its preservation? As ol’ Ben said when asked “What have we got, a republic or a monarchy?” he replied “A republic, if you can keep it.”

As hard as it is, do we value it and want to keep it (like at least some of us do) or do we (like some of us) only want to have power and a dictatorship of demagogues?