Author: Curt Doolittle

CULTURAL OBSERVATIONS : GRIEF, COST IN LIVES, COST IN ECONOMICS

Walked through the center of Kiev today. Saw the memorials. Saw some people weeping. Saw the remaining barricade. Most of the shops are open, about a quarter or less remain closed. Those that are open have very little inventory, and nothing terribly high end.

The malls are empty. The restaurants almost so. Jobs are hard to find and salespeople nervous about missing the opportunity of each customer that happens by. This is a very different Kiev from a year ago.

But they are willing to pay this cost for their freedom. People will pay very high costs to punish unethical and immoral actors.

The president of Ukraine, a Russian puppet, exploited, plundered and impoverished the people of Ukraine, just as his Russian masters did.

The USA has done similar evils, in an effort to prevent an even worse outcome: the expansion of world communism under the soviet empire. But it is one thing to stop a plague, stop a murderous ideology, and constrain a people until they mature into members of the world economy, and quite another to PREVENT good and decent moral people from joining the productive world economy, and the prosperity that comes with joining it.

The problem is that Russia has nothing good to offer the world. It has violence, corruption, exploitation and poverty. Does the world need a strong Russia? I think so. But it only needs a strong russia if it is not a PREDATORY state that impoverishes people, in a continuing blight. The damage that the Russian soviets did to eastern europe, was tragic and still persists. The damage that the Russian soviets did to their own people – more murderous than Hitler’s war, is only matched by the great plagues.

Over the winter Ukrainians spent their blood, money, and time to overthrow a corrupt Russian sponsored predatory, in the hope of joining european prosperity, and saving itself from russian sponsored, corruption, predation and poverty.

Only to have Russians once again prey upon them. Only to have the west fail to live up to its promises. Only to find themselves raided, plundered, and abandoned.

I love these people. I love every one of them. I’m privileged to live with them. There are no better people on this earth.

The only freedom you have is the people standing next to you, the guns in your hands, and the willingness to use them. Everything else is merely someone’s permission to pretend that you are free.