"A woman reacts as she stands at the site of an apartment building that was hit during Russian drone and missile strikes in Kyiv..." Photo credit Reuters, via The Guardian.
My heart just ached when I came across this photo of a young woman viewing damage to an apartment building in Ukraine. My first thought was that she probably has all her "stuff" up there - clothes, books, memorabilia, perhaps some valuables. Perhaps now she has to find a new place to live. And none of this is her fault. She's just trying to live her best life, and then this happens. It is heartbreaking. Wish I could help her.
One thing we could do is stop "hiring" leaders who orchestrate and fund proxy wars. I find Jeffrey Sachs and John Mearsheimer (many YouTube interviews) authoritative and convincing on the subject of American culpability in this mess--going back to the 90s.
ReplyDeleteAlso, this version of what happened in 2014 has never been available in the mainstream US media: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-lssvjQVlLk&t=794s
DeleteIt is highly ironic that the current American presidents insists that NATO membership for Ukraine is a big issue that should be abandoned, while it was another American president who pushed hard, over the objection of Europe, that Ukraine (and Georgia) should become NATO members.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.theguardian.com/world/2008/apr/01/nato.georgia
https://prospect.org/blogs-and-newsletters/tap/whose-bright-idea-was-it-to-extend-nato-membership-to-ukraine/
Anyway, to answer your question: World Central Kitchen. That's what you are already doing.
Ukraine membership in NATO has long been a red line for Russia. Who has insisted otherwise, and why, is a long story. Suffice it to say, as long as Russia sees Ukrainian membership in NATO as existential threat (forever), Russia will remain at war to prevent it. Unlike most Americans, I find Russia's arguments on this subject to be sound, even as war is arguably indefensible.
DeleteI do find the focus of this post a bit odd. Hundreds of thousands of men, Ukrainians and Russians, have been killed and maimed--legs blown off, blinded, etc. Ukrainian men were forced to stay in the county while women were free to leave. It seems there's never proportionate attention to male suffering.
Unlike most Americans, I find Russia's arguments on this subject to be sound
DeleteIt may be understandable why Russia/Putin doesn't want NATO neighbors. But it already had a bunch with Norway, the Baltic states, Poland and now Finland. So there is proof that it is not an existential problem. Norway was a founding NATO member.
Furthermore, it's simply not their business. Countries have the right to associate with other countries as they see fit.
Meanwhile, Russia promised Ukraine territorial protection when Ukraine gave up its (old USSR) nukes - together with the US and the UK.
*It is Russia that violated this treaty*, proving that Ukraine needs more protections, not Russia. As if Chechnya wasn't proof enough.
And the US is trying very hard to forget the treaty ever existed.
So good luck ever trying to convince another country (hello Iran and Israel) to give up its nukes with promises of territorial protection.
tldr: It was Russia that attacked a neighbor, and notably a neighbor it had promised territorial protection for giving up its nukes and hence being a lower risk neighbor. So it is simply hypocritical to pretend Russia needs protection against its neighbors.
I do find the focus of this post a bit odd.
Your argument is basically that you shouldn't have empathy for this woman because there are other people suffering as well. That's an argument against empathy.
Empathy is not quantifiable nor finite.
I think it would be useful to better understand the history of NATO and Russia--and particularly the strategic significance of Ukraine. I highly recommend the work of both Sachs and Mearshemeir, as noted above. These are true scholars who unpack the history better than I can. (In a nutshell, the idea that it's "none of Russia's business" is untenable. I'm sure you are familiar with the Monroe Doctrine? The Cuban Missile Crisis? The notion that Russia should be the only country, and major power, with no say in what constitutes a neighboring or regional threat is naive at best. Russia has accommodated aggressive NATO expansion, since 1992, as would be unthinkable in any parallel activity in our own--the US's--sphere.)
DeleteI never said a word about not having empathy for the woman in the post. I'm addressing the gross imbalance in how we attend to the suffering this war has created. Probably 90% of the suffering has fallen on men. I would argue it's empathy for men that tends to be in short supply. Never that empathy is not important or essential.
PS: I don't see us, individually or collectively, as having an infinite capacity for empathy. If we had such a capacity, which strikes me as a magical assertion, we'd be able to take in all the suffering of the world and respond to all the suffering of the world. Since we can't do that, there must be some way of discriminating, which we employ consciously, or not. It appears to me that we are conditioned from childhood to put the importance of some suffering over the importance of other suffering. To let some in and keep most out. That is, beyond the sheer limits of our finite minds, there is also a kind of hierarchy of importance of suffering imposed during socialization; how we are instructed to deploy our limited capacity, in service of maintaining the status quo. We ought to be constantly questioning this construct. That is, given that in-group attention to suffering can only lead to in-group morality. Expanding our capacity to take in suffering and, at the same time, deconstructing the hierarchy we're conditioned to accept, is fundamental to moral work.
DeleteInteresting viewpoint. Related -
Deletehttps://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC7560777/
Sorry, this should have been posted here.
Delete@Minnesotastan:
Thank you for the article on compassion fatigue.
On one level it may be fair to see humans as willfully failing to grasp the information in the unnecessary suffering we so effectively multiply. On the other hand, as I think the article implies, we are limited to such an extent that this may be seen more as a tragedy; that is, we humans multiply unnecessary suffering, more or less unknowingly, and are fundamentally limited in such a way as to make "correcting our course" out of reach.
I think there is a role for reason, when engaging the subject of unnecessary suffering, which is the other side of the coin from empathy/compassion. I see that compassion fatigue is a real thing, but is there such a thing as "reason fatigue?"
I was surprised, that in philosophy, there is raging debate about the power, or utility, of reason vs empathy. In this context, I think we might argue that even without compassion, we humans can (or could) reason our way to a different relationship with the suffering of the world. I'm implying that the notion that to whatever extent emotional fatigue is seen as giving us a pass, we may in fact not be off the hook, given that our ability to reason puts us right back on the hook.
The notion that Russia should be the only country, and major power, with no say in what constitutes a neighboring or regional threat is naive at best.
ReplyDeleteYes, this is how poor little paranoid Putin feels.
Yet reality shows that no one has invaded Russia/the USSR since World War 2. And that didn't end so well for the Nazis. Napoleon didn't have much success either.
It is Russia who invaded Ukraine. And Georgia. And meddles in Moldova, Armenia the various -stans. And several Eastern European countries. Oh and Chechnya.
Russia can whine about threats to its existence all it wants. They do not exist. They are phantoms in Putin's mind. Meanwhile Russia is very actively a threat to many of its neighbors. The reason many of Russia's neighbors are hostile to Russia is decades or centuries of brutal oppression.
Russia has accommodated aggressive NATO expansion, since 1992
The word "accommodated" is straight up Russian propaganda language. Russia's neighbors ran away as fast as they could after they relieved themselves of decades of vicious oppression by Russia's predecessor, the USSR. There was nothing to "accommodate". Russia oppressed those countries, they tossed them out, and quite naturally wanted protection against their former oppressor. And sure, Russia is sour about that. But why care?
Here's an idea: If you want good relations with your neighbors, be nice to them. Maybe try to run your own country so that your member states don't keep trying to leave. There is quite a difference between how Russia treated Chechnya and how the EU treated the UK.
as would be unthinkable in any parallel activity in our own--the US's--sphere.
And yet the US has managed to stop itself from invading Cuba for all those years, however close it came. Except of course for Guantanamo Bay. Of course that changing now with the new attitude to Canada and Greenland.
As for the Monroe doctrine, much can be said of it. But it's always funny that Americans felt totally ok telling other countries not to be imperial anymore while buying Alaska, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands. And then with Hawaii, y'all just skipped the buying part and straight went to taking over. At least Hawaii became a state. Several other Pacific islands were not so lucky. I don't know much about the Philippines, but that happened as well.
BTW: The US, and Canada to some extend are also NATO neighbors to Russia. Forgot those.
@ Nepkarel:
Delete"Yes, this is how poor little paranoid Putin feels."
I think this sentence says a lot. I don't think of Putin in these terms, at all. I've listened to his speeches and followed his statesmanship. My impression is that he's intelligent and dedicated to Russia's welfare. I do believe he's been reduced to a cartoon in the West. Many reasons for this. Firstly, he's been standing up to the West for decades--and Lord knows we are supposed be in charge of the entire world. Secondly, he's a traditionalist and this is cause for hysteria driven hyper-condemnation by "liberals" with a different set of cultural values. In any case, it's neither fair nor wise to dismiss Putin.
We won't agree on the causes for this war. Regardless, given Russia's superior power on every level, Ukraine can keep dumping bodies into the meat grinder, but it cannot "win." It's a war of attrition. Ukraine can accept being a neutral state and cede the Russian majority, eastern fifth of the country, or it can go on fighting, with a possibly much worse outcome. Either way, again, it cannot win this war.
@Minnesotastan:
Thank you for the article on compassion fatigue.
On one level it may be fair to see humans as willfully failing to grasp the information in the unnecessary suffering we so effectively multiply. On the other hand, as I think the article implies, we are limited to such an extent that this may be seen more as a tragedy; that is, we humans multiply unnecessary suffering, more or less unknowingly, and are fundamentally limited in such a way as to make "correcting our course" out of reach.
I think there is a role for reason, when engaging the subject of unnecessary suffering, which is the other side of the coin from empathy/compassion. I see that compassion fatigue is a real thing, but is there such a thing as "reason fatigue?"
I was surprised, that in philosophy, there is raging debate about the power, or utility, of reason vs empathy. In this context, I think we might argue that even without compassion, we humans can (or could) reason our way to a different relationship with the suffering of the world. I'm implying that the notion that to whatever extent emotional fatigue is seen as giving us a pass, we may in fact not be off the hook, given that our ability to reason puts us right back on the hook.
It's so good to disagree with you again.
DeleteWe won't agree on the causes for this war.
The cause is easy. Putin was present in the DDR when the wall fell and his heart broke. He can't accept that the USSR fell apart and keeps falling further apart. I can't accept that countries that were under Russian control are now doing better on their own. He guessed that the West would not support Ukraine when he invaded, especially right after the West turned its back on Afghanistan. He was wrong, but he can't accept the loss.
There is very little to disagree here.
I've listened to his speeches and followed his statesmanship.
Pray tell. What statesmanship is that. I must have missed it.
he's intelligent and dedicated to Russia's welfare
I never implied that he's not intelligent. But he's got nothing to show for Russia's welfare. Russia is getting poorer under his rule. He installed a cabal of robber barons, and now that they've stripped Russia of all its wealth, they've bought themselves other citizenship and spend their time as far from Russia as they can.
given Russia's superior power on every level
What superior power? The power by which they were gonna march to Kyiv and take over in a few days?
No seriously, what is Russia superior in? Vodka?
Ukraine can keep dumping bodies into the meat grinder, but it cannot "win."
Ukraine can not win because it was naive enough to believe that Russia, the US and UK would protect its territory after it gave up its nukes. From those 3, Russia ended up invading them, the US is minimizing its help, and only the UK is stepping up to hold up its part of the deal, but the UK is not powerful enough to control Russia and the US. The US was naive thinking Putin only wanted Crimea.
Ukraine was betrayed by Russia and the US. That's why it can't win.
I notice you side-step all my arguments about Russia's aggression and the lack of the West's aggression.
We won't resolve this here.
DeleteI had very similar views to your own (essentially the US State Department talking points, as would be espoused by Victoria Nuland, et al), but I was lucky to know about five people in my community who had spent a lot of time, over many years, working at understanding US foreign relations. This led to a lot of reading and listening. I was essentially schooled. This led to familiarity with Sachs, Mearshemier, et al. More listening.
I'll just say, that if you expose yourself, in depth, to the opposing arguments and find yourself in the same place, we can agree to disagree, with all the information onboard. You may have all this information, and an in depth understanding of Russian history and that perspective, but if you're like most people in the West, you do not. (Your description of Putin leads me to guess "not.")
"You may have all this information, and an in depth understanding of Russian history and that perspective, but if you're like most people in the West, you do not. (Your description of Putin leads me to guess 'not.')"
DeleteSo you base your assumption about how knowledgeable someone else is based solely on how much they agree with you which effectively shuts down any possibility of "agree to disagree".
Begin here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
DeleteI was lucky to know about five people in my community who had spent a lot of time, over many years, working at understanding US foreign relations.
DeleteOh, you're pulling authority based on someone you know? Lol. That's one-degree away from the "Don't you know I'm an authority" rank pulling.
Let's be clear: You have no idea who I am, nor whom I hang with. Or have been schooled by. Because that's not relevant. Facts are. Arguments are. Pulling rank is basically admitting you have no arguments.
It's also funny that you think I care about US State Dept talking points. One of the few things you do know about me is that I'm not American.
Come one, Crowboy. You can do better.
Whether you are American or not is irrelevant. "State Department talking points" are the coin of the realm throughout the US empire.
DeleteIt's not that I have no arguments, it's that those arguments are made far more completely by experts like John Mearsheimer; hence the video mentioned above. Perhaps it's too much to ask, but if you devote an hour to hearing the "other side" and find it entirely unconvincing, please let me know.
Putin does not fear NATO. NATO will never attack Russia. What Putin fears is the Ukraine entering the EU
ReplyDeleteWhat Putin fears is the Ukraine entering the EU
DeleteWhy would he fear that? What has the EU ever done that would need fear as a reaction? The EU is peace project that brings enormous economic prosperity. It's relevant to point out that Poland is set to become richer than the UK in a few years. That's what the EU brings. Oh so much fear.
Putin fears his neighbors because he doesn't trust himself. He can not imagine neighbors that just want to live in freedom and peace.
Because Ukrainians would find out that the EU offers prosperity, instead of the misery of being Russian?
In the end, what Putin fears is that Russians start noting that all neighboring countries are doing better than Russia. He is a failed leader that is running an enormous country with so much potential into the ground. Like his American colleague, he's a narcissist that desperately seeks approval, but is unable to admit he made mistakes. He dreams of the grandeur of the old USSR, but that never really existed so it can not come back.
Putin has publicly stated that he has no objection to Ukraine entering the EU: https://www.reuters.com/world/china/putin-says-russia-doesnt-oppose-ukraine-joining-eu-2025-09-02/
DeletePutin does fear NATO. Just as we would fear, for example, Chinese military bases and missile silos positioned in Canada and Mexico.
Her expression is everything weary about the world.
ReplyDeleteA: I hope she's just sad about possession and not about family members killed.
ReplyDeleteB: Crowboy: Putin knows that NATO has zero political will to invade, so he was never afraid of NATO. He just thought he could take what he wanted and it would be easy, but he calculated wrong and we end up in this current meat grinder. He does not give one single shit about the lives this costs.
The USSR had zero interest in launching missiles from Cuba. For some reason, we still didn't want those missiles 90 miles from the US coastline.
DeletePutin knows that NATO has zero political will to invade, so he was never afraid of NATO.
DeleteThis is the crux of the matter. He knows that NATO will not attack him. NATO has never given any reason to doubt that. NATO is a defense alliance. That's it. Nothing more.
However, he doesn't trust NATO because he knows he would break such promises. And he has. For instance to Ukraine. And Georgia. And all those people falling out of windows.
In short, he doesn't trust others because he's not trustworthy himself.
But that's really a problem in his head. Not a problem caused by Ukraine, Georgia, the EU, the US or NATO.
I posted this above, but it's also a good place to begin in understanding the "fear of NATO" question: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JrMiSQAGOS4
DeleteNotice how often you see photos in the news of Russian schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings having been bombed by Ukraine. That’s right, you don’t.
ReplyDelete(I will not entertain “what about Kursk” - there is no comparison.)
Russia is killing as many Ukrainians as it can. Ukraine is trying to save itself by taking out Russia’s continued ability to attack. There is zero argument that Russia’s actions are in any way justified. It is sickening to see how effective its information warfare on the West has been.
99.9% of the carnage is on the battlefield where Ukrainians and Russians are "killing as many" men and boys as they can. We're getting the wrong idea.
Delete