Too many of my progressive comrades have been on board US/NATO’s $100 billion plus giveaway of weapons to keep the Russo-Ukraine war going in perpetuity.
One reason is political. If Democrats leaders support it, which nearly 100% do, they support it. Chalk that up to political tribalism.
Another is good guys/bad guys mentality. The war is about Russia authoritarianism v. Ukraine democracy, when both are in a race to the authoritarian basement. Putin is the new Hitler bent on gobbling up Western Europe, starting with Ukraine. Zelensky is the new Churchill, even though he betrayed his countrymen in the Donbas by caving to extreme Kyiv nationalists bent on destroying their Russian culture and many of their practitioners as well.
This thinking is at its best, totally misguided. At its worst, it’s delusional and self-destructive. Either way it has promoted 2 catastrophic aspects, one real, one potential.
The real one is the 16 months of unrelenting warfare killing hundreds of thousands and largely destroying Ukraine as a functioning country. The potential one is the threat of war escalating into nuclear confrontation between US and Russia. Armageddon in Ukraine approaches with each passing day.
Both have occurred from the Democratic administration and their progressive base, fully committed to a proxy war against Russia, using only Ukrainians as cannon fodder to keep Russia out of the European political economy.
Progressive folks remain in total denial on the year’s long US provocations that made the Russian invasion, not justified, but inevitable. Those direct provocations began in 2008, at the NATO meeting in Bucharest when NATO floated membership to Ukraine, in spite of Russia’s clear declaration Ukraine membership crossed a Russian existential red line.
Provocations culminated in 2014 when the US assisted regime change in Kyiv which ignited civil war in the Donbas. Eight years of America fueling that civil war ended in Russian invasion last year. Nice going Uncle Sam.
Progressives are also stuck in denial the US, in its lust to defeat Russia, sabotaged negotiations that could have ended the war within its first 2 months. Top US and UK officials traveled to Kyiv and smashed the negotiating table to bits.
Worst denial of all? Many progressives have joined their Democratic leaders in Congress and the White House in allowing ever more offensive weapons, including nuclear capable F-16’s, depleted uranium shells, and longer range missiles capable of striking Russia directly. They utterly dismiss such aggressive weapons threaten nuclear war. Their eye is on the prize of total victory, blinding them on those looming mushroom clouds.
The root word of progressivism is progress. Progressives’ blind support for endless war in Ukraine, destroying it while possibly destroying all of us, is not progress. It is madness.
Walt Zlotow became involved in antiwar activities upon entering University of Chicago in 1963. He is current president of the West Suburban Peace Coalition based in the Chicago western suburbs. He blogs daily on antiwar and other issues at www.heartlandprogressive.blogspot.com.
When W was POTUS, Republicans were bigger warmongers than Democrats, now, Biden is POTUS and Democrats are bigger warmongers than Republicans.
The Democratic Candidates that want to end the war in Ukraine are Marianne Williamson and Robert F Kennedy Jr. I prefer Williamson but most of the Democrats not backing Biden want Kennedy.
I’ll vote for the People’s Party Candidate in 2024. That party is against war, drone strikes and foreign intervention.
Where do you get that Marianne Williamson wants to end the war? She has expressed support for continuing to arm Ukraine. She – like all Democrats – is “anti-war” so long as the war ends strictly on western-favorable terms.
Go on the Wikipedia page on Williamson. She wants a Department of Peace & says Biden & previous POTUS authorized unprovoked wars. She wants more international cooperation for peace.
Wanting a department of peace is incompatible with sending arms to ukraine. And if she’s aware that Biden has gotten us into previous wars on dubious terms, she should be skeptical of his story about this war.
I tried to find her position on the Ukraine war but couldn’t find anything. Can you list some links or at least places where this can be found?
https://scottcdunn.medium.com/i-was-with-marianne-williamson-on-ukraine-until-she-said-escalation-too-f53a1da84794
Thanks. I heard her interviewed a few years ago, and there were one or two subjects where she was clearly uninformed or misinformed. Ukraine/Russia seems to be one of those issues, though it didn’t exist then. She seems to have her heart in the right place, but if you’re going to run for president, you need to be informed on all major issues and a lot of minor ones too.
I did not know about it before. She sounded like a good candidate until I read the column. Williamson sounds good on a lot of things to me but she doesn’t mean what she says if she wants the war in Ukraine to continue.
So far, the only two Democrats challenging Biden are Kennedy & Williamson. I hope there will be more by 2024.
Don’t place any faith in anyone in the Democratic Party. This is an establishment party that supports U.S. wars & its empire among other bad things. Candidates who are truly anti-war will not be allowed to win the Democratic primary. As the party told the court when it was sued over rigging the 2016 primary so that Clinton could defeat Sanders, it’s a private entity and is not legally required to provide fair primary elections or a fair primary process.
There is no solution here except for a major overhaul of the U.S. electoral system. We very badly need to 1) replace the unrepresentative winner-take-all voting system with proportional representation; 2) get all private money out of all elections, including ballot initiatives, and make all the funding public and therefore equal; 3) give all candidates equal TV time; 4) get rid of the House of Lords, aka the Senate; and 5) get rid of the executive branches of all levels of government and replace them with a parliamentary system.
Without at least the first 3, good luck with getting anything substantially good from voting except for the occasional scaring elected officials not to do things that are really awful, though even this is becoming no longer effective (the U.S. is now pushing toward nuclear war with Russia, but they’ve convinced the brain dead idiots in this country that doing so is necessary in order to defend a country that they caused Russia to invade).
Perhaps the descriptor “progressive” is not quite one that refects a “antiwar” view?
We just celebrated Mr. Bourne here and it was shared how that great Progressive hero Woodrow Wilson used to lock up isolationists who were against the war.
In fact he came up with interment camps for that war. That other progressive icon FDR was just copying Woodrow’s camps.
So being a war loving progressive is not out of character but rather a return to the ideas of old.
YES!
But FDR only reluctantly entered WWII, and then years after he was asked to do so. I’m not saying that he was anti-war, but he clearly didn’t want to enter WWII.
FDR was antiwar?
Next you’ll tell me Joe Kennedy was a swell guy?
Sure, “reluctance” can be defined in a myriad of ways so perhaps you are correct as you define it?
I said, “I’m not saying that he was anti-war …” Read more carefully, you’ve done this before.
Jeff why do you want to argue? As I shared, likely as you define things you are correct in your musings.
I made a slight jest and you are taking it way too personal as I agree with you.
Sorry, but how was I supposed to know that was a joke? Keep in mind that in a format like this as opposed to in-person, we don’t get voice intonations or body language, nor do we know each other personally. I have no problems with jokes — I am a Subgenius after all — but I have to know it’s a joke.
I believe you need to forgo lower quality government tax dispensary products and obtain the better untaxed stuff….
You might be a little mellower….
Absolutely agree. Too many “Progressives” don’t know or even care to understand what they’re supporting. If their party support it, they’ll put up a Ukrainian flag on their profile, even if there are real Nazi’s in the Ukrainian military.
The Ukrainian war and all the China hawking has opened finally opened my eyes however. I no longer support the Democratic party and will gladly throw my votes away. The only way to have a more peaceful world is one day for real antiwar third parties to have real voices.
You were throwing your vote away. You won’t be if you vote third party.
Voting for candidates whose ideologies and platforms you support is not throwing your vote away. Voting for the lesser of evil is throwing your vote away.
People need to stop thinking that voting for anyone but a Democrat or Republican is throwing their votes away, because we’ll never get any substantial positive change until we vote out the bums in both parties.
Good essay. Thanks for posting it.
The direct provocations began the minute NATO moved “one inch east” of Germany, against the explicit promises to Russia.
And if you’re going to say that Russia’s invasion wasn’t justified, you have to say what they should have done instead. Continue to let the ethnic Russians in eastern Ukraine get slaughtered by Kiev nazis? Allow Ukraine to join NATO and allow NATO forces and weapons (including nuclear ones) to pile up on their border? Don’t tell me they should have negotiated – they tried. Recent U.S., French and German statements about the Minsk Accords have made it clear that NATO never intended to honor any negotiations (as the First Nations people could have told us long ago).
I agree regarding provocation, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that Russia’s invasion was justified. If you’re anti-war, you can’t support any country invading any other country, and that includes this invasion.
What else could Russia have done? How about allying with China to stop all this U.S. aggression around the world? After all, the U.S. is pulling the same type of crap against China, and unlike Russia, China has a lot of leverage it could use in negotiations with the U.S. because of all the trade between them. So that’s one idea, and I don’t do this for a living. It’s not up to regular people to come up with solutions, it’s up to our elected leaders like Putin to come up with them.
It’s up to Putin to protect his country’s best interests. Maybe he could have tried harder to get China on board, but he realized he didn’t have a lot of time as there was a mass escalation of ukrainian nazi forces building up in eastern ukraine. Had he waited much longer, there would have been mass civilian slaughter in that region. And, honestly, I don’t think the US/NATO would have responded any better to joint Chinese/Russian diplomacy. Look how even now as ukraine is losing lives by the tens of thousands and we’re spending billions there, we’re still banging the war drums and escalating military provocations against China and even Iran and even, FFS, Mexico!
I don’t agree that invading Ukraine was in Russia’s best interests. In fact, my immediate gut reaction to the invasion was that Putin & Russia were insane for doing it, because I thought that Russia would be destroyed as a result, at least economically.
Again, China has a lot of leverage against the U.S. because of all the trade. Of course we can’t know my idea would have worked, but it wasn’t even tried that I know of. And it should have been done well before the invasion; the U.S. aggression in the region had been going on for years. All Russia did was issue hollow threats before it invaded instead of doing things like my idea.
Putin is a very predictable guy, which in a way makes him very much like Trump. If you push his buttons, you get a very predictable response. He rarely surprises. Biden pushed his buttons to get this war, and of course it worked.
He may be predictable like Trump — I have no opinion one way or the other on that — but he’s not like Trump at all. I watched the entire Oliver Stone interview with him, and his responses were far more ethical and reasonable than any U.S. president’s would have been.
“not justified, but inevitable”
Why would it be inevitable and not justified?
For example, the execution of an innocent person may be inevitable (all appeals exhausted, etc.), but that doesn’t necessarily make it justified.
‘Zelensky is the new Churchill’ my a**. Even with all his faults compounded, Churchill was so far above Zelensky’s league there’s not even a comparison. And, if there is ‘democracy’ in the Ukraine, I challenge anyone to point it out.
Progressives supporting war requires a redefinition of “progressive.” What Trump and the resulting TDS have caused is progressives turning into liberals. Liberals support the establishment, real progressives do not. Relevant here is that progressives are anti-war. The Ukraine war is different because Russia invaded Ukraine, which allowed the establishment propagandists to get people normally anti-war to support war against Russia. Zlotow has the perfect analysis of this situation, but people aren’t getting that, they’re getting lies and propaganda from the U.S. government and their media. (I wouldn’t trust anything in western establishment/mainstream/corporate media any more than I’d trust anything from Russian media.)
And BTW, the Democratic Party is not at all progressive. It’s a right wing party, which is the opposite of progressive.
Holy shit what does it take? UNSUBSCRIBE ME NOW!!!
https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/b713f5fb268e1a92160e327221297c2d52f575c6c9502289804a15831b18c9dc.jpg
Generally by my own definition anyone promoting war cannot even begin to BE a progressive. Saddle us with the same old crap, will you? You’re no better.
Has there ever been a time when progressives didn’t promote war?
Just call them warmongers!