This commentary is by Walt Amses, a writer who lives in North Calais.
The first powder in weeks finds us breaking trail in a small stand of woods along a pristine stream as the new snow twinkles like diamonds in the filtered sunshine, an ethereal dreamscape in a world fast being overtaken by nightmare.
The small hiatus such ventures usually provide is missing this day, subsumed by the horror unleashed by Vladimir Putin half a world away and awe of the fierce Ukrainian resistance, boldly led by a steadfast yet unlikely president whose previous experience includes stand-up comedy and “Dancing With the Stars.”
In the days following the Russian invasion, Volodymyr Zelenskyy became the stuff of mythology, spurning the United States’ offer of safe passage with words that will be defiantly repeated for centuries: “I need ammunition, not a ride.”
In a series of selfie videos, Zelenskyy rallied his people, spitting in the eye of Putin’s aggression as the former KGB intelligence officer erratically pinged from one bizarre accusation to another: Ukraine was committing “genocide” and the invasion was to “de-Nazify” the country — particularly weird, considering Zelenskyy’s roots include generations of Russian-speaking Jews.
An American leader in similar circumstances is difficult to imagine, especially since the last guy hunkered down in the White House panic room, shielded from peaceful demonstrators. And now he’s cravenly elbowing his way into the current situation and unfurling his now-familiar litany of lies, claiming this never would have happened on his watch, which is probably correct, but hardly courageous. No invasion was necessary since he was already doing Putin’s bidding, including undermining NATO, which he now claims to have saved: “There would be no NATO if I didn’t act strongly and swiftly.”
He went on, suggesting history would give him “credit” for providing Ukraine with weaponry, including the anti-tank guns and javelin missiles actually approved during the Obama administration but infamously blocked in his attempt to extort Zelenskyy into manufacturing an “investigation” of Hunter Biden, leading to his own (first) impeachment.
Malignant narcissism aside, he’s no longer the sole conduit of misinformation, not by a long shot. Putin in fact has made telling the truth a criminal offense, punishable by 15 years in prison.
As Putin threatens closure of any Russian media honestly reporting his aggression, including calling the war a war, the similarities to his far-right American counterparts are abundantly clear — yet still stunning. A free press demands transparency in service to the accountability of the leadership, Conservative pols on this side of the Atlantic increasingly limit interviews to Fox News, One America Network or Newsmax, knowing the questions will be softballs, answers will go unchallenged, with the whole encounter amounting to a free campaign ad, which is far more dangerous than it may appear.
Controlling the narrative is an age-old political device to get your version of the story out before your opponent can, but it’s easily manipulated, becoming a vital cog in creating the propaganda on which authoritarians thrive.
But right now, it appears that, however much BS Putin can lather on his own people, the rest of the world has got his number as he’s slowly being ostracized — but I wonder if that matters to him at all. Sanctions will impact his country more than him personally and he’s never had much compassion for the plight of rank-and-file Russians, so why would he start now?
As we come out of the woods on the open shore of Number Ten Pond, a stiff wind clarifies each drop of sweat but it isn’t long before the sun, higher in the sky two months removed from winter solstice, begins its work and I’m warm again, still angry and frustrated yet somehow enthralled by the bravery and solidarity of the Ukrainian people, wondering if Americans will ever find that again.
I feel the pandemic was a near-perfect but squandered opportunity, jettisoned for politics, driving what feels like a permanent wedge between us. I have to go back a couple of decades to see our potential more clearly.
At home, I dig out a commentary I wrote 20 years ago with relevance to emotions I’m feeling right now. It was the first anniversary of 9/11: “All our lives changed instantaneously as we realized our notion of security was a delusion if plane tickets, box cutters and a twisted commitment was all it took to kill thousands of us in the blink of an eye, (wondering) if some unfathomable future horror would render these the good old days.”
Like benchmarks of a life, we all remember exactly where we were and what we were doing when the news came to us and “the best of who we are came through resoundingly loud and beautifully clear.”
In those weeks, being “only human became a higher calling” and “a huge responsibility” while learning our own lives were a precious and delicate gift and our solace came from “taking care of each other.” Spirituality of various kinds became important and “as we groped through one of the darkest times in our history, we found out important things about ourselves and each other” and how despite “monumental odds, our basic humanity can see us through.”
In Ukraine, that humanity, coupled with a collective willingness to die in defense of their country, is the spirit that Putin wants to crush, no matter the cost. His biggest fear is not the fictitious notion of genocide or the need to de-Nazify, but the possibility of a thriving democracy next door with civil rights and free, fair elections posing a dire threat to his autocratic control of his own country.
In his State of the Union address earlier this week, President Joe Biden excoriated Putin: “He thought he could roll into Ukraine and the world would roll over. Instead he met a wall of strength he never anticipated or imagined — the Ukrainian people,” drawing the first bipartisan applause Washington has seen in a long, long time.
