This madness continues unabated....

 As shells rain down on the largest nuclear power plant in Europe, having been unleashed in an act of madness, reminiscent of Hitler, as one ten-year-old Ukrainian boy put it, and as Americans like Steve Bannon and Tucker Carlson  (and trump) laud the Russian czar wannabe, perhaps it is appropriate to note a pattern among men who have, consciously or not, squeezed themselves into a constricting mould, not of hero but of antihero.

The alpha male ought to be a legitimately endangered species, as exemplified by some of these men. From The Guardian , October 10, 2016, in a piece entitled, “Do alpha males even exist?” Dean Burnett writes:

“An alpha male intimidates, he’s unquestionably in charge, no matter what the situation. AN alp0ha male is loud, brash, doesn’t care what anybody else thinks. An alpha male says what he wants, does what he wants, wears what he wants, as long as those clothes are roomy enough in the trousers to accommodate his gargantuan gonads and don’t dissolve in response to all the testosterone constantly leaking from his pores….It’s as is the idea of being qan alpha male is very reassuring to those who lack confidence and are scared by the wider world and people in it, so want to turn the tables….Maybe the supposed human alpha male is a combination of disgruntled male wish-fulfilment and borderline-pseudoscientific justification for resorting to bullying intimidation and generally all-round unpleasant behaviour by men hope to impose their will on a world they find too complex and unnerving so revert to their baser instincts to get what they want, despite knowing deep down they don’t deserve it and shouldn’t have it.”

From the website, greatergood.berkeley.edu, in a piece about the comparison of the alpha and beta male archetypes: “As the expression goes, when all you have is a hammer, all you see are nails.” In our context, if all putin has is weapons and compliant soldiers and Foreign Affairs and national security ministers, then all he will see are enemies to be dominated and manipulated.

In a March 15, 2017 piece in The Atlantic, entitled, “What’s so American about John Milton’s Lucifer (from Milton’s Paradise Lost)?” Edward Simon writes:

Milton’s Lucifer can be read as a kind of modern, American antihero…Many of the values the archangel advocates in Paradise Lost—the self-reliance, the rugged individualism, and even manifest destiny—are regarded as quintessentially American in the cultural imagination….What Milton’s Paradise Lost…also demonstrates is what can be so dangerous about mistaking an antihero for a hero….Milton’s Lucifer is neither bestial, a reptilian Other nor the goofy incompetent of a medieval morality play; rather he’s a conflicted, brooding, alienated, narcissistic self-mythologizer. In other words, he’s a thoroughly modern man….Much as Lucifer invades Eden like the frontiersman who moved further west, he is also capable of justifying his actions with the most exalted of language. Milton writes, But all was false and hollow; though his tongue/ Dropp’d manna, and could make the worse appear / The better reason…..Lucifer’s famous assertion that ‘The mind is its own place, and in itself / Can make a heav’n of hell, a hell of heaven. Lucifer is not just a rebel, but also a character who has tricked himself ( and many of his post Romantic readers) into believing his very words can generate reality. Lucifer’s line is a pithy and dark summation of the American credo of self-invention….But as Lucifer discovered in his rebellion against heaven, extreme self-invention inevitably leads to the ultimate form of alienation: a radical distance from God and from fellow humans.

Is it not reasonable to connect the dots between Lucifer, trump, Hitler and putin….given their shared attempt to reinvent both themselves and their world, irrespective of the carnage and slaughter and dismemberment and devastation they have rained and currently rain down on other human beings?

One of the most pathetically ironic aspects of the current situation in Ukraine is the absolutely hollow intonation by putin that Ukrainians and Russians are brothers, while he slaughters ‘his’ very own brothers in his manic and mad dash to plant himself in history as the Russian wannabe czar who restored Russia to a former greatness. And then, also pathetically ironic, to utter the contemptible assessment that Ukraine, led by a Jewish president, is ruled by neo-Nazi fascist nationalists…one has to ‘spit’ the words from one’s mouth, they are so abhorrent.

 

Turning the world upside down and eviscerating what has passed for ‘world order’ for nearly three-quarters of a century, is nothing short of a new theatrical, political, military and unbridled  Lucifer loosened himself from all constraints that would, could, should and must apply to human of beings intent on co-habiting with the rest of humanity.

What putin is doing, and seemingly luxuriating in the doing, is not only vicious, venal and lethal, bereft of all morality, ethics, and decency. It is also so abhorrent that no one really wants to contemplate, again. It is an unpalatable reminder, echo and thundering cacophony of the Third Reich. This war which they rest of us watch, read, listen to and cringe at bring us face to face again with the horrible spectre of what humans are capable of and willing to do to other human beings, for their own narcissistic ends.

 

Mistaking an anti-hero for a hero is not exclusive to the United States. The mistake is also ‘manifest destiny’ in many other places, where Lucifer’s are rising out of the dust of public squares where the levers of power and authority have devolved into vaults of cash, and coteries of wimp sycophants.

Greed, especially unfettered and unleashed, is not only “not good”; it is lethal. Ambition unfettered by counsel, compassion and moderation is self-alienating as well as self-annihilating. However, the price that others have to pay for such unfettered greed and ambition, twins never yet separated from each other, is inordinate.

While the ‘west’ is busily engaged in providing military materiel.

 From Euronews 04/03/2022 by Thoman Duthois:

The EU would finance the purchase and delivery of arms to Ukraine totalling 450 million euros, the very first time the European Union (is) providing military equipment to /Ukraine.

Germany has broken its long-standing foreign policy of banning  all exports of lethal weapons…and will deliver1,000 anti-tank rocket launchers, 500 stinger surface-to-air missiles, nine Howitzers, 14 armoured vehicles and 10,000 tonnes of fuel to Ukraine.

Sweden, also breaking with its neutral stance, announced that it would deliver anti-tank weapons to Kyiv.

France has committed equipment and support.

(The) Belgian government promised 2000 machine guns, 3,800 tons of fuel, 3,000 additional automatic rifles and 200 anti-tank weapons.

Portugal has offered…bulletproof vests and helmets, night vision goggles, grenades and ammunition of various calibres.

The Czech Republic is sending 30,000 pistols, 7,000 assault rifles, 3,000 machine guns, and several dozen sniper rifles as well as one million round of ammunition.

Romania is providing fuel, body armour, helmets, ammunition and other military equipment. Bucharest has announced that eleven Romanian military hospitals are prepared to receive Ukrainian wounded.

The US announced a new 350 million Euro package of military aid, bringing the total military aid from Washington to Ukraine over the past year to a total of nearly One Billion Euros.

Canada is sending military protective equipment such as helmets and bulletproof vests but also anti-tank weapons systems and upgraded ammunition.

Finland announced a historic policy shift to send weapons to Ukraine, promising 2,500 assault rifles, 150,000 rounds of ammunition, 1,500 rocket launchers and 70,000field rations.

Denmark announced it would be sending 2,700 anti-tank weapons and would let Danish volunteers join International Brigades forming in Ukraine to defend the country.

Norway already announced…shipments of helmets and bulletproof vests, it would also be sending 2,000 M72 anti-tank weapons.

Croatia is sending 16 million euros worth of protective gear and light arms.

Slovenia has promised rifles, ammunition and helmets.

Italy has announced it will send military equipment but has not disclosed details yet.

On the humanitarian side, there will be estimated 4 million refugees anticipated by the UNHCR, to flee Ukraine and flow west into neighbouring countries.

From WCVB.com, a list of some humanitarian organizational helping Ukrainians during crisis:

Ukrainian Red Cross will use funds to help those in need..as well as paying for blood collection efforts; mobilization of volunteers and resources, and emergency activities.

The International Committee of the Red Cross

UNICEF…health, nutrition, HIV prevention, education, safe drinking water, sanitation and protection

International Rescue Committee

Save the Children

UN Refugee Agency

Sunflower of Peace. .collecting non-perishable medical supplies, including bandages, Neosporin, Aspirin, ibuprofen, and other supplies as well as batteries and flash lights

Keep Ukraine’s media going…fundraise to help media relocate, set-up back offices, and continue operations

Keep the Kyiv Independent going.. to bring trusted, important information about facts on the ground during the conflict

Pavlotsky family GoFundMe….

And from today.com:

Global Empowerment Mission, in Poland using donations to buy refugees train and plane tickets to help them reach family or friends

Globalempowermentmission.org

World Central Kitchen WCK.org

Global Giving Ukraine Crisis Relief Fund

Razom for Ukraine…helping Ukraine pursue a democratic society that has civil rights for all

The latest reports have putin taking western voices off the air, such as Voice of America, and also the Duma has passed a law that would see fifteen-year prison sentences for anyone in Russia found guilty of using words like “war” and “invasion” to describe the Russsian military ‘invasion’ of Ukraine. No doubt other western news outlets will eventually be impacted by a regime so terrified of the truth, especially the truth of its own commission and omission.

The BBC, for example, has resorted to providing 4 hours daily of what they call ‘short-wave’ broadcasts of the Russian invasion, because this outlet too has been suspended by putin.

 Now waking up in the Orwellian world where ‘war is peace’ and ‘brothers are enemies’ and neo-NAZI fascists are used as ghost enemies operating the Ukrainian government, according to the Russian dictator, in what we all hope is the sunset of the first pandemic in a century, while the toxic carbon and methane emissions continue to spew into the atmosphere, and the price of gas spirals out of control, along with the price of ordinary food items, with little hope of even a slight moderation of these developments, can only evoke what our parents and grandparents were going through back in the 1940’s.

However, there was no 24-7-365 real time reporting of events, deaths, criminal investigations and refugee migrations.

It is hitting us all in the face, moment by moment, demanding that we actually turn away, find a sports game, or even a Hallmark movie as an antidote.

This is madness!