Twelve days. Two million refugees. At least 400 civilians murdered. 202 schools and 34 hospitals bombed.
Putin's whopper--that a Jewish former comedian and grandson of Holocaust survivors is a Nazi--has had its impact: an awful lot of Russians believe him. An awful lot of experienced statesmen aren't willing to risk the one-two punch that could stop Putin.
I wish those statesmen would take the lesson from Kurt Jooss's 1932 ballet, The Green Table, an exposé of the dithering, flattery and insincerity of politicians playing at diplomacy--firing their guns as death wanders the table, as nobody takes a stand:
Because the statesmen didn't take a stand, Hitler did.
Putin too.
But in a move that gives us all hope, Volodymyr Zelensky has also taken a stand. The following hymn--"Once to Every Man and Nation," inspired by James Russell Lowell's passionate protest of the 1845 American annexation of Texas and, in 1890, set to music by Thomas J. Williams, stands for all that Zelensky represents:
If only President Biden and Secretary of State Antony Blinken would follow in Zelensky's footsteps, and fight just as bravely, and with all firepower to defeat Putin--who like all cowards stands aside.
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