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Refugee Kids Will Remember Putin

Refugee Kids Will Remember Putin

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Thirty years after the Soviet Union imploded because it didn’t work, Russian leader Vladimir Putin starts a vanity war with Ukraine. Allies flew to Ukraine’s aid. Under US lead, the transAtlantic Alliance became stronger than ever. But a frivolous war putside the rule of law has consequences far beyond the battlefield.

Great strides have been made in worldwide development since the Second World War. United Nations programs and funds have reduced poverty, increased literacy and promoted health initiatives. They have also addressed the many aspcts of climate change, particularly the migration that results when people become climate, economic or political refugees. Immigration, in turn, causes political unrest in most receiving countries at present. Yet because of Putin’s vanity project in Ukraine, those challenges are on the back burner.

For the first time in its history, the seat of democracy is threatened by home-grown enemies. Solid Europe held the fort as the rest of the world looked on. Then Putin struck Ukraine and all eyes turned there.

Nearly a year after the onslaught began, there is no end in sight for the simple reason that Putin doesn’t care about people. The fierce Wagner Group of convicts can free prisoners for cannon fodder in all the neighboring countries in Putin’s sway. But all the while, the eyes of children around the world are on Putin.

Ukraine is familiar to the West. Empathy comes more readily than with victims from more distant lands. But beneath the surface differences, all refugee experience is traumatic. For kids, it is the cause of an emotional pain that lasts a lifetime regardless of fortunes and therapies.

To be torn from your home base without warning and in the midst of explosive chaos is bad enough. But relocation in a strange land far from familiarity with no friends is brutal. Being flexible, kids adjust. They lead a more or less normal life except for a gaping hole that opens at unexpected or intimate moments. Explaining to others rarely helps. It’s difficult to express in words the homesick longing for a place barely known. Most painful are moments of realizing that others just don’t care. They don’t want to know. For you, there it is, that sharp pang on seeing a refugee child from anywhere, the frustation now compounded by the familirity of children from Ukraine.

Since God is on the side of good, as are Ukraine’s allies, Ukraine will eventually expel Russia from the sovereign territorial borders agreed upon in international treaties. But in the meantime, Putin is creating enemies of refugee children not just in Ukraine but in national trouble spots waiting on the back burner for international attention.

All those kids will hate Putin for their lifetimes. That does not bode well for the future of Russia.

A Bird’s Eye View of the Pope at the UN

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Note: This item first appeared when Pope Banedict XVI visited the United States and the United Nations. It is reissued as a tribute to Pope Benedict and the power of faith as a spiritual guide in a rapidly evolving world.

Press Officers in the Department of Public Information at the United Nations write on-the-spot press releases available to the world on the web. Few outside the UN read the releases but when Pope Benedict XVI came to address the General Assembly in April 2008, the Holy Trinity Hungarian Church in East Chicago, Indiana asked one Press Officer to describe the experience of seeing the world’s spiritual leader interact with the world’s leaders.

The Pope’s visit was very exciting, she said.  The vast Assembly Hall was filled to capacity. A few thousand people waited for him to arrive, all buzzing with anticipation above and beyond the usual rustle of an important world leader appearing.  When the announcement was made that the Pope was near, people got very quiet and turned to watch him walk up from the back in his red Prada shoes, accompanied by two bishops and UN security staff. The air was much more solemn than usual as the Pope reached the dais and was greeted by the UN Secretary-General and the Assembly President. After they all shook hands, the Pope gestured out to the Assembly and  a protocol officer led the Pope to the white VIP chair at the side of the speaker’s podium.

Since the press officer was not Catholic, she didn’t know what the Pople gestures meant, but he seemed to be blessing the Assembly as he held out his hands and swept those assembled with his eyes. With all his greatness, he seemed very humble,. He seemed to understate his position, which reinforced the sense of being in the presence of gretness. He was more gentle than charismatic and the crowd was obviously awed, as if sending his presence. When he finally spoke, his words were powerful and thought provoking.

The Pope’s message was much the same as the ideas expressed daily at the UN, the press officer said.  But the way the Pople expressed those ideas had a solemn rhythm that suggested there was deeper meaning beyond the words. He spoke about  the need to protect people whose human rights were violated and that governments must not use state sovereignty as an excuse bad behavior in their countries. He talked about the need to help the very poor of the world, many of whom lived in Africa. So the message wasn’t that different but the way he talked about the issues in a religious context gave them impact. He was talking about a concept that at the UN was known as the responsibility to protect.  It was a shared responsibility to help those in need wherever they were, like those in Sudan who were being massacred, The responsibility also meant that governments must not be allowed to get away with mistreating their people. In the religious context and expressed at an elevated intellectual level, the message was striking caught your interest.

The Pope ended by blessing everyone in all six official UN languges, The Secretary-General and the Assembly President then wished him a happy birthday. That was a nice light touch to the powerful presentation.

Overall, the narrator summed up, the Pope at the UN seemed to command total and obvious respect. World leaders were open to his message. They were open to his message and responded with smiles and nods. Some people got very emotional. Most diplomats maintained their air of formality and decorum, but a few cried as the Pope spoke, along with many of the UN staff.  The feeling inside that grand hall seemed to go even beyond deep respect and closer to reverence.  The UN is used to Presidents and Prime Ministers. In person, they are very impressive. But a religious leader of the Pope’s stature was striking beyond mere secular power.

Catholics must have felt they’d seen  light, the non-Catholic press officer went on. But even as a non-Catholic Ishe said she felt she was in the presence of greatness, that the Pope was a very powerful person, one of the most learned people in the world. In that sense, the experience was awesome. The pomp of his garments and entourage certainly added to that sense. It’s only fitting that world-level leaders reinforce the message of their countries with the most splendid garb of their nations.  Overall, the Pope made a terrific impression on the UN and on New York City in general. He brought a spiritual depth to the city and it was very well received. That greater spiritual depth as a result of his visit was reflected right back to the Pople as he made his way around the city in his popemobile. Throngs cheered.

For a Catholic perspective on the Pope’s historic visit to the UN, a staff member snagged a seat at the  press office desk.  On first seeing the Pope walk up the aisle, she said she was struck by the sense that he was the person holding a position that was directly descended from the first Pope, St. Peter, who founded the Catholic Church. The context of that long timeline lent new emphasis to the UN message. The philosophical edge  common themes made them profound and closely aligned. Both Catholicism and the UN had the common goals of helping people and doing good in the world.

Further, she said she was happy to see the Pope as warm within the formality of his role. When he extended hands to bless, his fingers fluttered with earnest feeling. In an address to a rally of young people the previous day, the Pope had shown real rapport with the kids who were obviously thrilled to be in his presence.  He kept looking out at them as with admiration, as if to let them know they were important to him because they were the future.

A Bird’s Eye View of the Pope at the UN

Note: This item first appeared when Pope Banedict XVI visited the United States and the United Nations. It is reissued as a tribute to Pope Benedict and the power of faith as a spiritual guide in a rapidly evolving world.

Press Officers in the Department of Public Information at the United Nations write on-the-spot press releases available to the world on the web. Few outside the UN read the releases but when Pope Benedict XVI came to address the General Assembly in April 2008, the Holy Trinity Hungarian Church in East Chicago, Indiana asked one Press Officer to describe the experience of seeing the world’s spiritual leader interact with the world’s leaders.

The Pope’s visit was very exciting, she said.  The vast Assembly Hall was filled to capacity. A few thousand people waited for him to arrive, all buzzing with anticipation above and beyond the usual rustle of an important world leader appearing.  When the announcement was made that the Pope was near, people got very quiet and turned to watch him walk up from the back in his red Prada shoes, accompanied by two bishops and UN security staff. The air was much more solemn than usual as the Pope reached the dais and was greeted by the UN Secretary-General and the Assembly President. After they all shook hands, the Pope gestured out to the Assembly and  a protocol officer led the Pope to the white VIP chair at the side of the speaker’s podium.

Since the press officer was not Catholic, she didn’t know what the Pople gestures meant, but he seemed to be blessing the Assembly as he held out his hands and swept those assembled with his eyes. With all his greatness, he seemed very humble,. He seemed to understate his position, which reinforced the sense of being in the presence of gretness. He was more gentle than charismatic and the crowd was obviously awed, as if sending his presence. When he finally spoke, his words were powerful and thought provoking.

The Pope’s message was much the same as the ideas expressed daily at the UN, the press officer said.  But the way the Pople expressed those ideas had a solemn rhythm that suggested there was deeper meaning beyond the words. He spoke about  the need to protect people whose human rights were violated and that governments must not use state sovereignty as an excuse bad behavior in their countries. He talked about the need to help the very poor of the world, many of whom lived in Africa. So the message wasn’t that different but the way he talked about the issues in a religious context gave them impact. He was talking about a concept that at the UN was known as the responsibility to protect.  It was a shared responsibility to help those in need wherever they were, like those in Sudan who were being massacred, The responsibility also meant that governments must not be allowed to get away with mistreating their people. In the religious context and expressed at an elevated intellectual level, the message was striking caught your interest.

The Pope ended by blessing everyone in all six official UN languges, The Secretary-General and the Assembly President then wished him a happy birthday. That was a nice light touch to the powerful presentation.

Overall, the narrator summed up, the Pope at the UN seemed to command total and obvious respect. World leaders were open to his message. They were open to his message and responded with smiles and nods. Some people got very emotional. Most diplomats maintained their air of formality and decorum, but a few cried as the Pope spoke, along with many of the UN staff.  The feeling inside that grand hall seemed to go even beyond deep respect and closer to reverence.  The UN is used to Presidents and Prime Ministers. In person, they are very impressive. But a religious leader of the Pope’s stature was striking beyond mere secular power.

Catholics must have felt they’d seen  light, the non-Catholic press officer went on. But even as a non-Catholic Ishe said she felt she was in the presence of greatness, that the Pope was a very powerful person, one of the most learned people in the world. In that sense, the experience was awesome. The pomp of his garments and entourage certainly added to that sense. It’s only fitting that world-level leaders reinforce the message of their countries with the most splendid garb of their nations.  Overall, the Pope made a terrific impression on the UN and on New York City in general. He brought a spiritual depth to the city and it was very well received. That greater spiritual depth as a result of his visit was reflected right back to the Pople as he made his way around the city in his popemobile. Throngs cheered.

For a Catholic perspective on the Pope’s historic visit to the UN, a staff member snagged a seat at the  press office desk.  On first seeing the Pope walk up the aisle, she said she was struck by the sense that he was the person holding a position that was directly descended from the first Pope, St. Peter, who founded the Catholic Church. The context of that long timeline lent new emphasis to the UN message. The philosophical edge  common themes made them profound and closely aligned. Both Catholicism and the UN had the common goals of helping people and doing good in the world.

Further, she said she was happy to see the Pope as warm within the formality of his role. When he extended hands to bless, his fingers fluttered with earnest feeling. In an address to a rally of young people the previous day, the Pope had shown real rapport with the kids who were obviously thrilled to be in his presence.  He kept looking out at them as with admiration, as if to let them know they were important to him because they were the future.

Winding Down for an Up New Year

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Under Pressure describes the world since 2016. British David Bowie married to Somali Iman and teamed with Queen preceded by 35 years the political winds that hit the world in 2016.

2016 is the year that the United Kingdom voted to leave the European Union with Brexit It was also the year that Trump took over as US president after Barack Obama, and it was probably the year that Putin saw a green light for his plan to crush Ukraine in a campaign started two years earlier.

Trump’s shocking win over Hillary Clinton on a tecnicality put the whole world on edge. Protests were staged the very next day throughout the world baffled by how America the great and the beacon of democracy had chosen to be led by a crude business tycoon who bragged about grabbing women simply because he saw himself as a star who could get away with it. As his four-year term wore perilously on with increasing rancor and strife, it became ever clearer that the danger Trump posed was greater than mere bad behavior.

Cats have nine lives and worms regenerate lost body parts. No telling how far down the vulgar path Trump will be allowed to leads his small but dangerous part of his country. But one thing is clear. the first part of his assault on democracy has ended with a few big bangs.

Show and tell, compare and contrast are two basic tools of persuasion. Trump continues to deride Democrats as vicious communist socialists as if the two weren’t mutually inclusive. But seaasoned Joe Biden avoids the fray and carries out a rebuilding America platform. America as a whole notices the difference between the two leaders. This was evidenced by big losses for Trump annointed candidates in the 2022 midterm elections. Then came the long-awaited report on the 2021 near coup.

The report was an inspired document, as were the public hearings themselves. They spoke in painstaking detail using down-to-earth language about a horrific event Americans couldn’t associate with their own country. Once opened to the truth, the eyes of upstanding humans can’t remain clenched. We are programmed by evolutionary genetics to live by learning. A big lesson comes right before New Year’s eave when the Trump tax returns are released to the public after seven years of Trump claiming a pre-emptive audit that never took place.

Taxes are the ultimate take-down. They captured Al Capone when law enforcement with all its resources could not bring justice to bear down on him. The mystery of the tax trap and its effectivess lies at the heart of the Trump mystique that nearly ended democracy.

“Only little people pay taxes,” the Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley quipped to a jury of her peers in 1989. The blithe attitude cost her four years in prison plus community service and a $7m fine. The little people who pay the taxes that make this great country possible are the exact opposite of the greedy rich. In the Oval Office, Trump and his enabling allies made out like bandits. They hid their money off-shore and they cut funding for the Internal Revenue Service while entangling business ventures to a complexity that God himself needs time to sort out.

Multiply that complexity by nearly 200 countries dealing with Trump equivalents to get a glimpse into what the New Year holds. Then look at signs showing we’re headed in the right direction.

Trumpism is losing steam in the US. Brexit is proving a disaster in the UK and the social media call for it to end is growing. Social media is also propelling rform in countries strangled by despotic leaders, including Iran and Afghanistan. Most promising at a very high human cost is the stand Ukraine has galvanized against a lawless Russian invasion.

Democracy is at stake in the New Year of 2023. Good leaders manage communication of the way. So sit back, little people of the world. In God we trust and he’s doing a great job.

Christmas as a Global Feast of Faith

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Christmas started as a Christian feast but two centuries of human growth have turned it into a cultural event. In this feast, Christians celebrate the birth of Jewish Christ whose humble birth was uplifted by the gifts of three wise men from the East. Considering that the honored Jesus is believed to have been born in Bethlehem in a part of the world now known as the Mideast, the three wise men from further east may have come from anywhere the world over.

Whatever godly attributes Jesus had, he and his disciples changed the sweep of human history from fear-driven to forgiving. The Hebrew Jehovah of that time smote down enemies. Roman gods fought and undercut each other. Indigenous people of lesser fame worshiped the merciless gods of nature. But Christ and his followers upended those views with the simple common sense principle of the golden rule.

Do onto others as you would have done to you. is the golden rule. It is thought to date back 500 years before Jesus to Confucius. Open source suggests that all major religions including Islam embrace the concept of the golden rule. It seems that few people could argue with the golden rule and yet some do.

The cocept of white supremacy may be the most damning of all current concepts. It claims that the white race is superior to all others based on the short-sighted historical precedent set by the European expansionist period that lasted about 300 years. That era created a lot of carnage but it also helped to unify the world. Overall, European colonialization put western powers ahead of others with industrialized wealth. The end result of that expansionist dominance was two world wars followed by the institution of the United Nations to avert a third.

The United Nations Charter is modeled on the Constitution of the United States, which is basically an elaboration of the golden rule. By now, all near-200 UN member states have signed and ratified the UN Charter, meaning the golden rule is now enshrined in constitutions around the world under the rubric of democracy. But the fly in the ointment is human frailty.

The maze of legal operations between international agreement and incorporation into national law is inestimable among near-200 countries. Loopholes, potholes, cultural proclivities and plain human recalcitrance all afford violations of the golden rule.

White supremacy is no more than a current iteration of an ages-old repudiation of the golden rule. It is the claim that some people are beneath equal treatment. Popularized in the currently dominant west, the superior mentality is not restricted to whites. It operates worldwide among humans, whether between Tories and Labour, Republicans and Democrats, Hutus and Tutsies, settlers on indigenous lands. Whites now bear the burden of guilt for the practice of superiority but it wasn’t always that way and it can be upended by eliminating the physically obvious distinction of race now seen as central to dominance.

Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine had nothing to do with race. It was based on a combination of arrogance and lust to exert power. American hostility toward southern border immigrants has less to do with race than with indignation at the insolence of violating the golden rule. How would Russia like to be invaded and how would Guatemala like to be overrun by those more needy than they?

The basic issue of the ages old golden rule is lost in a complex world. But democratic values sum up the essence and Christmas is the time to celebrate and bring together that spirit throughout the world. Make it religious or make it secular, make Christmas an international holiday celebrating the golden rule.

America Grows Up after Trump

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The clarity of the wrap-up report by the 1/6 Commiittee on December 19 was like a present placed under America’s Christmas tree. In the darkess of winter there was the light of certainrty that an American president had actually orchestrated a coup.

America has been criticized over its near-250 year hidtory for misdeeds and missteps, including the installation of dictatore\s and collusion to foment coups. Never has the beacon of democracy ever tried to overturn its own hard-won system of government, not for a better way of governing but for the simple criminal wiles of on opportunistic grifter intent on keeping the mighty powers of the Office he cornered.

Nobody knows how Donald Trump became president of the US but the whole world knows that bad things happened in the rich West beginning in 2016. Democratic countries were dismayed by the Trump presidency, as were developing countries, immigrants and women worldwide. Britain voting to #Brexit leave the European was a step backward for a global world. Then came Covid to cement the global gloom followed by social turmoil over economic woes in wake of the pandemic. Most unsettling was the American near-coup when Trump lost the next election to Joe Biden.

For two years after that election, Joe Biden rebuilt global democracy while Trump tore it apart at home. The fight for democracy on both fronts was synergistic, one helping the other, a relationship that couldn’t be known until midterm elections in the US.

Russia invaded Ukraine when Trump still had a stranglehold on the country’s conservative Republican party by the bamboozling of an adoring fan base of voters. By assuring global allies that American democracy was strong as ever, Biden solidified support for Ukraine’s fight in defense of democratic values. At home, the 1/6 Committe painstakingly laid out the steps to the sedition that a third of Americans didn’t believe had actually happened. The Committee’s final report with recommendations for judicial actions is now in the hands of the Judicial branch of the American government. For the American people weary at this holiday season, the wrap-up is like a breather after a hurricane has passed.

America has a slew of problems to face in the new year, but it also has many friends around the world ready to share lessons learned from their own experiences with advancing the economic engine of democracy. Perhaps the greatest in kinship is Europe, the ancestral home of America’s forebears.

As a leader in the Western hemisphere, America is a natural magnet for the downtrodden climate and political migrants of its immediate troubled neighbors. Longer term solutions can be pursued with global agencies such as the UN office of Migration, but the immediate big problem is that Americans are overwhelmed. Opportunistic politicians stoke resentment and discord over managing the southern border, leaving the country split and weary. A more uplifting approach to American woes can come from our kinfolk across the Pond defending our noble values.

Europe may be more stodgy than America in many ways, but it is also more stable and secure. European counties have laws to protect people against predators like big corporations stomping on the rights of people-friendly small businesses. Europe also has a healthy gusto for cultural diversity that keeps it lively in the arts that sustain the spirit. Most important of all, Europe knows how to share.

Packed together on a small continent, European countries have benefitted from good times and bad in rivalry with each other. Connected to the other large land masses of Asia, Europe will be of great help to American firms partnering with African countries to extract resources needed for new technologies. And based on experience, Europe can help America tame the megalomaniacal power-grubbers aiming to take ownership of opportunities abounding in the land full of them. Thus, the big takeaway from the American Trump era is a benefit to the entire globalizing world.

Democracy is the economic engine of growth. Democratic values are the moral engines that lead humans toward the unattainable ideal of perfection here on earth. Perfecting that ideal feeds the economic pipeline in a feedback loop manner that keeps evolution humming. To smooth the process, we the people around the world are faced with a big ask.

Like Ukraine demonstrates now with its blood and moral best, democracy as rule by the people is not for the lazy, faint of heart or empty blow-hard. Yes, democracy makes room for the happy worker bees but its survival depends on the active engagement of those interested in promoting good over those who would shake its foundations with threats of harm or with trickery. Good governance calls for good people to carry out up-keep. When threatened, it calls for unity in protecting the national treasure.

Africa Summit, Global Scene for US

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In the midst of domestic chaos, Biden hosts a Summit with more than 45 African leaders. Only the most invested interests even know about the 3-day event occurring right now in Washington DC. That’s a shame because with greater media attention, America would get a glimpse into solution for its greatest ills.

The southern border crisis, for example, is a political football in the US. Red states versus blue, hardliners against immigration versus protectors of asylum rights. Missing from the conversation is the tougher political job of putting a lid on coyote human trafficking for a steep fee. Africans know all about being pawns in wars between global gun traffickers. All they need for providing their input into solving America’s problem is to be asked. That’s the same easy access to African wisdom on America’s racial divide.

Nearly all Africans are people of color and their color spans the spectrum. But unlike in the United States, few Africans are discriminated against by their own people for the color of their skin. Rather, they are unified in the dignity of having withstood centuries of persecution and degradation by outsiders. Since the 1994 end of apartheid, South Africa has made great strides in reconciling the brutal past with the road to a prosperous future. Their lessons learned can be of great help to the US racial reckoning way overdue and still violently opposed by too many.

In that vein, Africa is the global pivot point for the world between north and south, east and west. Those developmentally uneven global sectors are increasingly merging around American democratic values. Yet America itself for a moment has lost its grounding in its noble founding principles. US engagement with Africa can help the US as much as its support for Ukraine has helped to resurrect long-forgotten developmental strengths.

At present, America suffers from deep social gaps. The rich don’t mingle with the poor except as their subordinates. Scholars remain in ivory towers isolated from the workers who maintain the basis for their thinking privilege. Lucky scholastics become media pundits steering political careers steeped in innuendos of corruption. They cite evidence of no interest to factory toilers. For all its ills and challenges, Africa is free of such mind-boggling intrigues. America will be wise to avail itself of African wisdom.

“No money one problem, much money many problems,” says an African proverb. An MSNBC initiative sponsors a Lawrence O’Donnell initiative in partnership with UNICEF. Called the KIND Fund standing for Kids in Need of Desks, the project provides desks for schoolkids in Malawi. Trivial in American eyes, the project has brought in more than $33 million in donations from happy Americans. The money pays not only for desks and scholarships, it stimulates the local economy that carries out the project.

A re-engagement with our humanity is the priceless gift that Africa offers a tech addled world. The Summit contintues tomorrow. Tune in. Get in on the action that is a refreshing break from claustrophobic US politics.