Quote: You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing once they have tried everything else (attrib to Winston Churchill, 1940’s)
In the news: Russia and China’s plans for a new world order (Gideon Rachman, Financial Times, 1.22.22)
In context: In a global age of rolling pandemics and climate catastrophes, a world war would seem farthest from any leader’s mind. Yet the header of Bachman’s article in the Financial Times sums up the situation:
“For Moscow and Beijing, the Ukraine crisis is part of a struggle to reduce American power and make the world safe for autocrats.”
Two-thirds of Americans might agree with that assessment if they had time to think about the larger world. But America is stuck in its own relatively smaller concerns of racial equity and resistance to public health mandates. However important, those issues would pale in comparison if the Putin plan for America under Trump had succeeded. Two newly published books by Helen Fogarassy demonstrate the point.
America Votes Obama to Biden Past Trump: a kaleidoscopic view of the Trump phenomenon is a collection of the author’s articles on America in the first two decades of the 21st century. An Amazon reviewer said it was a very thoughtful assessment of a presidency gone awry.
Vivid and unyielding, it is rich with perspectives held by this immigrant cum-citizen offering a fresh approach. No holds barred and edgy, you are in for an enlightening ride through this unfortunate era in our history.
Fogarassy’s novel Light of a Destiny Dark has just been reissued. It is based on a memoir written by her mother shortly after the family escaped Soviet Hungary and landed in Northwest Indiana of the United States. The novel goes beyond the horrors of the Second World War and follows the country through ten years of pillage by the Soviets until the noble but futile revolution before the Iron Curtain finally imploded more than 30 years later. An Amazon reviewer said the book was a good find and very timely. It is noteworthy that Russia’s Vladimir Putin is of the view that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest tragedy to befall humankind in the 20th century.
Americans want to venture a guess on how minorities fare in Russia or China? Easy to check on Google News.
Time to hop to, America. Join forces with other democracies however imperfect. They don’t need barbed wire to keep citizens penned in and away from truths.
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