A GOOD OLD FASHIONED WAR

 Born in the late summer of 1952, I was three days old when that man who seemed to know my mother quite well disappeared from our bedside. It would be fourteen months before he reappeared in the doorway of our cozy trailer behind Aunt Lil's house. Where had this smiling, skinny man in the sailor costume been all my life? At war. 

    By the time I was in kindergarten the Korean War was over and a new kind of global conflict had taken its place. Known as the "Cold War,"  this war of threats, propaganda and nuclear mass hysteria had our teachers instructing us to "duck and cover" as we slid under chewing gum encrusted desks, giggling and trying to catch a glimpse of girl's underwear. Then there was the Bay of Pigs, the Kennedy assassination, Vietnam.......you see where I'm going here? Except for a few disco and coke-fueled years in the 70's and 80's, from the time I opened my squishy little eyelids until this morning WAR has been a way of life on this blue planet. Here's the short list of imperialist violence and ethnic genocide in my lifetime: Korea, "Cold War," Vietnam, Angola, Balkans, Rwanda, Iraq, Afghanistan, and now Russia's invasion of Ukraine. Uncountable regional conflicts like Syria, Yemen, Palestine, etc. and concepts like the "wars on" terror, drugs and truth will always be with us. I want to concentrate on the greatest hits. During all these complex and confusing battles we longed for the simplicity of that great face-off between good and evil - World War II. We may finally have our chance to relive Armageddon. 

   Listen to any major news organization's coverage of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the tone of historical nostalgia is unmistakable. Even though we remember it all too well, history seems to be repeating itself. Hitler's Kristallnact and moves into Czechoslovakia and (with Stalin) war in Poland in 1939, Neville Chamberlain's appeasements at Munich, all seem to be repeating themselves in real time, almost a century later. For a change, in our highly racialized world (take note Whoopi), it's white people killing white people. The frozen tundra, rumbling lines of olive drab tanks, machine guns and jets vs. AK- 47s and partisan freedom fighters flinging molotov cocktails; this shit is made for Youtube. For everybody but Trump and his cabal of Mara Lago spray tanned sycophants there's no question who to root for. Those drug addled, (gay?) Nazis, tossing coke bottles filled with gasoline have my vote and the world's (in theory) backing.    

    So far no barrel bombs, poison gas, pungi-sticks, or Havana Syndrome microwaves have been unleashed on the Ukrainians. Give it time.  Putin has nothing but time. Watching the Kabuki theater known as the Security Council and one immediately realizes just how ineffectual institutions like the United Nations and NATO are when faced with a world power like Russia (or the United States) that wants to flex its military might. We may not want "diplomacy at the barrel of gun," but what choice does anyone have at this point? Strip away the geo-politics and war mongering drum beats and we have children getting their arms ripped off and old men fumbling with empty clips as a Russian tank roars down the road; a potential bloodbath. As John Lennon put it fifty years ago WAR IS OVER! if you want it. The plea still falls on deaf ears.