God save us all from “sacred” commitments to mass murder
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Yurii Sheliazhenko
Feb 14, 2024, 7:13:20 AMFeb 14
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Dear friends,
A leading “Republican” presidential candidate Donald Trump said that many countries must pay more for “protection” to U.S.-led NATO military alliance; when asked “If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?” he responded: “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay!”
Shaming Trump for this plain and simple extortion, a “Democratic” incumbent president Joe Biden insisted that U.S. taxpayers must sustain the war machine, because, in his words: “NATO is a sacred commitment.”
I thought that “you shall not kill” is a sacred commitment. A hope for the world without wars, armies, monstrous weapons and military industrial complexes, the world without nukes able to kill all life on the planet, -- is sacred commitment. But here we are: two candidates for the most powerful office on the planet are offering their voters to choose between commitments to robbery or killing.
Alternative candidate Dr. Cornel West recently said on BBC Hard Talk: “When I look at Trump, I see civil war number two. When I look at Biden, I see world war number three.”
I can't look without sorrow at both. I look at news of recent killings and destruction in Ukrainian cities by Putin's barbaric war of aggression. Even now, when I am writing this, I hear an air raid alert. It is horrifying because in Kyiv where I live housing was recently hit by a Russian hypersonic missile. With this brutality Putin tries to take from Ukraine what he claims to be, according to his recent shamelessly war-apologizing interview, so-called “historical territories” of Russia. His ruinous conquest is also disguised under the sham “sacredness” of the so-called Russian World, a sort of Eurasian Monroe Doctrine.
A wise man quoted in the Bible was right: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.”
It is not for a Ukrainian pacifist to judge U.S. elections, blasphemous agendas of key candidates and their foreign rivals/wannabees, but I think compassion to actual voters is in order. And more compassion to Russian “voters” bound to re-“elect” a bloody tyrant, whose minions censored from a ballot the only critic of war Boris Nadezhdin.
God save America (and the world), please, from “sacred” commitments to armed robbery and mass murder.
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A leading “Republican” presidential candidate Donald Trump said that many countries must pay more for “protection” to U.S.-led NATO military alliance; when asked “If we don’t pay and we’re attacked by Russia, will you protect us?” he responded: “No, I would not protect you. In fact, I would encourage them to do whatever the hell they want. You got to pay!”
Shaming Trump for this plain and simple extortion, a “Democratic” incumbent president Joe Biden insisted that U.S. taxpayers must sustain the war machine, because, in his words: “NATO is a sacred commitment.”
I thought that “you shall not kill” is a sacred commitment. A hope for the world without wars, armies, monstrous weapons and military industrial complexes, the world without nukes able to kill all life on the planet, -- is sacred commitment. But here we are: two candidates for the most powerful office on the planet are offering their voters to choose between commitments to robbery or killing.
Alternative candidate Dr. Cornel West recently said on BBC Hard Talk: “When I look at Trump, I see civil war number two. When I look at Biden, I see world war number three.”
I can't look without sorrow at both. I look at news of recent killings and destruction in Ukrainian cities by Putin's barbaric war of aggression. Even now, when I am writing this, I hear an air raid alert. It is horrifying because in Kyiv where I live housing was recently hit by a Russian hypersonic missile. With this brutality Putin tries to take from Ukraine what he claims to be, according to his recent shamelessly war-apologizing interview, so-called “historical territories” of Russia. His ruinous conquest is also disguised under the sham “sacredness” of the so-called Russian World, a sort of Eurasian Monroe Doctrine.
A wise man quoted in the Bible was right: “You desire but do not have, so you kill. You covet but you cannot get what you want, so you quarrel and fight.”
It is not for a Ukrainian pacifist to judge U.S. elections, blasphemous agendas of key candidates and their foreign rivals/wannabees, but I think compassion to actual voters is in order. And more compassion to Russian “voters” bound to re-“elect” a bloody tyrant, whose minions censored from a ballot the only critic of war Boris Nadezhdin.
God save America (and the world), please, from “sacred” commitments to armed robbery and mass murder.
--
Wish you peace and happiness.
Yurii Sheliazhenko, Ph.D. (Law)
Executive secretary, Ukrainian Pacifist Movement
Board member, European Bureau for Conscientious Objection (Brussels, Belgium)
Member of the Board of Directors, World BEYOND War (Charlottesville, VA, United States)
Member of the Council, International Peace Bureau (Berlin, Germany)
Member of the Council, War Resisters' International (London, UK)
LL.M., B.Math, Master of Mediation and Conflict Management
Наталия Судникова
Feb 14, 2024, 2:15:38 PMFeb 14
to Yurii Sheliazhenko, ukrainian-pacifist-movement_googlegroups.com, WBW discussion, NO TO NATO NO TO WAR, tss-no-war-list_lists.riseup.net, peace-and-justice...@googlegroups.com
Доброго вечора
Для мене ніколи не було привабливим критикувати когось, тим більше переможців, якими є усі діючі Президенти.
Тим більше не має сенсу критикувати свідомість більшості населення всіх країн світу.
Але все ж таки, як політики слідують за настроєм людей так і люди слідують у напрямку політики державних діячів.
Тож мені цікаво, чому найвільніша нація у світі - американці - не спробують змінити погляд своїх політиків на їх способи розв'язання конфліктів? Ніби і збиратися їм можна, і в автозаки їх не грузять.
І найшикарніше питання, це як керманичу країни автозаків зберегти обличчя?
Тобто коли весь світ говорить про їх здатність домовлятися про корупційні схеми, незважаючи на інтереси пересічних громадян та утримувати в країні найбільшу кількість у світі модельних агенцій в яких паралельно ведеться прихований збут "додаткових" послуг...то це не псує обличчя носіїв цієї інфраструктури...а от саме домовитися про припинення застосування зброї - це псує обличчя.
Домовитися про щось аморальне і застосувати максимальну безпринципність їм під силу, а от узгодити співіснування безпекових систем чи культурних кодів - які є лише надбудовами суспільства і особистості - для них ну на стільки принципово, що вони готові до певних операцій.
Як визначається та межа за якою принциповість стає такою, що її не можна обговорювати словами? Я впевнена у договороспроможності цих людей на 300%.
Але таке враження, що люди про це забули.
ср, 14 февр. 2024 г. в 13:13, Yurii Sheliazhenko <shely...@gmail.com>:
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