Drumbeats category archive

In the Portland Press-Herald, Bill Nemitz reminds us that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it often rhymes.*

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*As Mark Twain said.

At the Bangor Daily News, Gordon Weil decodes de code, in this case, Vladimir Putin’s self-styled “justifications” for invading Ukraine. Here’s one little bit; follow the link for the rest.

Russia deserves to control Ukraine, Putin claims. It is really a part of Russia. They speak almost the same language. Tell that to many Canadians . . . .

Aside:

My old Philly DL friend Noz thinks that Vladimir Putin has maneuvered himself in a corner. Noz is less than optimistic about the implications thereof.

Me, I don’t do predictions as a matter of policy. Hell, understanding the past is hard enough. I must say, though, that Noz is much more familiar with that part of the world than I.

Citing an article from The Atlantic, Michael in Norfolk suggests that it may be a lot higher than Vladimir Putin anticipated.

Rebecca Watson discusses the role of the disinformation superhighway in spreading misinformation in a time of crisis and suggests precautions persons can take to avoid “sharing” mis- and disinformation.

Read the transcript.

At The American Scholar, an American descendant of Ukrainian immigrants who is still in touch with her family in Ukraine looks eastward. A bit of what she has to say:

Since then (her first visit to Ukraine almost two decades ago–ed.), I have traveled across the country, from Mykhailo’s (her great-grandfather–ed.) native village about 10 miles from the Polish border to the slag heaps of prewar Donetsk, from salty-aired Maripol to chic Odesa. I have returned again and again to Kyiv and Lviv, my favorite Ukrainian cities. I obtained most of my political education from witnessing Ukraine’s fractious politics and its fitful attempts at democracy and reform.

In that time, I have seen the country change in ways big and small. In the past five years in particular, Ukraine seems to have blossomed—while the Russian occupation of the Donbas ground on in the east, it did so relatively quietly, and Kyiv thrummed with youth, style, and energy. The country’s filmmakers have won major prizes at Sundance; Ukrainian literature is increasingly translated into other languages. I have watched my cousins’ children grow up in a Ukraine that is resolutely independent and cosmopolitan; in a departure from previous post-Soviet cohorts, their opportunities seemed to be growing, not shrinking.

Brian Greenspun, publisher of the Las Vegas Sun, draws a lesson from history. Here’s a bit of what he has to say; follow the link for the rest.

When Great Britain’s Neville Chamberlain hailed ”peace in our time” as he returned from Munich, where Germany was allowed to swallow the Sudetenland, it was obvious that Hitler would not be satisfied with just a piece of the pie. He wanted the rest of Europe and no one wanted to stand in his way.

The irony of the 1938 Munich Agreement should not be lost today as we think about the Munich Security Conference held last weekend to figure out how to stop Putin from pursuing his megalomaniacal dream of putting the Soviet Union back together again — starting with Ukraine.

The players are a little different in 2022 but the prize is the same.