Matthew Comments

Number thirteen of Tim Snyder’s twenty lessons in his book On Tyranny is: Practice corporeal politics. Corporeal is a strange word to a lot of people–it just means physical. Practice politics with physical presence. Practice Corporeal Politics Power wants your body softening in your chair and your emotions dissipating on the screen. Get outside. Put your body in unfamiliar places with unfamiliar people. Make new friends and march with them. Milwaukee-area Ukrainians have had a number of events and fundraisers. They held a rally in downtown Milwaukee near Veteran’s Park. It was a small crowd. Many were ethnic Ukrainians. I might might have been the one non-Ukrainian there, aside from the news crews. They may have suspected that I was a spy. Here’s Zapruder-style evidence of my attendance at the rally. I’m in the back with the light cap. Here’s the local news coverage: TMJ4 Story I’m glad I went. I was there because, while there are important things going on in Wisconsin and American po

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is an unmitigated tragedy playing out in searing slow motion before our eyes. There is no end to this brutality that is currently in sight. Some of my commentary comes from various news sources, but some continues to come from historian and author Timothy Snyder. He gave a nice talk you can see here . Give to alleviate this suffering. There are good venues here or through the ELCA here . When there is a refugee crisis, there is a surge in donations which subsides quickly after the crisis leaves the front page. Consider recurring donations. When you donate to alleviate the suffering of Ukrainian refugees, you also contribute to political stability in Eastern Europe. Large influxes of refugees can destabilize governments. Poland, Romania, and Moldova have their own struggles resisting authoritarian influence. If the strain of so many refugees causes political strife in those countries, Putin will fund neo-fascist political parties to take advantage. We ca

  The first thing to understand about what’s happening in Ukraine is that Ukraine is a democracy, and has done nothing to deserve this. Right now, in our world, an aggressive, authoritarian Russian government is invading its democratic neighbor. This is criminal, and there will be no justice unless Putin and his oligarch friends are put in prison. When I was a bit younger, Americans seemed to think that the great evils of history were defeated. But greed and corruption will not go gently into that good night. Anti-democratic forces are rising in Asia, in Europe, and in America. The second thing to understand about what’s happening in Ukraine is that Russia is a fundamentally insecure political entity, and Ukraine is a source of its insecurity. Ukraine is in a precarious position for two reasons. One reason is that Ukraine is a fertile area, like the American heartland. This is a valuable resource (a resource that Hitler and Stalin both envied, and that Hitler opined for in Mein Kampf).