Biden-Putin

The first official U.S. observance of Juneteenth.  An opportunity from which to build a better future.

Participate in an on-line zoom conversation on racism, June 30.  Details here.  Scroll down to Human Rights Forum.

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Constructive Relationships are essential in all aspects of human life, from the most simple interpersonal to somehow preserving the planet for our descendants future.

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The Putin-Biden meeting in Geneva was not “the Thrilla in Manila” or “Rumble in the Jungle”.  Just Above Sunset, which is always my favorite analysis of analyses by people much closer to the actual action, didn’t disappoint the day of so after: “Swiss Boredom“.  By no means is the column boring.  As always, I remember subscribing to this fine blog edited by fellow retiree Alan in LA.

Of course, both Vlad and Joe have been around global and national politics for years.  They see their mandate in entirely different ways.

President Biden’s predecessor was around for one term….  His lust was for more and more personal power.  He was Vlad’s first fan.

President Biden tends more towards seeing the world as humanity’s mutual community.

In 2003, as part of a Baltic Cruise, we spent a day looking around Putin’s home town, St. Petersburg, Russia.  Among the stops was an opportunity to see the elevator in the hotel that then President George W. Bush had ascended a few weeks earlier, when he was in town to visit Putin, then not too long the Russian President!

No we couldn’t go up to the room.

Later, we had lunch in what was reputed to be one of Putin’s favorite restaurants on the outskirts of the city.

Earlier we’d seen the place in the river where they finally managed to kill Grigory Rasputin, the mad monk who had the Czarina’s ear for far too long back in those final good old days of the Czars.

In June 2003, we’d just started the War on Iraq – the bombing began on the first day of Spring if I recall.  A few days earlier one of our fellow tourists, at a stop in Finland, was triumphantly wearing his American flag jacket.  The young lady conducting the tour was not at all pleased…you could tell.  The oaf didn’t care; AMERICA, in your face!

Outside St. Petersburg, we finished our day trip seeing and touring the outrageously ostentatious palaces Peter built.  No wonder there had been a revolution.

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Those few days in 2003 were memorable and instructive.

If today’s American right-wingers were given a forced choice for a leader, Putin or Biden, I wonder who they’d favor.

The previous President – their guy – made his choice: authoritarianism.   Democracy is messy and very hard work; Authoritarianism in its many manifestations seems so much simpler, but comes at a very big cost to everyone.  With the other guy, we were on the road to ruin.

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I had an unexpected and unique opportunity to interact about this business of relationships on a larger scale the evening of June 17.

We had been invited to watch the film “Oslo Diaries“ which is readily available on line, then to have a discussion about the film on Zoom.

Oslo Diaries is about the quiet and ultimately very serious negotiations in an attempt to resolve the Israel/Palestine relationship question between 1992 and 1996.  For most of us, what we’ll remember is the signing ceremony at the White House involving Yasser Arafat and Yitzhak Rabin in 1995; and the assassination of Mr. Rabin later the same year.  The film fills in lots of blanks.

The discussion among us fills in more blanks; it is online here, and includes my own comments.  David Schultz was an excellent discussion leader.

Both the movie and the conversation about it are worth your time and personal reflection: how do you fit into the resolution of any problem, anywhere?

We all fit in, both to the problems, and the solutions.   We make things worse, or better.  I’ve always liked the Margaret Mead quote: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world, indeed it is the only thing that ever has“.

POSTNOTE:  Of course, this same week, the American Catholic Hierarchy (Bishops et al) have laid on the table for discussion the possibility of denying to President Biden the privilege of Communion (Eucharist) a central point of Catholic theology.  It’s their version of saber rattling….  Their pathetic ‘shot across the bow’.  As a lifelong pretty active Catholic, the odds of their kind of punishment (that’s what it is) actually passing is relatively low; if it passes, its consequences for the Catholic Church itself, especially the hierarchy, is predictable.  They will please their arch-conservative brethren, and be ignored by the big majority of Catholics who disagree.  Their reputation will be further diminished, except to their true believers.  They diminish rather than enhance the sacredness of the belief in the Eucharist that they hide behind.

Anyone who has ever actually taken Communion in a Catholic Church knows how absurd this threat is…from a church standpoint.  It is nothing more than a political talking point to the radical right wing.