Process Notes: The Personal is Political
Process Notes, February 24, 2022: Crying When Putin Invaded Ukraine
Emails friends are exchanging
On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 12:37 AM Pam Gill <gilladmin@mac.com> wrote:
It makes me sad to think where we are headed. It’s a small world after all . .
Deborah Chase <debjchase@gmail.com> wrote:
Yes — I actually felt very dramatic about it and started to cry at the sounds of the sirens in Kiev. I was too sad to watch so I changed the channel to something mindless.
On Feb 23, 2022, at 8:49 PM, Deborah Chase <debjchase@gmail.com> wrote:
I am now glued to the news again…
Have the powers that be become so smug that they thought there would be no geopolitical reckoning for the 1991 fall of the USSR and the devastation wrought on the Soviet states? It took the reckoning for the Treaty of Versailles 20 years (1919–1939) before Germany’s invasion of Poland. Now it has been 30 years since 1991 — so, how is this really so surprising?
On Thu, Feb 24, 2022 at 3:51 PM Lynn E. OConnor <lynnoc@lynnoc.com> wrote:
Debbie and Pam:
You are not alone. I too started to cry at the sounds of the sirens in Kiev. It feels like Putin has lost his mind — he will face a terrible fall at the some, perhaps not immediately but at some point. I wonder if something about Donald Trump’s endless long-distance bowing to Putin made Putin feel omnipotent somehow. I keep thinking “what has changed, what really has changed?” I don’t know why we both started to cry as we saw and heard Putin go streaming into Ukraine. But I trust us — if we started to cry, there is a very very good reason for it.
I am keeping my powers — no matter how small they may be — turned to the news steadily. Basically, for the most part, I trust most of the commentators and announcers etc at MSNBC — at least I know which one of them tend to be liars and which are usually telling the fucking truth.
Everyone attacks Biden and I find it infuriating — I feel like people, without knowing it, are falling for Republican-based disinformation about Biden, and it’s ridiculous and simply lying. Biden kept warning everyone, and even Zelinsky thought he was exaggerating. I was absolutely sure he knew what he was talking about — actually I thought when he met with Putin last week or the week before, Putin told him directly what he was planning to do, so that’s how he knew. Biden left that meeting with Putin and immediately told Americans to leave Ukraine immediately. So right then and there, I thought Putin had told him.
Anyway, I suspect our tears were a warning to one and all — to anyone who pays any attention to us — that bad things are going tohappen, and not just in Ukraine.
I published a funny comment on twitter and Medium last week, I think you might enjoy it; the link is; Weekend Process Notes: Is Donald Trump’s Luck Finally Running Out? | by Lynn E. O’Connor, PhD | Feb, 2022 | Medium
On Feb 24, 2022, at 1:31 PM, Deborah Chase <debjchase@gmail.com> wrote:
Lynn and Pam:
I agree — Putin will go down from this. Question is how many will suffer in the meantime, what devastation will occur. Those sirens are just haunting. I have been reading Robert Sapolsky’s book Behave, so my mind is in an evolutionary mode just now. The sirens sounded to me like a city screaming, sounds of a species that just can’t seem to adapt. So, so sad.
I suspect NATO in Europe has become really complacent and weak — Trump was actually right about that. Then he proceeded to make it way worse and weaken it much farther. Biden was trying to build life back into it. So it might have been a good time for Putin to move before Biden was very successful. Putin may not have invaded if Trump was still in power- he wouldn’t have needed to as Trump would have just kissed his ass and handed Ukraine to him. That is not to say that would have been good in any way — isn’t that what happened with Austria at the start of WWII? But then, there went Poland. Wonder what is next for Putin…
I do suspect that this will have a disorganizing effect on the American right though.
