#547 Musings Beyond the Bunker (Tuesday January 3)
Good morning,
I could hardly have imagined at the beginning of last year that Volodymyr Zelensky would provide the words of greatest inspiration at year end. In the midst of the holidays, he delivered a rousing speech to a Joint Session of Congress. It evoked the speeches by world leaders—Churchill, Reagan, Kennedy—throughout the years when democracy was in peril or when people were roused to be their better selves. Here is but a single excerpt:
“(Russia) threw everything it had against the free world, just like the brave American soldiers which held their lines and fought back Hitler’s forces during the Christmas of 1944. Brave Ukrainian soldiers are doing the same to Putin’s forces this Christmas.”
Andrew Kopkin to expresses sentiments that I share regarding the importance of Zelensky’s words and the dangers we face here in our own country (this is Andrew’s email to me, recalling at its outset an earlier conversation of ours):
“I am ever mindful of your statement to me, which you first uttered many moons ago now, that you considered Churchill to be ‘the greatest statesman of the 20th century.'
I stayed up last night to watch, live, President Zelensky's address to Congress: A speech consciously evocative of, and no less stirring, timely and important than, Churchill's 1941 Congressional address.
The, predictably, snide comments reacting to the speech of those moral pygmies, Tucker Carlson and D J Trump Jr, would be beneath contempt were it not for the fact that their views are now, to a material extent, those of far too many supposedly 'mainstream' Republicans. (Parenthetically, have you seen the t-shirt: 'I'd rather be Russian than a Democrat.' Tell that to Alexei Navalny.)
America is riven: Platitudinous it may be; but, there is a battle waging for the 'soul' of America (one that has so many dimensions): A battle that must be won - for the sake of the entire 'free world.' Otherwise, I fear, in my darker ruminations, that we may see come to fruition, in our time, and globally, the doom-laden words spoken in 1914 by the British Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey: ‘The lamps are going out all over Europe, we shall not see them lit again in our lifetime.'
However, as, fundamentally, an inveterate (albeit perhaps naive) optimist, I still believe that America can, once again, become 'the shining city on a hill' which Presidents Kennedy, Reagan, and Obama evoked. We can but hope; but, the 'audacity' and power of hope itself should never be underestimated.”
Have a great day,
Glenn