You can't win a war by dribs and drabs
How about this: All those orders you’ve placed with Amazon, not just for Christmas celebrations a month from now, but regular stuff, like sets of sheets, and replacement Nikes for your worn-out running shoes, and two new mattresses – the kind that come compressed and rolled up in a box – for new twin beds for your guest bedroom, and a new down jacket for that ski trip to Utah you’re planning for January, and a new coffee grinder to replace the one that gave up the ghost last month…
None of those orders are coming because FedEx and UPS and the postal service have stopped deliveries. You drove to Walmart yesterday to stock up on toilet paper and paper towels and canned soup, and it was closed. The gas station over on Broad Street has a sign out reading “NO MORE GAS” and the WaWa convenience store is closed, too.
You turn on the television and all they are talking about is the last wave of cruise missiles that hit oil wells in Texas and Amazon warehouses in Riverside, California, and six skyscrapers in New York City, and one even hit one of the hotels across Lafayette Square from the White House.
The United States is under attack. It doesn’t matter by who, really. Your country has already lost more than 4,000 civilians to the attacks by cruise missiles and ground-to-ground ballistic missiles carrying conventional warheads. National Guard units are scrambling to mobilize. At the 101st Airborne Division out in Fort Campbell, Kentucky, all leaves have been canceled and somewhere north of 50,000 troops have been put on DefCon One alert. C-141 transport aircraft at bases all around the United States are being fueled, and as soldiers arrive by trucks and buses – even Greyhound buses have been commandeered for military use – the jet engines have begun to spool up. Air Force bases have gone tactical – the only lights along runways are red; everything else is blacked out.
This is my bi-weekly Tuesday column in Salon. To read the rest of this column, go to —
Lucian, your analogy was spot on. For us not to support totally the Ukraine??? This is NOT the United States I knew as a youth. tRump has made the once sane GOP into the MAGA party. I cannot believe that literally tens of millions of American voters want to re-elect a criminal who attempted on January 6th to overthrow our democracy. And they watched it live on television and now deny it happened. OMG. And using your stat of more than 80% of MAGA voters want to cut off all aid to the Ukraine?!? Another OMG. To not stand with the Ukraine against Russia who attacked a sovereign nation is mind blowing. It reminds me of the old piece which I will not give all the verses since your readers know it, but starts with- First they came for the socialists, and I did nothing because I was not a socialist...
Excellent construct, Lucian. Unfortunately, Rs/cons and the MSM could be standing on the Empire State Building's 86th Floor Observatory and your piece would still fly far over their noggins.
There isn't any issue, topic or subject that Rs do not first view as to how we can gain a political advantage, all at the expense of good governance and sound policy making.
Yet the media continues to ignore what is while dumbing it down to R v. D or Right v. Left. Said another way, nonsense is the same-same as sense because both words include the word sense.