It’s beyond comprehension in this neck of the woods, but many Americans accept and actually relish their government’s propaganda and depredations. Who knows what it’s going to take for this love affair to end. From Patrick Lawrence at consortiumnews.com:
Americans don’t merely acquiesce to the imperium’s wars, interventions, collective punishments and assorted other deprivations. They actively embrace them.
Pro-Ukraine demonstration in Washington, Feb. 25. (John Brighenti, Flickr, CC BY 2.0)
The other day I ventured forth from my remote village to a lively market town called Great Barrington to shop for Easter lunch — spring lamb, a decent bottle of Bourgogne. Easter is much marked in my household, one of the few feasts we allow ourselves, and it is a reminder this year of a truth that could scarcely be more pertinent to our shared circumstances: After all our small and large crucifixions, there is new life to come.
Great Barrington lies in the Berkshire Hills of western Massachusetts, a fashionable little burg dense — as you can tell simply by walking around in it —with righteous liberals. No place, you remind yourself, is perfect.
And there along the streets and avenues as I arrived were what I had anticipated: Ukrainian flags hanging off front porches, in shop windows, on flagpoles just below the Stars and Stripes. Somebody has painted the bit of board displaying their house number in the blue and yellow we all now recognize. Father, forgive them, I thought, for they know not what blood-soaked horrors and hate-filled killers they enthusiastically endorse.
