Do You Even Read Bro?

Probably not, it would seem.

Oh wow. How can I say this and not sound condescending? Because I don’t want to. I try hard to give people breaks and not criticize them, or the decisions they make I don’t agree with.

But this is a little too much for me. Even for *never offend anyone me*. It’s the ignorance, misinformed, who cares attitudes, concerning the situation in Ukraine that have pushed me over the edge I teeter on when it comes to generally staying away from political subject matter.

Have you heard about what former President Trump said about Vladimir Putin? I don’t mean all of the praise-worthy remarks he offered up while in office. I’m talking about very recently. Praising him once again, labeling him a genius, smart, immediately following up with how weak our own leaders are.

He suggested the invasion of Ukraine would never have occurred were he still in office. And insisted yet again the most recent presidential election was rigged. Why? Why must he do this when the world is in crisis? Even worse, what about the people who believe him? It’s as though he’s throwing gasoline on a fire, deliberately, of course.

The only good news is the Congressional Republicans, from what I can tell, don’t like this. I’ve not heard any applauding or agreeing with his recent remarks. It’s almost as though he’s offering up aid and comfort to our enemies. I have no doubt this news is playing well for Putin in Russia.

But maybe even worse, thanks to notes and various questions I’ve been asked elsewhere, it’s apparent, dare I say, most people in this country don’t understand what’s going on in Ukraine, or how serious it is.

We are all interested in different things, generally, that’s a good thing. It makes for a more knowledgeable population as a whole. But there are some things I consider to be basic information, I now realize many people don’t.

Those would be things such as a rudimentary understanding of history. If not on a global scale, how about just American history? I had to study it several times in school. Just that knowledge base should be enough to help people comprehend why the situation occurring in Ukraine is deadly serious. Something we should all be paying attention to. Putin appears to be taking a page out of Hitler’s playbook. I said HITLER. He would be the individual directly responsible for the deaths of millions of people.

He started off small too. Running over smaller, weaker, countries. Once he had control over one, he used that land-base to invade another, and so on. Jeez…All on the pretext of clearing out the inferior Jewish population, making things better, more pure for the fairer Aryan German population base.

Instagram is about the only social media site I pay any attention to. I like to look at pictures and videos of beautiful places, and purposefully avoid people who rant negatively. Last night, much to my dismay, one of the Marines I know posted something saying all of the people who voted for Biden were responsible for what was happening in Ukraine! Seriously? I chose my words very carefully and pretended to be confused, but couldn’t resist asking what he meant. He replied that he meant that anyone who voted for Biden was responsible for what was occurring. However, he immediately followed up by saying he shouldn’t have posted it. This left me to conclude he didn’t really mean that. Had that been the case, he would have removed it. He asked how I was, I just said doing okay, but didn’t ask how he was. That was about the most I could bring myself to say to register my disapproval.

I realize that’s not much, but for me, it was actually a big deal. However, the generalized ignorance of what is occurring, the various sanctions, how they might, and might not have a detrimental effect on Putin's war effort, not to mention the SWIFT banking system is staggering. Frightening even. I have a very limited amount of formal education, but I know this stuff.

Sometimes instead of reading light fluff, or scandalous, lurid tales that admittedly fascinate us all, maybe read a newspaper? Or The New Yorker, The Atlantic even? If you even care? This is serious business! Putin actually mentioned nuclear weapons. Can you think of a more serious subject? Maybe not, if you don’t even read, bro.