Thank You, Putin, For The Life Lesson

Reminding me it’s okay to judge.

I‘ve written several articles about my efforts to rid myself of my tendency to judge.

I know. It’s only human.

I judge; therefore, I am.

I mean, who among us hasn’t raised their eyebrows askance at a co-worker’s choice of a power suit when actually, she was hired for her ability to rock data into submission, not strut her stuff on a runway?

Am I right?

Yet, there we go, talking among ourselves in the break room about the fit of her jacket or the length of the skirt, likely jealous because we can’t afford the same designer label on our pitiful paycheck.

Such is the nature of judgy judging.

Begone, I said to myself some time ago when I began writing about it to make myself accountable.

Easy enough to catch my slippage when I’m trolling fashion offenses or someone’s choice of a partner.

But what do you do when faced with a political figure attempting to take down a country?

That becomes a sticky wicket for those of us in a two-party system during election years when we believe the opposition will be the ruin of us all.

Recently, I believed that very thing and history has almost but not quite borne me out.

I had no trouble voting down a certain orange-haired candidate but held back from jumping on the popular bandwagon that wanted to string him up by his privates.

While I believe in self-defense, semi-pacifist that I am and nervous about karma, I draw the line at first strikes.

The voting box was my choice of weapon.

Yet, I wake up every morning hoping I’ll read that someone has taken out Putin!

I don’t care if it’s because of a heart attack brought about by the stress of facing his own limitations as a battlefield strategist, death by his own hand, a military coup, assassination by forces inside or outside Russia, or because he choked on a mouthful of caviar.

I just want him gone. Permanently. For good.

I pray that I live long enough to see Putin brought to justice. But not before a jury of his peers.

Let me be clear: I want him dead. And buried in the cold ground. Preferably in a mass grave with the corrupt oligarchs who enable him.

How’s that for levying judgment?

I don’t want to give him the chance to rig the jury or to pay off the judge.

And while I’m at it, I want Lavrov and his other toadies gone, too.

Anyone who’d step in to pick up the reins of this horrific assault on Ukraine and the world order should get the same comeuppance.

If I were a Quaker, I’d raise my hand and ask for a time out. I’ll go back to first-world worries about judging when this nightmare is over.

For now, I’m willing to bring all the pressure to bear that I can to bring about this outcome.

Because I don’t know how else to stop him.

I’ve lived through one world war. And it was one too many.

The notion of world war was my reality for the first five years of my life. As kids, we joked about the Nazis and Hitler, but as I matured, the horrors of the bomb and the camps were realities I had to absorb.

I felt cheated that Hitler had offed himself. We’d already won, and I wanted him to face his accusers.

I understand about justice and upholding the rule of law. And luckily, if Putin ever steps out of his hidey-hole and is captured (if you believe he ever will, I have a dacha in St. Petersburg I’ll sell you for a few gazillion rubles), the World Court will give him a fair trial.

But that’s not what’s going on here.

Putin’s not going to pull the plug on his dreams of Russian domination, even if he takes the rest of us with him. Nothing will stop him and his death march through Ukraine.

So we have to do it for him. .

I’m no grandmaster. Maybe somebody has a better idea, but I see only one way.

We take him out before he kills one more civilian.

How?

Do I have to think of everything?

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