FEBRUARY 18, 2023 – My mood took a hit today when I discovered that iced-over “Little Switzerland” remains a big fail for skiing. My attitude plunged further after I examined a Venn Diagram of three news items.
The first was a one-year review of Putin’s War—a brutal, pointless outrage spawned by a dictator’s megalomania and enabled by an army of accomplices.
A year ago, Putin’s apologists in this country argued that his bellicosity was a defensive reaction to an unfair anti-Russian bias behind NATO and American policy. Putin’s conduct of the war has shattered the premise of that argument. Moreover, the war validates Senator Romney’s warning 11 years ago: “Russia is, this is, without question, our number one geopolitical foe. They fight every cause for the world’s worst actors.” If anything, we should have consolidated containment of Putin, starting with unequivocal support of Zelenskyy against Russian aggression.
Unfortunately, violent actions of international thugs are most often prevented only by the threat of military force and are stopped only by deployment of such force. If defensive military force is wrong and evil; if defensive war shouldn’t be an option because it violates enlightened moral, ethical and religious codes, then we’d consign our world—including those codes themselves—to annihilation. The historical record renders this axiomatic.
The second overlapping news item today was a reminder of Trump’s “perfect phone call,” in an attempt to extort Zelenskyy. Trump was impeached for this criminal act undermining Ukraine, but timorous Republican senators (Romney excepted) bowed to the “Kool-Aided Base” and let our home-grown autocrat off the hook. The net effect of the “perfect call” and Trump’s impeachment acquittal was a signal to Putin that the U.S. and therefore, NATO, wouldn’t actively oppose his designs on Ukraine.
The third news circle of the Venn Diagram is the Dominion Voting Systems defamation suit against Fox News Corporation. For all the world now to see, communications among leading Fox personalities expose the truth about falsehoods propagated by Rupert Murdoch’s organization. FoxNews intentionally broadcast disinformation to hold the attention of its audience—Trump’s “Base”—and to protect corporate advertising revenues. The Tucker Carlsons, Laura Ingrahams and Sean Hannitys knew the vitriol they dispensed was patently false, despite their righteous indignation to the contrary on-air. Even Murdoch himself acknowledged unequivocally that Trump’s election denialism was baseless. The Fox disinformation machine had long served as the megaphone for Trump’s other claptrap, including his unquestioning embrace of Putin and denigration of Ukraine.
Fox both created and bolstered the belief system of “The Base”; the Base that allowed Trump to undermine Zelenskyy’s standing and therefore, encouraged Putin to launch his disastrous war. That same Base could threaten continued American support of Ukraine in that nation’s valiant defense against the greatest evil in Europe since Hitler’s rampage. Fox caused more than monetary damages to a private contractor defamed by the propaganda outlet. Fox undermined American democracy by giving amplified support to an American crime boss who, in turn, gave aid and comfort to a Russian mafioso.
Meanwhile, Ukrainians are willing to sacrifice everything in defense of Western democracy, not only their own sovereignty. Long after we move on to other news, Ukrainians will keep fighting for the values and interests of our country, whose former president—with the support of a FoxNews Base—betrayed Ukraine.
Perhaps if I bury my head in snow tomorrow, my mood will improve.
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© 2023 by Eric Nilsson
