Yeah, War is Hell.

The Cheerleaders Never Tell You That going in... and now of course, it's too late to stop "supporting" the ongoing fight for a country as it's people are murdered, scattered to the winds, and the country of Ukraine essentially destroyed to save it for... the fleeing refugees and those poor souls who remain?

Our tax dollars fund this fight, remember.  

We're a big part of leading this war, America is, even if Congress hasn't officially declared it and asked for the American people's permission.  Wars sell papers, and fill cable content, the media knows!  PR firms more and more are getting in on the action too. *insert sunflower emoji marketing campaign here*

Bucha.  

Expect to hear much more in days to come about the atrocities Russia committed while leaving.  If you have tv or subscribe, you'll likely get images from Bucha that make you want to puke-a.   It'll be like last year, when the NYT finally started investigatively reporting some of the atrocities American drone pilots committed while "we" were leaving Afghanistan...  

Bodies in Bucha. Bodies in Kabul. Innocents all.

At some point, you get desensitized to what the papers are selling, and pray that your fellow countrymen are convinced that Joe Biden is indeed NOT the moderate savior sent from above, the peace-loving stable statesmen we needed to protect us from that evil redhead who had his finger on the nuclear button and allegedly threatened all life in the world!

Glad it's getting to be springlike, and we can all turn off the images already of war dead when nobody I know was actively cheering this latest one in the first place.  Might have been better had the negotiating started before the bombs started falling and the soldiers went in...  

Still not to late to negotiate and save lives though!  The bodies in Bucha would tell you that, could they speak from the graves...

Sean and Julia... Gareth, Ann and Breda

Their lives are bigger than... any big idea!

(Substitute in Ukrainian names and the song remains the same.)

There are no winners here, just like There Are No Children Here was a bestseller years and years ago.  Maybe that's a good offline reread.  Still on my shelves here...

Thank God for books, so we can turn off the news which is telling us tales as old as time, with even bigger and better "defensive" weapons systems that need ground testing...

Urban politics has always interested me more than foreign policy, and for good reason:  what matters close to home matters more to safety in this country than what happens in overseas business dealings in the international market.  Don't kid yourself that the international market for oil and minerals isn't a big reason this war began and is ongoing...

It won't end until they have emptied the country and sated their taste for killings now.  And sorted through the refugees, admitting and resettling the pick of the lot, and the rest... may they have something of their own to help them survive wherever they end up.  Long live Ukraine, as her people are scattered like pawns.

#RememberTheAlamo #NeverForgetBucha!  #KeepChicagoSaneandSafeforAllPeoples

Urban politics, not foreign policy.  Trust me on this:  that's the political winner in the years ahead...  The fight over there pales compared to the fight we need to rebuild and re-strengthen things here.

When the American people lead -- and we've got a lot of good ones coming up, rejecting the systematic ways and not afraid to face the consequences for their independence -- the American elites who consider themselves leaders have no choice but to follow us.

Bucha just ain't where our concerns are at.  That's Europe's war to clean up now, not ours.  Girl you know it's true!