As a child in the 60s and 70s, it seemed to me that wars didn’t stop until one side had won (and, to be clear North Việt Nam won the Việt Nam War, and the Korean War still has not ended). In this century, the concept of a win has become messier - especially with the triad of the Afghanistan War, the Second Iraq War, and the so-called war on terror, all of which dragged out for decades.
In 2014 Russia invaded eastern Ukraine; in 2022 they tried to invade the whole of that nation - but they failed to win, and Ukraine, not a perfect nation by any means, but effectively acting on the side of freedom and democracy (which does not necessarily mean the biggest or most influential of “western” nations) has held Russia off in what is effectively a war of attrition, until we are at the stage when the expected collapse of the Russian economy may be about to happen (according to Russian government members).
In 2023, two t_rr_r_st groups and some stragglers started a war in Gaza that was also dragged out longer than it needed to be - in the opinion of many, for political, not military reasons, and then that expanded into an Israeli attack on Iraq which the USA was ordered into by its autocrat-in-charge.
That attack had the potential to give Russia the boost it needed to continue its war against Ukraine, but ... a ceasefire came about - through the clumsiness of an addled autocrat.
Russia will not receive that economic boost - and it has likely lost its main source of drones; and Israel’s war against Iran did not spread (yet - the ceasefire is still fragile) quickly nor widely (in part due to Israeli attacks elsewhere, but also because the civil war in Syria came to a conclusion).
The world is in a perilous state still - the USA is still attacking democracy, freedom, and quality & quantity of life almost everywhere in the world, Israel & Iran and Ukraine & Russia and Sudan & the masters of the proxy forces fighting there are still not at peace, but ...
a perilous escalation has been put on hold, and the world has a chance to set at least one conflict to rest for a while.
In this world, that is a win - imperfect, but it counts as a win, especially because of the flow-on effects caused and the flow-on effects averted.
We still need to keep working though - both those working in the physical, such as the brilliant resistance movement(s) in the USA, those who are standing up for human rights (such as the successful legal challenge against a government hate group in the UK), and those who are doing the work of this blog.
There is still a need for a genuine ceasefire in Gaza, for the ceasefire between Israel and Iran to become something that will last, and for ceasefires, peace, humanitarian aid & human rights and democracy & freedom in so much of the world, but as an example of a specific issue to not forget about and to keep working for BPM outcomes only from:
I have seen speculative commentary about the possibility of the extremely unhealthy and declining autocrat-in-charge of the USA possibly not completing this term (either passing as a result of natural causes, or the 25th Amendment to the USA’s constitution needing to be invoked) - starting from last year. This is always a risk with people of that age, even without the ill health and stress, although this and this suggest otherwise, but if that occurs from natural causes, that role will pass to the current vice president, who will be as bad or possibly worse.
(If there is a very WRONG, very ANTI-spiritual assassination, the USA can say goodbye to freedom for decades, so we should all work towards making sure that does NOT happen [for that human being’s sake, as well as the moral reasons].)
We, the people of the world, need to keep working, but the last couple of weeks has shown what we can acheive, and thus I consider we have evidence to base our hope on.
We, the people of the world, also have the successes against tyrants of history - as (the flawed) Gandhi said:
In the end, tyrants fall. Think of it. Always.
Possible flaws
Where I can, I will try to highlight possible flaws / issues you should consider:
- there may be flawed logical arguments in the above: to find out more about such flaws and thinking generally, I recommend Brendan Myers’ free online course “Clear and Present Thinking”;
- I could be wrong - so keep your thinking caps on, and make up your own minds for yourself.
If you appreciated this post, please consider promoting it - there are some links below, and there’s also other options.
Note that I am cutting back on aspects of my posts - see here.
(Gnwmythr is pronounced new-MYTH-ear)
Remember: we generally need to be more human being rather than human doing, to mind our Mӕgan, and to acknowledge that all misgendering is an act of active transphobia/transmisia that puts trans+ lives at risk & accept that all insistence on the use of “trans” as a descriptor comes with commensurate use of “cis” as a descriptor to prevent “othering” (just as binary gendered [men’s and women’s] sporting teams are either both given the gender descriptor, or neither).#PsychicABetterWorld and may all that I do be of value and actively BPM used for and by the nonphysical BPM because #KindnessIsThePoint
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