Leaving millions to starve & freeze to death is nothing less than complicity in the genocidal war crime Russia is currently committing - hopefully President Biden has the courage President Truman did
Thank you SO MUCH for writing this, Mr. Hartmann! We MUST do this. Anything less is "conspiring with the Devil." I remember hearing about the Berlin Airlift, but I was born in 1947, too young to recall this 1949 airlift. I'm sharing this on Facebook, on Twitter (as it were), and urging anyone I can to support this. We the People need to start a movement on our own! I want to help the Ukrainians any way I can - without having much money myself. BUT I have a voice. And must use it. Again, thank you for your brilliance!
So weird. I was born in '53, and feel like Berlin Airlift happened to my knowledge.... So grateful that you know how to "share." I do know something about the truly awesome "logistics" capacity of the American Air Force. If Thom's wish comes true, that President Biden has the courage, Just the monster cargo capacity of the one base I see regularly, Travis in CA, could move huge generators across the world, no problem, that's what we do...
Thank you so much for this. We hear about these vicious decisions by Russia and are horrified but cant always know what to do to help.
This makes sense and with historical precedent is even more appropriate.
Sometimes its so hard to hear these things about freezing out and starving fellow human beings.
These people perpetrating these acts , now Putin, have no souls .
I think the United States must make relief happen . For these brave people bruised and battered by their neighbors hatred of humanity and Democracy and specifically , their hatred of Ukraines strength and resistance.
Hey Thom, This is personally very timely. I too was very familiar with this from our family lore. I was born on May 7, 1949 on a he farm in Iowa my mother was born on. My father was in England in what was the Army Air Force working on the Berlin airlift. He got back when I was three months old. My father's birthday was December 6. He had lied about his age and joined the army in 1939. His 18th birthday was the day before Pearl Harbor. I wonder if they shipped over mountains of the surplus supplies left after the war. Through the 50s we had a basement with plenty of wool blankets (army blankets) and k-rations. I wonder how many Boomers remember going through the rations to find the canned chocolate or crackers with jelly? So as MR USO sang, Thanks for the Memories!
Weird, huh? I wasn't born until '53, and I feel like I remember the Berlin Airlift in my time. I am a "Retiree Dependant," ever humble and grateful for base privileges, and I'm not giving up big secrets here: the hotel room newsletter just featured a joint exercise with South Korean fighter jets joining US fighters in escorting heavy bombers in (allowable, obviously) airspace. If Biden gave the "go," there would be absolutely nothing Putin could do to stop massive logistical support: NOT bombers, I emphasize, but gigantic cargo-haulers just with watchdogs along.
I emphatically agree! The existential concept of "negotiation" can't exist where one party has no conscience, no honour, no sense of "good faith," no answerability to consequences for breaking his word, no motivation to act except with hostility, and questionable connection with reality to start with! I'm sorry, but these people calling for negotiation are worse than sellouts in my book: for some reason, they want the bad guy to win and the innocent victim to lose, and in my book that is just UNAMERICAN!
To further drive this point home people should watch "Mr. Jones."
Is the film Mr Jones a true story?
“Mr. Jones” is based on real people and real events. The movie's central character is Gareth Jones, a young Welsh journalist who travels to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s hoping to interview Stalin. Instead, he ends up uncovering the dictator's big secret, the Ukrainian famine. Aug 7, 2020
I will keep an eye out for it. Do you happen to have seen "The Death of Stalin?" It is hard to categorize. Is it farce, intentionally? Or a portrayal of how farcical reality is? Does it reflect real life under Putin? Life and art/art and life...
I was born early in 1943, so I was in first grade in 1949, and I actually do recall hearing news on the radio that my parents were listening to about the Berlin Airlift. Obviously, the full import wasn't quite clear to me until I was older: college in the early 1960's. The analogy seems unavoidable, and the 'airlift' an obvious "good". Messers Taylor and Kramer have exactly the right ideas. ( is anybody thinking about how up-to-the-minute power supply options that de-centralize electricity services can be installed? "Off the grid" power has been tried with some success and it would be a perfect way to frustrate Putin's tactics to freeze and blind whole cities and regions by "cutting the wires". Just a thought.
This has a weird "Zeitgeist" feel to me, like like minds spontaneously linking memory of the Reichstag bombing to 9-11. I am privileged to visit Travis Air Force Base in CA regularly, so I am so aware of those giant cargo jets, around and around all day long, so huge they look like they stand still in the sky. At Thanksgiving, I brought up the subject of what huge generators there must be that those huge jets could fly, but cynical family (at least not hostile!) kind of poo-pooed that it would happen, mostly negative on the political will. Also, I was surprised to learn the date of the Berlin Airlift , since I wasn't born until 1953, and it is in my consciousness as if I remember it! Huh! Had it in mind for weeks now. Zeitgeist. May President Biden have the courage......
The dilemma faced by the world as hunger, poverty, wars, overpopulation and political misery abound is huge and relentlessly increasing https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/us-immigration-by-country. Historically, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been the places where people could still find opportunity and 'open spaces' up till now.
Mr. Hartman and others are touching heartfelt strings with bringing up the idea of a proposed airlift of Ukrainian families to the US, along with, of course, more in place support. However, in order for this to work it would be fair to ask for a wave of volunteers to sign up to teach all our children in well funded schools. Many of the passionate supporters of our open borders are liberal males, and it would be really nice to see more male teachers in our schools - we are currently at about 20-25% https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/sept2019/building-gender-balanced-workforce-supporting-male-teachers.
An airlift would be a remarkable humanitarian action by America; Mr. Hartman is correct. But, as always, promises are often easy to make, but difficult to keep. We should, ethically and morally, be prepared to meet the social and educational costs and staffing implied.
Mr. Hartman's citations:
Now Russia is set on repeating the Holdomor. We can’t let them.
I began suggesting we should consider something like the Berlin Airlift for Ukraine several months ago on my radio program. It was kind of a throwaway comment, though, as I had not heard any serious discussion of anything like it from any persons in power or any scholars of the contemporary situation with Russia and Ukraine.
Then yesterday William Taylor (former US Ambassador to Ukraine) and David Kramer (former Assistant Secretary of State) published on op-ed in The Washington Post calling for the United States to lead western nations in rebooting the Berlin Airlift, this time for Ukraine.
“These actions,” they wrote, “intended to freeze a civilian population to death until they surrender, are the definition of a terrorist, genocidal regime: amoral, criminal, barbaric. … In addition to providing Ukraine with missile defense, anti-drone, and antiaircraft systems, the United States should organize and lead a major public and private, international humanitarian effort to help the Ukrainian people make it through the winter.
“We should send massive numbers of portable generators, fuel, repair parts for electricity generation and distribution nodes, blankets, winter clothes, camp stoves, plastic sheeting, building repair supplies, internet connection devices, other communication networks, and food. We should send these supplies by rail, road, sea and air.”
They’re right, and if President Biden has the courage President Truman did, he’ll take their advice. Leaving millions to starve and freeze to death is nothing less than complicity in the genocidal war crime Russia is currently committing.
The dilemma faced by the world as hunger, poverty, wars, overpopulation and political misery abound is huge and relentlessly increasing https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/us-immigration-by-country. Historically, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been the places where people could still find opportunity and 'open spaces' up till now.
Mr. Hartman and others are touching heartfelt strings with bringing up the idea of a proposed airlift of Ukrainian families to the US, along with, of course, more in place support. However, in order for this to work it would be fair to ask for a wave of volunteers to sign up to teach all our children in well funded schools. Many of the passionate supporters of our open borders are liberal males, and it would be really nice to see more male teachers in our schools - we are currently at about 20-25% https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/sept2019/building-gender-balanced-workforce-supporting-male-teachers.
An airlift would be a remarkable humanitarian action by America; Mr. Hartman is correct. But, as always, promises are often easy to make, but difficult to keep. We should, ethically and morally, be prepared to meet the social and educational costs and staffing implied.
Mr. Hartman's citations:
Now Russia is set on repeating the Holdomor. We can’t let them.
I began suggesting we should consider something like the Berlin Airlift for Ukraine several months ago on my radio program. It was kind of a throwaway comment, though, as I had not heard any serious discussion of anything like it from any persons in power or any scholars of the contemporary situation with Russia and Ukraine.
Then yesterday William Taylor (former US Ambassador to Ukraine) and David Kramer (former Assistant Secretary of State) published on op-ed in The Washington Post calling for the United States to lead western nations in rebooting the Berlin Airlift, this time for Ukraine.
“These actions,” they wrote, “intended to freeze a civilian population to death until they surrender, are the definition of a terrorist, genocidal regime: amoral, criminal, barbaric. … In addition to providing Ukraine with missile defense, anti-drone, and antiaircraft systems, the United States should organize and lead a major public and private, international humanitarian effort to help the Ukrainian people make it through the winter.
“We should send massive numbers of portable generators, fuel, repair parts for electricity generation and distribution nodes, blankets, winter clothes, camp stoves, plastic sheeting, building repair supplies, internet connection devices, other communication networks, and food. We should send these supplies by rail, road, sea and air.”
They’re right, and if President Biden has the courage President Truman did, he’ll take their advice. Leaving millions to starve and freeze to death is nothing less than complicity in the genocidal war crime Russia is currently committing.
I would encourage you to listen to the likes of Chris Hedges and Jeffrey Sachs who offer truthful and non-partisan information on the situation in Ukraine. Placing Putin's actions in a vacuum and portraying Biden and the US as some knight in shining armor is putting all of us in a precarious situation. And Thom if you had one of these experts who were "in the room" so to speak in the 1980s perhaps you could stop the Red Scare propaganda and cease shouting down callers who try to discuss actual historical context (like me). Biden should have been pursuing peace from the very start of Putin's buildup. It is possible that none of this, including the looming humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, had to happen at all. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/12/6/jeffrey_sachs_ukraine_war
I want to second your characterization: "Fifth Column of Right-Wingers." Thom's suggestion is no pipe dream, in terms of capability. I stay at Travis Air Force Base in CA on and off, and the way is there, if the will is there. Not only can the biggest generators in the world fit in those biggest cargo-jets, for starters, but they can have a nice tight little escort of protectors so that Putin can't even think about messing with delivery. Also endorsing your observation: "...no ethics, humanity, or decency...." The "Founding Fathers" simply could not imagine such conscienceless perfidy amongst men (of course, men) who would rise to public service. They shared a gentleman's code with much taken for granted.
Thank you SO MUCH for writing this, Mr. Hartmann! We MUST do this. Anything less is "conspiring with the Devil." I remember hearing about the Berlin Airlift, but I was born in 1947, too young to recall this 1949 airlift. I'm sharing this on Facebook, on Twitter (as it were), and urging anyone I can to support this. We the People need to start a movement on our own! I want to help the Ukrainians any way I can - without having much money myself. BUT I have a voice. And must use it. Again, thank you for your brilliance!
So weird. I was born in '53, and feel like Berlin Airlift happened to my knowledge.... So grateful that you know how to "share." I do know something about the truly awesome "logistics" capacity of the American Air Force. If Thom's wish comes true, that President Biden has the courage, Just the monster cargo capacity of the one base I see regularly, Travis in CA, could move huge generators across the world, no problem, that's what we do...
Thank you so much for this. We hear about these vicious decisions by Russia and are horrified but cant always know what to do to help.
This makes sense and with historical precedent is even more appropriate.
Sometimes its so hard to hear these things about freezing out and starving fellow human beings.
These people perpetrating these acts , now Putin, have no souls .
I think the United States must make relief happen . For these brave people bruised and battered by their neighbors hatred of humanity and Democracy and specifically , their hatred of Ukraines strength and resistance.
Thanks Patricia; my thoughts exactly.
Hey Thom, This is personally very timely. I too was very familiar with this from our family lore. I was born on May 7, 1949 on a he farm in Iowa my mother was born on. My father was in England in what was the Army Air Force working on the Berlin airlift. He got back when I was three months old. My father's birthday was December 6. He had lied about his age and joined the army in 1939. His 18th birthday was the day before Pearl Harbor. I wonder if they shipped over mountains of the surplus supplies left after the war. Through the 50s we had a basement with plenty of wool blankets (army blankets) and k-rations. I wonder how many Boomers remember going through the rations to find the canned chocolate or crackers with jelly? So as MR USO sang, Thanks for the Memories!
Weird, huh? I wasn't born until '53, and I feel like I remember the Berlin Airlift in my time. I am a "Retiree Dependant," ever humble and grateful for base privileges, and I'm not giving up big secrets here: the hotel room newsletter just featured a joint exercise with South Korean fighter jets joining US fighters in escorting heavy bombers in (allowable, obviously) airspace. If Biden gave the "go," there would be absolutely nothing Putin could do to stop massive logistical support: NOT bombers, I emphasize, but gigantic cargo-haulers just with watchdogs along.
Anyone who thinks negotiating with Putin is even remotely possible doesn’t live in reality,
This , in my humble opinion.
I emphatically agree! The existential concept of "negotiation" can't exist where one party has no conscience, no honour, no sense of "good faith," no answerability to consequences for breaking his word, no motivation to act except with hostility, and questionable connection with reality to start with! I'm sorry, but these people calling for negotiation are worse than sellouts in my book: for some reason, they want the bad guy to win and the innocent victim to lose, and in my book that is just UNAMERICAN!
To further drive this point home people should watch "Mr. Jones."
Is the film Mr Jones a true story?
“Mr. Jones” is based on real people and real events. The movie's central character is Gareth Jones, a young Welsh journalist who travels to the Soviet Union in the early 1930s hoping to interview Stalin. Instead, he ends up uncovering the dictator's big secret, the Ukrainian famine. Aug 7, 2020
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I will keep an eye out for it. Do you happen to have seen "The Death of Stalin?" It is hard to categorize. Is it farce, intentionally? Or a portrayal of how farcical reality is? Does it reflect real life under Putin? Life and art/art and life...
I was born early in 1943, so I was in first grade in 1949, and I actually do recall hearing news on the radio that my parents were listening to about the Berlin Airlift. Obviously, the full import wasn't quite clear to me until I was older: college in the early 1960's. The analogy seems unavoidable, and the 'airlift' an obvious "good". Messers Taylor and Kramer have exactly the right ideas. ( is anybody thinking about how up-to-the-minute power supply options that de-centralize electricity services can be installed? "Off the grid" power has been tried with some success and it would be a perfect way to frustrate Putin's tactics to freeze and blind whole cities and regions by "cutting the wires". Just a thought.
We are all Ukrainians fighting for freedom and democracy. Zelensky is Time's "Person of the year." 👍
This has a weird "Zeitgeist" feel to me, like like minds spontaneously linking memory of the Reichstag bombing to 9-11. I am privileged to visit Travis Air Force Base in CA regularly, so I am so aware of those giant cargo jets, around and around all day long, so huge they look like they stand still in the sky. At Thanksgiving, I brought up the subject of what huge generators there must be that those huge jets could fly, but cynical family (at least not hostile!) kind of poo-pooed that it would happen, mostly negative on the political will. Also, I was surprised to learn the date of the Berlin Airlift , since I wasn't born until 1953, and it is in my consciousness as if I remember it! Huh! Had it in mind for weeks now. Zeitgeist. May President Biden have the courage......
The dilemma faced by the world as hunger, poverty, wars, overpopulation and political misery abound is huge and relentlessly increasing https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/us-immigration-by-country. Historically, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been the places where people could still find opportunity and 'open spaces' up till now.
The global climate changes are now driving massive numbers of people in a tidal wave towards all the borders of the Western countries https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/migration-forced-climate-change. And in more and more cases neighborhoods, schools https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/25/6-facts-about-english-language-learners-in-u-s-public-schools/and urban areas in the developed countries are becoming places of strife and lower economic circumstances for everyone - and it no longer looks like a win-win solution.
America's past, and present, is replete with successfully adding millions of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/largest-immigrant-groups-over-time, however, with an increasing mass of illegal immigrants and young people who are not present legally the US is sitting on a political time bomb that may cause incalculable harm in years to come https://immigration.procon.org/us-undocumented-immigrant-population-estimates/.
Our well-meaning US federal education system is funding up to 12 years of English and academic support for all the children of our immigration wave https://ednote.ecs.org/how-states-allocate-funding-for-english-language-learners/ - and our schools are in desperate circumstances.
We are short 600,000 teachers and federal and state funding are keeping teacher salaries too low to attract enough qualified teachers https://www.weareteachers.com/teacher-shortage-statistics/. Thus, should legislators choose to support increased inflows of immigrants, asylum seekers or refugees, perhaps it would be timely first to look at whether we have the will to fund our schools adequately to serve both current students as well as the children we invite https://www.americanprogress.org/article/k-12-education-needs-federal-stimulus-funding/.
We are funding our immigrant children at 150% of our support for native-born children, and we have millions of native born children https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/10/census-tool-provides-access-to-child-poverty-rates-every-united-states-school-district.html that need the same level of support just to learn to read at grade level.
Mr. Hartman and others are touching heartfelt strings with bringing up the idea of a proposed airlift of Ukrainian families to the US, along with, of course, more in place support. However, in order for this to work it would be fair to ask for a wave of volunteers to sign up to teach all our children in well funded schools. Many of the passionate supporters of our open borders are liberal males, and it would be really nice to see more male teachers in our schools - we are currently at about 20-25% https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/sept2019/building-gender-balanced-workforce-supporting-male-teachers.
An airlift would be a remarkable humanitarian action by America; Mr. Hartman is correct. But, as always, promises are often easy to make, but difficult to keep. We should, ethically and morally, be prepared to meet the social and educational costs and staffing implied.
Mr. Hartman's citations:
Now Russia is set on repeating the Holdomor. We can’t let them.
I began suggesting we should consider something like the Berlin Airlift for Ukraine several months ago on my radio program. It was kind of a throwaway comment, though, as I had not heard any serious discussion of anything like it from any persons in power or any scholars of the contemporary situation with Russia and Ukraine.
Then yesterday William Taylor (former US Ambassador to Ukraine) and David Kramer (former Assistant Secretary of State) published on op-ed in The Washington Post calling for the United States to lead western nations in rebooting the Berlin Airlift, this time for Ukraine.
“These actions,” they wrote, “intended to freeze a civilian population to death until they surrender, are the definition of a terrorist, genocidal regime: amoral, criminal, barbaric. … In addition to providing Ukraine with missile defense, anti-drone, and antiaircraft systems, the United States should organize and lead a major public and private, international humanitarian effort to help the Ukrainian people make it through the winter.
“We should send massive numbers of portable generators, fuel, repair parts for electricity generation and distribution nodes, blankets, winter clothes, camp stoves, plastic sheeting, building repair supplies, internet connection devices, other communication networks, and food. We should send these supplies by rail, road, sea and air.”
They’re right, and if President Biden has the courage President Truman did, he’ll take their advice. Leaving millions to starve and freeze to death is nothing less than complicity in the genocidal war crime Russia is currently committing.
The dilemma faced by the world as hunger, poverty, wars, overpopulation and political misery abound is huge and relentlessly increasing https://worldpopulationreview.com/country-rankings/us-immigration-by-country. Historically, the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand have been the places where people could still find opportunity and 'open spaces' up till now.
The global climate changes are now driving massive numbers of people in a tidal wave towards all the borders of the Western countries https://research.cornell.edu/news-features/migration-forced-climate-change. And in more and more cases neighborhoods, schools https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/10/25/6-facts-about-english-language-learners-in-u-s-public-schools/and urban areas in the developed countries are becoming places of strife and lower economic circumstances for everyone - and it no longer looks like a win-win solution.
America's past, and present, is replete with successfully adding millions of immigrants, asylum seekers and refugees https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/largest-immigrant-groups-over-time, however, with an increasing mass of illegal immigrants and young people who are not present legally the US is sitting on a political time bomb that may cause incalculable harm in years to come https://immigration.procon.org/us-undocumented-immigrant-population-estimates/.
Our well-meaning US federal education system is funding up to 12 years of English and academic support for all the children of our immigration wave https://ednote.ecs.org/how-states-allocate-funding-for-english-language-learners/ - and our schools are in desperate circumstances.
We are short 600,000 teachers and federal and state funding are keeping teacher salaries too low to attract enough qualified teachers https://www.weareteachers.com/teacher-shortage-statistics/. Thus, should legislators choose to support increased inflows of immigrants, asylum seekers or refugees, perhaps it would be timely first to look at whether we have the will to fund our schools adequately to serve both current students as well as the children we invite https://www.americanprogress.org/article/k-12-education-needs-federal-stimulus-funding/.
We are funding our immigrant children at 150% of our support for native-born children, and we have millions of native born children https://www.census.gov/library/stories/2021/10/census-tool-provides-access-to-child-poverty-rates-every-united-states-school-district.html that need the same level of support just to learn to read at grade level.
Mr. Hartman and others are touching heartfelt strings with bringing up the idea of a proposed airlift of Ukrainian families to the US, along with, of course, more in place support. However, in order for this to work it would be fair to ask for a wave of volunteers to sign up to teach all our children in well funded schools. Many of the passionate supporters of our open borders are liberal males, and it would be really nice to see more male teachers in our schools - we are currently at about 20-25% https://www.naeyc.org/resources/pubs/yc/sept2019/building-gender-balanced-workforce-supporting-male-teachers.
An airlift would be a remarkable humanitarian action by America; Mr. Hartman is correct. But, as always, promises are often easy to make, but difficult to keep. We should, ethically and morally, be prepared to meet the social and educational costs and staffing implied.
Mr. Hartman's citations:
Now Russia is set on repeating the Holdomor. We can’t let them.
I began suggesting we should consider something like the Berlin Airlift for Ukraine several months ago on my radio program. It was kind of a throwaway comment, though, as I had not heard any serious discussion of anything like it from any persons in power or any scholars of the contemporary situation with Russia and Ukraine.
Then yesterday William Taylor (former US Ambassador to Ukraine) and David Kramer (former Assistant Secretary of State) published on op-ed in The Washington Post calling for the United States to lead western nations in rebooting the Berlin Airlift, this time for Ukraine.
“These actions,” they wrote, “intended to freeze a civilian population to death until they surrender, are the definition of a terrorist, genocidal regime: amoral, criminal, barbaric. … In addition to providing Ukraine with missile defense, anti-drone, and antiaircraft systems, the United States should organize and lead a major public and private, international humanitarian effort to help the Ukrainian people make it through the winter.
“We should send massive numbers of portable generators, fuel, repair parts for electricity generation and distribution nodes, blankets, winter clothes, camp stoves, plastic sheeting, building repair supplies, internet connection devices, other communication networks, and food. We should send these supplies by rail, road, sea and air.”
They’re right, and if President Biden has the courage President Truman did, he’ll take their advice. Leaving millions to starve and freeze to death is nothing less than complicity in the genocidal war crime Russia is currently committing.
Yes negotiations do not appy to miscreants who live only for power and revenge
I would encourage you to listen to the likes of Chris Hedges and Jeffrey Sachs who offer truthful and non-partisan information on the situation in Ukraine. Placing Putin's actions in a vacuum and portraying Biden and the US as some knight in shining armor is putting all of us in a precarious situation. And Thom if you had one of these experts who were "in the room" so to speak in the 1980s perhaps you could stop the Red Scare propaganda and cease shouting down callers who try to discuss actual historical context (like me). Biden should have been pursuing peace from the very start of Putin's buildup. It is possible that none of this, including the looming humanitarian crisis in Ukraine, had to happen at all. https://www.democracynow.org/2022/12/6/jeffrey_sachs_ukraine_war
"... truthful and non-partisan information ..."
IOW -- extreme naivete, poor judgment, and transparent Russian propaganda.
I want to second your characterization: "Fifth Column of Right-Wingers." Thom's suggestion is no pipe dream, in terms of capability. I stay at Travis Air Force Base in CA on and off, and the way is there, if the will is there. Not only can the biggest generators in the world fit in those biggest cargo-jets, for starters, but they can have a nice tight little escort of protectors so that Putin can't even think about messing with delivery. Also endorsing your observation: "...no ethics, humanity, or decency...." The "Founding Fathers" simply could not imagine such conscienceless perfidy amongst men (of course, men) who would rise to public service. They shared a gentleman's code with much taken for granted.