The Witness Chronicles April 10, 2023
Putin’s Russian fail, two big US climate stories, and the puzzling negativity of the Republican Party
The Witness Chronicles was created to showcase some of the writing I do on Medium.com covering politics, global events, and climate change. This week I’m sharing three articles that hit these topics. Trigger warning: I am a liberal Democrat and proud of it. You don’t have to agree with me but I hope you’ll read with an open mind.
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Putin is Watching His World Collapse
Ukraine was not just a bad idea, it was a terrible idea
Dictators and wannabe dictators share a fatal flaw. They are unable to admit it when they are wrong. We’re seeing it here daily with our indicted ex-president. But the glaring example is Russia’s Vladimir Putin, whose worldview is collapsing in ways he could not imagine.
Finland joined NATO this week after Turkey, a sort of (former?) Russian friend, confirmed their approval of its membership. Sweden looks poised to follow. These events alone represent a disastrous defeat for everything Putin expected to get in the wake of invading Ukraine.
He believed NATO was weak after Trump’s threats to pull the US out of the alliance. He was wrong. He sought to limit NATO’s power. He got that one wrong too. He thought Ukraine would fold in days and welcome his troops as they ‘liberated’ Ukraine from their Nazi oppressors.
Hundreds of thousands of Russian deaths have showed how completely wrong that was. It was delusional to say the least.
His Russia is selling off its fossil fuel assets at a steep discount to shore up a failing economy. At least 39 of his Kremlin lackeys have died under suspicious circumstances including several falling out of windows.
It is suspected that many of those deaths were instigated by Putin, whose paranoia is legendary, and whose disregard for any humanity was installed when he was a young KGB agent. He is a cold fish in unfriendly waters, trusting no one and under increasing scrutiny by his own colleagues.
It’s hard to imagine how his government is even functioning as high officials die or are sent to prison or simply disappear. The atmosphere must be toxic.
The gravity of Putin’s mistake is breathtaking, yet he shows no sign of backing down. In fact he still operates as though Russia is still a superpower. History shows Russia has not really been a power since its failure in Afghanistan in the early nineties, a time period he lived through, apparently learning nothing.
Another thing he missed was his oligarchs methodically gutting his military by siphoning off funds meant for modernization and even selling stored military supplies. You’d think when all your buddies have super yachts that you might wonder where all that cash came from.
But why would Putin question this when he was likely the biggest beneficiary, building himself private ski resorts, and his own super yacht(s) that he may have never set foot on. The level of delusion is monumental, a form of mental illness not unlike Trump’s narcissism that blinds him to any personal failings.
Russia finds itself isolated from even its closest allies who are keeping a cautious distance, perhaps fearing that Putin’s blind arrogance is contagious. Even Xi’s China will not commit, at least publicly, to supporting Russia with military weapons and supplies, equipment Russia cannot build themselves, lacking the technology required.
The effects of the war extend into every part of Russian life. Flying between cities is becoming more difficult every day as planes are grounded for lack of parts because of NATO sanctions. Imagine a country the size of the US without air travel.
They have no access to international banking systems, crippling any chance of economic growth.
We all know Einstein’s definition of madness. Yet despite that logic, Putin doubles down on his mistakes every time. This week, with the membership of Finland, Russia’s borders with NATO countries doubled, adding over 800 miles of border with a small nation where everyone serves in the military during their lives and whose army is feared beyond its size.
No man can stay sane under this litany of disasters. This week, in a story that sucked the air out of the news cycle, saw Trump indicted and he gave a haywire speech after being arrested, despite being warned by a judge to stay quiet. There is no judge in Russia who can tell Putin anything he does not want to hear.
Close watchers of the news and rumors out of Russia know that every time Putin mentions nuclear weapons, something has gone terribly wrong in his war. But those threats are starting to sound like the boy who cried wolf, empty and easily ignored.
If he used nuclear weapons in any capacity, the world would have to crush him and crush him fast. Given their incompetence in Ukraine, the world knows the Russian military is no threat and hasn’t been for years.
The world knows it but apparently its all powerful leader does not. This cannot be sustained much longer. There is blood in the water around Vladimir Putin.
A Massive Lake Reappears in the West and Tornado Alley Moves East
New ways the climate is transforming our weather, and our lives
Lake Tulare was the largest body of freshwater west of the Mississippi before it was drained and converted into some of the most fertile farmland in the world. With the massive amounts of precipitation that California has received, this Central Coast region is flooding and the lake is reappearing.
And the snowmelt has yet to begin. The snowpack is 300% over normal and will unleash trillions of gallons of water into that same lake bed.
Tornado Alley has traditionally consisted of the states due north of Texas including the Dakotas and Oklahoma. The wide open dust belt plains we associate with farms like the one Dorothy lived on before being flown to Oz on the back of a twister.
These states are sparsely populated compared to the coasts, so for many of us tornadoes were an oddity you see on the evening news blowing trailer parks to pieces. Why trailer parks? I have no idea except for the fact that they are often flimsy and easily destroyed by high winds.
Now Tornado Alley is moving south and east, inching its way to the heavily populated coast and we are seeing entire small towns destroyed over night. The massive groups of tornados we are witnessing this early spring are bigger, last longer, and cover more ground before dissipating. Combine this with major cities in their potential path like Chicago, Atlanta and Detroit and we could be witnessing a whole new level of destruction.
These two climate events, bookending the country, are both disasters equal to last year’s Hurricane season in their impact. The Tulare Lake basin is the source of much of our food and is farmed by huge corporations. There are towns in the middle of the historic lakebed that are flooded now and residents are fighting with corporate agriculture over intentional levee breaks.
To compound things, those farms have been pumping water out of underwater aquifers for years and the land is actually sinking, making it even more susceptible to deeper flooding when that massive snowpack in the Sierra begins melting.This is climate damage that may take years to remedy, if it is even possible.
Have you noticed how we have been taking these extreme weather events as the new normal? Just as with Hurricane Ian in Florida, we hear the determination to rebuild, though it is very likely disasters will strike again and again.
And those small towns the Central California Valley are desperately trying to hang on in the face of biblical destruction. The residents are mostly lower income farm workers and in a state with insane housing costs they have nowhere to go. They could represent the first acknowledged wave of climate refugees in the US, though I’d argue that Katrina may have that title when they publish the histories of this time.
It’s pretty hard to deny global warming in the face of events like these, but the entire Republican Party has learned that telling the truth is bad politics and bad for the campaign banking accounts, accounts used to being padded by the fossil fuel lobby.
That lobby has always known this was coming. Starting in the nineteen sixties, the Seven Sisters oil companies were doing sophisticated scenario planning around warming and the effects of carbon and methane. It was good science and it told them the future might be very bleak if we don’t stop burning petroleum products in mass quantities.
But the companies kept the work of their scientists to themselves and began a planned and extensive narrative that effectively created the entire climate denial economy. Only now, as disasters pile up, do we realize that their whitewashing of the facts was creating a lalaland mindset of rebuilding over and over again.
As people start to recover, more and more are not choosing to rebuild. In cases like Hurricane Ian, the effect on homeowner insurance has priced it beyond most people’s ability to pay, if they can get it at all. No major insurer is issuing policies in Florida any more, leaving the job to higher risk regional insurers. No insurance, no mortgage, no new home, unless you can pay cash.
Beyond the economic damage, this weather is killing people in much greater numbers when storms strike, because they are happening in more densely populated areas, are much more powerful, and often strike at night when warning people is much more challenging.
The Tulare Lake rebirth poses a different sort of challenge. There was a reason that lake was there in the past. It was a catch basin and that basin has returned. Even if it is temporary, those poor farm workers will think twice about moving back. And their labor is vital to our food pipeline, especially as the right demonizes the migrants that historically worked the farms and packing facilities.
There needs to be a serious effort made to come up with plans to live with these changes rather than pretending they are anomalies, a myth stoked by the PR departments of the oil industry. Myths that always project the worst out far enough to keep us complacent.
They know telling us we won’t really see the effects of climate change until some relatively far off date is effective at protecting their markets. And there is a belief system that says in the future we will presumably have the tech and know-how to deal with it. The entire farce is a stalling action so the fossil fuels industry can rake in as much profit as possible, before the inevitable and necessary changes to the energy industry.
Unfortunately climate change is not years off, it is here and has been for years, yet we continue to blithely buy massive pickup trucks in massive quantities, trucks most drivers never need on a practical basis. They’re luxury items for the average middle class worker.
Tulare Lake’s return, however temporary, is going to hit big agriculture in ways that are far reaching and extremely costly and it will trickle down to everyone who buys groceries. It already has. Have you bought a decent steak lately?
There are not a lot of steaks in the future of many Americans right now.
Why Wage War on Women Voters?
The bizarre logic of Republican strategy
I’ll be honest, I don’t get it. Yesterday a judge with no qualifications to do so effectively outlawed an abortion med that has been used safely for over twenty years, claiming it was unsafe. The Texas judge’s ruling was overturned within an hour by a federal judge in the state of Washington, practically guaranteeing the issue will go to the Supreme Court.
The GOP war on abortion is not about the sanctity of life, it is about controlling women, all women. Given that females are at least half of the registered voters in the nation, it’s hard to see any logic in this, but logic and the Party parted ways long ago.
I have no idea what the Republican Party stands for, only what they stand against, which is practically everything. There are several big problems with this.
Every time you add another topic to the list of things you don’t like or want to ban, you alienate some people. The math is idiotically simple. The past week of news, perhaps the craziest in some time, finds a seemingly unending litany of negative views from the right.
Excluding the Trump circus of foolishness, we see the Tennessee state Republicans ousting two young, black members who loudly protested for gun control in their chambers. Three members were chosen for punishment. The third, a white woman, was vindicated by one vote and remains in.
All three did the same thing but the black guys get booted. By the way, they were exercising their First Amendment rights and their outrage was driven by the shootings of three children and three adults in a school the week before.
A lot of us are mad about guns but these Republican crackers don’t care. They did a symbolic lynching obviously based on racism. Let’s alienate all people of color just because we can. We’ll find a way to disenfranchise their votes.
Only problem with that logic? Tennessee is a meaningless blip in a national election but people of color are a huge factor.
The formula for losing gets stronger, the arrogance level gets higher, and nothing gets done except getting to publicly demonstrate the Party’s racism without apologies.
Not sure I get that logic either. But I had a problem with that Jewish space laser thing too when Marjorie Taylor Greene told us about it. She, btw, is now a leader in the House of Representatives. Go figure.
Aside from alienating women and black voters, the party is also against people who live in big cities, another majority of voters. The fact that these right wingers could not have been elected without those voters appears to also be meaningless to the Party.
That’s the second time I’ve used the word meaningless in this rant. Relentless negativity and hate just encourages more negativity and hate and the lack of meaning anything other than these things is the fatal disease of the Republican Party.
If you read the news, you likely know a lot about what Florida Governor Ron DeSantis doesn’t like. But we don’t know what he actually likes or is passionate about, excepting something called woke. His campaign for President seems to be based on bragging about everything he is against, including Mickey Mouse.
Prediction: DeSantis will be a forgotten side note in American politics. He is just not a likable guy.
Which leads me to the Clarence Thomas logic of simply not reporting millions of dollars of gifts from a billionaire Republican donor because they’re just the generosity of a friend. He made a video talking about how RVing is the vacation choice he likes because he is just a regular guy. A regular guy who is a swing vote on the Supreme court.
While he was extolling the virtues of being a regular guy, he was cruising the waters of Indonesia in his buddy’s super yacht. Shades of the Russian oligarchy.
Turns out Thomas’s benefactor has an interesting hobby: he collects Nazi paraphernalia. Wtf?
As an observer of the endless Republican ability to make it clear that they are the Party of grumpy old white men, the logical part of my small brain thinks these wide ranging negative policies might not be the path to full power in DC in 2024. They’re giving Dems like me and a majority in the country a lot of reasons to vote against them.
I certainly hope my tiny brain’s logic turns out to be well-founded. Because otherwise this democracy is screwed.
These pieces originally appeared on Medium.com. Copyright 2023 Martin Edic
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Excellent Chronicle! Thanks.
BTW Isn't Lake Tulare west of the Mississippi and not east as you noted.