Issue of the Week: War
Darkness Defeated 1945 and 1989. Darkness again 2022. Planet Earth Foundation PSA 2022.
Today is the Spring Equinox north of the equator and the Fall Equinox south of the Equator.
It may be an apt metaphor for the moment in this civilization-threatening situation, in some ways potentially as never before, resulting from the Russian aggression in invading Ukraine starting almost one month ago.
Halfway between the dark and the light.
Again, because of the stakes at this point in history for many reasons, it could go all the way to the darkest moment yet for humanity and the planet, or in the end move from the most courageous and inspirational resistance against horrific brutality to an evolution over time to a world closer to the goals and hopes of the defeat of totalitarian fascism in World War Two and totalitarian communism with the fall of the Berlin wall.
Or it could become a halfway netherworld of various kinds for an indeterminable time, perhaps becoming another “long twilight struggle” in the oft-quoted words of JFK about the Cold War, between democratic nations in the main and authoritarian nations in the main, in a new cold war which like the current hot war in Ukraine, could both go global and morph into World War Three at any time, with the threat of planetary destruction from nuclear and other weapons of mass destruction.
It is worth reminding that President Kennedy’s famous words among many in his 1961 inaugural address, “long twilight struggle” specifically referred to “against the common enemies of man: tyranny, poverty, disease, and war itself.” While giving a speech dedicated to winning the Cold War, he reminded of the larger issues it was part of–the goals of irradicating tyranny, poverty, disease, and war that had been the explicit goals in fighting World War Two and in founding the United Nations.
As we have pointed out often, all of humanity has failed to live up to these goals, which has created the many destructive and dangerous situations we have and are experiencing and a continuing upping of the brutality, damage and risks to this moment.
Meanwhile, we all have the clear and present obligation to help the children, women and men of Ukraine, being killed, harmed and traumatized every minute through warfare waged by war crimes targeting civilians, one quarter of whom are now refugees inside or outside their nation, and who desperately need all the basics for survival.
We have just produced the following public service announcement to remind of the stakes and to direct as to where to go to contribute to help the people of Ukraine.
This PSA is the entire focus of our current post: