I hear you. I’m for the true believers, even if don’t agree with their cause in every respect, and I can understand why people fight the power and spur that old nag straight at the windmill. I have a soft spot for people who lay everything in the line for something meaningful, and the weakness of these people is one I know well because I share it. We are naive and are easy for the professional class to manipulate for their own designs. In the end, I have to believe no sacrifice will be for nothing, no injustice unanswered, no Lie left standing. Have a peaceful night.
Hi Matt, Did I miss your piece on the torture and killing of American Journalist Gonzalo Lira by the Ukraine government(AKA Zelensky)? Seems like all western media just swept that one right under the rug because it didn’t fit the narrative.
You mean Gonzalo Lira, the new patron saint of the MAGA right who used to re-post pro-Hitler/Holocaust denial garbage, and who repeatedly propagandized for Russia on Ukrainian soil as the Ukrainians were getting invaded and butchered in places like Bucha -- where Lira went full Alex Jones and denied that and many other Russian atrocities? He was no Navalny. He was a gold-plated creep. But that said, even gold-plated creeps shouldn't die in prison for bad-speech offenses. I don't know that he was "tortured and killed" as you say. My understanding based on what I've read, such as Cathy Young's account (https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/anti-ukraine-chorus-exploit-gonzalo-lira-death) is that he had pneumonia that was left untreated for too long (that seemed to be his father's inference anyway) after he was re-arrested for trying to flee the country while out on bail, awaiting trial. But it all looks pretty shady to me -- I'm sure his death was preventable -- and wrong is wrong. So you won't find me defending it. There should've been a lot more transparency, besides.
Of course, if Putin hadn't invaded a sovereign nation in his pointless war of aggression, waged for no good reason other than as a monument to his ego, all manner of horrible things wouldn't have happened, such as the tens of thousands dead (plenty, civilians), or the cities destroyed, or the 7 million Ukrainian refugees now scattered abroad, or the 20,000 Ukrainian children who've been abducted and transported to Russia for God-knows-what demented reason, or the nearly million or so Russian men who had to flee their own country to avoid conscription in Putin's stupid war. So as the anti-Ukraine MAGA right goes martyr fishing, they might want to keep in mind that Lira's ordeal is still pretty far down on the human-rights abuses list. And of course, if Putin hadn't invaded, Lira wouldn't have been playing faux war correspondent/Kremlin propagandist in Ukraine. (Imagine someone coming into your house as it was being broken into, cheering on the thieves who were stealing your things and raping your wife -- because that's essentially what Lira was doing.) Instead, he'd have probably still been "Coach Red Pill," his seduction guru persona in which he coached men to treat women "exactly like dogs" and said that vaccinated women were useless except as "cum dumpsters." (Did I mention he was a gold-plated creep?)
I think he meant Navalny the CIA asset. Casting no dispersions on his death, which is a loss to his friends and family and I didn’t personally know the man. But you often, and rightly so, cite your experience as a lifelong writer to indicate your credibility. So I will cite my long career as a US Army officer and DoD “services” contractor when I say Navalny was a Western intelligence asset. Funded almost exclusively by US money. Same kind of living dangerously that you pointed out Lira was engaged in.
That's what the Kremlin said! Of course, that's what the Kremlin says about everybody they arrest, including the Wall Street Journal reporter currently being detained. And you know this how?
I'd actually think it might be unintelligent of our intelligence services NOT to have recruited Navalny. Who wouldn't want a badass like him working for the good guys? But he was pretty bad about keeping it on the QT, as most CIA assets try to do. He was only about the most visible human rights activist in the world. Oops, cover blown! And I'm unaware of the CIA training people to go back into a country after they've been poisoned to within an inch of flat-lining, to face inevitable imprisonment and possible death, which is exactly what Navalny did. Not sure that would've been worth the stipend. Maybe he just wanted to save his country from a tyrant. He was damn good at faking it if he didn't.
Matt, Thanks for your lengthy disingenuous response. You spent paragraphs tearing down an individual(Gonzalo) living in a country where he opposed his government’s actions and was jailed and killed for it, you trying to make it sound justified and then one short sentence saying it shouldn’t happen even creeps like him but…etc etc
That is your attempt to excuse it and to justify it.
We will never get anywhere in this country as long as we continue to have partisans hacks on the left (you) and partisan hacks in the right (people like Sean Hannity), who blindly tow the line of and obey their marching orders and shill for the powers that be wether that be on the left or right.
People like you and hannity whose only audience is a sounding board are part of the problem not the solution.
You both are the reasons why we have presidential candidates like Biden and Trump, both inept. But instead of continuing to preach to your choir, how about trying to take off those tainted glasses and seek the truth?
Hey smart guy, you should probably know what you're talking about before you join my site just to troll. (I saw the new paid sub notice, and I'll gladly take your money, but you ain't getting a refund when you quit.) First, I'm not a lefty. I worked for a right-leaning magazine for twenty plus years. Second, I've done the pox on all sides quite a bit over my long career, so I don't really have "a choir." Unless you count free-thinkers, which you don't seem to be a member of. Third, it wasn't "his government." He was a Chilean-American. And fourth, you're doing a helluva lot of shilling yourself. Lira wasn't pure as the driven snow, like you're trying to make him sound. Nor was he a "journalist." According to outlets like the Daily Beast, he was a disinformation machine, a propagandizing crank who made wild, unsubstantiated claims, and just generally lied a lot to benefit the guy who was in the middle of invading their country. Some of those included:
1. Claiming Zelensky was a cokehead.
2. That Ukraine deliberately tried to cause a nuclear accident and pin it on Russia to drag America into the war.
3. That the invaders who killed Ukrainians by the truckload, indiscriminately bombing all manner of civilian targets, were taking pains not to harm civilians. (Meanwhile, entire villages were getting butchered.)
4. He peddled so many bonkers Russian conspiracies that one academic Ukraine expert here initially thought him a fictional person invented by the Kremlin to spread its message. (He wasn't, obviously.)
And that's just for starters. You try doing all that in America if we were getting invaded by Putin, and see how that goes for you. You wouldn't even make it to prison. You'd get the crap kicked out of you before you ever got there. You try doing that in Russia, and you'd be shot on the spot.
And all that said, I still said the circumstances of his death sounded fishy, and that "wrong is wrong." Couldn't have been much more emphatic. But you wanted the sanitized version of the Lira story so that you can put him in the Hall of Martyrs with Navalny. To each his own. But don't expect to peddle your propaganda around here without getting straightened out.
Did I strike a nerve there Matt? Maybe you should calm down a little before you respond. Read back over my responses and see where I said anything positive about Lira, other than he was critical of Ukraine policy and was imprisoned and killed for it. Nalvany was critical of Russian government and was killed for it. You can tell yourself your free thinker( best joke of the century) and keep believing it. I would suggest again take off your tainted glasses take a deep breath and re-examine your thought process. What I am simply doing is pointing out the disingenuous attitude of you and many others and the curious absence of any outrage over a man being killed for his political views just because you and others disagreed with him! Shame on you for devaluing one human life over another. And of course you automatically go to name calling.
I’m a troll because I called
You out on your BS and I’m not one of your mindless cheerleaders?
No, you didn't strike a nerve. You just got on my nerves with your haughty dishonesty. You made characterizations about both me and the matter at hand that were utterly false or grossly selective, and so I fact-checked you. Don't pick fights you can't win, dude. This is my house. And I'm not at all shy about cleaning it.
I make all the distinctions I make on an individual basis. And here, it's not because I think Ukraine is above reproach. They're not, they were a fairly corrupt country before they were unjustly invaded, which is probably why our tangelo-flavored ex-president thought he could lean on Ukraine's leader to dredge up dirt on his political enemy. (Which didn't work out so well. It ended in a failed impeachment trial, you'll recall.) It's just that Putin's more corrupt, and much more of a homicidal maniac, besides. A man who regularly snuffs his political enemies. And Ukraine didn't invade Russia, it was the other way around. I'm under no illusions that Ukraine is some Human Rights Paradise. And yet, if forced to choose, I still would rather live under Zelensky eight days a week over Putin. And you would, too, if you were being honest. Being honest, being something that Lira didn't much concern himself with. He lied without conscience, while real lives were at stake. So you'll excuse me if my "outrage" is a little more muted for him than it is for Navalny. Navalny was trying to save his country from a tyrant, and willingly walked back into the belly of the beast to do so AFTER he'd already been poisoned and nearly killed. Lira didn't give a wet shit if Ukrainians were getting killed all around him, so long as he could shine up the guys who were doing it. All, while (falsely) passing himself off as an objective observer. You ever heard of karma?
But I still said it was wrong and you refused to take yes for an answer. Even if I
I'm unaware of any proof, as of yet, that he was actually "murdered," in the active sense, as Navalny likely was. And I say that minus hard proof on Navalny, since Navalny had been poisoned before. Since Putin just promoted the guy who oversaw Navalny's imprisonment/torture. Since Russia refuses to release Navalny's body. And since he just issued a warrant for Navalny's brother's arrest. All of this, suggesting a certain amount of bad faith, wouldn't ya say? If it barks like a dog, it's usually a dog. But you wouldn't take yes for an answer on Lira because that would've gotten in the way of your petulant self-righteousness, which you were so eager to showcase, that you even paid five bucks for the privilege of insulting me, because free riders don't get to comment around here. In a way, I have to commend you. That's commitment!
But there is only one way Lira is similar to Navalny -- they both died in prison. And that very well might be the one and only similarity. Yes, all lives matter, and have inherent worth in God's eyes. Even if someone's a scumbag. But.........Lira should've recognized that very same notion as he was denying and actively lying about all the deaths of the people in his adopted country. Which weren't caused by Zelensky. They were caused by the guy Lira kept celebrating. I still say he shouldn't have died in prison. But he didn't extend that same generosity of spirit to the people who were dying all around him, who he lied about because they were inconveniences who got in the way of his (phony) political narrative.
Touché to the haughty dishonesty as it permeates your responses. I actually agree with some of what you said just now but I find you quite naive to think Zelensky is defending his country and cares about his people. If he cared about his people he would have negotiated a settlement 3 months in.
This is your site and you can kick me off if you like have it and keep preaching to your choir that worships you. You fact checked me? With your selective facts that fit your narrative ? Ok Matt sure!!! You know there is more to the story than just “Russia invaded Ukraine” it is not that black and white and you’re not that naive. I think you are intelligent enough to understand that.
Jeezuz H. Banana! I don't know how you can put up with such a duplicitous gas bag as this Paul G character, Matt. So you're a lefty, eh? Merely the flip side to that pro-MAGA sock puppet, Sean Hannity, while this Paul G dude poses as the dispassionate custodian of all that is objectively true???? What a hoot.
Please don't feel sorry for me, George. It's my calling, in a way. Some people's mission field is ministering to the needy or infirm. Mine is to minister to duplicitous gasbags.
Outstanding rebuttal, Matt. I had to lookup Lira when I first read the original post. As Cathy Young noted, he could have been deported to the US (perhaps not Hungary, since he wasn't their problem either) and the Zelensky gov't needs to be asked that question. But it does seem he violated a very narrow law in Ukraine and that their process was followed. To say that he was tortured and killed, when his own father indicates the "torture and killing" amounted to not administering the proper care for pneumonia (which I assume even a second-world, war-torn, nation like Ukraine could have administered) should be asked of Zelensky as well. All that said, he said and wrote horrible things about women and Jews. He needed a good old-fashioned ass-kicking if anything just for what he said about our mothers, wives, girlfriends, daughters. Maybe cosmic justice took care of that for us.
That said, I have no horse in the Russia-Ukraine race. I don't think we have a strategic interest in the latter. I do think, like Orwell wrote, we've always been at war with Eastasia, err, the Soviets, err Russia. The cold war has never really ended and I think our State Department continues to be configured in such a way to always be at war with Russia. The sooner we can un-elect politicians that were in place before the fall of the Soviet Union to the present day, the better we'll be.
Thanks, William. Though if Trump wins in November -- and doesn't end up in prison -- I don't think you'll have to worry about us being anywhere near war with Russia, Cold or proxy or otherwise. Instead, you'll have to worry about our new Russia policy. The one where Trump says, "How high?," and Putin says, "I haven't even told you to jump yet."
Trust me, I don't want another Trump presidency, even if I wanted the first one. I think the coalition lining up behind him in terms of MAGA, Christian Nationalists, QANON'ers are bat-shit crazy. They will literally impose a Handmaid's Tale Gilead environment on the women in this nation. No, they need to get their asses thoroughly kicked once and for all this November, so that rational, adult, Republicans can reclaim the party. I just have never liked going toe-to-toe with the only other nuclear power that can wipe us off the map, no matter who is in charge over there. I believe the nuclear clock is still 90-seconds to midnight, which is worse than when the greatest heavy-metal band of all time - Iron Maiden - sang Two Minutes to Midnight back in 1984.
Thank you Matt. Yes, for the good to do nothing. The Second Coming by Yeats ends similarly. How often must we be reminded by the living dead, like Navalny, that our very lives are in peril. When justice prevails, it's an American tragedy, when people get a hand up, it's the progressive ruin of the Nation, when the truth is manifest its a damn Liberal lie and on and on. I am a bit reminded of a Kingston Trio song, The John Birch Society. " We'll teach you how to spot em,
In the city or the sticks - for even Jasper Junction is just full of liberal dicks, the CIAs subversive and so is the FCC. There's no one left but we and thee and we're not sure of thee!!" Minor lyrics adjustment to replace Bolsheviks with liberal dicks - seems timely.
A student in my class asked if we could talk about MAGA and how we're supposed to be understanding and civil with it/them. He couldn't know how gut wrenching that question is to me. I am enraged by this uncivil, voodoo curse that's been willingly cast upon millions of people.
I always commend reason. I try to always be on the side of rationality. I can't this time. There's nothing coming from me other than bile and barred teeth.
I'm lost. I can't make any sense of it. How can this one waste of protoplasm hold the attention of this many cerebral sausages for so long? I have no effing idea! The Huckster and Fools have commingled into an incestuous relationship that can't be unknotted.
In the history of non sequiturs, none is more cognitively dissonant than that you have just posted of the Tangerine Emperor making fleeting mention of Alexei Navalny’s “sudden death” — or, as virtually the entirety of the free world would describe it, cold-blooded murder — only to somehow tie it to everything Trump thinks is wrong about America. Of course, the Marmalade Messiah wouldn’t know a non sequitur if Melania used one of her stilettos to hit him square in his jowly, orange-powdered mug with one. Russia has had its moral giants, Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky are just a couple. Alexei Navalny eclipses them both. Navalny’s moral courage and life legacy will live on long after the toxin of Trump’s MAGAism finally leaches out of this country’s civic culture. Whenever that day comes, it can’t come soon enough.
I lived in Russia for many years in the 80s as a diplomat. A horrible place. Amazing to see Putin crank back up the secret police and the assassinations of days of yore.
I'm beside myself losing my hero Navalny. Before it all ends, I may lose my only other hero, Zalenski, with Congress withholding military support. (Funny things happen in a war when you have no artillery shells to fire back. The South Vietnamese Army held the North Vietnamese Army at bay for two years after we scooted out in '73. Until Congress cut off supplying, you guessed it, artillery shells.)
To be a "peacemaker," will Trump cut off weapons for Ukraine, and force Ukraine to reward Putin with Crimea and other chunks of territory.? Will Trump largely abandon the NATO alliance? Will he get a Nobel Peace Prize for all this?
Is that how we make America great again?
My political party is for a strong defense, and not some pouting isolationism. Gotta find out where my party went. Matt, should I just write in Santa Clause this year?
Of course, I could vote for Biden, who will assuredly be carted off for cause well within the next 24 months to an old age home. Then we'll have President Kamala, who it is whispered in Washington, is an incompetent Leona Helmsley.
I lived in Russia from 2007 to 2017 and Russia got better for awhile until Putin decided he wanted his Empire back. My first vote for President was Ronald Reagan, and as he said of the other party, "I didn't leave them, they left me." The same is true of the Republicans for me today. I don't agree with everything Biden and Kamala want and do, but we do share one basic. belief. We believe in America and Democracy, and today's Republicans don't seem to believe in either. After Biden wins in 2024, and secures our democracy, I will be happy to go back to fighting about income distribution and taxes in 2028.
From your comment, I'm surprised you haven't abandoned your old political party, as a lot of us have. My father's & grandfather's Republican party died a long time ago. Join us in saving democracy by reelecting Joe Biden, who has been a good President. Actually, if you read a list of his accomplishments, he's been a very good President.
Skip the Novichok & subscribe to Jessica Craven's newsletter "Chop Wood, Carry Water". Every day she lists things any one of us can do to help save democracy. Do it!
Yes, Pro, I'm not beating you up. I appreciate the patronage. But I'm not the Hallmark Channel, either. We aim to address the whole range of human experience around here. Sometimes light, sometimes dark. Like the prophet Townes Van Zandt saith, "There ain't no dark 'til something shines/I'm bound to leave the dark behind." And when a light like Navalny is snuffed out by a tyrant and his enablers, I have no problem going dark. In fact, you might call it something like a moral duty.
I understand you get to write what you want to write. I somehow missed the Tree story the first time around, and I'm very grateful to have seen it referenced here so I could read it.
However dark our world is or becomes, it's the Tree stories, the Bluebird stories, and especially each and every mention of your dog-stories, that I cherish. Thank you for sharing your gift of translating the world you see into such evocative words with us. I sincerely hope whenever we're rid of Trump the Trees to ... impassioned-comments-on-current-events-ratio ticks up. I suspect we'll both be happier in this space whenever, at long last, that does happen.
Please do not mistake this for criticism - it is not that. It's just appreciation for the way you can philosophically frame the natural world into sentiments that, I truly think, help us see and experience the world the way that you do. That's pretty cool. And something I look forward to enjoying more of.
Mother Russia sometimes has a way of leaving a very strong impression on her children. I once met an Orthodox priest, Father Boris was his name, out Siberia way. He had been imprisoned in the Gulag and subsequently escaped from Russia. After enjoying his freedom for a while, like Navalny, he felt compelled to return to Russia and minister there.
He was renowned in that area because he lent out his church building to the Baptists and the Adventists when they had no place for their Christmas Eve services. I'm not so sure what the Orthodox powers in Moscow thought about that move, but I'm rather certain what the Powers in heaven thought about it. At our only meeting, and knowing nothing about me, Father Boris asked me to offer the prayer for the evening meal.
When I think about these two Russian men, I wish only that I had half of their courage. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven..
I have grown increasingly tired of neo-fascists wrapping themselves in the flag, hanging a crucifix around their necks, and proclaiming themselves patriots and Christians. I call bullshit. To which their apologists say, "well, you don't know what's in their hearts." As if I give ,00473 of a shit what's in their hearts. What matters is not what they feel, is not even what they (if you'll pardon the expression) think. It is what they do. If you eschew the Constitution, excuse the hell out of me, but you are not a patriot. If you bear false witness, if you ignore the very core of Christian teaching, then you are no Christian, regardless of the quantity or blinginess of your cruciform jewelry.
Many of us who oppose the GOP's drift toward authoritarianism argue that we oughtn't call attention to the vapidity of the MAGgots stances, 'cause donchaknow they've run to Trump because those who take the sapiens part of our Linnaean classification seriously look at them askance. And I call bullshit again. Pretending that there is a rational argument for Trumpism that is consistent with either American or Christian values insults everyone's intelligence, not least of which theirs. Time to speak the truth.
When I consider the sacrifices made by so very many of our forebears in juxtaposition to the facile blatherings of these nitwits it makes my blood boil.
I hear you. I’m for the true believers, even if don’t agree with their cause in every respect, and I can understand why people fight the power and spur that old nag straight at the windmill. I have a soft spot for people who lay everything in the line for something meaningful, and the weakness of these people is one I know well because I share it. We are naive and are easy for the professional class to manipulate for their own designs. In the end, I have to believe no sacrifice will be for nothing, no injustice unanswered, no Lie left standing. Have a peaceful night.
Hi Matt, Did I miss your piece on the torture and killing of American Journalist Gonzalo Lira by the Ukraine government(AKA Zelensky)? Seems like all western media just swept that one right under the rug because it didn’t fit the narrative.
You mean Gonzalo Lira, the new patron saint of the MAGA right who used to re-post pro-Hitler/Holocaust denial garbage, and who repeatedly propagandized for Russia on Ukrainian soil as the Ukrainians were getting invaded and butchered in places like Bucha -- where Lira went full Alex Jones and denied that and many other Russian atrocities? He was no Navalny. He was a gold-plated creep. But that said, even gold-plated creeps shouldn't die in prison for bad-speech offenses. I don't know that he was "tortured and killed" as you say. My understanding based on what I've read, such as Cathy Young's account (https://plus.thebulwark.com/p/anti-ukraine-chorus-exploit-gonzalo-lira-death) is that he had pneumonia that was left untreated for too long (that seemed to be his father's inference anyway) after he was re-arrested for trying to flee the country while out on bail, awaiting trial. But it all looks pretty shady to me -- I'm sure his death was preventable -- and wrong is wrong. So you won't find me defending it. There should've been a lot more transparency, besides.
Of course, if Putin hadn't invaded a sovereign nation in his pointless war of aggression, waged for no good reason other than as a monument to his ego, all manner of horrible things wouldn't have happened, such as the tens of thousands dead (plenty, civilians), or the cities destroyed, or the 7 million Ukrainian refugees now scattered abroad, or the 20,000 Ukrainian children who've been abducted and transported to Russia for God-knows-what demented reason, or the nearly million or so Russian men who had to flee their own country to avoid conscription in Putin's stupid war. So as the anti-Ukraine MAGA right goes martyr fishing, they might want to keep in mind that Lira's ordeal is still pretty far down on the human-rights abuses list. And of course, if Putin hadn't invaded, Lira wouldn't have been playing faux war correspondent/Kremlin propagandist in Ukraine. (Imagine someone coming into your house as it was being broken into, cheering on the thieves who were stealing your things and raping your wife -- because that's essentially what Lira was doing.) Instead, he'd have probably still been "Coach Red Pill," his seduction guru persona in which he coached men to treat women "exactly like dogs" and said that vaccinated women were useless except as "cum dumpsters." (Did I mention he was a gold-plated creep?)
I think he meant Navalny the CIA asset. Casting no dispersions on his death, which is a loss to his friends and family and I didn’t personally know the man. But you often, and rightly so, cite your experience as a lifelong writer to indicate your credibility. So I will cite my long career as a US Army officer and DoD “services” contractor when I say Navalny was a Western intelligence asset. Funded almost exclusively by US money. Same kind of living dangerously that you pointed out Lira was engaged in.
That's what the Kremlin said! Of course, that's what the Kremlin says about everybody they arrest, including the Wall Street Journal reporter currently being detained. And you know this how?
I'd actually think it might be unintelligent of our intelligence services NOT to have recruited Navalny. Who wouldn't want a badass like him working for the good guys? But he was pretty bad about keeping it on the QT, as most CIA assets try to do. He was only about the most visible human rights activist in the world. Oops, cover blown! And I'm unaware of the CIA training people to go back into a country after they've been poisoned to within an inch of flat-lining, to face inevitable imprisonment and possible death, which is exactly what Navalny did. Not sure that would've been worth the stipend. Maybe he just wanted to save his country from a tyrant. He was damn good at faking it if he didn't.
Matt, Thanks for your lengthy disingenuous response. You spent paragraphs tearing down an individual(Gonzalo) living in a country where he opposed his government’s actions and was jailed and killed for it, you trying to make it sound justified and then one short sentence saying it shouldn’t happen even creeps like him but…etc etc
That is your attempt to excuse it and to justify it.
We will never get anywhere in this country as long as we continue to have partisans hacks on the left (you) and partisan hacks in the right (people like Sean Hannity), who blindly tow the line of and obey their marching orders and shill for the powers that be wether that be on the left or right.
People like you and hannity whose only audience is a sounding board are part of the problem not the solution.
You both are the reasons why we have presidential candidates like Biden and Trump, both inept. But instead of continuing to preach to your choir, how about trying to take off those tainted glasses and seek the truth?
Hey smart guy, you should probably know what you're talking about before you join my site just to troll. (I saw the new paid sub notice, and I'll gladly take your money, but you ain't getting a refund when you quit.) First, I'm not a lefty. I worked for a right-leaning magazine for twenty plus years. Second, I've done the pox on all sides quite a bit over my long career, so I don't really have "a choir." Unless you count free-thinkers, which you don't seem to be a member of. Third, it wasn't "his government." He was a Chilean-American. And fourth, you're doing a helluva lot of shilling yourself. Lira wasn't pure as the driven snow, like you're trying to make him sound. Nor was he a "journalist." According to outlets like the Daily Beast, he was a disinformation machine, a propagandizing crank who made wild, unsubstantiated claims, and just generally lied a lot to benefit the guy who was in the middle of invading their country. Some of those included:
1. Claiming Zelensky was a cokehead.
2. That Ukraine deliberately tried to cause a nuclear accident and pin it on Russia to drag America into the war.
3. That the invaders who killed Ukrainians by the truckload, indiscriminately bombing all manner of civilian targets, were taking pains not to harm civilians. (Meanwhile, entire villages were getting butchered.)
4. He peddled so many bonkers Russian conspiracies that one academic Ukraine expert here initially thought him a fictional person invented by the Kremlin to spread its message. (He wasn't, obviously.)
And that's just for starters. You try doing all that in America if we were getting invaded by Putin, and see how that goes for you. You wouldn't even make it to prison. You'd get the crap kicked out of you before you ever got there. You try doing that in Russia, and you'd be shot on the spot.
And all that said, I still said the circumstances of his death sounded fishy, and that "wrong is wrong." Couldn't have been much more emphatic. But you wanted the sanitized version of the Lira story so that you can put him in the Hall of Martyrs with Navalny. To each his own. But don't expect to peddle your propaganda around here without getting straightened out.
Did I strike a nerve there Matt? Maybe you should calm down a little before you respond. Read back over my responses and see where I said anything positive about Lira, other than he was critical of Ukraine policy and was imprisoned and killed for it. Nalvany was critical of Russian government and was killed for it. You can tell yourself your free thinker( best joke of the century) and keep believing it. I would suggest again take off your tainted glasses take a deep breath and re-examine your thought process. What I am simply doing is pointing out the disingenuous attitude of you and many others and the curious absence of any outrage over a man being killed for his political views just because you and others disagreed with him! Shame on you for devaluing one human life over another. And of course you automatically go to name calling.
I’m a troll because I called
You out on your BS and I’m not one of your mindless cheerleaders?
No, you didn't strike a nerve. You just got on my nerves with your haughty dishonesty. You made characterizations about both me and the matter at hand that were utterly false or grossly selective, and so I fact-checked you. Don't pick fights you can't win, dude. This is my house. And I'm not at all shy about cleaning it.
I make all the distinctions I make on an individual basis. And here, it's not because I think Ukraine is above reproach. They're not, they were a fairly corrupt country before they were unjustly invaded, which is probably why our tangelo-flavored ex-president thought he could lean on Ukraine's leader to dredge up dirt on his political enemy. (Which didn't work out so well. It ended in a failed impeachment trial, you'll recall.) It's just that Putin's more corrupt, and much more of a homicidal maniac, besides. A man who regularly snuffs his political enemies. And Ukraine didn't invade Russia, it was the other way around. I'm under no illusions that Ukraine is some Human Rights Paradise. And yet, if forced to choose, I still would rather live under Zelensky eight days a week over Putin. And you would, too, if you were being honest. Being honest, being something that Lira didn't much concern himself with. He lied without conscience, while real lives were at stake. So you'll excuse me if my "outrage" is a little more muted for him than it is for Navalny. Navalny was trying to save his country from a tyrant, and willingly walked back into the belly of the beast to do so AFTER he'd already been poisoned and nearly killed. Lira didn't give a wet shit if Ukrainians were getting killed all around him, so long as he could shine up the guys who were doing it. All, while (falsely) passing himself off as an objective observer. You ever heard of karma?
But I still said it was wrong and you refused to take yes for an answer. Even if I
I'm unaware of any proof, as of yet, that he was actually "murdered," in the active sense, as Navalny likely was. And I say that minus hard proof on Navalny, since Navalny had been poisoned before. Since Putin just promoted the guy who oversaw Navalny's imprisonment/torture. Since Russia refuses to release Navalny's body. And since he just issued a warrant for Navalny's brother's arrest. All of this, suggesting a certain amount of bad faith, wouldn't ya say? If it barks like a dog, it's usually a dog. But you wouldn't take yes for an answer on Lira because that would've gotten in the way of your petulant self-righteousness, which you were so eager to showcase, that you even paid five bucks for the privilege of insulting me, because free riders don't get to comment around here. In a way, I have to commend you. That's commitment!
But there is only one way Lira is similar to Navalny -- they both died in prison. And that very well might be the one and only similarity. Yes, all lives matter, and have inherent worth in God's eyes. Even if someone's a scumbag. But.........Lira should've recognized that very same notion as he was denying and actively lying about all the deaths of the people in his adopted country. Which weren't caused by Zelensky. They were caused by the guy Lira kept celebrating. I still say he shouldn't have died in prison. But he didn't extend that same generosity of spirit to the people who were dying all around him, who he lied about because they were inconveniences who got in the way of his (phony) political narrative.
Touché to the haughty dishonesty as it permeates your responses. I actually agree with some of what you said just now but I find you quite naive to think Zelensky is defending his country and cares about his people. If he cared about his people he would have negotiated a settlement 3 months in.
This is your site and you can kick me off if you like have it and keep preaching to your choir that worships you. You fact checked me? With your selective facts that fit your narrative ? Ok Matt sure!!! You know there is more to the story than just “Russia invaded Ukraine” it is not that black and white and you’re not that naive. I think you are intelligent enough to understand that.
Jeezuz H. Banana! I don't know how you can put up with such a duplicitous gas bag as this Paul G character, Matt. So you're a lefty, eh? Merely the flip side to that pro-MAGA sock puppet, Sean Hannity, while this Paul G dude poses as the dispassionate custodian of all that is objectively true???? What a hoot.
Please don't feel sorry for me, George. It's my calling, in a way. Some people's mission field is ministering to the needy or infirm. Mine is to minister to duplicitous gasbags.
Outstanding rebuttal, Matt. I had to lookup Lira when I first read the original post. As Cathy Young noted, he could have been deported to the US (perhaps not Hungary, since he wasn't their problem either) and the Zelensky gov't needs to be asked that question. But it does seem he violated a very narrow law in Ukraine and that their process was followed. To say that he was tortured and killed, when his own father indicates the "torture and killing" amounted to not administering the proper care for pneumonia (which I assume even a second-world, war-torn, nation like Ukraine could have administered) should be asked of Zelensky as well. All that said, he said and wrote horrible things about women and Jews. He needed a good old-fashioned ass-kicking if anything just for what he said about our mothers, wives, girlfriends, daughters. Maybe cosmic justice took care of that for us.
That said, I have no horse in the Russia-Ukraine race. I don't think we have a strategic interest in the latter. I do think, like Orwell wrote, we've always been at war with Eastasia, err, the Soviets, err Russia. The cold war has never really ended and I think our State Department continues to be configured in such a way to always be at war with Russia. The sooner we can un-elect politicians that were in place before the fall of the Soviet Union to the present day, the better we'll be.
Thanks, William. Though if Trump wins in November -- and doesn't end up in prison -- I don't think you'll have to worry about us being anywhere near war with Russia, Cold or proxy or otherwise. Instead, you'll have to worry about our new Russia policy. The one where Trump says, "How high?," and Putin says, "I haven't even told you to jump yet."
Trust me, I don't want another Trump presidency, even if I wanted the first one. I think the coalition lining up behind him in terms of MAGA, Christian Nationalists, QANON'ers are bat-shit crazy. They will literally impose a Handmaid's Tale Gilead environment on the women in this nation. No, they need to get their asses thoroughly kicked once and for all this November, so that rational, adult, Republicans can reclaim the party. I just have never liked going toe-to-toe with the only other nuclear power that can wipe us off the map, no matter who is in charge over there. I believe the nuclear clock is still 90-seconds to midnight, which is worse than when the greatest heavy-metal band of all time - Iron Maiden - sang Two Minutes to Midnight back in 1984.
Thank you for that poignant comparison of hearts.
Sneaker Salesman!
Thank you Matt. Yes, for the good to do nothing. The Second Coming by Yeats ends similarly. How often must we be reminded by the living dead, like Navalny, that our very lives are in peril. When justice prevails, it's an American tragedy, when people get a hand up, it's the progressive ruin of the Nation, when the truth is manifest its a damn Liberal lie and on and on. I am a bit reminded of a Kingston Trio song, The John Birch Society. " We'll teach you how to spot em,
In the city or the sticks - for even Jasper Junction is just full of liberal dicks, the CIAs subversive and so is the FCC. There's no one left but we and thee and we're not sure of thee!!" Minor lyrics adjustment to replace Bolsheviks with liberal dicks - seems timely.
A student in my class asked if we could talk about MAGA and how we're supposed to be understanding and civil with it/them. He couldn't know how gut wrenching that question is to me. I am enraged by this uncivil, voodoo curse that's been willingly cast upon millions of people.
I always commend reason. I try to always be on the side of rationality. I can't this time. There's nothing coming from me other than bile and barred teeth.
I'm lost. I can't make any sense of it. How can this one waste of protoplasm hold the attention of this many cerebral sausages for so long? I have no effing idea! The Huckster and Fools have commingled into an incestuous relationship that can't be unknotted.
Gotta go... gotta spit in someone's eye.
In the history of non sequiturs, none is more cognitively dissonant than that you have just posted of the Tangerine Emperor making fleeting mention of Alexei Navalny’s “sudden death” — or, as virtually the entirety of the free world would describe it, cold-blooded murder — only to somehow tie it to everything Trump thinks is wrong about America. Of course, the Marmalade Messiah wouldn’t know a non sequitur if Melania used one of her stilettos to hit him square in his jowly, orange-powdered mug with one. Russia has had its moral giants, Solzhenitsyn and Sharansky are just a couple. Alexei Navalny eclipses them both. Navalny’s moral courage and life legacy will live on long after the toxin of Trump’s MAGAism finally leaches out of this country’s civic culture. Whenever that day comes, it can’t come soon enough.
I lived in Russia for many years in the 80s as a diplomat. A horrible place. Amazing to see Putin crank back up the secret police and the assassinations of days of yore.
I'm beside myself losing my hero Navalny. Before it all ends, I may lose my only other hero, Zalenski, with Congress withholding military support. (Funny things happen in a war when you have no artillery shells to fire back. The South Vietnamese Army held the North Vietnamese Army at bay for two years after we scooted out in '73. Until Congress cut off supplying, you guessed it, artillery shells.)
To be a "peacemaker," will Trump cut off weapons for Ukraine, and force Ukraine to reward Putin with Crimea and other chunks of territory.? Will Trump largely abandon the NATO alliance? Will he get a Nobel Peace Prize for all this?
Is that how we make America great again?
My political party is for a strong defense, and not some pouting isolationism. Gotta find out where my party went. Matt, should I just write in Santa Clause this year?
Of course, I could vote for Biden, who will assuredly be carted off for cause well within the next 24 months to an old age home. Then we'll have President Kamala, who it is whispered in Washington, is an incompetent Leona Helmsley.
Join me for a little swig of Novichok?
I lived in Russia from 2007 to 2017 and Russia got better for awhile until Putin decided he wanted his Empire back. My first vote for President was Ronald Reagan, and as he said of the other party, "I didn't leave them, they left me." The same is true of the Republicans for me today. I don't agree with everything Biden and Kamala want and do, but we do share one basic. belief. We believe in America and Democracy, and today's Republicans don't seem to believe in either. After Biden wins in 2024, and secures our democracy, I will be happy to go back to fighting about income distribution and taxes in 2028.
Wow. Well stated Brian. I'm with you.
From your comment, I'm surprised you haven't abandoned your old political party, as a lot of us have. My father's & grandfather's Republican party died a long time ago. Join us in saving democracy by reelecting Joe Biden, who has been a good President. Actually, if you read a list of his accomplishments, he's been a very good President.
Skip the Novichok & subscribe to Jessica Craven's newsletter "Chop Wood, Carry Water". Every day she lists things any one of us can do to help save democracy. Do it!
Subscribed for great insightful (often inspirational) essays. Nothing but pessimism and hate of late.
We contain multitudes. These are dark times. I don't make them, I just live in them.. But try this:
https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/be-this-guy-instead-of-the-angry
Or this:
https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/on-writing-part-deux
Or this:
https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/hope-floats
Or this:
https://mattlabash.substack.com/p/trees-of-life
And that's just the last two months.
Trees of Life bought two subscriptions! Loved "Be this guy . . ." as well--great lesson.
I guess the darkness I've seen (sharing some personality traits, I believe) has eclipse the rays of hope . . ..
Thanks for measured response!
Yes, Pro, I'm not beating you up. I appreciate the patronage. But I'm not the Hallmark Channel, either. We aim to address the whole range of human experience around here. Sometimes light, sometimes dark. Like the prophet Townes Van Zandt saith, "There ain't no dark 'til something shines/I'm bound to leave the dark behind." And when a light like Navalny is snuffed out by a tyrant and his enablers, I have no problem going dark. In fact, you might call it something like a moral duty.
I understand you get to write what you want to write. I somehow missed the Tree story the first time around, and I'm very grateful to have seen it referenced here so I could read it.
However dark our world is or becomes, it's the Tree stories, the Bluebird stories, and especially each and every mention of your dog-stories, that I cherish. Thank you for sharing your gift of translating the world you see into such evocative words with us. I sincerely hope whenever we're rid of Trump the Trees to ... impassioned-comments-on-current-events-ratio ticks up. I suspect we'll both be happier in this space whenever, at long last, that does happen.
Please do not mistake this for criticism - it is not that. It's just appreciation for the way you can philosophically frame the natural world into sentiments that, I truly think, help us see and experience the world the way that you do. That's pretty cool. And something I look forward to enjoying more of.
Matt if I might provide a bit more perspective on this, from a different six string poet (Jason Isbell, as you know):
“And we don't take requests
We won't shut up and sing
Tell the truth enough
You'll find it rhymes with everything”
This piece rhymes throughout. Thank you.
Yes, Tim, I like that song, too.
Mother Russia sometimes has a way of leaving a very strong impression on her children. I once met an Orthodox priest, Father Boris was his name, out Siberia way. He had been imprisoned in the Gulag and subsequently escaped from Russia. After enjoying his freedom for a while, like Navalny, he felt compelled to return to Russia and minister there.
He was renowned in that area because he lent out his church building to the Baptists and the Adventists when they had no place for their Christmas Eve services. I'm not so sure what the Orthodox powers in Moscow thought about that move, but I'm rather certain what the Powers in heaven thought about it. At our only meeting, and knowing nothing about me, Father Boris asked me to offer the prayer for the evening meal.
When I think about these two Russian men, I wish only that I had half of their courage. Of such is the Kingdom of Heaven..
Thank you Matt, what an awesome guy
I bookmarked the interview, I will watch it later
John Donne would like to retract something he once said.
Spot on, Matt.
I have grown increasingly tired of neo-fascists wrapping themselves in the flag, hanging a crucifix around their necks, and proclaiming themselves patriots and Christians. I call bullshit. To which their apologists say, "well, you don't know what's in their hearts." As if I give ,00473 of a shit what's in their hearts. What matters is not what they feel, is not even what they (if you'll pardon the expression) think. It is what they do. If you eschew the Constitution, excuse the hell out of me, but you are not a patriot. If you bear false witness, if you ignore the very core of Christian teaching, then you are no Christian, regardless of the quantity or blinginess of your cruciform jewelry.
Many of us who oppose the GOP's drift toward authoritarianism argue that we oughtn't call attention to the vapidity of the MAGgots stances, 'cause donchaknow they've run to Trump because those who take the sapiens part of our Linnaean classification seriously look at them askance. And I call bullshit again. Pretending that there is a rational argument for Trumpism that is consistent with either American or Christian values insults everyone's intelligence, not least of which theirs. Time to speak the truth.
When I consider the sacrifices made by so very many of our forebears in juxtaposition to the facile blatherings of these nitwits it makes my blood boil.
Amen
Right on!
In remembrance…
https://youtu.be/jsVieeccpQs?si=OaMssRtWJfPJAHSq
You can blow out a candle
But you can't blow out a fire
Once the flames begin to catch
The wind will blow it higher
- Peter Gabriel
Succinct. And spot on.