The Peanut Gallery: Biden Places Ukraine Front and Center in Powerful State of the Union Address
March 9, 2024
Welcome to the Peanut Gallery! Today we’re going to ramble.
Please remember that I know nothing.
Good evening.
Mr. Speaker. Madam Vice President. Members of Congress. My Fellow Americans.
In January 1941, President Franklin Roosevelt came to this chamber to speak to the nation.
He said, “I address you at a moment unprecedented in the history of the Union.”
Hitler was on the march. War was raging in Europe.
President Roosevelt’s purpose was to wake up the Congress and alert the American people that this was no ordinary moment.
Freedom and democracy were under assault in the world.
Tonight I come to the same chamber to address the nation.
Now it is we who face an unprecedented moment in the history of the Union.
And yes, my purpose tonight is to both wake up this Congress, and alert the American people that this is no ordinary moment either.
Not since President Lincoln and the Civil War have freedom and democracy been under assault here at home as they are today.
What makes our moment rare is that freedom and democracy are under attack, both at home and overseas, at the very same time.
Overseas, Putin of Russia is on the march, invading Ukraine and sowing chaos throughout Europe and beyond.
If anybody in this room thinks Putin will stop at Ukraine, I assure you, he will not.
But Ukraine can stop Putin if we stand with Ukraine and provide the weapons it needs to defend itself. That is all Ukraine is asking.
Biden gets it.
America isn’t perfect—I believe that’s evident for all to see at this point. But we are aware of her imperfections. Painfully aware. The ideals set forth by our nation’s founders are inherently ill-defined and unobtainable.
Freedom, right? What the fuck does that word even mean? Are we in keeping with that ideal if we enslave our fellow man? Take away his gun? Tax him? See, the problem with the Revolutionary War is that it set a precedent. We (read: France) beat the British, therefore we’ve won the war. We’ve accomplished the Revolution and secured Liberty and Justice For All.
America expected the Big Rock Candy Mountain.. But instead of paradise, we discovered an endless legion of questions—none of which had easy answers.
Questions like,
Blacks. Human?
Women: History’s Most Versatile Kitchen Appliance. We know they can feel, but can they...think?
Wait, we did what to Native Americans?
Real head-scratchers.
America beats itself up because we didn’t institute above from the outset, yet we fail to acknowledge that neither did anyone else. We established a contraption for ourselves, a system to institute change, and expected the machine we built to work and keep working. That’s not how this whole ‘democracy’ thing operates, though. We need to change its oil, rotate the tires, and sweep the front seat of takeout bags. It's a lot of work and it takes most of our time.
But while maintenance is important, so too is perspective. Every election, we decide where we go as a country, our ultimate destination, because without one all of this work we do means nothing. Every so often America needs to acknowledge what we've accomplished. We freed the slaves, gave women the vote, and...handed Native Americans a weird guilt-enforced monopoly on gambling. My point is that we are growing as a country and as a people. It's slow, but it's real.
About ninety years ago we were financially destitute, deep in the heart of the Great Depression. We suffered a financial crash, driven, in part, by unfettered speculation powered by an ever-increasing wealth disparity. Our crash precipitated a global downturn, one which antagonized the revanchism of a defeated and humiliated foe. An autocrat rose to power, secured their regime, and turned expansionist. First they started small, then overreached. The script is the same, only this time we—the world, actually—chose to step in. In this go around we're stopping Hitler in Czechoslovakia, rather than waiting for him to poke Poland.
Ukrainian forces reportedly conducted drone strikes targeting Rostov Oblast overnight on March 8-9 and may have struck a Russian aircraft plant refurbishing and modernizing Russian A-50 long range radar detection aircraft.
Woah! Nelly! Another strike deep in Russia proper, this time a massed swarm of drones by the sounds of things.
Unfortunately the efficacy looks to be suspect. Ukraine isn’t announcing a hit, and you can’t ever believe anything that comes out of the Kremlin’s mouth, so we’ve got nothing to go on. Maybe a drone struck something expensive? Someone-somewhere definitely shit their pants, that much feels certain. It’d hard not to with explosive drones falling out of the sky like mortar shells.
Still, if Ukraine can do it once they can do it twice, so Putin might wish to consider moving his A-50's repair yard somewhere that isn’t within spitting distance of the border. Just saying.
Ukrainian Tavriisk Group of Forces Spokesperson Dmytro Lykhovyi stated on March 8 that the situation in the Avdiivka direction has stabilized and that Russian forces are currently only achieving localized marginal advances.
And just like that the Avdiivka offensive slows to a crawl. I suppose it served Putin’s ends: a pleasant headline...in exchange for sixteen thousand lives. The Russian “election” is next week, after which he can finally stop pretending like he gives a shit. Not that it was anything more than a thin veneer this year, anyway.
The war seems to be settling into a bit of a lull. Moscow’s Avdiivka push is all out of steam, and Kyiv is still waiting for Washington to get its shit together.
Russian authorities in Moscow Oblast created “training programs” for people potentially considering adopting illegally deported Ukrainian children in Russia.[80] The program reportedly falsely conflates Ukrainian and Russian culture. The program reportedly tells participants that their main objective is to create a “second homeland” for Ukrainian children in Russia and that they will need to overcome “difficulties in international differences.” Participants of the training program must undergo interviews in which Russian authorities ask if they have Ukrainian friends and relatives. ISW continues to assess that the forced deportation and adoption of Ukrainian children likely amounts to a violation of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide.
Please give Ukraine what they need to bring this war to an end.
‘Q’ for the Community:
Ukraine says Russia is preparing for a larger offensive this spring / summer. Do you think Russia has enough left in the tank to pull it off?
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