(C) Daily Kos This story was originally published by Daily Kos and is unaltered. . . . . . . . . . . Slava Ukraini: The world is at a turning point, and the voices of the past must be heeded [1] ['Daily Kos Staff', 'Backgroundurl Avatar_Large', 'Nickname', 'Joined', 'Created_At', 'Story Count', 'N_Stories', 'Comment Count', 'N_Comments', 'Popular Tags'] Date: 2023-02-24 “When Putin launched his invasion nearly one year ago, he thought Ukraine was weak and the West was divided. He thought he could outlast us. But he was dead wrong,” he added. “Over the last year, the United States has built a coalition of nations from the Atlantic to the Pacific to help defend Ukraine with unprecedented military, economic, and humanitarian support—and that support will endure.” He then got back on that train on another 10-hour journey to Poland, then on to Warsaw, and gave the speech that might well come to define his presidency. When Russia invaded, it wasn’t just Ukraine being tested. The whole world faced a test for the ages. Europe was being tested. America was being tested. NATO was being tested. All democracies were being tested. And the questions we faced were as simple as they were profound. Would we respond or would we look the other way? Would we be strong or would we be weak? Would we be—all of our allies—would be united or divided? One year later, we know the answer. We did respond. We would be strong. We would be united. And the world would not look the other way. In it you hear the cadence of FDR, in his address to Congress after his return from Yalta, the city in Crimea, Ukraine, where he, Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Marshal Josef Stalin met to shape Europe following Hitler’s then-inevitable defeat. Of course, we know that it was Hitler's hope—and the German war lords'—that we would not agree, that some slight crack might appear in the solid wall of Allied unity, a crack that would give him and his fellow gangsters one last hope of escaping their just doom. That is the objective for which his propaganda machine has been working for many months. But Hitler has failed. Never before have the major Allies been more closely united—not only in their war aims but also in their peace aims. And they are determined to continue to be united with each other—and with all peace-loving Nations—so that the ideal of lasting peace will become a reality. Echoes, as well, of JFK in his June 1963 speech at the Rudolph Wilde Platz in Berlin: Freedom has many difficulties and democracy is not perfect, but we have never had to put a wall up to keep our people in, to prevent them from leaving us. I want to say, on behalf of my countrymen, who live many miles away on the other side of the Atlantic, who are far distant from you, that they take the greatest pride that they have been able to share with you, even from a distance, the story of the last 18 years. I know of no town, no city, that has been besieged for 18 years that still lives with the vitality and the force, and the hope and the determination of the city of West Berlin. While the wall is the most obvious and vivid demonstration of the failures of the Communist system, for all the world to see, we take no satisfaction in it, for it is, as your Mayor has said, an offense not only against history but an offense against humanity, separating families, dividing husbands and wives and brothers and sisters, and dividing a people who wish to be joined together. These presidents articulated challenges as well, challenges Biden knows intimately. FDR had to remind on his return that the “slightest remark in either House of the Congress is known all over the world the following day. We will continue to exert that influence, only if we are willing to continue to share in the responsibility for keeping the peace. It will be our own tragic loss, I think, if we were to shirk that responsibility.” Imagine there being a pro-Hitler faction of Congress holding one whole chamber, as the pro-Putin Republicans have seized control of the Speaker of the House in 2023. None of these are speeches of victory. FDR knew that while Germany was defeated in practice, it would continue to fight and that the war in the Pacific with Japan still raged. JFK was well aware that Berlin was to be divided for the foreseeable future, and the cold war was at one of its hottest points. He had already sent U.S. military personnel to train South Vietnamese soldiers and knew that a shooting war involving U.S. troops was becoming inevitable. This is where the rhetoric meets the road for all three presidents, and where Biden and the NATO leaders need to carry in their minds the whole of this history. Here’s FDR: The Conference in the Crimea was a turning point—I hope in our history and therefore in the history of the world. There will soon be presented to the Senate of the United States and to the American people a great decision that will determine the fate of the United States—and of the world—for generations to come. There can be no middle ground here. We shall have to take the responsibility for world collaboration, or we shall have to bear the responsibility for another world conflict. Here is how JFK concluded, acknowledging that the struggle continued : Freedom is indivisible, and when one man is enslaved, all are not free. When all are free, then we can look forward to that day when this city will be joined as one and this country and this great Continent of Europe in a peaceful and hopeful globe. When that day finally comes, as it will, the people of West Berlin can take sober satisfaction in the fact that they were in the front lines for almost two decades. All free men, wherever they may live, are citizens of Berlin, and, therefore, as a free man, I take pride in the words "Ich bin ein Berliner." The legacy of the Yalta conference and the decision there to cede Poland to Stalin was the rise of another authoritarian power—the power that divided Berlin when JFK spoke there 18 years later. The vestiges of that authoritarian power that Vladimir Putin has stoked back into existence, in no small part as revenge for the humiliation and anger he and other Soviet leaders felt when the wall came down, the USSR dissolved, and Central and Eastern Europe finally broke free. History is a messy, complicated problem when it comes to making peace. The nearly immediate implosion of the former Yugoslavia after the wall came down is a testament to that—ethnic and religious grudges dating to medieval times. The modern history of the aftermath of Germany’s defeat was presaged in Yalta, the bloody proxy wars of the cold war a testament. There was a sense of all that in Biden’s speech in Warsaw, an acknowledgment that this is another critical point in the making of history, that Russia’s unprovoked invasion of Ukraine one year ago today marked the next phase of history for the world. How the world responds to that, how we at home respond to the resurgence of fascism here, will define this new age. [END] --- [1] Url: https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2023/2/24/2154676/-Slava-Ukraini-The-world-is-at-a-turning-point-and-the-voices-of-the-past-must-be-heeded Published and (C) by Daily Kos Content appears here under this condition or license: Site content may be used for any purpose without permission unless otherwise specified. via Magical.Fish Gopher News Feeds: gopher://magical.fish/1/feeds/news/dailykos/