HE OR SHE WHO DENIES ENDS UP BY TELLING LIES — IT'S THAT SIMPLE!

By Edwin Cooney

I probably take too much pride in bragging about my positive and forward-looking nature. I'll probably continue to insist, despite what I'm about to relate to you, that optimism is one of the "better angels” of my nature.

My visit to Northern California to see my two lads, their ladies, my three granddaughters and one great grandson was supposed to go from Wednesday, April 13th through Tuesday, April 19th. While there, I also hoped to have meals and "some good cheer" with several friends. Much to my chagrin, Covid violated my denial system, thereby causing me to put the health of some mighty precious people at risk.

Between Wednesday and Saturday, I began to feel sluggish and a tad achy. The feeling was the most intense on Saturday and I should have asked my son to test me for Covid that day, but I didn't so he didn't. All the family came for Easter dinner and we all had a good time. There were hugs, much nearness, and numerous photographs taken all day. Sunday night, feeling less than energetic, I asked to be tested for Covid after all had left and was twice obliged. The results were positive and I had to face the very unpleasant reality that I had carelessly exposed my most precious people to Covid-19. Naughty! Selfish! Self-indulgent dad, granddad, great granddad, and friend! 

Of course, I had fully exercised my freedom to decide for myself whether or not I was sick, but in so doing, I endangered the health and safety of others. I had no constitutional or other moral right to endanger anyone else’s well-being!

My symptoms were minor. I had no shortness of breath, I coughed little if at all, and I certainly did not need to be hospitalized. Fortunately, even now, a week later, I haven’t heard that any friend or family member has also come down with Covid.

It's possible and even likely that had I been tested the day of my departure, I would not have tested positive for the disease, but I'm certain that had I been tested on Easter Eve, I would have.

The only upside for me is that I got to spend two additional days with my lads and with my younger son's very sweet lady Alondra who, as of this week, is a reader of these weekly musings!

My sad and sorry behavior requires me to ask this inevitable question once again:

How often, when we take into account our demand for individual freedom, do we concern ourselves sufficiently with the freedom and comfort of others?

This last week I badly failed as a good citizen and as a human being! What I wanted to be real wasn't at all real! My intentions might have been both genuine and good, but both you and I know that the road to disaster is paved with good intentions!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

IT'S ALL ABOUT YOU — IT'S GOTTA BE — IT'S BASEBALL, AFTER ALL!

By Edwin Cooney

Who says Americans hate to be snookered? Every time a baseball fan turns on a radio, or television or signs on to a computer or phone, he or she is welcomed to the broadcast of “your" New York Yankees or Mets, or “your” Dodgers or Angels, Giants or Cubs. Hence, for at least the next three or four hours, "your" major league baseball team either thrills you with its inevitable winning destiny or, like the old Brooklyn Dodgers between 1941 and 1955, insists that you “wait till next year!”

Even more than a "game of inches" (as some call it), baseball's inevitably a game of personal identification. According to a recent Forbes magazine statistic, there are only 442 billionaires currently living in America. Hell! That won't even fill Yankee Stadium! There are, however (I’m guessing, of course), say 50,000,000 baseball fans at least and several million believe that they listen or watch their “own” Yankees, Red Sox, Dodgers, Angels, Cubs, Giants or Cardinals on a daily basis.

I've “owned” the Yankees since my far from wealthy Uncle Joe gave them to me in the summer of 1954. I've only met two Yankee players: I met Elston Howard in February of 1964 when he spoke at a Robert Morris School sports dinner in Batavia, New York. Then, in 1981, I met Billy Martin when he was managing the Oakland Athletics to a remarkable season that ultimately took the A’s to the playoffs where they lost to — you guessed it! — the New York Yankees. Once, as a teenager when Roger Maris hit a homer, I jumped up and down yelling, "That's my Roger!”  Well — he wasn't “my” Roger any more than the Yankees were “my” Yankees. Even today, in anticipation of the new season, I'm longing to hear that Aaron Judge, the 6 foot 7 inch, 282 pound slugger and defensive phenomenon, has signed a long-term Yankees contract that will keep him in pinstripes for another six, eight, or even ten years. It hasn't occurred as I write this and I'm anxious.

As I've written in these pages in recent years, the more I know about any player, the closer I feel to the game. I don't know as much about Aaron Judge as I'd like to and some of what I've heard lately has been a little disheartening. First, he says he wants to be a Yankee until he retires. The Yankees (unofficially, of course) say they want him to be a Yankee as long as he plays. Yet, they haven't agreed on a one-year extension of his contract and may even have to go to arbitration to settle it. So, one wonders, if they can't agree on a one-year extension, what would help them agree? Then there's the fact that Aaron Judge hasn't gotten the vaccine to prevent Covid. One has to wonder if this is a matter of religion versus science or, even worse, if my hero is a “Donald Trump” type? Finally, on the subject of Aaron Judge, I'm pleased to know that he got married to his longtime sweetheart, 28-year-old Samantha Bracksieck, last December 12th in Hawaii.

I'm far, far from alone as I anticipate the season's first pitch of 2022. There's so much to look forward to since the designated hitter has finally encompassed all of baseball making more jobs for older players who have the blessed gift of hitting but who don't run or field as well as the average player. After all, Ted Williams asserted throughout his career and life that hitting a baseball is the hardest single thing to do in sports! It's only right that an older player who has the ability to hit a baseball get to play until he is as old as football quarterback Tom Brady who may well be playing until he's 70! Other changes include wider bases. Also, more teams will be eligible to participate in the playoffs. Then, there's the introduction recently of PitchCom, a wearable communication device that enables players to send encrypted signs to each other during games which can't be “stolen” by the other team. A manager can signal a baserunner when to run and when not to, for example. (This is potentially game-changing technology.)

For some years now, women have been entering major league baseball through the broadcast booth and the public address systems in the big league ballparks with Yankees’ broadcaster Suzyn Waldman probably the most prominent among them. Finally and most dramatically, on Monday, January 11th, 2022, the Yankees announced that Rachel Balkovec will manage the Single-A Tampa Tarpons, the Yankee's affiliate in the Florida State League.

Like everything in life, baseball is both old and new, thrilling and disappointing, all at the same time. Since I began writing this two days ago, I've learned that Aaron Judge and the Yankees were unable to strike a deal and therefore my favorite Yankee may play with another team beginning in 2023! I'll just have to let myself enjoy to the max the time he remains with the team and pray that he decides before 2023 to continue being a superstar for the Yankees! As I asserted at the outset, baseball is very, very personal!

I have a friend who reads these columns from time to time. I'll call him “Massachusetts Ken.” He thinks his father gave him the Yankees around 1958, but he's since become a Red Sox rooter. So, they're all mine now, Ken!

Part of being a fan or  “fanatic” is the submergence and then the return of reality. It can at times be as personal as a body blow, but that's up to you! That's what makes it so personal!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY  

WELCOME TO THE ERA OF POLITICAL PAYBACK!

By Edwin Cooney

I hope you often wonder why Congress isn't generally working for you and me! I'm convinced I know the answer, but before I tell you, I will first make my case with a set of questions.

(1.) Why does the party which is out of executive power offer their version of the State of the Union? After all, the Constitution requires the president to give such an annual report. According to senate.gov, until 1966, following President Lyndon B. Johnson's moving the State of the Union address from afternoon to evening thus tripling the national audience through television, Senator Everett M. Dirksen and House Minority Leader Gerald R. Ford took advantage of equal time rules for national radio and television to respond to LBJ thus politically institutionalizing the president's constitutionally required obligation. It was indeed an advantageous breakthrough for the national political circus! 

(2.) What were the political forces that prevented LBJ from successfully confirming Abe Fortas and, later, Homer Thornberry to the Supreme Court in 1968? Besides the fact that both men were political and social rogues, Southern Conservatives and GOP Conservatives were determined to blunt the “progressive" agenda and power of the Warren court.

(3.) Why were Judges G. Harrold Carswell and Clement Haynsworth, President Nixon's first two "strict constructionist” nominees to the Supreme Court, rejected by the U. S. Senate in 1969 and 1970? The answer is that Democratic Senate leaders were suspicious of President Nixon's political "southern strategy” when it came to both politics and jurisprudence.

(4.) Why did Congress reject President Nixon's “Family Assistance Plan” which included a strong healthcare program? The primary reason was because Senator Edward M. Kennedy considered healthcare his bailiwick, not Nixon's! Hence, Senators Birch Bayh, Mike Mansfield, and others were determined to keep healthcare a Democratic issue rather than a Republican one!    

(5.) Why, primarily, did the Democratic Senate block the confirmation of Robert Bork to the Supreme Court in 1987? There were two reasons for that. The first was Bork's opposition to Roe vs. Wade. More importantly, Robert Bork as acting Attorney General in 1973 had done Nixon's "dastardly dirty work" when he officially dismissed Archibald Cox and William Ruckelshaus during the infamous “Saturday Night Massacre” of October 20th, 1973. (Note: Though I now shamefully bare this prejudice against Bork's Saturday night skullduggery, during the confirmation hearing I thoroughly enjoyed Bork's scholarly explanation as he steadily puffed on cigarettes throughout his testimony. He should have been confirmed because he was highly qualified and intellectually honest. Besides, he was legally within his right to dismiss Cox and Ruckelshaus not having been a part of the original agreement that appointed Cox as Watergate special prosecutor and Ruckelshaus as his assistant in May of 1973.)

(6.) What lay behind the Congress’s chronic opposition to President Bill Clinton's presidential incumbency? The answer is twofold. Bill Clinton was a draft evader. He was also a womanizer. Republicans insisted throughout his presidency that one of these tendencies was unpatriotic and the other was immoral. All Republicans were thus patriotically and morally superior to President Bill Clinton.

(7.) Why did the Conservative-oriented Supreme Court stop the vote counting in Florida in December of 2000? Since Associate Justice Sandra Day O’Connor was planning to retire, a Democratic president may well have endangered the Conservative majority on the high court.

(8.) Why did the GOP Senate (which had considered itself the “guardian” of constitutional law and order since the days that FDR sought to pack the court) deny Merrick Garland even a hearing for confirmation to the Supreme Court in 2016? The answer is pure and simple politics. They did it because they had the votes and the will to do it. It certainly had nothing to do with patriotism or national security!

(9.) Why did the United States Senate twice declare President Donald J. Trump not guilty of high crimes and misdemeanors? For the same reason that the 1999 session of the Senate declared Bill Clinton not guilty of the same: because they had the votes and the will! (Note: I'm convinced that President William Jefferson Clinton was guilty of obstruction of justice and Al Gore should have been the 43rd President of the United States of America!)

(10.) It's likely, unless the Democrats make a huge political issue of it during the coming campaign, that the GOP —  with majorities in both houses — will stop pursuing what occurred on January 6th, 2021, thus freeing Donald Trump of all responsibility and, above all, accountability for clearly conspiratorial sedition!

During this past week, we heard a Republican Senator admit that although Ketanji Jackson Brown is fully qualified to be an Associate Justice of the Supreme Court, he won't vote for her — probably because QAnon won't support her either. NUTS!

Moral and political objectivity and judgment have, during recent decades,  been literally choked to death by both hands of all parties.  The fingers of these choking hands have been conservatism, liberalism, progressivism, isolationism, imperialism, materialism, greed, and ambition. The thumbs of these hands have been fear and prejudice. The palms of these hands have been hatred and self-centeredness.

Perfection is, of course, beyond human capacity. Still, we're at this sorry pass because we've become disciples rather than mere advocates of our rights. Even worse, it often appears that no one else's rights, feelings or even existence much matters to us!

Here's an irony for you! Robert Bork's most famous — or infamous — book is 

“Slouching Towards Gomorrah: Modern Liberalism and American Decline.” Personally, I'd substitute the word “liberalism” with the phrase “self-righteous-ism.”  

"Slouching towards Gomorrah: Modern Self-Righteous-ism and American Decline."

Robert Bork's identification of "liberalism" being the cause of American decline is way too narrow a charge. Unfortunately in 21st century America, too many of us have substituted love of political doctrine and even our favorite political party for love of country and love for one another!  

What say you?

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

HIS NAME WAS STEPHEN BUT PEOPLE CALLED HIM GROVER!

By Edwin Cooney

Stephen Grover Cleveland was born Thursday, March 18th, 1837 in Caldwell, New Jersey, the son of the Reverend Richard Falley and Ann (Neal) Cleveland. Richard Cleveland was a Presbyterian minister throughout his son’s youth. Young Cleveland was 16 when his father died in 1853. Later that year, a friend arranged for him to teach reading, writing and arithmetic at the New York Institute for the Blind. (He only taught there for a short time and I've read no details of what he taught or how he taught it!) By the 1860s, he was practicing law in Buffalo, New York.

The 1860s were Civil War years and Cleveland was certainly physically and mentally strong enough to fight, but when he was drafted in 1863, he legally, under the Conscription Act, paid a 32-year-old Polish immigrant, George Benninsky,  $150 to go to war in his place.

By 1870, he was the elected sheriff of Erie County, New York. One of his duties as sheriff was that of executing convicted killers. Patrick Morrissey, who stabbed his mother to death, and Jack Gaffrey, who shot a man during a card game, were hanged by Grover Cleveland.

When Grover Cleveland ran for Mayor of Buffalo in 1881 and for Governor of New York in 1882, he was regarded as a reform-minded Democratic candidate.

There were two primary differences between the GOP and the Democratic Party in the 1880s. The Republicans’ idea of reform was to pay out large, private pensions to Civil War veterans. Reform-minded Democrats believed in cutting government costs at all levels. Republicans believed in a high tariff to protect industries from competition at home. Democrats believed that lower tariffs would increase agriculture markets abroad. However, both parties competed to put together the best Civil Service program.

In 1884, Governor Cleveland faced James G. Blaine, former Secretary of State under the late and martyred James A. Garfield. Both men were of high quality but each had a scandal.

It was revealed early in the campaign that Grover Cleveland had fathered a little boy named Oscar by a woman named Maria Halpin and was supporting the child. Governor Cleveland openly admitted it. James G. Blaine's "corruption" was financial and had to do with the misappropriation of public monies. Hence one commentator suggested that since Blaine was a superb citizen and since Cleveland was a superb public servant, each man should be encouraged by voters to continue serving in the aspects of life they best exemplified.

Grover Cleveland would serve two nonconsecutive terms as president, 1885 to 1889 and 1893 to 1897. On Wednesday, June 2nd, 1886, Cleveland would become the second president to marry while in office. (John Tyler was the first president to so do on Wednesday, June 26th, 1844.) Cleveland's bride was the 21-year-old Frances Folsom, the daughter of one of Cleveland's late law partners, whom Cleveland had supported as a ward throughout her childhood in Buffalo, New York.

Cleveland's first term was marked by the strengthening of the civil service system, the creation of the Bureau of Indian Affairs and Cleveland's introduction of the low tariff which led to his defeat by Benjamin Harrison in 1888. Cleveland won the popular vote, 5,534,488 to Harrison's 5,443,892. However, Cleveland won more states 20 to 18, but Harrison won the states with the most electoral votes, 232 to 168. In 1892, Cleveland won both the popular and the electoral vote, thereby becoming both our 22nd and 24th president.

Grover Cleveland, a Democrat, didn't believe that the government should serve the working man or any other man. In his second Inaugural Address, he asserted that the people should support the government rather than the other way around. Ironically, during his first administration, the Interstate Commerce Commission, the first strictly regulatory federal agency ever created, was passed! Also, Cleveland, who considered himself a "working man's president" and who ultimately proclaimed Labor Day a national holiday, sent federal troops into Chicago in 1894 to quell the famous Pullman Strike. Grover Cleveland was also considered a “gold democrat” who was in opposition to the “silver democrats” who supported William Jennings Bryan in 1896. Nor was Cleveland sympathetic to labor as it developed under such leaders as Samuel Gompers and Eugene V. Debs.

Woodrow Wilson would eventually assert that Cleveland was ultimately  more of a Republican than he ever was a Democrat.

Still, with all of these seeming contradictions, Grover Cleveland is considered a "near great president."

He and Francis would have three daughters and two sons. Their oldest daughter Ruth would always be known as "Baby" Ruth. Born between Cleveland's two terms in New York, her health was always frail and she died at age 12 in 1904. The “Baby Ruth” candy bar would be named after her.

Grover Cleveland would have still another distinction. He was the sixth cousin once removed of Ulysses S. Grant. Whether or not they ever met, I haven't a clue!

Grover Cleveland died at 8:40 p.m.on Wednesday, June 24th, 1908 at his Princeton, New Jersey home.

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY 

COMMON SENSE — IT DOESN'T MAKE SENSE TO ME!

By Edwin Cooney

Come on now, be truthful! What's usually going through your mind when you say to someone "have a little common sense”  or “use your common sense”?

Most people who utter those interminably boring words to me are usually frustrated because I don't, didn't, or won't think, say, do, or believe what they think, do, or say they will do because they believe something or other!

I'll never deny that I feel a high degree of gratification when people agree with me, because agreement is wonderful intellectual and emotional reinforcement of a strong belief or set of beliefs. More than once as a parent, I urged my lads to use their "common sense" especially when it came to their behavior in and around school or towards their mother.

A person I love and respect almost beyond expression insists that common sense is merely "the ability to think and behave in a reasonable way and to make good decisions." Then she chides me, "What's wrong with that?"

What's the matter with it is largely its application. "Use your common sense” is a command, even a demand. On reflection, I've come to realize that to urge the use of anyone's "common sense" is largely not instructional. More than that, such an instruction comes from a place of superiority. Beyond that, it's demanding and it intensifies disagreement or conflict rather than alleviating it. Finally, it's confrontational and authoritative rather than either supportive or encouraging. After all, the value or applicability of your behavior is inevitably subject to how others see your application of "common sense” as opposed to how you view your own behavior. If your "common sense" says vote for Trump and my "common sense” says vote for Hillary, Biden, or Bernie, and we slug each other with our "common senses," where does that leave our feelings, our attitudes and ultimately even our behavior?

Insistence of "common sense" is especially galling in politics. At present, there is a candidate for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination here in New York who insists that he'll bring "common sense" along with prudent economic administration to government (of course), because elected legislatures have never met anyone as efficient and honest and as determinant as he is. He even tells the public that unless legislators do things the way he tells them to, it will hurt their paychecks. Now, I'm generally sympathetic to the Democratic Party these days, but an appeal like that is an absolute turnoff for me. I suppose that self-righteousness is admirable at some times, especially when there is a counter element of self-righteousness in the field of debate, but there's little about self-righteousness that informs and thus convinces anyone as I see it!

As for sense, common or otherwise, it is invariably a physical, emotional, or intellectual reaction to other’s beliefs, behaviors, attitudes. Additionally, sense is the almost automatic physical reaction to heat, cold, gravity, or pain. If all of these senses are natural, then it's in denial of "common sense" that we have learned to fly above the atmosphere and into outer space. It can also be said that swimming in the extreme depths of the sea is a defiance of "common sense."

How many times have you heard a parent tell their child that a cat won't sit on a hot stove due to its "common sense." The late Gordon Liddy used to hold his hand over a hot cigarette lighter to demonstrate his willpower. However, you and I would pull our hand from a flame or avoid getting our fingers slammed in a door or withdraw our toes from under someone's spiked shoes — especially when our bare toes are at risk. These reactions are true enough, but they're instinctive rather than logical.

As I see it, good sense exists out of necessity — why else would Christopher Columbus have sailed despite the possibility of sailing right off the edge of the world! Back in 1491, the edges of the world to the average Italian, Spaniard, Frenchman, German and Englishman were plain "common sense” since the curvature of the earth can only be viewed from a great distance.

So, let's stop this appeal to people's "common sense" and respect them enough to discuss with them what makes “good sense.”

Even when we're frustrated or angry, let us begin teaching our otherwise “good sense” to others rather than our personal outraged self-righteousness!

So, there it is, you “common sense” types. Good sense might not be common enough, but it's too valuable to take for granted!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

"NO," SAYS PRESIDENT BIDEN. “THERE'LL BE NO NUCLEAR WAR WITH PUTIN.”

By Edwin Cooney

Before they are powerful, most world leaders are gifted with numerous material luxuries which give them pleasure beyond the gratifications of public office. Additionally, most of them have the capacity to draw distinctions between the foolish and the practical when it comes to public policy. Thus I, along with Joe Biden, believe that there will be no nuclear war with Vladimir Putin initiated by either Putin or President Biden.

Back in the mid 1980s during Soviet Premier Konstantin Chernenko's 393 days-long premiership (February 13th, 1984 to March 10th, 1985) and the time of President Reagan's re-election to the American presidency, the world was filled with much consternation regarding the effects and placements of nuclear weaponry.

Americans wondered if the Soviets would react badly if the Reagan administration put cruise missiles into NATO. The Russians got their undies in a bunch over President Reagan's Star Wars missile defense program. Then, there was the distinction between nuclear weapons that destroyed absolutely everything and those missiles that killed people and left buildings and supposedly the opponent's leftover nuclear weaponry intact. Finally, there was the "nuclear winter" prediction by Carl Sagan, a prominent astronomer and documentary producer, whose nuclear winter documentary even impressed President Reagan. Dr. Sagan pointed out at that time that not only were there far more nuclear weapons on both sides for absolute destruction, but the situation was equal to living in an environment that was soaked in a sufficient amount of gasoline so that it would be fatal to light a single match! 

What the public and hopefully every present and future national leader should grasp is the reality President John F. Kennedy asserted during his Cuban Missile Crisis speech of Monday, October 22nd, 1962. As he enunciated the risks of Khrushchev's missiles in Cuba, he reminded Americans that were we to engage in a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union, the “fruits” of victory would be ashes in our mouths.

Back in the 1930s in his book "The World Crisis," Winston Churchill sought to measure the costs of wars over the centuries. First it was man against man, army against army. Wars were fought during warm weather months, they were mostly fought on battlefields, and so forth. It wasn't until World War I that wars came to be fought between whole peoples. That reality has also been expressed in the analysis that the living in the wake of a nuclear exchange would envy the dead.

A few short years ago, someone asserted that a nuclear war between theocratic societies might be even more dangerous since spiritual antagonists believe that paradise awaits the victor in a religious war. I think that such a war would be called Armageddon. (No doubt, some believe that Armageddon is something humanity must inevitably face one day.) On the other hand, a struggle between strictly doctrinaire societies is less likely since materialists know they must survive to enjoy their materialism. Victory over communism has been seen by most Americans as a triumph of capitalism over regulation and liberty over tyranny! On the other hand, religious conflict is invariably a spiritual triumph for the victor.

Beyond the above analysis, there's the geographic reality for the victor in a nuclear exchange. In the Middle East, due to their geographic proximity, nations with nuclear capacity can hardly afford to strike at an enemy without endangering the ultimate well-being of its own citizens: Israel versus Iraq or Iran, India versus Pakistan, North Korea versus South Korea. Could Communist China afford environmental damage to itself should it use nuclear missiles against India or South Korea? Could Communist China afford to govern Taiwan if China attempted to conquer Taiwan by first poisoning it?

I'm betting that Vladimir Putin is more interested in ruling his people as they exist than he is in the cleanup he would be responsible for conducting in the wake of the atomic poison so recently suffered by his people.

I close this grim analysis with a mitigating reality as I see it. Human nature being what it is, humankind has demonstrated over the millennia and the centuries its determination to survive and to flourish!

Some would assert that what I just wrote is plain "common sense.” I wouldn't call it plain common sense in view of some of the religious, geographic and attitudes I've just discussed. I'll have much more to say about common sense next week!  

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY

WHAT'S GOING ON? IS THE COLD WAR BACK ON OR WAS IT EVER REALLY OVER?

By Edwin Cooney

Nearly 33 years have passed since the Berlin Wall came crashing down on Thursday, November 9th, 1989. Those who loved him best declared that President Ronald Wilson Reagan had won the Cold War on behalf of all free men and women everywhere. It was quite a heady time for a lot of people around the world!

It wasn't that all was secure as the wall bit the dust since a number of scores needed to be settled in Romania, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland and throughout all of Germany. There would be shooting in Vilnius, Lithuania, executions would occur in Bucharest, Romania and, in August 1991, Mikhail Gorbachev would nearly be overthrown in Moscow in a coup led by Vice President Gennady Yanayev and as many as seven others. By the late fall of 1991, the cold war was pretty much over with the formation of the Russian Federation and the termination of the Communist Party by both Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin in Moscow. By September, the Communist Party was abandoned by Gorbachev and, in early December, with the withdrawal of Ukraine, the Soviet Union was gone in favor of the new Russian Federation headed by Boris Yeltsin.

The next step was to assist the new nation in adopting a new government designed to establish justice and prosperity throughout eastern Europe and northern Asia. To that end we sent bankers, lawyers, judges, and even religious organizations to reform, purify, and re-indoctrinate the multiplicity of ethnics of the former sixteen Soviet Republics.

Capitalism would of course lead the way. The richer the people got, the happier and more contented they would be assumed most Americans. Many of us asserted: how could it possibly be otherwise?

Gradually, however, the world kept being the world! Boris Yeltsin served as president for 8 years and 5 months until Friday, December 31st, 1999. His administration was stormy and was not always compatible with foreign policy ventures by other nations. In 1994 and again in 1997, the Duma tried to impeach him led by former Communist party members. Twice in 1999, he reminded Bill Clinton (who was leading NATO against Slobodan Milosevic's Yugoslavian government) that Russia had a powerful nuclear force. More significantly, it was Boris Yeltsin who, in a desperate attempt to correct Russia's economic woes, transferred foreign money into the hands of the growing oligarchy which he ultimately passed on to Vladimir Putin, thus creating today's international crisis.

As bombs fall on Kyiv, most of us find ourselves rooting for President Volodymyr Zelensky. Writing in the New York Times a few days ago, Thomas Friedman observed that Vladimir Putin's current policy isn't based on fear that Ukraine might join NATO, but his real concern is that Ukraine might want to join the European Union — potentially more dangerous to Putin and his oligarchical support. After all, it's hard to argue with those who suggest that Vladimir Putin is striving to one day recreate the old Soviet Empire albeit with a capitalistic rather than a socialistic base.

Here at home there may well be a crisis in the GOP. Should he become a viable presidential candidate in 2024, Donald Trump may find his previous relationship to and predilection for Vladimir Putin exceedingly divisive! If President Biden can effectively solidify NATO thereby reining in Putin, whatever his mistakes in Afghanistan were, they will likely fade away.

Still the questions remain. Did the cold war really end in the late 1980s and early ’90's or did Russia simply need to take on a new economic strategy?

Did we really conquer godless communism or is Russia more acceptable now that it has adopted capitalism as its new god?

What lies at the root of a nation's being? Is its profitability more significant than its sense of morality? After all, we once had a capitalist economy that was, to a considerable extent, structured on human slavery! Still more, its advancement, or "manifest destiny" (at least, up until the late 19th century) was dependent upon native American genocide.

Of course, no society has existed and even flourished without its sins — not even Switzerland or the inoffensive and gentle Scandinavian folks. However, we Americans have traditionally set ourselves on a much higher course of human achievement. As scary as it is to lead an alliance even possibly risking life and limb, we can hardly avoid that risk while remaining who most of us really and truly desire to be!

Even if it's the old “cold war” merely evolving into a new phase, it's still humankind's oldest enemy: WAR!

RESPECTFULLY SUBMITTED,

EDWIN COONEY