Mandy's Mercurial Monologue

I've been writing some variation of this or another at various sites on the internet all week. I need to say it here, but unless others pick it up and run with it, it's going nowhere against the hurricane of pro-Putin propaganda.     Clearly there are people with money, power and influence who are selling the opposite message. There are misinformed "conservatives" who have been fooled into believing that Russia Today is a non-biased news source and "libertarians" including Ron Paul who are eating up the Russian -state issued talking point and regurgitating them everywhere.   Nationalists did not overthrow Yanukovych. There were some nationalists in the mix; how could anyone keep them out of a popular uprising? The Maidan (pronounced My'-dahn) demonstrators and those murdered there by the Russian-backed snipers were mostly everyday citizens. They became engaged when the Yanukovych government used brutality, and later murder, against those who wer...

  I've been so consumed by the events in Ukraine for the past week that I haven't had time to blog. Far too much time and attention has gone into comment threads all over the internet and contending with people from various nations who are ignorant and apathetic.   There are some who would call themselves 'conservatives' or 'libertarians' who see Putin as the "good guy" because of his stance against homosexual and Muslim pressure groups in Russia . They also claim that he has limited abortion. I don't have information on that, but the good he may do in some areas does not constitute a pass on others. To give him a pass where he is wrong is not consistent with a conservative worldview and we must not do it lest we find ourselves promoting a villain.   These opinionated ignoramuses refuse to see that Putin is out of line for interfering with, undermining and threatening a separate and sovereign nation. They are content to see Ukrain...