freedom – Page 5 – Oscar Valdes

Biden Talks to Putin

They meet secretly, using a special CIA managed Zoom pathway. Biden is in the Oval office with only Harris, Blinken and Sullivan present.
Putin is on the large screen.
Biden has made it a point to speak to him on the anniversary of the bombings in 2001.

Biden – You will not have Ukraine. Our alliance will do whatever is needed to block you from having Ukraine. You may end up keeping some of the territory and even some of the newly conquered, but you will not have Ukraine.
Putin (smiling) – We’ll see.
Biden – Second, you’ve succeeded in uniting the West, succeeded in helping us begin to put together a new energy grid that excludes you. Permanently. And you’ll have to invent all the replacement parts that the sanctions we’ve imposed forbid you to have.
Putin (smugly) – We can do it.
Biden – Turkey and China can help you in the meantime. But it won’t last forever.
Putin (laughs) – Erdogan will outfox you anytime. He’s a master.
Biden – Third, please listen carefully… the West will make Ukraine a star nation.

Putin turns serious.

Biden – We will invest in them so they will shine and be the envy of the world. I understand they have a history of corruption, but a nation who has fought as valiantly as they have will be able to correct their mistakes. We will help them.
We in the West will invest in Ukraine so that the nations in your sphere of influence, who now demean themselves by kneeling before you will have a clear example to follow.
We in the West believe that all those nations oppressed by you, have the will to rise and oppose you, risking their lives.
Putin – You know nothing about how effective my controls are.
Biden – One day soon, Belarus, will overthrow Lukashenko… and they will find their courage and fight to be like their Ukrainian neighbors.
Putin – You live in a dream world, Biden, you probably won’t even win both chambers in congress this Fall, and I will do everything possible to persuade the millions and millions of gullible Americans into thinking Trump is the greatest leader your land has ever seen.
Biden – Try at your own peril.
Putin – Oh, we will, I assure you.
Biden – As a catholic, I believe in redemption… in the capacity to restore ourselves. You have done great harm to humanity… and yet… you could still work to atone for your behavior.
Putin – Let me see, you’d want for me to surrender?
Biden – Better than that… guide your people to freedom.
Putin (laughing loudly) – You’re mad.
Biden – You’ve lost your way… you’re responsible for the killing of thousands and thousands of Ukrainians and Russians… and for what? To restore a Soviet Union that was already crumbling from internal decay?
Mikhail Gorbachev saw it clearly back in 1985… and came up with perestroika (restructuring) and glasnost (opening)… you should now pick up where he left off.
People everywhere yearn from freedom… no political system that seeks to curtail it will last… and that means China, too.
Putin – You’re a fool.
Biden – Perhaps but I’m a free man and you’re not… and neither is Xi Jinping. Human beings with cruel instincts are not free, but prisoners of their demons. You’re no different than the leaders of Iran, enslaving people in the name of God.
Putin – Russians adore me… they will do whatever I ask them… they will endure whatever hardships they must.
Biden – I won’t keep you longer. Maybe I’m wrong and you’re beyond redemption. To end, I will repeat my central point. We will not surrender Ukraine.
And we will make it the envy of the world.
All Russians, and the peoples from Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Belarus, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, all will yearn to be Ukrainians, free human beings, not the slaves of other men.
Putin – My people will conquer all of Ukraine. Even if I have to use nuclear weapons.
Biden – Threaten as you wish… but don’t forget… we’re free men… and free men don’t surrender.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com

Putin and Xi Talk War

Putin flies to Beijing to meet Xi Jinping. They sit across in Xi’s office.

Putin – Things are not going as well as I thought.

Xi nods slowly.

Putin – I underestimated the West and… Ukrainians also. I thought they would just pee in their pants when they saw our army gather around them. They didn’t. I should’ve known better, since they have been fighting hard against us in the East for years now. For the first time… I’m beginning to doubt that we can beat them. I didn’t think the West would care that much… but they do. I thought the Far Right was stronger… Trump got 74 million votes in 2020… but the Far Right turned out to be a loud minority with little real clout. Same as in Europe. The Germans surprised me, also… I thought they would resist Biden.

(brief pause)

Jinping… I have thought of using nuclear weapons.

Xi – That’s a bad idea.

Putin – Why?

Xi – It would piss off the West… and I would find it hard to convince the central committee to continue to help you evade sanctions. Vladimir… China is not self sufficient… not yet… and hard as we try we may never be. The West is creative. In spite of all their problems, they keep inventing… and they come up with stuff that we need. We’re inventive, too, of course, and no nation, ever, has developed as much as we have in just 40 years. But we didn’t do it alone.

Putin – You think I made a mistake in invading Ukraine?

Xi – Yes. You waited too long.

Putin – How so?

Xi – You should’ve done it when Trump was in office. He was fighting with the European Union.

Putin nods, the mood dejected.

Putin – Can you help?

Xi – We’re buying your oil, gas and minerals… buying your wheat…

Putin – I mean, with weapons.

Xi shakes his head slowly.

Xi – We’re doing enough, Vladimir. As I said before… we need the West. Are you worried about growing dissent at home?

Putin – A little. The killing of Daria Dugina, Aleksandr Dugin’s daughter is not a good sign. But my security system is top notch. We track everyone and have for years. They’ll get to the bottom of it.

Xi – What about Alexei Navalny, your opposition leader?

Putin – Still in prison… will die in prison.

Xi leans forward in his seat as he faces Putin.

Xi – This may be the time to stop the war.

The two men lock eyes.

Xi – Ask for a cease fire… offer to give up all the territory you’ve gained since the invasion. Ask for the United Nations to mediate. Not Turkey, not France but the United Nations. And emphasize that the loss of lives will come to an end. Assure the world you will not block the shipment of grains out of Ukraine.

Putin rests his face in his hands.

Xi – Zelensky will object but the West may welcome the offer and put pressure on him to accept. It’s their money and weapons that’s helped keep the war effort alive. Ending the loss of lives will have Ukrainians welcoming the offer also. Clearly, such offer will be seen as a defeat for you, but better to cut your losses. At home, you should have no worries. You have Russians firmly under your control. Hard as it is, It’s time to accept the consequences. After all the damage done, there’s little chance you will ever regain the standing you had in the world prior to the invasion, but if you stick with the war it will get a lot worse. Even if you were to beat Ukraine, it would still be a loss. To me, given what’s happened so far, pursuing a military victory is a mistake.

Putin looks up at Xi.

Putin – What about you and Taiwan?

Xi – I will not invade Taiwan until I am absolutely sure of victory.

Putin – There’s no such thing as absolutely sure.

Xi – Time will tell.

Putin – My reason for the war was that I didn’t want to see Russia surrounded by NATO. After all this effort, with the addition of Finland and Sweden to NATO, we’re even more surrounded than before. Seven months into the war, after all the destruction, I’m farther from my objective than at the start.

Xi – If you persist… It will likely only get worse.

Putin – You don’t think I can win?

Xi – No.

Putin – But if you helped me with weapons…

Xi – We’ve gone over that. The Central Committee won’t agree to it.

(pause)

Be thankful that the Russian people have given you complete control over their lives. They’ll forgive you.

A few minutes later they embrace, say goodbye and Putin departs to return to Russia.

Xi Jinping remains in his office.

Xi – He asked about Taiwan… and he’s right, there’s no way I can be absolutely sure an invasion would be successful. Putin has complete control over his people… and yet… he couldn’t get his soldiers to fight as hard as Ukrainians have.

He pivots his chair to look out the window and take in a grand view of the city.

Xi – Will I be able to get my soldiers to fight as hard as the Taiwanese?

Oscarvaldes.medium.com

Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping

Photo by SHVETS production on Pexels.com

They have something in common, don’t they? Yes.
And it’s their clear intent to trap people. And keep them trapped.
But they have something else in common. And that is what they promise their followers.
‘If you follow me,’ they say, ‘you will have a better and stronger country.’ Thus, it is implied, you will be better and stronger.
For Trump the promise is MAGA, Make America Great Again.
For Putin it’s a larger Russia, a Russia that restores the might of the former Soviet Union.
For Xi Jinping it’s world dominance.
For Trump to reach his objective he was willing to make a deal with Putin but not Xi Jinping.
For Putin to reach his goal requires the annexation of Ukraine, regardless of the cost in human lives.
For Xi Jinping it’s further asserting China’s economic power while seeking alliances with whomever suits him best – for now Putin.
The followers of these men don’t even know they are being sold a richly decorated fiction.
They are thrilled that their lives have now a sense of direction and that they can spare themselves the trouble of doing their own homework.
Followers may have a vague idea they are surrendering their freedom, but the charisma of the leader calling to them proves stronger.
The follower may never have known freedom. They may never have troubled themselves to nurture their minds.
I say this because once you’ve known freedom you never want to give it up.
But to keep it you have to exercise it. You have to see it at work. You have to quarrel with it, smell it and taste it. You have to see how it bears you fruit. And grief. And failure.
How odd then that men like Trump, Putin and Xi Jinping can rise to such positions of power when their message is so clear, ‘leave the thinking to me.’ But they can do it, because they attract enough people who prefer not to think, and who then proceed to intimidate those who do think.
And that’s their story – Might Makes Right.
To have a mind – the capacity to reason while integrating our emotions – and to have health are our most precious possessions. And yet we don’t nurture them as we should.
We don’t set aside enough time to reason and assess the complexities of what we feel. We pay little attention to our diets in a massive exercise of denial. ‘Oh, it will be okay.’
Our voices need not be loud when we stand up for what we believe every day of our lives. But they must be heard. What may seem like a small voice added to another small voice makes a difference.
So let yours count too.
We cannot let a few people take over the world.
If a leader of a nation keeps getting reelected they are noxious to their people and the rest of us too.
Freedom gives you a voice, if you work on it. Tyranny takes it from you. And your life, too.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

Taiwan and China. Over Beer

They are drinking beer at a bar in Shanghai.
Feng is a businesswoman, 35, who’s started a clothing import company. Huan is a member of the communist party, 32, who went to her shop to ask her to join the party.
They’re sitting at a table in a corner of the crowded room.
It’s just past 8 pm.
The war in Ukraine continues and recently China has flown jets near Taiwan in a show of force.

Feng – That was impressive… all those fighter planes flying near the island.
Huan – We need to show them that they will have to submit to us. That’s what the Chinese people want.
Feng – I don’t.
Huan (surprised) – Why not?
Feng – Have you been to the island?
Huan – Not yet.
Feng – I feel different when I go there… no cameras following me and I can say what I want.
Huan (smiling) – But the people are not happy.
Feng (shaking her head) – People seemed happy to me, and the few people I talked to were content with their government. They didn’t want to join the mainland.
Huan – It’s the Taiwanese government’s propaganda distorting their views. Look, historically they belong to us. And the People’s Republic of China will take back the island, that’s all there is to it. We just have to wait for the right moment.
Feng – People in the mainland would like the freedoms of the Taiwanese.
Huan (mildly annoyed) – You do not know this. The party has conducted extensive surveys and almost 100% of the people agree with the party’s view.
Feng – Shouldn’t that worry you? Almost 100% agreeing? I would think people are afraid to tell you the truth.
Huan – The surveys have been done many times. We are sure.
Feng – My sense is that Taiwan should be left untouched, precisely because it has freedoms we don’t have here in the mainland, so we can compare and see what system works better.
Huan – We already know that. It is our system that has brought prosperity to the mainland. America is declining fast, and so is the West… and they will fail.
Feng – They have problems, agreed, but if they are declining so much, how come we keep wanting them to come here to start businesses? How come we keep copying their technologies? How come we want to import more and more of their sophisticated expertise? How come we keep cyberattacking them to get even more information?
Look, I’m doing it myself, my business is about importing women’s dresses from France, Italy and Spain so I can resell here, and I’m starting to do very well, which is why you came to visit me.
Huan – We have made a great leap forward, like comrade Mao said, and to do that we’ve had to cut corners, but the world’s businesses wouldn’t be so eager to come here if they didn’t think our work force was excellent.
Feng – I agree with you on that, and we are a creative people, but the West is too, and to think they are in decline is very self serving and deceptive. Instead, I think they’re going through a transition, like they have before, many times, and they will learn from it and emerge better.
The thing that worries me about a system like ours, is that we’re too rigid. We have to wait for the communist party to tell us how to do things. In democracies the discussion is free. Flawed and painful but free. We’re afraid of that here. Which is why we’re afraid of Taiwan and want to take it back so we can squash it, like we did with Hong Kong.

Huan smiles.

Feng – I think the party is afraid of letting Taiwan grow because people in the mainland would want to become more Taiwanese.

Huan laughs.

Huan – I don’t think you would be a good party member. Not right now. Maybe with time.
I will have to work on you.
Feng (smiles) – Meanwhile, I hope to grow the business and make more money. You are, of course, always welcome to come by.
Huan – With pleasure. Maybe the party will want me to audit your books.
Feng – You are welcome.

They drink from their beers.

Huan – Are you married?
Feng – No.
Huan – Never been married?
Feng – No.
Huan – I haven’t either… but I’d like to. No children?
Feng – Not yet.
Huan – But you’d like to?
Feng – Yes.
Huan – You are very attractive. I’d like to invite you out.
Feng – To work on me?

Huan laughs.

Huan – Maybe you can work on me.

They raise and touch their glasses of beer.

Feng – It’s possible.
Huan – We can always talk politics… but we don’t have to.
Feng – Will the party let you?
Huan – Date you? I think so… but I can always say, ‘I’m working on you.’

They smile at each other.

Feng – What do you think about the war in Ukraine?
Huan – Putin made a mistake.
Feng – Are you saying that because you want to go out with me or because you believe it?
Huan – No, I believe it. And he hasn’t been able to acknowledge it… instead keeps killing people.
Feng – That’s not the party line.
Huan – I know. I don’t agree with everything.
Feng – You should know… I have a mind of my own… If you’re willing to accept that, then I’ll go out with you.
Huan – Understood.
Feng – And I can always choose not to.

He nods. They touch again their beer glasses, drink once last time, get up and leave.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

Acceptance. Having a Mind

Accepting ourselves. Accepting others.
They are intimately connected.
To accept ourselves as who we are is to say ‘I have made mistakes. And I will make others.
But the more I understand why I made the earlier mistakes, the less serious the mistakes that lie ahead, for I will catch myself earlier.’
To accept oneself is to say, ‘this is who I am now. The road to this moment is filled with choices and actions I now regret but at the time I did not have the maturity to better choose and act.
Now I know. Then I didn’t’.
There likely were unconscious forces at work earlier on that I simply didn’t grasp.
I didn’t because my mind wasn’t broad enough but was instead hampered by fears I may not have been able to even name. But as I dared to face my fears the road ahead opened up.
The courage to affirm ourselves, to say ‘this is me, these are my feelings, these are my thoughts, gives birth to the mind.
Ask yourself, ‘when did I first acknowledge to myself I had a mind?’
What is having a mind?
The capacity to reason while integrating our emotions.
A properly constituted mind has full knowledge of the range and variety of emotions.
Those emotions ground us as human beings. ‘I am me. With my moments of fear, my moments of doubt and my moments of courage.’
Then I look around and realize that everyone around is on the same journey, whether they know it or not.
Every day we’re faced with choices. And every day we may err. Or get it right.
Thus the importance of being able to forgive, which bring us back to acceptance of ourselves and others.
Having a mind enables us to embrace such acceptance. And such acceptance brings us a measure of peace and hope.
Having a mind enables us to choose what life we wish to live and then to do it.
Having a mind entails risk. Risk demands contending with doubt and fear and pushing on.
To not embrace that struggle is to drift without aim or let others dictate to us.
All of us have courage. The task is to pull it out and use it.
If we’ve lost sight of it is because it’s buried beneath layers of not accepting ourselves and not accepting others.
To accept oneself is to say I am entitled to exercise my courage. To accept others is to say you’re entitled to exercise yours.
Often others will ask us to accept their views uncritically. Reject that. Our minds are formed by making our own choices. And as we do we fill our existences with meaning.
The exercise of courage gets us closer to loving fully.
We may or may not get to be loved back with our same intensity – luck has a role in it – but having dared to be our best and reach as high as we can, will always be a mighty reward.
Call it self love.

Oscarvaldes.net, oscarvaldes.medium.com

Putin and the Mirror of China

The war with Ukraine has not turned out the way Putin wanted.
And it has exposed how inadequate his system of government is.
The quick victory he envisioned, ‘everybody lie down because here comes the mighty Vladimir’, didn’t happen.
The West has united against him and seems willing to endure more pain from the energy shortages that are expected in the months ahead.
Russians in their homeland can’t even speak of the war going on in Ukraine – they must call it a ‘special military operation’ – or they will be thrown in jail.
In spite of the sanctions imposed, Putin has managed to sell his oil and realize a large profit, but there are things that are not lost on the discerning Russian.
Putin’s system is a failure. And to see that, they need only hold up the mirror of China.
Putin has been in office since 1999, and during that same period, China’s economic development has vastly outpaced Russia’s.
China opened up to the West and its investors and became the second largest economy in the world. Meanwhile Russia is not even in the top 10, behind Brazil and Canada.
What happened?
Putin happened. His autocratic style reserved for himself and his choice of oligarchs the right to benefit from their nation’s vast riches in commodities. And they have done so, at a price.
The price is wasted opportunity and diminished national development.
In the meantime, China, with all its problems, rose to become the second largest economy in the world. They came up with a system that let them take advantage of what the West had to offer and made the most of it.
China faces other difficulties, but their citizens were given enough economic freedoms to become inventive and in doing so have realized much of their economic potential with more in store.
Russians under Putin have not been able to do so. Yet they could have, for they are a talented people.
So Russians now have the mirror of China to stare at and wonder what they should do next.
Putin has not elevated them but degraded them instead. Russians need to acknowledge that. Their economic and cultural development has been stunted by a leader who, feeling diminished by the greater progress of many other countries, came up with the absurd plan to bolster Russia’s position by appropriating Ukraine, no matter how many people, men, women and children he had to kill in the process.
His action was born out of envy and the realization that he had failed as a leader.
He thought the West would shake in fear at his daring but he got it wrong. And now, trapped by his stupidity, he thinks only of how to kill even more Ukrainians as a way out.
But the West will hold.
It will because it’s the right thing to do, and because doing so inspires other nations now under Putin’s influence, to fight for their freedom and contribute to a better world. Countries like Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, who may now feel invigorated to strike out on their own.
The time is now to join the Free World.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

Devaluing Another Human Being

How does it start?
We think ourselves as better than them.
And we may be better. We may be smarter, have a better education, a better job, be more capable, have more money, better prospects, be better looking, be stronger, etc.
But the moment we say, ‘take notice, I’m all these things and you are not,’ we begin to devalue the other. Devalue as in ‘they don’t have what I have, they will never have what I have and should be content with their lot.’
To start down that road is dangerous. Soon we will be making judgments based on those beliefs.
Mistreatment will follow.
Resentment will be elicited.
We can be better than another human being simply because we have realized our potentials in ways they have not, for whatever reason.
But to devalue a human being is to reduce them in such way that we think that even if they had got the opportunities we were given, they would not have been able to do what we did. The devalued would have come up short every time.
Devaluing others narrows our world.
It limits our ability to appreciate differences and leads to the shortening of our horizons.
One way to counter the possibility of devaluing others is to practice kindness.
Indiscriminate kindness. All the while exercising the limits we consider appropriate.
One way to affirm that we value others is to speak up against injustice of any kind.
Even if it may cause us discomfort.
Doing so helps us discover our voice if didn’t know we had one or enrich it if we did.
Having a voice is a powerful asset. It leads to our developing the sense that we can think, which put us in intimate contact with our uniqueness.
Tyrants everywhere are counting on our devaluing others, not properly valuing ourselves and losing our voice. So they, in turn, can do the thinking for us.
Mobs do that. Political mobs. Religious mobs.
Today we have lots of mobs here in America, each asking us to join their way of thinking.
Strength in numbers, they claim. We have done the thinking for you. Join us. We have done the work for you.
Our capacity to reflect, to weigh the pros and cons and make a choice is our most important possession, more important than material wealth.
In Russia, today, Putin claims to be speaking for 125 million people.
And he believes it’s okay to send a missile into a mall and a train station and kill 23 people, in addition to the thousands he’s already murdered, because no voices will speak against it.
One hundred and twenty five million people surrendered their voices to mob thinking.
How did he do it?
Slowly. Convincing others he knew better. ‘Leave it to me,’ he said. ‘I’ll think for you.’
How did he do it?
Saying it’s okay to devalue others, ‘those Ukrainians are not made of the same stuff we Russians are made of, so it’s okay to kill them.’
And Russians agreed to it.
Only Putin will one day tell us what made him into the man willing to force such brutality.
In the meantime, we have to learn to look hard into the lives of those who want to lead us to make sure they have kindness in them, and that they have practiced it, because if we don’t find kindness then there will be brutality.
Many men and women have given their lives to give us freedom. And many more will do so for it’s in them to fight for that precious gift, like Ukrainians are doing today.
The way to honor them and all those others who’ve sacrificed to give us freedom, is not to lay a wreath at their tombs, for the great majority may have no tombs, having been buried in unmarked graves, but to let our minds think, let our voices ring loud and dare to speak up in the face of injustice.

oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

An Internal Front in Russia? Beware Mr Biden.

Photo by u0414u043cu0438u0442u0440u0438u0439 u0422u0440u0435u043fu043eu043bu044cu0441u043au0438u0439 on Pexels.com

The recent killing of Daria Dugin, daughter of Aleksandr Dugin, both Russian ultranationalists and strong supporters of Putin’s war, can be seen as a sign that a new front against the war is opening up inside of Russia.
Which is bad news for Russia.
Russian authorities are blaming Ukraine for the killing while Ukraine has vigorously denied it.
But it takes a lot of inside knowledge to pull off that action, so my take is that it’s coming from Russia itself, the military in particular.
The attack was a bold move, planting a bomb in the car she was travelling in.
My take is that we’re likely to see more of these attacks, a sign of sharp disagreements with the conduct of the war and a new resolve to put an end to it.
Will Putin be the next target?
Putin is further restricting gas exports to Europe, but the alliance is holding.
Should there be an attempt on Putin himself, would he then imagine that the West is somehow involved and try to retaliate against a western leader?
Not inconceivable given Russia’s steady downward slide in international prestige.
Putin already knows that he cannot claw himself back up to a position of respectability. He’s killed too many people, committed too many atrocities.
Additionally, there’s been a widespread deterioration in international standards.
In 2018, the Saudi prince, MBS, was considered responsible by our intelligence agencies of ordering the killing and mutilation of Jamal Khashoggi, who held resident status in our nation and was a contributing journalist to the Washington Post.
On August 12th, Salman Rushdie, the distinguished writer, was stabbed in public in Chautauqua, NY, by an American of Iranian descent who may have been influenced by Iran’s issuing an edict to kill him for having written the Satanic Verses in 1988, which Iran considered blasphemous.
India, which has enjoyed wide support from America, is oblivious to it and is joining Russia and China in military exercises.
We have an ex president thinking of running for office, who may yet be found guilty of lying on his taxes, found guilty of inciting the riot on Capitol Hill on January 6th 2021 and is suspected of tampering with the ballots in the 2020 elections in Fulton County, Georgia.
I trust that the American people, in their wisdom, will see the essence of our former president and defeat him again at the polls, as he was in 2020.
In the meantime, the war in Ukraine goes on and Putin is not winning.
If an attempt on his life were made, would he retaliate by targeting Mr Biden?
I think the FBI and the Secret Service should be on high alert to protect our president.
He has courageously pulled together the western alliance that is pushing back Russia.
Planes are said to be on the way to further aid the courageous Ukrainians.
A desperate Putin, knowing that he is a failure as a leader to Russia, may try anything.
We must be ready.

Oscarvaldes.oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

Why Do I Write?

Each writer will have his/her reasons.
As for me, I write because I have to. It makes me feel wiser and stronger.
I have said before, that I write because I want to share with people how I see the world and maybe that might be helpful to them, but behind that impulse is the raw desire to write.
Simply that.
As tranquil as writing appears to be, it can be a dangerous affair.
The word and the emotions that go with it, can lead you to places that you may not want to visit. Which is why I keep a personal diary that no one sees, and where I strive to enter thoughts and emotions as raw as they come. I go back to it often, just to see what connections they carry.
There’s a good deal of self forgiving I must do when I read my diary, but I know I need to go there to keep myself honest.
I see a parallel between the dissecting words of a writer and a surgeon’s scalpel, as they carefully explore tissue they may suspect might be covering up something, yet are not quite sure until they get there.
Words and the emotions that come with it can be inventive, as when you discover links you didn’t anticipate before you started, which makes it fun.
Then there’s the satisfaction of completing something. When I’m through with the draft of a piece I always feel lighter. Sometimes, I even have the sense that I’ve learned a thing or two.
Or, I end up nowhere, the void then staring me back and making me feel empty.
But it doesn’t last.
To contrast myself with a biographer, the biographer examines his subject’s mind while I examine my own, the mind being the prism that refracts the light of the world.
Each writer has their unique prism. Prisms can be made richer by the writer’s imagination and life’s experiences.
Hemingway was quoted as saying that a writer should write for himself. I think that’s good advice.
We’re all very different in how much experience we need to then turn it into words. And, of course, we’re all differently gifted. The distinguished Salman Rushdie, recently in the news after having been stabbed, has an enormous facility with words.
Would I be less of a person if I didn’t write?
I think so. I would still strive for competence in whatever job I was doing, as I have many times before, but something would be missing. I would feel less satisfied and less rounded as a human being. And I wouldn’t be able to say, ‘I’m leaving something behind, something that when anyone reads it, would bring me back to life, if only for that moment.’
There’s a writer in all of us. It’s up to us to activate it or not. It’s too tempting to have a mind guide us through life, remind us daily that we are unique, and not feel inclined to put our thoughts down. If only for our own eyes. To start. We get bolder as we move along.
I started this piece on a Sunday afternoon because I needed to write. I had gone to a nearby museum earlier in the day and seen the works of famous artists. They could be very playful with their craft, which I enjoy seeing.
So I asked myself, ‘Why do I write?’

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts

What China Gets

They get that they would not be at this level of development without the West.
They get that.
They know that without the infusion of western knowhow they would be far behind.
They have been smart to use western knowhow and to improve on it, and they still rely on cyberattacks on the West to keep stealing scientific and industrial secrets as detailed by our intelligence services.
Meanwhile, their ruling class, still adheres to the antiquated communist system of government.
They have trouble accepting that they need to move on to a different style of leadership.
It will take time.
As a reminder of the importance of making that move, they only need to look north to Russia, to see how an intellectually limited leader like Putin, is slowly pulling his nation backwards, all the while talking nonsense about how Russia can develop in isolation. What hogwash!
With every Russian shot fired in Ukraine, with every mother, father or child killed, Russia steps further backwards, and the harder it will become for them to catch up to the rest of the world.
It would be heartwarming for the world to see some sign of unrest in Russia, like an attempt by citizens to storm the prison where Alexei Navalny is held on false charges, and set him free.
But so far, Russians are hypnotized, listening to the blah blah of Putin talking about his special operations campaign in Ukraine and the glory that awaits the nation. Which will never come.
Instead, China gets that the creative minds of their citizens need to be given room to grow, though they’re afraid they may not be able to keep a leash on them, hence their harsh restrictions on freedom and the constant surveillance.
That’s the problem.
China looks at the West and wonders how is it that we can live with so much dysfunction.
How can we elect to our highest office people with no presidential qualities, and still function.
And in the meantime, industry keeps producing and inventing, science keeps flourishing, the arts keep pushing boundaries, and all of it happening while there is much social disorder that is unacceptable.
America is an open book. All our flaws are on display. And there are plenty. But we’ve learned that it is better to display them, to feel the outrage and shame that comes with it than try to hide them. Like China tries to do with their treatment of Uyghurs in Xinjiang province.
America is a very troubled nation. But there is a free press. Putin wouldn’t have become what he has become here in our land. Neither would Xi Jinping.
I believe that both Chinese and Russian citizens would much prefer a system where they had a voice in their future, rather than blindly trusting a leader to make choices for them.
But to get to that point they must take chances.
China is much closer to political freedom than Russia. And that is good news because China has become more important than Russia. On the other hand, it is tragic to see a nation with the potential of becoming a first rate nation in the free world, to waste it by surrendering to a single man.

Oscarvaldes.medium.com, apple podcasts