Hilary Clinton recounts a story told to her by Madeleine Albright, first Female Secretary of state and a refugee from the Nazi’s World War:
Back in 1995, Madeleine told me a story that still inspires me. To celebrate the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II, she visited parts of the Czech Republic that had been liberated by American troops in 1945. Many people waved American flags as she passed, and to her surprise, some had just 48 stars. They had to be decades old. It turned out that American G.I.s had handed out the flags a half-century earlier. Czech families said they had kept them hidden all through the years of Soviet domination, passing them down from generation to generation as the embodiment of their hope for a better, freer future.
Lord knows democracies have their problems today, but they still have some things autocracies lack — the ability to change course, often by changing leaders, and the ability to publicly examine and debate alternative ideas before embarking on a course of action. Those attributes are particularly valuable in an age of accelerating technological and climate change, when the odds are low that one person in his late 60s — as both Putin and Xi are — will make better and better decisions, more and more alone, as he gets older and older.
In any event, it’s time to press the Pause Button [or maybe the ‘delete’ button] on Putin’s 22-year rule of butchery, lies & short-man shit. Let us hope that the dream of democracy will not be buried under the rubble, that once were proud Ukrainian cities. I can still not believe that it is happening in this day and age, but I am convinced the dream of freedom will not die. History will cover Putin under the rubble, just as Hitler and the Nazis were. The Nazis never recovered from the mistake of committing their future to the battle of Stalingrad. Putin will never recover from the mistake of committing his future to the battle for Ukraine.
Here is a reminder from Ukrainian President Zelenskyy on Wednesday 30 March 2022; “… Freedom has to be armed no worse than tyranny.” Democracy is not a spectator sport, but a team sport – and all we are all on the team.
MEANWHILE THE REAL WORLD CONTINUES TO STUN WITH NEW-NEW THINGS …
1. Shein [affordable fashion] shows one way the future can go - it’s built a smartphone-only fast fashion brand that appears to be bigger than H&M and Zara combined in the USA.
2. Ukraine-related content on TikTok has exploded since the country was invaded on 24 February, with videos tagged #Ukraine surpassing 30.5bn views as of 17 March.
3. Nowadays, it's hard to imagine streaming your favourite series without using the 'Skip Intro' button. On Netflix in a typical day, the Skip Intro button is pressed 136 million times, saving members an astonishing 195 years in cumulative time!
4. By now it seems like everyone has seen or heard about Will Smith hitting Chris Rock at the 2022 Academy Awards after Rock made a joke about Smith's wife, Jada Pinkett Smith. The clip was viewed 48 million times in just 16 hours. I say it is assault pure & simple. The apology from Will Smith are just empty words. If that’s what he is prepared to do on live TV, imagine what he will do behind close doors.