Sunday, March 27, 2022 | 2 a.m.
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I have been thinking about … Nikita Khrushchev.
I realize — with a certain degree of sadness and frustration — that a great many Americans have never heard of the former first secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. In short, he was the big boss during the hottest time of the Cold War, when the Soviet Union and the United States ran the world from their respective sides of the Iron Curtain.
And I remember when he and President John F. Kennedy stood toe-to-toe on the brink of nuclear war. And, yes, I remember when the Russian blinked and the world became a safer place — practically overnight.
I have been thinking about Khrushchev, not just because a successor, Russian President Vladimir Putin, has the world on edge about the possibility of nuclear war once again, but also because he once predicted that the power and bluster of the Soviet Union would not cause the demise of the United States of America. He predicted that America would destroy itself — from within.
And that causes me to think about the past few years as Americans have ripped themselves apart — neighbor from neighbor — for reasons that history should conclude was too much ado about not very much.
Certainly it is not when compared to what we are witnessing on our televisions every night in Ukraine: the total devastation of centuries-old cities and the near complete annihilation of every man, woman and little baby that Putin’s missiles, bombs and bullets can find.
Here’s another name many Americans — sadly — will find totally unfamiliar. The Marquis de Lafayette.
I will spare you the history lesson other than to say that when American revolutionaries, George Washington to be precise, needed help the most, it was Lafayette to the rescue. France and the United States go way back!
So, what do all these people have in common and what do they have to do with Ukraine or the United States?
This: an age-old tradition of killing two birds with one stone.
A major fault line between a now-tribal America exists down the middle of the street in cities across this country.
That’s where you find people — mostly peaceful people — marching in protest about one issue or another. In their faces are other people we will call them patriots because that is what they call themselves. They are dressed up in military fatigues, armored up in military gear, they carry military assault weapons and they train incessantly and militarily in the cold woods of Michigan and the hot deserts of the Southwest.
They — these patriots — say they are ready, willing and able to protect the Constitution and the American way of life.
Since intimidating other Americans in the city square — I am thinking about Jan. 6, for example — is wholly un-American and unpatriotic, it seems to me there must be a better way for these folks to live their dreams.
Just like France came to the aid of the struggling American colonists so, too, can our patriots go to the aid of democratic Ukraine, which faces destruction at the hands of a Russian dictator and needs the world’s help. Badly.
The patriots are already dressed, trained and weaponized. And they certainly talk the talk.
Horace Greeley said the way to a bright future was to “Go West, young man.” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy is begging for our patriots to go East.
Rather than further destroy America from within by constantly confronting and intimidating their fellow citizens, these fighters can go to Ukraine. There our American patriots can confront the Russians, save Ukrainian babies and come home as conquering heroes.
Its a win-win for everyone.
American militiamen and women will have proved Nikita Khruschev wrong. They will no longer need to divide us toward our own demise.
Instead they will unite America around Lafayette’s time-honored principle of coming to the aid of others. They will be welcomed in our city streets — no longer needing to threaten other Americans but hailed as heroes in the cause of real freedom.
It’s the kind of freedom for which Ukrainians are dying. And for which too many Americans take for granted.
Brian Greenspun is editor, publisher and owner of the Sun.
