Peter Lumsdaine with Physicians for Social Responsibility recently visited Ukraine. His first-hand perspective from that trip is well worth listening to. One thing I learned from our conversation is that there is a Ukrainian peace movement.

Regarding “woke,” the claim to wokeness is a form of virtue signaling, i.e., “I understand what’s going on, you don’t, so I’ll use my superior status to bludgeon you. Oh, and while we’re at it, you’re canceled.”

That’s pretty counterproductive. And it ignores the reality that some of us have been aware of (and working to fix) such problems for decades. Furthermore, visionary women and men of past generations were “woke” to injustice and fought against it in a far more hostile environment.

Of course, the Right’s intentional misrepresentation of “woke” is even more problematic — and also used as a bludgeon. Just listen to Ron DeSantis talk for five minutes about any subject, and if he doesn’t mention “woke,” it’ll be a rare occurrence.

My two-part solution? Part One: Push back against the radical-right by cutting to the chase. … Continue Reading →