Letters to the editor on Ukraine, Gov. Kelly and reparations
Prayer for Ukraine
The Dominican Sisters of Peace speak out to protest the injustice of Russia invading Ukraine. This aggression breaks black-letter international law, not to mention laws of morality.
We agree with churches, other nations and humanitarian groups that this unprovoked aggression is unacceptable. The outrageous greed and brutality of Russia’s leaders undermines a path to peace and reconciliation for all of Europe.
We stand in solidarity with the Russian people, so committed to peace that they risk arrest and long-term consequences. More than 1,800 have been detained for protesting their country’s aggression against Ukraine.
Military aggression devastates human life, the national economy, the political infrastructure, and environmental resources.
If these are not reason enough for condemnation, remember that it is in our own nation’s best interest to prevent the European continent from the threat of a dominating power.
We hold in prayer the people of Ukraine and Russia who long for peace and human dignity. May the Holy Spirit inspire all nations, churches and people of good will to ease human suffering and restore the rights of sovereign nations.
Kelly’s mess
Families in Kansas and around the country are currently dealing with the worst inflation in 40 years. Joe Biden’s reckless spending policies in Washington have created this problem, and his administration offers no real solutions. Meanwhile, Gov. Laura Kelly continues to make empty campaign promises that appear to be going nowhere as her (hopefully) only term in office comes to a close. She’s even running on a food tax cut that she vetoed just a few years ago. She hopes voters will forget. I haven’t.
Kelly was elected as a governor promising to deliver results. Well, the results are in, and they are fewer Kansans working, fewer small businesses existing, and it’s harder for most families to make ends meet than when she was sworn in back in 2019. In my opinion, Kansans deserve better leadership from our governor. I’m glad our attorney general Derek Schmidt has stepped up to run. I’m optimistic he will provide the steady hand to get us out of this mess Kelly and Biden have left us in.
Reparations
What group of people do you know would like for their people to go through generations of forced slavery with no source of reparation? After slavery ended, Black people were placed into a no-win situation. There are two problems we face, one being that we have been systematically locked into the lowest level of a real-life monopoly game, secondly that all the wealth and power has been skewed into the hands of white society.
When you look at every race group that has been wrongly treated, all except the Black community received some type of compensation. When Black people became free from slavery they were thrown into society with no land, money or resources to be able to live in this world. Without these resources you have only two options in life, bankruptcy or jail. If we cannot redistribute the wealth and power into the hands of the Black community, we are doomed.
When we demand reparations we are asking as a group for a fair chance in this real life monopoly game.
Putin
As the Russian unprovoked invasion of Ukraine plays out, it seems we live in a surreal world that has gone mad. Vladimir Putin threatens annihilation with weapons “the world has never seen.” These are extremely dangerous times.
Russia has a long history of great culture and beauty, but also sordid leaders. They have been ruled for long periods by monsters such as Joseph Stalin and Putin. Stalin, in the waning days of World War II, deliberately stopped his forces just east of Warsaw to allow the Nazis to finish exterminating the remaining Jewish residents and resistance fighters.
Ironically, Putin is now referring to the Nazification of Ukraine as a reason to invade that country. I can’t even imagine how Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, and the brave citizens of Ukraine, who are the victims of Putin’s madness, must feel.