Moral Equivalence between Russia and Ukraine?

Tom Kando

I still watch the news and I still read the newspaper every day. This is a bad habit. The news is repetitive and depressing. The major progressive channels (CNN, MSNBC, NPR, PBS, etc.) devote most of the time to Donald Trump and the lawsuits against him, ad nauseam. Overseas, the Ukraine war remains a main topic, with no end in sight. 

The Ukrainian situation bothers me a great deal. 

Maybe it’s because I come from Eastern Europe. Maybe because I spent the first decade of my life in a war not unlike the current bloodbath in Ukraine, and its aftermath. Maybe because Russia was doing to Hungary, my country of birth, the same thing it is doing to Ukraine now: raping it. 

Russia started its unprovoked attack on its peaceful neighbor in February 2014, when it conquered Crimea. It resumed its invasion in February 2022, attempting to annex the entire country, an effort that goes on unabated. 

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When the current assault began over a year and a half ago, the media were able to document clearly that Russia’s behavior was as unprovoked, unjustified and cruel as Hitler’s assaults upon Germany’s neighbors had been at the outset of World War Two. We saw on television entire cities pulverized, thousands of women, children and other innocents killed, millions of Ukrainians forced to flee from their country, farcical elections held by Russia, attempting to legitimize the annexation of territories, the deportation of Ukrainian children to re-education locations in Russia.

The Trouble with Second Hand Fame

By Madeleine Kando

I am not famous, but my parents were. They were not in the super-famous category, just the local run-of-the-mill famous, like your mayor or the neighborhood idiot. My stepfather actually is the more famous of the two. He was a photographer who made it really big posthumously. You can find him all over the Internet, which is the litmus test of being famous.

Fame doesn’t drop on your head like bird pooh, you know. You have to prime your own fame while you are alive and convince others that you are special, but it’s really the people you don’t know personally that do the real work. The more people there are you don’t know but who know you, the more famous you become. And it’s mostly the post-humous crowd that makes you famous. ‘Oh, I didn’t know her personally, but she was really a great person. So talented!’

It’s called the ‘fame by proxy' syndrome. Knowing a famous person, or just watching them drive by in a limousine, makes you feel special. There is this irresistible rubbing-off effect that people crave: to bask in a famous person’s spotlight.

We all need recognition, proof that we somehow matter. We all matter to ourselves of course, because we are all the center of the Universe. But you cannot take credit for just being, although you might argue that being born already makes you special. Of the billions of sperms competing in the race towards the ovum, the one that made you win the race.

Above and beyond just existing, we have a need to be recognized by others. Our family, our friends, our pets, and our jobs. We want to matter to others. Once you don’t matter anymore, you know it’s time to cut the cord.

The funny thing about fame is that it is a zero-sum game. For some to be famous, others must be ordinary. That’s how it works. While my famous parents were still alive, there was not much room for their children in their orbit. We were an afterthought, a fixture. ‘Oh, look at those cute children of these famous people we came to interview’. It gave a human touch to their fame.

Just the right amount, mind you. Since famous people are there for us to act out our fantasies, they shouldn’t become too real, or the fantasy is in danger of popping like a party balloon. People didn’t want to know about my famous mother’s suffering, as she grew older. Her incontinence, loss of vision and hearing. They didn’t want to know how she roamed the hallways of the assisted living in the middle of the night, trying to dull the agonizing nerve pain in her foot. And she didn’t want them to know how difficult it is to grow old. It was her secret, which she only shared with her children and a few close friends.