Putin’s inhumanity

My neighborhood blossoms with Christmas decorations: Jovial Santas, reindeer-drawn sleighs, giant candy canes and cheerful snowmen populate lawns. Sparkling, blinking lights are wrapped around palm trees and shrubs, draped around roofs and doorways.

It is happy and festive. The greatest gift we can give one another this season is to walk that walk — not just exchanging presents with family members, drinking eggnog and believing all is well. We live in a time of division and intolerance not seen since the 1960s.

Antisemitism seems on its way to being normalized (Where have we seen that before?) White nationalists and neo-Nazis have brazenly come out of the woodwork to disparage, threaten and sometimes murder Asians, Hispanics, African Americans, the LGBT community, or anyone who doesn’t look like whatever they think people should look like.

As awful as this is, what’s worse is the unrelenting, unprovoked violence Russian tyrant Vladimir Putin is unleashing on Ukraine. He is waging a violent, brutal, narcissistic, insane invasion of a sovereign country. Because he has failed on the battlefield, he is purposely targeting its civilian population and infrastructure, committing savage war crimes of rape and murder.

Merry Christmas( and Happy Hanukkah ), Vladimir. What a gift you’ ve given the world: one monumental, non stop explosion of death, destruction, and displacement not seen in decades. There is no shame great enough, no obscenity powerful enough, no punishment worthy enough for the barbarism that you and your cult followers have unleashed on Ukraine.

For what? For no rational reason on this Earth. May you, Vladimir, receive the gift you so richly deserve for your unrivaled 21st century evil.

My admiration goes to the Ukrainian people for their courage, stamina, fortitude, belief in the value of democracy, and their willingness to fight for it. This is a singular gift to the globe. How will the international community respond as Putin continues his onslaught of innocents unabated?

Scott Ben ar de, West Palm Beach