Sita Rutu Karu Tuleb

That’s one of two Estonian phrases my father taught me in the last few years of his life. He’d been weirdly reinvigorated by the Russian invasion of Ukraine, tracing the early war news in Estonian and German. Sita rutu karu tuleb functioned as commentary on that invasion: “Shit faster, the bear is coming.”

For Estonians, like those in Ukraine, the bear is Russia.

With the United State throwing its weight around near Venezuela, Putin’s Russia couldn’t be happier. Russia would like the freedom to take whatever/whenever from its neighbors, all of whom it defines as part of its once and future hegemony. The USA, European Union, and NATO have been in Russia’s way, but Trump has accompanied the attack on Venezuela with movement toward Greenland that could bum-rush the US out of NATO. Trump seems to want the US out of NATO as much as Putin wants that, which should be weird for an American president but if you wait long enough and ignore the head-fakes where he talks like he’s standing up to Russia, Trump tends to provide what Putin wants.

Meanwhile in Minnesota we’re seeing what happens when a government classifies people who protest its policies as domestic terrorists. It's always a bad thing when your government lies to you. When it lies that protesters are domestic terrorists, it sets those protesters up to be killed.

Our bear is here, decimating FEMA, promoting racists, weaponizing the law, sending troops into cities that vote for the opposition, and glorifying the age of robber barons by mandating that the EPA will only consider pollution’s costs to industry instead of its costs to human health.

My father’s other favorite phrase was ole tubli. It looks silly in English, but translates as fare forward bravely. We’re gonna need that.

[[and thanks to Rich Longmore for the snippet of bear borrowed from 13th Age]]