Ukraine Shows Us the Power of the 21st-Century Citizen

From Crowdsourced Community Organizing to DIY Weapons, Ordinary People Are Waging a New Kind of War

This is a new kind of war, waged by a new kind of citizen.

The failure of the Russian forces to subdue Ukraine quickly has astonished experts, officials, and journalists worldwide. It shouldn’t. The Ukrainian resistance is just the latest example of the new attitudes and abilities of 21st century citizens.

While social media has been getting a lot of attention in this “TikTok War,” the real story is the growing determination and capacity of ordinary people. Around the world, ordinary people are fundamentally different from people of generations past. They have …

In Ukraine’s Resistance, Echoes of Past Struggles | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

In Ukraine’s Resistance, Echoes of Past Struggles

The Defiance to Putin’s Invasion Highlights the Nation’s Long, Multigenerational Drive for National Self-Determination

Ukrainians refer to Russian TV and its viewers as “Zombieland,” having long ago developed an immunity to the main talking points of Vladimir Putin’s mindless propaganda war.  They know the …

Can Ukraine’s Experiments in Local Democracy Survive the Invasion?

From Balta to Vinnytsia, Communities Have Been Growing in Power—and Democratic Innovation

As I write this, Russian troops reportedly are moving north through the Odesa oblast, or region, toward the river Kodyma, along which sits a town called Balta.

This is not new …

PUNISHMENT

All animals were once human, but then
they sinned—
and God flooded our Earth
and Noah smuggled all those former humans in pairs. Each of them
was wicked, deceitful. And …

A Letter From Kyiv, Where Reality Is Being Papered Over | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

A Letter From Kyiv, Where Reality Is Being Papered Over

In Ukraine’s Capital, the COVID-Era Accentuates, and Hides, Big Divides

Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital and the seventh-most populous city in all of Europe, is governed by a strange combination of a Soviet and a post-Soviet mentality. Many have no trust in …

It’s 2020. Do You Know Who Your Government Is Serving? | Zocalo Public Square • Arizona State University • Smithsonian

It’s 2020. Do You Know Who Your Government Is Serving?

America Has Been Conflating Politics and Business for Years—And if We’re Not Careful, We Could Go the Way of Post-Soviet Eastern Europe

In broad daylight, dozens of masked police and plain-clothed strongmen burst into the foyer of the swanky Sofiyskiy Fitness Club. It was May 25, 2017, and the posh gym—located in …