"Why Most Things Fail"

Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics, by Paul Ormerod I made a very cursory reading of Paul Ormerod’s book, Why Most Things Fail: Evolution, Extinction and Economics. Ormerod emphasizes the unpredictability of things as an explanation for the biological evolution and a high number of business failures. Procter & Gamble is identified as less than a dozen companies that have stayed in the top 100 since 1915. I have, of course, read many books about what sustains success: Built to Last perhaps being the primary one; another, Search for Excellence. Certainly, Procter & Gamble shares characteristics with all of those companies that have lasted the longest. Adaptability, focus on the consumer, discipline, innovation including, very importantly, for P&G technology. Focus on the key strategic advantages and imperatives: product superiority, superiority in recruiting and retention. Adaptability has certainly been critical in our business portfolio, seeking new businesses to grow, focusing relentlessly on improving our existing contract brands to provide better service to consumers, and disciplined balancing of profit and sales growth. These characteristics have been shared by many firms that, at one point or another, were strong and growing. But most have failed because they have not adapted (JC Penney, Sears, and Motorola) or had less strategic focus. Why have a few companies like P&G done better than others in this? For me, it comes down to one thing above all else: the quality of the people and the permanence of the values which they have pursued. Values of superiority, winning, of innovation, but values, too, that make a person want to dedicate their career to a company and values, too, which have honored the importance of balancing the preservation of core values with the need to adapt everything else to carry out the purpose. I believe an absolutely crucial part of Procter & Gamble’s success has been the quality of its top management, and I believe the success of generally having strong top management has been enormously facilitated by a promote-from-within culture. Why has that been important? A number of reasons: 1. The reality that people who advance in the company are likely to share even as they nurture renewal of the core values. 2. The opportunity to appraise people at various positions in their development in order to improve the likelihood of choosing the right person for the top jobs. 3. An unrelenting commitment to the importance of recruiting and development. 4. The impact on the culture of people who know one another, who have worked together over the years, who speak a common language but also, ideally, are “comfortable enough” with each other to speak their mind, to argue, and to stand up for what they believe in. To be sure, this has not happened perfectly. There are pressures to conform, to “go along.” But with the right choice of individuals, the right culture and the right appointments, we will, hopefully, continue to find people at every key position who are ready to innovate, to speak out, even as they know that achieving their business results requires the full involvement of their organization and that they carry no greater responsibility than helping ensure that the next generation of leaders is ready to carry on to sustain the company’s success. Ormerod’s book, deliberately, spends virtually no time in examining what have been the sources of success. While he gives lip service to the reality that social systems like corporations have an opportunity to adapt and think and make decisions that eclipse what is possible in biological evolution, he really over-generalizes the applicability of biological extinction to social institution extinction. Nevertheless, the point he makes rings true. Continued success is by no means inevitable. In fact, it is the exception, just as the continuation of any biological species is not guaranteed. In fact, its natural course would be to become extinct. Yes, some things have lasted much longer than others, and the thinking processes that humans have, hopefully, will enable us to continue on a lot longer. But there is no guarantee of this. At this very moment, we see reasons to doubt it: The breakdown of global alliances, the threat of our climate gone awry, and nuclear proliferation. These are all things being impacted by man and which have to be controlled by man and yet, we are not doing a good job at all of organizing to control them. This, in fact, is our biggest challenge. Along with it is the challenge posed by our difficulty to simply get along, to be united. Obviously, this must start with the family, but even here we have seen a breakdown of significant proportion. We can never forget that the family is the conveyor of values, the nurturing of values, and the creation of standards to which young people will understand and hopefully pursue. All these things are intentional, require conscious recognition of truths that have emerged but also recognize the need to adapt, to change, to innovate, and to improve. Not only to grow but to be sustained. I am glad I picked up Ormerod’s book. He has got me to thinking, even if not agreeing wholeheartedly with the thesis he advanced.

The Possibility of a Criminal Occupying the Presidency Foreseen Almost 250 Years Ago

Patrick Henry foresaw what we are experiencing with Trump. At the Virginia Ratifying Convention in 1788, he argued that the vast powers granted to the President rendered the nation vulnerable to a criminal occupying America’s highest office. Such a president, Henry predicted, would realize that his powers could be deployed to aid and abet his criminal ambitions. Henry took care to note that such a president could, in theory, be checked by a criminal investigation, but facing the prospect of criminal charges, the president would simply rely on his constitutionally granted powers to thwart the prosecutors and if the prosecutors did not back down, the president could simply collapse the system, demanding the full powers of a “monarch.” “If the president be guilty,” Henry told the Convention, then his criminal proclivities meant that he wouldn’t hesitate “to make one bold push for the American throne.” I’m afraid we’re seeing that in a real time today with Trump.

"Blood on His Hands"

"Blood On His Hands" The bullying and mafia styled actions continue, now at the cost of countless lives. Trump witholds intelligene support for Ukraine, this on top of witholding already approved military equipment It is cruel and life-taking. An unforgiveable and unforgettable stain on our country created by our Presdident. Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation March 6, 2025 Trump has brought a mafia-styled operation to the Presidency, not for the first time. There is no clearer way I can describe it. Five years ago, he was on the brink of being impeached. He told President Zelensky there would be no more aid for Ukraine until Zelensky agreed to dig deep into computer files to find evidence to impugn Hunter Biden. It is a tragedy that Republican Senators who knew better, didn’t stand up then to impeach him, thereby thwarting the possibility of his returning to office. Today, the beat goes on. Trump is holding Zelensky and Ukraine hostage again. In order to receive more military aid, they are going to have to confer a substantial amount of the country’s mineral rights to the United States without, so far, a guarantee joined by the US, of preserving Ukraine's independence. This mafia-style operation is nothing new for Trump. It is how he ran his businesses. Totally transactional. Bluffing. Following the mantra--"if I hold the stronger hand I win". No matter what happens to you. The mafia style leadership characterizes Trump's relationships with other nations. Trump is using tariffs as a bludgeon to force countries into agreements. He offers to extend the enforcement of the tariff or pull it back, depending on what the leader agrees to tomorrow or next week. As David Sanger of the NYT aptly describes it, he "is turning tariffs on and off like tap water". He is acting almost "on whim". Wang Li, China's foreign minister characterizes Trump's tariff actions as "the law of the jungle". This is sheer power politics. It is a commitment to “the mighty will rule over the weak.” As Thucydidis wrote centuries ago,"the strong do what they can and the week suffer what they must". These tariff actions are leading to some short term "concessions" but this bullying and whip lash approach will not end well for us. The abandonment of a rules-based and trust-based relationship with other nations, including our closest historic allies has been and will remain essential to living in the world we want to live in. Our network of allies has been a great strenth of our nation. Trump is decimating it, day by day, hour by hour. There is no sign to date that Trump’s appointments to his cabinet or to his Republican colleagues are going to stand up against this mafia-type operation. I think the only thing that will lead them to is what I fear what may well happen to our nation: economic decline and continued chaos unsettling and endangering the lives of millions and millions of people. This is happening right now. The mafia styled operation also characterizes the domestic actions of the Trump Administration. Trump and Musk are dismantling institutions which have served this country for decades. Not perfectly; every institution needs improvement, some significantly in their efficiency and quality. But we need to build them--not destroy them-- we need to make them stronger to serve the public better. What we are witnessing now is chaotic and often cruel destruction without strategic calculation of how to make them better. We are in a troubled time. Not for the first time, we are in search of a leader who can bring this country back to its highest values, practically and cogently. We faced this need many times before. We faced it with Abraham Lincoln. With Teddy Roosevelt, with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Harry Truman and others. They brought this country back on course whether that be with our domestic institutions, race relationships or our relationships with other countries. In the meantime, we need to push back at what is happening here that is wrong. I am encouraged by what the courts are doing. But I believe we need a mass movement of the kind we witnessed with the suffragettes and Civil Rights leaders which will need to be led by a leader who has yet to clearly emerge but I am sure is there. Reply, Reply All or Forward

Trump's Mafia-Styled Operation

Trump has brought a mafia-styled operation to the Presidency, not for the first time. There is no clearer way I can describe it. Five years ago, he was on the brink of being impeached. He told President Zelensky there would be no more aid for Ukraine until Zelensky agreed to dig deep into computer files to find evidence to impugn Hunter Biden. It is a tragedy that Republican Senators who knew better, didn’t stand up then to impeach him, thereby thwarting the possibility of this man returning to office. Today, the beat goes on. Trump is holding Zelensky and Ukraine hostage again. In order to receive more military aid, they are going to have to confer a substantial amount of the country’s mineral rights to the United States without, so far, a guarantee joined by the US, of preserving Ukraine's independence. This mafia-style operation is nothing new for Trump. It is how he ran his businesses. Totally transactional. Bluffing. Following the mantra--"if I hold the stronger hand I win". No matter what happens to you. The mafia style leadership characterizes Trump's relationships with other nations. Trump is using tariffs as a bludgeon to force countries into agreements. He offers to extend the enforcement of the tariff or pull it back, depending on what the leader agrees to tomorrow or next week. As David Sanger of the NYT aptly describes it, he "is turning tariffs on and off like tap water". He is acting almost "on whim". Wang Li, China's foreign minister charactertizes Trump's tariff actions as "the law of the jungle". This is sheer power politics. It is a commitment to “the mighty will rule over the weak.” As Thucydidis wrote centuries ago,"the strong do what they can and the week suffer what they must". These tariff actions are leading to some short term "concessions" but this bullying and whip lash approach will not end well for us. The abandonment of a rules-based and trust-based relationship with other nations, including our closest historic allies has been and will remain essential to living in the world we want to live in. Our network of allies has been a great strenth of our nation. Trump is decimating it, day by day, hour by hour. There is no sign to date that Trump’s appointments to his cabinet or to his Republican colleagues are going to stand up against this mafia-type operation. I think the only thing that will lead them to is what I fear what may well happen to our nation: economic decline and continued chaos unsettling and endangering the lives of millions and millions of people. This is happening right now. The mafia styled operation also characterizes the domestic actions of the Trump Administration. Trump and Musk are dismantling institutions which have served this country for decades. Not perfectly; every institution needs improvement, some significantly in their efficiency and quality. But we need to build them--not destroy them-- we need to make them stronger to serve the public better. What we are witnessing now is chaotic and often crueldestruction, without strategic calculation of how to make them better. We are in a troubled time. We are in search of a leader who can bring this country back to its highest values, practically and cogently. We faced this need many times before. We faced it with Abraham Lincoln. With Teddy Roosevelt, with Franklin D. Roosevelt, with Harry Truman and others. They brought this country back on course whether that be with race relationships or in our relationships with other countries. In the meantime, we need to push back at what is happening here that is wrong. I am encouraged by what the courts are doing. But I believe we need a mass movement like we witnessed with the suffragetes and Civil Rights leaders that is going to have to be led by a leader who has yet to emerge but I am sure is there. Reply, Reply All or Forward

Refelctions on Religion from Twenty-Two Years Ago--I Feel the Same Way Today

I have found the past year to be a very difficult one in terms of reconciling the faith I had in a super-ordinate power of goodness and ultimate creator of what exists, and the reaffirmation of the terrible damage and injustice that can grow from the fanatical, even if misguided, pursuit of religious orthodoxy. The torturous and horrific acts committed by some in the name of Allah are only the most recent manifestation of where religious belief can carry. To say that religion is not the root cause of violence (and sadly I think that judgment in some cases cannot be supported) does not change the fact that religion has too often served as the justification and been used to broaden the reach of the pursuit of evil. We see throughout history innumerable cases where religion, like it or not, has led to such inhuman ends. The crusades led by the Christians. The battles between Orthodox Serbs and Muslim Bosnians. The battle between Jewish and Palestinian fanatics. The Hindus versus the Muslims and many more. What is one to make of this? Surely there is no denying the benefits that organized religion has brought to people in numbers far too great to count. I am among them. If I had not been brought up a Catholic, if I had not participated in the Episcopal Church, particularly in the opportunity it gave me for self-reflection and contact with members of the clergy who inspired me with their thoughts, I surely would not be the person I am today. However, I find it unsatisfying and intellectually dishonest to simply leave the matter accepting that, yes, organized religion does a lot of good, but it does a lot of harm, too. What is so ironical is that, if you take the thoughts of Jesus, pure and simple, you could hardly go wrong. You could almost sum up every book written about good living in the Sermon on the Mount with the Beatitudes. I am coming to a belief that the problem with organized religion is that it becomes fossilized and bureaucratized. Fossilized in the sense that it is slow or unwilling to change its views on what practices and behaviors are truly in accord with the root values of the great world religions. Those root values can be found in the Ten Commandments, the Beatitudes, in the admonition to “love thy neighbor as thyself.” If religion stopped there, and thought about what it meant to carry out these virtues faithfully in today’s world, we would not end up, I submit, with the exclusive “you are with us or you are against us” “only the faithful are worthy” attitude that have too often led to prejudice, violence and even war. The mistake of organized religions is to come to the belief that they have a unique interpretation of truth that extends beyond what is really the foundation of truth – being all one can be and honoring others as oneself. They become structured and bureaucratized and then work for their own self-perpetuation, knowing it or not, even if this is not in the furtherance of the few ultimate truths that really matter. Of course, religious institutions are not the only organizations that fall into this trap. All organizations do. The problem which religions face to a particular degree is that they don’t have built within them the adequate balance of power to adapt to the need to change rapidly. One need only think how long it has taken (and is still taking) for divorce to be accepted in certain religions. One thinks of all the artifice that has been used to get around this requirement, engaging in intellectual dishonesty in the extreme. What’s more, almost all religious organizations are self-appointed in their succession. Governments, too, can be slow to change, but their perpetuation (at least in a democracy) is determined by the electorate. It is not surprising that those societies which have not allowed the electorate to govern the succession have not, by and large, been successful over time. And even those, such as China today, which have continued to be ruled with a strong autocratic hand, have increasingly brought into the workings of society the individual choice in the economic and social spheres needed for the structure and operation of society to continue to evolve. What has led organized religion to change, it seems to me, often after an enormous length of time, is what has led other organizations to change, and that is survival. It is only as “the faithful” drop away from an organized church that the need for change will be truly embraced. And yet that need can come slowly for the power of organized religion is strong because the truth of its basic tenets remain, even as too often its rituals and practices become arcane, out of touch with modern society and honored more in the breach than in the practice. Moreover, for most of us, it is a fact that a church is far more conducive to reflection on the basic truths that make any religion of value than one’s living room. There have been a few members of the clergy whom I have met during my lifetime who have been able to articulate the simple truths of living a good life clearly and cogently. They have changed my life. I think all I can conclude from this difficult and in many ways unsettling line of thought is that the imperative is to try to adhere to these basic truths as well as one possibly can while seeking out individual(s) who can help bring them to light for me/us in a more meaningful way than we can do on our own. I have found such individuals in Bob Gerhard and Paula Jackson, among others. I need to hear from them more often. These thoughts led me to record these excerpts and reflections from the book Doubts and Loves by Richard Holloway: I would like to suggest that we should switch the emphasis in Christianity from belief to practice, from believing things about Jesus to the imitation of Jesus. There would be three challenging elements here: Resolution to love rather than condemn sinners. Seek to understand others rather than rush to judgment. Active pity for the disadvantaged of the earth, then work to change their lot. A mistrust of power and violence, both personal and institutional, and an act of opposition to them. I would like to suggest that worldlessness or identification with the powerless is the key to the mystery of Jesus. The paradox is that we have only heard of Jesus through an institution that has not experienced worldlessness for a very long time. The expendable Man of Nazareth is now represented by an institution that follows the logic of all worldly institutions the logic of expedience; the drive to survive; yet we would not even know about this paradox if it were not for the Church. The Sermon on the Mount is not exactly translatable into complete political practice, but it can act as a stimulus to aspiration; it can create the sort of discontent that leads to action. A transformed version of the Jesus tradition, adapted for our day, would lay less emphasis on believing things about Jesus and more emphasis on imitating Jesus. It would be a practice system rather than a belief system. What is left of Christianity should be the practice of the kind of love that subverts the selfishness of power, whether it is the subtle power of spiritual or the brutal power of political institutions. All concentrations of power justify their ascendancy with theory, as well as with more blatant methods. I would like to suggest that it is more important to open ourselves to the words that gave rise to the claim of divinity rather than to profess allegiance to the claim itself, but show little or no personal response to the words that precipitated it. The exciting thing about our history, the thing that helps to balance all the evil we have committed, is our passion for discovery, for beginning again. Christ’s teaching on forgiveness has already opened for us the possibility of a new politics that can even move us beyond great tragedy and start again. Young people are the way the world keeps on beginning again. For those who want to live the world, it must begin with attention. Intensity. Repentance. Forgiving others is a true win/win. For ourselves and for others. For those doing the forgiving and those forgiven.

The Challenge And Urgency of Standing Up to do What is Right

This challenge was illustrated in 1940 by the reluctance of people to face up to the horror of Hitler. Here is a petition signed by Potter Stewart, a future Supreme Court Justice, and Congressman Gerald Ford, a future President of the United States. “We demand the Congress refrain from war, even if England is on the verge of defeat.” Or, at the same time, this from William Coffin, as the Treasurer of Harvard talking to its President Conant: “Hitler is going to win. Let’s be friends with him.” This reminded Arthur Schlesinger of the challenge faced by the old Whig Party, the party of business in antebellum America. It did not confront the challenge of slavery. Yet slavery was as urgent a question in the 1850s as Nazism was in the 1940s. Everyone had to come to a decision on this. Just as everyone today must come to a decision on who holds the responsibility for Russia's unprovoked invasion of Ukraine. Niebuhr presents the challenge of doing "what is right" by illuminating the mixed nature of man: “The plight of the self is that it cannot do the good it intends because man’s pretensions to reason and virtue,” he argued, “are eradicably tainted by self-interest and love. Original sin lies in man’s illusion that he can overcome his inherent finiteness and weakness". Over-weening self-pride permeates all human endeavor and brings evil into history, Niehbuhr argues. A second theme of Niebuhr is the relationship between history and eternity. The modern fallacy, he thought, was the idea that redemption is possible within the history. Man must understand the incompleteness of all historic good as well as the corruption of all historic achievement. Wisdom, he wrote, “is dependent upon a humble recognition of the limits of our knowledge and our power.” “Nothing worth doing is completed in our lifetime. Therefore, we must be saved by hope. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone; therefore, we are saved by love. No virtuous act is quite as virtuous from the standpoint of our friend or foe as from our standpoint. Therefore, we must be saved by the final form of love, which is forgiveness.” We are also saved, I have found, by the final form of love which is understanding and respecting another person’s reality as he or she sees it. I do not share Niebuhr’s thought that there is "corruption of all historic achievement.” I don’t buy this, not for a moment. There are historic achievements which do not become corrupt if carried out in the way that was embodied by that “historic achievement.” I think of a brilliant piece of art: a sculpture by Michelangelo or a timeless book by Tolstoy. I think of the development of the relationship of mutual understanding, true mutual understanding. That is not destined to become corrupt. There are things that are so right they stand the test of time. Above all, in my experience, works of art and personal relationships which are truly timeless.

"Letting Putin Off the Hook"

I have anticipated Trump would drive a settlement in the Russia-Ukraine war. But I did not imagine he would do so by letting Putin off the hook, doing so by giving a pass to Putin for his illegal and immoral invasion of Ukraine and today blaming the Ukrainians and their leaders for the war and negotiating terms without Ukraine at the table. Yet that is what is happening as I write this. It would not be a big leap for President Ji of China to see this and conclude the mainland's claim to Taiwan is rooted in history and hence justified to be carried out by force. Here is an essay I wrote about 3 years ago, 2 months after Putin's illegal full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I talked about the importance of "human agency". We are seeing that play out in a way I never expected--with the President of the United States turning the responsibility for the war on its head, placing the blame squarely on Ukraine and absolving Putin of any responsibility. Who would have believed that!! In this essay I posited the need for a different Russian leader to emerge to achieve a lasting peace. I still think that is true. But I never anticipated that an American President would be the change agent to drive the peace process by denying Russia's culpability even while Putin remains in office. Trump has conceded Putin's key demands even before reaching the negotiation table.: no admission to NATO; Russia keeps the land it illegally conquered. We have utterly betrayed the Ukrainian nation, its people who have sacrificed to much and its leadership. We have betrayed the Russian people who have fought valiantly at the risk and sometimes cost of their lives against Putin's autocratic and immoral rule. This outcome, while substantively and realistically is about what I have expected for the last couple of years, BUT NEVER in the context of absolving Putin of the responsibility for acting illegally. This is unforgivable and constitutes a huge risk for the future. Now, the key is to establish critical support for Ukraine which even without NATO assures it--and makes it clear to Russia--that Ukraine's independence is guaranteed by the US and our allies, whom Trump and his administration have recently thrown under the bus. It remains to be seen if that will occur. It MUST. I include below a posting I made threee months after Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The themes and convictions I present still are relevant today. "I Never Felt I Would Live to See The Day, Yet There Remains Room for Hope" May 16, 2022 Like so many who have studied Russian and Ukrainian history, who have come to have many Russian and Ukrainian friends and admire Russian and Ukrainian culture, I never thought I would live to see the day when the President of Russia, Vladimir Putin, would launch a full-scale invasion of Ukraine. I thought Vladimir Putin was more prudent than that. I thought that he would see the risk as too high and the likely damage to his own country too great. That, of course, is not the way it has turned out. That brutal reality—and the resulting deaths, displacement of millions of lives and the economic devastation which has resulted from it—they are a source of unspeakable pain and regret. I never felt I would live to see this day. And yet…I am also reminded that I never thought I would live to see the day when the Soviet Union would peaceably dissolve as a collective body of nations committed to Communism and to the prosecution of a Cold War with the West. I never thought I’d live to see the day when I, then President of Procter & Gamble, along with thousands of others, played a role in creating a business and organization in Russia, not that long after I had chased Russian submarines around the North Atlantic as part of the U.S. Navy. No matter what the future brings, I will always be incredibly proud of what our P&G Russian men and women achieved. What do I hope to demonstrate with this sequence of events which I never thought I would have lived to experience? What perspective, if any, might it offer for the future? Several things, I believe. It forcefully underscores that history is not inevitable. That it does not proceed in a straight line. That it encounters unexpected dramatic changes. It cautions us to not give up hope. Situations that have looked borderline hopeless in the past have turned around, gotten better, more often than not in ways we did not anticipate. Above all, for me, it highlights the importance of individual agency. I do not believe that the peaceful demise of the Soviet Union, accomplished in the face of the great threat of it being violent, could possibly have happened if it were not for the person of Mikhail Gorbachev. To be sure, there were underlying factors, importantly economic and the openness of communication that allowed Russians to see what was happening to the West. These were foundational realities that helped prompt dramatic change in Russia. But the evolution of this change in the peaceful way in which it occurred was by no means certain. There were other Russian leaders, who I encountered first-hand, who would have fought the dissolution of the Soviet Union tooth and nail, with great loss of life. In much the same way, one can explain Vladimir Putin’s disastrous decision to invade Ukraine and trace it back to certain historical decisions, particularly the expansion of NATO and the failure to grasp the slim opportunity that existed at the turn of the century to bring Russia into a Pan-European security network. As I wrote in 2014 when Russia annexed Crimea, there is “enough blame to go around.” However, make no mistake. The decision on how to respond to the perceived (or actual as Russia saw it) risk that Russia’s security posed by NATO was singularly dependent on the decision by Vladimir Putin, as he called on his army to invade Ukraine. The decision to do this without even obtaining an even halfway accurate idea of how the Ukrainian people would react to this invasion also rests squarely on Vladimir Putin. So there we have two of the most unforgettable events in my entire 80+-year life that I never thought I would see the day to experience. This view of history leads me to the hope that there will again be a shift of power and belief system in Russia which this time will offer the opportunity for Russia to take its place within a broad European security network. For decades, I firmly believed this is where Russia belongs. Yes, bringing its own unique cultural history and belief systems but still part of Europe and the West. Having had the benefit of being close to Russia and Russian people for over 30 years and having studied its history and culture, I firmly believe that its natural place in this global spectrum we inhabit is part of a broader Europe. There are already major differences between countries in Europe: between Germany and Italy, France and the U.K., Poland and Spain. Russia, too, will have its own unique characteristics. But while it didn’t participate fully in The Enlightenment, all you need to do is read Russian literature and experience its music and its art and know its people to see the place it occupies in Western culture. The fact that this will not happen in my lifetime, with my now being over 80, is disappointing but it is not personally deflating. I know history is long. No set of experiences shows how it can change more than what we have experienced in Russia over my adult lifetime. I am conscious that achieving this end will not happen on automatic pilot. It will require many things which I cannot pretend to know, but three I can: 1. People in Russia, as many are right now, standing up bravely, at risk of their lives, to argue for and commit to advance as best they can, a liberal way of life. People who do not give up hope in a better future. 2. That the people of the world at large and of the West in particular not "blackballl" the Russian people generally as evil and as "enemies" but rather recognize that this tragic decision to invade Ukraine was very much the decision of its leadership. And recognize further that in the long run--and the short run too for that matter--that working with Russia, without expecting we will see everything alike, is in the interest of the United States, Russia and the entire world. 3.. Ultimately, the emergence of a Russian leader who can gain the confidence of the Russian people and play the positive role that Gorbachev did over 30 years ago, and Lech Walesa did in Poland, and Nelson Mandela did in South Africa, and Abraham Lincoln did in the United States and that this leader will be matched with leaders from the West who are prepared to work together to achieve common existential goals.