Business as Usual During War

Has your life changed because of the war on Ukraine?

I get it. People need to make a living.

Ironically, these are the same words that I used in an earlier article.

But this time it’s about life and death.

Not mine, because I don’t live in Ukraine and I don’t have family and friends there. I have no skin in the game.

My life is easy. I could just keep on writing my book and pretend this was all happening on the other side of the world.

But I’ve never been able to do that.

Just like so many of my friends, family, and people around the world, we’re giving of our time and money to help as much as possible. It never seems enough, but we’re trying.

Meanwhile, people continue to die.

Odd

There seems to be a certain level of logic behind the NATO and EU countries not being directly involved with Ukraine. It’s the threat of a nuclear World War III. Apparently, if your country has nuclear weapons, it’s ok to do anything to anyone because your contemporaries won’t do much of anything

It’s a horrifying calculation.

But have you noticed that there are only a few companies that have actively taken a stance in support of Ukraine? Mostly it’s business as usual. The only threat for a business being in support of people is a financial loss.

I understand a nuanced reason for a small group of companies not making a statement: Why should Russian people die if a company outside of Russia stops supplying something critical needed by everyday people?

But most companies aren’t in that position.

Question

Are you comfortable supporting a company that continues business as usual? Or should we be demanding that all companies, with a few critical exceptions, stop doing business with Russia?