The Philosophy of W

The following is a collection of essays, notes, and ideas I’ve written over the last several weeks, all loosely associated with the war in Ukraine. I’ve tried to edit the notes into some coherence, especially since some have been chronologically superseded, but I’m neither a journalist nor a scholar, so YMMV. I don’t even necessarily stand behind everything here—some of it is or was just food for thought. The lower you go, the older the notes. The title refers to one of the essays, which posits that our dialogue is at the level of George W. Bush, intellectually.

At a very high level, what we are witnessing in Ukraine is a unipolar power (the U.S.) teaching a harsh lesson to an upstart (Russia) that thinks the world should be, at least, multipolar. Russia has posited that what’s good for the goose is good for the gander and gotten its leash yanked very severely. Sitting on the sidelines, taking notes, is China. Europe has very clearly indicated where it is in the pecking order by immediately aligning its interests with those of the United States, without question or modification.

So, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, we have the following situation.

Ukraine

There are millions of internally displaced and emigrated people from Ukraine. It’s already a humanitarian disaster in the making and will get even worse if we don’t act quickly. Infrastructure is still mostly in place—relative to what an American-style carpet-bombing invasion would have achieved by now. It is probably not even currently in the top five humanitarian disasters happening right now. That’s not to argue that nothing should be done, but that we should check our own motives or predilections when we put 100% of our attention there. Ukraine has no allies, only countries willing to use it as a punching bag to wear down Russia.

Europe

Europe has shown its true colors. It had distanced itself from the U.S. throughout the Trump years, after having shamefully curled up at Obama’s feet for eight years. It has now thrown itself on it back again, belly to the air, clearly showing its subservience to the alpha dog, America. Europe’s elites like selling weapons and getting free money from a terrified government that opens its purse without thinking. This sets back having Europe as a counterweight to the U.S. for decades, if not forever.

Russia

Russia is holding a bag full of flaming shit called that they are calling a “military operation” for “humanitarian purposes”. Though this is more true than “Iraq has WMDs”, it still doesn’t matter. It is highly illegal to invade another country. Full stop. It is against the Nuremberg Code. Just because the U.S. has gotten away with it a dozen times in the last few decades doesn’t make it legal. It makes it highly hypocritical for the rest of the world to single out Russia, but it doesn’t make it legal. Russia’s economy is now nearly entirely cut off from the West. It will move toward China and India, where it will be able to sell its very pricey petroleum products with ease.

United States

The U.S. is in the catbird seat. It is far away from the war, all of its “allies” in NATO are the buffer zone and it’s selling weapons like hotcakes. It can only ruin its position by being stupid. It managed to bamboozle the world into thinking that Russia’s action was unprovoked and unprecedented. It will most likely be able to write the history on that. It is very greedy and stupid, though, so the U.S. is the only one that can actually save Russia right now, by overplaying its hand.

China

China is staying neutral. The alliance between Russia and China will only solidify as western behavior confirms literally everything that Russia and China said in their 5000+-word plea for a multipolar world. The West has replied with a resounding “go fuck yourselves” and “all the toys are ours” and “our colonialism and imperialism is morally pure”.

India

India has also not jumped on the bandwagon of declaring every conflict in Europe a “world war”. The economic repercussions will be severe, but India isn’t all-in with the U.S. hegemony.

Simpleton Rule

If we’re honest about where we stand, morally and intellectually, then the entire western world (the U.S., Europe, and NATO allies) is wholeheartedly that of George W. Bush. The patron saint of their religion might as well be Junior now. They “don’t negotiate”. They chirpily regurgitate “you’re either with us or against us” to shut down any form of argument or inquiry.

And these people are still fighting the “Axis of Evil” with an ever-changing roster of countries. The original was Iran, Iraq, and North Korea. Now, it’s Russia, China, and probably still poor Iran. George W. Bush is now a painter. It’s always the painters stirring up trouble.[1]

There seems to be no end of people who are dumb enough to think that an opposition to Russia will not have to concede anything whatsoever in order to make the violence stop. They want to beat the invasion into submission, no matter what the cost or the risk. They don’t care how many Ukrainians will have to die, as long as they can blame Russia for it. They don’t care whether nuclear bombs are dropped as long as they can blame it on Russia. They are mental midgets, children.

People grasp at good guy/bad guy narratives. They think that condemning everyone involved in a war amounts to kowtowing to one side or the other. The message we’re told is: Russia is an evil empire; there are different rules for them than for NATO nations, especially the U.S. Anyone who claims neutrality or seeks compromise—it’s the only way to end a war short of total destruction of one side or the other or both—is evil. Diplomacy is evil. That’s where we are now. Every attempt at diplomacy is undermined because one cannot treat with evil.

These people are willing to concede nothing, not even the tiniest thing, because they think that this is a game. They think that they are fighting an ancient and unbending evil that must be shattered, destroyed to the last atom. Anyone who even considers any form of concession or compromise with Russia, as Chomsky does, notably, is a traitor and hates the freedom-loving Ukrainians. How outmatched would Ukraine have to be for these people to consider the struggle hopeless?

Demilitarization in Ukraine is the sensible thing to do, that results in the least amount of suffering for everyone. This is not what will happen. The world has been primed to first want to destroy Russia and to “save” Ukraine, without any clear idea of what that means—because most people live in a world with a plot about as complex as that of a Stephen Segal movie. They want revenge first and think that they can “win” peace through war without any more suffering. Or they think that they’ll be able to justify any suffering by blaming it on the enemy, so that’s all good. Those pushing the hardest are those least likely to feel the brunt, as usual.

De-escalate the situation. Give Russia what it wants and they’ll go home. They would have stayed home if you’d given them what they wanted before they invaded. You can’t have what you want—that option doesn’t exist. It never did. We’re were we are now because one rogue superpower dictates to the world, using its economic and military might to enforce its empire—and weapons manufacturers control that superpower.

Victory or nothing

Ask yourself where do you think this is headed? Are you for peace? At what cost? Are you for this war? Are you for de-escalation? You might know what you’d like to happen next; where do you think it will lead? How likely is your desired outcome? Do you even have a desired outcome? Or are you just lustily supporting “the good guys” with no idea of what it would even mean to win?

Ask yourself: cui bono? Russia certainly doesn’t. Russia the country had already been pushed into a very uncomfortable corner, forcing its power toward all the worst parts of their society—and now it’s 10x worse. Dissent will be crushed there, as is also happening in Europe and the U.S.

There is only one way to think: victory. That’s the only acceptable thought in any of these supposedly enlightened societies. Ukraine is absolutely fucked. It will host the war, which is like hosting an Olympics, but far, far worse. Its leadership is also consolidating power and trying to drive to—you guessed it—victory. Europe is going to suffer from a massive disruption of energy, but at least it’s no longer winter. Europe is also dropping its veil of openness and progressivism and going for full-throated unison on—you guessed it—victory.

The U.S. has high gas prices and may have overplayed its hand in the same way that Russia did. However, the U.S. is thousands of kilometers away, its favored businesses are selling weapons like mad, and it’s watching Europe and Russia beat the shit out of each other, while egging them on. The U.S. has the least to lose directly from the conflict. The perturbations may end up toppling an already-shaky economy, but I wouldn’t count on it. If Russia has a long way to fall, the U.S. has much longer.

Ukrainians are suffering. It is within our power to make that stop. We could negotiate with Russia, stop delivering weapons, guarantee neutrality, and make it all go away. I care about Ukraine and would be willing to capitulate a bit. Are you willing? Or would you rather have revenge?

Ugly Hypocrisy

It deeply offends me to see the world allow itself to be sicced on a nation (Russia) for transgressing on another nation (Ukraine) by the nation (U.S.) that’s done the same thing a dozen times over, always without punishment.

As Felix said on 608 − The World’s Mack (3/7/22) by Chap Traphouse (SoundCloud),

“Yes, Russia is doing terrible things and I’m glad that that’s the one country doing terrible things to whom we’re not sending weapons.”

I’m not arguing that the ruling class in Russia is right to spout their horseshit about “national security” or “de-Nazification”. It’s moderately more plausible than when the U.S. was talking about Iraq because it’s right on their doorstep, but it’s still horseshit. What’s the difference between Poland and Ukraine? Poland probably has U.S. nukes right now…and has probably had them for a while.

Russia went in foolishly believing its own invincibility myth. NATO is slowly starting to return the favor. Believing that Ukraine can be armed out of its inferiority is a fool’s errand. As Katie Halper said on Extended episode: How the Ukraine War Helps US Empire by Katie Halper & Aaron Maté (Useful Idiots),

“Ukraine cannot arm its way out of this.”

That won’t stop them from trying, though.

The starvation of Afghanistan is at least as bad as the invasion of the Ukraine, but no-one cares. Nearly literally no-one. We can round down to zero and lose no real accuracy. The U.S. was not banned from the Olympics for needlessly and senselessly and brutally stepping on the neck of a country it only recently stopped occupying after 20 years. No-one said a fucking word. No exclusion from SWIFT, not sanctions. Literally, nothing happened. America is allowed to occupy countries while Russia is not.

Even if Russia’s reasons are more credible than those of the U.S.—it doesn’t matter. The U.S. literally stopped occupying Afghanistan less than a year ago and now stands there, telling the world that occupying other countries is super-bad and all of those fucking idiots just nod their heads in approval and adulation and masturbatory glee, hoping that the U.S. will shower them with some exports. WTAF.

The U.S. and NATO seem hell-bent on teaching everyone the lesson that no-one fucks with them. They are the absolute rulers of the world and the world chimes in with its full-throated approval, lapping up its propaganda and regurgitating it as it were its own thoughts. They even think that they can teach China a lesson as well as Russia. NATO acts like its indomitable and hopes that the world buys its bullshit.

NATO sanctions wherever it likes, it sells weapons wherever it likes, and it thinks that there will never be any blowback. Maybe it won’t be another 9-11, but for a country deep in an inflation at the same time that it’s in an asset bubble of epic proportions, it seems like it might think about possible repercussions of its financial activity abroad.

Gorbachev => Yeltsin => Putin

The Soviet Union agreed to dissolve itself in 1991. This came after a decade of Glasnost and Perestroika and Gorbachev.

The president of Russia after Gorbachev was Boris Yeltsin. He was chosen and heartily approved by the West. The West promised Gorbachev that it would help Russia and the other former SSRs democratize and integrate into the privatized, capitalist world. They also promised that the Cold War was over and that NATO would not encroach militarily closer to the SSRs.

None of this happened. Instead, Yeltsin was encouraged to sell the resources of Russia for a song, either to local oligarchs or directly to western companies (Credit Suisse did amazing business in those years, unlike now). The country was divided up and was sold for a song to its former enemies. Democracy was a sham.

The West didn’t care about that. It cared about getting the vast resources of Russia under its control. It cared about making a tremendous amount of money at the expense of a country making the transition from a form of communism (the Soviet Union had drifted considerably far from actual communism by the 80s) to the all-out, rapacious, casino capitalism that was the only thing that the West could offer.

The life expectancy of Russia citizens plunged in a wholly unprecedented way in those years (men’s life expectancy went from 67 to 60 in just a few years). The economy was in such a shambles that the first ten years is compared to the Great Depression × 4. The ruble was flat, as it is now.

Watching what is happening to Russia right now seems like a replay of that, but possibly even worse. In the early 90s, people pretended to care about Russia’s fate while plundering it. The atmosphere now is very much hating Russia and Russians openly while plundering it. That means they can go full-bore on plundering and dismembering and, possibly, taking it over—and no-one will chastise NATO for it. Instead, they’ll be praised for having defeated Sauron.

NATO doesn’t care about Ukraine

I know, I know, we’re all supposed to be focused laser-like on Ukraine’s suffering, but those guys have gotten a lot of help from a lot of very powerful friends. Those friends will abandon Ukraine in a second as soon as it has served its purpose of acting as bait for Russia, but still, right now, they are the beneficiaries of more humanitarian aid and weapons and global goodwill than at any time in their history. Russia, on the other hand, is being disintegrated from all sides, without remorse or restraint. That is how one treats enemies that are absolutely evil. One eradicates them like the cockroaches that they are.

Do not delude yourselves into thinking that the American government or NATO cares at all about Ukraine or the Ukrainian people. They are delivering weapons because that serves two purposes: Western arms manufacturers make a lot of money, and Ukrainians will use them to shoot Russians. This is what they call a win-win for the West.

The entire purpose of this exercise over the last decade or so has been to prime people to support a “suicide by cop” story about Russia. When the history is written, the victors will triumphantly write how the evil empire Russia brought the holy wrath of the righteous West down upon it with its own hubris. That Russia alone is to blame for what happened to it. Their story will follow the lines of Iraq, which deserved everything it got because of Saddam’s intrusion into Kuwait, or Libya, which deserved everything it got because it never got rid of Qaddafi.

Through a Russian Lens

In many other situations—Hollywood films, for example—Russia would be portrayed as the spunky underdog, down but not out, valiantly fighting against the overwhelming power of a rabid adversary. Perhaps the film 300 expresses it best: a bunch of bastards fighting off even bigger bastards to the death. The bigger bastards will be left over, as always. The smaller bastards didn’t deserve to win either. No-one does. That’s why it’s a clusterfuck.

If you were to look at the events of the last 30 years through a Russian lens, you see: the country was plundered via a puppet government headed by Yeltsin, the world increasingly denying that Russia even had any role in ending the second world war. Obama said that all Russia makes is vodka and Kalshnikovs. The U.S. advanced militarily on its borders through NATO. The dickishness is breathtaking.

How do you think history will judge the behavior of the West? Are we sure we have the moral high ground? Or do we just assume that we’ll be able to write that history and cover up our moral crimes? Do we care about how cynical that is? Do we care how the future judges us? We obviously do not: we continue factory farming, we do nothing about climate change. Those are even bigger moral issues.

The propaganda in America is so strong and people so vastly under-informed that they don’t even see that their renewed and vigorous support for a war that they, even as recently as a month ago, overwhelmingly did not support, is 100% opposed to their own interests. Only the usual suspects will get richer. We really don’t have time for this shit, but sure, let’s run out the clock on climate change. Why not? Again, Russia shouldn’t invaded, but it’s only really a cornered, wounded bear that eventually just starts to think “hey I’ll just take as many of you with me as I can, if it’s going to go down this way.”

What is Ukraine?

Ukraine means “borderlands”. Maidan means “square”. We think their words are place-names. Ukraine has a Jewish president. There are at least some Nazis in their military. There was a coup. The U.S. helped or caused the coup. There is a civil war.

Until recently, Ukraine hated its president for not carrying out his campaign promises. They are now 100% behind their president. The U.S. is evenly divided between Republicans and Democrats, but Ukraine is not like that, we are told. They do not have complexity, like we do. There is no way for people in Ukraine to support conceding to Russia’s demands without being traitors.

The U.S. is training anti-insurgency troops. This worked terribly in Afghanistan and nearly everywhere else. This is supposedly going amazingly in Ukraine. The U.S. and NATO are not involved militarily. Instead, they are flooding the country with weaponry and “advisors”. You see the difference, of course? I’m sure Russia does.

The story of the Russians is that they are a bloodthirsty, conquering army. They are inept. They have old equipment. They are threatening nuclear war. We ignore it as if we know they wouldn’t dare. We pretend to be terrified, to get support, but act as if we don’t believe them. We consider nearly no information about these people and this country when we talk about them in such super-simplistic terms.

It’s almost like they’re incredibly excited to be able to do so. War is exciting! There’s money to be made! So fortuitous that they had all of this materiel ready and waiting!

Let’s rely on Putin to be the sane one: we won’t give an inch and will call his nuclear bluff. If he doesn’t back down, we all die, but it will be his fault. If he does, then we get all of his stuff and win the game. Once again, we are in the uncomfortable position of hoping that Putin is not a madman and will back down and lose face—because we know our side is not willing to do that at all.

NATO allies are buying and selling weapons at a prodigious rate, they are screaming for war from the hilltops, they are excited about the prospect on nuclear annihilation—or they are so naive as to believe it will not happen (they know Putin wouldn’t do it) or too stupid to understand what it would entail.

Stop Taking Sides

In order to bring about an end to the conflict, it’s incumbent on those not directly affected by it to not take sides. As soon as you’ve taken a side in an armed conflict, you’ve committed to seeing that armed conflict come to an end with a single victor. If you’ve taken a side, then you are for the espoused goals of that side and against those of the other.

If you don’t take a side, you remain in a position to balance the needs and desires of both sides. Unpalatable as it may seem, this is something you have to do when there is a massive disparity of power. In the case of Ukraine/Russia, this is heresy. In a similar situation in Palestine/Israel, those who consider themselves to be good and moral are on the exact opposite “side” in that conflict.

Even those who would side with the Palestinian plight acknowledge that one must treat with Israel’s desires because of the massive power disparity. That reality is acknowledged. How could it be otherwise? It would be madness to think that you could arm the Palestinians into winning a conflict against Israel. So why do people think arming Ukraine against Russia will work?

The best possible outcome in Ukraine is an end to the violence. The Russian Army is highly unlikely to just pick up and leave. Russia is unlikely to just give up, having lost much and gained nothing. That’s not to approve of Russia’s behavior, but it’s reality. So the fighting will continue until one side “loses” or until they can agree to stop fighting or until we all lose (nuclear conflagration).

Russia will not lose a military conflict with Ukraine, no matter how much CNN and its cheerleaders wish it to be so. Or at least they won’t lose not anytime soon. There will be much more destruction before that happens, let us at least agree on that. With NATO funneling a tremendous amount of weaponry to Ukraine, they will be able to hold out much longer than originally thought. This is not good for Ukraine because it will encourage Russia to intensify its efforts—which have been relatively tepid so far, as modern asymmetric military conflicts go. They will ramp up, though. At the very least, Russia has pulled back to its original ambitions of taking eastern Ukraine, though that region has already suffered greatly.

But where is the compromise? Who will help them agree to stop fighting if everyone has “taken a side”? You need neutral diplomats for that. The world has decided that the moral high ground is to denigrate anyone who would try to bring an end to the violence early, before the Ukrainians have “won”. They do this without acknowledging how illusional that victory is.

Living with a Bully

The article I’ll Be Against the Next “Good War” Too by Freddie deBoer (SubStack) writes,

“[…] as a democratic citizen, my primary responsibility is my own country. And (conveniently or inconveniently, I’m not sure) my own country also happens to be the greatest threat to the self-determination of other countries in the world.”

I agree with this 100%. This was always Chomsky’s answer to people questioning his focus on American crimes.

“[…] why is the United States allowed to ceaselessly extend its military dominance to more and more parts of the globe, where Russia is not? Why can NATO expand indefinitely, where the United States would never allow other countries to form strategic partnerships with Russia or China? If Canada wanted to develop a strategic partnership with Russia − which is not really fantastical, given their geographic and economic entanglements − the United States would never, ever permit it. So why must Russia permit Ukraine to join NATO?”

Because we cheat all of the time. No-one expects the U.S. or NATO to behave honorably or well, so everyone else has to. If no-one annoys the big seething bully in the room, nothing bad happens. Sure, we’re all under his thumb, but it’s better than war.

However, if someone irritates the beast, then the beast does not back down. It flips the table and starts throwing plates. It’s everyone else’s job to appease and deescalate. Stop whistling, stop filliping, stop wearing squeaky shoes, whatever it takes. Just get out of the way and calm down the beast. Give it what it wants.

And we certainly can’t have two seething bullies. That’s why we support the destruction of anyone who tries to stand up to the bully. We can’t envision a world without bullies, so we help the bully we have maintain his peaceful, if repressive reign. At least there’s no open war. It’s literally the best we can imagine happening, at this point.

So that’s why everyone wants Russia to back down: because they already know that NATO won’t. Russia can be reasoned with, no matter how many imprecations we throw her way. We know that our “side” cannot. It’s like living next to a volcano: you can’t make it go away. You can’t move the village. It demands sacrifice? You throw in a virgin. The volcano demanded Russia.

Also, it’s not a surprise that people are against Russia. They’ve been primed for it. Everyone hates Russia and considers them subhuman in the same way that they consider Middle Easterners to be subhuman and incapable of real civilization. The Chinese as well are considered to be an alien race, incapable of western-style empathy. What a joke.

The no-fly zone is the same kind of thing: it doesn’t mean no-one gets to fly there. It means NATO threatens open air-war and expects Russia to back down. Then only NATO gets to fly there. It doesn’t mean that “no-one” gets to fly there, despite the name. NATO and the U.S. will be flying all over that zone.

We are cheering for the devil we know to win, out of fear or to curry favor.

My fervent hope is that Russia will be allowed to deescalate when they choose to. I fear people will want to exact 100% damage, press their advantage, reap their pursued reward, and they won’t even notice when their side becomes the overt aggressor. They won’t care because destroying evil is justifiable, no matter what happens.

I don’t see many people concerned about a solution. They’re prioritizing punishment and revenge. If they can only have one, they’ll take revenge. All without bothering to even think of their own interests. We are a primitive, stupid species, still acting like we were on the Serengeti, picking up a stick and look for something to swat with it at the slightest provocation. This is a useful tool for those whose agenda led to this situation in the first place.

Germany just promised to grow its military by leaps and bounds. They’ve been trying to get support for this for years, but when were refused by clear-headed citizens. After five days of doom-scrolling Twitter, Germans are now indoctrinated and softened up enough to approve it with wild enthusiasm and self-righteous jubilance.

The right thing to do is for Russia to leave. The right thing to do is for NATO to disband. The right thing to do is for everyone to stop selling weapons to everyone else. For that, we would need diplomacy. And we no longer have diplomats, nor patience for them. War is literally the only answer we know. Sanctions are war on civilians, so, no, that’s not not war.

Burning Bridges

I just saw an article called Russia’s Money Is Gone by Matt Levine (Bloomberg) and I wonder how that impacts the world economy, right? The world has now seen that the financial system is not as safe it purported to be. They are also seeing that the U.S. is not only willing to upset the whole financial system for its purposes, but is actively toying with blocking media sources as well. “My way or the highway” has never been clearer than now.

Living in a Movie

It’s so sad to see what’s happening with Ukraine/Russia. The bear is goaded and stabbed and then, when it lashes out, we all cheer, as it is killed. We cheer despite its lashing out having taken victims. Toreadors do the same with bulls. But Russians are real people. Ukrainians are real people. That gets lost in the mix.

Russia attacked Ukraine, yes. But you have to see that attack in the context of a bigger picture where a multitude of attacks on the Russian state—none of which would ever be acknowledged as an attack—led up to it. Now Russia has given the West the excuse it needs to weave its own special history of how this all went down, dumber than a Michael Bay movie. It literally doesn’t matter what the context is, because they’re going to get Russia. They’re destroying the banks and starving the people and their businesses and their livelihoods and everyone cheers! So good! They all deserve it because Ukraine! We are truly monsters without principle.

The U.S. doesn’t take any responsibility for having created the situation we have now. It doesn’t acknowledge that it’s been in Russia’s role many times before. It just sanctimoniously says tells everyone the way it’s going to be and no one says a word. They all parrot their support for its chosen plan.

Four-dimensional Chess after all?

Watching the West’s reaction to Putin’s invasion makes me wonder something. We hear very much that Putin grossly underestimated the response and that he’s made a huge miscalculation and that he’s stupidly and blindly failed to foresee this situation. Maybe, maybe. But, maybe he did see this more-or-less coming and anticipated the west undermining all of its own principles to fall all over itself attacking Russia in all the ways that they can.

Who’s going to trust the western financial system anymore, when it can just be turned off? Who’s going to trust western media when they transmit only transparent lies? Things are happening now that will be very difficult to take back. Things have come, as they say, to a head. It’s like when the attack on 9-11 pales in comparison to what America did to itself afterwards. Perhaps this will be a bit like that: the ostensible retaliations will turn out to be a series of self-owns that, while inflicting significant short-term damage to Russia, end up harming the western countries themselves much more, in the long term.

I’ve heard many complain about how disappointed they are in the Swiss leadership because it has not shrugged off its neutrality to take a side, as so many Swiss citizens have unquestioningly done. I hope they continue to consider their options carefully and to only act when they have adequate and accurate information. People are welcome to express their opinions and evince their support without any or with unsubstantiated evidence. No-one cares about their Twitter feeds or their stupid LinkedIn posts. But I hold the government to higher standards. Their decisions have long-lasting effects.

Update 2022-03-07: Switzerland has broken neutrality. Fucking morons. This was such a dumb thing to give up neutrality for. The rest of the world’s jumping off of a bridge! It must be a great idea. Let’s do it, too. No downside! YOLO.

Why don’t you just go ahead and fucking ask to join NATO while you’re at it? You’re already buying jet fighters from the empire. Why not? It’s not like you have any principles left.

Maybe we can also kick all Russians out of Switzerland? Would that help?

No other indignity visited upon the world was worth doing it, but now, finally, something terrible enough has happened that Switzerland broke neutrality and issued sanctions. The Palestinians, Iraqis, Yemenis, Afghans, Congolese, and so on would like a word.

There are no adults in the room anymore.

Angela’s Smiling

As for Germany: I think Angela Merkel got an encrypted e-mail from Putin over the weekend that just read “Gern geschehen”.

No-one is more relieved than Angela Merkel right now. Watching the Greens approve a tripling of their defense budget, though. I wonder if Angela would have done it.

Arguing with Buchanan

The following was written at the beginning of March. Just before Easter, we heard that Finland and Sweden are seriously considering applying to NATO.

Is Putin Considering Using Nukes on NATO? by Patrick Buchanan (Antiwar.com)

“The world is rallying to Ukraine.”

“The world”. Except for China and Africa, sure, yeah. But they don’t count in our eyes anyway. Never have. Might that be part of the problem? So, the western media says unequivocally that Ukraine (and, by implication, NATO) is the good guy and Russia is the bad guy. Full stop. No more questions.

“Eventual defeat is becoming visible, and Putin probably cannot politically survive such a defeat.”

So now the story is: Putin planned horribly. Ukraine fought valiantly. Putin won’t “win” (we defined for him what it means to win) in the short-term and “faces defeat”. He will respond by dropping a nuke in order to avoid defeat (as if dropping a nuke isn’t admitting defeat in a very real way). Sure, sure, I guess … that’s how Roland Emmerich would write it.

“Finland, and Sweden, it is now being said, should be invited into NATO.”

You don’t “invite” anyone to NATO. They apply. Finland and Sweden have had that option for decades and haven’t taken it. Are they likely to be swept up in the propaganda of the moment and change their decades-long military policies because of an invasion in Ukraine? Sure, why not? Maybe I can buy an NFT of it. Nothing makes any sense anymore. It’s like people want a nuclear war because it would be cool to post about.

Germany and England are lovin’ war

The article NATO goes to war against Russia by WSWS Editorial Board (WSWS) writes,

“The non-membership of Ukraine in NATO is, and has been for several years, largely a fiction. Already substantially armed and with weapons pouring in, Ukraine is the front line in a war aimed at regime change in Moscow and the complete subordination of Russia to NATO.”

“German Chancellor Olaf Scholz announced Sunday that $110 billion in additional funding would be provided for the German military, nearly twice the amount of its annual budget, and that Germany will also be supplying direct military aid to Ukraine.”

This is literally the reason they did this. This was the end-game for goading Russia into acting. 🍾 in Germany and to whomever supplies them with weapons! No-one is talking about diplomacy (other than rumors that Zelenskyy and Putin are meeting somewhere): the first and only reaction is to fight. First we fight, then we talk. Sure, sure, Putin invaded. But whatever happened to not sinking down to the enemy’s level? Oh, right, we need to sell a fuck-ton of weaponry first.

“UK Foreign secretary Liz Truss said Sunday that she “absolutely” supported British citizens traveling to Ukraine to serve as combatants.”

OMG, like ISIS? Or, wait, what? No? Is that not the same thing? You know, citizens traveling to fight in other countries’ armies? The virtue-signaling is strong in this one.

I think that the world’s reaction to Russia is good? Like, it’s all virtue-signaling and feels a bit overblown, but it’s also good to show what happens when one country invades another. There are consequences. Unfortunately, most of the damage inflicted is, as always, on the people themselves, who had very little do with the invasions plans.

Still, consequences. But only for Russia. Literally no other country has paid anywhere close to this much for an invasion or occupation. Not France (Libya, Mali, etc.), Britain (Libya, Iraq, Afghanistan), the U.S. (OMG Everywhere), Israel (West Bank, Gaza, a little bit of Syria), Saudi Arabia (Yemen). No, this feels like a battle in a war. It doesn’t feel like the people exacting punishment on Russia are doing it because they really care about countries not invading other countries. They seem to be all roped in to NATO’s war on Russia. They would like us to believe it’s for moral reasons, but the same people couldn’t care less when it’s not Russia doing the invading, so that clearly can’t be it.

It also feels a bit like they all couldn’t care less if they burn Russia to the ground. Elites everywhere are rejoicing as the online-idiot clown-parade does its work for them. Will there be a war when a cornered rat/bear doesn’t see a better way out? Who knows? Who cares? Consequences are for others! Diplomacy is for pussies! Let’s all get down on Putin’s level, in the mud.

Banning to the Rescue!

The article YouTube blocks RT and Sputnik as Russia tells media not to say “invasion” by Jon Brodkin (Ars Technica) writes,

“Google said today that YouTube is blocking RT (formerly Russia Today) and Sputnik throughout Europe. “Due to the ongoing war in Ukraine, we’re blocking YouTube channels connected to RT and Sputnik across Europe, effective immediately,” Google Europe announced on Twitter. “It’ll take time for our systems to fully ramp up. Our teams continue to monitor the situation around the clock to take swift action.””

Yes, yes, yes, dogpile! Brigade! All in! We don’t want to listen to a word that Sauron and his minions have to say! Eliminate them all! BLOODLUST!

I f#*@ing love this so hard. Google is censoring entire channels as punishment for those channels censoring words. If only we could figure out how to generate electricity from irony and hypocrisy, humanity would be saved.

Now I just saw the headline that Apple halts all device sales in Russia in response to invasion of Ukraine by Andrew Cunningham (Ars Technica), which will be taken to mean that Apple is taking a principled stance. It is doing no such thing. It is taking sides in a war. If it were taking a principled stance, then it would halt device sales in all countries that have encroached on other territory, like Saudi Arabia, Israel, and the Unites States, for starters.

But they’re not doing that. They’re brigading and virtue-signaling. They made a calculation that it would be better for business to do this at this moment, in this climate than not to do it. They don’t really want to stop selling phones to Russians. It’s just that they know that the PMC (Professional Managerial Class) in the West is very likely to generate more sales than Russia in response to this move.

Microsoft and Google have responded in the same way.

“Microsoft has removed RT and Sputnik’s apps from the Windows Store and limited their presence on its Bing search engine, while YouTube has blocked RT and Sputnik content in Europe and demonetized their content elsewhere.”

Canceling an entire country. Amazing times we live in. I’m sure it beats negotiating, talking to them, or any other form of diplomacy. Russians can’t be reasoned with. They’re like the bugs in Starship Troopers: they can only be eradicated. Perhaps we won’t wipe them from the face of the Earth, but we can wipe them from people’s minds. Next up: Wikipedia removes their entry on Russia.

From Sanctions produce chaos in Russian financial system by Nick Beams (WSWS)

“Yesterday, the French Finance Minister Bruno Le Maire was even more explicit. He said the West was using sanctions to wage “total economic and financial war against Russia, Putin and his government. We will provoke the collapse of the Russian economy.””

Culture blocked. Finances blocked. Exports blocked. Burn that fucking country to the ground. Do NOT talk to them. Do NOT ask questions. They—and only they—deserve it! Direct your anger eastward, toward Emmanuel Goldstein.

Why doesn’t the West just promise Russia what it wants and then renege, like it always does? It’s not like Russia doesn’t know they’re going to do exactly that anyway. It’s not like there’s a downside for reneging on a deal with a known ultimate evil like Russia, is there? Let’s be serious here: Russia is to NATO as the new Native Americans were to the U.S.: an unqualified evil entity that lived on resources that were rightfully the U.S.‘s (or NATOs, in the recent case) and that you could endlessly fuck over and scapegoat and gaslight until they just fucking died already. All of them. Genocide is too good for that kind of evil, no?

How is this not war yet? How has NATO maintained plausible deniability that they’re not at war with Russia? Their actions will lead to more suffering and isolation for the Russian people than an outright attack would engender.

Russian Asset Values

Russian assets are obviously not worth nothing all of sudden. This price move has as little to do with fundamentals as the soaring value of massively overvalued startups and IPOs. What’s interesting is that traders that want to virtue-signal and get out of Russian securities right now will be forced to do so at pennies on the dollar because they can’t trade on the Moscow exchange, where the companies would presumably be trading higher.

What does it mean for these companies to be at pennies now instead of hundreds of dollars? Who knows? Who even knows why prices are where they are anymore? Is it because people genuinely believe that these companies will be worth nothing in the future, that Russia is doomed, and that all of its companies will be destroyed and none allowed to continue extracting the natural resources on which their value is based? Maybe? Do people believe that they will all be abolished and that new western companies will be gifted those resources instead? As in old Iran? Maybe? Or is this a reverse meme-stock craze where certain stocks are flattened instead of raised up, but for totally stupid reasons that have nothing to do with the value of the companies? That’s a bingo.

This might very well end up cutting off the nose to spite the face. Good. Break everything. At this point, I hope these fools tear their financial house down on top of themselves.

What Principles?

France is only just pulling out of Mali. What the hell where they doing there? No-one knows and no one cares. Probably humanitarian stuff. It’s easy to be 100% for Ukraine and against Russia when you’re utterly ignorant of world affairs. It’s not a principle if you apply it only to one country, but not any of the others. That’s just punishing an enemy and has nothing to do with principle.

Oil at 110$ per barrel and russia out of the LNG market. Looks like we saved fracking, everybody!

This is discrimination. Replace the word Russians with any other demonym or epithet (e.g. Jews) and you’d be shocked at the NYT home page.

A country should be punished for invading another country. Immediate and merciless punishment is the easy way out, for sure, especially against the official enemy of the civilized world. You get to feel good about your intrinsic moral goodness without any hard thinking or reading. No-one can fault you for siding against the country dropping the bombs. But the world stage is more complicated than a Michael Bay movie, despite most people’s complete lack of desire to grapple with that complexity, to say nothing of their lack of mental acuity for and practice in doing so.

This current punishment of Russia is wildly out of proportion with anything that’s ever been done before. It’s like curb-stomping someone for jay-walking. How was Russia to know that the blowback would be so vicious when literally no other country has been punished for doing the same thing since … (checks notes) … Iraq for invading Kuwait.

That the world is gleefully dogpiling Russia now shows two things:

1. Everyone hates Russians. They’re just sneaky, dirty, drunken people who deserve whatever punishment they get. Everyone seems to be on the same page here. They do not see the irony that most of them spent the last couple of years fighting for BLM in the streets and are now cheering as one country is singled out as the lone criminal element on the planet.
2. We could have done this all along, to any country, had we wanted to. It was always within the world’s power to yank on the leash of any country that got wildly out of line. But we only chose to do it against Russia. Why? Because Russia is fucking weak, man. Because Russia has to be taught a lesson for standing up for itself and its stupid “security”. Fuck them.

I am being wildly sarcastic above. I am saddened to watch the world be capable of such blatant and wild hypocrisy while praising themselves in the mirror for being so awesome and upstanding. They’re breaking their arms patting themselves on the back for being the heroes in the simplistic story that they believe is the actual story. They’re mostly too dumb and uninterested and ignorant to even try to learn what the actual context is.

Setting an example

The over-the-top gusto with which Russia is being economically sanctioned sets a very interesting precedent, of course. If they can do it once, they can do it again. Maybe this time, you agree with the reason. Maybe next time you won’t . The point is, they’ve shown that they can freeze anyone’s money on a whim and are willing to do it. Maybe the final effect of Russia’s invasion will have been to give the world a chance to show what self-interested, vicious hypocrites the powers-that-be are, in stark relief.

Maybe Russia’s intent was to get the West to kill itself, as it nearly did after 9-11. This is an opportunity to behave badly while virtue-signaling. The West has taken it with gusto. It’s unclear who’s going to end up costing the world the most. Climate change also wonders why no-one’s resisting it anymore.

Capitalism is eating itself. Good.

As for any nations that think “this couldn’t happen to us, we’re good guys. We’re in NATO,” … Ohmigod hahahaha. Sure, right. What are the odds of the U.S. punishing anyone mercurially? Where have you been? The U.S. is a giant dick. A knob. A bell-end without peer. It has never not fucked over a “partner” because it doesn’t consider anyone else to be an equal. Putin puts it this way, “The U.S. allows only vassal nations.”

As far as Russians being excluded from the financial system, not because of any explicit bans, but because the cost of doing business with them is not worth the trouble: This is the same thing that’s happening with American/Swiss dual citizens living in Switzerland. Banks in Switzerland don’t want anything to do with people like that and disallow investments.

Zelenskyy is Dangerous

Zelenskyy is a manipulative idiot who doesn’t give a shit what happens to the rest of the world, as long as Ukraine is defended. He was elected to bring peace and brought NATO weapons in instead. Maybe Russia predicted that this would happen and they would bring a conflagration down onto themselves. Who knows? Zelenskyy and the US seem to be goading each other into making this war much, much bigger.

JFC. These allies seem made for each other. He’s right about the blood being partly on NATO’s hands. He probably sees how badly his country has been fucked by NATO, but he should be negotiating with Russia, not pleading for the U.S. to escalate even further. An escalation will lose even more lives.

I wrote the above several weeks ago; it’s only gotten worse since then

Loyalty Oaths

And now we have supposedly pacifist, progressive voices lending their full-throated support to censorship, loyalty oaths, and no-fly zones. Bin ich im falschen Film? Some people’s employment is now contingent on a loyalty oath. Very modern, Germany, very modern. I hear loyalty oaths are huge in authoritarian governments: let’s do those.

Russia invades Ukraine. Europe responds by dismantling its civil society. Switzerland responds by joining the EU in all sanctions, present and future.

There are no adults in the room.

And this has happened all so quickly. We are two weeks into a rapidly developing situation with a tremendous amount of propaganda, lies, scams, and so on, but everyone should have formed the same simplistic opinion and joined ranks to fight the bugs in Starship Troopers. There is no room for thought, for even the slightest difference in opinion. Online, at least. In private, I’ve had no small amount of success with providing context to friends and colleagues.

Six weeks later, and the information situation has only gotten worse. Loyalty is demanded; information is censored.