World War 5
I spot this headline which properly spots the dilemma of the day. “Don’t fight your culture war through the Russia – Ukraine War.”. To whatever extent we are engaged in such a thing — time to compare today’s tweet warriors with 2001-2002’s ” war-bloggers”–
as just as Ukrainians taking up urban guerilla fight against the invaders — and more to the point, as understandable and inevitable as it is — becomes…
— sort of the flip side of the argument on placing a bunch of quotations from the likes of George Kennan and 1990s Senator Joe Biden on the in-advisable act of expanding NATo and thus angering Russia, this is the after-effect for that Rusdian government in taking the in-advisable step of annexing Ukraine —
Or, take this other wacky image meme I spot — moving to that famous battalion of neo-nazis, and a reference to the “Last time the US” supported such ideological critters in a fight against Russia… The Mujahideen and Afghanistan … “didn’t work out well for America”. The big problem with it in the formula of agit-prop thrown at us — that — in the interim it did not work out for the Soviet Union.
Neat rhetorical tricks all around.
I tend to want to narrow-cast the point and premise of wars. Taking sides, Russia is the aggressor. End of story. In a past life, Zelensky acted in a satire which mocked some of the sordid underbelly of Ukraine’s governance. We can assume it is still there. And we can view it as not mattering.
Also there are 20,000 ultra nationalists who might be considered Nazis in there. Who, if Ukraine wins, are the equivalent of the Maoist forces that were allied with China’s more liberal minded government during their (and, in the end, America’s) war against Japan, and then overwhelmed them afterward. I guess that is the argument that this meme wants to give me.
But from advantage point of mainly just sitting outside of any real danger, the moral quandaries of the new president having to kowtow to Saudi to ease a $6 a gallon gas bill…
… Incidentally, the next reason you want to narrow-cast a war. For in the grand narrations of I hear there’s a big “gay scene” “in Moscow”, just as — I suppose they march annually in the capitol city in Hungary. The problem in the tension that, sure — the society and culture keeps a space for them… A small space… Out of sight, over there, where they can be oh so bone I an and counter-cultural. Understamd then — I more or less understand the gay Republicans, a supposedly sharp increase in recent years — it is a kind of understanding that the basic bourgeoisie rights have been achieved and the line that “there’s a political party that is regulating what you do in the bedroom and is dedicated to denying basic rights” falls by the wayside. And taking seriously that their sexuality is the least interesting thing about them, they are removed from “queer politics”, and busy keeping the top marginal tax rate lower or increasing their gun collection.
What does it have to do with Russia bombing their way into Ukraine? Apparently A lot — the Russian Orthodox church selling things as opposing the presence of “gay parades”. Maybe this gets chewed as a morsel of support amongst Canadian and world trucker protests?
Zelensky is one of those Cosmopolitans, isn’t he? The trouble with “cultural imperialism” as “imperialism” — you spot it anywhere, everywhere… If you decide you want to. What was the phrase Thomas Friedman threw out there — The World is slanted… Something like that?
Funny thing. I see a “non-binary flag” t-shirt sale. Comes in two different types. Men’s and Women’s sizes. Think about it.