The war in Ukraine I mean. I really don’t like Zelensky. I don’t trust him. I don’t like the Western foreign policy which has provoked Russia into asserting itself. I don’t like that Ukraine seems to be laundering US money, nor do I like that they seemed to have blackmailed the Biden administration into intervening on their behalf.
This is not the same as having no compassion for the Ukrainian people, and sadly there is no shortage—throughout history—of decent, average people getting fucked over because they are led by someone who leads them into hell.
I think what makes me most angry about the war in Ukraine is that it was United States foreign policy which poked the bear. Gideon Rose laid it all out on the 24 Feb 2014 episode of The Colbert Report.
The banal, jowly, doughy face of evil.
More specifically it was Obama’s foreign policy, but it’s hard to even hold Obama accountable because so many things about foreign policy are compartmentalized. If Obama was aware of this fuckery, I doubt he had a real appreciation of its ultimate implications. In some ways Obama seems like an idealistic dupe. and I truly believe he is not evil, but rather he got out of his depth. He got into the presidency without really knowing how dirty he would get. Contrast that to his successor, Trump, who knew how dirty Washington was and prepared accordingly.
But from Henry Kissinger to Gideon Rose, there are people who orbit the presidency (not simply one president, but potentially several) over the course of numerous administrations. These are the ones that put down roots and take power as a given—they are not elected, and—after a certain point of power accumulation—they are no longer really even appointed, but rather they are there.
In Metal Gear Solid 2: The Sons of Liberty, these presences were AI’s. Let’s go with that…
Was Trump affected by AI? Most certainly.
Was he more prepared to deal with AI than Obama? Certainly. While Obama was more compassionate, fighting AI takes cynicism, which I think Trump had in spades. Ultimately though, like most bullies, I think Trump lacked courage.
Like Bernie Sanders, he would piss on the toilet seat, but not on the carpet. When push comes to shove, everyone plays ball.
Back to Zelensky
‘Dis a joke ‘ting, fam?
Zelensky is/was an actor. I used to be an actor and so I know actors—like vloggers—are scum. Posturing & wardrobe, smoke & mirrors, theatricality & deception….powerful weapons to the uninitiated—the uninitiated in this case being the general North American public.
Ladies and gentlemen, my home country….fucking pathertic
I think a big part of the support for the Ukraine among boomers (actual ‘baby boomers’ that is) is that they remember the cold war.
For younger generations, I think the memory of Pussy Riot is fresh, and, being progressive, they see all forms of traditionalism as evil. But herein lies the hypocrisy: There’s an image going around which may or may not be doctored, of Zelensky at the NYC pride parade back in like 2000. Big deal—a man can dress as a woman, and even if dude is gay, that doesn’t take away from his resolve. However, I can’t find this picture on Google without some disclaimer: all I can find is this…
…and other similar versions of the image with text that denies the image is real. Why would Google’s algorithm (run by Google progressive)s be so concerned about dispelling this happening as a rumor if they believe in the progressive cause? It seems pretty homophobic to me. Personally I’m less concerned with the company he’s keeping and public events he’s attending, and more concerned with his posture—it looks like he has a weak core and lumbar spine (ankylosing spondylitis? ) in the fuller version of this photo, but that’s neither here nor there.
Furthermore, building on the aforementioned truism that actors are scum, we have to really question a man who rejects negotiations at the outset of the invasion. We have to question a man who rejects a proposed Christmas ceasefire as well.
The Ultimate Truth
We live in an unprecedented time which was predicted in the 1997 film, Wag the Dog. Essentially a war was manufactured in that film with CGI, film shoots, etc. If anything, 25 years hence, the danger of that happening is even more real. We live in a world of life-like deepfakes and AI created image and video. Even the narratives themselves could be generated by, again AI. How do we really know who is winning? Is anyone even winning? Is winning the point? Is suffering the point? Is triggering a mass culling event the point? Who the fuck knows anything besides the fact that things seem very compartmentalized.
There’s not much I believe about this war, and I’m certainly not naive enough to believe that Putin is a ‘good guy’ (if those even exist), but he bandwagon jumping on the Ukraine-train which has been accepted by the mainstream? That shit is mad suspect.
To get back to the title of this post, I have no idea how it’s going to go except for another truism—the bottom 85% will bear the greatest burden of suffering so don’t be among their numbers when things go bad.
Peace to all Ukrainians and Russians. Please find a way to work this out.
Best,
-Dre
Write-Errantry 