The little shrike who broke the neck of Ukrainian democracy stays busy firing his ministers and generals. He wants longer range missiles from NATO, and permission to use them to strike deep into Russia.
“They’re killing our citizens. That’s why we want to deter them, we want to stop them, we don’t want [to] allow their aviation to come closer to our borders to bomb the cities,” [Ukraine Defense Minister] Umerov told CNN.
If I didn’t believe what the US government tells me, I’d think this sounds exactly like what Russia was saying since the NATO- and EU-formulated failure of the Minsk I and II agreements in 2014 and 2015.
NATO membership, with its advertised “security benefits,” has been dangled in front of an increasingly glassy-eyed Ukrainian government – just out of reach. Membership is a word that has no meaning. Those security benefits must be practically provided for, even if they are illegitimate, fantastical, or illegal.
The greatly exaggerated defensive purpose of NATO must “defend” the greatly exaggerated “independent” country of Ukraine, and the US/UK war against Russia for resources and political domination must be continued. With or without NATO, we must have “NATO,” says Umerov.
A similar thing happened last month in the US. It was announced, that with or without democracy, we must have “democracy.” Towards this end, it became necessary for the ruling party/deep state to conduct a soft coup against the sitting President, and implant a new democratic figurehead, without a single democratic electoral vote. Just before that, this same group, or a group serving them, had attempted a hard coup against the leading opposition Presidential candidate. The July 13 coup failed, while the soft coup on July 21st “succeeded.”
An American Zelensky – lacking the charm and intelligence of the original – has been hoisted up by US and European media in the name of democracy, joyful democracy. Because joy is one of the best ways to fight fascism in our brave new world. Everyone knows this.
With or without democracy, or joy, we must have democracy, and joy, even if hard and soft coups are required, even if a hot nuclear war with Russia/China/Iran must be fabricated. We don’t have a president that is awake or cogent; the Vice President is incomprehensible and vapid. A mysterious “team” is running the US and has the nuclear codes. Democracy without democracy, Article 5 of the NATO charter for everyone.
L’Estat est Humpty Dumpty is as scornful as ever, and more brutal. We are to be infantilized, frozen in a pre-language state, with only grunts and cries of pain, fear or hunger to communicate with each other and our government. The state disallows words any objective meaning; words mean whatever the state wants them to mean.
We don’t need NATO, we don’t need a US dominated “rules-based system,” and we obviously don’t need “democracy.” We have the words, without the objective realities. NATO functions as a giant toilet in constant flush mode, disappearing resources and liberty and peace by the second. The US rules-based system is no rules for the US, and submission for any country out of step with the US, in the moment, unburdened by what has been. The US rules-based system has delivered false flag wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria, Libya, and fake-flagged democracy to a host of countries in Europe, South American and Asia. It kills, lies, steals, and ravages according to the rule of no rules. Increasingly, this same lawlessness is being exercised here at home, complete with militarized door-kicking and flash-banging from sea to shining sea.
The word “genocide” provides an excellent case study.
Two years ago, Biden stated Russia was conducting a genocide in Ukraine, in a war that he and NATO initiated and funded, to eliminate Russian influence in the Russian Donbass, and to switch out Russia’s existing leadership. Yet, this same man/administration/mysterious-ruling-team consistently denies that Israel has been conducting a genocide in Gaza. As Russia demonstrates the patience and carefulness of a Tibetan monk midway through a mandala, we have Netanyahu and much of a shrinking and panicked Israel literally shooting children in the head, cheering the anal rape of Arab prisoners, and demanding complete annihilation of Palestinians. The Israeli government is directing and redirecting 2 million Gazans to and fro over 42 million metric tons of rubble, with a ludicrous “break” to give polio vaccinations to the erstwhile younger targets. 21 metric tons, or over 46,000 pounds of rubble per person, for every resident of Gaza. That’s one fully loaded concrete truck, per person, or more vividly, 3.5 fully mature bull elephants per person.
If Israel set loose 7 million fully grown bull elephants into Gaza we might get some perspective. Perhaps one of the many animal defense leagues would finally stand up and say “end the genocide!” in the name of fair treatment for elephants. Of course, this is also unrealistic because there are less than half a million elephants on the planet. How strange it is that made-up nonexistent elephants seem more “real” than what’s actually happening in Gaza, paid for by US taxpayers because the team leading the US believes it’s a good thing.
The US authoritarian state has sophomorically embraced anti-phrasis – not as a rhetorical device to challenge our understanding, or to amuse us, but in an attempt to fool, cajole and soothe as one would a fretting baby. Our ever mysterious authoritarian state may not itself know what words mean anymore. Given this, we certainly cannot rely on the state to make the necessary call, from high orbit, “Houston, we have a problem!”
The beginning of wisdom, Confucius said, is to call things by their right names. It’s the antidote we all need.
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