No Man Can Find the War
Is the war across the sea?
Is the war behind the sky?
Have you each and all gone blind:
Is the war inside your mind?
Humans weep at human death
All the talkers lose their breath
Movies paint a chaos tale
Singers see and poets wail
All the world knows the score
But no man can find the war
Tim Buckley . No Man Can Find the War
The War that is not
The Russians say that their “special operation” is not a “war”.
This is not a semantic quibble, for if you call the Ukraine conflict a “war”, you automatically accept the Western propaganda narrative manipulating public perception of military aggression in recent memory –America’s wars—and rationalizing the military’s attempt to minimize their own casualties at the expense of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of usually ordinary non-white people.
These are crimes against humanity—and as carefully stage managed as any TV series.
By contrast with American wars, the Russian “operation” aims to minimize civilian casualties, even this results in more RF troops dying. From the Russky point of view, the Ukraine is a large-scale police action, to save life and preserve social order —with implicit humanitarian rules that must be observed.
Discounting Western propaganda whose sophistication Goebbels could only admire, Putin’s forces— whether you accept their casualty counts or not –kill a lot fewer innocent people than the American police .Unlike the Banderites, they do not shell civilian communities or murder innocent people or rape or torture.
But you wouldn’t know such things. You don’t have a “free” press. Maybe you never did. You never really wanted one anyway.
Whataboutism
Every 6 year old learns “two wrongs don’t make a right”. they also learn, “Don’t lie1”
Then they observe their parents and go to school and revise that earlier moral lesson to “two wrongs make a right if you don’t admit they are wrong”. And “Don’t lie— just don’t tell the truth”. These new principles make life a lot simpler and things go more smoothly. And they apply them lifelong. Especially if the become journalists.
Western propaganda expresses the moral ambiguity of Western society . When American atrocities over the years and it’s death count of 20 million or so, are compared with modern Russia’s more humane approach, .it deflects, people say, “That’s just “whataboutism” , which is a way of erasing the past and imposing forgetfulness.
The media provide a chorus. They chant “what about Bucha?” And” what about Kramatorsk?” Atrocities which indeed happened—but were carried out by Ukrainians, if not deliberately orchestrated with the connivance of Western media and PR advisors.
“Whataboutism” that looks at American atrocities— citing provable fact and exposing the hypocrisy and ill intention of the delusionary American mind, is bad, bad, bad. Our “whataboutism”? Good, good, good.
The Russian didn’t do Bucha or Kramatorsk.. But we hate Russians don’t we? They gave us Donald Trump and Borsch. Quick! “Cancel” them. They must be lying about something! Ban their cats! Ban Tolstoy!
Inconvenient truths have to be cancelled. Dissenters are terrorists.
1984 indeed.
The Ukraine voted for Zelensky because he promised a return to the kind of state that the country had before the American Maiden Coup — a pluralistic democracy with respect for the diverse ethnic groups living there. Ukrainians wanted peace and rapprochement with Russia, which also entailed economic benefits.
Who wants war and poverty”
Some people do.
Those who benefit from social confusion and malaise.
In the confusion following the CIA Maidan coup supported by rightwing oligarchs including the Zionist Kolomoyski, the Banderite fascists were able to infiltrate the government, military and almost all institutions, following the German Nazi pattern of “normalizing” their narrow and violent ideology cosmetically and whittling away at the freedoms of their society.
In addition to using this “soft power” approach, they employed “hard power”. They also made it known, through atrocities and murders, that anyone who opposed them could expect a short life. So they were rehabilitated as “patriotic heroes”, without any change to their fundamental character.
Although referred to as “neo Nazis”, as a result of using Nazi symbols, the Zelensky regime scoffs at the notion.
Zelensky and his Vice President are both Jews.
And the Banderites were funded by a rightwing Zionist billionaire Ihor Kolomoyski, who regarded them as his private army.
So, if the Ukrainian Rightwing are “Nazis”, why do they like Jews?
The answer is that they don’t like Jews but they hate Russians more. One thing at a time. They can leave dealing with the Jews and other minorities and groups, until they have fully exploited them.
This mindset was characteristic of prewar Polish fascists. While Nazis are racist socialists, Fascists are classists, with an essentially neoliberal philosophy which exalts inequality; rule by the Few and control of the Many.
Naturally, this appeals to the neoliberal West, as much as it did to Ukrainian billionaires.
In Zelensky’s case, he had two choices. Go with flow and get rich and famous and eventually move to Los Angeles — or get a bullet in the brain.
Zelensky’s rightwing Zionist billionaire backer Ihor Kolomoyski is a rightwing Zionist (yes, Zionists come in all shapes and sizes) who shares a lot of the fascistic values.
After all, Zionism got its start in Germany at the same time as Nazism, responding to the same social ethos. The Nazis hated the Zionists because they were Jews, but they also thought they could use them — the better to destroy them in the end. The Zionists in their turn thought they could use the Nazis to set up a Jewish exclusionary state in Palestine.
The US doesn’t care that it is supporting a Slavic ISIS: it has always had a soft spot for terrorists, supporting them in Afghanistan, Chechnya, and Syria, including Al Qaeda and ISIS.
The American People On Trial
As in TV where good guys and bad guys often switch roles to keep the viewers interested, American “terrorists” can become “freedom fighters” and vice versa.
The “official narrative” is really an “official show”. Yes, it has producers, directors, casting agents, actors, set designers, special effects —and sponsors the oil companies, the Democratic Party, and your favorite weapons manufacturers. And the Emmy goes to….. ?
Putin ‘s police operation, has to be turned into a “war”. A big war.
Yet, as Tim Buckley wrote “no man can find the war”.
Call it “Biden’s war”. A figment of the senile brain of the leader of a country suffering from its own form of dementia. But do not blame US political parties or its system . Rather, blame the people. For, as a “democratic republic” the country is still “for the people, by the people”. If the country is demented and delusionary, it is because its people make it so.
The war hysteria that you see in the US is an indictment of the American people themselves. As Amos Elon said Evil is failure to think. But before you can think you must first see.
A lot of people don’t want to see. The prefer an imaginary world, which is what propaganda provides.
Propaganda is an art form requiring willing suspension of disbelief — it only works when people want the story it tells, as confirmation of a priori values or beliefs, that shape propaganda in the first place. The mainstream media channel the National Id, a dark Public Unconscious Mind.
So the American people are accomplices as Orwell says. Not victims.
A really good, thought-provoking comment "The leaders have no power except the borrowed power of the masses. We create the leaders -- our scapegoats -- because we want them to tell us to do the evil things we secretly want to do. Like screw other nations for our own benefit. Or maintain an unfair status quo." Ouch. I got into an argument with Caitlin Johnstone about this on Twitter. She didn't like my assertion (rather milder than yours, actually) that the public must be held responsible for their leaders, who by and large mirror public biases and behaviors. I write a lot in the field of cognitive and what Pinker calls "evolutionary psychology" (even though no shrink has ever talked to a Neanderthal), and applied ideas picked up in this field in media work mostly successfully, but most people are invested in denying their own responsibility.
I'm a big fan of Orwell. Mark Twain is pretty good but can't hold a candle to Orwell. The average (mediocre) American is a dumb animal easily herded.