Category Archives: Political Rants

Political Rants

An atrocity by any other name

It kind of feels like we crossed a line this past week. Ukrainian President Zelenskyy called a massacre on the outskirts of Kviv a “genocide.” U.S. media outlets and cable television shows have picked up the term and run with it. The first I heard doing this was MSNBC’s Alicia Menendez, ordinarily progressive daughter of the bellicose New Jersey senator Bob Menendez, but it was really all over the place.

The Rachel Maddow show has, in her absence, played a lead role in platforming voices advocating deeper U.S. involvement in the Ukrainian conflict. Her guest host has brought on one member of the Ukrainian parliament multiple times, giving her the opportunity to advocate for no-fly zones, shame the U.S. for not taking this more seriously, etc. I can understand the minister’s frustration, but seriously – this type of intervention simply cannot happen. And yet day after day I see the corporate media laying out the predicate for a wider war.

Opting for the “G” word

The act of calling what we’ve seen in Ukraine a “genocide” is inappropriate and, frankly, irresponsible. The legal definition of the term is fairly broad, but we should focus on the intent behind its use. This is part and parcel of the effort to invoke the “humanitarian intervention” impulse on the part of the NATO powers, particularly the United States. I touched on this a couple of weeks ago, and it seems to be a central component of the war-party’s argument.

Since the war in Kosovo back in the nineties, every drive toward intervention has been at some point associated with a claim of humanitarian necessity. It was deployed in the case of Afghanistan, certainly in Iraq, in Libya. It is an attempt to build the case for war on a foundation of moral outrage, inspiring a will to do something – anything – that will stop the killing. And because we’re Americans, the notion of “doing something” always amounts to military action.

Lies are helpful, but not necessary

Of course, what we’re seeing in Ukraine is horrendous, inexcusable. There is no question but that the Russian military is in disarray, and it is taking it out on the Ukrainians. I’m sure some of their wanton killing is fueled by the high casualty rate they have suffered since the start of the invasion. Many thousands of their fellow soldiers have died, much of their senior leadership has been killed, and they are apparently taking revenge on defenseless people.

It’s good that this war is being covered so thoroughly. This should happen with every war, especially those – like Yemen – that we are directly responsible for. But the fact is, we are being propagandized by our corporate media. That propaganda is not built on lies – it is built on the awful truth of what’s going on over there. The coverage, however, seeks to heighten the outrage, to drill the horror into us again and again, and to offer suggestions as to what we as a nation can do to stop it. It is a full-court press, make no mistake, and it is working to a large extent.

Keep calm, carry on

How do we counter this onslaught? By not losing our heads. By encouraging everyone within earshot to temper their outrage with some understanding of the stakes involved in global war. We simply do not have the luxury of treating Russia like it is Serbia; the risk to humanity is too great. We have approached the brink of destruction before, in the early 1960s, the late 70s, the early 80s, and we got lucky. Let’s not press our luck.

Ultimately, war will not solve this crisis. Indeed, resort to war will only make the crisis worse. We need to be more creative and constructive than that.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The titanic struggle: A-holes vs. effers

Another week of wall-to-wall reporting on the Russian invasion of Ukraine. That characterization of the operation is tantamount to a federal offense now in Russia. Whereas there they use force to make people think a certain way, over here we use the Edward Bernays method. That’s why polling shows a majority of Americans wanting the President to be “tougher” in his approach to the Ukraine crisis.

Majority support for policies that could easily result in total nuclear annihilation doesn’t occur in a vacuum. Reporting on the atrocities Russia is committing in Ukraine flows in a constant stream from the corporate media. To be clear, it is 100% something that should be reported on heavily. But this is more than coverage. It is an influence campaign, and it may just get us all killed.

A game of absolutes

One of the sure signs that the networks are propagandizing us is the characterization of this war as part of a broader struggle between freedom and tyranny. Even Chris Hayes went on a tear about his last week, bizarrely extending this metaphor to the Cold War era. This claim doesn’t stand up to even the slightest scrutiny. Did we fight our near-genocidal war in Vietnam for “freedom”? I think not. Read Nick Turse’s Kill Anything That Moves. This is not good vs. evil, for we are not good.

Now, I expect this kind of thing out of the likes of Joe Scarborough, who is constantly laboring at the Reagan myth, desperately trying to keep it alive for another generation. Even on his show you will hear from people counseling caution, like Richard Haas. Those are the exceptions, though. It’s mostly a chorus of voices bearing witness to the suffering of Ukrainians in minute detail, showing frustration out of a lack of action on the part of the administration. The absolutism of good vs. evil is an essential component in their argument.

More like 1914 … or 2003

Frequent MSNBC guest Michael McFaul is back on the network, having suffered no real penalty for his endorsement of a comparison between Putin with Hitler, in which Hitler came out ahead. He was on Twitter telling people to stop talking about World War III, which was odd because he seems so wrapped up in World War II. McFaul is a fan of brinkmanship with respect to Ukraine – he thinks we can get a lot closer to open conflict without risk of nuclear war.

This is what happens when people take their own analogies too seriously. This is not World War II. We have nuclear weapons – thousands of them. We cannot do the kinds of things we did before those weapons existed. It’s simply not an option. There are many reasons why this period is nothing like 1939, but the nuclear question is probably the most salient difference. In all honesty, if you’re going to compare this with a world war, the closer analogy is 1914, when an accidental war prompted Europeans to slaughter each other by the millions for no good reason.

Don’t burn bridges

I’ve said it before. There’s only one way out of this horrendous conflict, and that’s through some kind of negotiated settlement. Cranking up the rhetoric makes this less likely, not more. For the Ukrainians’ sake, it’s better to make the deal now than later when their country is in even more of a shambles and many thousands more have lost their lives.

Ultimately Russia and Ukraine are going to have to reconcile themselves to being neighbors. That’s never going to change – it’s just geography. They need to find a path out of this mess, and we need to do everything in our power to help them get there.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.
Political Rants

The Whine That was heard ’round the world

I just want to say, for the record, that Senator Lindsey Graham is a whiny little barnacle. The man has zero charisma, zero original ideas, and that’s why he attaches himself to the ample asses of men like Trump, McCain, you name it. Who’s next? I don’t know. Which right-wing garbage scow is likely to pass this way sometime soon?

In case you think I’m just going off on a random tirade, let me just say that I’m making this observation in reaction to the first days of Ketanji Brown Jackson’s confirmation hearings in front of the Senate Judiciary Committee. I shouldn’t single Graham out. The entire Republican side spent the day simpering about the unfairness of a process that has yielded them a 6 to 3 reactionary majority on the Supreme Court for the rest of any of our lives.

Playing to the freak mob

Confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominees are mostly just opportunities for political grandstanding. Senator Josh Hawley, for instance, is shoring up his Trumpist/Q-anon conspiracy theorist base, suggesting that Judge Jackson’s judicial record on cases involving child sex offenders is somehow troubling. The specific language he’s using is crafted to appeal directly to the Q crowd, who espouse a retread version of the blood libel. Democrats are pedophiles, he’s suggesting, and this judge is enabling them.

Hawley’s concern for the children moves me close to tears. I can think of one easy way he could have made a difference in the lives of literally millions of American children: support the child tax credit. Of course, he voted against it, along with all of his Republican colleagues. Democrats might want to remind people of this from time to time. They might also want to remind people of Hawley’s support for the insurrectionists who attacked the capitol January 6, 2021.

Ancient grievances

Now, I don’t want to suggest that there was a “good old days” when this sort of political grandstanding didn’t happen. There was maybe a bit more congeniality back in the 1990s and before, but these hearings were still a freak show. Back when Orrin Hatch was the ranking member and Strom Thurmond the former chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, Hatch opened every confirmation hearing with a long, drippy appreciation of Thurmond, a life-long confirmed segregationist shit-bum. No lie – I heard it at least twice.

The Republican’s evident resentment of Democrats on the committee stems back to the Bork hearings in 1987. Even then conservatives dominated the Court, and while Bork was turned down by the Senate, another conservative jurist, Anthony Kennedy, was confirmed instead. GOP senators at least affect to still be mad about Bork, about Thomas, and certainly about Kavanaugh, suggesting that Democrats are wild-eyed extremists attacking poor unsuspecting Republicans as they leave the office at the end of the day. Would that they were.

The humanitarian gambit

Russia’s murderous attack on Ukraine continues, as do the corporate media personalities who argue for America’s entry into the war. It is nothing less than this. They are now pushing the humanitarian intervention line – the one first used to blow things up in the Balkans in the 1990s, later trotted out for Iraq and Libya. Mika Brzezinski on Morning Joe suggested to Biden’s pentagon spokesperson that not intervening might “make us look weak”.

They are using this to chip away at the administration’s resistance to direct military involvement in Ukraine. The left needs to be unified on this – no entry into this war, period. War with Russia is not an option, and hasn’t been for more than 75 years. We need to remind people of this simple, obvious fact – nuclear war means the end of organized human society, period. There is no justification for that level of risk to every living thing.

luv u,

jp

Check out our political opinion podcast, Strange Sound.