In which Putin gets his way after all.

 Deeply disturbing article in the New York times. 

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/29/opinion/ukraine-war-putin.html

Just suppose Putin knows exactly what he's doing? Bret Stevens tentatively suggests that, far from stumbling into a quagmire and getting spanked by freedom lovers, everything may be going according to plan, and Putin may be getting exactly what he wants from the whole thing. 

Which is: what remains of Ukraine's coastline, and all of her natural gas reserves. These are found in the east, currently under Russian control, and likely to be conceded during any bitter-peace negotiations. 

It would leave Russia even more energy rich, her nieghbours even more dependent on her for gas, and Ukraine economically crippled, stripped of her ability to support herself. 

That Putin would sacrifice so many lives, Russian as well as Ukrainian, is nauseating in its cynicism. 

Personally, I find it all too believable. It makes too much sense. War, after all, is just economics by other means. This does rather deflate any optimism I've been able to build up. 

Hopefully, the West will not abandon Ukraine when this is all done, and will not lift any sanctions, and will not go back to being gas-junkies dependent on the Russian dope-dealer. 

Green energy folks! It's strategic now. . .    

In which a Polish academic lays waste to Western intellectuals.

Along the same lines as the last one, here's a statement from a Polish academic, who's had it up to here with Westerners proclaiming that Eastern Europe should have been left to Russia's tender mercies after 1991: 

https://www.quora.com/Is-Noam-Chomskys-comment-that-NATO-should-not-have-moved-an-inch-east-of-Germany-ignoring-the-desires-of-the-eastern-European-states

Again, for those in the back: NATO expansion was not simply an American or a Western ploy to make Russia feel bad. The new members all had a say in it. You will notice none of them rushed to revamp the Warsaw Pact. 

And again, I ask: why should Russia's security concerns matter more than Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia, Slovenia, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia's security concerns? 

Each of these countries has, in the not so distant past, been invaded, conquered, and brutally exploited by Russia. One would think their desires might come into it at some point. How many more millions need to be sacrificed to Russian paranoia? 

If Russia feels so threatened by the world, perhaps it would do well to stop threatening the world. It might start by looking itself in the mirror, and asking itself why every single one of its neighbours seems so dead-set against it. In all those disputes, what's the common factor? 

In the words of someone, "It's not me, it's you babe." 

Sources: https://www.nato.int/nato-welcome/index.html

https://www.quora.com/Is-Noam-Chomskys-comment-that-NATO-should-not-have-moved-an-inch-east-of-Germany-ignoring-the-desires-of-the-eastern-European-states

Tankies

 

A particularly irritating memory of mine from some twenty years ago involves me trying to debate Stalinism with a 12 – year old kid. Among his points: the Gulags weren’t so bad, the NKVD didn’t kill that many people, nor could they have because that would have been “against the Soviet Constitution.”

Debating kids is a bit of a mug’s game – I’m sure if you’re a parent who’s ever tried debating the existence of closet monsters or the morality of stealing from the cookie jar, or a teacher who’s tried to explain the practical value of algebra to a skeptical crowd, you might know what I’m getting at. It’s one thing to debate a flat-earther, a vaccine skeptic, or a Celine Dion fan – adults whose sense of reality is so far removed from your own, there’s really no point in engaging with them. But with a kid, you can’t help thinking there ought to be a way to get through to them. They oughta defer to your greater life-experience, your more extensive book learning, your altogether greater reserve of knowledge and wisdom. 

What'd he know about Gulags?

Long-story-short: they never do, and we all ought to know that. Nevertheless, when some kid tells you with utter conviction that Solzhenitsyn lied because he was a fascist, and that the deportation of the Chechens never happened (they most certainly did: https://www.sciencespo.fr/mass-violence-war-massacre-resistance/fr/document/massive-deportation-chechen-people-how-and-why-chechens-were-deported.html), or that the USSR executed fewer people than the USA during the 1930's, this is not a debate between peers: one can’t help feeling the need to set him straight. And when your drunken pal with a glass of whiskey in one hand keeps interrupting you on points of  Parliamentary Privilege, one’s irritation accumulates.  

I was thinking about this, not just because I like to grumble about it from time to time, but was reminded of it by this article: https://freedomnews.org.uk/2022/03/04/fuck-leftist-westplaining/

and this one, from the same publication: https://freedomnews.org.uk/2019/08/15/is-genocide-denial-anti-imperialist-now-how-tankies-are-taking-over-leftbook-and-the-london-student-scene/

The articles, by East European activists, take issue with that species of activist my pint-sized Stalinist may or may not have grown into. (I don’t know, I’ve since lost touch). You may recognize the type: the ones running book tables at every peace-rally bemoaning 1989, who unironically wear Lenin t-shirts, and celebrate the anniversary of 1917 every year. Some have even seek to rehabilitate Stalin himself. Either he wasn’t so bad because at least he wasn’t a capitalist, or he wasn’t bad at all and only Western propaganda makes him so.

Who doesn't love a T-34? 

I used to call such folk “Gulag-deniers”, but the label that caught on is “tankie”. (My labels never catch
on). The tankie is a modern day Stalinist. A useful idiot with hipster clothes and access to memes. In my experience, they tend to be young, stupid, arrogant, and militantly ignorant of just about every field of human knowledge.  They know nothing about history, geography, economics, science, or literature, and they like it that way. They get everything they know from cheap pamphlets and memes. They have excused themselves from the burdens of finding evidence for their claims. They dismiss history and scholarship as Western-CIA-funded propaganda. They don’t read books, or talk to people outside their social milieu. They fantasize about shooting or beheading people. They are the political equivalent of the Westoboro Baptist Church, and the social equivalent of bleeding hemorrhoids. They’re really, really awful.

Hiding amongst the tankies are another, less dramatic sort, who may not openly embrace Stalinism, but certainly can’t bring themselves to condemn autocrats or dictators unless they can be blamed on the West. I’ve never met anyone who embraced Putin – homophobic, Islamaphobic, head-in-all-but-name of the stone-age reactionary, retrograde Russian Orthodox Church – but apparently they exist. (It has to be said, by the far the most active pro-Putinistas are Right-Wing Trumpeters like Tucker Carlson, who’s mandatory viewing  in Russia). I’ve certainly met folk who hate NATO more than Putin or Jinping (who does indeed look like Winnie the Pooh by the way). Their way of thinking seems to be that war is a western invention, and would simply cease to occur if we stopped building jets.

Activists in the former Iron Curtain Countries harbour no such illusions. “when you say “Fuck NATO” or “End NATO expansion”, what I hear is that you do not care about the safety and wellbeing of my Eastern European friends, family and comrades”

NATO is not something they love, but something they definitely see as the lesser evil, the alternative to eternal Russian serfdom.

A lot of commentators speak of NATO expansion as if it were an American strategic ploy, and not something the Eastern European member states eagerly pounced on. These countries, the victims of Russian invasion, domination and sometimes reinvasion for decades if not centuries, had no doubts about which camp they wanted to belong to. If they were still pawns for the bigger powers – well, some powers play fairer than others.

“Poland, Czech Republic and Hungary joined NATO in 1999, the Baltic countries followed in 2004. And for now, I want them to stay there, and it doesn’t have much to do with politics tbh. It is a self-preservation instinct, but this is another thing you will just not get.”

 

Survival doesn’t count for much in some ideological circles. Nor do facts. The fact is that most people who have lived under Russian domination have no wish to do so again.

"Antifascism is protecting people from individuals with structural power. Right now that is Putin."

What the tankies don’t understand, and probably can’t understand is that politics is not a game of football, you don’t owe unconditional loyalty to your team, and nobody wins unless lives are actually improved. To say nothing that facts matter, truth matters, and reality is, as they say, “a thing”.  

 

“If you are What Abouting into helplessness, you are part of the aggressor.”

In which the Kremlin Kries a river. . .

 Invaders habitually blame their victims for getting themselves invaded. 

And authoritarians can be the most self-pitying twats. 

Kremlin Kry-baby Dmitry Peskov is upset now because the civilized world is sanctioning his country. 

Wein Russia, we will feel ourselves amongst war, because Western Europeancountries, United States, Canada, Australia, they actually — they actually — theyare leading war against us in trade, in economy, in seizing our properties, inseizing our funds, in blocking our financial relations. (The Guardian, 28 March) 

How do you say "Boo hoo hoo!" in Russian? ( Бу ху ху) 

Why can't we just let them massacre Ukranians in peace? How dare we impound their yachts and interrupt their Instagram feeds? 

From now on, I think I'll start referring to twats as Dmitry Peskovs. The pathetic bellyaching coming out of Russia these days is as hilarious as it is nauseating. Like the bully who cries when you hit them back, they see themselves as the victims. The big Mean West won't let them kill who they want to anymore. 

The pitiful pesky Peskov has taken self-pity to new levels: 

“For a couple of decades, we were telling the collective west that we are afraid of your Nato’s moving eastwards. We too are afraid of Nato getting closer to our borders with its military infrastructure. Please take care of that. Don’t push us into the corner. No.. .

Then, we said, listen, guys, we’re not happy with the possibility of Ukraine’s getting into Nato, because it will endanger us additionally, and it will ruin the balance of mutual deterrence in Europe. No reaction.

Then we said, listen, guys, we want equal relationship. We want to take into account each other’s concerns. If you don’t into account our concerns, then we will be a little bit nervous. No reaction completely.”

 Russia's afraid? Why do I not care? Thing is, Russia backed itself into a corner. It picked a fight with a smaller kid and now finds the whole school yard arrayed against it. We're supposed to believe it's afraid? How does it think its neighbours feel? 

Russia wants the world to respect its concerns. Has it ever in its history respected anyone else's concerns? Has it respected Ukraine's concerns? 

Did it respect Poland's concerns in 1939 when it signed a non agression pact with Hitler and jointly invaded with Nazi Germany? Or when it massacred 22 000 Poles at Katyn? 

Did it respect Finland's concerns, also in 1939, when it snatched up the Karelian Isthmus, kicked out some 450 000 Finns, and bombed Helsinki? 

Did it respect Estonia's concerns when it swallowed up that country and deported 60 000 of its citizens? 

Did it respect Latvia or Lithuania's concerns when it swallowed up those countries and deported 35 000 each of it's citizens? 

Did it have any more respect for Poland's when it invaded AGAIN in 1956? 

Or Hungary's in 1956, when the Red Army stormed Budapest, killing some 2500 people? 

Or Czechoslovakia's in 1968, as it crushed the Prague Spring under its tank treads? 

Or Afghanistan's, during a decade long occupation? 

Or Chenya's, whom it bombed flat? 

Or Syria's? 

Does Russia have any neighbours whom it HASN'T attacked, invaded, bombed, or attempted to annex? Maybe Turkey - a large country with a large army. Small countries take note: Russia doesn't play nice. It doesn't deal fairly with anyone it feels it can kick around. In the last hundred years, you'd be hard pressed to find any occasion where it acted mercifully, honestly, or in good faith. Yet even now, pissants like Pekov go on like Russian's been hard done by. Like all they ever wanted to do was sit in the dachas reading Gogol. But what could they do: those beastly Eastern Europeans kept asserting their national identities! 

How do you say "Fuck You" in Russian? 

пошел на хуй

  Sources: 

https://www.britannica.com/place/Baltic-states/Soviet-occupation

https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/soviets-put-brutal-end-to-hungarian-revolution

https://www.britannica.com/event/Hungarian-Revolution-1956

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prague_Spring

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Winter_War

 (Incidentally, Blogspot increasingly sucks as a medium. I don't know why a simple cut and paste operation had to turn into forty minutes of fucking around with the fonts, but there you go. My next blog will definitely be somewhere else.) 

 

So Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the Canadian Parliament.

You can watch the whole thing here, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=exSuL5OhUzs , but if you’d rather take my words for it, it went a little like this:

Justin Trudeau spoke first.

“Democracies around the world are lucky to have you as our champion.”

Standing ovation. He announces “15 new sanctions” and more  “financial humanitarian assistance.”

“We like to root for the underdog”

Then Zelensky got to speak, through a translator. Among the highlights:

“Justin, can you imagine, you, your children, imagine these explosions; the bombing of Ottawa airport. Can you imagine that?”

“You know, this is war to annihilate your country”

“Imagine someone is laying siege to Vancouver. . .”

“Can you imagine famous CN Tower in Toronto, hit by Russian bombs?”

“Imagine that Canadian facilities have been bombed. . .”

“Can you imagine someone taking down Canadian flags in Montreal?”

“ We want to live, to be victorious, to prevail for the sake of life.”

“Our cities are not protected the way your cities are protected”

“You need to do more.”

“Please do not stop in your efforts.”

“I am confident we will overcome, we will be victorious.

“Glory to Ukraine, thankyou to Canada.”

If there’s one thing these speeches made clear, it’s the chasm between the quality of the
leaders over there and over here. Zelensky sounded like a modern day Henry V and Trudeau like a kitchenware salesman. Could our Prime Minister’s response been more hackneyed, cliched or self serving? “We like to root for the underdog” indeed. Really Justin??? Is this a fucking football match? I wonder what the phrase comes out as in Ukrainian. I wonder what Zelensky must have thought hearing that as bombs were landing yards away. He must feel great relief knowing Canadians “root for the underdog”.

Zelensky must play the hand he’s dealt. He must surely know that what he can get out of this tour of western capitols can’t be much more than what he’s already gotten. But he keeps playing, hitting all the right notes, name-dropping Canadian landmarks, calling the PM by name, and appealing to whatever sense of sympathy and decency a gang of soft western politicians might have. If words could beat tanks, Zelensky would rule the world by now. He said everything it was humanly possibly to say, and, who knows, maybe it will result in more financial or humanitarian aid than he might otherwise have gotten, and maybe it will help. It was painful though to compare those words, heartfelt, honest, and harrowing, with Trudeau’s grab bag of cliches. Would it have killed him or his writers to put a little effort in?  

Interim opposition leader Candice Bergen wasn’t much better.

“We will be there with you after this conflict. . .”  In other words, we’ll help out when it’s over. Thanks Candice.

 She went on to say: “Putin must be brought to justice.”  I’ve come to really despise the phrase “x MUST y”. In headlines, on placards, in speeches. Must this, must that. The meaningless imperative that never gets followed. From speakers not in a position to make it happen. Why does anyone bother?  Sure Putin is a war criminal. Most war-leaders are war criminals. Who’s going to bring him to justice? NATO? The UN? Batman? Candice Bergen? It’s as empty a phrase as any in politics, designed to signal indignation while promising nothing.

As for Bergen’s promise to “Welcome Ukrainians who are fleeing.” and her pledge that “Canada will be a safe haven for Ukraine citizens”, I wondered if I’d actually just heard a Conservative politician promising to bring more refugees into the country. That would be something. I’ll believe it when I see it. Of course, she also blatantly said they’d all be expected to go home afterwards, so it’s a moot point.  

The New Democrats’ Jameed Singh was lame. “With you every step of the way.” he declares.  Are you kidding? What a thing to say for a comfortable politician thousands of miles from the front! What a thing to claim for a country that hasn’t, and won’t have to, endure Russian bombs. Or indeed, any real inconvenience beyond slightly higher gas prices and fewer brands of vodka at the LCBO. Where does anyone get off making that kind of claim to someone who’s right there in the thick of it?

Dignity finally crept into the proceedings when Yves-François Blanchet of the Bloc Quebecois spoke. Not only did his speech not sound like it was written by a bot, but he had the balls to speak with something vaguely resembling honesty.

 “It is difficult for me to admit to a certain powerlessness to do more.”

“Mr. President, all this is to little,” he said, after rattling off Canada and Quebec’s efforts.

“Too little, every time a man, a woman, or a child dies. Every time a hospital, a day care centre, a school, a park or even a single flower is destroyed.  

“What we cannot do is the cruelest thing of all.”

“Against the fear in the hearts of Ukraine’s children, we can only do too little. I apologize for that.” 

Sure beats Trudeau’s “underdog”, don’t it? I couldn’t care less that the man’s a separatist – that seems such a petty concern at the moment. He spoke well, he captured the pathos of the situation, and he didn’t try to aggrandize this country’s petty contributions. He looked that cold reality in the face, and called it for what it was.  A rare thing in western politics.

Elizabeth May of the Green Party did alright for herself as well. If she lacked Blanchet’s eloquence, she made up for it in apparent sincerity. She actually seemed affected by events. Sure, any emotional display from a politician must be taken with a ton of salt, but if body-language is anything to go by – I believed her. Call me naïve, but I believed her in a way I didn’t believe the others.

Her voice cracked as she read letters from she’d received from the Ukrainian Green Party, describing the horrible scene, and urging no-fly zone to stop the carnage.

Moved as she was, she could not bring herself to lie.

“It broke my heart to write my Ukrainian colleague. . .that a now fly zone will risk a wider war, nuclear war. These reasons are solid even if they ring hollow.

“We will inevitably let you down.”

Only a fringe party could afford to be so honest. And how refreshing it was. Spare them the bullshit. If you can’t give them what they want, admit it, and don’t pretend that what you can’t give is just as good.  That could go for almost any political promise. If that costs votes, then maybe it’s not the politicians who are at fault.

 

With the world going to shit, we grasp at straws. We look for heroes. 

As the earliest stinking whiffs of Russian tank exhaust first began to pollute Ukrainian air, Ukraine's President, Volodoymir Zelensky took to the airwaves to address his nation, and his enemies. 

It's old news now, but do yourself a favour and watch it. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=p-zilnPtZ2M

Study carefully his mannerisms and listen carefully to his words. This is a man who knows his country might not exist in a fortnight's time, and who himself probably won't survive as long. He's showing all the emotions a man can be expected to show at such a time. 

And laid bare the invincible soul of a people. 

In what will surely go down as one of history's great speeches, Zelensky appealed to the better nature of his enemies, cutting through the Kremlin's Krap. There was fear, sure, but not a shred of cowardice.  

 Volodymir Zelensky single-handedly redefined the term "grace-under-pressure", and given us the very platonic ideal of courage, dignity, and statesmanship. In Zelensky, the Ukrainans have found their own Churchill, but without the colonial bullshit. A man who's tongue is worth more than a hundred tanks. He could not have emboldened people more if he had a red S emblazoned on his back. 

Immediately after, he put his money where his mouth was, turning down a US offer of asylum and staying in the capital. He's addressed the nation every day, showing himself in battle fatigues, not cowering in a bunker but in sitting boldly in his Kyiv office by an open window. Walking the streets. Visiting troops. He's visibly aged; his skin is paler, his visage darker. Bags have appeared under his eyes. But his humour's intact. "When the country's at war," he says. "кожен день понеділок". 

The contrast with the cynical scoundrel Putin couldn't be more dramatic.

In the West, we've eaten it up. Celebrity hungry as always, fat from our diet of fairy-tales, and bereft of real leadership since God-knows-when, living half-asleep under the likes of Donald Trump, Boris Johnson and Justin Trudeau, we've pounced on Zelenksy like a kind of paramilitary Beatle. The memes have sprung up, some more tasteless thank others. Full disclosure: I'm as bad as anyone, and worse than many. I'd definitely put his poster on my wall. I'd kiss the man's boot. I like heroes you see. I look for the light in the dark. Right now, the light is Volodymir Zelensky and the people of Ukraine. 

They will lose. I've read too much military history to think otherwise. But they've made it clear that at least their little democracy won't go down without a fight. Most of them will die. That is the ice-cold reality. But, in words and such as these, there is that little thing we call Hope, which all the jack-boots in the world have not yet managed to stamp out. Hope that even if borders can be erased, people cannot. And hope that Truth will survive, even as autocracies don't.