Disagreement

 

Part the First: Disagreeing

It's a damn tragedy, but decades of doing this shit has taught me that us humans aren't very good at letting facts get in the way of our beliefs.  COVID denialism is entrenched on both sides of the political spectrum.  Denial of global heating appears to be a mostly right-wing phenomenon.  I remember when, 3-4 years into the nightmare of bush II's invasion of Iraq a right-wing blogger asked me if I wasn't ready to admit that MY SIDE had been wrong about that issue while his had been right.  Centrists and leftwards still believe in the "Russiagate" stupidity.  Tribalism will make people turn on a dime.  When bush II was stealing elections it was progressives who were talking about crooked voting machines with proprietary software stealing votes.  A few months ago, now that Trumpistas are [erroneously and hypocritically] crying foul, a progressive blogger was pointing to these Trump fans' using that exact same argument as evidence of their insanity.

Obviously I believe the things I believe because I think I'm right about them.  But I like to think that I have an open mind.  I'd like to think that I'm amenable to changing my mind should new facts or arguments be presented to me.  For instance, with regards to global warming, I know from my own experience that we used to have outdoor skating rinks in Southern Ontario during the winter and we can't do that anymore.  And, while it's entirely possible that the world's climate is going through a natural warming phase [whether that's true or not I can't say] we also have to deal with the fact that greenhouse gases are greenhouse gases and wouldn't they accelerate said warming phase?  I believe the pandemic is real and dangerous because I've come down with COVID twice and in the previous thirty-five years I never got the flu and didn't know anyone who got the flu.  Also, I have personally met five people who had a family member who has died of COVID.  You have a hard row to hoe to convince me that it was a "plandemic" cooked up by the DAVOS crowd to insert microchips into us.

When it comes to Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I believe that Russia was cynically provoked by Washington foreign-policy shit-heads practicing what they regard as "Realist" diplomacy.  I have repeatedly stated that while I do not like Vladimir Putin, I nonetheless think he has been very restrained in his responses to repeated US provocations (in the Balkans, in Syria, with NATO expansionism, with US-orchestrated crises on Russia's border, etc.).  Furthermore, I have repeatedly stated that Putin's restraint has less to do with his being a beautiful human being so much as it is the product of Russia's relative weakness.  Russia did not and does not have the ability to finance the diplomatic and military resources to poke the USA proportionately to what it is doing to Russia.  HOWEVER, that having been said: Whatever one thinks of Putin, whatever one thinks of its invasion of Ukraine, it remains a FACT that Russia possesses a nuclear arsenal sufficient to wipe-out human civilization.  And should Russia start firing its nuclear missiles, the USA would retaliate with ITS nuclear missiles and add to the devastation.  For that reason, we should be cautious about escalating tensions with Russia. 

With regards to Russia's invasion of Ukraine though, I (as I said above) believe that the USA's imperialist policy-makers cynically provoked Putin into invading Ukraine, because they believed that this would sink Russia in a quagmire and fatally weaken her.  It is a FACT that the USA supported the 2014 coup that overthrew the Yanukovych government (who followed a policy of neutrality vis-a-vis Russia and NATO).  It is highly likely that the forces that conducted the shootings of the EuroMaidan protesters (and police) were the agents of Ukrainian Banderite fascists.  It is a FACT that the USA set up the post-coup government of pro-Western oligarchs and fascists (with said fascists being given high-level positions in Ukraine's security establishment).  It is a FACT that objective commentators on foreign policy (including George Kennan and John Mearsheimer) had long warned that NATO expanding into Ukraine would be a "red-line" that NO Russian government would permit without retaliation.  It is a FACT that Putin complained about NATO's eastward expansion for years.  It is a FACT that Putin tried to use diplomacy in response to NATO's threats to include Ukraine in its anti-Russian alliance (specifically a treaty guarantee to respect Ukraine's autonomy in return for Washington's guarantee of Ukraine's neutrality).  It is a FACT that Ukrainian nazis see Russians as "sub-human."  It is a FACT that the post-coup Ukrainian government began to attack Russian language rights.  It is a FACT that Ukraine's borders were established by arbitrary fiat (especially under Krushchev) and they do not accurately reflect ethno-demographic realities.  It is a FACT that Crimea is predominantly ethnic-Russian.  It is a FACT that the USA would never countenance a country on its borders joining an anti-USA military alliance.  It is a FACT that the USA would never counteance the loss of the Pearl Harbor naval base.  It is a FACT that the Biden administration wanted Russia to accept what the USA would never tolerate for itself.  It is a FACT that Ukrainian fascists massacred Russians in Odessa.  It is a FACT that (whatever his limited military support for the majority Russian Donbas provinces in their fight against the Ukrainian military) that Putin tried twice (in the agreements Minsk I and II) to preserve Ukraine's political boundaries in return for limited provincial autonomy.  It is (relatedly) a FACT that Germany's Angela Merkel and Francois Hollande and Volodymyr Zelensky have all admitted they were bargaining in bad faith during the Minsk Agreements and had merely been stalling for time to build-up Ukraine's military against Russia. It is a FACT that US policy-makers knew they were provoking Russia.  It is a FACT that Putin tried one last time in December 2021 to present an agreement with Washington and its NATO vassals for a security architecture guaranteeing Ukrainian autonomy in return for its neutrality and this was arrogantly rejected in its entirety.   

Putin is not an innocent lamb in this story.  Putin is a ruthless politician.  He is just one international gangster out of a jungle of international gangsters.  He has blood on his hands.  His opposition to anti-Russian fascists is self-serving given his own support fascist (or at least for far-right fascist-adjacent) movements in Europe. But in this instance, I believe that all of the FACTS point to the USA having the greater culpability in this tragedy. 

But I am supposed to reject ALL of these facts and ALL of this history and embrace the shit-for-brains fantasy that Putin is a "madman" bent on rebuilding the Russian/Soviet empire.  Because he is a "madman" who hates democracy.  Because he is "evil."  [Also, I can't seem to wrap my head around the notion that you can ignore the demands of a "madman" with a massive arsenal of nuclear weapons that you shouldn't include a country on his border in your military alliance against him.  How does that work my liberal friends?  Are you counting on the "madman" to not do anything rash?  I'm genuinely confused.  I must be missing something.  Explain it to me.]

Meanwhile, the USA, which has bathed the Middle-East in blood, which supports Israel's illegal occupations of Palestinian and Syrian land, which has its own troops illegally occupying parts of Syria and Iraq, and which has assisted Saudi Arabia's genocidal campaign in Yemen and insists that Saudi Arabia continue this campaign (Clown Prince Bonesaw has gotten cold feet since Houthi missiles have been able to hit Saudi oil-fields), is somehow motivated by the milk of human kindness and concern for the integrity of the "rules-based international order" to help the Ukrainians in their heroic struggle against Russia's "unprovoked" invasion.

A victim of US "benevolence."

I'm afraid that the cognitive dissonance required for me to subscribe to such a belief would be too great to endure. 

No my friends: The FACT of the matter is that this war would not have happened but for the continued provocations of the United States.  Installing, financing, arming and training genuine nazis, in the same way that the USA arms and trains fundamentalist Jihaadist nutbars to work its will in places like Libya and Syria, Chechnya and Algeria, and in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia.  [I'm continually astounded at the ease with which the USA has been able to pronounce that there is a "Clash of Civilizations" between the rational, secular West and obscurantist, fundamentalist Islam while, at the same time, the CIA could give these mortal enemies of ours weapons and help them overthrow, or try to overthrow secular governments that the USA didn't like.  The West vs. Islamism used to be the defining conflict of our times and it (unfortunately) necessitated harsh measures (such as torture) that violated core Western precepts as well as the curtailment of some of our civil rights (specifically, rights to privacy and habeas corpus) in order to triumph and win, after which we might return to our enlightened ways.  But while they were torturing people and spying on us, they were also giving the jihadists machine guns and explosives and rocket launchers.]

Anyhow, those are the basics of my disagreement with those liberal and progressive bloggers, n' writers, n' folks I meet in real life who enjoyed the Kool-Aid served to them by the propaganda system.  Next post I shall go on to narrate a recent attempt to engage with someone espousing this propaganda.