Our Perky Pat Empire

I haven’t been writing about the latest war mania coming out of D.C. because…well…I dunno…I can’t help but think, “what is the fucking point?” The stuff never ends and we have no power over any of it. Yet we’re supposed to enthusiastically jump from one imperial panic to another. Firmly in the grips of the new cycle, we’re supposed to trust the Lockheed and Atlantic Council experts and lap up whatever narrative the State Department has cooked up for us — or, to get upset and to feverishly debunk their lies.

I would like to get all high-minded and moralistic about it. I really would. After all, Russia-U.S. relations directly affect my family and me. But the only thing I can muster is cynicism. And the only thing I can get myself to do these days is shitpost on Twitter and mock at least some of the bought-off assholes spreading this panic. What else can I do about all this ridiculous theatrics and hyperbole? And really…this hyped-up conflict has everything.

It’s got photo ops of grandma defenders with guns being set up by actual Ukrainian Nazis and and then being blasted out by our most trusted corporate media outlets, the ones that are constantly crowing about the growing far-right threat in America. It’s got Atlantic Council staffers predicting (incorrectly) the exact time and place of the Russian invasion and then telling people (after the invasion fails to materialize) to go eat at a Nazi collaborator-themed Ukrainian restaurant in Lvov (one that I actually visited back in 2019). And it’s got State Department spokespeople accusing top American journalists of being agents of the Kremlin — traitors, basically — because they asked for evidence that Russia’s invasion is indeed taking place, and weren’t just happy to take the State Department’s word for it.

Yep, it’s all very entertaining — in a sleazy and scary kind of way. And the worst part of it is that in a few weeks, this particular conflict will be completely dropped and a new fear narrative will be uploaded into our Perky Pat Layouts for us to collectively consume and experience. And, right on cue, it looks like the narrattive rollback has already started…

Yasha Levine @yashalevine

america showing true courage in the face of what it sees as a growing mongoloid evil in the east, demonstrating to the rest of eastern europe that it is willing to…cut and run before anything actually happens. 🇺🇸

So I haven’t been able to muster the energy to write about it, even though I had been writing about Ukraine quite a bit before. But there are some great people to follow this time. One is Leonid Ragozin, a Russian living in Latvia. And the other is Volodymyr Ishchenko, a Ukrainian sociologist living in, I believe, Germany. I met Volodymyr when he was still in Kiev in 2018 to talk about the role of the Ukrainian far-right in the Maidan Overthrown and the persecution and physical danger that leftwing academics like him faced in this new “democratic” Ukraine. He’s a smart and honest guy.

Leonid did a very informative interview with Radio War Nerd the other day — looking at the hardline Ukrainian politics that have helped get this latest invasion panic going. Volodymyr is been interviewed and quoted all over the place. I particularly like his comments on the diverse identities and political views of the Ukrainian people, and his analysis of Ukraine as a U.S. client state.