Sorry for chirruping on, but the irony is that, as a society, Ukraine is not much more gay-friendly than Saudi Arabia.
While homosexual activity is officially a death penalty offense in The Tragic Kingdom, men having sex with men on the DL is nigh ubiquitous there. Being openly gay in Ukraine can well get you killed, regardless of any law.
Of course, the congressman knows all that, just as he knows that the "gay-inclusive Ukrainian military units" is nothing more than a publicity stunt to keep western governments and goodthink types on-side. The question remains why he chooses to speak such arrant nonsense. Is he trying to fool himself? Or us?
This is excellent and very in line with many of my own thoughts. The UK Head of MI5 made a tweet right back in the Spring to the effect that “our” embrace of Pride is what makes us different from Putin and that is the justification for fighting. Not quite the words used but it was the implication.
Michael Hudson’s recent essay on the NC site is similar but it suggests that the US power politics came first and then the ideology followed. Not quite what he says directly but it was my interpretation when I read it.
Reality does seem to be that ideology and the power politics go together. Interdependent rather than one necessarily driving the other. People have a habit of grabbing ideologies that are helpful to them. Just think of all the PMC careers that now depend on all this! The US empire employs a lot of people and dispenses a lot of private sector contracts. This is not a purely cynical process: the people involved really do believe that Putin is evil. But it also suits them to believe that too. None of that is to deny either that Russophobia in much of Europe is very real and has a historical basis too.
Additionally, I do think that when it comes to the broader PMC then there are elements of mass formation involved here too. You allude to it at the start when you talk about a scapegoat. All of these periods of hysteria seem to have that context too. The ideology and the scapegoating breed on free floating anxiety and do seem to affect elites most. After all, contrary to myth, Nazism and Bolshevism were both elite movements.
Ok, I'll buy that thesis, as I've otherwise been rather mystified by the extraordinary, warmongering obsession with the destruction of Russia, and the increasingly nonsensical insistence that victory is nigh. How long can this mirage last, and when / if it falls apart, what exactly happens ?
Appreciate the podcast recommendation. This is a disturbing piece simply because it is too close to home. A podcast I was listening to was discussing John Foster Dulles, Wilson and accidentally verged into a similar point that I would call the messianic trait in American liberal capitalism. It certainly became openly imperial by the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It also requires an existential enemy. So now, having apparently and fully subsumed Europe, it is American liberal capitalism / radical social liberalism with an existential enemy of the multipolarity. Russia stands in for that now but China is not far behind. The existential enemies seem to become less clearly defined over time.
I think we can see that much of what constitutes modern liberalism is really an extension of what is supposedly the long discredited notion of a Christian duty to 'protect' the brown and brown-is masses of the world from their own worst instincts. It has morphed repeatedly in so many ways its almost unrecognisable, but it is still ultimately the same thing.
Arguably, its worse, as its even more hypocritical now - its breathtaking the speed with which we can be persuaded that people X are helpless victims and really like us, while people Y are monsters.
But there is now I think an increasing desperation as its become apparent that even in the West, true believers are only a minority - the majority I think are just looking on with a certain degree of bafflement as they struggle to catch up with who or what to believe. Even the far right and far left are spinning into incoherence as they try to make sense of the world today.
I've been struggling to understand the fervor of the PMC for victory in Ukraine and the destruction of Russia. In my little circle in the US, no one discusses Ukraine or our upcoming election. There is, as you say, no popular opposition to things Russian, nor are Ukrainian flags on display. It seems odd, the politicians supporting war loudly and profligately (if that's a word) without public backing. It's out of character. Your line of thought gives me a way to think about the situation.
"Glance, if you can bear to, at the comments in media sources like Guardian, the New York Times or Le Monde, and you will see presumably intelligent, presumably educated, people demanding nuclear war against Russia, the destruction of Russian property and the murder of individual Russians. Nothing like this wave of obsessive hatred has ever appeared in modern history. "
I dunno, why did millions of Germans, ostensibly the most civilized people in Europe, eat themselves alive in a frenzy of antisemitism? And this well within living memory.
I don't think those Germans knew about all those death camps in Poland and what not. Or the war in the east had as a goal to kill every Slavic person up to Urals mountains. The present crop is very clear in its aspirations and the Ukrainian war helps in instilling such feelings in the population. Sheer tribalism, which is always close to the surface...
Do you remember how the very same Germans were frightened to death by propaganda myths about the oncoming cruelties? Isn't it the same thing the Tsipso is doing to Ukrainians now? (and the MSM to Westerners, of course)
I guess you remember tgat I recommend Guy Mettan to everyone interested in the origins of Russophobia.
"After all, few people are as obsessed by religious ideas as the militant atheist."
Is this just a joke? It seems unlikely to be true. What is a militant atheist? Have you ever met someone who claims to be one? Or it's it intended to have some other meaning?
Yes, a very convincing explanation of the EU crusade, but it does not quite capture the US and UK. They, it seems, are quite happy breaking up both Russia and the EU.
The US's postwar crusade as a force for good in the world ended on the killing fields of Vietnam and almost continual subsequent wars. Money not ideology drives the real power in the US and trouble making gives lots of opportunities to make money. The current European mess is a great success.
As for the UK, being an English schoolboy once upon a time, I know how much they just like being naughty.
I've been thinking a bit more about this, and I guess the critical survival question, granted that thesis is "what balance of crazy vs. cowardly applies amongst whoever it is that's driving the bus in the collective west ?".
I'm hoping cowardice wins out when push comes to shove, or we'll all be incinerated.
But isn’t this theory a little farfetched? A small group could be captive of a sect, perhaps the government of one state – but all? What I miss is an explanation to why the whole western ruling class gets such a weird mind.
One or two years ago I amused myself making a list of other possible explanations (I hadn’t read yours at the time). They are:
• They need to blame a foreigner for the miserable results of their own policies the last generation. If not, they fear public wrath against themselves. This is of course my favourite.
• They may also have been seized by fear because of the climate threat, which they clearly understand will lead to unrest and massive waves of fugitives. Of course they don’t want to stop burning fossiles, but they want to quiet the unrest and the fugitive waves with violence, bombings if need be – and they don’t want any protests from their own citizens.
• They want to ”do a Putin” – taking control of their economies by disciplining their own oligarchs, with a national emergency as a pretext.
• They are too simple-minded to look through the alarm signals from a Nato that doesn’t want to be downgraded because of a lack of purpose. According to George Kennan the initiative to the Russia scare came from the Nato headquarters
• They (and here I speak of the Europeans) are aware of the diminishing power and possible collapse of the US, but they are too diplomatically unexperienced to run the skilful foreign policy they realise is necessary, so they resort to threats in all directions.
Of course, the explanation of your theory may be that all tightly knit groups need a religion of their own. That’s the origin of religion, if one believes in Durkheim – something that keeps the group together against a possibly dangerous outside world.
Not to be a party pooper, but Revelations describes what the inside of a church is supposed to look like, It gives the directions. The technique applied throughout the New Testament was called the 'pesher.' An Australian nun (and Phd) Barbara Theiring, could read the dead sea scrolls and she thus re-interpreted the New Testament. She said the New Testament was literally true. A history mainly about the life of Jesus. Which is understandable. Using the pesher technique Theiring revealed what the New Testament was all about. She names names, identifies where and when all the miracles happened. Judas was Jesus' accountant. When someone got tossed out of he Church they were 'dead.' If they were taken back in, they were 'resurrected.' Anyway, Thiering wrote a series of books explaining it all. Even made a documentary. And promptly was excommunicated. She's been 'dead' ever since. Zero chance at being 'resurrected. Just like Jesus, until Theiring pulled off the covers. Hope this helps.
You, and your posts are very much welcomed. It is a thing to see how in the midst of the 60s "revolutionary days" the old Christian myths were revived once and again. Isn't it? In Spain there were some many (some truly pathetic, not Seekers quality) examples of the same.
Sorry for chirruping on, but the irony is that, as a society, Ukraine is not much more gay-friendly than Saudi Arabia.
While homosexual activity is officially a death penalty offense in The Tragic Kingdom, men having sex with men on the DL is nigh ubiquitous there. Being openly gay in Ukraine can well get you killed, regardless of any law.
Of course, the congressman knows all that, just as he knows that the "gay-inclusive Ukrainian military units" is nothing more than a publicity stunt to keep western governments and goodthink types on-side. The question remains why he chooses to speak such arrant nonsense. Is he trying to fool himself? Or us?
The same miscreants would paint the literal Nazis as "gay friendly" using Ernst Rohm and the SA as examples.
But presumably omitting the 'Night of the Long Knives'!
Hasn't happened (yet) in Ukraine. ;)
Matter of time, probably. The place is a wreck, already.
This is excellent and very in line with many of my own thoughts. The UK Head of MI5 made a tweet right back in the Spring to the effect that “our” embrace of Pride is what makes us different from Putin and that is the justification for fighting. Not quite the words used but it was the implication.
Michael Hudson’s recent essay on the NC site is similar but it suggests that the US power politics came first and then the ideology followed. Not quite what he says directly but it was my interpretation when I read it.
Reality does seem to be that ideology and the power politics go together. Interdependent rather than one necessarily driving the other. People have a habit of grabbing ideologies that are helpful to them. Just think of all the PMC careers that now depend on all this! The US empire employs a lot of people and dispenses a lot of private sector contracts. This is not a purely cynical process: the people involved really do believe that Putin is evil. But it also suits them to believe that too. None of that is to deny either that Russophobia in much of Europe is very real and has a historical basis too.
Additionally, I do think that when it comes to the broader PMC then there are elements of mass formation involved here too. You allude to it at the start when you talk about a scapegoat. All of these periods of hysteria seem to have that context too. The ideology and the scapegoating breed on free floating anxiety and do seem to affect elites most. After all, contrary to myth, Nazism and Bolshevism were both elite movements.
Ok, I'll buy that thesis, as I've otherwise been rather mystified by the extraordinary, warmongering obsession with the destruction of Russia, and the increasingly nonsensical insistence that victory is nigh. How long can this mirage last, and when / if it falls apart, what exactly happens ?
Appreciate the podcast recommendation. This is a disturbing piece simply because it is too close to home. A podcast I was listening to was discussing John Foster Dulles, Wilson and accidentally verged into a similar point that I would call the messianic trait in American liberal capitalism. It certainly became openly imperial by the end of the 19th and early 20th centuries. It also requires an existential enemy. So now, having apparently and fully subsumed Europe, it is American liberal capitalism / radical social liberalism with an existential enemy of the multipolarity. Russia stands in for that now but China is not far behind. The existential enemies seem to become less clearly defined over time.
I think we can see that much of what constitutes modern liberalism is really an extension of what is supposedly the long discredited notion of a Christian duty to 'protect' the brown and brown-is masses of the world from their own worst instincts. It has morphed repeatedly in so many ways its almost unrecognisable, but it is still ultimately the same thing.
Arguably, its worse, as its even more hypocritical now - its breathtaking the speed with which we can be persuaded that people X are helpless victims and really like us, while people Y are monsters.
But there is now I think an increasing desperation as its become apparent that even in the West, true believers are only a minority - the majority I think are just looking on with a certain degree of bafflement as they struggle to catch up with who or what to believe. Even the far right and far left are spinning into incoherence as they try to make sense of the world today.
I've been struggling to understand the fervor of the PMC for victory in Ukraine and the destruction of Russia. In my little circle in the US, no one discusses Ukraine or our upcoming election. There is, as you say, no popular opposition to things Russian, nor are Ukrainian flags on display. It seems odd, the politicians supporting war loudly and profligately (if that's a word) without public backing. It's out of character. Your line of thought gives me a way to think about the situation.
"Glance, if you can bear to, at the comments in media sources like Guardian, the New York Times or Le Monde, and you will see presumably intelligent, presumably educated, people demanding nuclear war against Russia, the destruction of Russian property and the murder of individual Russians. Nothing like this wave of obsessive hatred has ever appeared in modern history. "
I dunno, why did millions of Germans, ostensibly the most civilized people in Europe, eat themselves alive in a frenzy of antisemitism? And this well within living memory.
I don't think those Germans knew about all those death camps in Poland and what not. Or the war in the east had as a goal to kill every Slavic person up to Urals mountains. The present crop is very clear in its aspirations and the Ukrainian war helps in instilling such feelings in the population. Sheer tribalism, which is always close to the surface...
There is still some debate as to how much the average frustrated German knew with regard to the Holocaust, and how much was willful ignorance.
That said, that plenty of ordinary Germans were gripped by a wave of antisemitic hysteria in the years before May of 1945 is difficult to deny.
Maybe I should try working in OSINT, I did look for both of you, and it helped.
PS. Sure I am extremely glad to find you and Kouros. At last.
Do you remember how the very same Germans were frightened to death by propaganda myths about the oncoming cruelties? Isn't it the same thing the Tsipso is doing to Ukrainians now? (and the MSM to Westerners, of course)
I guess you remember tgat I recommend Guy Mettan to everyone interested in the origins of Russophobia.
"After all, few people are as obsessed by religious ideas as the militant atheist."
Is this just a joke? It seems unlikely to be true. What is a militant atheist? Have you ever met someone who claims to be one? Or it's it intended to have some other meaning?
I'm beginning to understand why patriarch Kiril is talking about Holy War
Yes, a very convincing explanation of the EU crusade, but it does not quite capture the US and UK. They, it seems, are quite happy breaking up both Russia and the EU.
The US's postwar crusade as a force for good in the world ended on the killing fields of Vietnam and almost continual subsequent wars. Money not ideology drives the real power in the US and trouble making gives lots of opportunities to make money. The current European mess is a great success.
As for the UK, being an English schoolboy once upon a time, I know how much they just like being naughty.
I've been thinking a bit more about this, and I guess the critical survival question, granted that thesis is "what balance of crazy vs. cowardly applies amongst whoever it is that's driving the bus in the collective west ?".
I'm hoping cowardice wins out when push comes to shove, or we'll all be incinerated.
"the Professional and Managerial Caste (not Class, because they don’t all have the same economic function)"
Class is not about economic function, instead it is about fear. Those who share the same fears will self-identify in the same class.
Sorry, I just noticed the year.
But isn’t this theory a little farfetched? A small group could be captive of a sect, perhaps the government of one state – but all? What I miss is an explanation to why the whole western ruling class gets such a weird mind.
One or two years ago I amused myself making a list of other possible explanations (I hadn’t read yours at the time). They are:
• They need to blame a foreigner for the miserable results of their own policies the last generation. If not, they fear public wrath against themselves. This is of course my favourite.
• They may also have been seized by fear because of the climate threat, which they clearly understand will lead to unrest and massive waves of fugitives. Of course they don’t want to stop burning fossiles, but they want to quiet the unrest and the fugitive waves with violence, bombings if need be – and they don’t want any protests from their own citizens.
• They want to ”do a Putin” – taking control of their economies by disciplining their own oligarchs, with a national emergency as a pretext.
• They are too simple-minded to look through the alarm signals from a Nato that doesn’t want to be downgraded because of a lack of purpose. According to George Kennan the initiative to the Russia scare came from the Nato headquarters
• They (and here I speak of the Europeans) are aware of the diminishing power and possible collapse of the US, but they are too diplomatically unexperienced to run the skilful foreign policy they realise is necessary, so they resort to threats in all directions.
Of course, the explanation of your theory may be that all tightly knit groups need a religion of their own. That’s the origin of religion, if one believes in Durkheim – something that keeps the group together against a possibly dangerous outside world.
But is is still weird.
Brilliant. Thanks for putting this together.
Not to be a party pooper, but Revelations describes what the inside of a church is supposed to look like, It gives the directions. The technique applied throughout the New Testament was called the 'pesher.' An Australian nun (and Phd) Barbara Theiring, could read the dead sea scrolls and she thus re-interpreted the New Testament. She said the New Testament was literally true. A history mainly about the life of Jesus. Which is understandable. Using the pesher technique Theiring revealed what the New Testament was all about. She names names, identifies where and when all the miracles happened. Judas was Jesus' accountant. When someone got tossed out of he Church they were 'dead.' If they were taken back in, they were 'resurrected.' Anyway, Thiering wrote a series of books explaining it all. Even made a documentary. And promptly was excommunicated. She's been 'dead' ever since. Zero chance at being 'resurrected. Just like Jesus, until Theiring pulled off the covers. Hope this helps.
I suggest this theme as an epilogue:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k5dYxX-PNno
The myth of the final reckoning or the last judgement or doomsday, whatever but very much related with the apocalypsis.
Thank you! Let me retaliate with this, from a group that dominated my childhood. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOKDT0S2O3c
You, and your posts are very much welcomed. It is a thing to see how in the midst of the 60s "revolutionary days" the old Christian myths were revived once and again. Isn't it? In Spain there were some many (some truly pathetic, not Seekers quality) examples of the same.