BREAKING:
— MSNBC (@MSNBC) October 27, 2023
Pentagon: U.S. military hit two facilities in eastern Syria used by Iran in “self defense strikes.”
Secy of Defense Austin warns “If attacks by Iran’s proxies against U.S. forces continue, we will not hesitate to take further necessary measures.” pic.twitter.com/SI6jSUcUhd
Having considered the Israeli massacre by Hamas occurring on Putin's birthday and the way it directed attention away from Ukraine, I really can't count out the idea that there is one war. When I see Putin using Iran materiel, I see one war. When I see a Hamas delegation going to the Kremlin, I see one war. International conditions, conceived in fuckery, owing to one guy who is probably chronically if not terminally ill and mentally unfit--Putin. Trying to make his former Soviet something again.
I get how trying to make a country something again can be the most misplaced nostalgia in the world. All the more reason why I see a petrostate hand funneling money to support the assbackwards dreams of MAGA right here, funding the Civil War or Revolutionary ideation of the NRA via guns. As one pretty obvious example. Or more lowkey: they just own the right because of bigotry and authoritarianism.
This nation (the US) started by overthrowing the right of kings to rule--a religious right to a chosen few sanctioning an abrogation of individual rights. The idea of God-appointed rulers should appall people living in our representational republic. And yet some want to install Trump and call him "chosen", As Putin got installed by various forms of unfreedom and leverage. As a Bashar al-Assad represents massive unfreedom so authoritarian right-wingers will approve. It's not hard to understand. It is also not hard to understand that their support of this travesty of freedom isn't about liberation at all, but force.
Force they want to use on the US to scare us away from the one war. The war against democracy and rule of law.
We've been in dumb wars, the US. Vietnam and Iraq. Any war can get stupid, over time. But I have my problems with the one war--the proxies of Russia butting up against US influence. I am old enough to recall the Cold War. This is that, on a different setting. And I saw it was VERY STUPID in the 1980s.
But would I like to play a game? If you make it existential and necessary and about the sovereignty of nation-states: yeah we have to.
Values. You just have to have them. For the babies of Syria, Israel and Palestine and Ukraine. Life and freedom. Deal-breakers. The red-lines of absolute values.
There is no natural way for these people to have their lives to live, but by fighting for them. I hate the bombs of Israel and the rockets of Hamas, and I would literally kill Assad himself if I had a clear path. My country isn't capable to unfuck all these. But we can try to.
If this is a moment, we need to make the most, not the most fucked-upness, of it.
3 comments:
Yet another masterpiece. I'd love to use it for a letter to my Rep and Sen's. They're all Republican, but I like to end my letters with "We the people are watching." For whatever good that does in Kansas. But this is a perfect blog entry that should be front page everywhere. Thank you.
I head tail-lined this today. There's some points in there I don't agree with, but I don't disagree: this is bigger than the individual theaters. It's all connected ...
There's a bit of complexity I'm still working out: take Netanyahu and Putin. I don't care very much for Netanyahu, he's an authoritarian, and he thought he and Putin had an understanding because they have a similar mindset. In the Cold War, the US seemed fine with propping up rightwing assholes or installing RW assholes as "strategery" to use the Bush-era SNL malapropism. So Bibi gets an embrace, and all criticism and leverage from the US is sort of downlow.
I don't feel like support of Israel as a democratic nation entails supporting that guy. What happened last night, and all along in the response of the Israeli government, fulfilled derogatory expectations in ways that are very hard to look at.
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