I don't think I'm one of them either. I'm one of mine.

Category: US Politics (Page 2 of 2)

The problem with the “NATO proxy war” narrative

Critics of Ukraine often say that the US and NATO are supporting the country to weaken Russia. This is true—after all, Russia’s actions are directly opposed to American and NATO national-security and strategic interests—but this is a one-sided interpretation that places all the responsibility on the “collective West,” as Putin and his sycophants call the US–NATO alliance. Russia, too, is treating Ukraine as a proxy for its war against the West. Domestic Russian propaganda treats the war as a conflict of values between conservative, traditionalist Russia and the decadent US/NATO alliance and its client state, the Kiev regime.

The dissident Russian media network, TV Rain (Dozhd/Дождь), covers the anti-Western rhetoric espoused by Russian TV talking heads in its Fake News series. Dmitry Kiselev, Vladimir Soloviev, Margarita Simonyan and other propagandists spend as much time ranting about the United States, Britain, France, Denmark and other NATO countries as they do Ukraine itself.

Clearly, their war isn’t just against Kiev; it’s against Washington, London, Copenhagen and Paris. This is the very definition of a proxy war.

Even if you consider NATO’s problematic expansion policies or the relationship between the Obama, Trump and Biden administrations and post-Maidan Ukrainian governments, Russia still bears primary responsibility for the Ukrainian invasion. This is why I still support Ukraine militarily, even though I oppose many of its government’s actions.

One of many reasons why I’m grudgingly pro-Ukraine…

… is that Russian culture-warrior bullshit has gotten out of hand over the past decade or so. The Russian legislature—dominated by Putin’s neoconservative United Russia party—is coming very close to banning legal recognition and surgery for trans people, even though laws allowing transition have been in place for over twenty years.

We have politicians like this in America, too, but at least they don’t have an iron grip on Congress (and shouldn’t be allowed anywhere near the levers of power).

Do I think a Ukrainian victory will force Russia to have better policies? Maybe not. But reducing Putin’s sphere of influence may make his policies less popular. Remember that it’s not just Ukrainians Putin is mistreating; it’s also his fellow Russians.

 

Cancelling “America” is a gift to Trump and other right-wingers

There’s a movement afoot on the woke left to “cancel” the name America. This is asinine performative bullshit, just like land acknowledgments and #KyivNotKiev.

A lot of the objection comes from Latin Americans who do not live in the United States. The last I checked, the inhabitants of a country get to decide what they want to be called in their own language. In this country, people call themselves Americans. Mexicans and Bolivians can call us estadounidenses all they want. I don’t give a shit. But that doesn’t give them the right to dictate what people in this country call themselves in English.

Instead of “America,” the cancellers use “US,” “USian,” and other constructions. But they don’t have the same effect on the reader.

“US” sounds cold, sterile, like a government form. “America” conjures up images of apple pie, baseball, the Stars and Stripes, the valiant troops fighting the Nazis and the colonial British overlords. “Captain United States” wouldn’t have the same ring to it, would it? “Make the US Great Again” wouldn’t stand a chance as a political slogan. It’s too bureaucratic.

I can just imagine Trump making hay of it at one of his fascistic rallies: “Look, everyone. Many people are saying that the woke left is trying to cancel the word America, OK? They say, ‘Sir, they’re telling us not to say America, that it’s not politically correct.’ And I will say this, folks, they’re trying to cancel our entire country. Very sad. But with Trump, you’ll Make America Great Again.”

I’m not an American chauvinist or nationalist fanatic; in fact, I’m a fierce critic of American imperialism, especially in the name of “democracy promotion.” But that criticism can happen without this kind of performative bullshit (see a theme?).

Sad!

 

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