The Rising Fame Of John Mearsheimer: Why Is Ukraine Mess The West's Fault?
The Rising Fame Of John Mearsheimer: Why Is Ukraine Mess The West's Fault?
A Foreign Policy Talk From 2015 Finds New Audiences Among People Not So Sure Putin Invaded Ukraine "Totally Unprovoked"
“One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now you begin to understand me.”
—George Orwell, 1984
"When the United States talks about Democracy Promotion, that means toppling your regime."
—John Mearsheimer
[The not to be missed under any circumstances video above.]
Has there ever been a stranger week than this one that just passed?
Before I went off radar for a few days, like each and every one of you, I tried to assess what the devil was happening now.
When I say “happening,” I refer to that anxious milky way between “real events” and the simulation propaganda.
The good news this past week was: Covid (that word refers to all the abuses) was so “over” they even mocked Covidian hysteria on SNL; The bad news was, Russia invaded Ukraine and you weren't allowed to think about why.
Even though you are Ukrainian, “now.”
We were thrown to the Stone Age, overnight. Everything was meaningless, and even the joy we may have felt over the fact that they took a break from trying to murder us all failed to register. Because the Next Act was falling on us like a grand piano.
We have to accept reality. We’re ruled by sub-verbal monsters. Now adorned in Ukrainian flags as the new “I’m Wonderful!” As if anybody born or unborn still thinks, in 2022, that these people are against either war, or unprovoked, blood-soaked invasions.
Just when you thought they couldn’t be more deranged, they went to a level we did not even know existed.
It was all so lurid, so next-level mortifying, it seemed to me that words lost all value, overnight. Weimar currency. How many wheelbarrows of words would I need to address this new typhoon of propaganda, especially since I know little to nothing about the war in Dombass?
And I couldn’t even call my father. We always talked about history, and I depended on him to clarify geo-politics.
Now I sit alone and try to hear his voice.
We’re originally Russian Jews, on my father’s side. Except my father often reminded me it was really in a sense Jews living in Russia. They spoke no Russian, only Yiddish. And he’s not even here to laugh with me about the possibility—this new idea—that we are actually Khazars. One thing I loved about my father, and I loved many things about him, was his steadfast refusal to get offended.
“Call me back when they’re killing Jews,” he would say to the endless calls seeking his attention over alarming rises in anti-semitism.
Suddenly, I’m not even sure if my paternal great grandparents were “Russian,” just as I am unsure what most words mean— the slow cancerous effect of propaganda: Emptying words of meaning.
Everybody is pushing Weimar wheelbarrows of devalued words around, sinking into isolation and shame. Festooned in Ukrainian flags.
“Please accept me.”
“I felt naked without a mask and with no other way to communicate that I am NORMAL.”
”We are all Ukrainians now.”
Were he alive, I would say to my father: “I think that translates to: I must not take any interest in the history of this conflict between 2014 and 2022.”
He would have laughed a little.
Let me try to explain what I can’t quite express, it feels important:
President Joe Biden is not talking to us, as adults. He never did, and it feels more and more like deep tissue abuse with each passing day. Trump was not entirely different, by the way, just sharper. Both have speech patterns that resemble carnival barkers. And we’re supposed to be the clapping seals, with a fish sideways in our mouths.
Why can’t anybody speak to us respectfully? I believe Putin’s talk March 24 was striking in how different it sounded, as political address from leader to people. He speaks as though he is an adult speaking to other adults. My best friend in Sweden called me 2 weeks ago and told me Putin is crazy. Weimar words, again. I don’t know what anybody means.
Some observations:
The new red ribbon was the mask. The new mask is the Ukrainian flag. The new left demands WW3, now. Lindsey Graham called upon the Russian people to assassinate Putin, straight up. Spectacularly dysfunctional. Then video emerged of him and John McCain trying to light up a proxy war in Ukraine, 2016.
Nothing is ever dealt with, in the carnival of virtue bludgeoning. (Not “signaling.”)
To wit:
This past week summed up in one tweet.
Watch this:
I am opposed to mockery in all forms, but this is so troubling. “A pound of Ukrainian people…” “You can’t build a wall high enough to stop a vaccine…” “He’ll never win the hearts of the Iranian people…” “Go get him!”
It’s tragic. It’s the end of the nation and possibly the world.
How can any American citizen recover from the manner in which that man (Biden) spoke to us in the State of The Union address this week? As though we are rodents in a box subject to electrical shocks if we don’t erase all historical memory every time they pull the NEW VIRTUE lever.
Memory of what?
Well, how about memory of even one week ago, before we were all Ukrainians? Listen to that video, and tell me what you hear, if you would. What I hear is post-speech sounds and fragments. All tone, no meaning. All stimulation, no roots, no interior. No reference. A-historical barking. It lacks even the traumatic condescension of a Trudeau speech, it’s just breathless, broken phrases. As I say, all verbal electro-shocks delivered from a man so traumatized and disintegrated he can’t even seem to identify the contract of a public address. That contract begins with the notion that other people are actually there, to be addressed. He doesn’t even lie. It’s not even structured English. It’s English as it breaks down, as the nation breaks down. I’m not upset that he is inarticulate; I’m upset that he speaks from no corresponding inner person—no true ideas or ideals. And yes, I do feel that Trump was the same, in this regard. I see it now. I mean, I hear it. Are we a dead nation? If not, then why can’t we speak a living language? Everything is Praise and Condemnation—sides of the same dead coin. No details, ever, no history, no respect, no sobriety.
Adoration, we learn the hard way, is hate’s identical twin. This is why you are perpetually bludgeoned to hate through fake love and flag waving.
As I drove from NYC to Hudson Valley NY, two nights ago, I listened to two YouTube videos that comprised new foundation stones, meaning: Para-Propaganda— a place to possibly begin to get oriented.
With apologies for how late this is, and I know most of you will have heard it by now, but the first of the two is this talk: “Why Is Ukraine The West’s Fault?” by John Mearsheimer, who strikes me as a lost emerald. Why had we never heard of him? (I hadn't.) I have listened to it twice. One of my favorite parts is where he makes the distinction between 19th century man and 21st century man. That’s it!
Before I sign off, I just found something else, not yet reviewed, but we will all want to listen to it.
John Mearsheimer and Ray McGovern, yesterday.
“Putin’s Invasion of Ukraine Salon.” The second video I reference above will be posted tomorrow, with commentary. It’s a very unexpected citizen journalist in Ukraine. Sometimes I listen to videos more than once and wait a few days to think what they really contain and by then they may be a little “old” but I’m trying to offer a framework. I’m hopeful that even if this isn’t very smooth it’s reflective of the way many of us feel about this past week. Better to keep making sounds of any kind.
Besides the unmatched content of your writing, I truly love your style. “Weimar wheelbarrows”. Brilliant. Thank you for all you are doing! Go get him!! :-)
Here is a real human telling you more truth about Ukraine in five minutes than Mersheimer has told his entire career
https://youtu.be/ymdIC5EJgQk