DDP Newsletter Vol. XXXVIII, No. 2
On Feb 24, Russia invaded Ukraine, a major escalation of a prolonged conflict. Immediately, this new crisis displaced the nonstop COVID coverage in the media. Conveniently for global elites, these crises have distracted attention from ongoing financial and societal collapse, and are probably accelerating progress toward the World Economic Forum’s intended Great Reset.
The meme for these times is the NPC or non-player character in video games. The narrator pops open the identical robotic heads and installs the Narrative-of-the-day chip.
The official Narrative for COVID is that the worst pandemic in world history threatens everyone and may surge any time if we let up on control measures such as face masks and distancing. The only hope is from “safe and effective” warp-speed vaccines in every arm, boosted as the CDC recommends. Dissenters are anti-science and pro-disease and death.
For Ukraine, the Narrative is that evil Putin has launched an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine as the first step in achieving his ambition to re-establish the Soviet empire. Ukraine is a peaceful, independent democracy. Dissenters are traitors and “Russian assets.” Since Ukraine is not (yet) a member of NATO, we do not yet have a full-scale war involving U.S. and other NATO troops. However, weapons and ammunition are pouring in, even from once-neutral Switzerland, so that NATO can fight, as some say, to the last heroic Ukrainian soldier. The Woke West has also launched economic warfare against Russia.
In the old, pre-Woke America, there was no need for Narratives to obscure painful reality. Citizens had inalienable rights and an opportunity to achieve personal and economic prosperity—the American dream. Reality could be harsh, but Americans were generally optimistic freemen who were laboring hard, in an as-fair-as-possible world of their own. Then the world started to change. Few noticed as their rights were incrementally eroded. Independent Americans might interfere with the agendas of various elites, so a culture of carefully curated lies coalescing into the Narratives was developed.
Elites use Narratives to gain and keep power. Left-wing Narratives appealing to the Woke “Brahmin” professional managerial class include Climate Change, Critical Race Theory, and LGBTQ “rights.” Right-wing Narratives appealing to part of the upper middle class that is highly dependent on government include naïve Free Trade ideas inapplicable in today’s world and War on Terror. The Ukraine issue overlaps both sides. Ukrainians are “Woke” (thus, to the left, good); Russians are not (thus, evil). Both are authoritarians. Neither is a friend of American conservatives, but Ukrainians are good allies of Wokeism.
THE TRUCE OF THE BEAR
Those who advocate for playing at war should reread Rudyard Kipling’s 1898 poem “The Truce of the Bear” (https://tinyurl.com/27ezvrt7), written at a time of prolonged tension over Russian activities in Manchuria, and after his experience as a journalist during the Afghan Border Crisis of 1884-5. This had left Kipling with a lasting mistrust of Russia and its territorial ambition. In 1890, in the short story “The Man Who Was,” Kipling had described Russia as belonging to Asia and “not going to be civilized after the methods of the West” (https://tinyurl.com/m3a4z2ah).
“Truce of the Bear” can be read as a universal allegorical warning about dealing with a savage beast like Adam-zad, the deceptive bear that is able to fake a woeful, docile behavior to induce pity in the white hunter—only to kill him, or rip off his face. According to historians, this poem was specifically written as an allegory about Czarist Russia’s convincing British modernists that it was a friend of the British Empire, while it was not.
What would Kipling think today? He was a staunch defender of Victorian common-sense philosophy and was concerned about modernism, which was starting to replace Victorianism. Modernism is a grandfather of Wokeism. Putin deplores Western decadent Wokeism, in particular the LGBTQ agenda, while Ukraine is a haven for Wokeism as well as for money-laundering globalists. Actor president Volodymyr Zelenskyy has actually performed in drag. Ukraine has long been part of Russia, and was its birthplace.
It appears that Adam-zad the Greater is at war with Adam-zad the Lesser. Why would NATO want to side with one of two savage beasts that are trying to destroy each other? Yet both the Democrat regime and “conservative” commentators such as Sean Hannity and R. Emmett Tyrrell are glorifying Ukraine.
What is the desired outcome? “Regime change”—with a weakened Russia, compliant with the New World Order? Ukraine as effectively a satrapy of a Woke EU and U.S., with or without formal membership in NATO? Western control of Ukraine’s resources?
What are possible outcomes? Nuclear war, triggered by accident or desperate action by a cornered bear? The collapse of the world financial system as Russia retaliates against sanctions? The emergence of a strong Sino-Russian alliance? U.S. poverty and even starvation due to loss of Russian and Ukrainian grain and fertilizer? Massively increased energy prices, with consequent increases in all prices? The demise of the petrodollar and thus the dollar as the world reserve currency?
Before assigning guilt for war crimes, or even determining what is happening, one needs an objective assessment, not war propaganda. Concerning the alleged Bucha atrocities, Putin asked the UN Security Council to investigate—but the UK government refused to convene it. A standard forensic examination would show the time and manner of deaths—and whether bodies had been moved. Commentary by former UN weapons inspector Scott Ritter countered the Narrative, but @realScottRitter was suspended from Twitter, reinstated, then re-suspended. The Russian response to the accusations is in the Monthly Review, “an independent socialist magazine” (https://tinyurl.com/mpmypx2p). Truth or propaganda? The same publication also provides background on the “road to war” (https://tinyurl.com/ycyd78ur), as does Gravitas Plus (https://tinyurl.com/ye26jc3x).
If America is to be restored, Americans must deal with reality. Those who cherish freedom must resist the Narratives with all their strength. Assuming that Russians are totally evil and inferior, while the West is good and superior, while making no effort to know ourselves or the enemy, will lead to disaster. Russians may have worn-out equipment bogged down in mud, but they are relentless and can “fight like gods,” as described in the video “The American’s Verse about the Russians” (https://tinyurl.com/4mnrz7uk).
It is possible that Russia, through war or response to U.S. sanctions, will implement Kipling’s conclusion to the triumph of Modernism:
“And that after this is accomplished, and the brave new world begins
“When all men are paid for existing and no man must pay for his sins,
“As surely as Water will wet us, as surely as Fire will burn, “The Gods of the Copybook Headings with terror and slaughter return