To The Russia Warmongers: We're Not Going To Let You Get Away With This

I received an email a few days ago from the nice folks at BOLD Democrats (that's honestly how they spell it) with an exciting invitation, as made possible by the U.S.' putting sanctions on Russia last week: "Thank Senate Democrats for punishing Russia."

I would do one of those "no matter that so and so" routines. I would point out that we might want to see the much touted 17 intelligence agencies provide any evidence for the Russians having hacked the DNC before assuming that's the real reason Senate Democrats did this, or that the Russians who will be hurt the most by these sanctions aren't Moscow officials but Russian children who will die from the poverty this is sure to cause, or that it's actions like this that exacerbate the "I dare you to start it" game that Russia and the U.S. have been in for the last few months. But I won't make inconvenient facts like these the main focus, because those responsible for the world war that's likely to soon ensue have shown not to care about them. Our priority at this point should be keeping these fanatics from succeeding in their longer term mission.

How do we not let them get away with it? I mean this not in the sense of revenge, which also has no real benefit at this point, but in stopping the warmongers’ agenda. How do we stop demagogic drivel, as is exemplified these days in everything from the email mentioned to a billion similarly conceived internet memes, from taking their intended effect? Though we can’t do much for the Russian proletarians who will be hurt by the oligarchy’s latest move, how do we stop Muslims, lower class Americans, and the others in the line of fire from being hurt similarly in these next few years? How do we stop not just the Deep State’s war with Russia, but the economic and environmental collapses that the Deep State inadvertently brings us towards faster than ever, from taking too catastrophic an effect?

These queries, while taken seriously by most, are too intimidating for most to confront directly. The problems are so big, and the social pathologies standing in the way of their solutions are so noxious, that it seems the only way to stay sane is by tuning them out. Enough about how ordinary people disengaging is what the establishment wants, the disengaged probably reason; the establishment’s schemes are going to go through regardless. And I’d leave them alone in their decision if this article’s headline were meant conditionally.

I’ve recently done a piece with a similar point of rejecting inaction, but in this case I’ll make it more to the point: when we disengage, we let the BOLD Democrats of the world get away with it.

When we don’t speak up if someone says something power-serving, don’t directly support or contribute to alternative media, or don’t publicly voice dissent to the actions of the Deep State, demagogues and the supporters of the status quo are empowered to spread their reactionary messages without opposition. If someone isn’t actively countering things like the exemplified email, the email, so to speak, will be all that makes up the general consciousness.

When we don’t express solidarity with the neoliberal order’s victims, don’t participate in getting legislation passed that would help them, or don’t fight the elitist logic behind society’s oligarchical drift, we are enabling the plutocrats, white supremacists, and genocide-creating foreign policy neocons. Without an effort towards equality, the ideology that says poor and downtrodden individuals have brought their disadvantage on themselves will be all that society goes by.

And above all, without active focus on the dynamics that threaten civilization as we know it, the types that ignore climate destabilization, plunder natural resources with abandon, and advocate what could lead to nuclear war will be the only ones to have a say. In that case, BOLD Democrats and the rest, we’re not going to let you get away with it. We’re going to resist the fearmongering and misinformation you use to keep your ideas afloat, work to dismantle your autocratically maintained power centers while building inclusive systems of our own, and create a world where no one can hurt innocent bystanders for personal gain and then try to get people to cheer them on by calling it “punishing Russia.”

To put on my newsroom face after that slight editorializing, the apocalypse is almost here and the zombies are within sight-just in the last few days, Russian and U.S. war planes have been feet away from actual combat. The zombies may have bitten Bernie Sanders, as was indicated by his happy endorsement of Russian sanctions, but we survivors shouldn’t let that discourage us-as Bernie says, this was never about a man but about a movement, and the movement is going to make things right.