Everyone’s hot takes on the Ukraine invasion are causing me to lose the will to live
What could be the greatest tragedy of my life so far is currently unfolding in Ukraine. Although, pitching the genocide of the Rohingyas in Myanmar, the Syrian Civil War and other untold tragedies against each other in the worst bracket of all time seems in especially bad taste.
Yet there is plenty of bad taste to go around. From commentators stating that war has returned to Europe for the first time since 1945 - as if the Yugoslav wars and the Kosovo crisis didn’t happen - to war reporters saying this feels different because the war is in a country of white people, sorry I meant a “civilised” country.
From surfing the never-ending hot take machine that is the Internet, I can see that as well as all the bad taste, we have people stupendously missing the point. This includes everyone trying to make the invasion about themselves. As if you, sitting in a Victorian townhouse in Hackney reading about the invasion via the Guardian app on your iPad, can imagine one-tenth of what it is like to live with the possibility of having a Russian missile crash through your apartment block at any moment.
The lowest point for Europe
I don’t have much to add on a geopolitical level, other than this is terrible and breaks my heart every time I look at the news. So, I will reserve the rest of this article for sniping at people on the internet who are taking the lowest moment for Europe – at least since I first got a passport and started taking boozy holidays in Germany - as an excuse to fill the internet with absolute drivel.
This includes, and is not limited to: the people who think that this has been caused by Brexit; the people taking this as an excuse to blame everyone for everything; the centrists calling everyone to their left a Putin apologist; and the armchair military commanders who accuse anyone questioning anything NATO ever did as somehow being part of a plot to bring down the beloved international order so that a self-obsessed, murdering authoritarian can roll tanks across the UK.
On the other hand, there are those laying the blame at the feet of NATO with massive enthusiasm for online finger-wagging, acting as if a perfectly constructed witty Twitter put-down will make a difference to people suffering on the ground in Ukraine. My advice to the energetic liberal owners of social media is to take ten minutes off from dunking on internet loudmouths to donate to the causes collecting goods for refugees. That will make a difference. Being a keyboard hack won’t.
All imperialism is bad
There are also the rare, but annoyingly vocal, pro-Putin lefties. This tendency has been greatly exaggerated for the purposes of meme wars, but it’s still irksome to come across useful idiots mainlining Russian propaganda, ‘because BBC’, and spending all the livelong day accusing everyone except Putin of being responsible for the war that Putin *checks notes* started.
As George Monbiot put it: “The people who have amplified these excuses are not, as they claim, anti-imperialists. They are rightly opposed to western imperialism, but will bend over backwards to accommodate Russian imperialism. Some are paid stooges. For others it’s ‘my enemy's enemy is my friend’.”
Trust me when I say that even if the US or NATO is your enemy, Putin is not your friend. Also, if you have gone past “all imperialism bad”, through “American imperialism is the worst”, and ended up at “therefore Russian imperialism good” then there really is no helping you. Allow me to bastardise the Dead Kennedys and say: “Putin lefties fuck off!”
Do something
Then there are the ceaseless centrist soldier-hugging “do somethings” who, as usual, are spending a lot of time on Twitter after the divorce. I understand this desire to use the power that the West has to improve the situation, but I am not sure what we can do, apart from what we are doing. Even the Tories are trying to get Russian money out of the City of London, which is surprising, although, of course, we should have done it years ago.
Closely allied to the “do somethings” are the beard-scratching liberal intellectuals who have lots to say on this (columns to file and all that) but not a lot to offer. You don’t need a degree from Oxford to notice that the invasion is awful, but if NATO does anything that even smells like attacking the Russian army, that will lead to a (likely nuclear) war with Russia. It’s painful to realise that there is very little of immediate practical effect that the West can do without risking the life of every living thing on the planet. Countries with nukes get to act awfully. I don’t know, maybe we should have gotten rid of the nukes in the 60s.
The sensibles weigh in
King of the Sensibles, Jonathan Freedland, summed it up when he said: “This then, is the choice. Do we want to live in the world described by Zelensky, where democratic states are protected by an international system of rules, however flawed and inconsistent that system might be? Or do we want to live in Putin’s world, governed by the law of the jungle and where the only right is might?”
As a weedy, pathetic, unconfident and awkward man who resorts to saying all my mean things online, I don’t want to live by Putin’s law of the jungle. It sounds awful. But how do we stand up to ‘might makes right’ without getting into a fight with a nuclear-armed, trigger-happy thug? I don’t think appealing to Putin’s sense of justice and fair play will work. I want the sensibles to tell me how we make the nuclear gangster stick to the international system of rules, however flawed and inconsistent that system might be, in a sensible way. I have been thinking on this all week and can’t work it out.
Freedland went onto say: “Putin does not care if his people suffer. He’s priced in the hit to his oligarch pals, just as he’s priced in the loss of Russian military lives. For him, conquering Ukraine – and removing the example of a democratic neighbour that might show Russians a different life is possible – is worth it.” Freedland is making the point better than I am that all this crying of “do something” is pointless.
The view from the right-wing bellends
Then, of course, there are those who have taken this as an opportunity to swipe at the left, because why break the habit of a lifetime? This includes the Telegraph, who said that an RMT tube strike was in sympathy with Putin. I guess we’re at the point where we can say anything in print, no matter how deranged, and if it vibes with our readers then it’s okay. I’m not going to stoop to the Telegraph’s level for a joke. I’m going to say that anyone who believes that headline needs to stop sniffing glue as it’s fucking up their brain.
Then there are those who blame ‘the woke’ for this. On some level, you have to admire their enthusiasm for culture wars in a month most people took off from flogging their hobby horse out of respect for the dead. Then again, you don’t get to be Ben “King of right-wing Internet bellends” Shapiro by taking a break from blaming the woke for everything that’s wrong with the world.
Although, he’s really outdone himself this time: claiming that the West having a greater range of pronouns available (read being accepting of trans people or non-binary people) makes us look weak and thus has emboldened Putin. I guess you could blame peace-loving, tolerant, accepting social justice warriors for a violent conflict triggered by a homophobic, belligerent nationalist. That makes perfect sense. The only alternative is that the conservative patriotism that Shapiro and his ilk spouts is really to blame and that the Republicans he shills for are just a less effective version of Putin.
Belligerent conservative nationalists
Conservative nationalism is rotten all the way down. Whether you are policing people’s bathrooms or invading your neighbours, the belief that there is a God-given traditional order to the world - and that all these young people with their pronouns, dyed hair, respecting people of different colours, identities & faiths, and Tiktok accounts are debasing this natural order - is causing most of the misery in the world.
Remember, Steve Bannon took time out from being a throbbing caldron of online hate to back Putin for being anti-woke. But expressing that doesn’t get Shapiro retweets from people who follow MMA, so, as usual, everyone must be whipped up into a fury at vulnerable minorities whilst Putin, a belligerent conservative nationalist himself, is laughing all the way to his ammo store.
Nukes are bad
Whilst all this is going on, Putin and the self-important hardmen who claim to be the leaders of the free world are hurtling us ever closer to a nuclear war. Maybe we shouldn’t have a global political system that encourages the most venial, pole-climbing, ambitious, selfish and self-important people to struggle to the top, and then give them the power to destroy the world.
We might be about to find out that nuclear dick swinging is more than just a disturbing way that world leaders decide who’s the alpha dog in the military-industrial kennel and has real world risks. Of course, saying nukes are bad is about the same as being a Communist, despite Joseph Stalin’s love of the bomb. We did have a political leader in the UK who said nukes were bad and he wouldn’t use them, and everyone thought this was the same as surrendering to Putin.
So, the free world is led by big tough men who will use nukes and won’t be pushed around by, er, big tough men with nukes like Putin. Apparently, this is all in our best interest as we were all told when politicians of the left and the right voted for more nukes at a time when millions relied on food banks. Special mention must go to the liberals auditioning for a role in Dr Strangelove who said that nukes were bad, but we need them, although we should never use them. Peter Sellers turned over in his grave at that one.
Get off Twitter
So now we have political leaders, left and right, falling over each other to say they will use nukes against Putin. This race will continue right up until the moment where they do use nukes against Putin and everyone and everything dies. At least then they will have finally achieved the long sort after end of history.
Yeah, you can tell I’m really angry at everyone right now. Because you’re all obsessed with your hobby horses and not helping anyone. Maybe I should just get off Twitter and go for a walk, whilst I still can.
