Yet Another Massacre -- The Uvalde Thing

Nineteen kids and two teachers shot and killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, TX the other day. Just another day in the killing fields of the Good Ol' USofA. The number of injured is overlooked in most of these incidents so I'm not clear about how many were actually shot by the gunman -- who himself was supposedly shot and killed by an LEO marksman after more than an hour -- they now say -- "waiting."

For what?

Well, that's the question, isn't it? 

Massacres have been part and parcel of the (North) American Experience at least since the initiation of European, primarily British, settlement in the 1600s. The practice of massacring the previous residents -- Natives in the case of America -- so as to protect the newcomers seems to have come over from Britain as a sort of cultural marker. It's what they do. They were doing it in Britain and Ireland for hundreds of years before they came to America. Europeans in general seemed quite comfortable with massacres of their enemies -- or really anyone who got in their way. And of course the notorious Black Legend of the Spanish conquests in the New World was full of massacres of the Natives, sometimes simply because they could.

The bloodlust of the newcomers was insane. Is insane.

Because the massacres in this country have never really ceased -- although in most of Europe, Britain and Ireland, they've almost disappeared. The exception right now of course is in the Ukraine, where apparently "Slavs" and "Aryans" are having it out one more time, renewing a conflict from WWII.

Young men seem to be triggered time and again to go on killing sprees, generally of innocents, strangers they don't know going about their ordinary lives in schools, churches, shopping centers and markets, movie theaters and so on. Wherever ordinary people might gather, say at a concert as in Las Vegas a few years ago, some trigger-happy man (almost always a male, almost always white) will go on a shooting spree. 

A shooting spree made easier and more effective by the easy access to military style rifles and tons of ammunition -- access jealously guarded and made ever easier by politicians who seem to find the whole thing -- all the carnage, terror and bloodshed -- little more than a minor inconvenience in their quest for everlasting power over anyone they don't like.

It's so ingrained and the resistance to doing anything to curb it is so rigid that Americans in general are frustrated and bewildered. Angry and yet powerless to do anything about it.

Their lives and those of their children obviously mean nothing to their rulers, regardless of supposed political party. Even when members of the ruling class are targets (which is almost never) nothing is done to curb the killing; in fact, in many cases gun laws are loosened following a massacre on the bogus theory that "good guys with guns" will protect against the next massacre. 

Well, no. They don't.

But that seems to be the point. Proliferate firearms, make it ever easier for those on a quest to kill to do so and let the chips (and blood) fall where they may.

We can say it's a sickness, a mental illness, but that only goes so far. It's a cultural fault. One that isn't really seen as a problem by those who might do something about it.

It's like the Corona virus response. More than a million dead so far -- mostly met with a shrug by the Overclass who, since they are relatively well protected (as they are from mass murder) simply don't think about, and don't care about, what happens to the rest of us.

I've long said that our system of rule is the primary problem. It's a system that resists change for the better because the system itself is presumed to be best. When change comes on behalf of the downtrodden, it may be only after hundreds of years of constant agitation, and it is always beset with efforts to backslide, some of which will be successful.

In other words, it's a constant struggle to be better, a struggle that often fails.

That's built in. It's systemic.

So we'll go through the usual posturing over this massacre; soon enough there will be another, and the ritual of nothing will repeat ad infinitum. Something from outside may change the cycle, but what that will be, who can say.

The Genocide(s) on the Horizon

I made a comment on another site recently that it appears a good deal of the "left" of this country is working itself up into a genocidal rage at Russia for crimes real and imagined and not limited to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. In an earlier comment, I suggested that Russia's invasion, aka "Putin's War", may indeed prove to be his fatal error.

Marching to Moscow, burning the Kremlin and hanging Putin seems to be one of the animating fantasies of the Azov-Nazis defending Ukraine-Kiev. Where does this come from? Well, of course, Hitler failed in his great march across the steppe to Moscow as did Napoleon before him. The Grand Imperialists never seem to be able to conquer Mother Russia, but the urge to do so seems implacable among a certain sort, and so, apparently, here we go again.

The Ukie-Nazis are doing the fighting and largely losing against Russia, but all the USandNato players are doing their part to fund them and supply them and keep the fighting going "to the last Ukrainian." So then my question is "what is the purpose of depopulating and destroying much of Ukraine? Cui bono as it were?

I've noted that the Ukrainian population declined some 30% after the fall of the Soviet Union, and since the invasion, another 25% or so have fled to other parts of Eastern Europe, and some back to Mother Russia itself. Parts of cities and villages have been destroyed. Planting and harvesting has been disrupted. There is no going back to the status quo ante, and it is my suspicion that many of those who have fled the fighting won't go back to Ukraine, either. 

In the meantime, genocidal forces are let loose. Zelensky claims (constantly) that the Russians are committing genocide in Ukraine. There is no evidence that this is the case. On the other hand, Putin has made the claim that Ukraine has committed genocide against Russians and Russian speakers in Ukraine. The eight year Ukrainian war against the Donbas oblasts (and now republics) is cited as evidence, together with the appalling massacres in Odessa and Mariupol in 2014 following the coup against the government of Viktor Yanukovych. Russia, on the other hand, has vowed to "denazify" Ukraine, with particular emphasis on liquidating the Azov Regiment and other neo-nazi elements  of the Ukrainian state. The threat is not to Ukrainians per se, but to groups within the Ukraine who espouse Nazi and neo-Nazi ideology -- and presumably who take action to violently enforce their will.

Which then leads to revenge.

A good many of our overlords seem to like it that way.

We see genocidal rage building in many other areas of the world as well. The United States is no exception. The urge to kill The Other in the US has long been paramount. One could say it is foundational. Now we have a situation where practically everyone is The Other to someone else, a level of alienation and lack of community that may be unprecedented. The internet provides a refuge of sorts, and the simulation of community, which has, from time to time led to extraordinary acts of violence int the real world, acts that by their nature can be characterized as genocidal -- and would be considered so but for the relatively small numbers of targeted groups murdered by the killers.

The internal stresses and tensions could metastasize at any time into generalized mayhem. What then? It seems we've been conditioned to accept it. "Nothing can be done." And our lords and masters are fine with it. So long as it doesn't touch them.

For now, crises compound without much mitigation. Society pretty much everywhere is enduring a stress test. Some will survive. Many won't -- possibly including our own. 

"Longtermism"

 So let's ponder this arising cult of "Longtermism". Haven't heard of it? Well, I think we've been living with the consequences for some time now.

Apparently, "Longtermism" is a philosophical belief system, an ideology if you will, manifest widely among our overlords and their minions, particularly in Silicon Valley and its offshoots and in higher order academia. It's an ideology that posits human value in the Future, distant Future in many cases, and effectively devalues humanity in the present. One's vision, supposedly, should be on the Future, longterm benefit, wherein, it is thought/believed that there will be trillions of humans living all over the Universe, happy and wise, and descended from the Good People of today.

Those Good People, of course, are the few and favored oligarchs and their closest servants. They and only they are to be protected at all costs no matter what happens in the present and near future, because they and only they will be the progenitors of the Wonderful World of Tomorrow, filled with joy and ease and Happiness.

There are far too many people on the earth today and thus their cull through disease and war and the effects of climate change and so many other crises is meet and just and should not be effectively interfered with -- so long as the overclass is protected from the consequences of these crises. 

Whatever happens in the political realm is irrelevant; the economy is irrelevant. What's relevant right now is holding on to power over the safety of the overlord class. So long as they -- and only they -- survive, Future Joy will be assured for their trillions of descendants.

Which is the sole point of "Longtermism."

Maintaining a polite distance from the rabble of today helps maintain the power of the overclass. This process was worked out long ago by royalty and the stars of the entertainment world. CEOs and such have a long history of rudeness toward the masses, but in the Brave New World of libertarian freaks who actually have power these days, polite indifference combines with exploitative interest to assure an unbroken continuation of power.

According to Longtermists, there won't be any rabble to contend with, exploit or oppress in the Wonderful World of Tomorrow. All the struggles we see today will be over. Everyone will be happy and content and will be as gods -- or would be in the context of today. In their own context, the very concept of "gods" would be unknown. Everyone would be a god, so no one would necessarily be better than any other.

We could go on all day filling out their fantasy, but let's instead focus on the consequences right now.

Why are we living in such bizarre, chaotic, and for many of us deadly times? What's going on? How did things get so badly out of whack?

The ideology of "Longtermism" provides at least a hint of an answer.

The question really is, "What can we do about it?"

Check it out:

https://www.salon.com/2022/04/30/elon-musk-twitter-and-the-future-his-long-term-vision-is-even-weirder-than-you-think/

https://aeon.co/essays/why-longtermism-is-the-worlds-most-dangerous-secular-credo

Odessa Massacre -- May 2, 2014

It's an event seared in my memory. On May 2, 2014, I was able to watch several livestreams from Odessa covering what was expected to be "something interesting" in Ukraine following the February Euromaidan coup in Kiev. 

Apparently two competing rallies were planned in the center of the city, one in favor of the Euromaidan coup and one opposed, and both were attracting young hooligans and soccer fans. Or so it seemed. One of the livestreamers at the rallies filmed the preparation of Molotov cocktails and showed some of the participants armed with pipes, bats and at least in one case a pistol. Militia members were part of the crowd. Police momentarily tried to keep the opposing groups apart, and then seemed to melt away, allowing -- encouraging? -- the groups to brawl in the streets.  

Some distance away, at the Trades Union House, a protest encampment had been built on a broad plaza in front of the building. It had been there for some time, occupied mostly by middle age and older Russian speaking opponents of the Kiev regime. At the time, Odessa had a majority Russian speaking population, and many were deeply opposed to what they saw as an American inspired and funded fascist/Nazi takeover of their country. 

This opposition was widespread in Eastern and Southern Ukraine, and it wasn't unknown in Kiev and other parts of the country. Most of the country had long been part of the Tsarist Russian Empire and later of the Soviet Union. Bits and pieces had been added over time, taken from Austria-Hungary and Poland-Lithuania. During WWII, the Ukraine had been overrun and occupied by Nazis, and Ukrainian collaborators especially in the West of the country were commonplace. Ukrainians participated in numerous massacres of Jews, Communists, Gypsies and other undesirables during the Nazi occupation, and notoriously volunteered as concentration camp guards. 

None of this history was mysterious prior to 2014, nor was it controversial in the West. Ukrainian Nazis and Nazi collaborators were a real thing. They survived after the War and became an internal destabilizing force against the restoration of Soviet power over the territory. As such they were apparently supported by covert forces in the West, much as former Nazis had been rehabilitated and been granted favors and asylum in the West including the United States.

Ethnic Russians and Russian speakers had deep roots and had long lived, worked and loved in Ukraine, primarily in what was called Novorossyia, New Russia, the region east of the Dnieper River absorbed by the Russian Empire during the reign of Catherine the Great (a German princess for what it is worth who married and later had assassinated the Russian Tsar... but that's another story...)

Russification was often ham-handed and could be brutal under both the Tsars and the Soviets. On the other hand, Ukrainians were included in the Imperial regime and were fundamental to the Soviet regime. Numerous Politburo members and even the Party Chairman Khrushchev were Ukrainians, and the Ukrainian SSR was a member of the United Nations even though it was at the time an integral part of the USSR.

Upon the dissolution of the USSR, Ukraine along with many of the former Soviet republics and Eastern European satrapies became independent, left to fend for themselves without central control or support from Moscow -- with interesting results.

Some maintained close ties with Russia; others became fiercely anti-Russia and tied to the West. 

And from appearances and all accounts, the West has been trying to capture Ukraine, or at least cleave it off from Russian influence, since independence. 

It hasn't gone well. The 2014 Euromaidan occupation and protests in Kiev were part of a series of color revolutions that sought the elimination of ethnic Russian political influence and control within the Ukrainian government, and once the Yanukovych regime was overthrown, that objective seemed to be complete. 

Nazi-descendant militias roamed free and some were incorporated into the Ukrainian armed forces with the upshot of the massacres in Odessa and Mariupol and the nearly total ethnic cleansing of Ukraine west of the Dnieper. Russians and Russian speakers were driven out or murdered. The objective was an ethno-state aligned with Nato and the US to act as a bulwark in opposition to Russia.

The point of a Nato cordon of allies along the western Russian border is the eventual dismemberment of the Russian Federation.

It's all very bizarre. 

The massacres were triggers for a civil war that has now become a general war in Ukraine between Russia and the West that has the potential to turn into a nuclear holocaust for no conceivable reason at all. The victims of the Odessa Massacre were among the first to feel the effects of the Nazi madness unleashed in Ukraine and by implication throughout Europe and soon, we can be sure, in North America and elsewhere. 

This truly may be the opening of Ragnarok. Longed for. Inevitable. Twilight of the Gods.