The Slap Heard ‘Round the World, and US, Ukraine, and Nuclear Violence
I have retreated from further commenting on the Ukraine genocide because of the sadness of what is going on and the feeling and reality of helplessness to stop it.
However, when the rise in testosterone hits America as well, I can speak again. Meanwhile, the tune of the Ukraine National Anthem keeps playing in my head since I am trying to memorize it to play on my ocarina.
Sometimes comedians try to make a joke about something not to make fun about it, but to normalize its occurrence and acceptance. In the case of Chris Rock doing so at the academy awards, it backfired since Will Smith (the King) felt his wife Jada Pinkett Smith had been insulted. She had been very seriously campaigning for understanding and acceptance of the autoimmune condition of alopecia. The end result of this is that comics who have to stand unprotected in front of imbibing audiences feel very threatened.
I occasionally like to write sarcastic articles or parodies of tense political subjects, and I feel threatened by the normalizing of violence which has entered our political scene and even been encouraged by several Republicans and their guiding Fox Network and conspiracy websites.
Fourteen million people watched this assault live on TV. Since it is dominating TV and press news today, everyone will be aware of it. The other big story now, is that Gianni Thomas, the wife of SCOTUS’s longest serving justice Clarence Thomas, continually encouraged Mark Meadows, Trump’s Chief of Staff, to overturn the election, including the January 6th insurrection. More violence at the highest level.
Unfortunately, these attacks were present all of last week in what was supposed to be the highest level of judicial evaluation of one of the most qualified SCOTUS nominees, on a normal time scale for appointment. It was totally embarrassing for Republicans that three of their members of the Judiciary committee turned out to be total political hacks making scurrilous accusations of not protecting children and pushing critical race theory, all of which had been shot down in the legitimate press and before the committee. Why were these Senators even on the committee in the first place? One, confused the Declaration of Indepence with the Constitution. Many of the public may have done so also, but we are not charged with making laws and reviewing lifelong justice appointments to interpret and enforce the constitution and laws.
Too many states have no-qualification open carry laws and Stand Your Ground laws, which let people off Scott free for acts including murder, even by people from out of state who don’t have a right to carry weapons. Will the the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences even cite, censure, or expel one of their leading earners and box office draws, not to mention the 2022 Oscar winner for Actor of the Year? While Smith apologized to the Academy, he certainly did not apologize ot Chris Rock. At a time when Putin is totally suppressing free speech in Russia, with fifteen year sentences for even saying the word “war”, and being brutialized and arrested for merely demonstrating, the acceptance of violence in front of the international viewing audience is unacceptable. Imagine what would have happened if any other member of the audience had attacked any performer at the Oscars. If they weren’t shot, they would have been dragged off in handcuffs.
The debate at the Academy Awards was supposed to be their not allowing anyone to speak about the devastation in Ukraine, except Mila Kunis, who is from Ukraine, made a few words about it. The problem was, Ukraine is now considered not a recognized genocide to be condemned, but a “Political” issue in the United States, of all places. This is apparently because ex-President Donald Trump still loves Putin and will not condemn him, and Fox’s breadwinner Tucker Carlson started backing Putin over Ukraine. Now that Ukraine is being annihilated by Russia, he can’t really hold that position. Remember when Tucker went to Hungary to express his love for dictator Victor Orban?
The Academy must also be considering that it earns a tremendous amount from moviegoers in China, which is siding with Russia in this conflict.
It seems apparent that Putin is being driven by testosterone in his ever inhumanely escalating attacks and mass destruction in Ukraine, and his inability to accept a stalemate or a loss. This morning, I listened to a presentation by the Arms Control Association on the threat of nuclear weapons and their being introduced into the Ukraine invasion by Putin to ward off intervention by the United States. Actually, as Trump harped on, NATO is poorly funded by European nations, and consequently, poorly armed. Poland, which is closest to the crises, only seemed to have old MIGs in its Air Force, which it was trying to give to Ukraine to get modern fighters. In fact, NATO had been using the threat of its nuclear weapons to deter Russia from invading it.
Yesterday’s threat of nuclear weapons by Russia was that would occur if Russia’s Existence was threatened. A few days ago when the Russian spokesperson announced this, he could not even pronounce the word “existential”, just to show how made up this approach is.
The movie “Don’t Look Up” is about a comet which was discovered to be on a course to collide with Earth, and the desperate attempt to get the government to send rockets to somehow divert it. People said it was an allegory to the difficulty of governments and people to take Climate Change seriously. I look at it as an allegory to the Civilization Destroying potential of our ready-to-fire nuclear arsenals. As more of the nuclear arsenals come under the construction and control of single dictators in their countries, who are all full of testosterone, the threat converts from Mutually Assured Destruction, to Assured Mutual Destruction. Few are concerned about this with the problems of just meeting the day-by-day challenges of rising prices and economic sanctions caused by a war over a breadbasket country of 44 million, or one half of one percent of the world’s population. We are, indeed, not looking up.
And “so it goes”, repeated by Kurt Vonnegut, in his book ‘Slaughterhouse Five’ about the firebombing of Dresden in World War II.
