I’ve read a lot of histories of the ancient world, and it sounds like, actually, there’s always some new plague, or Mongols, or a bad harvest leading to starvation, fire, displacement, war.
Some accounts convey the psychological shock of getting a completely new threat, out of the blue, some sunny day. Dan Carlin talks about this phenomenon, in his (amazingly good) pieces on the Mongols. I love Dan’s flair and passion for his topics, and he really brings down the ideas. He reminds us that, for a typical European town, they learned about the existence of Mongols when a small force appeared out of nowhere, flattened their local armies and princes, and vanished again.
That must have been WTF world. In the morning, you’re a peasant and by evening you’re in WTF world. You’re not even a peasant anymore.
I mention that because I feel like the last couple of months have broken something in my reality. My viewpoint has changed and my perspective has flipped. My ability to stay back and take an olympian view, looking at everything as a strategy problem – that’s broken. None of what is going on in the world really affects me, as long as nobody goes nuclear, but I’m dazed and confused and madder than hell – mostly shocked and awe’d by realizing that Mitchell and Webb’s “are we the baddies?” is our current environment and I am a cadet 1%er in the evil empire. It should not have taken me so long; obviously I’m not that perceptive.
The US is the evil empire and must be stopped. Russia has just demonstrated to Europe that you can’t sit back and go, “well he probably didn’t mean that bit about eating my face…” Europeans have been cheerfully doddling along with the US but they need to wake up, because we are really dangerous sadistic bastards with nuclear weapons and the only army/navy in the world that is structured for force projection.
It is at every level and in every place in this horrible failed state. And our leaders are like comic book villains. They’re not funny, though. They’re sadistic jackasses who are so out of touch with how to be decent humans that they think they are funny.
I’m writing this because I just saw something so horrible it shocked me. And, remember, I’ve seen Nacht Und Nebel. Witness the former president of the US, at an National Rifle Association event, capering like a malicious gnome during the reading of the names of the recent murder/shooting victims.
Some motherfucker added a “ding” after each name. And at the end, Trump did a little dance. It is beyond creepy. It is “nazi death-camp commander” level creepy. It would disgust Darth Vader.
A speech where Trump read the names of the victims ends like this pic.twitter.com/fQZxrB9OiI
— Acyn (@Acyn) May 27, 2022
I know people who have said “when did people wake up and realize “uh oh, we’re the nazis”?” Or “how could the Romans sit there and watch people being thrown to the lions in the coliseum?” For me, this is that moment. WTF. The US must be stopped. And this gibbering monster must be disempowered.
WTF. WTF. Situation WTF. All personnel proceed to your WTF stations to do WTF. Over.
-transmission ends-
I’ve thought like this since high school in Canada in the early 70s.
They tried to convince us that the USA was making The World a better place.
I grew up with WTF stories. I had living relatives who’d been displaced, strafed, wounded by shrapnel, sent to Siberia, separated from their loved ones. And more than a few murdered ones. So I reckoned I was lucky, but also that luck is never guaranteed to hold out. A few months ago there were Ukrainian kids playing without a care in the world. And yeah, pick another time and place and it was Vietnamese kids, or Carthaginian kids. Or Texan kids.
There is nothing new under the sun.
@Marcus, I’ve been feeling much the same as the years go by–I’m 62–but my own particular view is that everywhere you look it seems that things are falling apart and only getting worse. Not just in the USA, but all over the world. Whether it’s politics and governments, the economy, popular culture and of course the environmental and climatic changes. Maybe it’s just the entropy that’s native to any system, natural or human-constructed, but it sure seems more evident to me as time goes by. The sunny optimism of youth gives way to a more pessimistic and seemingly more realistic viewpoint as one ages.
@Chigau, I recall a certain Canadian political commentator back in the early 70s recording an audio commentary about how wonderful he thought the US was and how horribly the rest of the world treated us (I’m a USanian btw). This recording made it to the top 40 or top 10 on the Billboard music charts back then. I thought it was cool at the time, but I was just a kid then.
@Marcus, I enjoy these therapy sessions you are sharing with us, hopefully they help your recovery so one day you can tell us you’re fine and to show you’ve overcome a blow, I only wish my words could just convince myself that it just wasn’t real, but that’s not the way it feels… Umm, yeah… I guess I’m still stuck in the early 70s.
He’s a narcissistic sociopath basking in the applause of a room full of narcissistic sociopaths. Who would expect anything else?
I feel like we have the technology and knowledge to start building the foundations of a true utopia, but instead we are determined to cower under the table and claw each other’s eyes out over the scraps and crumbs of billionaires.
WTF indeed…
The human bit of the world has always been WTF. Whether one is an evil empire is subject to WTF too.
You hardly ever hear about evil, commie, pinko’s anymore. Absurdly, the fall of the USSR has led to Russian fascists becoming best buddies with various members of the GOP and a few western billionaires. Which in turn has led to this demented pos, and the maga crowd. WTF!!
They have now advanced to the dancing on childrens grave’s stage of malignancy, which is so WTF that it’s almost a caricature of evil.
The added detail of ringing a bell after reading the list of murdered children is straight out of a bad television drama.
I hope it’s close to the final act of this particular despotic period of US political history.
Ask not for whom the bell tolls.
Dear Marcus,
I hope you have fully recovered from your ‘brain wobbles’.
All the members of my organization have been reacting with increasing horror to the insanity that seems to be overtaking society. I fully agree we are in a WTF world. “We have reached full ‘herd stupidity'”
Sadly, it seems that the maniacs are the ones that grab all the money and power in this world. And, that’s why they seem to get all the attention that the corrupt corporate main stream media doles out.
Best Wishes to you.
As an antidote to all of this, people might like to watch this tour of a Japanese handmade knife shop. A Kyoto man (Shogo) goes in to buy a kitchen knife, and learns about other knives also, including the connection between making kitchen knives and katana.
I like Shogo, I watch his videos.
Only the Japanese would make a mega 2-handed mochi knife.
Japanese culture has some really dark aspects, and some beautiful ones. It’s a mix. I am often torn.
I’m increasingly leaning towards the notion that our current civilization has moved beyond all hope of recovery. We’ve built a system that is incapable of surviving long-term as it is AND we’ve painted ourselves into a corner (politically, economically, and socially) such that real change is not realistically possible. Collapse is “when” and “how”, not “if”.
The future has my sympathy, however much good it’ll do them.
Adam Lee suggests that progressives need to (re-)claim the “pro-life” meme:
https://onlysky.media/alee/america-is-a-culture-of-death/
Some motherfucker added a “ding” after each name.
I saw a passing wtf saying that particular ding came from the Hunger Games series (haven’t seen same, so couldn’t verify even if my head could handle watching Trump™ in full manic mode). Some sort of dystopian “trigger the libs” schtick, I s’poze.
I don’t know Hunger Games, but the Navy has a rather old system of bells are still in use to announce time. They also have a boat gong that gets rung to announce the arrival and departure of various officers. It’s called piping them over the side.
They usually do a gun salute for funerals. I suppose even a malignant narcissistic might think a gun salute would be inappropriate under the circumstances.
I never notice what this infernal device does to my words until hitting post.
Bells which are still in use.
Narcissist
Civilians get one ding, I believe it goes up to six for an Admiral.
Nato says 1997 deployment agreement is off. Russian state media declares world war 3.
The WTF just WTF’d
This is a historical moment. It’s going to mark the beginning of some very bad things. My bet is this ends with Russia losing their oil and gas and maybe their army. Europe’s power relations will be re-drawn.
The US deployed 7000 and stryker/mechanized troops to “train” in february. In Germany and Poland, I think. Interesting timing. I don’t see references to any US heavy tanks in training but I would not be surprised. This means that German panzers may roll in Poland again and that is EPICWTF.
We are oh, so “pro life” we Americans
@Marcus
I think you should take a wee break from reading depressing things that you can’t control, which includes military histories. Or read about the Gothic wars, because sometimes the oppressed people manage to sack Rome and take over.
Gaiseric is a favorite. I think you will find his rather impressive life far less stressful than Mongols or the News.
Stress raises your blood pressure, which you want to avoid as you recover.
Or you can watch this supremely ridiculous video made by Dr. Jackson Crawford. Santana’s Smooth, in Old Norse, with bonus William Shatner. (But Fljód actually translates to woman).
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lvT6bUMrzYo
My working theory is Malevolent Assholes Governing Again, although “sadistic jackasses” is probably an equally predictive theory. I also recognize that I have not been at the receiving end of the shit that my nation rains down on the world. Nor have I managed to stop that shit. I’ve been content to complain and vote for the less shitty policies, but they are still shitty policies.
The world has no reason to take pity on the U.S. in it’s self-destruction, especially when the empire is going to thrash murderously as it falls.
For me the WTF comes in when I notice someone doing something that will harm a lot of people and also affect themselves in a negative way (beyond just the fallout from causing harm to other people). When you can sort out or get direct confirmation of why they did it the answer always seems to be some flavor of greed.
It’s kind of like being in a three-legged race with someone, a race you feel like you really need to do well in. And then five steps from the starting line you hear a loud sound and realize you’re tied to someone who has just shot themselves in the foot. Because they bet on someone else winning.
“last days”
lanir@#19:
For me the WTF comes in when I notice someone doing something that will harm a lot of people and also affect themselves in a negative way (beyond just the fallout from causing harm to other people). When you can sort out or get direct confirmation of why they did it the answer always seems to be some flavor of greed.
Yeah. Putin is going to wind up with unbelievable costs and probably no Ukraine. But if he did wind up with Ukraine it now needs a lot of repairs and is full of people who will start kicking up trouble wherever they can. That will raise security expenses and, between repair costs and long-term security, it might be that Ukraine is not worth having anymore.
He probably could have negotiated something. Or, for what Russia is spending/losing maybe they could have bought some Ukraine or made a happy economic development program. Win/win. Stupid when people chose lose/lose.
My working theory is Malevolent Assholes Governing Again
I see what you did there.
And I approve.
Marcus, #20:
They’ll probably get a more “neutral” Ukraine which is not in NATO, not hosting US military bases, isn’t quite as hostile to Russia, isn’t quite as harsh on its Russian-speaking population, with maybe some parts of it chipped away like Crimea was, and so forth. The point is, that’s not nothing. I’m not sure all of their oligarchs will think this is worth it, but apparently many of them do, as do ours.
Of course, we could’ve encouraged all of this from the beginning, without it escalating into another fucking war. But since the collapse of the Soviet Union, this country has been way more interested in pissing on its grave, rather than making them friends/allies and helping them become the peaceful, stable democracy we always pretended that we wanted it to be … because as much as we like to talk about it, we don’t actually seem to give a shit about peace, democracy, stability, or international cooperation.
That’s why the goal was never to reabsorb Ukraine back into Russia: because this isn’t some kind of old-school land grab. Any of the more ambitious, high-flying rhetoric that may have suggested otherwise is to be taken as seriously as you take any other such bullshit coming out of the mouth of any other politician. (Not at all.)
It looks like they just want to have some control over the region, like the US has in the Americas and to a lesser degree around the world. That’s hard enough as it is, and they have no interest and no need to make things any harder for themselves.
The US (or “Biden” if you prefer) is the one that seems unwilling to negotiate or engage diplomatically in any serious way. We just seem to be interested in more dead Ukrainians/Russians, billions of more in profits for our beleaguered military-industrial complex, and of course the resulting economic chaos which also allows them to rake in even more profits while branding it as “inflation.” Somehow all of those things (which we’re meant to think are good) are to us supposed to be worth the risk of WW3.
But think of all the money they’re making. They think this is a win.
consciousness razor@#24:
They’ll probably get a more “neutral” Ukraine which is not in NATO, not hosting US military bases, isn’t quite as hostile to Russia, isn’t quite as harsh on its Russian-speaking population, with maybe some parts of it chipped away like Crimea was, and so forth. The point is, that’s not nothing
True. That’s what I’m thinking of as the “soft path”
The “hard path” is basically Russia getting booted in the face so hard its teeth are all knocked out. I actually believe it may be a long-term US strategy to have set that up, and we may be seeing it coming to fruition. I’m going to do a post explaining my reasoning, but my writing’s wobbly, so it’s taking me 2-3x time to produce a posting that’s readable.
[Note my phrasing: “it may be a …” Doesn’t mean I think it is. But I don’t think it isn’t.]
Marcus, #25:
Well, our leaders don’t actually care about the long term and are pretty much incapable of serious strategic thinking anyway.
But beyond that (which I think is inessential to your point) I would agree with the substance that this is a goal which has been “deliberately” cultivated over many years (as much as that can ever be said about our bumbling military/security/intelligence communities).
I suppose some hope or expect to get regime change out of it, by which I mean ousting Putin specifically…. Obviously, that would be happening relatively soon if it’s happening at all, not a few decades from now. Because Putin’s not getting any younger, you know?
But a larger goal after that? The US stays big and tough, everyone else is weak, and most importantly, our oligarchs become even more fantastically wealthy. In the end, that’s the only thing they’re really aiming for. It’s just one big dumb goal to treat everyone like enemies, no matter what they do.
And these people just don’t seem to care that we need an ally like Russia, if we’re also worried about China becoming a serious threat to the US (as an empire, not necessarily a threat to me or you)…. That’s looking ahead by more than one chess move, which they’re incapable of doing.
If you haven’t seen it already, here’s a nice 2015 lecture from John Mearsheimer. (He’s given a bunch of others too over the years, which you can find online if you’re interested.)
You might not agree with him on everything or share his worldview or whatever. But for many, it may at least help to clear some of the cobwebs, given all the propaganda we’ve been served by our media since the start of this whole clusterfuck.
I’ll check it out. I like to learn.
Gwynne Dyer basically predicted this whole thing, back around 201?3. The pentagon (aka “deep state”) has been figuring out how to secure their oil supplies for a long time. They know what’s coming and they have guns. It’s going to be like The Road Warrior was a documentary.