NATO is for Nazis

When people started calling out the white supremacy of defending Ukraine, I didn't really buy it. I figure we don't care about Yemen, because it's not profitable to care. Russia being a major competitor to our national interests, we're told to care a lot more about everything they do. Which country they were doing it to didn't matter as much.

I realize now that I was way off. Our national interests seem to be why our country has been doing what it's doing. Overthrowing Yanukovych, and setting up a puppet regime. Arming and training Nazis. At the national level, it's all about fucking with Russia. Pillaging as much as we can, but right up to a very specific line.

The fervor at every other level, from congress to random people on the street seems different though. We've been told to hate Russia for years, sure, but this is on a whole other level, and it's not like Russia's attacking Yemen. They're attacking Europe, as VP Kamala Harris emphasized recently. It's been in the news over and over, various talking heads blathering on about how this is different, because this isn't the Middle East, Africa, or Asia. Unironically, they exclaim, Ukrainians are like us.

What is NATO? They're all European countries, but not all European countries have joined yet. Ukraine, for example, is not a member. Contrary to what was stated by a White House journalist demanding we give anything and everything Ukraine might need to wage war. Because they're a member of NATO, she said. Again, they're simply not. It doesn't seem to matter to many people. It's a technicality. NATO is for protecting white people, and white people are in trouble. Why aren't we nuking heaven and earth to save them?

I've been having fun with Twitter, right? I need to stop soon. For the same reason I stopped before. It's not healthy.

I got to the gym today. Rolled with many people. Did well enough to feel good about it. A side effect of my cardio being so much better is that my muscles get very sore. I'm able to push them harder than I'm used to being able to.

I'm feeling a little less glued to current events now, but still, it's consuming. This war is a lot more important to me, too. This isn't because I'm part Russian. I'd be responding similarly if we were flipping out like this to protect Taiwan from China. All sorts of little differences aside, these are huge powerful countries. It's a much bigger deal that this could ignite a world war.

Maybe what upsets me the most has been to see everyone cheering for American imperialism. The left has been vanquished in one country after another, and this is the consequence. Jingoism on all sides, demands for more censorship, authoritarianism, fascism. People who normally claim to oppose war, wanting our military to send everything they've got into Ukraine. Arm Nazis. Set up a no-fly zone. Start a world war. Whatever it takes.

I'm also susceptible to what's in the news cycle, what everyone else is talking about. What's going on in Yemen is no less horrific, and in some ways more so, but it's not newsworthy. The Ukrainian military is getting absolutely massacred. Tens of thousands of deaths. We only hear about the few thousand Russians, and civilians who are getting killed by both sides. 

At this rate, Ukraine is more brutal, but it can't possibly go on for years the way Yemen has. It's taken seven years for a few hundred thousand to get killed in Yemen. Sure, a million more are starving too, but nevermind that.

I compare them, because they are both going on right now. Why aren't rooms filled with reporters demanding the White House devote our entire budget to protecting Yemen from Saudi Arabia? One is an ally, while Russia is our nemesis, but why do we form allies and enemies the way we do? To protect our interests, our empire. We protect Europe and her colonies, and choose our alliances with that in mind.

If you're one of these people, more upset about Ukraine because they're European, it is in fact you and I who are not the same.