A friend asked me: Why don’t you write more about the Russian–Ukraine war and the Ottawa “occupation” by the Truckers?
Well, why don’t I? The answer is simple: When I write I believe someone will read what I write. At this time, writing on these subjects is like crying in the wilderness, as I will explain.
Fortunately, in our society, thus far, there is no obligation to read, listen or look at what others produce, save for judges, politicians and priests working the confession box – I pray this, our “right-to-ignore”, shall forever remains ours. We should cherish it no less than the Right to Free Speech and Expression.
The sound of war is a pandemonium of canon-shell explosions and propaganda barrages. We know that the first casualty of war is the Truth, but we listen to whatever comes our way because we cannot turn a deaf ear to war. The vacuum left by the demise of the Truth is taken up by Propaganda, it being the antithesis of Truth. Indeed it is the tsunami of Propaganda that drowns out the Truth. It usually starts early and paves the way for the War to roll in. A basic element of Propaganda aims to disguise the attacker so as to appear as “returning fire”, that is to say, make the originator appear being merely a peace-loving responder drawn into war against its will.
The Americans accused the Russians of seeking to create an excuse for invading Ukraine and I find no reason to dispute that. After all the Americans are good at that trick – look at the renowned Gulf of Tonkin and the Cuba Invasion Propaganda fiascoes.
Hitler’s right-hand criminal was Joseph Goebbels, a cavernous War-Propaganda mouth. In my book, there is no propaganda person that is “good”, any more than “liars” are. What after all is War-Propaganda but lying, formulated to enhance the kill-ability of war machines. Propaganda professionals are trained in credible-appearing-lying much like surgeons are trained in human anatomy.
Lining up these Professionals against lay-people is no different from having Muhammad Ali take a run at me – ordinary citizens stand no chance when attacked by Propaganda Professionals.
Propaganda brigades are deployed by both sides of conflicts, not unlike lawyers are in hideous crime trials. This renders difficult the allotment of blame for the conflict. I know, we always rush to pronounce one side right. In that we are rarely entirely right, for between black and white are countless shades of gray. That is why Aeschylus told us to withhold judgement till we hear all sides of the story. This was over a couple of Millennia ago and everybody, save for “Kangaroo courts”, heed him. Yet, when war breaks out, we tend to miss the complicity of the Propaganda brigades as they drive us to take sides. The mere existence of them should suffice to shake our faith on much, if not the whole, of what they make us “know”. Mindful of this reality, I seriously doubt what I “know” of the Ottawa Truckers Occupation or the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Therefore I go the furthest I credibly may which is to acknowledge that I have neither all the facts nor the cool mind to analyse them fairly. For many of the non-fake facts, we have to wait ...
The more material prompt to silence, is that our minds are filled to the rim. The powerful Propaganda Professionals have have stuffed “certainty” into our crania, and barred commonsense. To some extent, we all have been thus victimised by the hidden professional persuaders. The Propaganda gangs have stolen from us the open mindedness that we need to capture the whole of the event.
It is futile to knock on the door of the deaf. We have all been made unreceptive to words that clash with what we have been made to believe by the persuaders who work on us. Let’s wait until we can see the whole thing. Let’s us recover our inquisitiveness, for without it we are like sheep to Border Collies.
It is not that who wins and who loses does not matter. Whether the right side won or lost matter. But that fades vis-a vis what matters most, the existence of war. We all must deploy our efforts toward conquering and killing War. Like St.George, we must lance fatally the beast that is War.
There is wisdom aplenty in that old CBC instruction to journalists: “We must forever remain flexible lest we become rigid”. This I make my head-lamp when I walk in the dark.
The “enemy” is neither Russia nor Ukraine – War is the enemy. Universally.
A long time ago, a Greek, whose name I forget, found that there is no “Bad” without some “Good” in it. No exceptions to the rule. But what about War?
It was War that prompted Aristophanes to stage Lysistrata, invoking Feminism to end the 30-Year War. WWs I&II triggered efforts to make each the “War to end all wars”. The failures of past efforts were not final, so we must carry on. Let’s turn the current onslaught into an opportunity to pursue the big dream. Yes it is a “dream”, yes we must pursue it, for unless we do, how can we make a dream come true?