The Big Russkowski
International relations can't be as simple as a shakedown gone streetfight, can it?
If there's anything left of us later, today might be the day historians will claim Russia declared World War 3, though the United States had declared it much earlier. The new Russian Foreign Policy Concept (https://tass.com/politics/1597977) paper calls for preemptive strikes against countries that want to pretend they are not preparing for an imminent attack. They said they'd fight us to the last Russian. So when Poland starts mobilizing on the Belarus border (https://www.thedailybeast.com/poland-warned-after-vladimir-putin-vows-to-arm-belarus-with-nuclear-weapons), one wonders what kind of sick lunatics are in charge. First it was cavalry against tanks. Now it's tanks against nukes. I covered symmetrical war strategies involving Belarus in my essay earlier this week:
Russia's new policy concept is a huge shift from the last one I read 10 years ago: (https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/public/Research/Russia%20and%20Eurasia/0413pp_monaghan.pdf) that was trying to find common ground for security in Europe with the Anglo powers, right before the US supported a coup in Ukraine. I feel great regret for not publishing my thoughts on Russia sooner. I feel sorrow for not challenging my own biases. We're here now. Personally, I feel numb and like my soul has been degraded since September 11, 2001... no since the Patriot Act. Kids don't even know what that is… I mean when things are that bad, maybe there's no point in writing.
Am I a nihilist? Maybe we're all nihilists now. After all, we've got some trifling fools playing ferret games on the prone, water-bound friend of a bowling ball wielding rager. If you've seen the movie, a desecrated cremation ceremony will maybe be our most dignified moment. Now who are you? The party Barbie or the girlfriend who cut her own toe off? I think it doesn't matter. Shit will go down and you were a key player who could have prevented it. Either by not ghosting on your elderly husband, or not cutting your toe off and mailing it to a stoner PI. Consider that a metaphor for the ordinary person not paying attention to the news, and the 'you' is a metaphorical one like the general public which is also me, or the nasty part of you that loves Cardi B—which is definitely not me.
When the Russians nuke SF, I'm hoping the airburst is close enough to just zap me. Radiation sickness would suck. And I thought about iodine, but that's just prolonging it. I'm dead meat in case of a shooting war. So my ashes will just blow in the wind right back into the face of America while some thousand yard stare zombie talks some disgraceful shit about the Vietnam War. Meanwhile there'll be some surviving cowboy called China narrating some weird story about Russia in a bowling alley to nobody really.
And as far as whether Lebowski is a Polish or Russian last name; and whether I'm mixing up The Dude with Walter Sobchak, it doesn't really matter. They're not on our side. We're the idiots with the Nihilists using ferrets to attack Vietnam veterans. It's going to end with a half our face bit off.
