Dept. of February's End

[kaffy_r]

A Quick Listsicle 

1) Still watching Ukraine, and glad to see and hear world leaders standing together (or at least as close to standing together as nations can stand to be, says the pessimistic optimist/optimistic pessimist.)

2) Getting fucking exhausted with many of those I know on the far left end of the progressive spectrum indulging in "whataboutism" as they approach the Russian invasion:

We get it. The U.S. has fucked over black and brown nations with monotonous, nauseating, up and up racist regularity. We must address these wrongs honestly, in a way that Americans and those of us living in the U.S., of all political stripes, will find tremendously painful.
We get it. The U.S. is horrifyingly imperialist and colonialist. We have a responsibility to the world, to our own country, to ourselves, to begin the process of dismantling that, and it's going to be the absolute opposite of easy.
We get it. We shouldn't have done what we did in Afghanistan and Iraq, and what we didn't do there and other places. We don't have any excuses.
We get it; we need to be careful about slipping into jingoism about this invasion and war; we need to double check news coming to us, even if it's from our favored news sources.

 

None of that erases what's going on in Ukraine; none of that excuses what's going on. And to snidely refer to these things as if people other than your particular flavor of progressive don't get those realities - if you decide to politisplain patronizingly to the rest of us how we're either with you, or with OMG SECULAR CAPITALIST SATAN J'ACCUSE!!1! - you know what? You're assholes. Even if I like you, even if I love you. 

3) I'm still working on the novel, and I'm getting oh, so very close to the end. Really. 

4) Still dealing with my ongoing love of "Arcane". I mean that. I had a dream the other night about one of the characters who died within the 1st three episodes, in which that character survives. I'm also finding myself fighting Arcane fic plot bunnies. No thank you, brain - I'm dealing with enough writing tasks. On the other hand, I plan to watch the whole 9 episode 1st season again; it's absolutely brilliant. 

Because my brain has been ping-ponging between Ukraine and Arcane and music, and since I've already banged on about Ukraine in this post, I think I'll leave you with a couple of music vids based on, or directly from, Arcane. Yes, one of them features an Imagine Dragons song written for the series, and yes, I love it, especially since it also features the young rapper J.I.D. Deal with it. I also love "Misfit Toys" by Mako and Pusha T. 

NOTE: if you haven't watched Arcane past Episode 3 and plan to do so, don't watch the vids. I'll put them under a cut.

Watch on YouTube

Watch on YouTube

Comments

[muccamukk]

And like a lot of us fucking protested those wars too! My god. Were probably protesting them before a lot of the far leftest teenagers now muttering about pots and kettles were even alive.

[kaffy_r]

Yep. Where do these children think all their chants came from, to be meanly superficial ....

(I don't even want to go down a path from here about now I'm deathly tired of the "OK Boomer" shit as well. Because, well ... not what we're talking about here.)

[sovay]

1) Still watching Ukraine, and glad to see and hear world leaders standing together (or at least as close to standing together as nations can stand to be, says the pessimistic optimist/optimistic pessimist.)

It's astonished me. After 2014 and the Crimea, I expected the global community to sit around checking their fingernails as Russia rolled right over Ukraine. If asked last week, I would probably have bet against Turkey closing the straits. I am fine with being proven wrong.

3) I'm still working on the novel, and I'm getting oh, so very close to the end. Really.

Preemptive mazel tov!

[kaffy_r]

It's going to be a horrendous, bloody, clusterfuck for the Russians and the Ukrainians. But I think (and IANA military analyst, not by a country mile) that the clusterfuckedness is going to be worse for the Russians, at least eventually.

Thanks for the preemptive mazel tov; I'm in the process of some very shootey stuff, and I have to get the ramp up and ramp down smoothly integrated. Then, yeah, true climax and, quite difficult, the denouement. Tricky thing, denouements. Not least, the spelling thereof ....

[owlboy]

aye... many on the left have been so very tiring

[bibliofile]

One is reminded of the improv tool, "Yes, and..." Yes, that was fucked up too, and we need to deal with Russia & the Ukraine now.

[kaffy_r]

I'd never heard of that tool. But I have felt for the longest time that "either/or" is far less important than "and".

[kaffy_r]

I mean, I love them, don't get me wrong. But sometimes you just want to slap them. Hard.

[maruad]

There are times when I view other people's politics like their religious views. I try not to let it keep me from seeing their better qualities. I do not always succeed.

[kaffy_r]

I do not always succeed.

Nor I. And I'm a good deal less kind than you are.

[cmcmck]

Yes!

This is about Ukraine, not about anything else!

[kaffy_r]

Absolutely! Whataboutism is one of the worst types of communications de-railers out there.

[a_phoenixdragon]

Okay, definitely need to watch Arcane and SOON. Cause yes, I want yummy music vids, too.

I read something recently about it being okay to step away and take a breather because doom-scrolling and guilt. And my gods, I have loads of both that I dabble in often. Gotta love the Catholic upbringing. And the lack of formal education which brings a variety of feelings when I read about conflicts, politics and other such things. TDLR - I do not feel qualified to speculate on Events, but at the same time, I feel emotionally invested in Events that I realize I understand very little about on a deep level. So I've been keeping an eye on what's going on in Ukraine, the EU - and the response by the UN, NATO, the EU and the USA, but I've tried to take a breather now and again because there is just not much I can DO about it all - and there is no use putting my (rather uninformed) two cents in something so vastly complex and spanning over so much time withiut putting my foot in my mouth.

And ye gods that was a rambley mess...

*HUGS*

[kaffy_r]

Gotta love the Catholic upbringing.

Baptists gonna guilt, too! Heh.

And believe me, you can comment. You can always say "it seems to me..." and "if there's information I need to know, can you point me at a good source?"

As for doing something about it, I was able to throw a couple of bucks at a vetted charity helping Ukraine refugees. That's it, that's what I can do materially. So I'm trying to keep up with as many good sources of trustworthy news as possible (Reuters is the one I'm going to for this whole clusterfuck.)

*hugs back, hard*