Quest for Truth

When beginning this blog, my intention was to explore the language that peppers social activism discussions these days. Terms such as virtue signaling, manufacturing consent, false flags, being woke and right to protect were mostly new to me. Instead, the writing was sidetracked and I learned an important lesson along the way. 

 FAIR WARNING – RANT ADVISORY!

Sorrow and outrage at the Russian attacks on Ukraine have moved me toward a better understanding of the region’s history and the forces that have escalated long-standing conflicts. 

The first casualty of war is the truth. Versions of this well-known adage originate as early as 550 BC and it has a point.

Asking questions and searching for truths do not contradict the condemnation of Russia’s aggression.

Increasingly, mainstream news outlets cycle the same information, delivered by and large without dissenting opinions or relevant critical analysis. Indeed, there is concerted effort to suppress questioning of the message. It is convenient and preferable to focus on a familiar, default ogre.  

The powerful have upped the ante in this regard, dismissing dissenters as conspiracy theorists and even terrorists. Social media platforms daring to challenge the status quo risk being shut down, sometimes permanently. As the song goes, ‘when you own the information you can bend it all you want’. 

Do you ever feel you aren’t getting the whole story?

The story of Russia and Ukraine is long and complicated and the information below is meant only as jumping off points for further research.

• After the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989 and German reunification, the Soviet Union became Russia and declared it was no longer communist.
• At that time, NATO promised there would be no expansion into the former satellite states of the Soviet Union. To date, 13 countries/former satellite states on Russia’s border have become NATO members. A requirement of membership in NATO is to have sufficient arms and military capacity to defend. This has created customers for American arms producers. Russia has been refused membership in NATO.
• Citizens of the Donbas region in eastern Ukraine have always identified as ethnically Russian and one in three people in Ukraine speak Russian. Between 2010 and 2014 Ukraine was verging on civil war.
• The Minsk Accord was created in 2014 to broker peace within Ukraine but the conditions agreed upon, including semi-autonomy for the Donetsk and Luhansk regions, were never fully implemented. Extreme right-wing groups have carried out violence on Donbas citizens since 2014 including the reported murders of 14,000 people. These groups now operate as a fully sanctioned arm of Ukrainian military.
• Ukraine is mineral and resource rich and Russian pipelines carrying natural gas and oil to Europe cross through Ukraine. The U.S. has positioned itself to become a major supplier of natural gas to Europe.

‘War is organized murder and nothing else.’ So-said Harry Patch, the last surviving soldier to fight in the trenches of WWI, when he wrote The Last Fighting Tommy.

The twenty-year war in Afghanistan is still not over for Afghani people who today are selling their organs to brokers who target refugee camps and selling their very young children into marriages in order to survive. What of the many millions of displaced refugees of wars in Yemen and Syria? Do we describe Israel’s 70-year oppression of Palestine as war or apartheid? Surely Palestinians do. Africa leads the world in a modern-day slavery crisis.

All of these conflicts involved initial meddling by the West. Western interference usually looks like military escalation and is explained as necessary to defend democracy. I have been lulled by that false excuse in the past but no longer. Interference can happen to any nation depending on their usefulness to the powers that be.

Following the trail of power, money, arms and who stands to benefit from the conflict provides a more accurate motivation for invading other countries. Could it be that the most influential members of NATO have usurped the original purpose of the organization and that its role now is serving international business interests?

It is a global reality that the powerful see victims as worthy and unworthy. Those who deserve our pity and support and those whose suffering is minimized or ignored. What hypocrisy! Have the horrific conflicts been going on for so long that we are de-sensitized to the suffering? Do we not know anyone experiencing these hardships? Are we weary of feeling helpless?

Surely all victims are deserving of our collective outrage and outpouring of humanitarian relief. 

So what are caring citizens of the world to do?

• Be curious enough to look beyond the headlines.
• Discover who owns and controls the information we receive.
• Listen to the voices of dissent and understand who has a platform and who does not.
• Find news sources that provide the analysis that make sense to you.

What is a writer to do?

• Have the courage to let even the scary emotions guide our writing. 
• Trust that our skepticism, anger and fears are worth exploring. 
• Risk sharing opinions that may be unpopular. 
• Remember that in many situations, outrage is the only appropriate response.

Some of the worries that have been rattling around my consciousness since the invasion began have been aired.

I will write about virtue signaling and being woke another time.

Thank you for reading past the warning.