It seems that this proxy war between Russia and America has been seized upon by some commentators and politicians to define the great threat within, as well as the great evil without.
Russia has now become to be portrayed as a sort of Mordor by the media and its consumers in Ireland, just as America is the great Satan to some mullahs in parts of the Islamic world. And the threat that Russia, the perennial evil adversary, is perceived to pose to this liberal “way of life”, is used as a proxy to contextualize the threat of reactionaries in our own societies.
Even before the invasion of Ukraine the constant hyping of the threat from the great enemy, Russia, was used (often without foundation) against conservatives and populists in the US, and this disingenuous trend is now accelerated in our increasingly gombeen state.
So while high profile commentator Tucker Carlson was described as a” pro-Putin shill” by Democrats for questioning the narrative on the war, it’s become somewhat of a stick to beat people with on a range of issues.
If you are against the mutilation of children who are confused about gender – but will very likely grow out of it – you might be accused of supporting Putin’s policies.
If you are a resident of East Wall and you are uneasy about the insertion of masses of migrant men in your midst, are you an agent of Putin? Or, at least helping his agenda according to Mícheál Martin, who declared that “Putin wants these types of issues to arise in society” and that Russia was “weaponising migration”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said that local communities like those in East Wall should be consulted about refugees being moved into their area, but claimed that Russia was “weaponising migration” to create these social problems.#gripthttps://t.co/d3oN8YB4Qc
— gript (@griptmedia) November 22, 2022
So the people of East Wall, and presumably of Breaffy and Finglas who are concerned about the surge in immigration will now be accused of helping Putin as well as being labelled ‘far right’ and ‘racist’ by the usual NGOs who don’t care about local concerns or the safety of local people.
Martin was one-upped by US Congressman, Jamie Raskin, who went on to say Russia was the “homeland of replacement theory for export”. Add in the other “deplorables” accusations which these globalist neo-libs are so fond of slurring around, and you see the opaque threat: open your mouth about any of these things and we scapegoat you with an “agent of Putin” label – on top of the usual accusations of ‘hateful’ and ‘extremist’.
2/2. "Moscow right now… is a world center of antifeminist, antigay, anti-trans hatred, as well as the homeland of replacement theory for export." ~Jamie Raskinhttps://t.co/vUYJeYN9hH
— Timothy Snyder (@TimothyDSnyder) October 31, 2022
Martin seems to prefer to accuse Irish people of being too stupid to not see through Putin’s evil “weaponisation” of migrants, but its all part of the same deflection from the valid concerns ordinary people have. There’s a new baddie in town to blame everything on.
These increasingly wild statements seem more like signs of desperation though, not strength. The operatives of the ‘Cathedral’ as some like to call this managerial class who administer rule in our country, may be losing their mystique and despite the efforts of the elite to control the discourse and control the narratives, these issues are becoming more difficult to suppress.
On the international front, the continuation of the conflict in Ukraine is setting the losers apart from the real bosses in the international rules-based order. Ireland and much of Europe are finding out the hard way that there is no uniting moral cause here, and that despite what they tell their own populations, countries don’t have allies, they have interests.
Europe took the mug’s end of the shovel in the sanctions war and now the Economist is wondering if Germany is looking at a “looming threa of deindustrialisation”.
“By weaponising the natural gas on which Germany’s mighty industrial base relies, the Russian president is weakening the world’s fourth-biggest economy and its third-biggest exporter of goods. It doesn’t help that at the same time, Germany’s largest trading partner, China, which bought €100bn ($101bn) of German goods last year, including cars, medical equipment and chemicals, is in the midst of a severe slowdown, too. A national business model built in part on cheap energy from one autocracy and abundant demand from another faces a severe test,” it writes.
Arms manufacturers in the US, one of the major bipartisan orchestrators of the geopolitical tensions in the area, made sure that at least they would profit from Europe’s misfortune.
Politico reports that “Top European officials are furious with Joe Biden’s administration and now accuse the Americans of making a fortune from the war, while EU countries suffer”.
The Politico article claims that senior EU officials are now complaining that while they are in a sanctions driven energy crisis, the US is profiteering from their desperation by selling them liquified natural gas at exorbitant prices. Politico quotes the official saying “The fact is, if you look at it soberly, the country that is most profiting from this war is the U.S. because they are selling more gas and at higher prices, and because they are selling more weapons,”
This was so predictable. This happens again and again and not just in tin-horn third world slaughter fests. Powerful players in the US have always profitted from supplying aid to one side in Europe’s wars. As Peter Hitchens documented, the USA hoovered up British assets and reserves to pay for the arms and provisions they sent in both WWI and WWII. The Brits still hadn’t paid off the WWI debt in 2014.
The professional managerial class around Europe will have to work extra hard to keep the European voting public from souring on this global vision.
For instance, support for the sanctions on Russia are waning as the implications of refusing to buy Russian energy sink in. The Telegraph reports that in recent polling just 42% of Italians and 49% of Austrians support the sanctions on Russian. Putin has another gas shock for us: the deindustrialisation of Europe (telegraph.co.uk) Wait until the gas runs out and see how that moral resolve to stand with Ukraine evaporates. It may be a case of no bread, no heat; no enthusiasm.
The idea that a liberal democracy exists to serve the people of the country is being revealed as the antithesis to the desires of the elites who actually do rule the country. In both the international and national context they use the description “liberal democracy” all the time, but the notion that its purpose is to serve the “demos” – the people of the country/territory who have citizenship and who vote – is confounded not only by their actions, but also by their language.
When they speak about “the international rules based order” there is no notion there that those rules will be the imposition of the people who elected them, or that they will reflect the will of these same people. These common people are demonised as being somehow less than human and unworthy of the ears of their betters – whether they are Canadian truckers, French workers, Dutch farmers, or East Wall residents, they are treated with the same propaganda playbook. We all know it by now, it involves the magic word “far right” which is akin to calling a medieval Swiss peasant woman a “witch”
Democracy is referenced all the time when it comes to enforcing the desires of the elite, and there is a considerable effort put into manufacturing a consent around these issues. But when they can’t manufacture consent; if the demos actually say that they don’t want the new agenda, the people are just ignored.
The managerial class double down on a Kafkaesque narrative about safeguarding the democratic will through authoritarian enforcement. It is then that they amp the rhetoric about the threat “to our democracy”, a threat that comes from the people not agreeing with their agenda. The “far right”, “foreign influence”, and “our democracy”, are incited as an excuse for whatever type of agenda they have in mind.
Note the way they talk about “our democracy” and never “our country”. Countries are bad. They imply “backward-looking nationalism” as Micheál Martin likes to remind us. So what does “our democracy” represent in this always transient brave new world? Perhaps Mícheál Martin, or Billy Kelleher, could tell us, if the memo has been given from the EU commission. Or the ECB, or whoever is in charge.