Russia is a chaos agent, it knows where the sore spots are

My Sunday cinema was the first two episodes of the six part Netflix series Young Royals. Young Prince Wilhelm of Sweden, during a night on the town, gets into a fight. His parents, without consulting him, send him to the boarding school his older brother attended and where cousin August is in his last year. August and other male last year students do a good job of acting like the worst sort of frat boys and have a dandy initiation for Wilhelm. Also at the school is Simon, a non-resident student who lives in the poor part of the nearby town. At the end of the second episode Simon kisses Wilhelm and then Wilhelm kisses back. Before then we heard Simon remind his father he is gay. But we hadn’t seen any indication Wilhelm is gay (other than the premise of the show and the promotional photo Netflix uses). With these frat boys there is likely homophobia in the remaining episodes. There are, of course, side stories. August is the captain of the rowing team (both Wilhelm and Simon are beginners on the team) and has been taking drugs – I think they’re ADHD drugs, though not prescribed for him. He’s also behind in paying what he owes to various people. There are a couple girls (I think one is Simon’s sister) beginning to bond over the horsemanship class. We’ll see where this goes. I’m a little annoyed with Netflix. I clicked on the show icon and was taken directly to the first episode. It did not tell me how many episodes there were and how long they were (the 1st was 45 minutes, the second 50). When it got to the credits of one episode it simply asked if I wanted to go to the next. Well, do I have time for it? I did find out the number of episodes from Rotten Tomatoes, but again not the length. I thought that strange because RT shows the lengths of movies and has descriptions of each Young Royal episode. Also, Niece set up my profile and chose a basic icon. I tried to change it and was offered only thumbnail images of characters in their hit series (none of which looked interesting). I didn’t see a way to import an image of my own. Mark Sumner of Daily Kos reported that as Ukrainian soldiers recapture areas Russia had held, such as the town of Bucha, they are discovering war crimes. Most of the crimes are of assassinating citizens, leaving bodies where they fell, along with torture, looting, and general destruction. A list of excuses prompted Sumner to write:

That bad things have happened in the past is no excuse for accepting them in the present. That bad things have been done in our name doesn’t absolve us of the need to seek justice. The idea that we must shrug off torture and murder because somewhere someone else has done as much, or worse, is as hideous as anything found under the rubble in Bucha. Or at Buchenwald. ... This is exactly the time to not go forward in malice, but with careful consideration and reasoned action. Hard as it might be to set aside anger and desire for vengeance, that has to be done because it remains the best way to reduce the threat of even more deaths, even more horrors. Ukraine must be given everything it needs to draw this war to a successful conclusion. The U.S. and other nations must act to see that such evil—on every scale—can never produce the desired outcome.

It looks like Russia has also left the region around Chernihiv, ending the northern front. Hunter of Kos discussed what is coming next: Russia leaving the northern front is an admission of defeat. The Russian soldiers (those who aren’t heavily damaged) will shift to Donbas. Many of Ukraine’s forces will also shift. Since they have also been damaged they may not be able to sustain resistance indefinitely. Hunter wrote:

Russia's goals remain the same; inflict such heavy damage on Ukraine that the nation's government feels it has no choice but to surrender land to Russia rather than allow the assaults on its civilian populations to continue. But now that Russia has demonstrated how it treats towns under its control, Ukraine's population may be even more resolved to endure a longer war rather than abandon the citizens that would be put under Russian rule.

Lean McElrath tweeted:

Bucha happened because the world turned a blind eye to Aleppo. What will happen next if the world turns a blind eye to Bucha?

In another post Hunter included a tweet from the Kyiv Post of showing the amount of arms exports from European countries to Russia during 2015-2020. France exported 152 million (dollars? euros?). Germany exported almost 122 million. Sumner discussed what a post-Putin world might be like. This could happen if Ukraine pulled off a full victory rather than a victory with a lot of rearguard action. This will be a victory for democracy, the greatest since WWII.

That’s because Russia is a chaos agent. The idea that Russia promoted the election of Donald Trump in the United States as a means of causing internal division and weakening America’s role overseas isn’t a conspiracy. It’s not even a question. It’s just one example of how Russia has operated in nation after nation around the world. Russia knows where the sore spots are, because the lines of weakness in most democracies haven’t moved in centuries. There’s racism, classism, xenophobia, sexism, fear of the LGBTQ community, and more racism. Russia didn’t just support Trump’s message of white supremacy and fear of immigrants, it bought radio time in heavily Black communities and ran radio ads in which supposedly Black Democrats expressed their doubts that Hillary Clinton had that community’s back. The held rallies supporting “the wall.” Russia loves walls, because walls divide. In Europe, Russia’s impact is, if anything, much greater. Try this as a recycling project: Russia wages a war in Syria that generates millions of refugees; Russia then funds anti-immigrant movements across Europe and floods social media with messages that these refugees are scary, violent, and Not Like Us; finally Russia uses the hard-right nationalist parties that embrace this message by positioning them as Nazis so that it can justify any action it wants against NATO or the EU. Suffering is good for Russia, because it knows how to turn disruption into a weapon.

If that chaos agent were gone or significantly diminished racism, xenophobia, and LGBTQ attacks wouldn’t end but the big dark money funding these attacks would be gone. The separatist movements funded by Putin would collapse. Those terrorized by Putin would see their culture and language restored. The Belarusian democracy movement would have a chance. Political disruptions around the world, such as in Libya and several countries in West Africa would end and these countries could turn to actual governing. Syria may shake off Assad. Ukraine’s win would be history altering for the whole world. So send all the military support they need. I’ve been sharing threads from Kamil Galeev about Russian history and what’s going on there now. He created and is updating a thread of threads – one thread that links to all the others. He’s now up to 40 threads, the most recent a few days ago and the first from a few days before the war started back in February. I won’t go back to most of the ones I missed, though there are a couple I find interesting. Here’s one of them: Galeev looked at the Donbas “separatist” region while also discussing foreign policy approaches. One way is the goal-oriented approach. This says to engage with the person most able to make a difference in the outcome. In this war that would be Putin. But Putin is the source of the conflict. He manufactured it. Pleading with him won’t prompt him to end it. Each time there was a crisis against his rule he manufactured a conflict in the name of national security – Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, and Donbas. Many in the West bought Putin’s claim of Russia protecting Russian speakers in Donbas. Ukrainians didn’t.

He as usual manufactured a Donbass war to later come out as a saviour, do everything he wants to do, collect a payout and be showered in gratitude and public love. But in Ukraine he was seen as the one who created this war in the first place.

Since Russia meddled in Donbas back in 2014 the area is now under the control of criminal gangs. Their power is unchecked. They plunder – take people’s homes, cars, and businesses – and kill those who object. They destroyed the Donbas economy and inflicted a humanitarian catastrophe. Ukrainians could see what was going on because nothing comparable was going on in the rest of Ukraine. They know Putin won’t save them. In eight years Donbas has gone from being pro Russian to very much anti Russian.

The constant cycle of Putin's policy has been: 1. Manufacture a conflict 2. Escalate, exacerbate 3. Come out as the saviour, collect payout 4. Scale up So far it has worked perfectly. Why? Because the other side never escalated it. ... If Putin knows the West is determined to always and ever deescalate, always seek for compromise, it means his policy is working perfectly, why change it? So he repeats and scales up. And every time you'll have to deal with larger conflict he manufactured. ... Putin's policy is entirely based on assumption that the West will avoid the escalation. Ergo. It was a mistake to assure him of it in the first place. Paradoxically, it may sound for goal-oriented people, it makes total sense from the perspective of a system-oriented approach. ... Under the goal-oriented paradigm, the route for deescalation would be make Putin feel as safe as possible. Under the system-oriented, the other way around. After each successful cycle he scales up, so you must break the cycle.

Greg Dworkin, in a pundit Roundup for Kos, quoted Dan Cassino of the Washington Post:

Why are Republicans focusing on legislation restricting trans people? While many more people identify as trans now than in the past, their numbers are relatively small, about 1 in every 250 people, concentrated among younger cohorts. The emphasis seems disproportionate, given, for instance, the vanishingly small number of trans women competing in athletics. My research finds that when cisgender men consider variations in gender identity, they become more likely to identify as Republican. Republicans may be emphasizing laws and rhetoric targeting trans people to reinforce wavering Republicans and even bring in some men who otherwise might not support Republican candidates.

Those are some mighty insecure men. Walter Einenkel of Kos discussed a letter from a teacher in Florida that unveils the bigotries of the Don’t Say Gay bill recently enacted in Florida. The letter could be a template for something teachers send home with students. Moms for Liberty use the slogan that they are “advocates for parental rights in schools” (though only of parents who agree with them) to make sure children aren’t exposed to racism and LGBTQ stuff. Moms for Liberty tweeted about the letter as another lefty indoctrination attempt. Twitter responded isn’t that what you wanted? The last two paragraphs of the letter:

To be in accordance with this policy, I will no longer be referring to your student with gendered pronouns. All students will be referred to as “they” or “them.” I will no longer use a gendered title such as “Mr.” or “Mrs.” or make any references to my husband/wife in the classroom. From now on I will be using the non-gendered title “Mx.” Furthermore, I will be removing all books or instruction which refer to a person being a “mother,” “father,” “husband” or “wife” as these are gender identities that also may allude to sexual orientation. Needless to say, all books which refer to a character as “he” or “she” will also be removed from the classroom. If you have any concerns about this policy, please feel free to contact your local congressperson. Thank you, Mx. XXXXXXXXXX