Farmers will be harvesting shrapnel for generations

I have thankfully read through a lot of posts about the war and Ukraine and decided little has changed and I don’t need to write about it. Though there are a few things to mention. The focus of efforts has turned to the city of Severodonetsk. Russia has been fighting hard to take it and Ukraine has been fighting just as hard to keep it. But it is on the wrong side of a river and Lysychansk, on the other side of that river, is much more easily defensible. Kos of Daily Kos has been pondering why Ukraine has been making the deadly effort. Kos quoted the Institute for the Study of War, which might have an answer:

Severodonetsk itself is important at this stage in the war primarily because it is the last significant population center in Luhansk Oblast that the Russians do not control. Seizing it will let Moscow declare that it has secured Luhansk Oblast fully but will give Russia no other significant military or economic benefit. This is especially true because Russian forces are destroying the city as they assault it and will control its rubble if they capture it.

Kos added:

Lots of people will die for a pile of rubble, all in the name of propaganda. Russia wants it to declare all of Luhansk Oblast captured, and Ukraine wants it to deny Russia that propaganda victory. If Ukraine wants to bleed Russia, there is a vastly more defensible position literally across the river at Lysychansk. Ukraine has made a habit of exceeding expectations. Let’s hope they do it again in Severodonetsk.

Kos included a photo of fields with lots of craters from artillery shells. He wrote, “Farmers will be harvesting shrapnel for generations.” News site Visegrád tweeted with a picture:

A Russian vessel has been photographed in a Syrian port from a satellite. "Matros Pozynych" is loaded to the brim with grains stolen from Ukraine. Army of thieves, it always was.

Another from Visegrád, this one with video.

Putin’s propagandists on Russian state television now say that the “special military operation” has ended and that the real war, World War 3, has started. They also say that the goal is no longer to “demilitarize Ukraine” but to “demilitarize all of NATO”

Unless Putin is considering nukes, the response to this is something I wrote before: Yeah? You and what army? Greg Dworkin, in a pundit roundup for Kos, quoted tweets from Velina Tchakarova:

There won't be any peace negotiations no matter how often Germany & France (small-size countries in Europe have no geopolitical weight) call Putin. Once Russia establishes control over Donbas & reaches its war goals in the this phase, Moscow will unilaterally declare ceasefire. Preventing Russia from winning in this critical phase of the war requires the heavy weapons deliveries to Ukraine to sustain the Russian attacks. If Ukraine has to give up on territories in Donbas for the sake of Western appeasement, this won't stop the war. On the opposite.

Dworkin also quoted a thread by Phillips O’Brien, who was responding to a tweet by Andrij Melnyk replying to people who are saying Ukraine should “compromise” with Russia. O’Brien wrote:

This is what I don’t get about those calling for the Ukrainians publicly to cede lots of territory. At best that land will see brutal ethnic cleansing, and possibly mass murder on an epic scale. The Ukrainians on that territory will be wiped out. They are calling for this. Instead of saying they are in favour of ceding territory, why don’t they say they are in favour of ethnic cleansing and societal destruction. That would be more honest. This is not like Alsace/Lorraine being handed back and forth between France and Germany in 1871 or 1918, it’s like saying parts of Poland should be given to the Nazis in 1939.

Dworkin shifted topics to quote a thread by Thomas Zimmer, a professor of history. Zimmer included a tweet by Drew McKevitt who quoted Joey Johnson:

This is a thread of political radicalization, no doubt, but it's also a thread of conspicuous consumption. Guns are expensive. Working-class people cannot afford these arsenals.

Zimmer:

This is a crucial observation – and it points to a problematic distortion in the broader political discourse: White people parading guns are automatically coded as “regular folks,” or “real Americans” in the parlance of the Right, while their socio-economic status is ignored. In addition to the fact that the GOP is all in on the culture of gun-toting militancy, that’s another reason why Republican politicians have their families pose with whole arsenals of firearms: They want to signal how very much in touch they are with “real America.”

That tweet include photos of families posing with guns (are these supposed to be family Christmas cards? Yeesh!) More from Zimmer:

When people can afford to invest in a collection of kevlar vests and all sorts of weaponry, this is seldom discussed as the extravagant lifestyle of white conservatives (as opposed to, say, liberal elites indulging in “luxury items” like e-bikes). In that way, the conventions of political terminology are often entirely in line with the self-description of white conservatives - not coincidentally creating and perpetuating the idea of “regular folks” as a clearly racialized category of specific political valence. These conventions perpetuate the pervasive assumption of a white “normal” that still governs the American political and cultural discourse. Concepts like “working class,” or “parents,” or “Christians” often come with a silent “white.”

Republicans try to present themselves as the party of the working class. But they’re completely detached from actual working class Americans. In claiming that connection they also claim their voters are “regular folks” and those who vote for Democrats are “elites” – though strangely by that definition a lot of poor black people are elite. Finally, Dworkin quoted Jake Charles quoting Scientific American:

More children die by gunfire in a year than on-duty police officers and active military members.

Charles added: “This is such a jaw-dropping line.” Michel Martin of NPR talked to Ryan Busse. He’s a former gun industry executive and is now a senior advisor to the gun violence prevention organization founded by Gabby Giffords. He wrote the book Gunfight: My Battle Against The Industry That Radicalized America. Busse grew up on a ranch and loved to hunt with his dad and now hunts with his boys. The NRA tapped into that culture. After a while Busse realized the NRA twisted that connection and inserted fear. Then 15 years ago the NRA ended its ban on prominent advertising of tactical gear used by the Buffalo shooter. Up to that point they didn’t want to incite irresponsible behavior. Busse said:

It happened because the NRA figured out that radicalization, hate, fear, racism - those things could gin up a populace to vote in irrational ways. If you could keep - I like to say that they could keep this group of, you know, fervent NRA fans just in the populist, just one degree below boiling. And then they were volatile. They could get them to vote in very irrational ways. Well, it turned out that those same exact things made people buy guns and still - and make people buy guns. And when you mix in, you know, classically authoritarian things, militarism, so this tactical gear, AR-15, which were persona non grata in the industry up until about 2006 or '7, you mix all that in, and you start to have an even more volatile situation. And I'm worried now that it's gotten to the point where it threatens our democracy, but the spillover effects darn sure threaten our kids in schools. ... And it's all based on fear. And you're going to see it classically at the NRA convention. You're going to hear people say, see, these people are going to use the death of these kids to come get our freedoms, to come get our rights. And you see how it's framed into this fear of loss. Something horrible is framed into fear of loss. ... One thing that I really think is important for listeners to understand is that the Trump administration and Donald Trump himself kind of viscerally knew that racism, angst, turmoil, conspiracy, hatred, all those things were good for him because they created such a fearful, tumultuous populace that they made rush out and vote for him when they might not otherwise.

Busse senses a shift that responsible gun owners, the vast majority of gun owners, may stand up and say that’s enough. He added:

This glorification of militarized violence, this faux patriotism, this you can only be a man - there's an actual man card campaign. You purchase an AR-15 and get your man card. That was the advertising campaign that led to the sale of the Sandy Hook rifle and the exact same rifle that was used in the Buffalo shooting.

In a democracy we have to figure out how to balance rights and responsibilities. Right now they’re way out of whack. Walter Einenkel of Kos posted a couple videos of Australian comedian Jim Jefferies at a show in Boston discussing America’s love of guns. Back in 1996 a shooter killed 35 people and seriously injured another 23. In response Australia passed sweeping gun reforms. Alas, Jefferies’ routine, given in 2014, is still accurate. I watched it, all 15 minutes in two parts. He says he’s not really against guns. He’s against BS and lies. About the only argument for guns, and it’s not a great one, is “I like guns.” The lies: I need guns to protect my family: So why assault guns? Where are the defense guns? How many enemies who want to murder you do you have? Teachers should have guns: What about the students bent on making the teacher cry? If we ban guns only criminals will have guns: In Australia an assault weapon on the black market is $34 thousand. If you have $34 thousand you don’t need to be a criminal. In a comparison: I’m a responsible slave owner. I’m trained in how to use my slaves safely. Just because that guy mistreats his slaves doesn’t mean my rights should be taken away from me. Down in the comments is another clip of Jefferies a couple years later on Conan, adding a bit more. This one is two minutes.