Ukraine 1: Ordinary Americans Mixed On Invasion
analyzing the general public reaction and trying to understand the "correct" point-of-view
The invasion of Ukraine has torpedoed any myth of American exceptionalism still on the books. Discussion of the conflict is multidimensional. Gas prices are going up, and morale in the free world is going down. You literally cannot talk about one single factor without discussing either history, economy, energy, or geopolitics. I’ll write more as time goes by, but I wanted to begin with a discussion of reactions in the US and my analysis of American aloofness.
Seeing footage of a hulking military vehicle suddenly veering across a Kyiv roadway and crushing a random car was jarring. When I learned that it was a Ukrainian military vehicle that’d lost control and accidentally hit the car, it dawned on me how disconnected I was from the whole crisis. The massive influx of old and new media fuels anxieties around the globe.
Paradoxically, despite this distance, my connection to the global community has me feeling like I have skin in this game. This conflict strikes fear into the heart, yet many Americans seem unmoved. If Ukrainian freedom is attacked, can not any freedom be attacked? At what point are we moved to act on our principles?
When I wrote about Putin’s warmongering months ago, it seemed impossible that these existential questions would be looming over everyone, but here we are! My hope is that I’ll be able to sufficiently differentiate between the sphere of global power makers and the sphere of common human interaction that I live in. In the macro, what is at stake in Ukraine is greater than a single nation. Moving past buzz phrasing, this is the biggest military operation involving the most countries in decades.
I’m more interested with this writing to explore the smaller reactions to the crisis, among people who live at the center of Pax Americana. Are people only motivated by rising gas prices? Where is the 9/11-esque call to action, rushing to defend the notion of freedom when it comes under attack anywhere? How can Americans turn away from this crucial moment, while transitioning from the post-WWII Pax Americana to new, murkier future?
The isolationist sentiment in the United States is a starting point for the American reaction. What makes this take untenable is modernity’s ability to ruthlessly connect our lives through the global market and the internet. Sooner or later every American will feel this war in their bank accounts, so how much is Ukrainian freedom worth to Americans? The conflicts of interest are overlapping, but it seems some people would truly rather pay a few bucks less per gallon of gas than stand up for Ukrainian integrity.
Are we really paying more to help Ukraine, or are we simply doing as much as we practically can as a nation short of sending our huge military into Ukraine to start WWIII? Have Americans been worn down so far as they can do little more than hope for the best?
Certainly the usual suspects are hoping for American military forces to be included in this brutal war. Our leaders have incentives (usually in stocks) to throw their corporate military friends as much cash as possible, so I don’t see it as anything more than typical carpetbagging greed. In the micro sphere, I feel like those with hawkish rhetoric have their own motivations to be aggressive with their views; overcompensating or desperate to belong, those people often have no actual views beyond the expectation they need to meet for their peers, or themselves. At least those assholes are invested; I feel much more disturbed by those so disconnected from reality that they think, ‘Why care about Ukraine’? Meanwhile, working people on the left are unsure of how to react beyond inserting a Ukrainian flag in their Twitter bio.
Still, even the normalized commodification of the crisis doesn’t achieve much more than further illustrating how few options we in the West have for reaction. Yet, the Ukrainian leaders continue to specifically ask for direct help, and not just memes. All Americans must work tirelessly to keep our lives up, but can we resolve to defend what we say we hold dear? Can we collectivize the anger at the invasion into an action(s) that helps Ukraine defend itself, or are we cursed to be simple spectators in a foreign chess game? Do we have anything more than memes at our disposal to give?
Lip service has been unilateral in mostly condemning Russian aggression, but I disturbed by the machinations of the various propaganda mills working this crisis to bilk it for all it is worth. Anyone can be guided, and tons of common people are already programmed to believe Russia is an evil cartoon character. These folks don’t care that most Russian people are fully against the conflict, literally bound by their reality to remain quiet or face the whip. They will only react to things that touch us, like gas prices and market fluctuations.
A lot of people feel that they shouldn’t have to worry if they can’t even help, and I consider that an earnest position. I have a family, I cannot go to help in Ukraine in any way. What do I do to answer my compulsion to defend this ideology? Can I even argue that the principles I feel compelled to defend are present in the US? I can’t answer, but I do see that common working people are being displaced by egotistical avarice.
I’m watching my McDonald’s politicians backseat-drive a European war they intent to profit from. For me, there is nothing more paralyzing than finding myself at this crossroads between strong existential drives and extreme practical limitation. I remain unconvinced that the answer should be ignorant isolationism or technocrats playing war with our global reality. Can the common people be pulled from their jaded lives to question the tired ideologies that constantly ask us to kill for rich men? Do politicians possess an iota of will to deal with this attack on global democratic order, or is it yet another round of postured sabre-rattles along with a healthy kickback from the military industrial complex? Have existential terrors been normalized to the point where this has no effect on American conscience?
More to follow.