“War Anxiety,” Alisdare Hickson from Woolwich, United Kingdom, CC BY-SA 2.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
In case you missed the closing comments in last week’s Gordon Lightfoot review, I mentioned that “I’m not sure I will be able to continue reviewing music at all.” I gave no details because I didn’t want to steal Gord’s thunder by writing about my own problems, but I felt the need to explain why I might not have the chance to explore more of his work. I will now tell you why the altrockchick may fade into the sunset: the likelihood of a European war increases day by day.
The danger was apparent long before the Russian drone incursions into Poland and Romania and the violation of Estonian/NATO airspace, all of which confirmed my existing belief that Putin was looking for additional opportunities to sow disruption in Europe while testing potential weak spots in our defenses. In the past week there have been incidents of one sort or another every day, with Russian drones entering EU territory and NATO jets intercepting Russian reconnaissance planes. Meanwhile, France is falling apart, the right-wing continues to make advances all over Europe, and confidence in the EU is waning—all echoes of the defeatism that nearly destroyed Europe in WWII. Trump’s meddling will only serve to make Vladimir more desperate, and no matter what the Grand Cheeto says, we cannot be sure that the Americans will honor their NATO obligations. Trump is more likely to offer help with unacceptable strings attached, as he certainly does NOT “love Europe,” and neither he nor the flunkies in his administration would shed a tear if the EU faded into history.
Nothing is certain, of course—except confusion and ineptitude. Some pundits believe that Putin’s game is an attempt to distract the West long enough to help his pal Xi Jinping annex Taiwan; others worry that Putin would respond to perceived threats from NATO with his nuclear arsenal. Mark Rutte (the head of NATO) said that it would take another five years for Russia to have the strength to take on the EU, but last week he launched Operation Eastern Sentry to increase air and ground defense capabilities along the eastern flank. Several articles in Foreign Affairs argue that the EU still needs to improve its defenses and take a more aggressive stance with Russia and Belarus, but if not executed to perfection, aggressive moves could backfire. Trump tells Poland to go ahead and shoot down the planes; Marco Rubio says, “Whoa, hold on there, pardner!” The recent cyberattacks on European airports highlighted a continuing weakness that leaders have failed to address, and I have little confidence that European leaders and NATO members can stop squabbling with one another long enough to come up with a workable, continent-wide defense strategy before it’s too late.
Yesterday, the Russian Foreign Minister said that “Moscow has ‘no intention’ of attacking European countries, while warning that ‘any aggression against my country will be met with a decisive response.'” Yeah, yeah, yeah, Hitler tried to peddle the same crap a year before he invaded Poland: “We have given guarantees for the States in the West, and to all those States bordering on our frontiers we have given assurances of the inviolability of their territory so far as Germany is concerned. These are no mere words. That is our sacred determination. We have no interest in breaking the peace.” Just yesterday, The Guardian ran an article titled “Putin preparing to attack another European country, Zelenskyy says,” a view I believe is closer to the truth.
I guess I’m not the only one worried about an impending war. Hits on my previously ignored Song Series: Anti-War Songs post have increased by 130%.
Because Ireland is a neutral country and does not belong to NATO, I think I’ll be safe here, but if the shooting starts, my job at the EU may become a casualty of war, and Alicia could lose over half of her clients. While the job market in Ireland is pretty hot right now, no one can predict how a continental war might impact the Irish economy. Though the EU has offices in Ireland, job openings in those agencies are extremely rare, so if we decide to stay, I might have to return to the private sector, at least for a while. We’re doing what we can to prepare for the myriad what-ifs, including the unpleasant possibility of another relocation.
In response to the growing threat, I revised my review schedule a few weeks ago to prioritize must-do artists and albums, and Gordon Lightfoot came out on top. The other must-dos include The Pogues’ If I Should Fall From Grace with God, the four remaining Moody Blues albums, and a two-part review of Leonard Cohen, but I may not be able to complete those reviews if things go to hell in a handbasket in the meantime. I was looking forward to reviewing more music from Canada, Australia, South America, Africa, and Ireland, but if we find ourselves at war with the Russians, all my energy will be devoted to survival-level activities for who knows how long (and I doubt I would be in the mood to write anyway).
Needless to say (but I’ll say it anyway), I’m very angry about these developments. I love my job at the EU and I feel great about working to advance human rights. I have seriously enjoyed writing about music, and I do not want to give it up. I’m very happy living in Ireland, and the thought of having to relocate to a different country for a third time due to incompetent leaders and stupid voters makes me sick to my stomach. Unfortunately, we live in a world where hate wins out over love, fiction supplants truth, and where compromise and collaboration are viewed as weaknesses. We are in the same fix that Yeats described over a century ago in the poem “The Second Coming.”
Are full of passionate intensity.
Lately I’ve been reading William Shirer’s A Native Returns, 1945-1988 and stumbled upon President Truman’s opening message to the delegates of the newly-found United Nations: “In your hands rests our future. Make certain that another war is impossible.” Lofty words, perhaps, but how I wish that dream had come true. It doesn’t hurt to hope, though, and I will continue writing for as long as I can while preparing for the worst and hoping for the best.
No matter what happens, the website will remain open unless the Americans order WordPress to shut it down for spreading far-left propaganda (you know, like advocating for human rights and trying to end domestic violence) or failing to show respect for the Führer (who can go fuck himself). You may think I’m suffering from paranoia, but there have been too many attempts on the part of the Trump administration to suppress free speech that the threat cannot be ignored. I’m obviously a small player compared to Jimmy Kimmel, and the odds that the American Nazis would pick on me or other bloggers are infinitesimally tiny, but Trump’s minions might try to shut down all channels of dissent by taking a page from Dr. Goebbels’ handbook and modifying it to cover internet-based discourse. When Shirer was reporting from Berlin for CBS, he had to submit his content to Goebbels and his crew before he went on the air, and there was always a faithful Nazi in the studio whose job was to shut down the broadcast if Shirer veered from the script. It’s easy to imagine how the Trumpians could modify the practice for the internet—when I’ve finished a review and clicked the Publish button, the review would be sent to an AI-driven censor that would scan the text for no-nos: “woke” ideology, anti-Israel sentiments, support for the Palestinians, and insults directed at the Führer. As the courts will always give Trump whatever he wants in the end, all it would take is an Executive Order, and poof! Bye-bye, First Amendment!
Just to prove that I’m not delusional, as I was halfway finished with this post, I read an op-ed by Fergus Finlay in the Irish Examiner with the tantalizing title, “The US is on the road from culture war to civil war.” I’d love to share the entire article with y’all, but you’d just run into a paywall. Here’s what Fergus had to say about the imminent death of free speech in the home of the stupid: “It’s fanciful perhaps to see the forcible silencing of Jimmy Kimmel as the first shot in a war. But don’t kid yourself. Donald Trump is determined to eliminate all dissent and to punish anyone and everyone who has ever offended him. He’s using all the means at his disposal, and they are considerable, to do it. He is well capable – he’s done it before – of inciting violence, and the members of his cult are equally capable of following him there.”
Mr. Finlay also eliminated the possibility that the opposition will come to the rescue: “There’s all sorts of Democrats sort of shouting from the rooftop, but there’s no leadership, no coordination, no strategy, no focus. They’ve given Trump the keys to the citadel and they’re sitting outside the gate complaining.” That is true, but Americans do have two advantages working in their favor in the battle to save the right to dissent: the administration is loaded with incompetents who are experts at fucking things up, and I’m sure that a cadre of concerned techies could form an online version of the Maquis to get around those morons.
In this week’s edition of The Economist, there is an article titled “Donald Trump is trying to silence his critics. He will fail.” The basic argument is that the American media is too fragmented for any one person to exert control over all sources of information, but the author does admit that Trump’s attempt to gag his enemies and the likely response from the so-called opposition will cause significant, long-lasting damage. “Yet even if Mr Trump does not win his battle, America could still lose. In a fragmented attention economy, the best way to break through is to call everything an apocalypse, urge revolution or denounce fascism. If all the rewards go to divisive political entertainment, then founding good government on a common understanding of facts becomes ever harder. America survived a partisan press in the 19th century; it will probably do so in the 21st. But the vaudevillisation of the public square is a heavy burden on an overburdened democracy.” The bottom line is that the United States is experiencing a revival of McCarthyism, an ugly period in history that destroyed lives and frightened many into silence.
Though I may have to go dark and into survival mode for a while if war comes our way, I am determined to continue my exploration of music. This stance might have something to do with accidental genetic engineering: my Irish half tells me to fight repression wherever and whenever it threatens my freedom, and my French half tells me that the only way to respond to evil is to engage in resistance. While I’m not thrilled about the possibility of having to transfer fourteen years of work to a non-American content management firm, if that’s what I have to do, I’ll do it. I’m not going to let some pathetic mother fucker who can’t take a punch mess with my right to free speech.