Today’s cartoon is apropos of yesterday’s post, which was based on a collection of unhappy observations, including my own1.
Survival remains top priority.
More than one year later, again, we are stuck the middle of a catastrophe of such magnitude that there is no long-term development scenario. Not one. Anyone who thinks there is plenty of time to think the mess through should have their head examined.
It’s now stage six of a five-stage invasion response. We don’t have enough weapons and there still is no SOP. For comparison, on March 25, 2022, we were at stage five of our four-stage response2.
X, Elon + bots, MAGA meanies in Congress (+ useful idiots * Russian GRU/SVR active measures) are parts of our evolving concept of a calculation that has all the attributes of genocidal campaign assets (We won’t use the word “genocide” because it’s a legal term and it might upset Francophones).
Our revised causal model, which incorporates lessons learned by living and working in fascistic Russia and Belarus for, er, more than a decade, differentiates between different types of political pertubation and considers not only possibilities contained in inane and bizarre Slavic behavior, but what triggered it in the first place. The Ukraine-related bits of the system are largely irrelevant, since we are now mostly “European.”
It should be taken for granted that we will do whatever necessary to avoid being rubbed out.