Wednesday, March 16, 2022

I Won't Let Putin's Apologists Destroy This Moment of Moral Clarity

We can now place right winger Candace Owens in the camp of Putin apologists. Here's something she said on Tuesday:

Wow, "genocidal colonization" is interesting. Again, going back to my point about people being stupid, you know – [Putin's] not trying to commit a genocide of the Ukrainians. That obviously makes no sense because there's very – there is no difference, ethnically, between Ukrainians and Russians, obviously. Ukraine wasn't a thing until 1989. Ukraine was created by the Russians. It was, you know, they speak Russian. So, it's absolutely ridiculous. And, again, this entire episode has been exposing to you how ignorant people are about the goals of Vladimir Putin. He has goals. The goal is not just to get rid of Ukrainians. That makes entirely no sense. It would not be helpful for him.

Honestly, my head wants to explode when I hear someone who is this adept at lying call someone else "stupid." But just to be clear on the question of genocide: 

Anyone who knows just a tiny bit about Ukrainian history is aware of the fact that the people of that country are pretty well-versed in the meaning of "genocide."

But of course, Owens is also parroting Putin's propaganda when she says that Ukraine "wasn't a thing" until Russia created it in 1989. As for Ukrainians speaking Russian...that is a lie too.

Candace Owens is a smart woman. So it is unlikely that she is spreading this nonsense out of ignorance. Instead, her lies have more in common with what Peter Pomerantsev wrote about Russian propaganda: "It reinvents reality, creating mass hallucinations...the idea of truth is irrelevant." What is the goal of making truth irrelevant? Here's Pomerantsev's answer:

[I]nsisting on the lie, the Kremlin intimidates others by showing that it is in control of defining ‘reality.’ This is why it’s so important for Moscow to do away with truth. If nothing is true, then anything is possible.

For Putin and his apologists like Owens, it is especially important to do away with truth right now because what we are witnessing in Ukraine is a moment of moral clarity. 

Just this morning, Ukrainian President Zelensky gave an impassioned speech to Congress. It included the sharing of this video: 

Zelensky ended his speech with these words:

I am almost 45 years old. Today my age stopped when the hearts of more than 100 children stopped beating. I see no sense in life if it cannot stop the deaths. This is my mission as a leader of my people, and as a leader of my nation.

Putin gave a speech this morning too. In it, the man who is committing genocide in Ukraine talked about a “natural and necessary cleansing of the nation” (Russia) to “spit out like flies” all representatives of a fifth column and “traitors” who do not back the Kremlin line. Cleansing his nation of flies is a particularly ominous threat.

Life often presents us with difficult moments when moral questions are housed in a complex array of competing claims and interests. This is not one of those moments. In this situation, good and evil are in stark contrast, providing an unmistakeable moment of moral clarity. 

So while I rarely take a position like this, my message to people like Candace Owens, Tucker Carlson, Tulsi Gabbard and the rest of the Putin apologists is simple: STFU! 

3 comments:

  1. The many of us who don't normally resort to spitting fire at our common enemies should consider what we read in Nancy's column. I've been reading her since she ascended to the heights of WaMo and never missed her columns. I've never read her so blatantly, truthfully incensed as in this column, but she'd right. Just read the entire column, then dwell on the last two paragraphs (Life often....) This must have been difficult for her to express her agony so forthrightfully, but I greatly appreciate her honesty and clarity. And, yes, 'This is War', so STFU!

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