Rhetorical Questions Round a Rectangular Dining Table
Vol.11 What’s happened to nuance? Do we just signal our virtues now? And what about whataboutery?
Vol.11 What’s happened to nuance? Do we just signal our virtues now? And what about whataboutery?
To commence as I mean to continue, I don’t like the word “whataboutery” but then equally I don’t appreciate it’s lame and disingenuous use either. First off, it’s not a real word, not really, and I’m highly protective of the English language and try whenever I can to use it correctly and well. It may, according to Matrix legend, have originated in the decade of my birth but it’s as useful as the emojis and abbreviations such as FML, LOL and ROFL that will soon send us all regressing back into a cave with chalk, flint and firewood. So why I am starting this article with a word and a use of it that I detest? Well, it wouldn’t be another volume in my rhetorical questions series without such questions, would it? But here’s the thing:
Social Media, and Twitter in particular, seems awash with people who constantly decry any form of debate on the current topic of the day and scream “whataboutism” or “whataboutery”. For instance, as the tweet (below) I posted on 3rd March suggests, I don’t care for Vladimir Putin as I’m an anti war pacifist and find the whole spectre of war abhorrent. But my tweet would be classified under “whataboutery” as I’ve had the temerity to suggest that if we’re seeking defendants to go before war crimes tribunals in The Hague, then the “Leaders of the Free World” (stop laughing!) have plenty of prime suspects that overwhelmingly fill that capacity. So not only am I claiming “whataboutery” I’ve also failed to signal my virtue by not having a Ukrainian flag in my profile or my tweets, I’ve raised a small catalogue of the on going war crimes perpetrated throughout the world by just the UK and USA and woe betide you trying to bring a sense of nuance to the discussion as you’ll be simply and unfairly described as partaking in “whataboutism”.
Nuance has been dying in the water for a long time now, and during the past two years of a Covid war and now a frightening combat war in Europe that could escalate beyond the realms of unfathomable fallout from nuclear conflagration, there’s even less. A bona fide war criminal, George W Bush, once famously stated:
“You are either with us, or you are with the terrorists”.
That was just two short decades ago. Throughout these ensuing years, raise the mass bombing of Afghanistan or Iraq or the multitude of proxy wars in Libya, Syria, Yemen or the complete obliteration and genocide of the peoples of Palestine and you’d be labelled an “Assad Apologist” or the greatest tarring of them all, an “anti-Semite”. Today, just peering above the parapet of this self inflicted war and you’d be labelled a “Putin Apologist” or the tabloid refrain of being “In bed with the Russians” or other such pish. List the wars the UK and USA (primarily, and examples for this article only) have been involved in just since Iraq in 2002/3 or to point out that ethnic Russian areas of Ukraine have been under attack internally since 2014, or that a USA led coup installed the current President Zelensky (a professional comedian no less!) or that Ukraine, along with several other European states have a large presence of Neo Nazi’s in their armies, you’d be accused of the dreaded “whataboutism”. Essentially, like the previous Covid war it’s a case of shut up and be on the “right” side. Do your bit. Tally ho! Over the top and attack the Huns before tea and crumpet back at the barracks and a quick game of cricket before sundown. And don’t forget to signal your virtue too.
Whatever happened to nuance?
Nuance leads to debate, which leads to a more tangential piece of thinking which leads to considering far more than the diet of drivel and propaganda the legacy Media provides. In the first war they banned and censored multi award winning doctors and epidemiologists that flatly refused that lockdowns, masks and medication was the only route out of the pandemic. Today, the country in which I was born, that bastion of democracy, free speech and liberty, banned and censored the RT (Russia Today) Television station. Hardly screams “freedom and liberty” now does it? But it does shut down debate, signal a virtue and stamp out “whataboutery”. Or maybe it leaves the door ajar for this odious phrase? Maybe in fact this could turn out to be the control freaks and warmongers Achilles heel? These people, these laughably called leaders of the free world, want zero freedom and indeed zero debate, but hopefully their collective deletion of our inalienable rights of freedom of speech, bodily autonomy and free assembly, aided and abetted by zero nuance, a dictatorially enforced one world response to everything and throwing around the term “whataboutery” may in fact open wide the debate they are so determined to close?
The above video was posted on 3rd March 2022 and it’s curator is an American lefty liberal comedian, but it’s the video within the video that requires your attention, the contents of which will never appear in our legacy Media. Far too many inconvenient truths let alone the whataboutery factor and the democratic nuance it provides. Ukraine isn’t unique in having such far right Neo Nazi elements within either it’s society or it’s fighting force. The UK has a fringe element and on through Europe via France, Italy and Spain but the key here is this C-14 Group or “Azov Battalions” are heavily armed with the most sophisticated armaments Governments such as the UK and USA are so bloodthirstily eager to sell around the known world. Nuance and open debate ensures the horrible and despicable members of these groups are exposed to the light of conversation, reasoned debate and perhaps the dots that connect the links, and the links that connect overwhelmingly to similar groups the UK and USA Governments have sponsored in their proxy wars in Syria, Libya, Yemen, Palestine and umpteen other “wars” for over three decades. Hence we have a one world dictated response, propaganda that is so laughably off the scale it would indeed be laughable if it wasn’t so nuclear war serious, and all you need to do is shut up, consume what we provide as fact, signal your virtue and condemn those who say or question “whatabout”?
Mass formation psychosis? The madness of crowds? Perhaps. Or it’s maybe the very reason why you’re currently shaking your head reading this article, and I get it. You don’t have time for such nuance, you feel this whole charade to be exhausting, frightening, and yet another “war” to contend with after the last one, and the one before that. Just leave me alone? I get it. Or even more insidiously you could make the argument that through incessant propaganda from duplicitous liars, thieves and off the scale hypocrites, narrowing down debate and conversation to just one single narrative regardless of the other obvious facts that contradict their narrative and a simple display of unity and signalling of one’s virtue is enough. Just leave me alone! I just want to live a simple life without all this! I get it. But without nuance, discussion, freely open debate and a balanced view you’ll never see on legacy Media: It’s only going to get worse.
Much, much worse.
Alas.
Here’s the thing to conclude: Politics is not a sport. OK? And on such a simplistic statement doth fail a thousand arguments. Ever noticed the ever increasing proliferation of being on a team? “Team Trump” or “Team America” or “Team (insert celebrity name here)”. It’s insidious and it’s the drip, drip effect to totalitarianism. You can’t possibly be simply against a proposal, you must be for it, on the team, in the squad, drinking the Kool-Aid at half-time. Waving your flag, wearing your rosette, signalling your virtue and I’d hazard a guess, blocking out any slight nuance that creeps into your consciousness. You can’t let it! You have to be a Conservative and wave the Blue coloured flag regardless of their policies lest you be condemned to obscurity and ridicule and impotence on the back benches. You’re a Democrat? Then how do you explain a far right war monger and in severe cognitive decline being the leader of your Party? In the UK my supposed political “Party” is led by a Knight of the Realm (a Queen appointed Knight of the blooming Realm!) and advocate for human rights who has nothing but championed the deletion of our human rights since the beginning of the now forever here new cold war with Covid. A man of the people and champion of the working man? Please. But if your affiliations are for the Red of Labour then you must conform to the blob think lest you be expelled from the Party.
Here is the narrative — Comply or die.
My political hero was assassinated 9 years before I was even born. A rascal. A womaniser. A Camelot King. He was also a champion for free speech, societal and racial equality, ending wars and a peaceful collaboration with the Red Menace of the USSR (Russia). Historians will also point to a vast swathe of other societal changes both he and his brother Bobby wanted to implement but real, or indeed “magic” bullets saw the end to such peaceful and positive changes. I’m a lefty dreamer, an idealist, and a realist that’s firmly aware that the “Team” no-one (repeat no-one) is cheering for, regardless of the colour of their rosette, is in total, totalitarian control. This team has a very public face of war criminals and the most despicable aspects of humanity that infiltrate our telescreens every time a scary bedtime story is required for the masses.
Nuance allows discussions as to these public faces and their affiliations, trysts, benefactors and the many and varied (public or underground) “clubs” they participate in. Dots become links. Links become chains. Chains into bondage, tied to an ideology, supported by propaganda allied to a blob think affiliation and virtue signalled loud and clear by the masses who can’t or won’t see through the fog of any war for their entire world view be smashed into the thousands of pieces JFK wanted to splinter the CIA.
Condemning whataboutery shuts this all down.
But I’ll continue to cling onto the hope that this enveloping one world insidious decree on any and everything backfires, for that will be a damn worth breaking.
Selah.
Rhetorical Questions Round a Rectangular Dining Table
Vol.10 “Come you masters of war” and other discussions with the ghost of Lee Harvey Oswald.medium.com
Rhetorical questions round a rectangular dining table
Vol.6 Why can’t I have a leap year this month? And why are we allowing the lunatics to dim the sun?medium.com
Rhetorical questions round a rectangular dining table
Vol 4. Please could you stop the noise? Why don’t I “do” anything any more? And why are we going to war with Russia?medium.com