Overview:
We are, wasting so much time (when others aren’t) celebrating and giving oxygen to such abject and superficial nonsense, that we have lost sight of our substance: what, and who, really matters, but also who we are and what our values are.
On the evening Russia’s throwback Czar, Vladimir Putin, declared war on its Slavic Ukrainian brethren for matters of imperialist conquest, the 46th President of the United States, Joe Biden — a familiar face to the Ukrainian hierarchy — took drastic and decisive action.
Sadly, at such a critical time for much of the Western World, particularly Ukraine, that action, rather than a live on-the-spot address to the nation from the imposing corridors of the White House care home, seemingly amounted to how much beauty sleep he might be able to achieve there, instead, before the next day’s continual circus of being propped up and wheeled out in front of the world’s cameras without really knowing what, where, or who he is could commence once again. By now, of course, more than one stuttering year into his presidency, the more average (but awake) Joe American has seen it all before.
Such a tepid and timid reaction summarised the ‘free world’s’ decades-long decline precisely and poetically. This, after all, was no longer a West of Winston Churchill, but a West of Woke.
And my, how dangerous that decline really has become.
Indeed, as Putin’s heavily-funded and restructured military might (the second largest in the world) finally received their orders to recross the Rubicon that is catapulting his army’s missiles over Ukraine’s sovereign border, the United Kingdom’s very own ‘Ministry of Defence LGBT+ Network’ Twitter account, in stark contrast, found the time to post (in a now-deleted tweet) about their #lgbthistorymonth “coffee morning” where much was to be discussed about every lesbionic, gay, bisexual, transgender or ‘+’ type book available at all worthy bookstores.
Whilst it may be impossible to ever know for sure, perhaps in this instance the ‘+’ was representative of all those many thousands of ‘asexual’ and ‘pansexual’ British soldiers who I’m sure do exist to serve their country with unmatched levels of pride.
Whilst this may well be true, and good luck to them, might I ask the obvious question: How did the Ministry of Defence have time for any of this? Now? On the brink of war?
This too a question relevant for the country’s Secret Intelligence Service — employers of the MI5 and MI6 James Bond types no less — who just one day previously as Russian tanks shook the foundations of Ukrainian hearts across the land, revealed a new document entitled “Mission Critical”, whereby British spies were being asked to consider their ‘white privilege’ and use of ‘pronouns’ in an all-out war (one they appear to be more active in) to improve ‘diversity’ and ‘inclusion’.
Not satire, but modern-day British life.
But at what cost might we — not only as national citizens, but national citizens in the context of global geopolitics — have to pay as a result of our own armed forces, intelligence agencies, or general street policing, all of whom [should] hold the fundamental remit of protecting our national security and preserving our safety if their incessant desire to promote or reward politically-correct directives becomes so crucial to their overall existence that it puts human life at risk?
This is no exaggeration. Make no mistake: Putin made his move now, not only because he is a calculated madman of former-Soviet KGB class, but because he knows the West is weak, but even more importantly than that, he knows that the only world superpower (and world army) that has any real influence to stop his grand expansionist plans — the United States — is the weakest its ever been, thanks, in part, to the same politically-correct contagion; alternatively, President Xi Jinping’s communist China, the planet’s soon-to-be unequalled world superpower, instead, sides with the fellow nuclear-stockpiled rabid Russian bear. The west never looked so small.
America’s perceived weakness will come as no surprise to the millions who live there, whose ‘approval’ of their Commander-in-Chief has steadily declined, alongside his cognitive function, since he took his seat in the Oval Office just last year. Contrast that with a recent US poll which found ‘62 per cent’ of Americans siding with the idea that a Russian invasion simply would not have taken place under the stewardship of one Donald J. Trump.
On that basis, we would do well to remember that such a weakness does have drastic real-world consequences, so much so, that many innocent lives will now be lost as a direct result of the west’s loss of strength, not just economically, but ideologically.
Alluding to this fact whilst speaking on home soil in October 2021, Putin addressed this exact issue at the 18th annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club — a Moscow-based ‘think tank’ — where the topic of the moment was “Global Shake-up in the 21st Century”. In the first part of his speech he said,
“We see with bemusement the paralysis unfolding in countries that have grown accustomed to viewing themselves as the flagships of progress. Of course, it’s none of our business or what is happening, the social and cultural shocks that are happening in some countries in the Western countries, some believe that aggressive blotting out of whole pages of your own history, the affirmative action in the interest of minorities, and the requirement to renounce the traditional interpretation of such basic values as mother, father, family, and the distinction between sexes are a milestone … a renewal of society.”
Now, it is important to absorb these words in context; it is certainly true that Russia is no benchmark of ‘progress’, and when one considers the past and present pain and suffering Putin has inflicted upon his own, and other people, it can doubtless be hard for many of us in the west to stomach anything he has to say, let alone when his words can take on the form of moral lecture.
But that doesn’t mean they still can’t ring true to us.
Ironically, it is precisely the ‘mob’ reaction one is often on the receiving end of by saying such a thing that may illustrate his point to perfection.
After all, how can we, as so-called ‘free western democracies’ be the arbiters of ‘progress’ ourselves when the playbook for that ‘progress’ in the west, today, right now, is to censor, cancel, castigate — or even destroy — anyone who dare say something even remotely ‘offensive’, not even that, in fact, but anyone who simply shares an alternative viewpoint or agrees with something slightly controversial?
For years now, through much leftist infiltration of academia and the political classes, the United Kingdom, United States, and many of its Commonwealth and European partners, have reached the determination — without any public consultation whatsoever — that some things we once knew as undeniable truths were fair game not only to be ‘blotted out’, or rewritten, but to be castrated completely, which, in regard to the ‘gender debate’, specifically, is now a very real outcome.
So it has been, then, that one must still endure, as recently as last week, the utter absurdity of a former male athlete, William (now Lia) Thomas, competing in US women’s Ivy League swimming competitions only to win and break numerous records in the process. No, in the west, today, women don’t even get their own sports. That’s progress.
And so it is: From Greta Thunberg’s ‘climate catastrophe’ rhetoric torturing the young minds of children everywhere, to our own police forces and sports stars kneeling at the feet of self-proclaimed ‘Marxist’ organisations like the $60 million-strong Black Lives Matter, a group who strive to “disrupt the Western-prescribed nuclear family structure”. Call me crazy, but that almost sounds like a renunciation of the ‘traditional interpretation of such basic values as mother, father, family’.
The point is, we have, and are, wasting so much time (when others aren’t) celebrating and giving oxygen to such abject and superficial nonsense, that we have lost sight of our substance: what, and who, really matters, but also who we are and what our values are. So invested are we, and so wrapped up in social media-driven ‘social justice’ hokum as many of our infantile political class are, that we no longer have any standing — or respect — at home or on the world stage.
It’s why, in reaction to Ukraine coming under heavy bombardment from Russian artillery, the only political strategy our western ‘leaders’ ever seem to have is to implement an array of meaningless financial sanctions which will eventually cost the taxpayer, accepting the inevitable thousands of refugees (costing them even more), all whilst simultaneously posting upon their social media accounts imagery that assumes ‘standing in solidarity’ with, in this case, the heavily bombarded Ukraine.
London shines bright tonight in solidarity with our friends in Ukraine.
— Sadiq Khan (@SadiqKhan) February 25, 2022
We stand shoulder to shoulder with Ukrainians here in London and all over the world. You are not alone. #StandWithUkraine ?? pic.twitter.com/7qhQI9aD7o
Because if projecting the colours of the Ukrainian flag onto 10 Downing Street and London’s tallest ferris wheel won’t stop the psychopathic tendencies of Vladimir Putin, I’m not entirely sure what will? Nope. Not even a hashtag. I’m convinced the ever-desperate Ukrainian President, Volodymr Zelensky, who declared his country had been ‘left alone’ by western allies to hold off Russia by themselves was truly grateful amidst the firefight for the capital’s fabulous festival of light.
Incredibly, we do this with terrorism, too; platitude after platitude after platitude, of whom Sadiq Khan is a prime example. Failing that, let’s hear from a cabal of Hollywood celebrities on a Zoom call to sing “Kum ba yah” to show us all how much they ‘care’. If it wasn’t so weak, it would be laughable, but still we acknowledge it, pat ourselves on the back, shrug, and then move on. Right until the next terror attack inevitably causes total carnage on our very own streets so we can do it all again.
This time, once more, it’s Putin’s turn to attack, and after that, President Xi of China, whose eyes must surely be on gobbling up Taiwan once and for all after making notes on how feeble the western frontier has now become.
Ultimately, until the west grows up again, finds its backbone, and wakes up to the fact that ‘woke’ is simply a synonym for ‘weak’, I’m afraid war, internationally and domestically, may well become the rocket-laden trajectory for a generation.
As Great Britons, though we have given up the notion of Empire and needlessly flagellated ourselves countless hours for it, our enemies have not. It’s high time we took such a threat more seriously and relinquished the victim-grift psyche for good.
Or God help western civilisation.