Now, I live in the most beautiful place in the world. For me.

With that said, I’m slamming gears and going political on you. Stop reading now if you want to stay sane.

Today in an obligatory text thread, someone posted, more or less verbatim: ‘Yay! Ukraine put in an application with NATO! Stupid Putin!’ …

Shooting from the hip, I responded somewhat foolishly. Then I listened to actual smart people discussing the topic, and here is what I should have said.

Ukraine can apply to NATO (meaning going from quiet diplomatic begging to open desperate begging) all it likes.

It ain’t happening, in any rational world.

NATO is a military alliance, in which an attack on one is an attack on all.

So, naturally, even if every single current NATO member voted to let Ukraine in (an extremely unlikely thing all by itself), that would mean they were all willing to go from a cold war to a proxy war to a real live shooting war with Russia.

When you cheer for such a thing, you are cheering for World War III, with nukes this time.

That’s not hyperbole.

But before you go from nanner-nannering Vlad to ducking and covering, take heart.

We already know that the power behind NATO, our own dear Murican Empire, doesn’t want to go that far.

Early in the conflict, Ukraine was pleading in public for a no-fly zone.

President Joe said no. Why?

For the exact same reason as above. If you declare a no-fly zone, you have to enforce it. Which means shooting down Russian jets. Which leads you right back to the apocalypse.

Why does the Joe B. faction not want that?

It’s simple. A real war means killing the golden money-laundering goose.

These people don’t give a shit about Ukraine.

They want a place to dump money in a circular loop that leads back to corporate elites, including but not limited to arms manufacturers, all in the name of Liberty and Freedom!

Iraq and Afghanistan are over. The Machine needs a new vector for its financially masturbatory way of playing parasite to the world and indulging itself in a kinder, gentler colonial imperialism.

Ukraine is that vector, and all the one-sided tearjerker bullshit peddled in the mainstream press is just a sideshow to all that.

They don’t care about Ukrainian Babushkas. They don’t care about you. They don’t care about me. They care about winning their bloody little game and piling up cash in obscene amounts year upon year.

If you can look that basic fact in the face and still go on waving your little yellowBlue flag, I don’t even know what to say to you.

Except that running around calling people stupid, in this context, is going to result in some awkward moments, at the least.