Sometimes you get behind a car that doesn’t know what it wants to do, and it becomes Worth It to get out from behind them no matter the cost.
In those situations, I chant this little poem.
Which-Ev-er
way you
Ain’t
Meaning, as soon as you even start to get out of my path, dude or lady, I’m turning whatever way you are not, thereby ending this blockage and my own frustration with it.
Or, in political terms:
The collapse of the Soviet Union upset the equilibrium of the geopolitical forces. The West felt as a winner and declared a unipolar world arrangement, in which only its will, culture and interests had the right to exist.
Now this historical period of boundless Western domination in world affairs is coming to an end. The unipolar world is being relegated into the past. We are at a historical crossroads. We are in for probably the most dangerous, unpredictable and at the same time most important decade since the end of World War II. The West is unable to rule humanity single-handedly and the majority of nations no longer want to put up with this. This is the main contradiction of the new era. To cite a classic, this is a revolutionary situation to some extent – the elites cannot and the people do not want to live like that any longer. (emphasis added)
This state of affairs is fraught with global conflicts or a whole chain of conflicts, which poses a threat to humanity, including the West itself. Today’s main historical task is to resolve this contradiction in a way that is constructive and positive.
The change of eras is a painful albeit natural and inevitable process. A future world arrangement is taking shape before our eyes. In this world arrangement, we must listen to everyone, consider every opinion, every nation, society, culture and every system of world outlooks, ideas and religious concepts, without imposing a single truth on anyone. Only on this foundation, understanding our responsibility for the destinies of nations and our planet, shall we create a symphony of human civilisation.
At this point, I would like to finish my remarks with expressing gratitude for the patience that you displayed while listening to them.
So you already know that I’m going to disagree with some of that. “Human civilisation” does not lend itself to symphony in my book, for one thing. But for the most part, the overall tone of the analysis is just a far milder and more rational version of my own critique of ‘the West’.
I look at the path my own culture is headed down and I routinely think: “Whichever way you, Joe and Nancy and Kanye and Don and Alexandria and Ilhan and Elon, whichever way you ain’t”. There’s got to be a better way. Even if it doesn’t save us in the end, even if it’s just a better way in the meantime.
I listen to this speech, the end of it as quoted, and I think, yeah, maybe that does sound better. Even if it is coming off the lips of a guy named Vladimir that I’m supposed to be morally obligated by my own patriotic duty … to hate, and vilify.
Sorry for the shell game; sorry if this makes me into a Putiepuppet. I just thought it should be heard, and you’re sure not going to hear anything like it on CNN or MSDNC.
Or any real foreign corresponding like this, either: