{"id":17531,"date":"2022-03-09T00:56:02","date_gmt":"2022-03-09T00:56:02","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/?p=17531"},"modified":"2022-03-12T05:39:13","modified_gmt":"2022-03-12T05:39:13","slug":"when-one-evil-trumps-another","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/09\/when-one-evil-trumps-another\/","title":{"rendered":"When One Evil Trumps Another"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Eric Valentine<\/em><\/p>\n

When choosing the lesser of two evils, keep in mind you are still choosing evil.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s time for our five-year sociopolitical self-check\u2014the colonoscopy of how you vote, why you vote that way and, more importantly, why the heck you let others see or know anything about that intentionally secret process. It gets messy in there!<\/p>\n

The litmus test for this political science issue this year is the Russia-Ukraine War, brought to you for free by every news organization on the planet, including Wood River Weekly. It pits judo master and bareback, bare-chest equestrian Vladmir Putin against Hunter Biden \u2026 wait, no \u2026 some politician whose name we can\u2019t pronounce \u2026 I mean \u2026 some Ukrainian actor-comedian turned politician. Wait, aren\u2019t all politicians actor-comedians in a way?\u00a0 \u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

So I contact my dear friend Anna Y, whose family defected from the Soviet Union when she was 14. She grew up in the Ukraine, but not speaking Ukrainian. She spoke Russian. I asked her whose team she\u2019s on now. Her answer? \u201cEric, I\u2019m first and last a Jew.\u201d<\/p>\n

OK, so back to political science \u2026<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, as I satire, Ukrainians are quickly dying\u2014or becoming Russian slowly\u2014and Russians are gearing up for 15 years in prison thanks to having a conscience and protesting this unnecessary, immoral war. I can say that this war is unnecessary and immoral because all wars are unnecessary and immoral. Yep, you read me right, but don\u2019t be upset with me; it\u2019s not my or a new idea.<\/p>\n

So, whose side you take in this Super Blow Up depends on the narrative you follow. But all narratives \u201cbeg the question\u201d\u2014that means they assume something that isn\u2019t necessarily true, or even relevant, yet develop an argument or line of reasoning that relies on that assumption to work. It\u2019s like a polyp\u2014something extra that isn\u2019t dangerous, unless it turns into cancer of course.<\/p>\n

Putin\u2019s narrative is a Cold War plotline\u2014one that recalls the millions of Russian lives lost thanks to Nazi incursion. And, it\u2019s a territorial timeline that understands Russia as an ever-expanding, ever-contracting geography protecting Western civilization from Mongol invasion, Muslim terrorism, and Western civilization itself.<\/p>\n

For Volodymyr Zelenskyy (I promise that\u2019s how you spell the name), the narrative is a cultural one wherein he plays far more than the starring role. Like a tinier Hugh Jackman, he did the same sort of rom-com stuff. And like a more-Baltic Tyler Perry, he was the media mogul who actually ran the show. Zelenskyy is not Ronald Reagan the B-movie actor, he is Ronald Reagan the 40th President of the United States\u2014part puppet perhaps, part patriot too. <\/span><\/p>\n

To the Russian military, Zelenskyy said, \u201cAnd when you will be attacking us, you will see our faces, not our backs.\u201d To the Russian people he talked about a region in Russia he is accused of wanting to bomb. He asked what should he bomb, the parks where he grew up, the pubs where he spoke Russian?<\/p>\n

And therein lies the rub, an \u201cirony curtain\u201d if you will. Zelenskyy, a Jew whose grandfather lost a father and three siblings in the Holocaust, is like Anna Y, both a product of being Russian and not being Russian.<\/p>\n

So, although my Facebook profile won\u2019t be flying the blue and gold flag of Ukraine\u2014the country that according to Transparency International\u2019s Corruption Perceptions Index ranked 122nd out of 180 countries in 2021, the second most corrupt in Europe, ahead of Russia\u2014I do condemn Russian aggression and offer one idea for sanctions: For all people publicly praising the Ukrainian resistance and the heroics of Ukraine\u2019s president to go to the voting booths of 2022 through 2024 and remember two things:<\/p>\n

    \n
  1. Ukraine is the country Donald Trump threatened to withhold military funding from unless it could produce corruption information about Hunter Biden.<\/li>\n
  2. President Zelenskyy is the Ukrainian leader whom Trump threatened to produce that information\u2014information that has still never emerged.<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n

    Finally, a pandemic we can all agree upon: one that mandates we take a mask off, even if we have a red cap on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

    By Eric Valentine When choosing the lesser of two evils, keep in mind you are still choosing evil. It\u2019s time for our five-year sociopolitical self-check\u2014the colonoscopy of how you vote, why you vote that way and, more importantly, why the heck you let others see or know anything about that intentionally secret process. It gets […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":17532,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"tdm_status":"","tdm_grid_status":"","_pvb_checkbox_block_on_post":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-17531","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-commentary"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17531"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":17596,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17531\/revisions\/17596"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17532"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17531"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17531"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/woodriverweekly.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17531"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}