in which horsemouth awakes with a headache following the previous night's political discussions

horsemouth awoke this morning with a headache following last night's political discussions. 

horsemouth has tended to avoid cheerleading the ukrainian war as he thinks (that like the war in syria) it cannot be won and can only get people killed and driven into exile. people have the right of self-defence but you have to be honest with people about what their chances are. wars (in horsemouth's humble opinion)  are workers killing workers in pursuit of the aims of their ruling classes - he can't tell you if he's following luxemburg or engels here (or indeed the international communist current when they were about). 

his position is not based on a love of putin or zelensky or a love of residual 'formerly communist' states. what putin is doing is monstrous (but is it any more monstrous than grozny and chechnya? - about which we were not encouraged to care). is it more monstrous than what the US did in fallujah?  

the thing that sparked it off was a ukrainian punk band (beton) doing a cover of the clash's  london calling as kyiv calling. now this is truly excellent PR destined to get old punk rockers firmly on your side. it's a genius move. 

but then a photo emerges of the band wearing stepan bandera t-shirts (in the style of the ramones) and the problems begin.

clearly honouring bandera who as leader of the OUN who was complicit in the nazi extermination of jews, and who encouraged his followers to join the fascist police who then used those same tactics to pogrom poles out of the ukraine, clearly this is out of order.

and yet it is a clear factor in ukranian politics - people wish to see bandera as a strong nationalist leader and ignore the more difficult parts of his record. 

the band may yet pull it back out of the fire, issue a statement  and everyone can go back to being enthusiastic about the carnage.

horsemouth thinks the difference in the treatment of refugees from the different conflicts (these conflicts largely encouraged by the west as part of its vision of the end of history and its replacement by liberal democracy everywhere and forever) is stark in its racism. but it also reveals the investment the west has in this particular war that it did not have in libya, syria, afghanistan or even yugoslavia. you will find footage of german people welcoming syrians similar to the footage of them welcoming ukrainians but you won't see footage of turkish naval vessels returning syrian refugees to turkey and preventing them from leaving to europe at the behest of the EU paid for by the germans. 

but the welcoming people into out homes thing (again more great PR) horsemouth suspects this has another cause also - he suspects that, unless you are going to seize the mansions of the rich and the empty developments (the sort of means horsemouth would argue for), there just isn't the housing to house refugees in. this is why afghan refugees (and the survivors of the grenfell fire) have spent months in hotels. 

state after state has been encouraged down the road of democracy only to be sold out and left as a basket case and with its people driven into exile. if horsemouth has a prediction for ukraine it is this.

but let's say ukraine wins. and putin withdraws (to the pre-2022 borders) and ukraine gets into NATO and the EU - where will it be? in the EU in the same position as poland, hungary, rumania, albania, lithuania, greece, portugal a source of cheap labour for france, germany and italy etc.  but you see even this is a step up on where it is now. in NATO it will be on the frontline of the new cold war with russia. 

anyway horsemouth is glad to have got his thoughts on the situation clearer. 

horsemouth has been proceeding with reading robert shearman's tiny deaths but there's not been a conceit as good as the one of getting a letter telling you when you were going to die yet. 

yesterday a wander round the marshes (even up as far as walthamstow) and back round via the industrial estate with TG

today. bouncing the house forward (in line with the spring cleaning). 

on the subject of covid it all seems to be going the same way - cases, hospitalisations, deaths all seems to be up 25% from last week. horsemouth is uncertain as to what this makes the doubling time. and there is still easter to come.