what kind of whataboutery is this?

'what, we don't have enough love in our hearts for two wars?' - det. james 'jimmy' mcnulty, the wire. 

the one where horsemouth is being useful. 

go on then. tell us that one. 

so last night horsemouth child-minded. and better than that he child-minded for the cause (he may even have donated his fee). he ate some chips too (while encouraging his charge to tuck into the associated fish on he basis that it was good for their brains). 

what is the cause? 

the cause is the defence of a smaller, pluckier country against a larger, more-likely-to-win-in-the-end country. so a benefit gig for iraq, iran, afghanistan, yemen  or north korea, then horsemouth?  no horsemouth, everyone knows these are bad people. the kind of people who can be sanctioned no problem and left to starve and their kids to die and who will thank us for it later because it will lead to democracy (the greatest of all possible goods) eventually. what kind of whataboutery is this? 

indeed. what kind of whataboutery is this? 

is it the one where we ask what about (   ) and bring in some other case as if arguing they were in some way similar or comparable and belonged to the same world? the one where we disrupt the silo-isation of our thinking (and perhaps, if we are lucky, observer a broader principle in the wild)?

of course horsemouth hates it when other people do this. he calls it shovelling things on the table. horsemouth is cursed in that he is very soon clear about what he thinks the issues are and he is clear when something needs to be done and he just wants to get on and do it... 

so is it the one where smart people must raise every possible objection that can be made, shovel them up onto the table and (as if accidentally) swirl them about a bit in order to prevent a decision being made and things being done? 

horsemouth is thinking here of arguments like the poor are poor because of a culture of poverty and that is why children go to bed hungry and cold in one of the richest countries in the world. of course it may not be enough to labour in the foodbanks and housing co-operatives, a wider critique of where poverty and political instability comes from may be called for. 

horsemouth has left syria off his list (of countries whose plight may not be compared to ukraine - oops there he said it). er. palestine too (for god's sake horsemouth, you're not one of those nutters who goes on and on about palestine are you?).

does horsemouth thinks that ukraine attracts particular attention because its citizens are white (blond haired and blue eyed) where syria and yemen do not (because their citizens are brown with dark hair and with dark eyes)?

well yes he does. but it's not just that. he also thinks a giant game of chess is being played around the world. (here he is indebted to the people  who loudly proclaim that he should not be thinking about plucky ukraine like this. thank you dudes you have helped to clarify his thinking). 

the campaign for ukraine is being conducted most efficiently, almost as if the west had something to gain out of ukrainian victory (other than the spreading of democratic principle).

of course these games of chess do not have to be won. they can be abandoned in stalemate at any time. peace (that continuation of war by other means) will be achieved and the country (thus depleted by war) can then be profitably reconstructed. horsemouth is not arguing here for some disaster capitalism  conspiracy theory masterminded by gary oldman with a bad southern accent, merely that his pattern of basket casing developing states seems to happen rather a lot and we should understand why it happens. we don't need an actual evil gary oldman to achieve this folks - we just need to carry on doing what we are doing. 

horsemouth gets why people want to focus on helping the ukrainians or the courage of the ukrainian people. he just thinks that the bigger goal of the west is probably to collapse russia. but if that doesn't happen there will be spoils to be picked from out of the bones of ukraine. 

of course the danger is that we actually have a war in actual europe instead of having war in ukraine (pretend europe). horsemouth does not think the west has the stomach for this (in fact he doesn't think the west has the stomach for a war in the ukraine at all but it will gladly let the ukrainians fight and die in it on their behalf).

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horsemouth has to say that the weather yesterday was beautiful. it almost cheered him up. 

the being useful cheered him up.

today grey shit weather.