F**k War

In my never-ending journey for truth and justice, I have made many mistakes along the way. I have always been highly critical of authoritarianism and have vowed to bring attention to anti-democratic behaviour in any form. True freedom is the highest value that I hold for myself and I believe every human on this planet is also deserving of it. From raising awareness to the recent fall of "democracy" in Hong Kong, to exposing Russian President Vladmir Putin's corrupt activities, to blaming Donald Trump's 2016 election win on Russian interference, I felt like I was following my personal values by sharing these stories. I was wrong.

Another one of my personal values is continuous improvement. This value is important to me not just because I had a chaotic upbringing that failed to teach me the essential skills to handle everything life throws at you as an adult. Continuous improvement is important to me because I have a yearning desire to make sense of myself and of everything around me, to be the best person I can be, and to avoid making the same mistakes over and over and over again.

Continuous improvements takes a lot of work, however, and it is a lot easier for one to pretend they are perfect and instead point out the flaws in others. The often instinctual desire to distract from one's own flaws is a useful coping mechanism to keep someone from falling into a pit of despair and self-loathing. This is not a sustainable way to live, however, and we end up being worse off in the long run if we don't change our own habits and better ourselves. Besides, we have more control of our own lives than of others'. It turns out that this way of thinking critically can also be applied to global politics and socioeconomic issues.

I have learned that my values align quite well with that of humanism, and as a humanist, I consider all humans equally deserving of meaning and compassion. At the same time, I felt like I had this natural tie to my country and have considered myself a Canadian patriot most of my life. Being a humanist contradicts being a patriot in a lot of ways, however. Being lucky enough to be born in Canada doesn't some how make me more superior than someone born in Russia, China, or Madagascar. If I were to live my values, I must look at my own country the same way as I look at others.

So what does this have to do with war? Well, unless you have been living under a rock, you have likely heard that Ukraine is on the precipice of war with Russia. Time will tell what involvement Canada will have in any conflict that happens, but I want to remind everyone about one thing (as I tend to do on this blog): always be highly-skeptical of what you read in traditional, corporate news sources. These corporations have a responsibility to their shareholders to increase profits and part of that is paying fealty to their advertisers. The media have no incentive to provide us with the actual truth. They are hardwired to get clicks and hold our attention, while pushing the views of their shareholders and advertisers, which include everything from drug companies, to fossil fuel companies, to defence contractors.

There's a reason why every media outlet from the New York Times to CNN to Fox News pushed the lies that resulted in America invading Iraq despite that country having absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. The media is also partly to blame for the failed war in Afghanistan that my country was involved in by not asking the right questions like "what the f**k are we actually doing here?".

After trillions of dollars spent and hundreds of thousands of lives lost, both Iraq and Afghanistan are much worse off. At the same time, there are many individuals and corporations who are now better off after profiting from those wars. Defence contractors, weapons manufacturers, fossil fuel companies, mining companies, and "country re-builders" made out like bandits. Unfortunately for them, there are no major conflicts to profit from right now except from proxy wars like Saudi Arabia's illegal war against Yemen and Israel's apartheid against Palestinians.

It is no coincidence that only six months after withdrawing from Afghanistan, the American military is now sabre-rattling and warning us about Russia in Ukraine. Vladmir Putin oversees a failed petrostate that has a smaller economy than California or Canada, yet for some reason we are supposed to be concerned about a possible local conflict on the other side of the planet. Don't be fooled into thinking this is not a distraction on both America's and Russia's part from their own failures at home, with the added benefit of ratcheting up the military industrial complex.

America is on the edge itself and is about to lose its own democracy thanks to decades of corruption and rapidly rising inequality. It hasn't been more clear how much of a kleptocracy America has become when you look at their response to the pandemic, which benefited the wealthy the most and even with a Democratic president. Even during a global health crises, talks of universal healthcare are all but dead in America at the moment. Talks of war, however, is not dead, and it is yet to be seen how China factors into this.

So, no matter what happens, and whether it is about the conflict in Ukraine or any subject, always seek independent news sources from all sides. We have been lied to before, and the media will keep lying to us as long as there is money to made from doing so. We need to stop supporting and fighting wars in foreign nations and start ending our own wars at home. The war against drugs. The war against poverty. The war against workers. The money is there to solve these problems. All it takes is an empathetic society based on compassion and meaning, not conflict and greed. When we can accomplish that, we can then help the rest of the world.