500 Days of War & 500 days of A Cost of Living Crisis & No End In Sight.
Someone at NATO counted to 500 last week. I don't know if they counted to 500 with a blindfold on as if it was a game of hide and go seek or with their head on their desk like a primary student playing 7 UP at recess because of inclement weather outside.
However, it was done; they counted to 500 days from February 24, 2022, and wrote a press release about it as if it were a significant milestone in war.
Count 500 days in any war, ancient or modern, and nothing rings a bell. The 500th day is no more a turning point in a military conflict than the 450th or 600th. It is a day among so many that are long, bloody, brutal and ultimately pointless to those involved in the butcher's task of killing.
500 days is important for the war in Ukraine only because NATO has a summit meeting in Lithuania this week. Billions, on top of the billions already given in military aid are on offer to Ukraine's leadership during this conference. People at home have begun to tally the bill for this war and they resent the cost to them. It's natural because interest rates are up, inflation still hurtful and wages don't cover the spread. It's a worrying time and there is an entire litany of pressing costs to living: mortgage payments, rent, transportation, or the sticker price of peanut butter and other essentials that make one feel they are purchasing luxury goods rather than day to day staples. So if there is a big picture to all of this war in Ukraine people aren't seeing it anymore. That is why the generals, the politicians and the news media who because they come from an entitled class don't worry about our mundane concerns about the price of eating, housing, and clothing ourselves try to keep keep us on side in this battle for "democracy" by holding these NATO summits.
So at the summit, there will be "pretend" talk of letting Ukraine into the alliance, which won't happen. The US doesn't want a nuclear conflict with Russia as they prepare for the real war with China. But Sweden is being allowed to join and we will clap for that despite the cost of their entry being more human rights violations from Turkey against their Kurdish population. It will also be a time to legitimise- the use of banned munitions, like "cluster bombs, to fight "evil."
In 500 days, this war has cost the USA more than Afghanistan, while Canada hasn't invested this much in a war- since WW2.
The cost keeps growing for us, for them and for Ukraine and Russia's younger generation. So many young people's lives have been lost, and the majority of dead come from the poorer classes because that's how wars are fought. After all, kids from more prosperous neighbourhoods have much more to expect in life than kids from the wrong side of the tracks.
If that weren't true, journalists would report on universities empty because all the middle-class students had gone to fight on the front lines. However, by all accounts, the cafes and clubs of Kyiv and Lviv are full of young people with cash to spend- and they all can't be on leave.
How this ends, I don't know. Maybe it will be worth it for the soldiers in the trenches, or fighting in the counter-offensive, who are in their teens and twenties, scared shitless and compelled to do the unthinkable because the unthinkable is being done to them, if they survive it.
I do know because I am 59 and have never been scratched by war that I won't encourage young people to join any war. I don't have the moral authority to do so. It's a form of grooming when those who have lived long encourage other's to live shorter terms of existence for concepts of freedom and democracy that were put too many times through the wash of hypocrisy that their colours have all faded.
If World War Two was fought by politicians cut from the cloth of neoliberalism like today's leaders. There would have been no GI Bill, Welfare State, massive growth in the middle class, no NHS, no Marshall Plan, and no affordable housing.
Neoliberalism's history of exploitation, corruption, and love affair with corporate oligopolies indicates that should the war be won by us in Ukraine, economic fairness and legitimate democratic self-determination won't be achieved because it is not part of the game plan.
That is not to say we should desire a Putin victory because his Russia or Xi's China aren't nations that encourage compassion. They are totalitarian, whereas ours aren't as hopeless yet.
But time is running out for our societies. The climate crisis is so catastrophic the world saw its hottest July, last week in recorded meteorological history. The cost of living crisis is intense for many. Almost 50% of the population in countries like Canada, Britain, and the USA are worried they won't be able to afford their future. And they are getting angry because they see a disconnect between how they live and how their politicians or news media personalities live. You can't convince people that democracy is working when it doesn't include the right to be free of want and the right to affordable housing and public healthcare.
In 500 days from now, the war in Ukraine may be over. But what won't be over is the growing economic chasm in neoliberal nations between the minority with a well-funded life and the rest of us, without it. That is a battlefield which is going to rip apart the world because we are at the tipping point.
As always, thank you for reading my sub stack posts Your subscriptions to Harry’s Last Stand keep the legacy of Harry Leslie Smith alive and me housed which is always a struggle during this cost of living crisis era. So if you can join with a paid subscription which is just 3.50 a month or a yearly subscription or a gift subscription. I promise the content is good, relevant and thoughtful. Take Care, John
