The Triumph of Death. What ever happened to: “If it saves one life”?

Those who supported the most stringent Covid measures are now among the most ardent advocates of conflict with Russia and China. Coincidence, or two sides of the same coin?

Bruegel’s painting “The Triumph of Death” (circa 1562)

War and militarism are all the rage today, and we accept this as the new normal. Where are the much vaunted European and North American peace movements? Has anyone seen them?

Our military and political ruling class is addicted to death, destruction and profits. Indeed, the three go hand-in-hand. Each day brings more news of taxpayer money squandered on war and weapons for Ukraine and other U.S. allies across the globe. Our paranoid government and media tell us that ‘autocratic’ enemies plot the destruction of our ‘democracy’. Therefore, we must respond vigorously.

The West does everything possible to prevent peace between Moscow and Kiev. The U.S. actively helps Kiev to plot and organize terrorist attacks against Russia that achieve nothing but to further poison the two Slavic neighbors against each other.

In Ukraine, hundreds of thousands of youth have died fighting and many more will die. Cemeteries overflow with the dead; about 75% of Ukrainians know someone killed or injured. Even before the war, Ukraine faced one of the world’s most dire demographic crises, its population rapidly shrinking. If this continues, large swathes of Ukraine will soon be depopulated. I suspect this is the goal of our ruling class.

As if the tragedy of Ukraine wasn’t enough, France and the U.S. now scheme to push West Africa into a major regional war in the wake of the popular uprising in Niger that seeks to liberate the country from French political and financial domination.

Meanwhile, in Asia, we’re told to be ready to fight China over Taiwan, even though our government has long officially recognized the island as part of China. The last time we fought China — the Korean War — things went bad for us very quickly.

They died for NATO expansion: a pointless death

Stop for a minute. Have you forgotten how things were just two years ago?

Throughout the Covid years (March 2020 to February 2022), in order to justify numerous social restrictions, western governments and media vigorously promoted the mantra — “if it saves just one life”. The overarching idea was that the masses should accept loss of freedoms for the benefit of the greater good, because the repressive measures can theoretically “save one life”.

Sadly, many in the West fell for this cheap deception and accepted a totalitarian system that has almost eliminated fundamental liberties and human rights. A precedent has been set and can’t be undone. Governments can now take away our liberties at any moment, simply by citing a ‘national health threat’.

In February 2022, however, when the long-smoldering conflict in Donbass exploded, the “if it saves one life” principle was quickly discarded by our ruling class and replaced by a call for a crusade against “autocratic Russia, no matter the cost”. The goal is to help the nationalist regime in Kiev to reconquer some of Eastern Europe’s most remote and forgotten regions — separatist regions populated by ethnic Russians that were once part of Ukraine, but which seek the protection of Mother Russia.

Ukraine is now a land of sorrow and grief

The start of this new stage in the Ukrainian war in February 2022 caught me off guard. In early 2022, I mistakenly thought that the global Covid crisis had buried geopolitical confrontation for years to come. With Covid, all countries seemed to be in the same boat and the only hint of geopolitical conflict was over which country’s experimental ‘Covid vaccine’ would be sold globally to the unsuspecting masses.

But here we are, August 2023, and the West is still calling to defeat Russia, recklessly risking a nuclear war that could kill billions of people, not to mention openly supporting Kiev’s plans for ethnic cleansing in the Donbass and Crimea regions.

No Western leader dares to call for peace by speaking the words — “If it saves just one life”. The Western ruling class and its media machine tell us that “stopping Putin at any cost” is the main task before our generation. In order to defend the fallacious principle of Ukraine’s “territorial integrity”, the West will gladly send millions of people to their deaths.

In the U.S., ‘We The People’ are only useful as hapless members of the audience in this ‘theater of the absurd’. At any moment, without warning, the ‘stage director’ (our ruling class) can change the script. Our role, as members of the audience, is merely to watch and then applaud profusely. This is necessary in order to give a veneer of ‘democratic’ legitimacy to the whims and intrigues of our iron-fisted rulers.

However, we need to face the facts, and I know it’s not easy. But there comes a point in one’s life where you realize that we’re no longer merely facing bad government policy, corrupt bureaucrats and incompetent generals. The West has long moved beyond that point. We’re now up against sinister and deliberate forces

While there’s no swastika and no goose-stepping parades, all the prerequisites for National Socialism are in place. A formidable state machinery and military have fused with our nation’s financial, industrial and technological might, which in turn is radicalized by a messianic ideology that expands across the globe to build a new world order. And, as in the past, Russia stands ‘in the way’ of Western imperial plans.

Average Russians are now aware of this. If in spring 2022 ambiguity and confusion were common among many Russians, today the nation is more focused and determined. Russians are standing their ground and won’t buckle. They understand that the survival of millions of ethnic Russians in Donbass and Crimea is at stake; as well as the very survival of their entire country.

The West is playing with fire. Our initial plan to collapse Russia within months through economic sanctions has only boomeranged. Russia is stronger than ever before. Nearly 18 months of war against Russia have only served to awaken the sleeping giant and stirred up a hornet’s nest.

Our ruling class has backed itself into a corner, crossing the Rubicon with its decision to destroy Russia, finding it nearly impossible to backtrack. Making peace now with Russia would mean losing face and be seen as weakness, which could lead to the collapse of the Western liberal regimes that rule through coercion and fear.

But perhaps there is a way out.

Our ruling class can save itself from defeat and disgrace by recalling its own Covid-era propaganda slogan — “if it saves just one life”. It could provide the ‘cover’ that our ruling class needs in order to ‘graciously’ back away from the brink of doom and defeat without losing face.

Stop the war. Make peace with Russia. Before it’s too late.