Why waste time on Ukraine war? Focus on your own future instead

By David McElroy · February 24, 2022

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq and Afghanistan, I eagerly watched every move. The airstrikes and explosions were exciting. The constant updates on progress were addictive. For the first time in history, a person on the other side of the world could sit at home and watch people being killed on live television.

I can’t tell you now why I watched. There was nothing I could do about what was going on. The information was useless to me. Even if something I saw changed my mind about anything, what was I going to do about it?

I’m thinking about that today as Russian troops invade Ukraine. I’m not watching, but almost everybody I know is glued to the coverage of this bloody and outrageous invasion. Why are they watching? Because they’ve been brainwashed to believe responsible people “stay informed.”

The truth is that wars have become entertainment. All “news” is now entertainment and political theater. I’ve learned not to waste my time and attention on things I can’t control — and I hope you will learn this lesson which it took me way too long to learn.

I’m not minimizing the significance of what’s happening right now in Ukraine. This is an outrageous and immoral invasion. On an emotional level, I desperately wish someone would strike back against the Russian bear and defend the Ukrainians. I would love to see Vladimir Putin humiliated and stripped of power.

What Putin is doing is very similar to what Adolph Hitler did at the start of World War II. Hitler had German troops seize more and more territory around Germany, quite confident that nobody would stop him. He took the Sudetenland, then all of Czechoslovakia. Then it was Austria. Then Poland.

Hitler’s propaganda explained at each step why he was right to do what he did. He explained his aggression to the German people and they mostly believed his lies.

In 2014, Putin likewise stole the Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea, and he paid no price for it. Today, he is just taking his aggression to its logical conclusion. Just as Hitler justified his invasions by claiming the lands he invaded were historically German, Putin is now claiming that Ukraine is traditionally Russian territory.

All of this is evil and wrong. The lesson — if you didn’t already know — is that Putin is a dictator and he lies constantly to justify doing whatever he wants to do. You can also reasonably conclude that permanent peace is pure fantasy when politicians are allowed to accumulate power with which to attack their neighbors.

If you need to take 10 minutes and brush up on the history of Ukraine and why this Russian invasion is based on lies, go ahead. It won’t take you long to learn everything you need to know.

But once you’ve done that — hopefully from books or some other print source — turn your television off and quit watching what’s going on in Ukraine right now.

There’s nothing you can do about it. Whatever happens there — terrible things, most likely — are going to happen no matter what you think. And the time you waste on a war you can’t control is time which you can’t spend on your own life.

We really are trained to believe that we’re supposed to watch such things. When you were in school, you probably got credit for knowing what was happening in the rest of the world every day. But all you’re doing is entertaining yourself.

The flow of up-to-the-minute information which we have come to call news is essentially meaningless, but there are powerful forces which want you to pay attention.

Politicians want you to keep watching because what you see inflames your emotions and make you easier for them to control. The big media companies want you to watch because they count on your attention to allow them to keep selling advertising.

If you’ve been watching the invasion, think about what you’re doing. What’s your purpose? What will you do with whatever information you gain? Is there anything you can do about it?

No, you have no real purpose. There’s nothing you can do with the information. And there’s nothing you can do about the war.

The future is bearing down on us like a speeding locomotive — and most of us have done little or nothing to prepare for our own future. Shift your attention. Deal with your own needs. Fix the problems in your own life.

Turn your television off and leave it off. You don’t need any “news.”

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We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

A child having a tantrum understands only one thing: Did I get my way or not? He doesn’t understand the issues involved. He doesn’t understand the reasons that went into a decision. He doesn’t understand any of the things that mature and reasonable adults have to understand in order to live healthy lives. By his reaction to the U.S. Supreme Court’s ruling to strike down his disastrous tariff scheme, Donald Trump shows himself to be — once more — a screaming child having a tantrum. Outside the world of mob bosses who expect to get their way every time, normal adults don’t act this way, but Trump isn’t normal. He’s an angry and vengeful man who has narcissistic personality disorder. And we are in danger as a result. Trump doesn’t understand the legal issues involved in this ruling. He doesn’t understand economics. He doesn’t understand rule of law. He doesn’t understand that he can ever be wrong. All he understands is that he didn’t get his way. And he is now a narcissistic and raging little boy who also happens to hold life-and-death power over most humans on this planet. He’s dangerous — and the system which gives him that power is even more dangerous.

Is it an attempt to blur the gender line between men and women? Or is it some weird tribute to the traditional Scottish kilt? It’s hard to say, but fashion designers keep pushing for men to wear skirts in the last few years. Both men and women in modern fashion seem oddly androgynous, as though it would be offensive for a man to look manly or for a woman to look feminine. A CNN article about the latest fashions from Paris caught my attention Monday and left me wondering about the ugly clothes the designers are hawking. If a man wants to wear a skirt — or a kilt — that’s OK with me, but I’ll stick with a traditional dark suit with a white shirt and tie. (Well, when I’m not wearing t-shirts and sweats, of course.) I always wonder who actually buys the outlandish garb from fashion designers anyway. I would be humiliated to be seen in any of this stuff, but I obviously have no sense of high fashion.

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