Editor’s Note: DeMille asked us to think about what is going on. Some of this was compiled late yesterday- the time we did not know if there would be a US budget for the year halfway gone mated with the horrors on the digital flat-screen. The information narratives shifting overnight. This morning, inflation reported from Government sources is the highest in 40 years. Estate management reports the Chairman’s preferred chocolate treats have more than doubled. There may be the shape of something that will change the vector of conflict in Europe. We will have to see on that, but here is a moment in mid-week of the crisis de jour.

– Vic

We just went through an interesting international health event. You may recall it. It wasn’t over until last week. Naturally we are distracted. There is another emergency to be concerned about, one that has some really appalling stuff going on. It is on at least three levels, so there is no point in relying on anything we read or hear.

Let’s take a look at them. First level is of course the simplest. It is the breathtaking brutality of warfare. It is curious to call it “traditional,” since it involves all manner of horrible things. Death is perhaps the most striking visage of that, the sight of corpses on the road or in front of a public building in a city being shelled. Then there the wanton destruction and waste. The sadness of the innocent, and the betrayal of families and kids.

That could have been the story of any of the conflicts we have observed through our flatscreen views of the world. But there is something more to this one that leaps past ordinary horror by a new phenomenon in the second level. The smart-phone era has now equipped everyone on the planet with the ability to take pictures and videos wherever they are. Satellite communications enable rapid dissemination of original material and conversion into narrative lines parroted by media around the world.

That has fed an information war that dwarfs the propaganda capabilities of all others that came before. That battle is fought with images and stories of the War that fit the desired narrative of those who control the outlets. In this case, the Ukrainian tale of fierce resistance to external aggression by Russia has been an enormous success. And warfare being what it is, the third stream of equivalent images and stories from the Russians has been a much less successful enterprise, but with a following. It is those two stories that are fighting here and now. You will note that “truth” is not an operational term in this level of warfare. The closest we can get to that is perhaps “plausible.”

That is the war being fought here in America. It speaks in volume and intensity, and as such is part of a similar but greater narrative battle. Watching it is educational. The old adage used about the word “crisis” is illustrative. “Never let one go to waste!” was how former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel put it in succinct and elegant terms. Therefore, in times of crisis it is useful to see what else is being sold as part of a package so important that whether it violates existing law is irrelevant. The Pandemic is illustrative on the implementation of a myriad of pet projects important only to the donor groups that have the clout to get them included in the vast mounds of emergency funding.

Here is an example. The Federal Budget for Fiscal 2022 has not been passed. We have been spending taxpayer money from it since last October. It appears in the news this morning mostly because of additional funding for Ukraine, not because the Federal government will stop working tomorrow if nothing is done. The traditional means of assembling the budget and passing it in time for the year of execution has been done only once in the last dozen years. For this year, we are on the 4th iteration of “Continuing Resolutions” for just this year. Something may pass today- running the Federal till dry would be inconvenient for all concerned. But you would imagine that something like “Congress Passes Budget” would be worthy of mention. But apparently it is not.

Instead, the Narrative rules. “Putin’s Gas Spike.” It is not absurd to blame Russia for dislocation in the energy market. But there is so much in the energy swirl that has nothing at all to do with Russian invasions. We are committed as a nation to dramatic energy transformation by 2035, with a goal to achieve NetZero reductions by 2050.

Our inability to produce what our own nation needs now is directly based on a plan to achieve the impossible at vast cost. Our Secretary of Transportation is an affable fellow with no previous experience in the field. Beyond mixed reviews of his ability to fix the potholes of South Bend as its Mayor, anyway. Entrusting management of the most complex web of supply chains on earth to an average bureaucrat most concerned with advocacy of his gender status suggests we are not serious about anything that matters. Landing in Europe to help shore up NATO unity and support Ukraine, our Vice President’s remarks on the splendid progress on conversion to electric school buses could only be described as tone deaf. This morning, she is representing us in Poland.

We have arrived at an interesting new point in another crisis. Nothing will be left to waste, we are absolutely confident in that immutable fact. It does feel that we should remind our leaders that there is also a war with Ukraine.

Copyright 2022 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.comis