, 04.28.2022 12:02 PM

My latest: never forgive, never forget

Ukraine.

Remember that? Country in Eastern Europe, 40 million citizens. Has been invaded by Vladimir Putin, a war criminal, who has been murdering thousands of Ukrainian men, women and children since Feb. 22.

It was in all the papers, Putin’s Ukrainian war. Everyone, everywhere, was paying attention to it.

And then … many of us just stopped paying attention.

Instead, many of us have pointed our clickers in the direction of the vomitous Johnny Depp and Amber Heard. Or the vainglorious Elon Musk buying Twitter. Or housing prices. Or an election in Ontario. Or the weather.

But the Russian slaughter in Ukraine? Not as many are paying as much attention to that one anymore. And — given that Putin’s criminality is getting dramatically worse at this precise moment — that is a problem.

A big problem, because Putin has been counting on us moving on from his campaign of wholesale slaughter against the Ukrainian people. Like the Nazis before him, the Russian autocrat knows that genocide is always much more efficient in the dark.

Many of us, this writer included, are guilty of turning away from what is happening in Ukraine. And, indirectly, aiding and abetting Vladimir Putin as we do so.

Children pose for a photo on the pedestal of the Soviet monument to Ukraine-Russia friendship dismantled by workers in Kyiv on April 26, 2022, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)

Children pose for a photo on the pedestal of the Soviet monument to Ukraine-Russia friendship dismantled by workers in Kyiv on April 26, 2022, amid Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by GENYA SAVILOV/AFP via Getty Images)

In politics, the successful players know all about this tendency. When a scandal breaks, for instance, they know that if they hunker down and stay quiet, the mob will usually move on. They’ll carry their pitchforks and torches to protest the next outrage.

In the political war rooms I’ve run, I will therefore often say this to the assembled youngsters: “We have a national memory of seven minutes.”

In politics, that can be good news or bad news. If you are grappling with some bad news (see scandals above), you can be reasonably confident it’ll “blow over” soon enough. But if you’ve got a good story to tell — as Doug Ford, Steven del Duca and Andrea Horwath will all be labouring to do on the Ontario campaign trail over the next few weeks — short attention spans are pretty unhelpful, too.

It’s not that voters and/or citizens are in any way dumb, I tell my war room charges. They’re smart and intuitive and highly attuned to their own self-interest. It’s just that they are also very, very busy. Getting the kids to hockey or soccer practice, getting to and from work, making ends meet, worrying about the rent or a mortgage payment, catching up on sleep. They’re busy.

So, says Democratic Party thinker David Shenk, an overabundance of news and information — about everything from Johnny Depp to a genocidal war — becomes “data smog.” There’s too much of it, so Joe and Jane Frontporch just tune it all out.

In the era of smartphones — which are neither smart nor phones, anymore — that’s a simple survival mechanism. To remain sane, a lot of us disconnect to avoid information overload.

A picture taken on April 23, 2022 shows a child living in a large underground parking lot in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Images)
A picture taken on April 23, 2022 shows a child living in a large underground parking lot in Kharkiv, eastern Ukraine, during the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by SERGEY BOBOK/AFP via Getty Images)
Which, as noted, is what Vladimir Putin is counting on. He needs us to turn our attention away from Ukraine.

If we all care less about Ukraine, so too will governments. Here in little old Canada, our national government — surprisingly, happily — has been doing a pretty good job supporting the heroic efforts of Ukrainians in this war. But, if the Trudeau government senses that our collective focus on the war has diminished, so will their efforts. That’s how politics works.

So, turn off Johnny and Amber. Turn off Elon Musk. Turn off all of the other things that, at the present time, just aren’t as important.

Ukraine, and the valiant Ukrainian people, need more than our ammunition and armaments and aid.

They need our attention, too.

Now, and until the end.

7 Comments

  1. Warren,

    In my case, I didn’t so much turn away or tune out. I rationed down because I didn’t like the semi-regular onset of crying nor accompanying fits of ever increasing anger. I did it to stay where I am: relatively sane.

    I quite literally pray every night for a bullet to meet its most nefarious target. Even that would be too good for that POS.

  2. Arron Banks says:

    So true? Remember when Boris Johnson was a dead man walking and the 1922 Committee all but ready to politically sever his head from his corpse over his multiple parties during COVID scandal? Then Ukraine happened. Crazy.

  3. Derek Pearce says:

    Very well said WK. I’m an atheist but- From your lips (or keyboard) to God’s ears/eyes.
    I saw that the deputy-secretary of NATO said today that Putin’s war could drag on for years, which was a depressing thought, but so be it. I fervently wish that the Joe and Jane Frontporches across the entire Western world keep okaying the backing of Ukraine with aid, money and weapons for as long as it takes to outlast the wannabe-Tsar.
    EU officials estimate that their membership can be weaned off of Russian fuels by the end of 2023. Ok, so do it, and Russia will be forced into giving a discount to China & India when they’re the only customers left. He can’t fund this war forever, or definitely not NEARLY as long as the West can.

  4. Like I said before, NATO and the West can go all in now, or find themselves going all in later, not exactly proactively in the second instance.

    IT won’t stomach the Western supply lines for too much longer and then IT will go with a tactical battlefield nuke.

  5. Robin says:

    Obvious that Zelenski is a puppet who answers to the Azov nazi leadership who have murdered opposition politicians and many Ukrainians in their ethnic cleansing campaigns against Russian speaking Ukrainians in eastern Ukraine. Trudeau and Freeland’s support for them is a stain on Canada’s reputation that will last for a very long time.

  6. R. Marut says:

    Public Function Talk_to_your_Web_people()

    Techie_insider_hint = MsgBox(“There is a problem in the php script on line 314.”);

    Exit Sub

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