Guest post: The only appropriate reaction is to charge at the danger with your hair on fire
Originally a comment by quixote on Somewhat laid-back.
I grew up in a Russian family, Russian was my first language, and I’ve lived in the US since forever, but post-Joe McCarthy. I’ve always thought the “better dead than Red” testerical nonsense in this country to be evidence of softening of the brain.
I mean, the Russians’ idea of a national sport is watching a chess match. Weird, yes. Dangerous, no.
And now this. This, take it from one who knows, is different. There’s a guy who made his bones running the KGB. The KGB, godammit! Americans seem to have no concept what that means. You’ve got to be some kind of intelligent extraterrestrial fungus without a shred of human feeling to rise to the top of that heap. That’s Putin.
And that’s the guy who’s messing with democracies all over the Western world, not just the US, although that’s bad enough.
That’s an existential threat on the order of climate change to the US way of life. The only appropriate reaction is to charge at the danger with your hair on fire.
Instead we have Obama letting us know that he did tell Putin to “cut it out.” Oh, and time for vacay now. Not his problem. So long, suckers.
This is beyond bizarre.
Side note: ‘testerical’ is one of the better neologisms I’ve read, and likely better than any I’ve invented. Hats off!
(O hai, as the kidz say. Bit embarrassed to find myself here.)
Testerical isn’t my word. I don’t know which genius invented it, but definitely a genius.
The one (overly) generous explanation I’ve seen that makes some sense is that the priority is to accept the coup as a way of avoiding a civil war.
Possibly.
Although when it’s your country at stake, civil war may actually be the *smaller* price to pay.
My feeling is that Obama just can’t be bothered. He’s got his, he’s going to float into being a celebrity venture capitalist, and he doesn’t want the aggro.
Since he’s, realistically, the only person with the standing to tell the country the truth and have it heard, he owns the biggest failure in this mess.
@Seth
I think “prostatical” would be more appropriate, as the prostate is homologous(?) to the uterus.
Quixote: I think you may be being a bit too glib about the realities of a civil war, especially as it would be fought with modern weapons and tactics imported from the US’s ME adventures, where there will be no distinction in targets between civilians and soldiers (for a start). While I may agree that such a conflict is looking more and more inevitable, perhaps even necessary, it will not come without grave costs and risks, both to the citizens of the US and the maintenance of the global order.
It’s well understandable that Obama is trying as hard as he can to prevent that outcome, and conceivable that he’s taken (and may still be taking) private measures that, as is his wont, do not result in a great deal of fanfare or credit for him personally. It doesn’t seem to me that he’s reacting in any way that any other reasonable world leader would to this situation, which isn’t to say his reaction is the correct one, but it doesn’t suggest that he’s somehow checked out or doesn’t care about the country now that he’s looted the treasury and gotten his sinecure. (I think you may be confusing Obama and Trump on this point.) As for telling the truth and having it heard, have you *been* to the places where Donald Trump won? Have you heard the calumny that passes for common knowledge about him, and the distortions that happen to every single thing he says? Sure, a full-throated hair-on-fire speech would both be accurate and timely, and may ultimately prove morally right, but it would also precipitate a violent insurrection (or, more likely, dozens of them) from people who have the equipment, expertise, and paranoia to carry it out. And you’re insane if you think any president wants ‘Started a Civil War’ as the topline of their legacy—especially when the ‘wrong’ side are very quickly going to take power, and have access to the drones as well as the nukes.
Also, Obama’s idea of retirement is to get involved in the nitty-gritty of state politics and try to help redraw congressional districts to be fairer, which is hardly the most glitzy, glamorous, or profitable use of his time. He’s going to fight to loosen Republican strangleholds on statehouses and legislatures, which the Democratic Party on the whole have essentially conceded without a fight for the last ten years. This effort may be too little, too late, but it’s not an ignoble use of Obama’s energy, and while it may not be as cinematic as killing a few hundred thousand citizens for the crime of having been miseducated by charlatans, I’m apt to try and give the former a chance before I resign myself entirely to the latter.
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Colin: While you’re anatomically correct, you’re culturally off. Testes and uteri have been historically seen as the most essential part of the respective male and female anatomies, as well as the driving force behind stereotypical emotions of same, which is why ‘hysterical’ has the connotations it does in the first place. Thus ‘testerical’ is the most apt transliteration.
Um, no, prostate is not at all homologous to the uterus. Men have no homologs to uterus or vagina. They do to clitoris, inner and outer labia, and ovaries. But Seth is right, I think, that the usage is based on stereotypes rather than anatomy.
He’s also right that I’m being too glib. A civil war would be beyond horrible. But, seriously, doing nothing or all out war are NOT our only choices.
There’s not even an attempt, not even a vague gesture toward doing what’s right.
Sashaying even further out on a tangent – There do seem to be structures that are male homologues for the uterus: the appendix testis and (possibly) the prostatic utricle are the remnants in most males of the Mullerian ducts that develop into the female’s fallopian tubes and uterus. They’re small and do little or nothing but occasionally cause trouble. (Note: this is from some quick nipping around Wikipedia, I am so very much not a doctor!)
They don’t seem to be much of anything but leftover scaffolding from when the developing embryo gets the order from the testes to cancel the uterus production and leaves some bits hanging around on the groin area workbench.
They do make fine examples for how we’re clearly not the result of an omnipotent, careful Designer. Nature just sorta shrugs, figures “good enough”, and leaves us with bits that cause “acute one-sided testicular pain and may require surgical excision to achieve relief.”