Why war?
+ Understanding Disability, Big Skills, Climate Optimism, 🐯 (#382)
Hello everyone
Great to have you once again. This is issue 382 of the Weekly Filet.
For those of you who like to peek behind the scenes: I wrote a few words on the process of sourcing and curating links for the Weekly Filet. All the individual steps throughout the week, and the tools and services that help me along the way. Maybe one or two things are even useful for your own reading routine and information management. Then again, you're not here for the process, but for the end product. So, here we go.
1. How the Kosovo Air War Foreshadowed the Crisis in Ukraine
I spent a good part of the week looking for good background reads on Russia/Ukraine, knowing that anything news-related could be rendered outdated at any moment. I found this piece particularly insightful. It connects the current situation with the NATO intervention in former Yugoslavia. It concludes: An attack on Ukraine would (obviously) be Putin's responsibility, but «the world in which such a war is possible has been forged jointly by Russia and the United States».
Two key quotes from two other articles I found helpful:
- «Putin is indeed to be feared – but as a dangerously delusional mediocrity, not a grand strategist. If the West cannot stand up to Putin, it should not be in the business of geopolitics at all.» (The West can and must rediscover its strength)
- «Despite all of that power and all of that money, despite total control over the information space and total domination of the political space, Putin must know, at some level, that he is an illegitimate leader. [...] He knows, in other words, that one day, prodemocracy activists of the kind he saw in Dresden might come for him too.» (The Reason Putin Would Risk War)
2. “This Is What Disabled Looks Like”
Most people have a limited understanding of what it means to be disabled, and what disabled «looks like». As a consequence, many disabled people find themselves in a position where they need to «perform»: Act like the disability isn't there in some situations, and, perversely, exaggerate the disability in others. Eye-opening article that will add many layers of nuance to your understanding.
zipporah arielle