War Fever at the Globe and Mail

It's $9.45 now for a Globe on Saturday. I alway's make the same lame joke to the Korean; "for that kinda money there better be some good news in there!" The Korean never fails to laugh. I gotta say though, the good news is mighty thin. If you didn't have bad news you'd have hardly any at all. The consensus in the boardroom at the Globe seems to be that job one at this moment in time is to prep the public for an inevitable hot war with Russia. Nobody knows better than Ukraine what it's like to stand up to a fascist bully of a neighbour, so today we were treated to not one, not two, but three reports from Ukraine itself. Mark Mackinnon says hanging out in Kyiv has been a drag, but it's really brought folks together. Jason Stanley says there's nothing like war to create unity. And the head of PEN Canada penned a two-pager focused on how we might convince young Canadians to want to die for their country. PEN Canada is an affiliate of PEN International, which used to be a NGO that lobbied for freedom of speech. It's now given big column inches in Canada's newspaper of record to lobby for war. Apparently there's nothing like bombs and bullets to show what you're made of... if you even deserve such a great country as Canada! Frankly, none of that comes close to the real lesson to be learned from Ukraine, which is this; If you're gonna stand up against a fascist bully neighbour, you'll need more than NATO behind you.