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Culture War Roundup for the week of May 1, 2023

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Not that there weren't recognizable proto-wokist streams within leftism at the time, but it wasn't nearly the all-encompassing thing it can seem to be now. In particular race was nowhere near as central to North American leftism before about 2014 as it is now. In fact one of the many things I (pretty leftist at least by current Motte standards) lament about the rise of wokism is the near-total absence of, not only anti-war sentiment, but of any consideration of foreign policy at all, from 2023 leftism.

Not that there weren't recognizable proto-wokist streams within leftism at the time, but it wasn't nearly the all-encompassing thing it can seem to be now.

One of the primary left of center talking points beginning on 9/12 was to watch out for violence against Muslims.

the near-total absence of, not only anti-war sentiment, but of any consideration of foreign policy at all, from 2023 leftism.

A trillion dollars sent to Ukraine isn't foreign policy to you?

You're missing the point. It's got absolutely nothing to do with wokism, and for that matter, by any non-US standard, precious little to do with leftism of any kind.

...we're not actually anywhere near a trillion dollars, are we?

No - total defense spending is around $800 billion a year, and even most of the Ukraine "spending" is largely writing off old equipment we were never going to use or is outdated.

It's weird that our aid to Ukraine is actually the biggest showing of American power since you could argue, the First Gulf War. As I've said before, the military equivalent to the stuff that's in the back of our garage is fighting what was supposed to be the supposed badass un-woke army to at worst, a draw, But then again, I'm old enough to remember basically, 2020 when the 'in' thing to do was compare 'woke' American recruiting ads to the supposedly more effective, nationalist ads for the Russian, Chinese, et al militaries.

at worst, a draw

I'll bet you 0.7 monero that Ukraine does not regain Crimea or the Breakaway/Separatist regions by the end of the war (which is what I would classify as a defeat for Ukraine).