Over the weekend, I had a conversation with a person who is not only very intelligent and hold very progressive views but is also not ignorant of what’s happening in Europe—someone who knows that there is the rest of the world outside of the US.
Still, my account of how the war is unfolding and what is really going on at the front appeared to be a revelation. She asked me whether I think the American media does a good job reporting about the war, and I said – no, gave multiple particular examples, and spoke about the trend in general. The war disappeared from the front pages, and even during the latest mutiny, the interest was directed toward Russia, not Ukraine. And I cited my friend, who said that no photographs and no reports could capture the horrors of destruction.
She listened to me with great attention and said: we live in a bubble that the media created. And we do not even know we live in a bubble.
I blogged about it so many times that I lost count. People do not understand the gravity of the situation; they push away the fact that the war didn’t stop, that people keep dying – every day.
And they keep explaining to me why NATO will never get directly involved, and I, in turn, keep explaining the consequences of that and the inevitability of confrontation with Russia, if not now, then in the future. And all of this feels hopeless.
Hettie's Reflections 