13 May — The Case for Subversive Humor, Shoigu and Patrushev Get New Jobs, and the Hoochie Coochie Man Visits Kyiv
My friend recently made a mock-up of an Estonian instructional pamphlet that’s been circulating that informs people of what to do if there’s an emergency, such as an attack on the country by our “Eastern Neighbor.”
In it, he reported in jest that the invasion of the “Orc Army” was staved off by the chain appliance store Euronics air dropping refrigerators in Narva. This got me thinking about subversion: why hadn’t anyone tried doing this.
A lot of our discourse about what is going on in Ukraine is being framed by Western diplomats. They talk a good talk about democracy and security, but their activities are almost entirely legitimate, and they are up against a foe that fights dirty and lies about it. Where are the comedic gags, I wondered? Surely, there are ways to embarrass the Kremlin in front of their own people that don’t just involve arms shipments, or shooting down drones. How would the Russians react if someone was to start dumping used refrigerators on their troops from the sky? Surely, this can be done.
This kind of subversion is politically powerful. It mocks Russian economic backwardness and poverty, and showcases the internal issues in the country that the War in Ukraine is being used to draw attention away from.
This is just one subversive idea, but there are many. Why can’t people hack into those broadcasts where Margarita Simonyan sings her dumb patriotic songs? Speaking of which, the war itself is ripe for subversion. World War II —called the Great Patriotic War in Soviet and Russian Federation media— has never been anything more than a prop to back up the Putin regime.
Surely, the people who ran the Nazis out of the East deserve commemoration, but the way it is used by the Kremlin is to cynically gain support for a regime that is largely illegitimate. How can a president who was selected by his predecessor in 1999 and then made it impossible for anyone to challenge him be considered anything other than illegitimate?
We still treat these clowns too reverently, hang on their every word wondering if they will spare us, when they deserve to have their roofs cave in with bombardments of household appliances. In the West, satire is one of the greatest weapons we have. Just go on Quora and read through the trolls’ rather primitive propaganda, and watch it get smacked down. Humor is our main weapon. Sarcasm. Wit. Bullets can’t kill that. Refrigerators can win this.
But seriously. Sergei Shoigu is out as defense minister, and Nikolai Patrushev is no longer intelligence chief. Don’t worry, boys, you’ll all get new jobs. Patrushev will now be Putin’s aide, and Shoigu can head the security council. Andrei Belousov, an economist, has been named defense secretary. The media treats this reshuffling of the deck as somehow meaningful. Maybe it means this, or maybe it means that. Belousov knows how to count money, might he be better at managing the defense budget? Be afraid! Be afraid!
But Belousov wears a suit and has gray hair. Surely, he must be reasonable.
Is there anyone we can talk to in Russia? Anyone? Or are they all looking to invade us, steal our household appliances, destroy our homes, and kidnap our children so they can be brainwashed to think that Putin is their father?
In the meantime, Blinken has just rolled into Kyiv on a train. Might the Hoochie Coochie Man see time in his schedule to jam with Zelenskyy? Could we have a little more Mel Brooks in our ultra-serious programming? A little ditty about escaping assassination attempts? A dig at Dmitri Medvedev?
Probably not.
