Hooked on Virtue Signaling

When my daughter was four, I tried to get her reading. So, I bought a series called “Hooked on Phonics.” The point was to get young children reading phonetically to prepare them for school. Schools at the time had removed phonics from their reading strategies.

My daughter would have NOTHING to do with it. I bought the game and she resisted every opportunity to play the game with me. As usual with her, everything had to be done on HER time when she wanted to do it. And it had to be the games SHE wanted to play.

For some reason, the recent tendency for everyone to show their love and support for the Ukranian people against Russia reminded me of this. Every time I run through Oxford, look on social media, or watch the cable channels, people are hooked on Virtue Signaling. But, like my daughter, they want to choose WHO and WHAT they virtue signal for. And I think that shows so much about them and who they are.

While Ukraine is all anyone talks about, it wouldn’t be far-fetched for people to think that this is the ONLY place in the world where innocent people are being killed. But, with a little research this is what I found;

According to a review by the site “worldpopulationreview.com” there are twenty-one conflicts going on in the world that are experiencing either armed battles between different countries or different groups in a country or a sustained campaign against an undesirable situation or activity. According to the Uppsala Conflict Data Program the definition of war is that it is a conflict which reaches 1000 battle related deaths in a specific calendar year. These fatalities are among combatants as well as any civilians killed by deliberate, war related attacks.

Let’s look at some of the conflicts named in the cite listed above.

Afghanistan – Civil War-Casuality range 2020-2021 : 10,000

Colombia – Civil War/Drug War- 1,000-10,000 casualties between 20-21

Ethiopia – Civil War – 10,000 casualties in 20/21

Libya- Civil War – 1,000 to 10,000 casualties in 20/21

Mexico – Drug War – 10,000 plus casualties in 20/21

Myanmar- Civil War – 1000 to 10,000 casualties in 20/21

South Sudan – Ethnic violence -1,000 -10,000 casualties in 20/21

Yemen – Civil War – 10,000 plus in 20/21

Many wars in different countries have been going on for decades. Somalia has had Civil War since the 80’s and has had at least 500,000 deaths. Libya’s war has been going on since 2011 and over 30,000 people have been killed.

And, let’s not forget that the Chinese Communist Party has oppressed the Uyghurs (Muslims), and has imprisoned more than one million people since 2017 and subjected millions of others to intense surveillance, religious restrictions, forced labor and force sterilizations. (cfr.org) And as bad as that is, it doesn’t even touch the millions killed in China’s history of the last 30 years.

And, by the way, this is not to belittle the Ukranian conflict which has killed approximately 15,000 people including combatants and civilians.

What I wonder is why does the Ukraine conflict cause so much angst and empty virtual signaling here in our country while these other conflicts are ignored. Is White Privilege at play here because the victims in Ukraine are White? Look at all the other wars and we see that most of them are in countries with non-whites, “brown” people as AOC likes to call them. I guess all the virtue signaling rich folk in Oxford either don’t care about Brown people or are just too lazy to pay attention to the events of the world. The only flags and signs I see are blue and yellow.

Yeah, I know, to say their efforts are racist is unkind and unfair.

But I do wonder about the intensity of this now. There was a Russian incursion into Ukraine in 2014, and I don’t remember Ukranian flags or a foreign President speaking at the Grammy Awards about it. So, why this time?

Shoot, they aren’t even letting Russian citizens get on social media or allowing them to buy Dior pocketbooks. Yes, it’s true.

If I was a jaded Pessimist, I would say that it’s because this war is good cover for an inept Administration and a President facing criminal charges that actually involve Ukraine. I would say that the media is working their hardest to promote the conflict and to demonize Putin and the Russians, (obligatorily stated opinion and side note, yes, Putin is a Commie and a really bad man). I would say that there are connections between Ukraine and the crime families of our country, the Clintons, the Bidens, the Obamas, etc. And there’s always that “New World Order” thing and how they supposedly hate Putin. This is all conjecture of course since I, like everyone else, don’t really know what’s true and what’s propaganda.

Even weirder is that the same media that was talking about the NAZI’s in Ukraine in 2017 suddenly has selective memory and walks that claim back, even in the face of proof.

But, for the virtue signalers, none of this matters. What does matter is putting up the yellow and blue flag and taking a picture in front of it to prove your international empathy on Facebook. As someone said, “These are people who care about caring but not fixing.” I know this is out of their range to fix, but still, they don’t even fix situations in our country that they COULD fix.

We’ll see them this Spring. I know at our annual Oxford Day Celebration they’ll be out in full force with newly adopted patriotic colors, yellow and blue, oh, and a sunflower. I wouldn’t even be surprised to see them march in the parade behind a Ukrainian flag. That’s their right and it really makes them feel good.

But, I have a suggestion. If they REALLY want to prove how caring they are, if they want to win the virtue signal Olympics, they may want to carry these flags as well:

I left the names of the countries off the flags. Wait, signalers don’t know which country is which? How can they virtue signal if they don’t have that information?

I guess they had better start a search online huh?

Or maybe they want to virtue signal for who they want, when they want.

Anyone want to play Hooked on Phonics?