In Shuster's previous Time portrait of the actor-president as 2022 'Man of the Year' he quoted an advisor (Arestovych, who announced 2 days after the latest portrait that he would run in any election against his old boss):
'Sometimes he slips into the role and starts to talk like an actor playing the President.'
Zelensky's arc has been driven by tragicomic hubris: confusing himself with a role he cannot adapt because he's an actor lost in a role.
As David Sacks tweeted, Shuster's remarkable turn against his subject, in his second Time review of his performance as War Leader, is a sort of 'Cronkite moment' in American backing for Ukraine.
It's a dramatic crisis at the close of the Third Act that has been building from the start, and will now move like Nemesis towards the central persona's end.
He's already complaining of a 'stab in the back', but his 'delusional' (Shuster quoting a current adviser) self-image as the Ukrainian Churchill, overturning centuries of history with magic weapons from NATO, never matched the carefully incremental support with a different endgame in view (well expressed by Milley a year ago) from the start.
He's now locked into a personal and national tragedy of his own making - locked into a delusion that, like his initial move from President-Actor to Actor-President, produced an initial success as global War Leader, but now begins to cast him as the great Martyr of Democracy.
He has no way out, and doesn't even want a way out, because recognizing what has been the reality from the start, by compromising his fantasy, would destroy him politically.
My greatest fear is that like Samson in the Gaza that has suddenly stolen his show and thunder, he may see his heroic end as bringing everything down with him.
Thanks. Some actors make good presidents (Reagan). Some actors kill Presidents (John Wilkes Booth). You never know. I am often reminded of Smedley Butler's famous speech (and book), War is a Racket.
To pursue the 'Theatre of War' theme, NYT today has an article on the female conscription announced last month.
As usual, pictures show models posing in camouflage, with weapons and makeup, in bombed buildings (reminiscent of Zelenska's Vogue shoot, but without her trademark stilettos).
And there are beauty pageants like 'Miss Military Fantasy', judged by commanders.
John Mearsheimer said that America was leading the Ukraine down the Primrose Path.
The picture of those poor men, the Ukrainian soldiers, look at their faces: death awaits. They are going to die for nothing. The dye has been cast, the Ukraine has lost, but the “political Gnosticism of the liberal Imperium”, (as per Patrick Deneen) will not relent. Death awaits, needless death. That’s what we are, human beings. That is what we are, you and me .
Be interesting to see if Zelensky tries to maintain power by suspending the elections due to his previous claim of the country being at war but.then gets ousted in a coup.
The recent Time Mag. article on Zelensky shows that the tide is officially turning against continuing the Ukraine war.
Rather than bleeding Russia dry, the reverse is happening. It is NATO that is being bled dry both with respect to their economy and their military.
NATO is fighting Russia's kind of war. I have never understood how NATO thinks it could win by conforming to the other side's preferred battle plan.
I agree. As they say, they did what they did.
In Shuster's previous Time portrait of the actor-president as 2022 'Man of the Year' he quoted an advisor (Arestovych, who announced 2 days after the latest portrait that he would run in any election against his old boss):
'Sometimes he slips into the role and starts to talk like an actor playing the President.'
Zelensky's arc has been driven by tragicomic hubris: confusing himself with a role he cannot adapt because he's an actor lost in a role.
As David Sacks tweeted, Shuster's remarkable turn against his subject, in his second Time review of his performance as War Leader, is a sort of 'Cronkite moment' in American backing for Ukraine.
It's a dramatic crisis at the close of the Third Act that has been building from the start, and will now move like Nemesis towards the central persona's end.
He's already complaining of a 'stab in the back', but his 'delusional' (Shuster quoting a current adviser) self-image as the Ukrainian Churchill, overturning centuries of history with magic weapons from NATO, never matched the carefully incremental support with a different endgame in view (well expressed by Milley a year ago) from the start.
He's now locked into a personal and national tragedy of his own making - locked into a delusion that, like his initial move from President-Actor to Actor-President, produced an initial success as global War Leader, but now begins to cast him as the great Martyr of Democracy.
He has no way out, and doesn't even want a way out, because recognizing what has been the reality from the start, by compromising his fantasy, would destroy him politically.
My greatest fear is that like Samson in the Gaza that has suddenly stolen his show and thunder, he may see his heroic end as bringing everything down with him.
Thanks. Some actors make good presidents (Reagan). Some actors kill Presidents (John Wilkes Booth). You never know. I am often reminded of Smedley Butler's famous speech (and book), War is a Racket.
To pursue the 'Theatre of War' theme, NYT today has an article on the female conscription announced last month.
As usual, pictures show models posing in camouflage, with weapons and makeup, in bombed buildings (reminiscent of Zelenska's Vogue shoot, but without her trademark stilettos).
And there are beauty pageants like 'Miss Military Fantasy', judged by commanders.
Strange War.
Thanks back.. maybe it takes a military hero, like Butler or Ike in a famous speech, to tell it like it is.
John Mearsheimer said that America was leading the Ukraine down the Primrose Path.
The picture of those poor men, the Ukrainian soldiers, look at their faces: death awaits. They are going to die for nothing. The dye has been cast, the Ukraine has lost, but the “political Gnosticism of the liberal Imperium”, (as per Patrick Deneen) will not relent. Death awaits, needless death. That’s what we are, human beings. That is what we are, you and me .
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https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-11-06/it-s-not-the-right-time-for-elections-in-ukraine-zelenskiy-says
Be interesting to see if Zelensky tries to maintain power by suspending the elections due to his previous claim of the country being at war but.then gets ousted in a coup.
he will take his time since if he cancelled them he would lose support in the US and Europe. Most likely, he will delay them.