> The current difficulty in Russia with actually mobilizing many parts of society gives one a glimmer of hope: they have a handle mainly on marginalized and poo

> The current difficulty in Russia with actually mobilizing many parts of society gives one a glimmer of hope: they have a handle mainly on marginalized and poor village dwellers. Maybe the modern living standards and communications landscape does ultimately make people more resistant to being mobilized for dumb wars, even if for 100% selfish reasons and (sadly) without necessarily getting rid of imperialistic nationalism. This one of the crucial reasons defending untampered speech is important, and why communist China has the information policies it has. (To be sure, draft evasion was very much a widespread thing even in republican Rome.) Despite the wartime propaganda efforts, Fussell notes in this piece that one of the things King George VI may have been ignorant of was that all his jails and prison-camps were full to bursting with deserters and draft-dodgers, as D-Day approached.