It pays well to be a useful idiot

A microphone similar to the kind used for recording podcasts

I’ll admit it: If a wealthy benefactor offered to pay me millions of dollars a year to write this blog, I’d be tempted.

As you may know, it’s almost impossible to earn a living in media anymore. Even successful writers and artists have to hustle, and almost none get rich unless they were rich to begin with. Prestigious media outlets have gone bankrupt, and others are resorting to AI-generated filler.

So yes, the temptation is understandable. A rich person who’s willing to fund your journalism and punditry startup is priceless in these turbulent times.

However, the very unfriendliness of the climate ought to spark at least a little skepticism. Specifically, if you find an investor who wants to fund you handsomely, when most outlets are struggling for survival, you should wonder why they’re being so generous and what they hope to get in return. And that’s especially, especially true when this backer doesn’t want their identity known.

That’s a lesson some American right-wingers learned too late.

According to a newly unsealed indictment by the Justice Department, Russia’s state-owned media outlet, Russia Today or RT, was kicked out of the U.S. after Russia invaded Ukraine in 2022. In response, RT hatched a covert plan to influence American public opinion, laundering money through shell companies to evade sanctions, and funding a Western media outlet to push Kremlin-friendly content.

(Full disclosure: In 2013, I was on The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, a progressive TV show which at the time aired on RT.)

The indictment doesn’t name this outlet, but it’s widely reported to be Tenet Media, a conservative agitprop site founded in 2022 by Lauren Chen and Liam Donovan. Tenet employed right-wing influencers like Dave Rubin, Benny Johnson, Tim Pool and Lauren Southern. It’s hosted “high-profile conservative guests, including Republican National Committee co-chair Lara Trump, former Republican presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy and U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake.”

To be the supposed wealthy backer, the RT employees named in the indictment invented a persona named “Eduard Grigoriann”, supposedly a Belgian banker with a generic resume and no Web presence. However, notwithstanding the clumsy attempts at deception, Tenet Media’s founders seem to have been well aware who they were really working for. According to the indictment, they referred to their funders as “the Russians”, and Googled “time in Moscow” while trying to decide when to send a message in order to get a quick response.

Russia paid $9.7 million to Tenet Media, which, according to the indictment, is almost 90% of all the money it took in. In exchange, they got a stable of American right-wingers to parrot Kremlin propaganda on command.

Commentators like Tim Pool denounced Ukraine as the enemy and raged against American military aid. When Tucker Carlson went on a pro-Putin propaganda tour of Russia, RT urged Tenet Media to promote it. One of the producers resisted – “it just feels like overt shilling” – but gave in after pressure from Tenet’s founders. After the deadly Crocus City terrorist attack in March 2024, RT urged Tenet to ignore ISIS’ claim of responsibility and blame the bloodshed on Ukraine and the U.S.

When the indictment was unsealed, Tenet Media immediately shut down. YouTube also deleted their channels. Pool and other affiliates of Tenet claimed that they were innocent dupes and that they’re the real victims. (None of them, so far, have announced any plans to give away the Russian blood money in their bank accounts.)

The notable thing about this indictment is that none of these right-wingers seemed especially hard to buy. None of them questioned why they were being asked to push pro-Putin content. None of them proved too principled to go along with the scheme. It raises the question: When it comes to the American right’s friendliness to Russia, how much is organic – born of Donald Trump’s love for right-wing dictators because he yearns to be one of them – and how much is astroturf – purchased by Russian rubles and amplified by conservative pundits who’ll say anything they’re told to say for money?

If anyone on the right has a conscience, the exposure of this plot should be an occasion for remorse and soul-searching. Whether knowingly or not, they were doing the bidding of a brutal foreign dictator. They were spreading propaganda to blind and confuse Americans, to turn us against each other and weaken our collective will to fight tyranny. They’re modern-day Moscow Roses. Just call them Putin’s rose garden.

However, I doubt they’ll be unduly bothered. Trump’s M.O. is to always deny, never admit fault, and double down whenever you’re caught, and that attitude has been adopted by his fans and followers. They’ve learned that the only sin in modern-day conservatism is to apologize. As long as you deny everything and keep yelling that the accusations against you are concocted by the deep state and the liberal media, there are legions of Trumpist true believers who’ll lap it up. This means that Putin’s cronies are sure to try again, and they’re likely to find many more receptive targets.

What kind of person moves to Russia?

Saint Basil's Cathedral in Moscow's Red Square

[Previous: Uncle Vladimir wants you]

Vladimir Putin is encouraging Western conservatives to move to Russia to escape oppressive liberal values. He’s gone so far as to exempt them from immigration quotas and waive language tests that were previously required. The real question is how many people will take him up on that offer.

Notwithstanding enthusiasm from people like Alex Jones, I suspect the answer will be “not many”. Conservatives moving to Russia is like progressives moving to Canada. It’s something that a lot of them fantasize about, especially when an election doesn’t go their way, but few follow through on.

Here’s one who actually did it.

His name is Joseph Gleason. By his account, he was born in America, raised as a Protestant and became a pastor, then converted to the Eastern Orthodox church. In 2017, he moved to Russia with his wife and eight (!) children.

In an interview he republished on his Substack site, he explains why he took this drastic step:

In 2015, the Supreme Court of the United States of America upheld the “right” of all states to recognize same-sex “marriages”. Of course, the acceptance of homosexual behavior is the primary reason why Sodom and Gomorrah were destroyed by God. I believe that the foundation of any society and any nation is based on what people think about God, what they believe in, and how they feel about the institution of family. If these fundamental values — faith in God and family — are destroyed, then the whole country will come to destruction. I think that either America will repent of this monstrous sin, this idea of same-sex marriage, which destroys the family, or this country will be destroyed.

He sounds pretty confident about that. So here’s my question: what’s taking so long?

Same-sex marriage has been legal in the U.S. for almost ten years, and LGBT people have benefited from societal acceptance for longer than that. Massachusetts has had marriage equality since 2004, over twenty years now. Vermont has had same-sex civil unions since 2000, almost a quarter-century.

Where’s the brimstone? Why hasn’t God destroyed all these places yet, if he hates gays so much? Is he procrastinating? Is he asleep at the switch?

Here’s his list of reasons to move to Russia. There’s some normal-sounding stuff about how taxes are low, land is abundant and cheap, Russian culture is great… and then, in the middle of it, you come across this:

The GloboHomo LGBT Rainbow Mafia is not allowed to force their views down your throat here. Homosexual “marriages” are not permitted in Russia, nor are there any civil unions. LGBT propaganda for minors is illegal. And they are now working on putting a new law on the books, which will make LGBT propaganda illegal nationwide, regardless of age.

In a perverse way, you have to respect the bluntness of his bigotry. There’s no tiptoeing around the subject, no “hate the sin, love the sinner” evasions. He just says it flat out: LGBTQ people shouldn’t exist, they should have no rights, and it should be illegal for them to speak out, punishable by gulag or deportation. The law should favor his views and crush any opposing views.

Just in case you thought this profound homophobia was the only personality flaw in someone who’s otherwise a lovely person, here’s another of Gleason’s reasons to move to Russia:

You won’t get called a “racist” every five seconds. No riots. No “Black Lives Matter” marches. Lots of white people live here, and we aren’t aware of any particular reason we should be ashamed of it.

Obviously, Russia doesn’t have the same history of plantation slavery and Jim Crow segregation that America does. That doesn’t mean it’s free of racism.

On the contrary, racist attitudes are widely reported to be omnipresent. There’s widespread racism by ethnic Russians against migrants from Central Asian countries, as well as against foreign students from African countries. Immigrants in Russia report discrimination like “Slavs only” signs on apartment buildings. Russia has committed mass deportation so brutal, it’s been called a form of ethnic cleansing.

It’s safe to assume that Gleason hasn’t experienced this kind of treatment himself. Therefore, in his eyes, it doesn’t exist. Judging by his attitude toward Black Lives Matter – where his disdain is clearly for the marchers, and not for the racism they’re protesting – he doesn’t care what racism exists in his society, just as long as he doesn’t have to hear about it.

Here’s yet another of Gleason’s reasons to move:

There are gazillions of Orthodox churches and vibrant Orthodox Christian communities here. For example, in Rostov Veliky there are five monasteries, numerous churches, and zero mosques.

He doesn’t state the reason for this. Do mosques just happen to not exist near where he lives, or are they not allowed there? Is he concerned for religious freedom at all?

Last but not least, there’s this reason that should provoke bitter laughter at his shameless hypocrisy:

The American military industrial complex has no power here. No need to worry about the United States arriving on the doorstep to overthrow another national government.

Gleason felt no compunction about republishing this interview while Russia was waging an unprovoked war against its historically Orthodox Christian neighbor, Ukraine. The Russian invasion has included torture and mass slaughter of civilians, kidnapping of children, leveling cities with artillery barrages, and indiscriminate bombing of churches and cathedrals along with other civilian targets. It’s a level of brutality and callous destruction that American colonialism never reached, even at its harshest.

Most notable about his list is what’s not there. He admits that Russian bureaucracy can be slow and unpleasant to deal with, and that the Russian language is difficult to learn – but that’s it. He says nothing whatsoever about Russia’s lack of freedom, its oligarchical government, its corrupt and arbitrary law enforcement, or Putin’s habit of imprisoning protesters and murdering dissidents. It’s not listed, even euphemistically, in reasons not to move.

In summary, what kind of person moves to Russia? The answer is: a violently homophobic, white supremacist, Christian dominionist who decries American imperialism but cheerfully turns a blind eye to even more brutal and violent Russian imperialism. He doesn’t want to live in a free country where people have rights. He wants to live in a dictatorship, just one where he’s on the same side as the dictator. In Russia, that’s what he’s found.

New on OnlySky: When we abolished borders

I have a new piece of short fiction today on OnlySky. It looks forward to a future where declining birthrates and global warming have become serious problems for the industrialized world, and explores the obvious solution – abolishing borders so that people can move from climate-change-ravaged areas to cooler lands where labor is needed. It imagines what a post-border world might be like for those who live in it, both the positives and the negatives.

Read the excerpt below, then click through to see the full story:

For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, our numbers as a species were declining every year. Capitalist economies premised on the assumption of infinite growth couldn’t cope. Stock markets stagnated, inflation surged out of control. Governments had belatedly tried to address the problem, but every means of encouraging people to have kids—longer parental leave, tax breaks, cash payments, religious scolding—had failed.

Rural villages were emptying out, becoming ghost towns. Grass and weeds pushed up through cracked pavement in silent streets. Abandoned cars decayed on the roadside. Vacant houses were overgrown with vines, dry leaves and birds’ nests. Trees sprouted like the vanguard of an invading army as forests spread and reclaimed the urban areas humanity had ceded.

Continue reading on OnlySky…

Pause for joy

When was the last time you were genuinely happy?

You may be a fortunate soul who has no trouble answering this question. You may have led a charmed existence free from trouble, or you may be a natural Zen master, who suffers like everyone else but lets those pains roll off leaving without a mark.

Or it may require some thought. You may have happy memories in the past, but they’ve grown misty with time. It may take an effort of will to recall them.

Or this may be a difficult question. Your life may be scarred by regret. You might strain to recall even an instant of joy.

Either way, I’d suggest that if your life is lacking, you schedule more happiness into it.

It sounds absurd, because you can’t conjure emotions into existence by willpower. But what you can do is create the conditions for happiness. If you put yourself in the right circumstances, the emotion often follows.

We all know this works in the opposite direction. If I’m tired or hungry or stressed, a minor inconvenience can put me in a bad mood. Our emotions are more dictated by circumstance than we might realize. You can use this to make yourself happier as well.

It doesn’t have to be a peak experience. It can be a simple thing that brings you joy: a party with music, a neighborhood cookout, a gathering with friends or family, a walk in nature, an afternoon in a coffee shop with a good book.

Only you can decide what holds meaning for you. But whatever it is, you should make a deliberate effort to have more of it in your life. Happiness will only come if you leave a space for it to show up.

Happiness is what we should be fighting for

In my view, happiness is the only thing a moral system can sensibly be based on. If you accuse me of being a utilitarian, I’ll gladly plead guilty to the charge.

The alternative to utilitarianism is a morality that’s based on either virtues or rules. You can hold up martial courage, or adherence to tradition, or obedience to duty, or honoring your elders, or religious faith, or any of a thousand other qualities as the supreme guiding principle of life.

However, those moral systems all fall short because they have no explanation for why we should prefer one rule, or one virtue, over a different one. Why tradition, rather than innovation? Why sobriety, rather than hedonism? Why the family rather than the state, or vice versa? Why one church rather than another? If there’s no answer to the “why”, all these choices are ultimately arbitrary.

By contrast, when happiness – or well-being, or flourishing, or whatever you choose to call it – is the key to your morality, you have a guide for how to choose among priorities. You go by what produces the best outcome for human beings, rather than maximizing some impersonal measure of goodness, like getting the high score in a video game.

That doesn’t mean morality is always easy. People can argue (and do, at length) over what the rules should be, when we should hold firm and when we should make exceptions. It will always be difficult to judge between mutually exclusive claims. But if we agree on what the goal is, and if we agree that arguments have to be based on evidence that everyone can see for themselves, it is possible to reach consensus. The expanding circle of moral progress across history testifies to this.

However, a utilitarian philosophy comes with an important asterisk. That’s that we have, in a sense, a duty to be happy. If happiness is the desired state for everyone, doesn’t that mean we should try to nurture it in our own lives?

A duty to be happy

In a society built on capitalism, it can be hard to make time for happiness. Our jobs tend to demand everything we’re able to give and then some. Even among those of us who don’t have bosses to report to, there’s the insidious “hustle culture” mentality that we should devote every waking moment to “productive” (read: money-making) pursuits.

There’s also a political angle to unhappiness. In my experience, where conservatives are prone to disastrous overconfidence, atheists and progressives are habitually gloomy and downbeat. That’s because we look at the world and imagine how it could be, and reality comes up short by comparison.

We dream of a world without violence, exploitation, or suffering. Yet those evils persist, and often it seems like they’re multiplying. We hope for change, but those hopes have so often been dashed – whether because the powers that be strangled reform in its cradle, or because people were kept divided and powerless by their worse impulses of bigotry, ignorance and greed.

When fascism and climate change are knocking at the door, it can seem like the only moral response is to redouble your activism. But if the struggle demands all we have, then leisure and happiness can seem like luxuries you can’t afford. At best, they seem like inexcusable selfishness; at worst, a betrayal of your comrades. Some leftists act as if we have a positive duty to be discontented, the better to motivate us toward rejecting the present order and creating a better one. When the world is so bad, how can you be happy, unless you don’t care?

However, I see a problem with this outlook. If we have it so bad, what about previous generations, who lived in even worse poverty with even fewer rights?

When should past generations have been happy?

What if you were born a medieval peasant, legally bound to a feudal lord, in a rigidly stratified society ruled by kings and churches? The common people in those times had none of the rights we take for granted, and starvation was rarely more than a bad harvest away. Or what if you were born into a Jewish family in that same era, when the entire Christian world was viciously antisemitic?

What if you were born a woman, in any of the patriarchal societies of the past and some that still exist today, that grant women far fewer rights and freedoms than men? Or what if you were a Black person in America in almost any era of the past – or for that matter, America today? (If you’re not American, you can substitute whatever minority is in disfavor in your country.)

What would we say to people born in those repressive, unenlightened times? Was it their duty to be miserable their entire lives, hoping that the far future would be better? Or did those generations have a right to find happiness where they could get it?

To my mind, any morality which claims that happiness is an unaffordable luxury isn’t worth advocating for. It’s a morality that, literally, offers us nothing. No one should be expected to sacrifice their entire life for the sake of others – not a capitalist ruling class, and not their descendants in the distant and uncertain future.

As much as struggle is necessary, you can’t build your entire life around it. We need to make room for joy.

We have to work, and we should fight for a better world. But life can’t be all duty and work and obligation. We also need time and space for ourselves. We need music and art, we need love and beauty, we need rest and celebration. Our lives should partake of all the colors in the palette.