
PJ Media
The capacity for stupid, pointless, gestures by liberals demonstrating that they “stand up for Ukraine” or “speak truth to Putin” has gotten to the point where even my Pepto-Bismal can’t keep me from retching up my lunch. Indeed, the “protests” are more a statement of solidarity than anything meaningful. But what makes me sick to my stomach is that the Western protesters can’t imagine they’re taking this protest against Putin beyond reason so that the ludicrous lengths to which they are going to signal their virtue might appear very odd and disturbing to ordinary people. Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky’s music may be timeless, inspiring, and a joy to listen to, but he’s Russian so he’s got to go. Really? Tchaikovsky lived in Czarist Russia in the mid-19th century. Russia then was as different from Putin’s Russia as the antebellum South is from Joe Biden’s America today. But when it comes to virtue signaling, common sense and proportion don’t matter as much as the gesture itself. The more useless it is, the more importance can be attached to it. The Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra in the UK announced on Wednesday that it had scrubbed the great composer’s work from an upcoming concert, calling his music “inappropriate at this time. It doesn’t matter that Tchaikovsky was one of the least nationalist of Russia’s composers. Tchaikovsky’s name sounds Russian, the guy looks Russian, and other Russians adore him.