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The Unending Hatred for Russians
I want Putin to lose. I want him to learn that if a country wants freedom, he cannot take it away. I’m cheering for Ukraine. But the insane escalation of anti-Russian measures is disturbing.
Banking sanctions are one thing, but some of the petty elements are just insane. People who live in Russia cannot receive money via Patreon or other donation services. One guy I support was developing a video game trading market, and got completely cut off. He can’t even use online development tools. Speaking of games, several games have cut off Russians from the ability to buy any items in the game using actual money (For a lot of free games, that’s the game company’s revenue stream).
Some of the attacks on Russians are just bizarre, like going after vodkas made in Latvia (Stoli) and the US (Smirnoff). We even have places refusing to allow Tchaikovsky music to be played. Does anyone think Putin gives a damn about these ridiculous measures? The point of sanctions and such is get Russia to leave the Ukrainians and other former satellites alone.
Putin probably appreciates when crazy people do things like argue for deporting Russians and having Russian citizens lose their jobs. There’s nothing like insane criticism to get people to sympathize with a side. I remember reading the Philadelphia Trumpet‘s anti-Catholic propaganda and thinking that it made the Roman Church sound awesome. They had a guy dressed as a cardinal drawing a sword, and the issue was called Crusade. They wanted to blame Catholics for Islamic terrorism, I wanted to yell Deus Vult!
One last note: I have the sneaking suspicion everyone enacting these anti-Putin measures would really like to use them on all of us here. Maximum Trudeau, in other words. Doesn’t change the Ukraine situation, but it does make me worried.
Published in Foreign Policy
Russians definitely have identity issues. They are European but not western. Being western is the “result of stubborn tribal
Germanicpersonas mixed with the depth of Graeco-Roman philosophical traditions all under the benevolent guidance of Christian principles. That long incubation fostered a reverence for individual personhood and a belief in progress.” It’s not necessarily Germanic, just tribal.One of the most seminal moments in Russian civilization was Moscow’s smashing of Novgorod. Things might have been very different if Novgorod had prevailed.
The 1990s were considered the democratic period in Russia by Russians. What were the conditions? High crime. Poverty. Inflation. Economic crises. Constant political drama. Lots of western interference. Is it any wonder democracy isn’t particularly valued?
Russia is at war with the Ukraine. Yes, some of the reactions to Russia have been rather silly. Others are more serious. Over 2 million Ukrainians have been forced out of their homes. Russian forces have been targeting homes, hospitals, and schools. It is hard for me to feel sorry for Russian citizens that have to line-up at an ATM. They get to sleep in their own beds every night. Putin could end this, but the following video makes it clear that lining-up at an ATM is a minor inconvenience compared to what is happening in Ukraine.
I think that this remains unproven, Doug. There is evidence that some such locations were hit. Not many, as far as I can tell. I don’t think that there’s evidence of deliberate targeting of civilians. Figuring this out would require us to know what military targets might be in a particular area at the time of the attack, which is generally not known, as far as I can tell.
It’s also not clear who is doing the destruction in any particular case. Yesterday, you posted a video of a Ukrainian attack on a Russian tank column in what looked like a suburban area. There was some collateral damage, it appeared.
I think that these excessive accusations may be dangerous to the Ukrainians. If the Russians are being fairly restrained about attacking civilians, as it appears, then accusing them of serious war crimes may make them think that they have little left to lose, if they actually start targeting civilians in large numbers.
I think that the destruction could be absolutely appalling, if the Russians have as much artillery as I expect, and if they actually decided to start terror-bombing.
James, do you think that these sanctions are going to be effective? I don’t.
They are going to cause economic harm on both sides, right? If they are not effective, what’s the point? Don’t we have a term for that sort of thing? Virtue signaling.
There is good reason to decouple from China, as China is a serious geopolitical adversary. Russia is not. We’ve been very foolish, I think, to ignore Russia’s security concerns for many, many years. This has alienated the Russians.
At a minimum, man, you don’t want to be fighting both Eastasia and Eurasia at the same time. Even Big Brother wasn’t that unwise. Ideally, you’d like Eurasia on our side against Eastasia. This was feasible, and it might still be possible to normalize relations, though I expect that it will now take several years.
It will also take calm, and trying to see Russia’s point of view, and finding ways to compromise.
I wrote about this last August in this Ricochet post. Part of my conclusion was: “Job Two is containing China. This means building an alliance network in the area, and it should include Russia. Which, in turn, means that we need to stop being so critical of Putin.”
Job One, by the way, was maintaining hegemony in the Western Hemisphere.
I think that no one, no one, no one benefits more from our current confrontation with Russia more than Xi.
Just looking for some clarification. I mean, I know who we’re allowed to and supposed to hate this week, but I’m a little confused about which people getting shelled we’re supposed to give a **** about.
I suppose we will know once VP Chuckles makes the announcement.
Racism, bigotry… they’re distinctions without a difference to most people. What is race anyway, categorization based on physical characteristics? Okay, fine, but I have a lot more in common with a black African, or Inuit Christian than I have with a white liberal Canadian. I’ve got a friend who’s an American whose parents are Indian and who grew up in South Africa and lived many years in Ireland; what box does she fit in?
Physical characteristics are arbitrary, we lump people together based on lots of factors, most of them dumb, but nationalism seems the most fitting these days. So I call hating on an entire group of people for no good reason but for a single binding characteristic, (such as having a Jewish last name, or a Russian passport) racism.
Yes, this is true. What I’m getting at is that every time one uses the word race, it has to be redefined for that special occasion to indicate one (allegedly) special group or another. Irish, Italians, Jews, poles, and Catholics are not actual races. But race has come to be at best a generic catch word ethnicity, color, creed or national origin.
My brother and I were going round and round on this earlier this week. Not necessarily in disagreement; just trying to get some working definitions.
What I’m getting at is “that” (racism, bigotry, discrimination, whatever we agree to call it) is wrong. Period. Even though it is part of our human nature.
What we’ve been doing is defining as wrong specific actions against specific groups.
Per my example, Japanese internment was wrong. Ooooookay. But I’ve spent over a year with some people (and some of those people had power) being perfectly okay with the internment of the ill, the might be ill, the not ill but unvaccinated.
We saw those supposedly on our side agree to, and even celebrate, tyranny for two years. Now we’re seeing them openly agreeing with and participating in the persecution of tens of millions of people across the globe merely because of who those peoples parents are or where they live.
Shameful, disgusting, and hypocritical.
It’s a dark side of human nature we all share. It’s very dangerous for leaders to use that as a weapon and focus on whomever is worthy of today’s two-minute hate
Not allowed to talk about this.
It will be American patriots before you know it, then Christians. Pretty sure I’ve read that somewhere before.
Yes. What bothers me is the loose use of terms (and functionally, fairly pejorative terms) like race, other and tribal. Other and othering are really used in a pejorative way for alien and alienizing; similarly tribe and tribal are used in place of the clearer and more appropriate and less pejorative faction and factional; and race (in common usage) is a garbage term being used in place of ethnicity, culture or some genetic heritage or lineage. In fact, lineage is a classic non-“racial” use of the term race.
Nonetheless, race has never been adequately defined. Race is like pornography: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it. One of the biggest problems is that most of those who use the term race is that though it is ultimately superficial they don’t know it when they say that they should be able to see it — because they can’t know it when they see it (as in “one drop of blood”) because it is such a watery and useless ad hoc term.
A people are responsible for those they allow to rule them. They are in the best position to overthrow their rulers. It is their responsibility. They are among the most important to punish, not the the least important. Their lives should be made even more intolerable when their ruler causes us pain.
Before a single Ukrainian suffers, or a single American suffers for that matter, the people of Russia deserve to suffer a harsh punishment. The people of every country should know that allowing their ruler to behave the way Russia is behaving means that they will be hurt severely. They are in the best position to stop their ruler, they allow their ruler to remain in power. There should be a heavy price for their failure to stop him.
Britain was likely that at they were an island. They could afford to not have a standing army so they could limit the King’s power of taxation.
Nothing I have written indicates hatred of the Russian people, or support for hatred of the Russian people.
So when American policies hurt people in other countries then the American people become a legitimate target?
Let’s see if we can agree about Mariupol which is the last remaining Ukrainian city on the Sea of Azov, which would allow Russia a land bridge from Russia to Crimea. Mariupol was Ukraine’s tenth largest city with over 400,000 people. Mariupol has had no power for a week. It has no access to food. Russia has refused to allow safe passage for its residents who want to leave for the last week, I believe. The residents of Mariupol are starving and freezing to death. Would you agree that this is genocide?
Irish, Italian and Poles are sub-groups of races. We can figure out someone’s race through genetics and race is helpful to Doctors so race is a real thing. If it wasn’t, Doctors wouldn’t care. Catholicism has nothing to do with race.
You’ve just crossed over a line that is hard to cross back from. I pray you choose to consider where that road leads.
The people of any territory have marginal control over their leadership, jusk a few Cambodians, or Iraqis, or Alaskans.
You’re not asking me, but frankly … I’m not in an agreeable mood. What you have claimed may or may not be true. I’m no longer reacting and feeling based upon what I’m told or what I read. I’m 63 – 63 years of life and emotion and reacting are about 58 years too many.
Or Californians for that matter …
As it should.
Social Credit System, coming to you!
I find this unhelpful. A worthy expenditure of our efforts would be to agree with a term that encompasses race, religion, heritage, culture … (I’ve probably missed a few). I think prejudice probably fits bets.
But when that man said that, didn’t we take issue with it?
The enthusiasm with which people supported the notion of excluding the dirty unvaxxed from access to healthcare should have been a wake-up call. Alas, it seems to have been a wake-up call to join in the purge.
I give a pass to American Citizens who were not allowed to chose the current administration, but had it foisted upon them through a mix of outright vote fraud and illegal voting mechanism used by Democrats. (Such as in my own state, where we continue to uncover fraudulently-cast votes.)
Joe Biden is not our legitimate president. Therefore I/we are not responsible for the evils his administration is doing.
Genocide? No. Genocide has a very specific definition.
The Californians deserve it. I don’t doubt that there is some Chicago-style ballot stuffing going on but Californians on average want a leftism that destroys wealth and decency. Californians need to be punished for that collectively so they will figure out that what they did is bad.
I know how cruel that sounds because California is a huge and diverse filled with good and sensible people. But they ain’t the majority.
Really?
What condition are Russian citizens supposed to meet in order to be deemed worthy of access to western systems-like traveling on a plane, running a business in the West, logging onto a video game or streaming service, or accessing their own bank accounts?
Nope, that’s not hateful rhetoric at all.
Sorry, Karina, you lose because you’re from a corrupt nation. Deal with it.