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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
Why are you so mean? You can disagree with the guy without being so mean.
More specific please. Any idea how many people are currently being shelled across the globe?
He just means “bad”.
I agree. In my general usage I use the term race to mean a clan. As for genetically distinct and definable human races, I don’t know that it’s ever been adequately defined.
I agree with your premise only in peacetime. In an active war, a lot of niceties fly out the window. The U.S. definitely did not adhere to these ideals of leaving civilians alone to enjoy the fruits of freedom when we bombed Japan and Germany in World War II.
Perhaps you noticed the title of the post? It might give a clue.
Thank you so much for your kind words and spirit of generosity.
Yes. Fords are strong, dependable, durable, agile and fast. Chevys suck. Call me a bigot, I don’t care.
I guess you cannot define it with 100% certainty but we know some pretty big differences between a negro and an Asian or an Eskimo, for instance.
Well you could read Nicholas D Wade’s a Troublesome Inheritance or Plomin’s book about DNA. I think they define it OK.
My wife swears by Toyota Avalons! Me, I don’t care. As long as it can haul a lot of stuff.
Um, that’s discrimination. Discrimination bad. However, you will find this wine will satisfy the most discriminating of palates. Maybe not discrimination bad.
(Chevys bad.)
And when you walk around the world you rarely if ever see hard and fast borders between one race and another. There is no boundary. There is only: I can’t define it, but I know it when I see it, which is grossly superficial.
Meanwhile “race” is used as a cudgel at times against those who are prejudiced against people with certain physical features (or cultures) or genealogy, and at other times as a cudgel against those who hold different intellectual, social, or political views. I don’t see the point of making racial distinctions.
I don’t even know how to respond to this. Millions of Russians are impacted by this.
It’s alright. I like roadsters and pick-up trucks. For pick-ups Toyotas really do rule.
I believe there is a positive value in making the Russian people less comfortable, and thus exerting pressure on the Putin government. Yes, I know their ability to influence their government is limited compared to our own, but it isn’t nonexistent, and their country’s behavior must, ultimately, be their responsibility.
I have no problem with targeted sanctions. I don’t generally like it when private companies begin expressing their corporate virtue by limiting commerce, because corporations tend to be shallow and short-sighted when they do. But I’m generally on board with imposing costs on Russia and her people while the nation is acting badly.
That’s no defense of token acts of spite against people who are not in Russia, against Russian-sounding companies and products, etc. The point is to make invading neighboring countries politically uncomfortable for those who choose to do it, not to torment people of any particular ethnicity.
Just a semantic argument not a moral argument. Is invasion the crime? Let’s define invasion.
Did the US invade Iraq? A country half a world away?
We had good intentions – according to us. I know I had ‘good intentions’ supporting the war -to a point. Then I questioned other things, outside the box.
But I don’t fell one bit guilty (hey, maybe I should) over the havoc that visited Iraq or the Iraqi people.
I remember being against the Viet Nam war (I didn’t know anything I was 17) on a merchant ship to Cam Rahn Bay wondering if I was complicit in helping the war effort. On the trip, a container broke open from seas and in the container was cases of Gilby’s Gin and Chips Ahoy cookies in tins. So you be the judge of my guilt….
We are all still subjects.
This “democracy” thing is the biggest illusion of all. Inel agencies, Corporations, banks, tech, media and government control everything. It’s an illusion to think we can effect events through the filter of politics and commerce change. And there’s waaaaaaay too much of that going on. Social shaming and deplatforming has gone meta.
We’ve just destroyed our financial credibility on the world currency and investment market over this, and pushed our enemies into a trade war. Remember Trump was doing a trade war when he was merely negotiating for better terms? This is a trade war and it can metastasize.
I strongly disagree with this characterization of my argument. I am OK with denying Karina freedoms of any kind in Russia as a side effect of any retaliation against Putin’s aggression. She can flee Russia and become a refugee just like the Ukrainians fleeing Ukraine. She will then have equal claim on my emotions.
I also would like to point out that supporting liberty and justice for all does not mean we guarantee those for anyone outside the U.S., just that we support their aspirations. They still have to step up and act to achieve that.
Doug, you seem like a practical guy. When you had a guy pulled over, I believe you would give clear orders to even a dirtbag. What are your orders for the Russian people?
Keep in mind, that Putin has issued a crackdown on dissent, including mass arrests at protests. You are hearing people say this invasion will be worse than Afghanistan on state TV. At a certain point, it is good to consider whether most Russian people are hostages rather than accomplices.
My fundamental issue is that sanctions should focus on the goal of removing Russian invaders from Ukraine. If a sanction does not do that, it’s just virtue signalling at best, and contributing to Putin’s propaganda at worst.
The vast majority are Ukrainian ..but I realize you fail to notice that fact.
But I will grant you that the majority of anti-tank rockets fired this week where at Russian tanks. Ohh, the inhumanity of a free people defending themselves….
The condition that such sanctions do not validly hinder the capacity of the enemy state they reside in to project power. Some actions have clearly been pure hateful virtue-signaling (such as banning Russian literature or firing Russian orchestra conductors) while others have been clearly targeted toward a rational end (the Swift sanctions). There are many that reside within a gray area, where it is unclear (at least to me) to what extent the sanctions could be expected to hinder Russia (which is needed) or to punish its people (which is gratuitous except as collateral damage, and likely counterproductive).
In any event, we must take steps to prevent such measures from being used against us (either domestically or internationally, from both public and private actors).
Okay, so . . . guillotines?
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.
Talk about bigotry. Wow. Just Wow.
California voted for the Republican Presidential Candidate every year but one (LBJ in 1964) from 1952 through 1988, but then King RINO Pappy Bush during his Presidency declared war on Southern California particularly , wiped out the defense industry there ( where many of big Defense Contractors started like Lockheed and Hughes Aircraft, erased over 125,000 defense related engineering jobs in LA County alone, then sent in the banking regulators in that severely declining market to mark to market all commercial loans coming up for renewal wiping out tens of thousands of businesses in the process, and then opened the flood gates for illegals.
He essentially sent many Republicans packing and replaced them with illegals who would vote by the millions in Cali for the Dems. And you blame we Californians for that? What a ridiculously stupid and illiterate Clown Bigot!
First of all when I was on the street I never told anyone that I was going to take them to booking unless I had enough probable cause and a reasonable belief that they had committed a crime.
The big mistake at least on the US side was to issue public threats against Putin. That doesn’t leave any room for negotiations. Negotiations might not have stopped this, but it wasn’t helpful to either side.
Putin was squeezing Ukraine with disinformation and the annexation of Crimea, the Obama administration was squeezing Ukraine, Trump was squeezing Ukraine, and Biden squeezed Ukraine as Vice-President.
I see things on a very basic level. I’ve seen my share of violence, and some undeserved deaths. I’ve heard a lot of rationalizations for violent behavior, and I’m hearing them now.
Gary:
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?
Got to stand with Gary here. One could argue as many have here that this doesn’t fit the precise definition of “genocide”, okay, mebbe, but it sure seems like a very close second.
If trying to wipe out a people unlike your own even if from the distant past they come some the same descendants , isn’t close to genocide then I don’t know what is. The Russians are indiscriminately murdering Ukrainians by the thousands to gain the upper hand as a military strategy, but Putin is also punishing the Ukrainian people for standing up and fighting back much harder than he anticipated to his unwarranted aggression. Sure he is pissed because he is taking big losses but so what?
Aren’t you saying that most of the good people fled, and lots of illegals and other leftists came in? Wouldn’t that mean that even if California was at least leaning towards doing the right things in the past, that’s no longer true? At least for the majority.
So could be be that the old California wouldn’t have deserved it, but it’s not the old California any more? I guess you could just blame who you think is responsible for ruining the old California, but if the point is that the leftists and illegals now ruining California need to get the message, how is that wrong?
Mate, you are stuck. Ukraine fights for its very existence and the life of its men, women and children – against a 24 months self isolated, 22 year in power, KGB derived, St. Petersburg/Azov mafia sponsored thug with a series of personality disorders beyond his smarts and lizard brain – and you have nothing better to do then go for this?
Man up. Be solid. Ukrainians want to live free, un-invaded, build their own way out of the transition conundrum of a post-soviet economy. They are decent people overall with the same flaws as ours. But they are fighting against raping, pillaging, looting, civilian bombarding invaders.
Ike would not have sat idle by and uttered disparaging whataboutisms (normally something lefties and junkyard non-Westerns, and indeed KGB followers do). Neither would Kennedy for all his faults or Reagan, if any of them mean anything to you.
It is the West’s duty to BE the West, and be the barrier to the lunatic dictator with his brinkmanship and desire to subjugate and eradicate what he specifically demeaningly calls ‘Little Russians’.
Think. Help them. At the moment we are defending the West to the last drop of blood of the last Ukrainian. Shame on us. This is a fight we must jointly fight. Smart, dedicated, with panache, leadership, skill but also together. We can still engage in barroom brawls after. Otherwise there is no after.
I am here in Tallinn, Estonia. 172 km away from what has become Mordor, we organise help, helmets, flak vests, etc from all over Europe to go there on daily transport – and the longer I listen to the phone calls intercepted by us of Russian soldiers who collectively claim that they knew nothing (some conscripts did not) but then their phones are connected to those specific calls in which they praise the looting, brag about the minks coats, the ‘electric kitchen mixers’, jewellery to their girlfriends and wives, describe the raping and shooting of the people they raped to their friends, and parents – the more I get why my Ukrainian friends since 2014 call them ORCS.
Have a heart. If you do not believe me, ask, I and others can send you data, links, images, RAW, made by friends, our IT service team in Kyiv who now all are in various functions at war, which will make your veins go cold even if you are a veteran and have seen mutilations, heavy indirect fire, and the result of torture, mayhem and executions.
We have already close to 2 million refugees. The heavy artillery fire after the regrouping of the NW of Kyiv is about to start. This will become much worse. We must help.
So these people should just up and move to another country before they deserve our sympathy or assistance for a better life. Maybe that’s easy for an affluent westerner. Not so much for 90% of the rest of the people on the globe.
We don’t even guarantee those for Americans, but wherever we can provide them we used to.
Now apparently we reject your freedom application based on geography and nationality.
There are Russians fleeing to Finland due to Putin’s invasion of Ukraine:
There are two evil sides to this war from my point of view.
Evil Side One
Yes, Putin entered into this war wanting to deny Ukraine NATO membership, apparently wanting to gain control over at least parts of Ukrainian territory, and perhaps did all this to rework the World Order more to his liking. He clearly did not choose a minor incursion but went in whole hog knowing full well that thousands upon thousands of Ukrainians would die needlessly, driven by an evil rage fomented by an unbridled hatred for the West, NATO and particularly the USA who he thinks destroyed his cherished Soviet Union.
Evil Side Two
But then there is Traitor Joe. He clearly incited Putin egging on Ukraine to ask for full NATO membership, knowing full well that for Putin as well as almost the totality of the Russian leadership that this NATO membership for Ukraine was a huge Red line that was not to be crossed. Biden continuously egged on Ukraine, purposely to incited Putin to attack in a big way, but at the same time did not prepare Ukraine militarily for this war he was inciting. He talked big but gave very little real aid to Ukraine.
One could ask why did Biden do this? Is he as clueless as he seems or is there something else afoot?
I believe Biden used the Ukrainian people as cannon fodder for his evil schemes. He is just as evil as Putin, perhaps even worse. I think this war was part of his plan.
Point One
I think Biden wanted a protracted war in the Ukraine and he got one.
His passive/aggressive approach to this war was to incite Putin to go to war in a big way giving Putin the impression that Ukraine could not resist Russia’s invasion and then to create enough backlash and military resistance against the invasion so Putin would be stuck in a protracted quagmire.
Why would Biden do this? Especially since he may be risking nuclear war? I believe his reasons were: