La Russophobe has moved!

You should be automatically redirected in 6 seconds. If not, visit
http://larussophobe.wordpress.com
and update your bookmarks.

Take action now to save Darfur

Monday, December 11, 2006

Annals of the Russophile Blogosphere

Occasionally, La Russophobe comes across something so offensive and disgusting in the Russophile blogosphere that she simply has to report it, even though its probably better to just ignore it, allowing the Russophiles to shrivel up like raisins in the sun. In this instance, she won't even dirty her fingertips by linking to the odious little blog responsible, but you can find it easily enough if you wish. It's called "veryrussian.net" and it's run by a Russian named Nikolay Ershov who works as a translator in Czech Republic. Quite often, you will find, those most staunchly defensive of Russia don't actually live there.

Niklolay reports as follows in a recent post:

Alexandr Ivanov, a 45-year-old Kyrgyz civilian, ethnically Russian, was shot dead on Wednesday by a U.S. soldier at the Manas airport, partially turned into a USAF facility in 2001. He was buried today. The U.S. military claims the soldier acted in self-defence, as Ivanov was threatening him with a knife. Why, I wonder, is it always the Americans who shoot civilians at checkpoints? You never hear of British troops doing that in Iraq or Afghanistan, while U.S. troops made a point of killing a pregnant woman as she was being rushed to a Baghdad hospital to give birth, in what was just one of many episodes. Jumpy? An interesting parallel here: just a few weeks ago, NYC police killed a man on his wedding day, firing 50 bullets at his car. British police don’t even carry firearms.
In psychotic (that is, neo-Soviet) fashion, he then goes on to conclude that this shows America is much more dangerous than Russia and negates any criticism of the Putin regime. He makes no attempt to document his claim that "is it always the Americans who shoot civilians at checkpoints" with any kind of data (or even a single additional anecdote). He does not report that the Russian murder rate is far higher than America's, indeed the fifth highest in the whole world, or that New York City's crime rate has fallen dramatically over the past decade so that it's now one of the safest big cities in the world. And he just happens to dredge up this story in the wake of the spate of Kremlin-sponsored assasinations that have terrorized Britain. In fact, just like Soviet TV used to do, he's spent the last couple of weeks diverting his readers with guessing games (all of which ultimately proved totally fraudulent) rather than even try to rationalize the Kremlin's barbaric conduct. This is the typical dishonesty of the Russophile propagandist, and it is what we are up against as we struggle with the neo-Soviet Union. Research or fact documentation of any kind is anathema to these neo-Soviet stooges, they lie as they breathe because that's what the society they were raised in taught them to do. They're far more dangerous to Russia than any foreign enemy. Always have been.

All that is to say nothing of the hypocrisy involved in Nikolay making statements like these about America on a blog he claims exists to dispel unfair "cliches" about Russia. Apparently, his modus operandi is to do so by creating even more unfair cliches about other countries. Classic Soviet stuff.

And it gets worse, much worse: Did you notice the phrase "Alexandr Ivanov, a 45-year-old Kyrgyz civilian, ethnically Russian"? Think about that. Just exactly what does "ethnically Russian" mean? Russian is a nationality, it's citizenship, it's nothing whatsoever to do with race. Nikolay, in other words, is a Slavic racist to boot. It's as if an American said "George Washington, ethnically American" meaning W.A.S.P. Nikolay is using the word "Russian" as a synonym for "Slavic" and thereby denigrating the citizenship of everyone who holds a Russian passport and isn't Slavic. As La Russophobe has previously reported, Russian (or maybe we should say Slavic) actually has a word, "ROO-skee," which means "Russian because of Slavic blood" and a different word, "Rah-SEE-skee," which means "Russian because his passport says so" and actually means "not really Russian at all." You can't even properly translate these terms into English with single word equivalents because English has never gone so far as to linguistically formalize racism the way Russia has.

So basically, if you're paying attention, Nikolay is actually just confirming every cliche about Russia in the book (especially the one about racism) even as he purports to dispel them. Classic Soviet stuff. Self-destruction.

Crazed Russophile propagandist Nikolay also wrote about journalist Boris Stomakhin, previously mentioned on La Russophobe. Nikolay claimed that since Stomakhin called for Chechen victory in the war against Russia, he did not deserve "free speech" rights and belonged behind bars just for stating his opinion. He stated: "I’m not sure I’m not breaking my web host’s ToS, and, in fact, the standard ToS of any non-rogue web host in the world, by even linking to what he freely spake." This is typical Russophile dishonesty. Niklolay makes no attempt to quote any web host agreement that forbids publishing or linking to statements calling for Chechen military victory in Russia, he just imagines it the same way Krushchev imagined he would "bury" Jack Kennedy. Was it forbidden for Americans or Russians to call for the killing of Germans during World War II? Would Nikolay like to ban Russian celebrations of their victory in that war? Did this disgustingly hypocritical blogger criticize "President" Putin when he said he'd kill the Chechens in their outhouses? Did he condemn, as Amnesty International has, Russia's shocking human rights atrocities against Chechen women and children? Does he think at all before posts? It's just this kind of barbaric, cave-man "thinking" that has kept Russia languishing in the dark ages for so long. And by Russian standards, Nikolay's actually an enlightened liberal. How scary is that!

Russians like Nikolay, who proudly refers to himself as a "loyal citizen of Russia," have no concept of the value of free speech, their narrow undeveloped minds can only see its downside. They simply can't understand that the whole point of free speech is protecting what you don't want to hear. The more odious the speech, the more protection it deserves. And the reason is simple: First, to limit the power of the government and avoid dictatorship, second to assure the free flow of information so as to maximize decisionmaking, and third to test the weaknesses of the society, strengthening it for the future. In Russia, we see a classic case where the government is deprived of information and consistently makes bad decisions, with the result that today Russia has become "Zaire with permafrost." And because the government is so powerful, every mistake it makes is hideously magnified. Russians have created absolutely no opportunity for "normal" Chechens to engage in dialogue with them, they regularly conduct racist pogroms against Chechens, lay waste to their country, and then they're "shocked, shocked" when Chechens call for war. This is why no peace can come to Chechnya and Russians will never be safe from Chechen terror. Russians cannot begin to understand Chechens because they have no information about them, even though they claim Chechnya is "part of Russia" and so foreign countries cannot interfere.

Incidentally, the website of the Chechen rebels, Kavkaz Center, repeatedly comes under cyber attack from KGB hackers trying to shut it down. Occasionally, when you try to access it, the site will appear to be down, but due to the tireless efforts of the rebel coordinators, it doesn't last long. You wouldn't know about this from Nikolay, though. Mentioning the Center he only wrote: "It’s offline now (and hopefully will stay so)." Not a word about the cyber attacks or the efforts of the KGB, no indication that this amazingly dynamic and resilient outpost is alive and well. This is the typical dishonesty of the Russophile propagandist, and it is what we are up against as we struggle with the neo-Soviet Union.

No comments: