Seen on the street in Kyiv.

Words of Advice:

"If Something Seems To Be Too Good To Be True, It's Best To Shoot It, Just In Case." -- Fiona Glenanne

“The Mob takes the Fifth. If you’re innocent, why are you taking the Fifth Amendment?” -- The TOFF *

"Foreign Relations Boil Down to Two Things: Talking With People or Killing Them." -- Unknown

“Speed is a poor substitute for accuracy.” -- Real, no-shit, fortune from a fortune cookie

"If you believe that you are talking to G-d, you can justify anything.” — my Dad

"Colt .45s; putting bad guys in the ground since 1873." -- Unknown

"Stay Strapped or Get Clapped." -- probably not Mr. Rogers

"The Dildo of Karma rarely comes lubed." -- Unknown

"Eck!" -- George the Cat

* "TOFF" = Treasonous Orange Fat Fuck, A/K/A Dolt-45,
A/K/A Commandante (or Cadet) Bone Spurs,
A/K/A El Caudillo de Mar-a-Lago, A/K/A the Asset., A/K/A P01135809

Tuesday, July 5, 2022

Россия -- Некультурный

That's what Russia is, these days. Uncultured, barbaric. Oh, they may have great art, classic buildings, opera, ballet and literature.

But launching heavy antiship missiles at shopping mallls? Apartment buildings?

Those were not strikes against military targets. Those were deliberate attacks at civilian targets, aimed at producing a great number of civilian casualties.

It is unculured. It is barbaric.

It is, in fact, terrorism carried out by a nation.

One of the things that Putler used as an excuse for his war of aggression that Ukrainians are stopping to speak the Russian language. It wasn't true, then, but it is true now.

Nina Khrushcheva argues against the cancellation of Russian culture, This is one of her arguments:

Even Russians who do not fully buy the Kremlin’s Ukraine narrative are aghast at the readiness with which the West turned on all things Russian. After World War II, schools continued to teach the German language; orchestras continued to perform Bach and Mozart to full houses; and people continued to read Goethe and Thomas Mann. All of German history and culture was not stained by the crimes of the Nazis.

That may be true enough, but it sure as shit wasn't true during either world war. And it wasn't all that true in Britain for years afterwards. During the Great War, sauerkraut was renamed "liberty cabbage."

And right now, Putler's War most assuredly is not over.

8 comments:

dan gerene said...

Wasn't the language issue used by the guy with the funny mustache as an excuse to roll into other countries while Chamberlain looked the other way? How come Ontario and Newfoundland don't attack Quebec for the language difference. Having driven in Quebec I know you better learn a little French to at least understand some of their signs.

Stewart Dean said...

One person wrote:
> Russia asked and warned the West to halt its eastward expansion
It did, yes, but I replied:

A. Russia's paranoia must be taken into consideration, but at some point the world and democritization must be allowed to go forward
B. Russia's obsession with its version of Manifest Destiny, a Greater Russia that dominates its neighbor and demands their obeisance, must be taken into account, but at some point its neighbors want to live their own lives and national destinies.
C. Russia's (and the Russian Orthodox Church's) belief in its exceptionalism must be taken into account, but at some point its neighbor want to live in a vibrant 21st century
D. Russia's lasting devotion to totalitarian oppression from the Tsars, through Stalin and Putin, mires it and its people. It tried to vault in 50 years from feudal serfdom to modernity, an activity which took France, England and Germany some 200 years; the short path didn't go well. Pretty much everything it touched has gone disastrously wrong; there's no need to worship that misfortune and every reason to quarantine it. Perhaps after its collapse, some sort of Marshall Plan might go forward....but their touchy pride, their grievance and alcoholism-like crazies present a very difficult path forward. When Western companies pull out of what might be a money maker, you know the odds are lousy.

Russia is a decrepit, self-deluding imploding has-been whose tantrums evoke eyerolls everywhere.. The focus at this point to limit the collateral damage of its collapse....and perhaps to hasten it.

A Russian apologist blew up at this, saying our hands aren't clean either. I replied to her:

Oh for sure...Our nativist exceptionalism, how we freaked when Cuba turned Communist not so many miles from Key West, Trump, the conservatively and illegitimately packed/politicized SCOTUS and the GOP. A real horror show that we thought the arc of progress had left behind. And worldwide Jews are deeply complicit in the shit of Israel

But there is no political perfection, nor much in the way of absolute truths. America is woefully deficient, but as with Churchill's comment on democracy, it's the worst possible country, but one of the few that works after a fashion

You dump on anything that isn't your truths, many of which are utter lunacy if not treasonously supportive of Russia. Yes, Ukraine and Ukrainians have some serious dirty fascist laundry from the past....just as we had Lindberg and American Nazis, just as we knew but did almost nothing about the Holocaust. IBM sold data processing machinery for the Final Solution and on and on. Politics is a dirty business. If you want to stand on a pedestal and point, knock yourself out. Politics has always been the ugly ingredients that go into making sausage. We have Quislings like Trump and Greene and Hawley and Carthy and, from my home state, McConnell. Life is the art of the possible, of compromise, of getting along...something which the Right....and you...have forgotten.

Would somebody hit the big red button and reboot the 21st century?

Ten Bears said...

I figure the Russia Lovers love Russia so much they can go live in Russia.

There are bigger issues at hand. A boiling atmosphere comes to mind.

Something needs to be done, the ends justify the means ...

DTWND said...

Well said, Stuart. If we want to move along as a country, we need to get along. The Gingrich/Tea Party approach of “My way or no way” has crippled the US. Like the tantrum throwing child, if the parent gives in to his/her rants, they only learn that behavior.

Dale

DTWND said...

My apologies, Stewart. I mis-spelled your name. But I still agree with your message.

Dale

Stewart Dean said...

Ten Bears, if we don't manage substantive means, there will definitely be an end...to pretty much everything that defines humanity. Meanwhile, SCOTUS thinks it can strike down physics as unconstitutional.

Glenn Kelley said...

The Ukraine saw the Nazis as liberators after years of terror and artificial starvation by Stalin . They had a reason to support fascism those sentiments linger.Not necessarily excusable but way more understandable than the authoritarian whining we hear in Western Europe and North America .

Comrade Misfit said...

The Ukrainians may indeed have initially seen The Nazis is liberators, but they were disabused of that notion once the Einsatzgruppen got to work killing almost everybody they can get their hands on.

The forces raping and slaughtering civilians are Russians. Некультурный .