A different take on Russia

[Thomas Eckhardt]

On Tue, 17 Jan 2017 06:38:20 -0500
  ish mailian <ishmailian at gmail.com> wrote:

>Is the only defense of Putin's crimes the condemnation of US crimes?

"Putin's crimes"...

"The Demonizing the enemy, Demonization of the enemy or Dehumanization 
of the enemy is a state propaganda technique which promotes an idea 
about the enemy being threatening evil aggressor with only destructive 
objectives. Demonization is the oldest propaganda technique aimed to 
inspire hatred toward the enemy necessary to hurt them more easily, to 
preserve and mobilize allies and demoralize the enemy."

Another quote:

"All that most maddens and torments; all that stirs up the lees of 
things; all truth with malice in it; all that cracks the sinews and 
cakes the brain; all the subtle demonisms of life and thought; all evil, 
to crazy Ahab, are visibly personified, and made practically assailable 
in Moby-Dick. He piled upon the whales's white hump the sum of all the 
general rage and hate felt by his whole race from Adam down; and then, 
as if his chest had been a mortar, he burst his hot heart's shell upon it."

Here is Chris Floyd, who despises both Trump and Putin:

"I don’t like Putin. I didn’t like Putin when George Bush was looking 
into his soul and embracing him as a partner. I didn’t like Putin when a 
Kremlin-connected bank gave Bill Clinton $500,000 for a single speech 
after he helped Russia gain a huge share of the American uranium market. 
(...) I don’t like Putin today. But I don’t think I have ever seen such 
a full-scale, all-out demonization and 'Othering' campaign like the one 
going on now, not just against Putin and his loathsome regime, but 
Russia and Russians in general. Not even the run-up to the Iraq War was 
so blatant and blunt and racist. At least in the public propaganda, the 
Iraqi people themselves weren’t demonized, but depicted as victims of a 
tyrant. (...) But more and more we see the stance, the assumption, that 
the worthless Russian people deserve whatever’s coming to them for 
supporting Putin. (Oddly enough, one sees the same take in 'liberal' 
circles about U.S. regions that voted for Trump: 'those people' deserve 
whatever they get, they’re scum, they deserve to die.)

Where is all this headed? Does it begin with funny ha-ha jokes about 
invading Russia like Hitler did — and end with actually invading Russia 
like Hitler did? What is it that our newly converted CIA liberals and 
New McCarthyite progressives really want? War with Russia? On what 
grounds? Do they really think Russia is going to invade Poland? (...) Do 
they want nuclear war over Crimea — while they happily do business with 
Tibet-gobbling China (whose regime is actually more repressive than 
Putin’s)? Everything in this broad-ranging anti-Russian campaign sounds 
and feels like the run-up to the Iraq War. So is that the ultimate aim — 
war? Is this what our good liberals and progressives are signing up for? 
Will they be laughing all the way to the fall-out shelter?"

http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/01/18/infinite-jest-liberals-laughing-all-the-way-to-hell/

He is exaggerating, I hope. But it is this kind of demonization that I 
see at work when an otherwise smart and knowledgeable person like David 
Morris feels inclined to tell me "Russia is fascist as hell!" And this 
while the West, including Germany, is openly supporting neo-Nazis in 
Ukraine against Russia.

>The US, as all here know, has been rigging elections, assassinating
>elected leaders, installing puppets...etc...funding and arming enemies
>of liberty and freedom and democracy and decency.

My point is, of course, that for many people across the West regime 
change suddenly stopped being an international crime and became good 
practice once Obama and, more importantly, Clinton entered office. Many 
people who call themselves liberals or progressives and rightfully 
condemn those earlier US/CIA sponsored coups, not to mention the Iraq 
War, torture and Guantanamo, wholeheartedly supported and still support 
the "transition of power" brokered (Obama's words) by the US in Ukraine.

(At first I thought that these people just didn't have enough 
information, but now I realize that I have been wrong. They view Russia 
as the enemy, facts be damned.)

The Maidan coup was not in any significant way different to Guatemala, 
Iran, Chile etc. It is a continuation of the same old imperialist power 
politics -- with the added frisson of doing it right at Russia's border.

Trump is right about one thing only: He wants de-escalation of tensions 
with Russia. And for this, and much less for his misogyny or his racism 
or his corporate agenda, he is attacked by the bipartisan War 
Establishment and the deep state.

The liberal establishment or Clintonite wing of the Democratic Party is 
now openly on the side of warmongers John McCain, Lindsey Graham, and 
Cheney protégé Victoria Nuland (not to mention Ukrainian neo-Nazis yet 
again) and of proven liars like Brennan and Clapper  -- all of them 
members of the bipartisan War Party executing the wishes of the MIC ("my 
funding, funding, ahhh more, more").

If this isn't reason enough for a long, hard look in the mirror, I don't 
know what is.
-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l