The Russian manifesto in Ukraine sounds (un)surprisingly like the rhetoric from the right-wing media the past five years.
“They” are coming for you; They are trying to destroy you; the evil pedophiles are coming for your kids…so we - patriots - must destroy every last one of them, regardless of who gets hurt.
It’s been so scary because those who know history, know this is how genocides get started.
In comments on a JVL post from last week, I talked about how the Russian project in Ukraine would require the death of everyone who is Ukrainian and all of their families. While I meant it seriously, I did not expect Russia to admit to it out loud.
As I read the Kremlin manifesto, I substituted the word “MAGA” for Kremlin, and it all sounded plausible. We are in dangerous times, globally and nationally.
So, can we finally call Russia what it is? A fascist state? Because all the quibbling over what 'fascism' looks like, I feel like we can call a spade a spade. The guy is waging ethnic genocide against a state on behalf of a national volk. He's more of a fascist than even Franco, and that's amazing. Putin's Russia looks more like Nazi Germany than ever, even if we consider Nazism to be distinctly German. Maybe we need a new word to talk about this sort of ethnic genocide going on on behalf of a mythical Russian empire.
One thing that I fear most is that, as the right in America becomes more pro-Putin, and I expect they will as their screeds against the lgbtq+ community grow, that we're going to get a bunch of Americans going 'yeah we need to do the same thing here.'
One caveat. In that article about trans people that you mentioned, there's a lot of weird both sidesism, where it goes 'yeah people are having their civil rights taken away but some people are mean on twitter so they're the same.' People's rights shouldn't be determined based on what other people say on twitter, I think.
IMO, Kevin Williamson is the only person worth reading over at NR. (that Trump sycophantic rag) I agree with him maybe 50% of the time, but his writing is clean and his arguments consistent. However, for full on crazy, the comments section is a delight. It is an x-ray into the brain of rightwing, true believing nutbaggery that very few other publications offer. A window, if you will, into how "educated" people think the Democrats are the reincarnation of Satan. Truly something to behold.
It's perfectly fine to call Collins, Murkowski and Romney pro-pedophile. Just don't accuse them of inviting other Republicans to orgies or doing drugs.
How can you read the Russian screed against Ukraine without horror? And, without realizing that fascism is exactly where we are headed in this country? We have a major political party that has weaponized lies, both big and small, to regain power. They have several media outlets that join them in spreading the lies, shaping the views of their audiences. They embrace white supremacists and armed militias. Their elected officials do not defend our nation, our laws, our institutions, or our Constitution, instead actively participating or remaining silent because their lust for power justifies all of it. When a violent insurrection becomes legitimate political discourse, when the occupant of the White House can flaunt any law, any decency, any norm, when they defend and minimize foreign interference in our elections, when they are willing to embrace any brutal dictator and pursue any means to overturn a free and legitimate election - how much further do they have to travel before it's no longer hyperbole to accuse them of fascism?
Every American should be very concerned about casting a single vote for a political party that will not change the dangerous and hate-filled course they are on unless and until they are dealt massive defeats at the ballot boxes.
The Russian screed on denazification of Ukraine resembles something you might find negligently left in a public library's public-use copying machine, besmeared with traces of feces. What are we going to do with Russia? It's as if a nation of hundreds of millions, well-requisitioned with all manner of nuclear weapons, is now being led by the Unibomber.
And it's breathtaking how stupid rightwing pundits think their audience is. And they're not wrong. You would only say such things about KBJ if you knew your audience had no interest in the truth. It's not as if Mollie Hemingway, who works at The Federalist and is presumably familiar with how the Third Branch works, believes anything she says. She just knows how stupid the people who listen to her are, and regularly takes advantage of them.
Williamson is dead wrong. Never has the GOP been more conservative than it is today. Everyone who isn't 95%+ with conservatism has been purged.
Nordlinger is even more wrong. Men like Reagan sided with thugs like Pinochet and J. Edgar Hoover. They liked authoritarianism so long as it had a "free market."
What a sad group our Republican Senators, thanks to the good people of Michigan we have two Democrats. With all the problems in this country and the world we have a group wasting time debating a person they just okayed 10 months ago for a lower court position. They court is packed with Dumpers, this judge will have no ability to make any changes in any law for years if ever. I do not understand how some of these characters get elected but in the Dump era it's what's happening and aside from that they think they can be President! There is no truth anymore between Dump, Fox news and social media everyone has become an expert on elections, Russia, the courts. The Senate is a joke and the house soon will be if the Republicans take over next year. If anyone thinks nothing is getting done now, wait until next year!
In today's TAC by Dreher: "You tell me: would you rather live in a society governed by Viktor Orban, or Joe Biden, who once called Orban a “thug”? Because if we on the Right don’t get an American version of Orban soon, it’s going to be Bidens (including Republican Bidens like Larry Hogan) all the way down to the society’s dissolution." FRIGHTENING!!!
On Mona Charon's piece. I really hope somebody who can make a difference reads that piece. I have blocked every one of the D's solicitors since just after the 2020 election. Their childish infighting, self-serving naivete regarding governance in the 21st Century, and their utter lack of foresight into the impending disaster, is incomprehensible. Any thinking strategist would take a mere 30-40 percent of the incredibly damning evidence of treason, voter suppression, and ant-democratic behavior the Republicans have been marshalling and turn it into a rallying cry for 2022. We have heard nothing but a call to gather round the campfire. Moscow Mitch has a strategy, as usual. The press is giving TFG everything he needs. Schumer is wringing his hands, and Canada does not look like a good option.
Again, absolutely outstanding article by Cathy Young. She is indespensable to understand the Ukraine War and to interpret the evolution and reactions from the different factions of the US ideological camps. On the Kremlin manifesto, I think it is an error to call it fascism. It falls into the realm of what the ideological evolution of the old European Communist Parties has become in many places in Europe. As a native from a European country, and as a person who came to age at the time of the Soviet Union collapse, I have seen the evolution of the former communist parties in the different European nations that later formed the United Left into New radical left subparties which question the very existance and right to existance of most modern European nations (colonialism has a lot to do with it, but the reasons given are as diverse and complex as the European history. In each country, they attach the reasoning to a different issue). When I mention this to my own family (my US-born and raised husband, dual citizenship children and US in-laws), they question me and tell me that "I exaggerate and they don't see it." They don't see it because understandably they are not paying attention. Only a few weeks ago my own husband became alarmed when I showed him a op-ed in a major US publication (I can't remember exactly which one) by a US professor and a cadre of cheerleaders in the comment section who repeated all the ideological theories which gave foot to questioning the right to existance of my country, all the theories that they never heard before and thought that I was exaggerating. In every Western European country there's some Bandera-like figure with a questionable past that some radical portion of the left is using to question the right to existance of the liberal order as it is now and to limit access to the system to opposing parties for their real or imagined association to those figures. Let's don't call fascism everything we find despicable. Of course, you will find very troubling right-wing nationalist Oban-like figures in many European countries, but you will also find the right-to-exist deniers on the left, and their speech sounds a lot like the Kremlin Manifesto.
We are getting close to the point where it is going to be (as my dear mother would say) time to shit or get off the pot.
How can you read stuff like we have seen and see what is going on and fail to act in some effective fashion? How can you keep buying energy off these people and financing this crap? How can you defend these people and look at yourself in the mirror without retching?
The Russian manifesto in Ukraine sounds (un)surprisingly like the rhetoric from the right-wing media the past five years.
“They” are coming for you; They are trying to destroy you; the evil pedophiles are coming for your kids…so we - patriots - must destroy every last one of them, regardless of who gets hurt.
It’s been so scary because those who know history, know this is how genocides get started.
In comments on a JVL post from last week, I talked about how the Russian project in Ukraine would require the death of everyone who is Ukrainian and all of their families. While I meant it seriously, I did not expect Russia to admit to it out loud.
As I read the Kremlin manifesto, I substituted the word “MAGA” for Kremlin, and it all sounded plausible. We are in dangerous times, globally and nationally.
It appears that using "commie" as slander against anyone to your left is now replaced by "pedo".
So, can we finally call Russia what it is? A fascist state? Because all the quibbling over what 'fascism' looks like, I feel like we can call a spade a spade. The guy is waging ethnic genocide against a state on behalf of a national volk. He's more of a fascist than even Franco, and that's amazing. Putin's Russia looks more like Nazi Germany than ever, even if we consider Nazism to be distinctly German. Maybe we need a new word to talk about this sort of ethnic genocide going on on behalf of a mythical Russian empire.
One thing that I fear most is that, as the right in America becomes more pro-Putin, and I expect they will as their screeds against the lgbtq+ community grow, that we're going to get a bunch of Americans going 'yeah we need to do the same thing here.'
One caveat. In that article about trans people that you mentioned, there's a lot of weird both sidesism, where it goes 'yeah people are having their civil rights taken away but some people are mean on twitter so they're the same.' People's rights shouldn't be determined based on what other people say on twitter, I think.
IMO, Kevin Williamson is the only person worth reading over at NR. (that Trump sycophantic rag) I agree with him maybe 50% of the time, but his writing is clean and his arguments consistent. However, for full on crazy, the comments section is a delight. It is an x-ray into the brain of rightwing, true believing nutbaggery that very few other publications offer. A window, if you will, into how "educated" people think the Democrats are the reincarnation of Satan. Truly something to behold.
It's perfectly fine to call Collins, Murkowski and Romney pro-pedophile. Just don't accuse them of inviting other Republicans to orgies or doing drugs.
How can you read the Russian screed against Ukraine without horror? And, without realizing that fascism is exactly where we are headed in this country? We have a major political party that has weaponized lies, both big and small, to regain power. They have several media outlets that join them in spreading the lies, shaping the views of their audiences. They embrace white supremacists and armed militias. Their elected officials do not defend our nation, our laws, our institutions, or our Constitution, instead actively participating or remaining silent because their lust for power justifies all of it. When a violent insurrection becomes legitimate political discourse, when the occupant of the White House can flaunt any law, any decency, any norm, when they defend and minimize foreign interference in our elections, when they are willing to embrace any brutal dictator and pursue any means to overturn a free and legitimate election - how much further do they have to travel before it's no longer hyperbole to accuse them of fascism?
Every American should be very concerned about casting a single vote for a political party that will not change the dangerous and hate-filled course they are on unless and until they are dealt massive defeats at the ballot boxes.
The Russian screed on denazification of Ukraine resembles something you might find negligently left in a public library's public-use copying machine, besmeared with traces of feces. What are we going to do with Russia? It's as if a nation of hundreds of millions, well-requisitioned with all manner of nuclear weapons, is now being led by the Unibomber.
And it's breathtaking how stupid rightwing pundits think their audience is. And they're not wrong. You would only say such things about KBJ if you knew your audience had no interest in the truth. It's not as if Mollie Hemingway, who works at The Federalist and is presumably familiar with how the Third Branch works, believes anything she says. She just knows how stupid the people who listen to her are, and regularly takes advantage of them.
That translated article was absolutely horrific.
Williamson is dead wrong. Never has the GOP been more conservative than it is today. Everyone who isn't 95%+ with conservatism has been purged.
Nordlinger is even more wrong. Men like Reagan sided with thugs like Pinochet and J. Edgar Hoover. They liked authoritarianism so long as it had a "free market."
What a sad group our Republican Senators, thanks to the good people of Michigan we have two Democrats. With all the problems in this country and the world we have a group wasting time debating a person they just okayed 10 months ago for a lower court position. They court is packed with Dumpers, this judge will have no ability to make any changes in any law for years if ever. I do not understand how some of these characters get elected but in the Dump era it's what's happening and aside from that they think they can be President! There is no truth anymore between Dump, Fox news and social media everyone has become an expert on elections, Russia, the courts. The Senate is a joke and the house soon will be if the Republicans take over next year. If anyone thinks nothing is getting done now, wait until next year!
In today's TAC by Dreher: "You tell me: would you rather live in a society governed by Viktor Orban, or Joe Biden, who once called Orban a “thug”? Because if we on the Right don’t get an American version of Orban soon, it’s going to be Bidens (including Republican Bidens like Larry Hogan) all the way down to the society’s dissolution." FRIGHTENING!!!
On Mona Charon's piece. I really hope somebody who can make a difference reads that piece. I have blocked every one of the D's solicitors since just after the 2020 election. Their childish infighting, self-serving naivete regarding governance in the 21st Century, and their utter lack of foresight into the impending disaster, is incomprehensible. Any thinking strategist would take a mere 30-40 percent of the incredibly damning evidence of treason, voter suppression, and ant-democratic behavior the Republicans have been marshalling and turn it into a rallying cry for 2022. We have heard nothing but a call to gather round the campfire. Moscow Mitch has a strategy, as usual. The press is giving TFG everything he needs. Schumer is wringing his hands, and Canada does not look like a good option.
Again, absolutely outstanding article by Cathy Young. She is indespensable to understand the Ukraine War and to interpret the evolution and reactions from the different factions of the US ideological camps. On the Kremlin manifesto, I think it is an error to call it fascism. It falls into the realm of what the ideological evolution of the old European Communist Parties has become in many places in Europe. As a native from a European country, and as a person who came to age at the time of the Soviet Union collapse, I have seen the evolution of the former communist parties in the different European nations that later formed the United Left into New radical left subparties which question the very existance and right to existance of most modern European nations (colonialism has a lot to do with it, but the reasons given are as diverse and complex as the European history. In each country, they attach the reasoning to a different issue). When I mention this to my own family (my US-born and raised husband, dual citizenship children and US in-laws), they question me and tell me that "I exaggerate and they don't see it." They don't see it because understandably they are not paying attention. Only a few weeks ago my own husband became alarmed when I showed him a op-ed in a major US publication (I can't remember exactly which one) by a US professor and a cadre of cheerleaders in the comment section who repeated all the ideological theories which gave foot to questioning the right to existance of my country, all the theories that they never heard before and thought that I was exaggerating. In every Western European country there's some Bandera-like figure with a questionable past that some radical portion of the left is using to question the right to existance of the liberal order as it is now and to limit access to the system to opposing parties for their real or imagined association to those figures. Let's don't call fascism everything we find despicable. Of course, you will find very troubling right-wing nationalist Oban-like figures in many European countries, but you will also find the right-to-exist deniers on the left, and their speech sounds a lot like the Kremlin Manifesto.
We are getting close to the point where it is going to be (as my dear mother would say) time to shit or get off the pot.
How can you read stuff like we have seen and see what is going on and fail to act in some effective fashion? How can you keep buying energy off these people and financing this crap? How can you defend these people and look at yourself in the mirror without retching?