Yves here. Yasha Levine describes the hypocrisy of liberals who almost certainly consider themselves woke, or at least not racists, engaging in precisely that sort of behavior with respect to Russians. We’ve seen another case study in double standards, with Democrats defending Joe Biden’s habit of putting his hands on women in subordinate positions when they’d be calling for the head of a Republican who did the same thing.
By Yasha Levine, the author of Surveillance Valley: The Secret Military History of the Internet. Originally published at Substack
This bigotry isn’t coming from the “lower-classes” that liberals love to mock so much, but from very top — the crème de la crème of our media and political class.
I’ve been trying to write about the liberal xenophobia that undergirds so much of today’s elite panic about “Russia” and “the Russians.” Since Trump’s election, the usual stereotypes and tropes about Russians have morphed into an all-encompassing racist conspiracy. It’s become totally fine — and even respectable — in American liberal media circles to bombard viewers and readers with all sorts of conspiracies that see shadowy Russian interests infecting “our” society and lurking behind everything that’s going wrong in America and around the world.
As a Soviet-born Jew who grew up in America, it’s been impossible for me not to notice just how similar these conspiracies are to old antisemitic fantasies about “Judeo-Bolsheviks” and the “Elders of Zion” — deadly fairytales about degenerate “easterners” wielding total power in secret, and plotting from the shadows to dominate and exploit white, Christian civilization.
The liberal journalists, academics, media personalities, Hollywood stars, and New York Times documentary filmmakers who’ve been screeching about “the Russians” for the past three years may not be aware that they’re serving up reheated racist fantasies, but they are. And this bigotry isn’t coming from the “lower-classes” that liberals love to mock so much, but from very top — the crème de la crème of our media and political class. One day you get Rachael Maddow working herself into paranoid seizure about a supposed Russian plot to cut power lines and freeze millions of Americans in their sleep. On another, you can watch the screenwriter of Mrs. Doubtfire take to the Internet to theorize about how the Russians are plotting to take down Joe Biden (and I guess to covertly boost Bernie Sanders) by getting an American politician to highlight the creepy and demeaning way Biden treats women.
It’s gross, and it goes to show that the respectable liberal opposition to Donald Trump is no less racist and paranoid than he is — it just operates in a different xenophobic market demographic.
Anyway, I say that I’ve been “trying” to write about this because, well, it’s such a gross and unpleasant topic that it’s hard to find the words. So far, the only way I’ve been able to process it is to tweet — to tweet and to draw.
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Something Wicked This Way Comes . . .
The same Wicked Thing “Tail Gunner” Joe McCarthy spewed into the American psyche back in the last century around the time of the Korean Police Action. The same Wicked Thing the Allied Propaganda ministries regurgitated onto the worlds tables back in WW1. The same Wicked Thing Herr Goebbels and his Reich Ministry of Propaganda slimed the people of Europe with before and during WW2. The common thread here is that all these iterations of “The Big Lie” were coupled with an outright war. Why should this time be any different?
America has all the signs that predict a war, either directly with or by proxy, with Russia. Syria seems to have been the opening bout. The main card creeps closer in the night and mist of Mispec Moor.
Imo, Yasha has confused a straightforward dynamic.
Russia had been an Orthodox Christian country since 900 AD. In 1917 (1000 years later), the Bolsheviks did EVERYTHING that they could imagine to destroy all religions, and particularly The Russian Orthodox Church. For instance, the Bolsheviks turned The Solovetsky Monastery (1436), on the Solovetsky Islands in the White Sea, into the first Gulag Concentration Camp.
“…In the autumn of 1922 the process of transitioning from a monastery to concentration camp began. All wooden buildings were burnt and many of the monks were murdered, including the Igumen. The remaining monks were sent to forced labour camps in central Russia.
…Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn called Solovki the “mother of the GULAG”. It was openly termed a concentration camp until the late 1920s when the euphemism “corrective labour camp” was applied throughout the system,…..The Solovki “special” camp served as a testing ground where security measures were developed and tried out, as were innovations in “living conditions”….”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solovki_prison_camp
The Bolsheviks planned to create, an entirely materialistic, utopia, devoid of any God and any religion.
“….forget the simple fact that the words “idealism” and “materialism” as used by Marx and all other philosophers have nothing to do with psychic motivations of a higher, spiritual level as against those of a lower and baser kind. In philosophical terminology, “materialism” (or “naturalism”) refers to a philosophic view which holds that matter in motion is the fundamental constituent of the universe.”
https://www.marxists.org/archive/fromm/works/1961/man/ch02.htm
The Materialistic Utopian Enterprise failed in Russia. Since 1991, the cultural vacuum has been largely filled by a resurgence of Russian Orthodoxy. The Church has literally risen from the ashes. The horrific Solovki Concentration Camp has been transformed back into it’s former peaceful Orthodox monastery.
http://russiafeed.com/resurgence-christianity-russia-new-churches-open-everywhere/
We are now living in the Post-Christian West. Sophisticated new technologies have been luring us towards “A New Materialistic, Non-religious, Sci-Fi Utopia”. All of our desires instantly delivered by the internet, or quickly delivered by Uber-eats or Amazon Drone….
“Our Spirituality” is mostly of the Alistair Crowley “Do as you will”, fake variety. (creepiness in ascendance!).
Imo, the “fear of Russia”, by the materialistic MSM is entirely justified. Many people (particularly the young) are realizing that our current culture of money, power, promiscuity and ubiquitous fake-information is unsustainable.
There is a revival of old school, Christian values that terrifies our Billionaire Know-It-Alls. Their “fear of Russia” encapsulates the realization that the materialistic experiment in the West, has been a calamity. And The Deplorables are waking up to it.
Therefore, “Russia, Russia, RUSSSSSSIA………..!”
This comment almost reads like an raving evangelical sermon where God is said to be smiting the godless Russians and Americans for their sin.
The Bolsheviks have attempted to remove religion in order to remove a culture that would be reactionary and hold back class consciousness. They feared that religion could provide a base for their socialist economics to revert backwards to capitalism. There were precedents for the reactionary nature of religion such as its stance against liberalism during the French revolution.
Gulags were a “concentration camp” in that they contained what were deemed to be enemies of the revolution, however this was the result of historical developments of Russia and penal law. Katorga was a form of punishment that was mainly penal labor camps that were created during the 17th century. This is where the stereotypes of Siberian camps came from as the camps were created in underpopulated areas. This was shaped over time to be a tool of imprisonment for the political enemies of the czar in 1847 to then become what it was under the Bolsheviks where it forced capitalist “parasites” and whoever were deemed as their supporters to do forced labor. The conditions were not ideal but so were the backwards and underdeveloped infrastructure. The “innovations” of the Bolsheviks were using this penal base to reinterpret and retool it for their socialist society. There were even experiments in penal labor camps under Trotsky before the establishment of Solovki.
It seems like your interpretation of materialism and utopia differs from how the Bolsheviks interpreted them. You seem to understand materialism as the opposite of religious piety where it ignores the existence of God and spirituality. The Bolsheviks (and Marxists) understand the philosophical concept of materialism as that they will form their analysis and criticisms of economics and society solely on matter and not human willed idealism. In other words, everything about Marxist analysis can be reduced back to physical processes. In removing idealism and religion from their society, the Bolsheviks saw themselves as being very good materialists and Marxists who will form a truly socialist society based on redistributing material resources to fulfill the material needs of workers. This is as opposed to capitalism where money is detached from the value of resources and is built upon the exploitation of workers and their labor. Resources are distributed to not fulfill the needs of workers or people but to instead to accumulate capital for capital’s sake. No doubt there has been attempts to frame the justification of the capitalist system in idealistic and religious terms. Either the capitalist morally deserves it and the have-nots don’t or God has blessed the capitalist and damned the have-nots. Materialism and Marxism seeks to strip that facade away towards a more rational and scientific society that would distribute resources from each according to their ability and to each according to their needs.
It is plain then that this isn’t utopian socialism where positive ideals and moral compulsions were the driving force for change and little bad would happen in the ethically just society as everyone would volunteer for it to come. This is instead a more practical and pragmatic way and system of analysis to achieve socialism and then communism. It is only a “utopia” in a very loose colloquial sense that robs terms of their meanings. This was a war of politics between opposing political systems and only through bloodshed and warfare could one side win. Materialism and Marxism have very little to say of morality and ethics as they were only concerned with the material organization of economics and society to meet needs.
With the fall of the USSR and Russian socialism/communism comes the revisionism to capitalism. What also came was the revival of Christianity, an opium of the people, as Russian economics crashed and burned under shock therapy and oligarchs rose to plunder formerly public industries off the desperation of people selling their stocks and shares just to put food on the table and survive in a free market gone wrong. There were countless deaths and suicides in the face of this societal collapse and devastation and looting. I would hardly call this an era of peace and this era is why many Russians voted for and support Putin as he represents stability and the capability to reign in the oligarchs.
I don’t doubt that the West is heading towards Post-Christianity. The destruction of Christian morals has proven to be a facilitator of profit for capitalists under the reorganization of society into the free market under capitalist neoliberalism. It is “materialistic” in that it is increasingly non-religious but it is still full of idealism about the sanctity of the free market and the negative conception of freedom (where things are allowed as opposed to positive where things are provided for). Sure the desires being delivered by technological infrastructure is the devil lighting a fire in the belly of many evangelical preachers, but it is also the representation of capitalist businesses taking increasing control over society and our lives for profit. Therefore, there is a layer of exploitation underneath all this in particular, the underpaid gig economy workers who have an uncertain future as they hemorrhage money to maintain the “capital” they need to participate in the gig economy. These workers are also easily replaceable should they fail to be available. Businesses can just let the workers exploit themselves and cut a margin off of their labor for profit while not owing themselves to take care of the workers’ needs.
In opposition to this “Do as you will” negative conception of freedom justifying the exploitation of labor was the USSR and socialism. They built a society where the capitalists were cut off and workers contributed directly to fulfilling their needs rather than be at the mercy of capitalists. As it was a worker’s society, workers were encouraged to work in order to build themselves up and not bleed themselves for the profit of a capitalist. No doubt there were problems and issues with the implementation of their socialist economics and society, but I personally see this general framework that they were attempting to build towards as being more morally just and ethical compared to capitalism’s exploitation.
Capitalism IS unsustainable in that it is prone to endless crises and it was only with the intervention by central banks that it is still running. However, those cycles have recently been exploitative rather than beneficial to people and workers at large. The recent 2008 recession has been one of the greatest transfers of wealth from the bottom percentages of society to the upper percentages. Hence, all the discontent and rallying for political extremes beyond the center. Money is becoming more scarce for the poorer, power is concentrated upwards, promiscuity (or even the involuntary lack of a sexual life) is encouraged as the material conditions for stable relationships become more scarce, and fake news is increased in order to delude the population into voting against their best interests.
I doubt a Christian revival terrifies Billionaires. They know how to co-opt Christians or at least enough of them to muddy the religion for capitalist purposes. The prosperity gospel still proves to be an underpinning of current economics and societal values. The fear of Russia actually stems from a need for the military-industrial complex to continue having a developed rival to fund war machines against. The mainstream Democrats pounced at the opportunity to capture the powerful pro-military neoconservative interests away from the Republicans.
Or perhaps the fear of Russia also stems from a deep seated Cold War mentality that Russia would turn too far against capitalism. Putin may represent a step too far as he reigns in the oligarchs that robbed his country during their collapse. Imagine if the United States had the galls to do the same. It is one of the deepest fears of the rich and powerful in the country. A spectre is haunting the United States…
Read “The Future of an Illusion” by Freud.
Russia is a country, not a race. You can’t be racist against Russians.
You are misconstruing his point, which IMHO is very clear in the post. “Russians” are being depicted in the same way that disfavored ethnic groups have been/are. Irish and Muslims aren’t races either, yet Irish historically and Muslims recently have been subject to demonization that includes explicitly or implicitly depicting them as having poor character that is inherited. Do you forget that Irish weren’t considered white in the US in the 1800s?
A person from USSR, who lived through WWII, and later had an opportunity to speak with surviving German soldiers, recounted some of those conversations to me. Apparently, one of the great motivators for these soldiers was the ungodly amount of anti-Soviet, anti-Russian propaganda in Hitler’s Germany. Russians were described as unwashed eastern hordes, not quite civilised, and even sub-human. Hence, a war was justified…
Nonetheless, precision is a good thing. (The comments on this site are notable for their precision.)
May I recommend Albert Memmi “Le racisme” for an excellent working definition?
I agree that the term “racism” is applied very and often unduly broadly in the US, but as indicated, that comes at least in part from our history of discrimination against immigrants. Thanks for your suggestion.
I think the “woke” term I hear bandied about to describe this sort of xenophobia is “othering”
Would you prefer the term “xenophobic”?
The point remains…It’s not ok even when Democrats/elites/liberals do it.
#hypocrites
It is definitely not okay to do it to people or a people too weak to fight back.
It is also hazardous to our own health to do it to the only Peer Nuclear Power which could join us in co-vaporising all organic life on the earth.
I’ve seen Trump defenders say his rhetoric towards Mexicans isn’t technically ‘racist’ because Mexico is a country, not a race.
Are you going to defend Trump on that front, too?
Let’s show some consistency, here.
And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique. – Herr Obergruppenführer Jakob Klapper, Meet the Press Interview, 28/05/2017
bigoted then.
There is no need to find a common metaphor with the first comment. The person at best is simply an ignoramus. The long term Western European and then American attitudes towards Slavs is well documented. The same propaganda bourgeois types have been subjected to for years to avoid recognizing the local oligarchs repeats itself periodically. Catholics, Jews, blacks (in America and now I feel Muslims in many ways), Hispanics etc. all faced the same propaganda from the ruling class as they confused the upper middle class dimwits.
The simple truth is Maddow warns us every night of an enemy which is everywhere and simultaneously powerless against American goodness. Could she shout “Jew” any louder? Sasha Baron Cohen is funny, but has anyone told Maddow everyone is tired of Borat impressions?
Matt Taibbe and Aaron Maté have some interesting things to say about Maddow in this interview.
https://www.alternet.org/2019/03/journalists-matt-taibbi-and-aaron-mate-explain-how-the-russiagate-narrative-helped-trump/
This supports RR much more as a continuation of the Cold War mentality, not “racism”.
I think the word bigotry IS a better fit. It’s not exactly even xenophobia, because the need for an “other” includes those within.
Ramping up against communism has over the decades swallowed up all of the so-called peace dividend.
Part of Yasha’s basic point is that the Cold War mentality is deeply ingrained with anti-Slavic racism, which can’t be separated from the general category “racism” as easily as you seem to want to. All you really have to consider here is the obvious overlap between Cold War Russophobic ideology and its direct forerunner in the ideological universe of Nazi Germany, where Russians were the bewitched savage Eastern hordes threatening to storm the gates of civilized Europe at the behest of their nefarious conspiratorial Judeo-Bolshevik masterminds, like the bug hordes from Starship Troopers in thrall to their brain bug overlords — or like, say, latter-day European racist fantasies about Muslim hordes in thrall to masterminds like George Soros.
A deeper problem with some of the pushback against Yasha here is the implied premise that the racial categories of a particular time and place (such as our current US view of Slavs as members of the category called “whiteness”) are somehow fixed and eternal across every time and place, as opposed to being continually invented and reinvented through historically-contingent political processes of racialization. Not only is this a core underlying premise of racist ideology in and of itself, but it also makes an incredibly easy rhetorical shield for racists to argue that some form of racism or another doesn’t really count as “racism.”
Indeed.
Khrushchev’s grand-daughter was on a radio show talking about the vastness of Russia and its proximity to Asia and the Slav connection.
As much as the cosmopolitan Russians looked toward Europe, they have been suspect by the Europeans.
It’s veiled racism.
It is many things. Veiled racism. Also legacy “Latin” hostility against “Byzantium”. Also frustrated larcenism about all the natural resources in Russia free for the looting if it wasn’t for all those inconvenient Russians getting in the way. And in Zbigniew Brzezinski’s case ( which is important because he was a major driver of anti-Russianitic cold war policy), spiteful bitterness over the losses of his and other Petty Polish Noble families in and around Galicia.
“Race” is made up – by racists. There is only one
WhatHappenedToThisSite wrote:
That’s the right-wing defense. If Yasha Levine were talking about conservatives or Republicans, that would be the standard response.
But he’s talking about liberals and Democrats, and when they need to defend their racism the standard response is:
“You can’t be racist against Russians. Racism is ‘prejudice plus power’, so since Russians aren’t completely powerless, it obviously can’t be racism.”
Do try to keep your defenses for racism straight; it muddles things up when people confuse them up.
And when former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said-
“And just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique.”
I am sure that he has never been dishonest with his assessments. Of course there are about three million Americans directly descended from Russians so about 1 out of every 100 Americans that you see on the streets are statistically of Russian descent. Is that a problem?
… historical practices of the Russians, who typically, are almost genetically driven to …
Now, where have I seen this sort of “genetic” smear tactic before?…. hmmmm….
Oh, right, the genetic smear is the basis of this infamous “movie” – https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0156524/
The genetic part is a nice touch. He could have said that the Russia state historically uses disinformation and deception as a tool, which is true, but then echoes the old bigoted theme and smear of the treacherous Oriental.
The United States uses disinformation and deception as a tool. France uses disinformation and deception as a tool. Germany uses disinformation and deception as a tool. China uses…
ETC.
Surely you jest. We and our allies are pure as the driven snow, all the way down to our precious bodily fluids.
The Obama admin repealed… er… “modernized”… the Smith-Mundt Act in 2013. (Love that word – “modernized”.) Thanks… etc.
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130715/11210223804/anti-propaganda-ban-repealed-freeing-state-dept-to-direct-its-broadcasting-arm-american-citizens.shtml
Hey no disagreement there, but the British and the Russia starting with the Soviet Union are particularly good in military and political disinformation and propaganda.
What I dislike is the genetic bs reminiscent of the vile Yellow Peril of the 19th and 20th centuries. It was worse than mere racism; it was the demonization of the East as treacherous, untrustworthy, dangerous, and just no good.
I guess I am reacting so strongly because it is similar to the other xenophobic, racist, classist, sexist dog whistles that many American politicians have done and still do. Somehow such dog whistles are just fine when done by the right class of people.
“And just the historical practices of the Clapper Family, who typically, are almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Clapper technique.”
FIFY
P.S. BRENNAN TOO!
Was he looking at himself in a mirror at the time?
I believe that’s called projection> Correct?
It’s not just Russians that our liberal Meritocrats express bigotry toward; they also exude contempt for working people, those who disagree with them, who live differently from them, and who live in uncool parts of the country.
OK, gotta go now and get ready for Rachel Maddow’s TrumpHate/Liberal Virtue Affirmation Fest tomorrow!
It feels so good to be among The Best and Brightest!!!
OK, gotta go now and get ready for Rachel Maddow’s TrumpHate/Liberal Virtue Affirmation Fest tomorrow!
ha! Paging Leni Riefenstahl…
Orwell underestimated how many versions of the Two Minutes Hate would exist for different demographics
LOL, contempt for the working…… This is real contempt
https://afj.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/Trumps-Attacks-on-Our-Justice-System-Final.pdf
The irony being the more they double down on nonsense, the more they are turning independent voters away. Trump gets reelected in 2020 just by letting so called liberals be themselves.
They’ll blame Bernie. Winning by losing: however things shake out for the plebs (and it will be bad), the Kamala-like liberal elites only dig in deeper, take bigger fees, clutch their pearls and preen. That’s why the “your candidate [Hillary] flubbed the easiest finger roll layup election in modern history” argument has no effect on people like – I dunno – Jonathan Chait. Hillary did exactly what she was supposed to do, which has garnered her a lot of die-hard support in certain zip codes. Not my zip code, but certain zip codes.
I hope one day to have enough money to be a centrist who doesn’t care about anyone but myself, but I have a sneaking suspicion my conscience is too developed at this point
It’s what she garnered for most of the citizens of the US that counts: ZIP!
Ironically, within the radical evangelical right there’s a belief that Russians are white, Christian allies on racial and religious grounds. However the Russiagaters may spin it as part of some Putin plot, in my limited understanding it is a phenomenon on the white nationalist right, not just in the US.
Here’s a link which has some Putin-blaming, but also some examples of what the right would consider common interests.
1) The Russians interfered in our election to sow disorder.
2) See point 1.
Russia is not some imagined shadowy “conspiracy” that is being conjured up in order to justify discrimination based on race, religion or anything else. Russia is an actual country with people, borders, a government and a military. It has interests that it furthers as does any country including, and especially the United States. As part of pursuing those interests it does things that interfere with other countries, including the United States.
Arguing that countries have historical interests that it pursues is not necessarily “racist”. You can disagree as to the scope of those interests but that is not the same thing. For example, I completely disagree with trump as to the “crisis” on our Southern border. But I think it is obvious that the United States has a much more heightened interest in what happens in Mexico on its Southern border (as wells the other Mexicos) than it might have in what occurs in East Africa.
That being said I think it is equally obvious that Russia considers US a “rival”. We can disagree with how far it is willing to go with regard to that rivalry but suggesting that this is akin to spouting “conspiracy theories” is simply not comparable.
There is no evidence of 1. Making shit up is against our written site Policies.
No recognized academic expert on elections has attributed the election results to anything “Russia” might conceivably have done. On top of that, the “Russian” ad campaigns were run by troll farms, were so amateurish as to be jokes, did not offer any consistent messages, ran mainly after the 2016 election, were trivial in $ amounts compared to campaign spending, and most important, have never been connected to the Russian government. Oh, and something like 25% of the FB ads weren’t viewed by anyone!
Russians who cannot be connected to the Russian government are not Russians? I dont see the Russians as worse than anyone else, but not really any better either. Guess that makes one a bigot.
Steve
Not sure what you’re point is…but have you ever talked about Russiagate, about the DNC internal leak of Pedesta’s emails, with a Democrat upset that Hillary lost?
It’s exactly like talking to Republicans about WMD in Iraq during the run up the Iraq War. Here’s just few I can think of:
1). It’s illegal to talk to a Russian because it’s treason.
2). I’m a “conspiracy theorist” when I point out no evidence has ever – and I do me ever as in never, ever – been presented to indicate Russia interfered in the election.
3). I’m called a Putin lover – as in the same thing as being a Saddam Hussien lover for deny WMD in Iraq – for pointing out Bill Binny’s claim that it is impossible Russia hacked the DNC due to download speeds of Pedesta’s leaked emails.
4). Democrats heads exploded if you point out Putin has done good things for Russia and her people and is admired by Russians, to the detriment of U.S. oil companies and financial interests who were plundering her nation.
So I’ll say yes especially given the other posts some have here, but won’t hang my hat on it. Many Ukranians – the ones we installed into power with an illegal coup and shrank the Ukraine economy too what…half, a third it’s former sized – seem to think Russians are a different race and want to exterminate them out of “their” country.
It’s only ever a surprise, to folks thinking the scum that floats to the surface in kleptocracy can be differentiated by labels of their own choosing? If liberals got pissed at cold parents & played at being hippies (only to discover cocaine, Whole Foods & BMWs were more befitting a partnership in papa’s firm than punk, miscegenation & co-ops) they’re unlikely to step back & acknowledge concensus reality based on anything they’re gavaged on TV or the K Street complicit blog agreggators. Their portfolios, home values, heck… EVERYTHING has benefitted from 3rd Way/ New democrats and Trump forking us to the feeding sharks. And like all the other distractions, that’s the whole idea.
If you think being Russian is in and of itself a crime, yeah, you are a bigot. There are 144 million people in Russia. Is simply having talked to one now illegal? There is a distinction between a citizen of Russia and someone working for the Russian government. The blurring of such a distinction, so that now we’re fear mongering over ‘Russians’, full stop, is probably the single ugliest aspect of the last three years.
Are all the HillDawgs drinking the Kool Aid?
Turn off the TV, GeorgeNYC…
Hello! I think GeorgeNYC’s claim that “The Russians interfered in our election to sow disorder” is an example of the problem Levine discusses in the post. Although, GeorgeNYC goes on to make relatively anodyne comments, the bold statement right up front that the goal of Russia was “disorder” in and of itself is pretty revealing.
(Quick point: I found Nate Silver’s comments on Russian interference useful. He claims that he hates getting asked about how much Russia affected the election, and reading between the lines a bit, you can see why. It is because to the extent that Russia affected the election it is so minuscule that it is undetectable. Although, Silver doesn’t come out and say it, he must think it would be impossible to estimate the interference because it was just too small.)
The idea that Russia wants to sow disorder in and of itself is nonsense. It clearly assumes that Russia is some sort of irrational and crazed actor. This is a racist and dehumanizing ideology that we need to guard against. The disturbing implication of this corrupt thinking is that the United States and others cannot reason or seek peace with such an entity and therefore coercion and force are appropriate. This kind of thinking, which Levine points out is occurring at elite levels, is dangerous. Getting people to accept and go along with the idea that Russia seeks chaos for its own sake, or that it is a “natural” consequence of Russian nature can only lead to more violence and strife.
I think the acceptance and promotion of the idea that Russia wants to “sow disorder” is good evidence that Levine is right to make his criticism.
You’re right to an extent, but at the same time, you shouldn’t forego the possibility of a much more uncompromising position: the Russian government might well have a geopolitical interest in “sowing disorder” in the US, and this isn’t inherently a bad thing. The great African American historian Gerald Horne traces throughout his work a long-running thread of black freedom struggles making many of their most decisive gains by opportunistically exploiting American white supremacists’ geopolitical rivalries as leverage to force through an emancipatory agenda, from Britain during the War of Independence and the War of 1812, to the Union during the Civil War, to Japan during WWII, to the Soviet Union during the Cold War, to Russia today. One needn’t sympathize with any of these geopolitical rivals in and of themselves (setting aside the fraught question of the Soviet Union, nobody would claim that e.g. the British Empire was some kind of inherent beacon of leftist antiracist solidarity) to still accept that playing geopolitical rivals against another is a potentially legitimate tactic for marginalized groups seeking allies of convenience against their oppressors.
How leftists should approach these alliances of convenience on a tactical or strategic level is a whole other can of worms (particularly in non-US contexts where leftists’ proposed ally of convenience is the US itself, like the Kurdish YPG/YPJ) but for US leftists to dismiss these strategies in principle, presumably out of some juvenile attachment to rah-rah American jingoism, cuts entirely against the grain of any remotely serious understanding of the history of internationalist emancipatory politics.
Agree with the characterization of Russia as an irrational and crazed actor. When I have asked people why exactly does Putin want to invade Lithuanian, the mind readers of Putin always characterizes him as having evil intentions and having a deranged personality. (I am of course amazed at the number of Putin mind readers who do not know Russian language or history.)
It seems to me that a democracy without dissension is no democracy at all. Dissension is integral to a democracy. Supposedly the Athenians in abandoning Athens were still arguing with each other on the way out. In many regards, the 1st Amendment insists on dissension by protecting it. People who claim Russian induced dissension is bad for society seem to have an idea of the proper amount of what disagreement should be. They seem to know the accepted proper levels for them to sniff out Russian influence. Maybe protest groups should first check in the DHS to get a certification as to the allowable levels of “dissension” to protect against the Russians.
Extraordinary Claims require Extraordinary Evidence.
We’re ready when you are.
GeorgeNYC: comments this stupid are truly rare on this site (fortunately), and not a good fit. Fakebook and Yahoo News would be more appropriate forums for this kind of bullshit.
You are arguing fallaciously, and conflating alleged Russian hacking and propaganda with Trump colluding with Putin, for which no credible evidence has EVER been presented, and which is apparently the conclusion of Mueller’s investigation.
Everything in your comment is misdirection and innuendo.
My last comment on Faceplant, before I got locked out, referred to the “racist” and xenophobic bent of Rachel Maddow, Anderson Cooper and every other corporate jackass posing as a journalist pushing Russiaphobia while shilling for pax americana. The cultists there had no clue about what I was talking about. Being blocked might be the best thing that has happened to me in a long while!
Liberal discussion about a Russian restaurant, lol
L1: The food here is terrible.
L2: Yeah, and such small portions.
Yep.
Not that the media put up much of a fight against government sanctioned islamophobia in the 5-6 years following 9/11.
Or you have SNL the putin/trump bromance line of skits, which if you think about it uses gay as a pejorative – something that would be pretty uncool in NY culture but perhaps was an effort to pander to a broader audience.
Then again, SNL also did a 2016 skit mocking would-be Trump voters in Kansas for praying to God as a tornado approaches their trailer park, which is probably less funny to inland viewers.
Anyway they made a deliberate choice to mirror the Fox news style, and that’s that.
Thanks for an interesting take on this. It has been a marvel to see the easy use of this bigotry. I would add though that some of the prime culprits among Russia bashers are Jewish people nursing old grudges against Russia for the many centuries of anti-semitism there. Victoria Nuland comes to mind. And at the same time, hardline pro-Israel apparatchiks flirt with war with Russia over its alliance with Iran and Syria. Meanwhile one can detect the “liberal” Democrats trying to drive a wedge in the GOP by being more anti-Russia than they are, all the better to capture those beautiful Pentagon contractor dollars.
I think that the older people, those that enjoyed the Cold War and were drenched in the evil socialism propaganda, have found pulling out the slogans and disinformation of the time from textbooks. Since I am one of those older people this is extremely familiar and disorienting. I keep expecting the talking heads to bring back the Russian Bear and the American Eagle in political cartoons and slogans like “The Red Menace” or “Better Dead Than Red!” Next up will be the Communists Infiltrators, Fellow Travelers, and Communist Sympathizers.
Knowing Russian history – I have to take issue with “… against Russia for the many centuries of anti-semitism there.” Where is your evidence of “many centuries”? The stories some tell about this are not grounded in facts. And by that logic, a huge amount of grudges should be held against the Spanish (if you recall the events of 1492)… or Germans – and yet, we do not see that. So something else is going on, as far as I can tell.
Matt Taibbi in the interview above suggests, if I read him correctly, that a lot of this is because voters have decided the current neoliberal globalist order hasn’t lived up to its promises, and so are turning against it. Said neoliberal international globalists are fighting back against voter disenchantment by creating a bogeyman (aka RussiaRussia) as a tool to convince disenchanted voters that the only problem is external and the only answer is the continued neoliberal globalist order.
Agree or disagree, Taibbi is at least coherent, which is more than I can say for the russiarussia narrative. imo.
Yes, they’ve probably been a convenient scapegoat in the rest of Europe since 1056AD (the date of the Great Schism). (I once witnessed a person just about jumping out of his seat – he was driving a bus! – when someone put together words “wonderful” and “Russia” into one sentence. Amazing!)
The Russian Pogroms of the 1800’s and 1900’s (get it, centuries?) began soon after Russian Empire took territory in which Jews lived.
I grew up boycotting Spanish (well, largely because a WWII era Fascist remained in power until the 1970’s) and german goods. It’s a “small amount of grudges” partly because those who would hold the grudge were killed by the Russians and Spaniards.
Well, I would say a lesson in history (or, geography) may help regarding the first sentence. What exactly was this territory you mention?
I am not very knowledgeable about where Jews lived throughout history, but as I recall at least three million lived in the old territories of the Lithuanian-Polish Commonwealth at the start of the Second World War despite the previous progroms carried out under the Czarist government influence and often direction; the Russian Empire did annex the whole of Lithuania and half of Poland as well as areas now part of Ukraine during the three Partions of Poland.
The Jewish population in these areas were often savagely repressed once Russia gained control/. Not that life was great beforehand. It just got much worse. There are good reasons why the Eastern United States especially New York City gained a very large Jewish Polish/Russian population in the latter half of the 19th century and the first decade of the 20th century.
Well its not like that this was the first time that this ever happened to those populations. In the middle ages, they were being bounced from one country to another-
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expulsions_and_exoduses_of_Jews
I was looking over that list for events that I remember from history when I came across the bizarre fact that Major-General Ulysses S. Grant ordered them expelled from Tennessee, Mississippi, and Kentucky. WTF?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Order_No._11_(1862)
Very interesting. The entry notes that in efforts to reconcile after the war, Grant became a great friend of “The Jews”, installing a record number in his administration and “condemning atrocities taking place against them in Europe.
Olga, are we just disputing exactly where and when the Russians committed those atrocities?
Yeah, Nuland was upset at Roosha for its long history of Anti-Semitism; that must be why she helped ally the US with Neo-Nazis and followers of Bandera in Ukraine.
Am I the only one who thinks that Mr. Levine’s sketches look like the aliens from “They Live”?
If unintentional, I am amused.
If intentional, I am in awe.
We’ve got one who can SEE!
Everything, in moderation!
Drifter : What’s wrong with having it good for a change? Now they’re gonna let us have it good if we just help ’em. They’re gonna leave us alone, let us make some money. You can have a little taste of that good life too. Now, I know you want it. Hell, everybody does.
Frank : You’d do it to your own kind?
Drifter : What’s the threat? We all sell out every day, might as well be on the winning team
And then there are those of us who looked upon the Russia! Russia! Russia! hysteria as an opportunity to learn more about the Russian language, Russian history, and Russian culture.
I dunno, maybe I shouldn’t say this, but I’m going to:
I’m tempted to send a “thank you” letter to Rachel Maddow. Without her frequent references to Russia Cubed, I wouldn’t be so motivated to start learning. And keep learning.
Bolshoi spacibo, Rachel! I couldn’t have done it without you!
Well said Arizona Slim.
It was only when I started learning Russian that I discovered for instance, that the word Bolshoi meant big! All those years of reading about the famous Bolshoi Ballet in Moscow, that occasionally toured, not realising it meant Big or Grand Theatre.
“Russiagate Explained” to perfection by the excellent Ted Rall:
http://rall.com/comic/russiagate-explained
It’s astounding how deeply degraded and corrupt our civil society and systems of governance have become. And for the most part people just accept it. Everything from the madness that has gripped much of the media since 2016 to the normalizing of precarity and the wholesale collection of our data by the state and tech companies.
The NSA and its equivalent agencies in the Five Eyes countries share a permanent, constantly updated record of their citizens every phone call, every financial transaction and all of their online activity. It’s tyranny.
Frederick Douglass said “Find out just what any people will quietly submit to and you have the exact measure of the injustice and wrong which will be imposed on them.”
I know it’s been said already, but I would add “homophobe” to the title. As in “Respectable Racists and Homophobes”
It’s been bizarre to watch certain card-carrying members of ‘The Resistance’, that would normally be the first to cast a stone against against any perceived whiff of homophobia, push extremely homophobic Putin/Trump memes on social media which were also quite graphic and offensive on multiple levels. Many of those liking and spreading those homophobic memes are members of the LGBT community themselves who really should know better. So many people have shown their true colors the last few years, and many among the gay woke-class, the color looks to be hypocrite with situationally adjusted morality. Not that anyone really listens to the opinions of people deemed to be from another tribe anymore, but I imagine the next time anyone in the liberal media launches into some giant moralizing frenzy, weeping, tearing garments and gnashing teeth over the grave injustice of a nice gay couple being denied the wedding cake of their dreams by some small-town Kentucky bigot, it will illicit not yawns, but laughs, jeers and charges of double standards from Trump voters. Maybe those of Russian descent previously concerned with gay political correctness will feel the same way as well.
As Trump would say- “Sad!”
https://local.theonion.com/man-who-spent-last-2-years-drawing-pictures-of-trump-an-1833557224
It’s not just over your side of the pond that this is the case. The excellent Moon Of Alabama blog has shown both The Economist & The Guardian plaigarising Goebels in their depiction of Putin.
https://www.moonofalabama.org/2018/03/guardian-rips-off-goebbels-uses-fascist-propaganda-for-better-anti-russian-smears.html
The Marie Kondo backlash has been another good example – much of it coming from the putative left, HRC supporters etc. Here is one discussion. She is routinely mocked for her religion, her appearance and her language, as well as having her approach and beliefs repeatedly strawmanned.
I hadn’t realised there had been a backlash against Marie Kondo! I guess it was inevitable.
But that is a good article – I’ve heard quite a few Asian women comment that the worst examples of casual racism they’ve experienced have been from white middle class women of supposedly ‘liberal’ politics.
The key point about a certain type of liberal is that they harp on about bigotry and racism so much in order that they can claim the right to define what constitutes ‘bigotry’. This allows them to tar whoever they want with that stigma, preen themselves for their own virtue, while indulging in all sorts of private and public nastiness. A related tendency (one I’ve seen more in Europe than the US), is where rationalist atheism becomes a cover for bigotry to minority groups and the poor. Note how those English New Atheists always dig into catholics and muslims, leaving more ‘respectable’ religions untouched.
I found it rather sad that the author states as obvious that any critic of Marie Kondo would be conservative. I wonder how many she knows, and how much othering she also does.
Western Europeans and their rump state, the U.S.A., have long fed on paranoia about Russia. Britain, during the 19th century, was always afraid Russia would cross the Himalayas to threaten ‘their’ colonies in India. The British and French propped up the Ottoman Empire for 50-75 years past its sell-by date as a counterweight to the feared Russians. See, for example, the Crimean War. British imperialists were much less afraid of Islam than they were of Russian Orthodoxy, supporting fundamentalist Islam on Russia’s southern flanks back into the 19th century. Russia has borne the brunt of the colonialist West’s violent freakouts over the last 200+ years, in 1812, 1914, and 1941. Things usually end up with Russians having to bail out the imperialists, going to Paris in 1814, and Berlin in 1945. Fast forward to the sorry spectacle of a shrunken Russian state in 2013, extricating Obama and Kerry from their overreach in Syria, then having to wade into the mess in 2015 to clean out ISIS and other jihadi rampagers. Just as in prior episodes, no one in the “West” is in danger of getting carpal tunnel from patting Russia on the back for its trouble.
Yes, I like your comment. That is exactly what I’ve thought a bit too often – Russians save the west from its worst instincts. Like – for example – turning Swedish Vikings into a docile and prosperous society by pushing back their advances, until the Swedes finally gave up wars altogether! Funny how that works.
Like everyone else, I’m faced with the “Putin is the bogyman!” people from time-to-time. My usual response is, “Putin is a simple Mafiosi. Mafiosies typically don’t like disorder or chaos. They really just want to do business.”
After hearing this, their eyes become a little less glazed, and they begin to listen because it’s not the kind of thing that they usually hear. And everyone knows about the Mafia. I go, “Yeah, Russia is more or less a criminal state that is run by the oligarchs.” They all know about the oligarchs. “Putin is the Godfather. The oligarchs can exploit the people pretty much at will as long as they stay out of politics.” (witness Kodorkovsky) “Putin wants peace in the valley. The price he pays is opposing the expansion of NATO and allowing his Mafiosi buds to launder huge amounts of cash.”
Then I explain how the huge infrastructure projects Nord Stream 2 and Turkstream fit into this Mafia/businessman narrative. It gives them something to think about…at least until the next time they tune into the corporate propaganda.
Putin could probably have had more “peace” if he hadn’t resisted US military and economic encroachment, and had just taken a bigger skim for himself, a la Yeltsin. That’s not what he did.
However corrupt Putin may be, he is a Russian nationalist first and foremost. Whatever your opinion of him, he has navigated Russian national and geopolitical interests from that reference point, and his relationships with the oligarchs follow from that.
In my hyper liberal town near Boston, the local liquor store owner, a Ukrainian-born Jew who came to the US in the late 1970s, received nearly daily threatening phone calls during the past couple of years urging him to ‘Get out, you filthy Russian’, etc. A few months ago he decided he’d had enough, sold the business and retired.
Yasha, the nimby closet “liberal” racists in America have always been here…but…could you or someone you might know give some thought to the “irony” of the grandson of the “american communist” who helped give the world the activities that led to the McCarthy era of no dignity, is now running around helping scream “Russia Russia Russia…”
that our man from Magnitsky land, Bill Browder, is in fact the grandson of one Earl Russell Browder, THAT Browder who was the CPUSA General Secretary during the time most of the activies “Tail Gunner Joe” McCarthy attacked happened ? ?
those who know not history are bound to repeat it…or perhaps at least hear it rhyme…
There’s no irony there if you view the Russians as the primary victims of the long communist experiment and the Bolshevik uprising which was inspired by the misdirected fashionable social theories of the late 18th century (as well by the German and British continental powers who helped the radicals).
Just as the Communists tried use the Russian people as fuel for the furnace of the world revolution, so — quite logically – Mr. Browder continued the same process of exploitation. Like father, like son. The contradictions are only in appearance but not the essence.
…Let’s not be *Russian* to judgement, here…
’cause you know what they say:
…fools Russian!
P/S…Russia has USA in it! ; )
Thank you so much for posting this.
It takes not a small amount of courage to call out the Russophobia, Slavophobia and general xenophobia of the mainstream media.
The MSM routinely blurred the lines between people who are Russian and the government of the Russian Federation, and frequently tinged their language with ethnic, cultural and linguistic mockery.
The irony is that this is exactly the kind of language that liberal/pseudo-leftists elites in other countries use when talking about Americans and/or “the Westerners” in order to try to make themselves seem less bad to their own populations or their own consciences. I’m thinking especially about all the 1-5% of Latin America, whom I have had the chance to know personally, who are constantly mocking “the gringos” and won’t pay their maids above minimum wage. But at least in that case, the US government’s behavior gives them something to hang their hats on.
Here’s a particularly nasty segment from the old Mexican counterpart to Saturday Night Live about Michelle Obama from back in the Obama administration (warning: racist). It’s pretty much par for the course in Mexico. How would you like to live in a country where the elites try to demean you like that? And Russians in the US have had to endure something like this during the past few years.
I never thought the US would sink to this level, but I guess we’re becoming the Third World in terms of more than just income inequality.
The antirussianitic racist-Liberal antirussianites may well be re-purposing old antsemitic material for re-targetting against Russia and Putin. But I don’t think they are trying to sneak ” the International Jew” back into the edges of public consciousness.
This liberal racism is specifically antislavitically antislavite. And anti-White russianitic even more specifically. It began several years before the Putin-diddit campaign to excuse Hillary’s election loss. It began with rising emphasis about ” Russian skinhead youth” and screaming concern about Putin’s newly-at-the-time instituted anti-gayitic persecution laws against Russian gay people.
So the image the antislavitic racist antirussianite Liberals are trying to put across is the White Russian Tyrant Putin ruling a nation which is a seething cauldron of young White Russian Skinheads and Gaybashers. I wonder how the antislavitic racist Liberal antirussianites would react if they could be forced to see the structural similarities between their own image of The International Slavic-White gaybashing Russian and the old EuroNazi Hitlerian image of The International Jew. Would they be embarrassed if caught beyond hope of denial?
Painful Glenn Greenwald interview with a Russian-American political consultant from 2017:
What of the oligharchs and money laundering around the globe? It would seem that folks in NYC and London have some interest in laundering that money. What about the Russian opposition to Putin, like Kasparov? Is there some nuance that is being lost in the “Russia!Russia!Russia!” vs. “Putin ok-Neolibs bad” focus?
Please cite specific “Putin OK” articles and comments in NC, lest your “nuances” come across as vectors for anti-Russian hysteria.
Sorry, that was poorly worded. I guess my questions are relating to where some NY and London finance folks may garner financial benefits from laundering Russian money, but may fall on either side of the Russia hysteria argument, depending on other political positions. Also, in the racism category, a lot of the alt-right seems to admire Putin and Russia for the Russian state’s anti-Muslim, anti-gay, pro-Christianity (Orthodox) positions, which I think should get more attention. I’m fairly distrustful of Russia due to the money laundering state mafia and hypernationalism.
These concerns you mention are valid, especially that of alt-right wingers valorizing the White, Christian alliance between Church and State in Russia (nothing new, fwiw). And there is evidence of Russian support for right-wing populists in Europe. As for their “hyper-nationalism,” I’d argue that it’s primarily defensive (if brutal), and based on their thousand-year history of being invaded.
Let’s be honest, a glance at a world map shows how, no matter what kind of respective governments are in place, the US and Russia would both have to make real, good faith efforts to maintain a peaceful equilibrium with each other: two immense, diverse, transcontinental empires, with ports on the Atlantic and Pacific… the ease of both states slipping into adversarial zero-sum game politics is hard to resist.
But resist it they must; both states have a responsibility to their citizens and the world to co-exist peaceably.
Who would you say is the prime offender in this current phase?
A farmer: Well, clearly any suggestion that questions the “poor picked on Russia” theme here will get you a firm put down. It’s akin to walking into church and announcing that you question the existence of god. You are here for conversion not conversation. Just know that Russia is our bff and all ‘liberals’ are the scum of the earth.
Your straw man argument is false.
Discussing and elaborating on a discredited conspiracy theory and propaganda campaign that was directed at Americans (and which continues) has nothing to do with sentimentalizing Russia and Putin.
You either know that, and are dissembling, or you don’t, and are in over your head.
Most excellent analysis of this subject by Stephen F Cohen and his wife Katrina Vanden Heuvel of The Nationhttps://www.thenation.com/article/katrina-vanden-heuvel-stephen-cohen-russiagate/
The 24/7 news cycle, internet brevity, and the targeted perception management industry have produced simplistic narratives. But I suspect the Russians are as influenced/governed by criminal conspiracies as we are.
As we set all the standards?
Great article and comments. I thought I was the only one that saw themes of racism. For me, the way to understand what is going on is that the current conflict is not a continuation of the Cold War, but a continuation of WWII. Except now the Western coalition of powers aligned against Russia has expanded. (BTW in Hitler’s speech justifying the invasion of Russia, he touts all the allies in the invasion.) The Cold War was in large extent was an ideological conflict. But now, the conflict is as it was in World War II, an ethnic and racial conflict.
Once again as in 1941 a coalition of Western powers has put troops on Russia’s borders. Add to that existential reality are narratives against Russia that parallel those of the Nazis, the real Nazis. The so-called Resistance mimics what the Nazis believed about “European Jewry” on now transposed onto the Russians. For the last several years, America media and anti-Russians have been in real time re-inventing and re-writing the Elders of Zion and the accusations of a universal plot of Jews not only against Germany, but of attempting to destroy European culture (known now as “liberal democracies” or something called “rules based order”.)
And the Nazis certainly saw the Jews in particular through a lens of eugenic racism. And how far are the cries about Russians echoing those themes. In charging racism, the racism is not that of the Western Hemisphere but of the type practiced by the Nazis.
This stoking of ethnic hatred makes it more likely as some have pointed out, ensuring a real war.
I was randomly walking the You Tube and began watching a Jimmy Dore video. While it was running I looked at the column of “other videos” and saw one so strange-seeming I just had to begin watching it. It is not about anti-Russianitic racism by Western Establishment Liberals and Democrats. It is about anti-Jewitic racism by a New Zealand Muslim Mosque leader after the mass shooting. Apparently this leader has decided to preach that “Mossad” and “local Zionist bussinesses in New Zealand” funded the mass shooter and organizing his attack.
One of the reasons that the Left is so deeply hated by so many decent people is that it will pretend to oppose racism from some while supporting racism from others by attempting to deny its plain existence. This Muslim leader supports a Nazi-style conspiracy theory about “Mossad” and “local Zionists” funding and organizing this man’s attack. If any Leftists even watch this video, how many will try to pretend that this Muslim leader is not advancing the same exact sort of conspiracy theory against “Mossad” and “Zionists” that the Liberal Establishment is advancing against “Russia”?
Here is the video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OVasVStyRMY