Kim Zigfeld at PJM:
Russia’s lies about what happened on the ground during the war give its game away, and its behavior after the war ended put the final nails in its coffin of deceit. When, for instance, a leading Russian professor of history published a newspaper article questioning whether the Kremlin provoked the Georgia war as part of an imperialistic design, not only the professor but the editor of the paper were both fired  and then the professor, Boris Sokolov, lost his teaching job as well. This has been Russia’s response to the war from the beginning; crackdown and cover-up. And it’s not the response of a nation that stands on the moral high ground. Meanwhile, the Kremlin’s friends and appeasers are rushing to give the KGB regime cover.
Read the whole thing, and then remember who some of the apologists are.
Related, and not just tangentially, is this analysis of the indictments handed down to Muslim “charities” in the US. I’ve not paid as much attention as I should, but I think it’s safe to assume that the useful idiocy has already commenced.
Russia’s history of attempting to control metanarratives and public opinion through the press is quite fascinating. For persons who have an interest in conflict of definitions and narrative control, Russia is a gift shop. Machiavellian? Sure. But to understand the depth of wants and needs and the politics of language and narrative control inside a lingua fish bowl there is no better place.
We push back and forth here on PW trading barbs and/or call for a word definition slices of preferred subsets, in Russia they do it for real, meaning in games of life and death. Certainly you will find these conflicts of control in throughout European history but never so sustained in modern history as in Russia. Joseph Brodsky’s A Room And A Half is a good place to start to understand the narrative control paradigm in Russia, specifically as it opened up in the Sixties. It’s a short story so it won’t tax your time too harshly.
I think I’ll add a footnote of dissident Russian writers, my general observation if you will; rarely do you find persons as sharp and skilled with words, and that’s not only because of a skill set, I think it’s to do with the all too real recourse they face for setting their tongues free. Brodsky for instance, or even my favorite columnist Julyia Latynina; writers don’t play the truth-to-power game there unless they are willing to go all the way. With respect to Russian dissidents, you’re not dealing with no broke nigger, as Kanye West says, and/or maybe it’s similar to the parallel literary world that Hunter S. Thompson envisioned when he said every writer should put a gun to his head and challenge his effort as worthy enough before he/she submits to his/her editor.
Why does Putin return to censorship? It’s a family tradition, why else.
Russia is Russia. Nothing has changed there about their national character and the behavior of those in power. It has been that way since before they were enslaved by the Mongols.
If you enjoy gross oversimplification you might say something of Russia in that way.
Russian imperialism? Never saw THAT one coming.
*rolls eyes*
Did I just read an argument that since Russia jailed a Russian professor for claiming that Russia deliberately provoked Georgia, and Glenn Greenwald published a post claiming that Georgia in some ways deliberately provoked Russia, Glenn Greenwald is in some ways complicit in Russia’s aforementioned arrest? Did I leave out any premises, definitions, or lemmas?
No, but you did make it apparent you haven’t a clue what the word “apologist” means.
What’s wrong, David? Insty refuse to bite on your trolls, so now you’re branching out?
I think everyone is “bad guy” in this war. Georgians stupid and aggressive. Russian smart and aggressive. The Americans … they should first think, then supply the weapons.
Yes, I have read your point that the Georgians had only responded to the attack. Who can prove it? … Nobody… Only words …
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/372744.htm
Some people here, I think, act like neurotic 12-year-olds. They believe every thread should dissolve into idiot name-calling as their terminal neener-neener-ur-a-Commie neurosis dictates. Oddly it’s these same low-IQ spectacles that wrap themselves in the cheapest fakest symbols of Americana.
Being American isn’t defined by being the most annoying uneducated name-caller, last I checked, anyway. With leadership comes responsibility, and I’ve always assumed Americans owe some level of diligence to educating themselves.
Here Dan Collins has presented a topic. Dan has a healthy respect for literature and a mature view of the intricate weave of the world. I don’t believe he deserves his every attempt at discussion to be a crank-yankers session of immature populi.
In the above link you can read of the price paid by those who fight to speak freely in other parts of the world. Outside of France, no country has given more to the arts of poetry and fiction than Russia. Are Russian just like us? Do they want to be just like us? Do they suck? No, no, no and no they are much fiercer than us, especially so in language arts. Most of us have long forgotten what fighting for freedom of speech means, as it pertains to paying to speak out with chunks of flesh and blood that is.
In summary, mostly you obese Ronald Reagan wanna-be hickish numbskulls bore the fuck out of me, except when I feel like playing with poo flinging monkeys, then your convenient.
Done reading my books. Good fuckin’ night.
Our convenient what?
Heh. Slivers of skull remain embedded in his brain,
thor belabors the point that ‘neurotic 12-y/o name callers’ diminish PW threads.
Does the boi even understand the meaning of irony?
Oh, look whose talkin’, the dumbest crack puffing hick on PW. The pride and joy of New Smyrna, Tennessee, not to mention the grand wizard of his local chapter, and the shame of our great nation.
Got’cha inee mor uv’em foonyee pickchares thar heelbillee bo?
Here’s a nutter who knows nothing outside of his tribal hicktown in Tennessee. But he was born with the silver spoon of freedom of speech in his mouth and what’s he do with the priveledge… he makes a picture of a turd in a toilet bowl floating atop a picture of Barack Obama.
Yeah.
Please re-read the following:
Some people here, I think, act like neurotic 12-year-olds. They believe every thread should dissolve into idiot name-callin
In the above link you can read of the price paid by those who fight to speak freely in other parts of the world. Outside of France, no country has given more to the arts of poetry and fiction than Russia. Are Russian just like us? Do they want to be just like us? Do they suck? No, no, no and no they are much fiercer than us, especially so in language arts. Most of us have long forgotten what fighting for freedom of speech means, as it pertains to paying to speak out with chunks of flesh and blood that is.
HOnestly, it’s BS like this. You are physically unable to discussion Russians w/o slamming Americans. That’s why people make fun of you.
In summary, mostly you obese Ronald Reagan wanna-be hickish numbskulls bore the fuck out of me, except when I feel like playing with poo flinging monkeys, then your convenient.
There are a TON of other websites Thor. Have at ’em.
Oh, that turd swimming with Obama? That’s actually symbolic of you, thor.
Nativeist ! 11!!
Or you maybe you should skadaddle, or can’t you get enough of me.
Yes Carin, there are arguably nations with cultures that are historically more artistically advanced than our American culture. If that breaks your heart, if your zealotry for reducing the obvious to who is and who isn’t wearing a flag pin blinds you then please accept my apologies. I know how you love to pretend you’re more American than, say, other Americans.
In the Motherland, oh how they celebrate their poets! And you like poetry, don’t’cha. Did you know Russians tend to call prose writers poets? Pasternak, poet! You can dig that, can’t’cha.
I see the cowardly little pussboi has been up all night smoking meth again.
Serr8d, do you have a stutter, are you obese, walk with a limp, missing any fingers or front teeth?
I’ve been to Tennessee, well, more like through Tennessee, and I noticed an unusual number of afflictions there.
http://dissentmagazine.org/article/?article=1293
Dan, I dare ya.
Them Russian poets, you gotta love ’em, or shoot ’em to simply shut ’em up.
Probably banged an unusual number of them, too. The hookers there are a great deal less literate than your average Russian hooker, I imagine.
I doubt you have to use your imagination at all, Slart.
Nothing like banging lines of Mayakovsky out of one while pulling back on the thick mane of a fallen Trotskyichka. Not that I’d know, haha, haha, ha.
ha!
Are Russian just like us? Do they want to be just like us? Do they suck?
Are most people here smart enough to distinguish the Russian people from the Russian government? Are we smart enough to realize Dan is talking about the government, not the people? Is thor too illiterate to understand this, yet hell bent on continuing to play the buffoon?
Yes, yes, and yes.
Oh no Bmoe, most Russian people hate your effen guts, yankee, don’t get me wrong, hell, I don’t particularly care for your ignorant goddamn face either, but I tolerate my fellow Americans as best as my patience will allow, and Russians probably won’t actually kill your hick-ass at first sight.
Ha.Ha.Ha.
Now I speak for Russians, weee.
Why would someone claiming to be from Russia name themselves after a Norse god?
You speak for morons, thor.
From Thorr-
“Some people here, I think,[B] act like neurotic 12-year-olds. They believe every thread should dissolve into idiot name-calling as their terminal neener-neener-ur-a-Commie neurosis dictates.[/B] Oddly it’s these same low-IQ spectacles that wrap themselves in the cheapest fakest symbols of Americana.”
“Here Dan Collins has presented a topic. Dan has a healthy respect for literature and a mature view of the intricate weave of the world. I don’t believe he deserves his every attempt at discussion to be a crank-yankers session of immature populi.”
Also, from Thorr-
“mostly you obese Ronald Reagan wanna-be hickish numbskulls bore the fuck out of me, except when I feel like playing with poo flinging monkeys, then your convenient.”
“Oh, look whose talkin’, the dumbest crack puffing hick on PW. The pride and joy of New Smyrna, Tennessee,”
“Here’s a nutter who knows nothing outside of his tribal hicktown in Tennessee. But he was born with the silver spoon of freedom of speech in his mouth and what’s he do with the priveledge… he makes a picture of a turd in a toilet bowl floating atop a picture of Barack Obama.”
“Serr8d, do you have a stutter, are you obese, walk with a limp, missing any fingers or front teeth? ”
“don’t particularly care for your ignorant goddamn face either”
Damn the PW’rs and their name calling.
From thorrr-
These don’t work – [ ].
Also from thorrr-
These do work .
Double bonus from thorrr-
Contextualization works, the inverse, not so much.
the less than and greater than symbols
Thor #18
“Serr8d, do you have a stutter, are you obese, walk with a limp, missing any fingers or front teeth?”
Serr8d may not hammer boy, but I do! I got the limp and the missing front teeth from playing hockey my whole life. In the Juniors? we kicked your Russki friends asses from here to Manitoba.
While I agree that Russians aren’t like us? From the ones I’ve met, who were mostly good people, I’d say that the WANT to be, but aren’t allowed….asshole
The Junior Worlds don’t indicate any such consistent ass-kickin’ there good wobbly-kneed buddy.
Warning: You’re sort’a implying the Marxist universality argument. I’d hate to see you go all Marxist without knowing it.