Temporary
sculptural installation: “Shot” in 2022
Sculptor Dmitry Iv.
History knows
war criminals have two ways - the court or…
“PUTLER, HINT UNDERSTANDABLE?”
Thanks for the translation.
Heads up.
It appears to get worse.
Yes yes I see that the notice appears to have the year scratched out.
Something to chew on:
ETA: typo
I doubt that anyone here will be surprised by this event and its timing if this turns out to be true.
I’m sure that those who got out of Russia in time feel that their decision, though difficult, was a wise one.
I thought you were replying to the post by Gag Halfrunt directly above your post, while you were replying to an earlier one, in fact. Sorry for the extra measure of confusion.
We mustn’t have aggression. /s
Meanwhile:
Uh huh, sure.
Thread:
You can blame the persistence of their “Mongol model” of the state (see Ivan); you can blame it on insecurity on whether or not Russia is a part of Europe (see Peter); you can blame the fact that the Enlightenment never made it past the dilettante interest of the aristocrats there (see Catherine). You can blame it on bitterness over foreign invaders (Napoleon, Hitler) or meddlers (American neoCons). You can blame “history” again and again and Malamud provides good examples.
That said, the fact remains that it’s 2022 and most Russians choose – often grudgingly and with a sense of resignation, but still choose – to accept autocracy and authoritarianism with imperial ambitions. This despite two decades of peace with the West and relatively unfettered access to the rest of the world and the benefits of liberal democracy via the medium of the Internet. I’m with Tom Nichols in that dual thread: there’s something else going on, and we can’t allow whatever it is to take control in Western countries too.
This truly sucks.
We in the West must stop behaving in a similarly immature way and keep in mind that the problem with Russia right now is not the Russian language or Russian music or literature or art or food or someone’s Russian ethnic background.
All of this means that Russian fascism will claim to be anti-fascist. Russia can be a fascist regime even if its leader speaks of opposing “fascism” or “Nazism.” Indeed, the deep self-absorption and grotesque contradiction of Putin’s position confirm that what we have before us is precisely Russian fascism. Fascists celebrate national willfulness and oppose logic. As Ilyin put it, “fascism is a redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness.” Arbitrariness is the essential element of Russia’s war. A fascist who calls someone else a “fascist” is no less of a fascist for doing so. He is more of a fascist. He is pursuing fascism’s priority of will over reason to its extreme.
Zelensky after he saw this picture
There’s a line in the war-novel “Red Storm Rising” where the Soviets have invaded Western Europe and two generals are talking strategy. They’re flummoxed that the Germans won’t go for a strategic retreat, abandoning Hanover in order to regroup. At one point one of the American characters thinks “And if somebody invaded New Hampshire, he admitted to
himself, would I withdraw into Pennsylvania?”
The situation for the Ukrainians reminds me of that.
Yeah but Florida though? You’d like to concentrate the enemy there so you could nuke it.
