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I do wonder if Russians, Arabs, Muslims, and so on feel the same way when Obama (Bush(s), Clinton, Blair, Cameron, etc) pontificates. The phrase "western hypocr
by alan_cx 13y ago
I do wonder if Russians, Arabs, Muslims, and so on feel the same way when Obama (Bush(s), Clinton, Blair, Cameron, etc) pontificates. The phrase "western hypocrisy" is not new.
What is ironic, is that oddly I prefer the unashamed way Russia acts, compared to the cover-ups and lies of the west. You know where you stand. We in the west are supposed to be better, but all we are better at really is PR. In Russia, people know what the deal is, and can deal with that one way or another. In the west people are just dismissed as silly tin foil hat people, and nothing gets done until a Snowden comes along and busts the bubble.
- frozenport 13y agoIn Russia an anti-american sentiment is heavily associated with Putin, often the Russian opposition is quite supportive of America - the place that made the Internet and YouTube.
- levosmetalo 13y agoRussian opposition might be supportive of America just because Putin is not. The moment Putin vanishes, the new government will still look up after Russian own interests and not care at all about America.
- guard-of-terra 13y agoOf course they should look at their own interests first, but this doesn't mean hostility to America or other countries. Just that there are limits to friendship.
- abcd_f 13y ago> the Russian opposition is quite supportive of America Of course it is, because guess who's paying for said opposition?
- varjag 13y agoThis sentiment is quite common throughout former USSR: if someone is opposing the established authoritarian rule, they must be shills on the payroll. After all, what's there not to like, right?
- gdy 13y agoThe sentiment is that many of them live on Western grants and would never bite a hand that is feeding them.
- anigbrowl 13y agoFaraway hills look green.
- smsm42 13y ago>>> We in the west are supposed to be better, but all we are better at really is PR. That's baloney, also known as reverse cargo cult. As you know, cargo cult is a fallacy when people simulate external appearances of some process without actually performing it (original cargo cult was building fake airfields and simulating actions of the people working in airfield in hope that actual planes with plentiful food and goods - i.e. cargo - would arrive) and without understanding what exactly causes the external effects. Reverse cargo cult happens when people postulate that there actually were no actual planes ever, just those people that claimed they fly the planes are much better at pretending (or, as you say now, in PR) than the cargo cult practitioners, thus they appear to have more success, even though under the pretense there's no actual essence in either case, and the essence doesn't actually exist and is just a lie. Of course, it is trivially obvious to any informed person that while we have major undeniable problems with surveillance running amok and other serious problems in the US, situation with personal rights and liberties in the US is way better than in Russia. In US there are no things like Khodorkovsky's or Magnitsky's affairs, there are no laws introducing internet censorship, there is Bill of Rights, there are independent courts, there is a free press, there is the police that mostly is doing its job and not racketeering businesses, and I could continue all day long. Yes, abuses do happen, and yes, they are bad, and yes, right now we are living through a number of them and US citizens need to fix them if they want to preserve their liberties - but claiming "all we are better at really is PR" is misguided at best and playing right to the hands of dictators like Putin and Assad at worst. After all, if everybody is only pretending, why should Putin or Assad change anything? They just has to lie more and better and everything would be fine.
- foxhedgehog 13y agoSounds like you do believe in US exceptionalism