Counter-Currents
1,244 words
James Kirchick, writing for Foreign Policy, rather accurately describes how Russia is creeping deeper and deeper into fulfilling Alexander Dugin’s vision for her as the world’s savior from American cosmopolitanism . . .
The Center for Strategic Communications, a Kremlin-linked think tank, has bestowed a new title on Russian President Vladimir Putin: It’s calling him “World Conservatism’s New Leader.” Putin, according to the report, is the most influential world figure resisting the global onslaught of multiculturalism, radical feminism, and homosexuality, all foisted upon an unsuspecting world by the “ideological populism of the left.” For years, Putin has been working to reestablish the global influence that Russia once enjoyed. But there was one big problem: his regime has been devoid of the ideological raison d’être provided by communism. Whereas the Soviet Union was once able to muster support from people around the globe as the world headquarters of Marxist-Leninism, Putin’s Russia offered little in the way of comparable ideological appeal (other than to revanchist Russians seeking a vague return to their country’s former glory).
Now the Kremlin seems to have settled upon a new international brand: the protection of “traditional values” from the forces of cosmopolitanism and post-nationalism. Like the Comintern before it, this “Conservative International,” as Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty commentator Brian Whitmore writes, will serve as the ideological fount of anti-Western agitation.
James Kirchick, a gay Jewish neocon, is naturally alarmed by Putin’s putsch against the West’s aggressive promotion of decadent lifestyles and homosexuality. A series of popular populist laws deliberately designed to escalate this moral conflict with the West has been aided by a parade of Western celebrities and local Soros-operatives seemingly hellbent on confirming their darkest fears. Just as he did in Syria, Putin demonstrated his masterful grasp of politics by nudging American foreign policy operatives to design and then stumble into their own trap.
The thesis of the article is that “we” (the West/Judeo-Masonic Elites/Atlanticists/Amerika) should tactically retreat on the homosexual agenda altogether and re-frame our struggle against Russian sovereignty and culture as a more generic struggle for “freedom” and “democracy.” He concedes that the peasantry there isn’t degenerate enough yet to sign on for gay marriage or encouragement of promiscuity and alternative sexuality in public school curricula.
In other words, Kirchick is scolding the agents of Modernity to lead with the catch-phrases and buzzwords which make it sound appealing, not the unsustainable carnival of excess and exploitation it actually amounts to. He’s scolding them to get back onto the neocon geopolitical script: Blather on about “open societies” while our oligarchs dive into those openings, offer lofty speeches about “liberty” while liberating the innards of illiterate villagers in a scramble for resources, and prattle about “free speech” while tightening the screws of our soft tyranny down to fewer and fewer tolerated topics.
I believe Kirchick’s correct that Putin and his inner circle are merely exploiting the nearest opportunity to return to their cherished role as Cold War nemeses of American imperial aggression. It’s a smart move, and the Traditionalist stick actually works against America in a way the Marxist stick never could. In the perennial geopolitical chess game, the Traditionalist vision not only holds more promise than Marxism or naked Soviet revanchism, it holds more promise than America’s discredited Enlightenment canards. It’s the ideal vehicle for Soviet revanchism, a fact Dugin’s been trying to explain to his countrymen for well over a decade, and a fact that’s only beginning to dawn on neocon think tank types.
This is the single most important geopolitical event for American White Nationalists since World War II. Without powerful global oligarchies to project and protect them, ideas are impotent. Being correct isn’t good enough, and it never has been. For several decades, our identitarian struggle was deprived of oxygen as the world oscillated between Global Capitalism and Global Communism, both of which are antithetical to our survival. Now, with the world beginning to oscillate between Global Capitalism and Global Traditionalism, ideas like “sovereignty,” “identity,” and “heritage” will bubble back into popular discourse.
We can’t expect Russia to actually actively back us in the way America’s backing the Free Syrian Army, at least not yet. But it’s impossible for them to pursue their geopolitical agenda without accidentally helping us by relentlessly critiquing the multicultural, globalist, and capitalist agenda of our common enemy. Traditional ethnic self-determination will be a powerful weapon in their arsenal as they wage the Cold War for influence over disputed countries and regions the world over.
Our job will be to develop and refine our own culture of critique, one where we borrow the abstractions being pitched from Russia and her allies and repackage them for our purposes. Their journalism, entertainment, and academia are already leaving a seismic impact on American White Nationalists, with much of the original research and policy positions undergirding our positions originating from agents of Russian influence. Snowden, Assange, the Syrian War, the gay thing, and much more has been either orchestrated or assisted by the Kremlin.
The Next Cold War
And the Kremlin’s just getting started.
We’ve got to be mindful that we don’t become useful idiots, anti-American lackeys of the Russian agenda parroting their talking points without remembering to tie them back to our own struggle. The Russian government is a shrewd and calculating oligarchy, and its citizenry is nearly as decadent and materialist as our own. There’s a lot to admire in Vladimir Putin and in some changes happening in Russia, but Putin is no Prester John, and many of the Russian nationalists pushing this agenda are bigoted and myopic equivalents of our own neocon chicken hawks.
Just as we inappropriately framed all Russians as sinister Marxist villains during the first Cold War, Russians often inappropriately frame all Americans as greedy and decadent globalist villains. There’s certainly some truth to this stereotype, but it’s not the whole truth. Marxism wasn’t broken in Russia by America’s military might or the West’s wealth; it was broken by the death of the Marxist Dream in the hearts of the Russian folk. Russia can and will continue playing the game with pipelines and puppet regimes, but truly breaking the back of the American threat to Russian sovereignty and identity requires the death of the American Dream in the hearts of the Anglo-American and Western European (Atlantic) folk.
We on the North American New Right are working hard to kill the American Dream once and for all, developing and promoting a new identitarian and traditional dream centered around family, folk, and faith. Our enemies are fumbling, our potential allies are warming up to us, and our message is improving. We’re mentoring the new talent that’s steadily trickling in, mining the seemingly fathomless wealth of brilliant ideas which have yet to be translated for and presented to contemporary English-speaking audiences, and building a growing network, node-by-node, of dedicated radicals.
The early 21st Century is shaping up to be an exciting time. While America’s regnant oligarchy is positively guaranteed to burn, we don’t know whether it will do so gradually and imperceptibly or suddenly and catastrophically. We don’t know how it will all play out, but the future won’t merely land in our laps. We have to struggle for survival and sovereignty, and we have to be agile enough to search for and seize opportunities that present themselves. In the coming struggle between Modernity and Tradition, Tradition is destined to prevail. Whether our own people will survive to celebrate that victory remains to be seen.
38 comments
Nice, as an American who moved to Moscow two moons ago, I agree with most of the article.
On the ground, Russia is eons better than one can imagine: no gay agenda, no odd looks if u say ” I want to protect my people”, natural food, a disdain for mixing of races, manners and warmth of community. No fear of molesters, school shootings, obesity, liberalism is a freeing feeling. Liberating. So far, Ill never return. This is home. Thousands of villages are uninhabited. They need people here, workers families. Men.
Bob Whitaker has said that revolution is like catching a wave. Putin knows how to surf.
Here we go again: the man on white horse syndrome.
Putin is an anti-racist, anti-nationalist advocate of constitutional patriotism, who wants a “strong Russia” regardless of the ethnic and racial composition of that Russia. We’ve been through all of this in previous discussions about Dugin at this blog.
Is it good that Putin is sticking his thumb into the eye of “Western” degeneracy? Certainly. Is it good that he is upsetting the globalist applecart? Absolutely. Is his brand of traditionalism, watered down as it is, better for Russia than the American alternative? Of that there can be no doubt. Is the positions he is advocating for Russia consistent with our fundamental views? Absolutely not.
But it’s impossible for them to pursue their geopolitical agenda without accidentally helping us by relentlessly critiquing the multicultural, globalist, and capitalist agenda of our common enemy.
Putin is a multiculturalist.
…many of the Russian nationalists pushing this agenda are bigoted and myopic equivalents of our own neocon chicken hawks.
Many of the true Russian nationalists have been jailed by the Putin regime. The Occidental Observer had a good article about that a while back.
Traditional ethnic self-determination will be a powerful weapon in their arsenal as they wage the Cold War for influence over disputed countries and regions the world over.
How about promoting traditional ethnic self-determination in Russia first, to show us the way? Let’s see – get rid of the growing hordes of non-Russian and non-Slavic invaders in the Russian West (West Asian Muslims) and East (predominantly East Asian Chinese), and cut loose the Chechens and other assorted groups and let them have “traditional ethnic self determination.” But we can’t do that, can we – we need the new strong Eurasian anti-racist “Russian” empire promoted by Dugin.
I can’t wait until this Putin fad passes. It can’t come soon enough. Let’s leave Putin to the likes of the “Dark Enlightenment” where they can dissect his staredowns with American actors. We can do better.
The head of Russian intelligence is a Jew.
Last December & the previous December. I haven’t seen any Hanukkah in front of the Kremlin, like you see it in front of the White house!
“We can do better”
Agreed. Got any ideas?
The alternative to “man on a white horse syndrome” [sic] is a thousand kostume klowns each trying to be his own little fuhrer. This is the American scene. It clearly hasn’t worked.
Tone down your American snark and let’s see if we can learn from Putin and the Russian experience.
I’ve learned alot. Every time WNs waste time and energy on the latest “hero of the month” they get burned.
Or are we still saying “we won” because of Reagan’s 1980 electoral victory? Or how about Ron Paul?
Learn from the Russian situation? I wholeheartedly agree. Sailerite “citizenism” is pure poison, whether it’s pushed by breezy American HBDers or Russian thugs.
This is really encouraging, in a time when going back over the last fifty years or so, we haven’t had much to be encouraged about. I wonder if there have been translations of any current Russian writers on the Right, besides Dugin?
It would be one of those ironies of history that had the Red Army coming into Europe as conquerors, and now, post-Communist, serving as the epicenter for Tradition.
I still find Adolf Hitler and National Socialist Germany much more inspiring than Vladimir Putin and the Russians. Hitler was the real pioneer of White Nationalism. I do, however, have more respect for Putin now that he’s pissed off the gays.
This is encouraging. It’s weird, though, having grown up during the last years of the Cold Year, to finally admit it is the US that is the enemy of Tradition, not Russia.
As the USSR collapsed there was a similar transformation in the US, in which power was taken from the traditional elites and transferred to a new class. This new class, I would say, shares key characteristics with the gang that took over Russia in 1917.
I wonder how American conservatives will react to this. And I’m curious as to how, if and when White Nationalists and Alt Righters will make outreach efforts to Russian authorities.
That Russia used to be the enemy of tradition and the USA was not (or at least didn’t appear to be) and now the roles are reversed may be explained by taking note that the group that once dominated Russia, now dominates the USA and has lost a lot of influence in Russia.
In early 2012 Vladimir Putin gave a speech to a Jewish group in which he said Jews made up 85% of the first Soviet government. Jews continued to dominate the Soviet gov’t in the 1930’s but apparently lost some influence in the late 30’s. Exactly when Jews were no longer such a big force in the Soviet Union might be hard to identify, but I would guess that was after WW II.
Jews also grabbed power in Germany when it collapsed at the end of WW I and became a powerful force, way out of proportion to its small population (as in Russia and everywhere else they live). While the Jewish Bolsheviks effectively banned Christianity (and all religion) in the Soviet Union, in Germany they insulted Christianity in books and the media and promoted the cosmopolitanism you write about in this article. In the 1920’s, under Jewish control Berlin became the worlds capital of vice. Prostitution and homosexuality became huge in Berlin and people flocked to Berlin from all over Europe and beyond to have their fun.
This was a central part of the battle between fascism and communism, with Franco and Hitler being Catholics and defenders of Christianity and traditionalism (with German soldiers having the saying “Gott mit uns” (God is with us) on their belt buckles) while fighting the atheistic Soviet regime and its Anglo-American allies.
While Jews did not make up 85% of the American or British governments, they played a huge role in both these countries politics. Jews were able to push the USA into WW I for the British and in return the British promised them their own country in the “Balfour Declaration” in 1917 and David Irving details how Jews were the primary force pushing an already anti-German Churchill into power with huge amounts of money they gave him when he was having financial troubles. He was beholden to them as Germany repeatedly made peace offers to England (all hushed up by Churchill), even as England was on the verge of losing the war.
I would say the eastern elite in the USA was allowed to play its role, but when it conflicted with Jewish interests, then Jewish interests prevailed. Lindbergh, Henry Ford and Father Coughlin all desired to keep the USA out of WW II (not out of any hatred of Jews) but the Jewish media destroyed all three of these men and made them an enemy of the state.
FDR probably did what he did because it was best for the USA, and it was a disaster for Europe. In cabinet meetings he stated he wanted the destruction of the British Empire and of course we know he wanted the destruction of Germany. Thanks to Churchill and his financiers FDR achieved both these goals. Now the people that began destroying Russia’s and then Germany’s cultures in the early 20th century have accomplished the same for the entire west.
It was actually early 2013 in which Putin made his speech.
You make a very good point in your first paragraph. I think it is pretty much right on. I’m not sure if I would call Hitler a defender of Christianity though. In his table talks he comes off as detesting it. He didn’t seem to have a very favorable opinion of Franco either. I have very limited knowledge of Franco, but I think it is fair to classify him as a defender of Christianity and traditionalism. I would say that Hitler defended “traditionalism” to a certain extent. In my opinion, Hitler was very “traditional” in that he believed that stronger peoples/races should dominate lesser ones. I think this has caused him to fall out of favor with a lot of people in the New Right because Hitler considered other white peoples to be inferior. Although the Soviet Union may very well have wanted to invade Western Europe I think it is fair to say that Hitler was probably just as anxious to push Germany eastward. I find it ironic and quite hypocritical that America condemned Hitler and ultimately went to war with him for having the same sort of Manifest Destiny mindset that once pervaded our nation.
Thank you. I haven’t read Hitler’s “Table Talk”, but for a house painter he had some amazing artistic talent. It’s my view his supposedly racist views have been blown way out of proportion.
http://pauleisen.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/the-artist-and-house-painter.html
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1205572/Hitler-shook-hands-black-1936-Olympic-hero-Jesse-Owens.html
The Hitler/Jesse Owens story is fascinating, and 100% true in my opinion. The IHR web site has a good article on this as well. I read somewhere that Hitler took a pretty keen interest in the 1936 Olympic Games. Normally, I don’t think he cared too much about sports.
* Cold War
Fascinating article; and just as I’m about to stand up and cheer for Vladimir, I read Ted’s well-reasoned rejoinder, above. Yes, we need to be cautious about Putin’s multi-cult and anti-racist side; Russia itself was always a large grouping of disparate racial entities.
But it is endlessly ironic, after all those 1930’s Soviet propaganda posters that showed “all races” unified under a hammer and sickle; and the 1930’s through 1950’s use of the Communist Party USA of Negro Americans to boost Party numbers and “anti-racist” street cred; after all this, to look at Putin, compare him to Obama, and be tempted to commit the “man on a white horse” fallacy- it’s quite a ride. As a simple counter to Obama’s presumptive heroism of the multi-cultural left, Putin has a place in my heart, I must admit.
The intentions of Putin may be rather confused, what counts is the effect his Russia has on the west. Rather like Geert Wilders, he empowers more right wing views, whether intentional or not. And if people adopt these more right wing views, they may go further. For me, Geert Wilders has been one of the stepping stones to White Nationalism. Most people find it difficult to switch at once from liberalism to identitarianism. Putin provides a nice stepping stone towards more radical views.
‘Putin Discusses the White Problem’
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=meN1o4Ts8_I
Why isn’t this revelation more of a big deal among White Nationalists? That conference took place a while back. According to MWIR (he speaks Russian) it’s authentic. Turns out Putin is sympathetic to WN after all. This is huge so why the silence? I don’t get it.
I think someone’s had their wires crossed. It’s too good to be true, surely?
Can anyone here speak Russian, so that we could double check the translation?
On a different note, does anyone have any information on the Kiev riots? Apparently most of the rioting people belong not to the pro-EU opposition crowd, but they are mostly hardcore Ukrainian nationalists who don’t support the EU either, and they just want to get rid of the corrupt government (for a good reason) and don’t want to get swallowed by Russians (ditto).
This somewhat reminds me of Zakhar Prilepin’s book Sankya about a fictional revolution in present-day Russia by a racialist Russian nationalist movement. (Prilepin is so-called National Bolshevik, a.k.a. nationalist collectivist.) Prilepin is also anti-Putin. It would be best if both Putin and his opposition were racialists. It would be worst if they destroyed each other and let the pro-Jewish pro-EU pro-US forces triumph.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sankya_(novel)
While it’s difficult to measure the man, I tend to think Putin is not nearly as competent as he’s made out to be. In comparison to Obama or Bush le Petite, yes. But his system is utterly corrupt, and while his foreign minister is highly competent, his military reforms were utter failures, and so is his economy still dominated by mostly Jewish oligarchs. If his empire will remain dependent on hydrocarbon production, it will always stay weak and vulnerable.
Putin’s words:
“in our country and all of Europe there’s problem with the native population, a demographic problem. The birth rate is too low, Europeans are dying out, do you understand or not?”
The video of the Q&A session with Putin is on YouTube (here)
Putin was replying to Gerhard Mangott, who I suppose is a Jew.
(at the end of the video, 2H23)
The Kremlin website has a full transcript :
VLADIMIR PUTIN: Let’s begin with the second part of your question. We do not have any harassment on a sexual basis. Russia does not have any laws punishing sexual minorities for their… for their what?
REPLY: For their orientation.
VLADIMIR PUTIN: For their orientation, right. So there is nothing to worry about here.
We have passed a law that forbids propaganda to minors. But I will tell you again: there is a serious population problem in your nation, in all European nations and in Russia – a demographic problem. The birth rates are low, the Europeans are dying out; do you understand that or not? Same-sex marriages do not produce children. Do you want to survive on account of immigrants?
Excerpted from the same transcript:
“nationalists must remember that Russia was formed specifically as a multi-ethnic and multi-confessional country from its very inception. Nationalists must remember that by calling into question our multi-ethnic character, and exploiting the issue of Russian, Tatar, Caucasian, Siberian or any other nationalism or separatism, means that we are starting to destroy our genetic code. In effect, we will begin to destroy ourselves.
Russia’s sovereignty, independence and territorial integrity are unconditional. These are red lines no one is allowed to cross. For all the differences in our views, debates about identity and about our national future are impossible unless their participants are patriotic. Of course I mean patriotism in the purest sense of the word.”
That’s a nice way of saying that Russia is an empire, and Putin means to keep it that way, regardless of the corrosive effect on the ethnic Russian core population. Just because Putin upsets the “West” that does not make him a true Russian nationalist.
On the other hand, Russia weakened by internal strife and separatism will be easy prey to foreign enemies, which will also do the Russian, Slavic core of the country no favors. Remember, Russia tried letting a restive province, Chechnya go in 1996. What happened next? The Chechens invaded Dagestan in 1999. Russia then had to fight a second war with Chechnya and reincorporate it into the empire, setting up a vassal leader to keep a lid on it. As much as an all white mono-ethnic state appeals to the imagination, it is not necessarily practical or achievable for Russia. A rabid Russian nationalism would also encourage a reactionary separatism on the part of various minorities, giving a target rich environment to Western NGOs, Soros agents, etc…
However, in this youtube video <> Putin asserts that while minorities must be respected, so must the majority and that decisions must be made with consideration of the good of the collective, not to appease individual or minority whims.
And why not hive off Dagestan too?
@Greg Johnson
Why not hack off every region that takes any effort to keep? Probably because then you’d end up with nothing.
What’s to stop the Chechens and their Al-Queda-Saudi-US backers from invading more strategic regions in the hopes the Russians simply cede them?
On the other hand, Russia weakened by internal strife and separatism will be easy prey to foreign enemies, which will also do the Russian, Slavic core of the country no favors. Remember, Russia tried letting a restive province, Chechnya go in 1996. What happened next? The Chechens invaded Dagestan in 1999. Russia then had to fight a second war with Chechnya and reincorporate it into the empire, setting up a vassal leader to keep a lid on it. As much as an all white mono-ethnic state appeals to the imagination, it is not necessarily practical or achievable for Russia. A rabid Russian nationalism would also encourage a reactionary separatism on the part of various minorities, giving a target rich environment to Western NGOs, Soros agents, etc…
Regarding Putin’s views on multiculturalism. The Soviet Union was a multicultural state as Russia still is today and I’m certain Putin would have liked the Soviet Union to survive and prosper as I’m certain he wants the same for Russia today.
I’ve been to Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia and I’ve visited Latvia’s and Estonia’s capitols Riga and Tallinn respectively. I spoke to people old and young and there are still ethnic tensions between ethnic Russians and the Estonians and Latvians they live amongst. These are all of course Caucasians.
Beyond that Russia still has a significant Muslim population. Like many ethnic groups, these people had a hard time under Stalin because they were suspected of being supporters of Germany and Germany indeed was able to get Muslims to join the Waffen SS and fight for them, just as Indians joined to fight against the British Empire. War does these things, just as the USA got Jews to work on the Manhattan Project (in fact they started it).
I’m sure Putin would like to maintain and strengthen Russia and maintain multi-ethnic Russia and from what I’ve read he is also a Christian and a proud Russian and I believe he would like to maintain those traditions.
It’s also interesting that in Hungary usually the Left was more Russia-friendly (even maybe five years ago, like during the brief Georgian War), and the Right was largely against Russia. Now the conservative government is being lectured from Washington of its erroneous ways, meanwhile they just concluded an agreement with the Russians to build our next nuclear plant, the Russians are also going to finance it. Most people on the Right are now arguing in favor of Russia, the traditional Russophobia (due to 45 years of Soviet occupation) is fading rapidly. The more radical nationalist party Jobbik is also more or less in favor of the agreement, while the Left is now discovering the human rights abuses by the Russians.
Apparently it’s now only the Second World War where Hungarian nationalists hold a view totally incompatible with the official Russian line.
Putin seems to be a phony, who jails genuine nationalists for extremism and floods Russia with migrants.
The gay issue is useful to him as a distraction and a signaling device, just as it is for Washington, but in reverse. “Look how conservative I am”, “Look at how bravely I confront the Americans on this issue”, instead of “look how tolerant and progressive I am”.
The gay issue just isn’t that significant when compared to demographics, economics and the core philosophical ideas of the culture, etc. Contra Putin, gay numbers are really too small to matter in terms of demographics, even if you could force them back into the closet and encourage them to have a kid or two for the sake of appearances.
But people are passionate about it, so it can be useful to politicians.
Still, Putin may be useful to us. It’s probably better for someone to pay lip service to right wing ideas, than for everyone to ignore them entirely as unworthy of lip service. It at least gets those ideas into the conversation and may even inspire some real right wingers in other countries.
And it’s definitely good to have a competent statesman working to counter the increasingly erratic foreign policy of the Americans.
All we can do is keep our eyes open and try to avoid being taken in by the propaganda of either side.
This comment by SMERSH seems reasonable. I’ve never said we can’t learn from Russia or that the situation can’t be exploited for our gain. But, let’s make sure that it’s not us who are exploited by the Duginites. I do care for the well being of the ethnic Russian population, but we should not be “running dogs” for a multiracial Russian Empire, with a few rhetorical bones thrown in our direction.
If Putin really cared about Russian demographics there’s things that can be done. First and foremost – a dedicated territory in which native Russians with their current low birth rate can be protected from displacement by fast-breeding foreigners. Then institute social programs that can promote motherhood and reproduction – programs that would be, by definition, targeted only to Russians if there were no other ethnies living in the state territory.
Sure, the “West” would scream and howl, but they’re doing it anyway, no? I mean, if you are going to set yourself up as The Opponent to globalist multiculturalism, you may as well do something really useful, like promote racial homogeneity (in your own state first!) rather than dog whistle appeals about gays (while Central Asians lurk the streets of Moscow, and Chinese businessmen bed Russian women in the Far East).
Instead, Putin promotes multiculturalism and jails those who call for homogeneity. Some time ago, I recall someone from Russia commenting on a site about Putin. Apparently, some Orthodox priests from the Far East were complaining to Putin, asking him to do something about the Chinese infiltration. “They’re taking over” they argued. Putin’s response – “well, then, you had better convert them to your religion, shouldn’t you?”
Whether than story is real or apocryphal, it nonetheless accurately sums up his real-world attitude toward race. You can make all sorts of comments at meetings (remember Reagan and his “welfare queens?”), but what do you do with your de facto dictatorial power? Promote homogeneity, or promote multiracial assimilationism?
What’s to stop the Chechens and their Al-Queda-Saudi-US backers from invading more strategic regions in the hopes the Russians simply cede them?
Russians should defend Russian territories that have Russian populations. If non-Russians invade Russian territory (militarily or by immigration) they must be repulsed.
This doesn’t mean Russians should occupy other people’s lands while letting these others migrate into the heart of Russia itself.
Invasion…isn’t the immigration acceptable to Putin a form of invasion? Aren’t there terror attacks in the heart of Russia today due to Putin’s multiculturalist ideology?
It’s more complex than that. Just a quarter century ago Russians let go of Estonia and Latvia, both with one third Russian colonist populations, whose colonization is slowly being rolled back (quite understandably, from the Estonian or Latvian point of view). (Central Asia is a similar story.)
While I personally like the Estonians or Latvians at least as much as the Russians, there is no denial that this was a setback for Russian genetic interests. Dagestan used to be over 10% Russian in 1989, and now after years of Chechen wars it’s less than 5% Russian. Chechnya used to be 25% Russian in 1989 and now it’s less than 2% Russian. I can understand the Dagestani or Chechen point of view in disliking these colonizers, but I can also understand that fighting these wars discourages other federal subjects from attempting a war of secession. Without such wars Russian ethnic percentages will not drop elsewhere (at least not so fast), which is good (and not bad) from the viewpoint of ethnic Russian genetic interests. Even fighting lost wars might be good, because your enemies will then think twice the next time, which is the logic of fighting the war in Chechnya: the Chechens won (from an ethnic interest viewpoint), but other groups (like the Tatars) didn’t dare follow the same path.
Since most of Russia is essentially a colony, just like the whole US is, I don’t quite understand why some people here expect the Russians to give up their colonies when they have no intention of giving up the US. I’m sure any WNist Russian government would also want to keep Chechnya and other provinces. Especially if we take Hitler as an inspiration, he certainly didn’t wish for secession.
In other words, the USSR and the Russian Federation were/are multicultural states, but they weren’t so bad for Russian genetic interests (I’m talking about post-Stalin USSR): when they lost control over a territory, Russian ethnic percentages invariable collapsed very quickly, as did the ethnic Russian birthrate, which was way more vulnerable to societal change than Central Asian TFR. I.e. they were/are the lesser evil, and the collapse of these entities was/would be even worse to ethnic Russian genetic interests than their continuation.
Saying that Putin should instead create ethnic Russian territories is also a false dilemma. Of course if he let go territories that would weaken his internal position (especially within the armed forces, which are usually patriotic in the territorial sense), and make him weaker to resist pressure for more immigration (or to resist any pressure from the West).
In the case of Hungary I can also attest that having many ethnic Hungarians living in neighboring countries makes the country more vulnerable to multiculturalism, even some nationalists often accept that minorities in Hungary should be treated better “so as to teach a lesson to our neighbors how they should treat Hungarians living there” (a lesson which our neighbors usually more or less ignore). I would expect Russia to behave similarly: letting go of former colonies with huge Russian populations will probably make them more vulnerable to multiculturalism with the argument that “after all, that’s what’s good for minority ethnic Russians”.
It’s also a defeatist mindset to give up territories when you can also keep them.
Having said all that, I still think Putin is mostly incompetent, so even if he was on our side it would still not be such a huge boon.
Very good discussion going on here. Actually, Obama and Putin have similar problems-Obama “is supposed” to promote “democracy”, in the Middle East for instance, then when they have elections over there, anti-US leaders emerge….and for Putin, it’s a tight-rope, too: if he promotes identity politics in one group, it’s liable to increase self-determination demands from the wrong people. So he virtually has to default to a multi-cultural “patriotism” that favors the intact borders of the empire over a favored racial group. These are sticky problems when you are trying to hold a polyglot people together in one political entity.
I still enjoy seeing his thumb in Obama’s eye on those occasions he chooses to place it there.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleh_Tyahnybok
This Ukrainian opposition leader has said bad things about the Jews. Now he is definitely not pro-Putin or pro-Russian.
While the other two opposition leaders (one of them is the older Klitschko) are offered supreme power (posts of prime minister and deputy prime minister), Tyahnybok seems to be left out of the proposal. Although I read somewhere that it was mostly his people on the streets.
Is there anyone with some knowledge of the Ukrainian situation?
This essay is long on assertion and short on empirical backing.
For example, some empirical backing would be helpful here:
But it’s impossible for them to pursue their geopolitical agenda without accidentally helping us by relentlessly critiquing the multicultural, globalist, and capitalist agenda of our common enemy.
When has Putin or the Russian government ever once critiqued (much less “relentlessly”) globalism or multiculturalism or capitalism?
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Comments are moderated. If you don't see your comment, please be patient. If approved, it will appear here soon. Do not post your comment a second time.