The West's decade-long disinformation and hate campaign against Russia has poisoned the minds of many. Here's my private correspondence with a supporter of NATO policy toward Russia.
Anyone who uses the phrase "evil empire" in all seriousness is not a serious person but one who has a cartoon vision of reality. And the suggestion that Russians suffer from an inferiority complex made me laugh out loud. If anything, they have a superiority complex, which, admittedly, could be quite annoying but most commonly takes a charming "I'll protect you" form.
I am sorry you had to go through such an exchange.
Спасибо,Джон, что не устаешь нести правду заблудшим. Твой оппонент в данной переписке выглядит наивным и очень ангажированных западной пропагандой. Столько клише в нескольких письмах..
Thanks for this article and reproduction of personal correspondence. In this time of great uncertainty and disinformation I try to read every article with a jaundiced eye, and even so have been fooled many times into belief of personalities, opinions, and data that have later been shown to be false. In my opinion all that you wrote to your friend was correct, including the possibility that the future may include a Russian empire stretching to the English Channel. My knowledge is only from extensive reading of public sources. Yours, if it is to be believed (remember, I am thoroughly skeptical now of everything), includes insider information from your family ties as well as, presumably, from your professional past. To an outsider like me, the mistakes being made by the “West” seem so obvious that one must assume they are deliberate, perhaps to achieve a world of complete chaos and disintegration so that the remaining remnants of civilization will be bundled under an authoritarian one-world government? If that is the case, how do the Putin and Xi governments fit in, if at all?
I don't have quite the stomach to descend fully into the above conversation; I have read enough of your pieces and enough of this above piece to confirm that it is entirely in synch with my own Russia experience (I was first in the Soviet Union in pre-Gorby 1985, then through in Yeltsin-era 1990s, then in early Putin period -- holding my firstborn son I could hear the 21-gun salute of Putin's inaugural out my window. I left in late 2003 & have followed it from afar ever since only back once, briefly). I am so very grateful for voices like yours that won't be barged off the truth, no matter how painfully at odds with friends and loved-ones it puts you (and for years).
I face also the same spill-over from the Orwellian hate-campaign against Russia-Putin. I re-read "1984" in 2019, for the first time since high-school, and was surprised at how early in the novel the Hate Campaign makes its appearance (only a couple of pages in) -- orchestrated hatred is a staple of the New Normal.
It is amazing how quickly that conversation deteriorated.
"S" showed his true colors and that's a shame. Shame that he didn't realize
that he could be wrong in his opinions and a shame that he didn't take advantage
of your insight to better inform his thoughts.
I've run into this brick wall mind set with several old friends(now past tense)over the
last couple of years and it doesn't seem to matter what facts or information you offer,
their mind is set and that's all there is to it.
It seems to me that the last several years have produced so much information about
what ever new crises pops up that people default to one position or opinion and stick
to it no matter what new information comes forward. An inability to process more data.
Information overload might be the new mental illness that big pharma can help with a
new pill.
Anyone who uses the phrase "evil empire" in all seriousness is not a serious person but one who has a cartoon vision of reality. And the suggestion that Russians suffer from an inferiority complex made me laugh out loud. If anything, they have a superiority complex, which, admittedly, could be quite annoying but most commonly takes a charming "I'll protect you" form.
I am sorry you had to go through such an exchange.
Спасибо,Джон, что не устаешь нести правду заблудшим. Твой оппонент в данной переписке выглядит наивным и очень ангажированных западной пропагандой. Столько клише в нескольких письмах..
Thanks for this article and reproduction of personal correspondence. In this time of great uncertainty and disinformation I try to read every article with a jaundiced eye, and even so have been fooled many times into belief of personalities, opinions, and data that have later been shown to be false. In my opinion all that you wrote to your friend was correct, including the possibility that the future may include a Russian empire stretching to the English Channel. My knowledge is only from extensive reading of public sources. Yours, if it is to be believed (remember, I am thoroughly skeptical now of everything), includes insider information from your family ties as well as, presumably, from your professional past. To an outsider like me, the mistakes being made by the “West” seem so obvious that one must assume they are deliberate, perhaps to achieve a world of complete chaos and disintegration so that the remaining remnants of civilization will be bundled under an authoritarian one-world government? If that is the case, how do the Putin and Xi governments fit in, if at all?
Very interesting. Thanks
Dear Mr Varoli,
I don't have quite the stomach to descend fully into the above conversation; I have read enough of your pieces and enough of this above piece to confirm that it is entirely in synch with my own Russia experience (I was first in the Soviet Union in pre-Gorby 1985, then through in Yeltsin-era 1990s, then in early Putin period -- holding my firstborn son I could hear the 21-gun salute of Putin's inaugural out my window. I left in late 2003 & have followed it from afar ever since only back once, briefly). I am so very grateful for voices like yours that won't be barged off the truth, no matter how painfully at odds with friends and loved-ones it puts you (and for years).
I face also the same spill-over from the Orwellian hate-campaign against Russia-Putin. I re-read "1984" in 2019, for the first time since high-school, and was surprised at how early in the novel the Hate Campaign makes its appearance (only a couple of pages in) -- orchestrated hatred is a staple of the New Normal.