Pozor Rossii and Western anti-Russian sentiments

[RYLKOVA,GALINA S]

While everybody is free to love or hate Russia, this discussion 
seems to lead nowhere. I think it is worth looking at some books, 
like "Distorted
Mirrors: Americans and Their Relations with Russia and China in 
the
Twentieth Century" by Donald Davis and Eugene Trani forthcoming in 
the U of Missouri Press, the review of which was kindly mentioned 
by Andrey Shcherbenok today:

http://www.izvestia.ru/comment/article3124292/

This book might provide a point of departure for some, or the 
final destination for others.
Otherwise we will continue piling up emotionally charged 
accusations that really mean nothing.

Galina Rylkova

On Tue Jan 20 20:54:41 EST 2009, Anyse Joslin <anyse1 at MAC.COM> 
wrote:

> Alina, you force me to write!
> 
> At a time when the US sees itself as the "policeman" of the word, 
>  shoving "democracy" down the throats of those who have their own 
>  "form" of democracy that the US is unable to accept. This 
> chauvinist  attitude has come to the point of breaking 
> international law by  "breaking the peace" in the world with a 
> preemptory strike on a nation  so small that it should NEVER be 
> seen as less than a "war crime."  Personally, in the current 
> state of our democracy, I would not want a  "mini-ME" democracy 
> modeled after it anywhere in the world. THe US  uses its 
> apologies to continue its own gunboat diplomacy that has  grown 
> worse and even more worse since the US involvement in the  
> Philippines in the very early twentieth century under the 
> Presidency  of Theodore Roosevelt (1901-1901). We have taken no 
> lessons from ANY  act tas an agressor in which this country has 
> participated since.  Also, to make matters worse, the 
> "efficiency" of US weapons has risen  so "high" that the actual 
> collateral damage in terms of civilian  casualties as the result 
> of US attacks has gone from only 5% in WWI to  95% today. So, for 
> every civilian killed in WWI, 19 soldiers died.  Today, for every 
> 19 civilian casualties in Iraq, one soldier has died.  How can 
> anyone find ANY preference of this to any other set of  
> behaviors? Now, the US is actually a WAR ECONOMY and no longer  
> concentrates on producing consumer goods or any of the 
> manufacturing  needed to keep and to maintain any economic 
> advantage in the world. I  will not go any further on the US role 
> in the "killing fields" of  Cambodia and too many others to even 
> mention here.
> 
> Anyse
> 
> 
> On Jan 20, 2009, at 5:06 PM, Alina Israeli wrote:
> 
> The animosity towards Russia wherever and whenever it existed is 
> based  solely on the struggle for world domination. While China 
> quietly grew  its ranks and tried not to starve, Russia 
> disregarding starvation  waged proxy wars first in Asia, then in 
> Africa and Latin America.  There were organizations (maybe they 
> still exist) that were in charge  of the insurgent movements in 
> the Mediterranean, Latin America,  possibly elsewhere, I know of 
> the those two first hand.
> 
> It's also well known now that there were training camps for  
> Palestinian terrorists on the territory of Eastern block 
> countries.  And it was the Soviet Union that was behind the 
> blockade of West Berlin.
> 
> While of course the Western attitude towards Russia should be 
> studied,  what I find most amazing is the siege mentality which 
> is pervasive in  Russian social discourse. Take this Leontiev 
> series: http://kbiho.ru/load/14-1-0-3896   ??? the West has been 
> preoccupied from early 1800 with only one thing:  prevention of 
> Russia's expansion in Asia and elsewhere; hindrance of  Russian 
> interests is the sole purpose of Western politics. When such  
> historic programs are made in the West, their main point is 
> national  soul searching and national MEA CULPA towards the 
> former colonies.  This is not the case with Leontiev films (and 
> he is not alone). The  underlying leitmotif is "the Russians are 
> coming and it's a good thing  but the West is holding us back".
> 
> 
> On Jan 20, 2009, at 6:52 PM, Francoise Rosset wrote:
> 
>> I agree with Anyse Joslin and Andrei Shcherbenok, if I 
>> understood  them correctly, that there is a special and 
>> sometimes inexplicable  animosity towards Russia. As a Slavist 
>> and a professor of Russian,  it always infuriated me that the 
>> USSR was singled out for special  opprobium while we turned a 
>> relatively blind eye to the Chinese  communists -- "inscrutable" 
>> they were/are, so I guess that absolved  us from looking too 
>> closely.
>> 
> 
> 
> Alina Israeli
> LFS, American University
> 4400 Massachusetts Ave., NW
> Washington DC. 20016
> (202) 885-2387 	
> fax (202) 885-1076
> aisrael at american.edu
> 
> 
> 
> 
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--
RYLKOVA,GALINA S

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