The Russians Are Coming

[poliphilo]

I grew up during the Cold War. I remember playing a game called "Russian spies" which involved talking in a silly voice and brandishing crayoned drawings of space rockets. My friend and I never could figure out what Russian spies actually did. It was fun drawing the space rockets but the rest of it palled very quickly.

So I've got this conditioning. Russia is the "Evil Empire"- all that Reaganite crap. 

But

When I was a little older I discovered the Russians had written the best books in the world. Later I found out they'd also made some of the best films.

AND they defeated Hitler.  Yes they did. We helped out at bit, but they were the ones who fought the biggest battles and took the biggest losses. 

So LJ is now owned by the Russians. 

Yes I know the President of Russia is a scary bloke. (So is  the President of the USA if you hadn't noticed.)

But he's less likely to want to kill us- right- now we're his customers.  

We live in a global economy. And in a global economy this is what happens. Russians also own Chelsea football club and much of London.
 
The shop's new owner has a funny accent. Get over it. 

A capitalist is a capitalist is a capitalist. Are you trying to tell me  Russian capitalists are intrinsically more evil than American capitalists? (Or British capitalists, or Australian capitalists). That's silly. Go read some history. 

Comments

[(Anonymous)]

No problem with Russians per se except for some aspects of their government (right, Mrs Litvinenko?) but what has spooked the LJers is the post in the new lj_2008 community:

The LiveJournal Advisory Board will publish and update on a regular basis a clear a set of aims and values. This will address such vital community issues as privacy, security, taste and decency. It will also provide a forum to consider any relevant legal, political or religious concerns.

932 replies so far mostly concerned about being vetted for taste, decency, politics and religion.

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

But people were asking for a clear set of guidelines...

I've got a lot invested in LJ- which is why I'm determinedly whistling in the dark. I don't want to be forced out but if I thought I was being vetted- and there were things I couldn't say here- then I'd go.

[(Anonymous)]

I'm with you on that, waiting and seeing. I'm not a blog expert so, where else on the blogosphere would we go?

I started an alternate journal way back when...

[jubal51394.livejournal.com]

Six Apart took ownership here, assuming that things would be changing and wanting to be guaranteed some space there.

My other journal is here:
http://www.greatestjournal.com/

I was unable to get many of my LJ friends to join me there so I've been doing both for a while now.

If someone would point out a way to transfer all my stuff in bulk over there I'd be gone already. It works about the same and offers more stuff for free. I have no complaints with their service at all. It's just lonely over there without the rest of you guys. ;)

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

LJ is my home on the Net. This is where my friends are. If I were forced do leave I would probably just give up blogging altogether.

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I have just set up a Facebook account, but that's purely to keep up to date with the offspring because they seem to use it.

I suspect that if LJ changed sufficiently that it was no longer a place I wanted to hang out, I might split my activity, ie try doing a real blog (with actual content!) at Blogspot and keep the socialising to Facebook and Usenet.

Of course I also spend time now on Flickr...

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I have trouble enough keeping abreast of one blogging site. Two would sink me.

My kids are all here on LJ- and one of them even posts fairly regularly- I have no incentive to move elswhere.