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

[heleninwales.livejournal.com]

I'm not quite sure what the kerfuffle is about. As you say, capitalism is global these days. What does it matter who owns LJ? To be honest, I think any censoring due to sexual content is far more likely to be American than Russian. My corner of LJ has been entirely unaltered so far, apart from the little flag button that now allows one to notify The Powers That Be about unsuitable content.

To be honest, I've always had a sneaking liking for the Russians, even when they were supposed to be our arch-enemies. My Dad always stressed their part in WWII and Manchester was twinned with St Petersburg back in the days when it was still called Leningrad and there were organised school exchange visits. It is one of my regrets that I never got to go to Russia in the 60s because I was doing my A-levels the year our school got to send pupils. :(

[poliphilo.livejournal.com]

I've always been contrarian. The more I was told to hate the Russians the more I schooled myself to try and see things from their point of view.