Letters, we get letters, we get lots of cards and letters every day! La Russophobe publishes letters to the editor from readers. If you’d like to talk back to LR’s readers, send an e-mail to larussophobe@yahoo.com and let your voice be heard. Here’s a recent example from our mailbag we thought you’d like to see:
Dear La Russophobe,
I just discovered your blog, and absolutely LOVED IT!!!
I am a Russian-American, who grew up in the US and have been living in Moscow for the past year (husband’s job). I sometimes put on RT when I am in the mood to become even more disgusted with this place.
Yesterday, I caught this low-life, Peter Lavelle, on his show. WOW!!! This is a special kind of a-hole.
Living here, no doubt with his US passport hidden under his pillow, speaking as if he knows the “real” Russia. HA! the “real” Russians (about 92% of the population) can’t afford to go to live his lifestyle (5 start restaurants, shop at GYM, going to the Bolshoy Theatre, ect. The quality of “real” life here, in this god-forsaken place, is basically the equivalent of a poor third-world country – with one very important exception – the third-world country doesn’t pretend to be anything but what it is. Ethiopia doesn’t have a Tiffany’s on their main street, Sudan doesn’t have Novikov’s ridiculously overpriced restaurants, and (though I may be mistaken) the Congo doesn’t have a giant Mercedes dealership! Hypocrisy does not even come close to describing how deceitful and fake this country is!
In any case, somebody should strip this MF of his citizenship all together.
I can barely tolerate the garbage that regular Russians spew everyday about the US, but when you have some swine, who is basically an American, engaging is such filthy propaganda, this is something unreal. Words can’t express what that termite is . . .
I think I will start writing to you more often. It is a great way to get some of the frustration that has lodged itself in my throat out:)
Respectfully,
Ilana Pavlenko
La Russophobe 
Lenny & Michael: Just try that, just once more, and see what happens. Hint: With one mouse click, we can not only ban you from ever commenting on this blog again, we can wipe out every comment you’ve ever placed here. Think about it. And read our comment publication guidelines. If you can read.
Thanks LR for publishing this letter by Ilana Pavlenko, it is interesting to see the opinion of an honest Russian-American, rather than the deceitful lying rantings of Michael Tal.
Hint Michael, if Russia is so wonderful, and the US so awful, why don’t you toddle off back to Russia?
I would like to hear your explanation for you not living in your “wonderful, modern, vibrant and democratic” Russia.
Come on, we are all waiting……
Andrew wrote:
> we are all waiting
1. Why do you speak of yourself in plural? First Kim did it, now you… Tapeworms? Caught a severe case of megalomania from Kim? Or are you referring to the organisation that pays you your handsome salary to spend the entire workday posting to this blog?
2. I have stopped reading all your posts of length more than 10 lines.
3. Even if I wanted to reply to you – LR has been deleting my posts in this threat, because it is very special to her. I posted an objection to that Russian woman’s use of the obscenity “MF” and her hate for free speech – and it’s gone.
Oh Michael, such wit(lessness).
@2. I have stopped reading all your posts of length more than 10 lines.
Probably because, as shown by your sub primate understanding of the opinion of groups like the UNDP, HRW, Memorial, UNHCR, Council Of Europe etc, you are incapable of understanding anything of higher reading level than Ashton Scholastics “Clifford the Big Red Dog”
Try reading Michael, you might actually learn something.
However, I would still like to know why, if Russia is such a paradise why you insist on living in the USA, especially as you despise the foreign policy, people (women in particular from some of your posts), and food? Not to mention you consider US education inferior to Russian.
Come on, fess up.
Here is what I will do: if you don’t post more than 100 lines per tolic per day to any of the topics here (because your flood makes it impossible to follow the thread) for a week – I will explain.
Otherwise – I explained exactly that about a week ago to somebody here (maybe elmer?), so that you will have to look it up yourself.
That’s “topic” not “tolic”
Becasue i can’t find my old article, here is a re-post just for Andrew:
I emigrated from the communist Soviet Union. My parents were dissidents.
I do travel to Russia all the time and live there about 3 or 4 months per year on average.
The reasons why I don’t spend the majority of my time in Russia:
1. Career. I have a successful computer company based here in the Silicon Valley, California. My Russian office is much smaller.
2. Children from my former marriage. Their mother’s career is here in California.
3. Climate. I shudder to live in places with terrible climates like Moscow, New York, London, etc. I am an outdoorsman person. California is the place for me.
The fact that it has never even occurred to you that people can have careers and children shows what a loser you are.
1. If Russia was so wonderful and the US so horrible, surely your career prospects would have been a lot better in good ole Mother Russia, right?
2. ibid.
3. But I’m sure Volgograd, Grozny or Rostov-on-Don have wonderful weather and plenty of outdoors activities available. Why demean yourself living in Cali? You should be ashamed of yourself.
He is not as stupid as he sounds after all. Careers and children are just pretext, but he does keep his American passport just in case.
I remember how my father and mother were infuriated with Sen. Joe McCarthy and his loyalty investigations (I was too little to understand), but perhaps the old Joe wasn’t so wrong. I wonder if there is a war between us and Russia tomorrow, whose side will Michael be on?
RV wrote:
> I wonder if there is a war between us and Russia tomorrow, whose side will Michael be on?
If there is a war between you and Russia, I will be on the side of the American police, arresting you and tearing down your KKK hoods and Nazi swastikas. With pleasure!
No, your super-patriotic response (I guess that’s why you brought up the police, to prove your patriotism) did not answer the question. Since I am a Jew, your reference to the Klan and Nazis sounds really funny to me since I’ve lost over 50 relatives in the Holocaust.
Be that as it may be, I recognize your right to insult me, but would you still answer the question. If tomorrow there is a war between the U.S. and Russia, whose side do you choose? There are only two possible answers, so which one is it?
> There are only two possible answers, so which one is it?
1. This question is as ridiculous as demanding from a Jew (like you and I):
“If tomorrow there is a war between the U.S. and Israel, whose side do you choose?”
Let me ask **you**: Will you wage a war on the Israeli people or on the American people? There are only two possible answers, so which one is it?
2. There can be no war between the U.S. and Russia and there has never been one, because this means the Nuclear Holocaust. USA has been in a direct war against virtually every single large European power – England, Germany, Spain, Italy – , except for Russia and France.
If the rulers of USA and Russia go so insane as to start a war with each other – I will be AGAINST BOTH. How can you pick sides between mad genocidists bound on destroying Humankind? I would silently pray to g*d that he sent swift immediate death to the insane warmongering leaders on BOTH sides.
Now if you ask me a different question, like “If tomorrow there is a war between the U.S. and Brazil, whose side do you choose?”, I would say that, since I find war to be the resort of the incompetent madmen, my judgment as to who would be more guilty and insane will depend on who had provoked this war, over what issue this war were fought, and what the international law says. If Brazil unprovokedly attacks USA without a UN approval – I will be rooting for the international law and thus for USA. If the opposite – then the opposite. I will always root against the party that is breaking the law.
Now Tal, Tal, Tal, I was considering the fact you have children, thats why I asked why you stay in the US when you consider its education system and prospects to be sooooo inferior to that of Russia (LOL).
You sir, are the loser.
As RV rightly points out, you are also most likely a traitor if you actually have US citizenship.
GUM, really 92%? You obviously do not get out much from your compound. Perhaps you could explain why the CEO’s o Swedish, Italian, French and German companies invest billions in Mega malls (some of the largest malls in the world) to sell their products to average Russians and why every Russian can afford a cell phone. The unprecedented growth of the Russian car market, I suppose that just “happens”. The cash terminal phenomenon/ Your readership might be interested in this snapshot of modern Russia, a reality most of them might find unpalatable jusging by the esteemed contributor.
Here is the reality in modern russia:
Michael Tal, I wonder how your parents, who, as you say, were dissidents react to your slobbering over Rasha where journalists are killed, freedom of speech, press is practically non-existent, opposition is suppressed, “elections” are a sham and so on. I was a dissident and I hate what is going on there.
Don’t forget his “proof” of the non-existence of anti-Semitism in Russia — a few allegedly Jewish persons were or still are high-level officials there. He, a Jewish man, of all people dares to say this. The man has lost all shame.
Even the old U.S.S.R. had enough sense to use the name of Kaganovich for the same purpose.
VoroBey,
Not only my parents by I too hate Putin’s anti-libertarian and anti-democratic domestic policy. However, I disagree with Kim that everything about the Russian culture sucks, Russian food stinks, that Russian women are ugly, and that Russian women can’t play tennis.
I also happen to be a member of the Libertarian Party here in USA. Thus, I opposed and oppose warmongering in general, NATO expansion, military overspending, provocations of hostility against Russia, wars against Serbia and Iraq etc etc, as can be seen from the libertarian think tank Cato Institute’s positions. I find myself agreeing with much of Obama’s foreign policy positions and hating much of Bush’s:
http://www.cato.org/researcharea.php?display=13
I also share mostly the same views on international relations as the Richard M. Nixon Center for Peace and Freedom:
http://www.nixoncenter.org/index.cfm
Wasn’t Richard Nixon an infamous criminal, the only U.S. president ever to be impeached? And isn’t the Nixon Center run by a Russian? Or are we thinking of somebody else?
Kim,
Richard Nixon doesn’t run his Center. he is dead. Dead people don’t have opinions. And even if he were alive, his Watergate crimes don’t mean that his foreign policy opinions are false.
And the Center is run by an American: Dmitry Simes. He was Nixon’s foreign policy advisor. You can’t be a foreign policy advisor without having a secret clearance and being an American citizen. Simes has been the leading anti-Soviet hawk and the most respected Sovietologist.
In any case, it is the policy positions not personalities that matter. I assure you that you quote and rely upon much less accomplished, expert and intelligent figures than Nixon and Simes.
For example, you have no problem quoting Litvinenko, who was a notorious KGB colonel responsible for harassing and murdering dissidents.
Had I put a KGB goon above a President of the United States – I would have been accused of treason.
He resigned before impeachment I believe. When he said “I am not a crook” he was referring to the fact that the “corruption” he was accused of by his political adversaries was not of a kickback nature. He accepted illegal campaign contributions , just like Dianne Feinstein did, and when a shady friend did something illegal he thought the president would like he then tried to get the FBI to not investigate. Hence the Watergate scandal.
Gee Tal, you spend an awfuul lot of time defending him.
Richard Nixon, the man who sold the South Vietnamese down the river to the communist north. Yeah, nice guy.
LOL
Wasn’t Clinton impeached also for illegally dismembering and bombing Serbia.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:
They tried to impeach Clinton but did not succeed, unlike Nixon he served two full terms. And they didn’t try because of Serbia, he was popular for that. They tried because of Monica.
LR: To be more precise, Clinton was indeed impeached by the House of Representatives, but was acquitted by the Senate. The Monica affair was the sole ground as I remember. Serbia was not — you cannot impeach commander in chief for ordering troops in action, even if the action is less than kosher to the critics
Oh yes, bombing senior centers, schools, and commuters on their way to work, would be make one popular in the US.
Sudan aspirin factory?
That’s known as collateral damages, your suggestion that such places were targeted is obscenely dishonest. Russia did exactly the same thing to Nazi children in WWII, and raped the women systemmatically. Do you condemn Russian resistance to the Nazis? America also killed children while battling Hitler. Do you condemn that resistance? If so, you will stand very much alone.
Come on, Bill.
You have to know the terminology:
When Russian bombs kill civilians – that’s called “genocide”.
When American bombs kill civilians – that’s called “collateral damages”.
These ar enot real people, who die from Ameircan bombs. They are “damaged” goods. Moreover, these murdered human beings are not real. They are “collateral”. Why would anybody weep for something that’s “collateral”?
Serbia was not an enemy and did not attack United States. Her only crime refusing to Join Nato. Serbs will forever remember rape of Serbia by “alpha male” Bill Clinton.
German women knew Russian troops were coming while their husbands fought for the glory of the reich.
If my memory serves me right, I can recall that at that time Serbia was run by the war criminal Milosevic. He conducted systematic policy of atrocities, if not outright genocide in Kosovo, as well as in parts of Serbian Bosnia.
Clinton’s action, whether right or wrong, was in response to those atrocities not for any refusal of Serbia to join the NATO, nobody even invited Serbia to join as far as I know.
You may respond by saying that other parties, including Croatians, Kosovans and Muslim Bosnians committed a lot of unspeakable crimes too, and I would concede this point. Yet, Serbian actions cannot be justified by pointing to actions of others. Everybody should be judged for his own actions.
Finally, I remember that President Clinton refused to interfere in Rwanda not long before that, and pulled out of Somalia. He was severely criticized for doing nothing there. It seems, whatever Clinton would do would be wrong to his critics. He is damned when he interferes and he is damned when he does not. To me, it’s an unacceptable yardstick for judging his actions.
Serbia was only one European country refused to join western military alliance and remain loyal friend of Russia.
The only genocide to occur in Kosovo is ethnic cleansing of a quarter of million Serbs, destruction of 90% churches and killing of 10,000 Serb civilians at the hands of NATO and Al Queda KLA
Milosevic was never convicted of any crimes
Yes, I know, he managed to die at just the right moment. By that logic neither Himmler nor Goebbels nor even Adolf himself was a criminal — none was convicted of any Nazi crimes. But would not that logic take you too far?
Milosevic was the only European Neo-Stalinist leader who refused to join western military alliance and remain loyal his friends in the Russian MAFIA.
Milosevic was US trained banker who refused to surrender his country to Bill and Hill mafia.
Oleg wrote:
> Milosevic was the only European Neo-Stalinist leader who refused to join western military alliance and remain loyal his friends in the Russian MAFIA.
So, Oleg, NATO waged war on Serbia and stole its territory because the Serbian President was a “loyal friend of
his friends in Russia”?
Then it will be OK with you if USA attacked and raped other friends of Russia like Belarus and Kazakhstan?
No, Michael, they waged war because of nearly a decade of Serbian war crimes against ethnic minorities from Slovenia to Kosovo.
Really you are from the insane asylum.
BTW, as Kate rightly points out you are a raving hypocrite. If Kosovo was wrong (and I think it should have been supervised autonomy within a federal (and rump) “Yugoslavia” or “Serbia Kosovo” federation) then why do you support Russia invading, raping, looting and pillaging in Georgia, then cutting off two pieces that are both historically part of the Georgian nation for pretty much all of recorded history, that contain 2000 years worth of Georgian cultural treasures?
Micheal Tal, So KOSOVO was stolen? Didnt you say Russia did same To Ossetia, are you than saying Russia stole Ossetia from Georgia?
Kate,
I answered this question before. So, let me ask YOU:
Are YOU consistent? Do you support the Serbian territorial integrity as much as you support Georgian?
no you have not answered that question. All you did is state on numerous occasion that what the west did in Kosoo (stole its territories) is what Russia did in Goeriga (stole its terriories). You think somehow an unjust act from West excuses an unjust act by Russia which is completely ridiculous but a typical Russian response to everything.
I was not in favor of Kosovo becoming independent, however I don’t see how Kosovo becoming independent in any way justifies Russia’s unlawful, illegaly and atrocious actions on Georgia territory. However I think there are significant differnces between Kosovo and Abkhazett/Osseti. Serbs massacared thousands of innocent civillians the same way Georignas were massacared by Russia and russian backed up separatists in 1990s. Do you understand that much? are you denying serbs masacared thousands?
Do you know that more than 250,000 georgians were foced out of their homes from abkhazia and are still not allowed to return because of Russia?
I don’t know if Michael denies the fact of Serbian atrocities and massacres, but some people commenting here most certainly do. Did you see it? “Milosevic was not convicted of any crime.” Loud and clear
Yes, he does deny most of them.
Since I originally wrote the letter I wanted to address some of the comments that it may have inspired.
First, to Michael Tal.
As I understand it, your family are a Russian-Jewish immigrants. If this is correct, then I am utterly shocked by your comments in general. I grew up in the states (NY to be specific), and have spent most of my adult life around Russian-Jewish immigrants. You must be the first to have even a kind word to say about Russia. Now, you can make the old foolish argument that your family left the CCCP and not Russia, and that it is teh system you where running from, and not the people, but as we all know that is a falsehood. Under any system, including the Czars, the Communists, and now the “Putinists”, the system has always remained pretty stable. Everything for the mighty few and nothing for the overwhelming majority. Anti-Semitism, Racism, and pretty much any kind of Anti-Anything you can think of has always been, and will always be here. Funny how quickly people forget and deny what has always existed.
From your self-description, you sound like quite a successful individual. That fact alone makes what you say pretty unbelievable. The only Russian-Jews in the US who could possible have anything nice to say about Russia are those who may be suffering financially and, like most people, become a bit prone to fantasy. In any case, you must be a first.
As for Michael Hockney, yes the figure is about 92%, if not more. And since most of that 8% live in Moscow, a bit in St. Petersburg and a few other major cities, and teh population of Russia is about 140 million, and Moscow about 8 million, do the math please. Because I promise you, if you step one foot outside Moscow or St. Petersburg, and see the real Russian territory, you will certainly understand that the other 130 million people live in absolute poverty. Your examples of investment are true, but they are not for the “average Russian” – as you put it. In fact, most cities and towns in Russia do not have any Mega shopping centers. Heck, they do not even have indoor plumbing. Dude, if you have not been all over Russia, please do not spread more BS about how prosperous everyone lives here. Let us not even begin to talk about the senior citizens…..tragic. The fact is, about 130 million people in Russia live badly. People are mad, sad, depressed, dying of alcoholism, ect. This is not an opinion, this is something I see everyday. So unless you are watching Russians from the 02 Lounge in the Ritz Carlton on Tverskaya, your opinion is not very valid.
Thanks Ilana. That was very insightful and helpful. Maybe some people will be able to understand a few things
Ilana,
Quite the opposite. The successful Jewish emigrants from Russia, while hating Putin, like Russia, it culture and often its foreign policy. On the other hand, those, who have failed in America, hate Russia in order to justify to themselves that they have not made a mistake by leaving Russia.
You think I am the only successful emigrant who has a far unbiased view of Russia and the Russian actions? OK, here is a Jewish emigrant who came to USA back in 1973:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dimitri_K._Simes
Dimitri K. Simes is a foreign policy analyst and author who serves as president of The Nixon Center and publisher of the foreign policy journal The National Interest. In the 1970s, Simes was a noted Kremlinologist analyzing Soviet politics. Simes served as an informal policy adviser to Richard Nixon, who appointed him to lead the center. Simes was born in Moscow to secular Jewish parents and emigrated to the United States in 1973.
————
http://nationalinterest.org/Article.aspx?id=19554
Literally hours after what President Saakashvili announced on state-controlled TV the cessation of hostilities, he ordered a full-scale assault on Tskhinvali. And mind you, the assault could only succeed if the Georgian units went right through the battalion of Russian troops serving as international peacekeepers according to agreements signed by Tbilisi itself in the 1990s. Under the circumstances, the Russian forces had three choices: to surrender, to run away, or to fight. And fight they did—particularly because many of the Russian soldiers were in fact South Ossetians with families and friends in Tskhinvali under Georgian air, tank, and artillery attacks. Saakashvili was reckless to count on proceeding with a blitzkrieg in South Ossetia without a Russian counterattack.
We should also disregard the hysterical diatribes of Saakashvili’s American champions, who protest too much—perhaps because their irresponsible encouragement of the Georgian president was a contributing factor on the road to the war.
————
Tell me, Ilana, what city in Russia are you from? Have you visited it recently? What did you think? Did anybody kill, beat you up or insulted you for being Jewish while you were there? What do you feel about the fact that the majority of the modern Russian political, scientific, artistic, business, law, medicine and all other elites is Jewish?
Now Michael, try not to be such a Kapo.
For a real Jewish opinion of Russia, try reading what the father of the man who was co-founder of Google had to say about the hell hole of anti-semitism that was (and is) Russia.
“One of Michael’s stories particularly strikes me. In the summer of 1990, a few weeks before Sergey’s 17th birthday, Michael led a group of gifted high school math students on a two-week exchange program to the Soviet Union. He decided to bring the family along, despite uneasiness about the welcome they could expect from Communist authorities. It would give them a chance to visit family members still living in Moscow, including Sergey’s paternal grandfather, like Michael, a Ph.D. mathematician.
It didn’t take long for Sergey, a precocious teenager about to enter college, to size up his former environs. The Soviet empire was crumbling and, in the drab, cinder-block landscape and people’s stony mien of resignation, he could see first-hand the bleak future that would have been his. On the second day of the trip, while the group toured a sanitarium in the countryside near Moscow, Sergey took his father aside, looked him in the eye and said, “Thank you for taking us all out of Russia.”….
…..At a bagel shop across the street from the Maryland campus where he has taught dynamical systems and statistics for 25 years, Michael talks of the discrimination that drove him to take his family out of Russia. It’s a bitter cold day in College Park, reminiscent of winter in Moscow. Over a lunch of soup and sandwiches, Michael explains how he was forced to abandon his dream of becoming an astronomer even before he reached college. Officially, anti-Semitism didn’t exist in the U.S.S.R. but, in reality, Communist Party heads barred Jews from upper professional ranks by denying them entry to universities. Jews were excluded from the physics department, in particular, at the prestigious Moscow State University, because Soviet leaders did not trust them with nuclear rocket research. Unfortunately for Michael, astronomy fell under the rubric of physics.
Michael opted to study mathematics instead. But gaining acceptance to the math department at Moscow State, home of arguably the brightest mathematicians in the world, also proved exceedingly difficult. Discrimination there was administered by means of entrance exams for which Jews were tested in different rooms from other applicants—morbidly nicknamed “gas chambers”—and graded more harshly. Nevertheless, with help from a well-connected family friend, Michael was accepted and in 1970 graduated with an honors degree.
“I had all A’s except for three classes where I got B’s: history of the Communist Party, military training and statistics,” he says. “But nobody would even consider me for graduate school because I was Jewish. That was normal.” So Michael became an economist for GOSPLAN, the central planning agency. “I was trying to prove that, in a few years, living standards in Russia would be higher than in the United States,” he says. “And I proved it. I know enough about math to prove whatever you want.”
He continued to study mathematics on his own, sneaking into evening seminars at the university and writing research papers. After several were published, Brin began a doctoral thesis. At the time, a student in the Soviet Union could earn a doctorate without going to graduate school if he passed certain exams and an institution agreed to consider his thesis. Michael found two advisers, an official adviser, an ethnic Russian, and an informal Jewish mentor. (“Jews could not have Jewish advisers,” he says.) With their help, he successfully defended his thesis at a university in Kharkov, Ukraine, but life didn’t change much even after he received his Ph.D….
….The history of Russian Jewish emigration in the mid-1970s can be neatly summarized in a joke from the era: Two Jews are talking in the street, a third walks by and says to them, “I don’t know what you’re talking about but yes, it’s time to get out of here!”
“I’ve known for a long time that my father wasn’t able to pursue the career he wanted,” Sergey tells me. As a young boy, though, Sergey had only a vague awareness of why his family wanted to leave their native Russia. He picked up the ugly details of the anti-Semitism they faced bit by bit years later, he says. Nevertheless, he sensed, early on, all of the things that he wasn’t: He wasn’t Russian. He wasn’t welcome in his own country. He wasn’t going to get a fair shake in advancing through its schools. Further complicating his understanding of his Jewish identity was the fact that, under the ardently atheist Soviet regime, there were few religious or cultural models of what being Jewish was. The negatives were all he had.”
http://www.momentmag.com/Exclusive/2007/2007-02/200702-BrinFeature.html
Michael:
Your thoughts are half embarassing and half laughable.
I would ask you one question:
If you could only keep one passport – Russian or US – and could only stay within the borders of one country, would Russia be your choice? Would you live in a place where your life expectancy is 12 years lower? Would you live in a place, that if G-d forbid, you would became wheelchair bound, you could not get into the elevator of your building, or cross the street, and be a prisoner in your own home? Would you live in a place where a group of Orthodox Jews, walking through the center of Moscow (Patriarch Ponds) need to be accompanied by 3 police officers (February 2009-witnessed it personally)? Would you live in a place where an elderly person can only afford to buy themselves a chicken and two apples each week on his pension? Would you live in a place where if you have a disabled child, you need to hide him away so that you do not hear the disgusting comments made by people? Would you live in a place where it is okay to bring toy guns to Detski Cad where 3,4,5 year olds go? Would you live in a place where customer service is replaced by rudeness, and utter disrespect? Would you live in a place where youu can’t take your kids into a playground because it is already occupied by drunk men, sleeping or sh!@#$%?
People like you confuse me…..What IS your point? At least by shedding light on the truth in Russia, perhaps something may change. By defending a place that would sooner destroy its people then give up their unattainable goal of an Empire, what do you prove? Nothing, absolutely Nothing.
Ilana,
> At least by shedding light on the truth in Russia, perhaps something may change.
But how do you know the truth? How much time have you spent in the Russian Federation in, say, the last 10 years?
You want to shed light on the truth in Russia”? And you think the owner here want to help Russia? OK, tell me what kind of “truth” is this hateful speech from La Rossophobe herself:
————————-
https://larussophobe.wordpress.com/2009/06/06/reader-poll-mirror-mirror-on-the-wall-whos-the-most-hideous-of-them-all/#more-15166
READER POLL: Mirror, Mirror on the Wall, Who’s the Most Hideous of them All?
Some in the Russophile and Russian nationalist set like to try to claim that Russian women are more beautiful than those from other countries… By way of rebuttal, we ask you the reader to choose the ugliest … if you think any other Russian female tennis player is even uglier and more worthy of the crown, let us know.
Well, we’ll clear it up for you. Slavic Russians hate all other non-Slavic Russians, and routinely kill them
————————-
You are a Russian-American. Would you like to participate in LR’s search for the ugliest Russian woman?
You are dealing with a sick xenophobe, full of hatred for Russian culture and Russian women. Do you share this hatred?
And just to add one more thing:
It does not matter if it is Putin, Medvedev, or anyone else, Russia’s history speaks for itself. Perhaps, if it was just one bad apple in a history of do-gooders, but as we all know, in Russia that is not the case. The leaders that come to power are made form the same cloth as all Russian people. The powers that be are not sent here form outer space to lead, they are part of the population. Therefore placing blame on Putin alone is really not the solution.
In this case the shepherd is just part of the herd. In theory, 200 sheep can trample a shepherd anytime if they do it together….. so now you must decide, is the herd dumb, lazy, or complacent, that it can only be led?
Ilana,
The same could be said about Germany in 1945. But the World gave it a chance – and now Germany is among the most civilised and democratic countries.
Tell me, did you hate Yeltsin too?
> so now you must decide, is the herd dumb, lazy, or complacent, that it can only be led?
Don’t you know the answer: complacent.
Russians have traditionally been very politically passive. it took many centuries of Czarist mismanagement and oppression until the tragedy of WW One caused the revolution.
Average Russians treat the governemnt the way they treat the Sun: they take it for a given, and keep away from in order not to get burned.
They subscrive to the same motto as the American Libertarians use for the Government: “Ask not what your government can do for you, ask what your government can do TO you.” (something I heard from fellow Libertarians in early 1980s). Here are a few similar quotes:
http://freedomkeys.com/quotes.htm
“Everybody wants the government to ‘do something!’ until it does it to them.” — Rick Gaber
“Giving money and power to the government is like giving car keys and whisky to teenage boys.” – P.J. O’Rourke
“The object and practice of liberty lies in the limitation of governmental power.” — Gen. Douglas MacArthur
“Politicians, like bombers, seldom see their victims…” — Donald Boudreaux
I do not agree with her resolution to an annoying issue. Fighting Russian’s with their own ammunition is wrong. It is below us. We are the civilized society, and our quality of life shows that we really do not need to prove anything, especially something as shallow as who is ugly or beautiful. In this case, I probably would have ommited this from my site.
What do you mean “omitted”? She is proud of her bashing of Russian tennis-playing girls. An article in her very fist blog post in 2006 was about bashing Russian figure skaters. Right after that she bashed the ten 18-year-olf girl Masha Sharapova and keeps on attacking her ever since. She is pre-occupied with bashing Russian women, tennis, sports in general, food and the rest of culture. It feels like politics are secondary , bashing the Russian culture and women – primary.
The “then” not “ten”, and “first” not “fist”. Sorry. :-)
But Michael, you did not answer my question:
Which country would you pick?
Ilana,
I am an American, my children are Americans, and I pick America, especially now that obama is in office. However, I am Russian by culture and hire programmers in Russia and spend a lot of time there.
But you are steadfastly refusing to answer my question: how much time have you spent in Russia since, say, 1998?
I have lived here for almost 2 years. And have traveled on business since 2003 several times.
Living here, to be perfectly honest, has made me embarrassed of my Russian “culture”.
It is a sad fact, that I actually liked it better when there was an iron wall and everything people thought about was in theory. At least then you could argue. Now that I saw it with my own eyes, and heard it with my own ears, there is not much you can do to deny what this country, along with its “complacent” population represent. Everyday you search for something, anything that would make you proud of your heritage. In return you get nothing but anger, frustration, and bitterness. I am an American, and so are my children-Thank G-D!!!!!!!
No matter how hard I wish it was different, this place will never change into anything better then what it is now……
As for Germany, like I said, one bad apple is one thing, but when your orchard is filled with radiation, chances are all teh apples will be bad, and probably forever:(
But Germany was not “one bad apple”. Almost the entire history of Prussia until 1945 (except for Weimar republic, which was similar to Yeltsin’s rule and presided over a horrible economic and social tragedy) was no different from Czarist Russia in terms of oppression and lack of democracy.
Can you tell me more? What city do you live in? Are you there with children and husband? What kind of a job is his? Do you work? If not too personal, do you have any objections to the way your husband interacts with other women in Russia? Do you have and enjoy friends there? Do you or any of your relatives cook great foods, or is the Russian cuisne as horrible as LR claims here? Are Russina girls very beautiful or ugly, as claimed there? How do they compare with American women outside of LA/NY?
> It does not matter if it is Putin, Medvedev, or anyone else, Russia’s history speaks for itself.
So, Yeltsin was no better than Putin?
Ilana,
An important question: is your husband also Russian by culture? Does he agree with your views? If so – what keeps you and him in Russia?
For example, everybody in this blog tells me that since I criticise Bush, I should abandon my business, abandon my children and just “go back to Russia”.
Well, if you hate it in Russia, why not go back to USA with your family? You are from New York, right? Brooklyn? If it’s not perfect there – come to Northern California: life is quite nice here, and a great climate. I tried New York for a couple of years and simply had to flee back to Palo Alto, CA.
Ilana, you wrote:
> Would you live in a place where it is okay to bring toy guns to a pre-school where 3,4,5 year olds go?
Sorry, I don’t understand your point here. I grew up playing with toy guns, and so have almost all non-homosexual men both in Russia and USA. That’s what non-gay boys do: play with toy guns and trucks. My son and his friends have been playing with airguns since they were 9. They shoot small plastic bullets at targets sometimes placed 100 feet away.
The difference is that children in Russia play with toy guns, but because guns are legal in USA, many American teenagers handle REAL guns. Worse than that: some use these guns to murder others. Have you ever heard of a major school or college shooting in Russia? I ahven’t. But in USA, there have been numerous school massacres (close to 90) with total deaths in the hundreds:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/School_shooting#United_States
For example, in the Red Lake Massacre, a boy shot and killed 7 people on the Red Lake Senior High School. In the Columbine High School Massacre two students killed 13 people and wounded 21. The pair then committed suicide.
How is it that you can’t live in Russia because of toy guns, but love living in USA where children massacre children with REAL guns?
> Would you live in a place where youu can’t take your kids into a playground because it is already occupied by drunk men, sleeping or sh!@#$%?
I personally saw many drunks but never had any such problems of drunks preventing children from playing. But if it happened, I would be upset. However, a drunk on a playground in Moscow seems like peanuts compared with the problems experienced in city centers all over USA, where playgrounds are taken over by drug dealers, dopeheads and youth gangs. Yes, having to leave a playground because a drunk prevents you form playing – that’s upsetting, but not as bad as getting killed on the playground by a stray bullet from a gang war.
I am not afraid to walk anywhere in Moscow even in the middle of the night. But I would be scared to death to walk in many American cities even in the middle of the day. In your own New York, who in his right mind would dare to walk in Harlem or South Bronx?
> low-life, Peter Lavelle, on his show…. 5 start restaurants, shop at GYM, going to the Bolshoy Theatre.. somebody should strip this MF of his citizenship all together.
Wait. You consider yourself a freedom-of-speech-loving American, but want to strip a man of his citizenship for his praising Russian restaurants, theaters and shops?
Something is wrong here. Toy guns and restaurant reviews cannot be the root cause of your depression. There must be a real cause behind this. Something important and personal. Maybe you are lonely and miss your parents, relatives, friends back in USA? Maybe you hate your job? Or marital problems? You hate it in Russia, but yet you keep on living there. Why? Is it because your husband loves it there? What kind of a relation is it when the wife is miserable and depressed, but the husband refuses to help her and return to USA? I know it’s personal, so tell me that it’s none of my business, but just as you want to figure out how come a Russian-American Jew like myself can love the Russian culture, I want to understand how come a Russian-American Jew like yourself can be so depressed in Moscow and yet continue to live there.
Oh I don’t think you should be a marriage counsel Mr Tal, after all, you are separated from your first wife and children are you not?
Whats the matter, couldn’t you satisfy her personally? Maybe you couldn’t perform.
Are you sure they are really your children?
I am sure she left you for a better man.
A wise woman it seems.
The comments above are just plain STUPID.
If you can’t make an intelligent argument, then you regress to behaving like an uneducated moron. This will be my last post in response to you. Michael Tal. You are obviously a silly, silly little man with quite a perverse view on life. It is unfortunate that people like you are even given the opportunity to voice such ridiculous and worthless opinions. You DO belong in Russia. You are the perfect example of what is wrong with this country.
I am sorry I touched some sore personal strings, Ilana. I myself lived in Moscow for 2 years, but had to return to California because I simply couldn’t live without my children, who are in California. So, my advice for what it’s worth: if there are compelling personal reasons why life is terrible for you in Moscow – just return home to New York. Why suffer? What’s stopping you?
Now phobodunce, just stop harassing Ilana.
Your attempts at amatuer psychology are quite funny from a man who could not satisfy his own wife.
LOL
Looks like you have to compensate for something eh bender?
Andrew, why did it come to your mind that I “could not satisfy my own wife”? Give me the quotes that made you think so.
There are none. The only reason why it came to your mind is because the problem with “satisfying a wife” is constantly on your mind. You are projecting:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Projection
Psychological projection, or “Freudian projection”, a defense mechanism in which one attributes to others, one’s own unacceptable or unwanted thoughts or emotions
————————
I hear that Georgians (just like us Jews) are very good in bed. Is your wife incapable to forget her previous Georgian lovers?
“What is clear is that Russia is in a deep funk about its position in the world. It is a huge country with an equally large inferiority complex”
Rupert Wingfield
Wedll Mr Tal, you are divorced, and I’m not.
Guess that answers your question.
After all, you and your wife are no longer together BY YOUR OWN ADMISSION.
Obviously you could not keep her happy ;)
I hear that Russian men are abusive spouses, who tend to beat their wives with such regularity that Russia has a far higher rate of spousal abuse than civilised countries (including Georgia).
> Wedll Mr Tal, you are divorced, and I’m not. Guess that answers your question.
What this says is that you think that the main and only reason why two adults divorce is because the husband ““cannot satisfy his wife”. That may be a common view among teenage boys; but when a man, like yourself, reaches mature adulthood and still thinks like a teeanger – that is very sad and shows who among us is emotionally underdeveloped and inadeqate. Here for your education:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divorce
Statistics
United States
In 2008, 46% of all marriages involve a remarriage for one or both spouses. It is estimated that 40% of all marriages have ended in divorce as of 2008.[1]
http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/divorce.htm
Marriage rate: 7.1 per 1,000
Divorce rate: 3.5 per 1,000
http://www.buzzle.com/articles/common-causes-and-reasons-for-divorce.html
There are many different and complex causes and reasons for divorce, each of them specific to that particular couple’s marital relationship, their individual experiences and personal problems.
Oh Now Michael, you are projevting your own inferiority onto others.
Really, you are such a hypocrite, and far too easy to bait.
Your insinuations about Ilana’s private life show the moral depravity of kremlin loving scum such as yourself.
Once again, bring back moderation for comments.
Ilana,
I think that my asking personal questions of you in a public forum was wrong. I apologise. I shouldn’t have.
It’s just that I couldn’t believe that the real reason for your anger at Russia, where you live voluntarily, is that boys play with toy guns:
> Would you live in a place where it is okay to bring toy guns to Detski Cad where 3,4,5 year olds go?
Yes, Ilana, not only I would but I do. Here in USA not only do boys play with toy guns, but most adults have a REAL gun that kills people, unlike toys.
I do feel that there must be another reason why you are depressed but cannot return to New York. As I said, I returned to California because I couldn’t see my children often enough.
However, asking personal questions in public is very inappropriate and offensive. I am sorry.
Such crocodile tears Michael.
Michael, you are suffering from major inferiority complex and also retardation.
And Ilana shows her true color (i.e. black). Hypocritical totalitarian like all Russophobes.
Comprade wrote:
> And Ilana shows her true color (i.e. black). Hypocritical totalitarian like all Russophobes.
Of course they are. Both. Along with most other russophobes here like Robert and Penny. These people hate the freedom of speech and want to shut up all those who express differing views.
Ilana wrote:
>>In any case, somebody should strip this MF of his citizenship all together.
>> It is unfortunate that people like you are even given the opportunity to voice such ridiculous and worthless opinions.
>>You DO belong in Russia.
No, Ilana, it is YOU who doesn’t belong in Russia and USA and should move to Iran, Saudi Arabia, Zimbabwe or North Korea. It is YOU, with your desires to strip Americans of their citizenship for liking Russian ballet and restaurants, who isn’t worthy of the American citizenship.
And here is another fascist: Robert:
Robert // October 25, 2009 at 7:46 am”
“> Speaking of “gagging”, can you PLEASE begin blocking people?
I’m talking about this “Michael Tal” character especially right now. I know I would do this if I could.”
This is the link http://www.coloursofrussia.com
Should provide Russophobes with a heart attack
You are absolutely right, I was very touched, especially from the photographs of Mc Donald’s, Pepsi, Coca Cola, and the other numerous American things you so beautifully featured in your project. BY the way, good call on catching one of the 3 sunny days per year in Moscow. Those images would probably look slightly different in Moscow’s true color – grey.
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