Czar Vladimir Changes Course, Accuses West of "Cancel Culture."

 


By most accounts, Vlad Putin's blitzkrieg on Ukraine isn't the grand triumph he was counting on. It's an embarrassment to the former KGB colonel whose real enemies surround him within the Kremlin.

With the caveat that it's rarely wise to take Putin's word on anything, he's now indicating that he may be content to take Donbas and declare victory. That's akin to dismantling Ukraine one bite at a time. First Crimea, then Donbas and then....

Meanwhile, to keep the home fires burning, Czar Vladimir, is now trying to stoke outrage by accusing the West of "cancel culture."

Japan, he claimed, “cynically decided to ‘cancel’” the fact that it was the United States that dropped nuclear bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the end of World War II. And now, he said, the West is busy “canceling” Russia, “an entire thousand-year-old country, our people.”

That the Russian president delivered a disquisition on Western public discourse on Friday may seem odd at a time when Russia is fighting what some analysts believe to be its bloodiest war since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s. But it underscores how Mr. Putin tries to channel cultural grievances and common stereotypes for political gain — while using language that also allows him to speak directly to possible allies in the West.

Speaking at the beginning of a videoconference with Russian cultural figures, Mr. Putin said “proverbial ‘cancel culture’ has become the cancellation of culture.”

And, as seems inevitable in Mr. Putin’s speeches these days, the Nazis came up, too.

“The names of Tchaikovsky, Shostakovich and Rachmaninoff are being removed from playbills. Russian writers and their books are being banned,” Mr. Putin said. “The last time such a mass campaign to destroy objectionable literature was carried out was by the Nazis in Germany almost 90 years ago.”

Czar Vladimir is strumming on that balalaika for all he's worth.

Comments

  1. Northern PoVMarch 27, 2022 at 8:29 AM

    Putin will likely outlast Biden.
    Both are reckless leaders who betray humanity.
    Inventing sanctions (that were too outrageous to use during WW2), using nasty epitaphs and calling for regime change is the more reckless behavior, imo.

    This is interesting ...

    "Far more likely is that this turns out to be the latest Western strategic miscalculation in a long list of strategic blunders, of which the United States’ inglorious withdrawal from Afghanistan is just the most recent example."

    "Two weeks ago, I suggested that, in the short term at least, the US will benefit from the conflict in Ukraine. In the long term, however, it is slowly becoming clear that US-led global Western order will suffer. The West’s imposition of sanctions — involving not only governments, but also private companies and even allegedly apolitical organisations such as central banks — has sent a clear message to the countries of the world: the West will stop at nothing to punish countries that step out of line. If this can happen to Russia, a major power, it can happen to anyone. “We will [never again] be under the slightest illusion that the West could be a reliable partner,” the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov has said. “We will do everything so as never, in any way, to be dependent on the West in those areas of our life which have a decisive significance for our people.”"

    https://unherd.com/2022/03/sanctioning-russia-could-topple-the-west/?tl_inbound=1&tl_groups[0]=18743&tl_period_type=3&mc_cid=2aa0a897b7&mc_eid=6eedd6a060

    ReplyDelete
  2. TrailblazerMarch 27, 2022 at 8:48 AM

    As Rafe Mair said; beware of Sam Slick the America trader.

    TB

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. The Disaffected LibMarch 27, 2022 at 10:28 AM

      The venerable Rafe. Few went wrong heeding his warnings.

      Delete
  3. Northern PoVMarch 28, 2022 at 7:59 AM

    After 4 year of tRump, we get 'Adults in the room'?

    "To recap: in the span of approximately 24 hours, Biden managed to declare that US troops were headed to Ukraine — an action he previously said would instigate World War III — and that the US was officially pursuing a policy of regime change against Putin. But at least he was an “adult” inside these Polish “rooms.” Hopefully someone can find the time to ask Biden who will secure Russia’s nuclear arsenal — the largest in the world — once his dream of regime change is carried out. Perhaps the “adults” will handle it."

    https://mtracey.substack.com/p/the-adults-in-the-room-are-always?r=nldl&s=r&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=email

    ReplyDelete

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