I'm sorry you feel that way, my Lutheran brother. You can indeed study the goings-on in the Balkans, but living there and seeing the big picture up close and understanding it all in the context of the Russian and Ukrainian mindset rather than through Western lenses is something you do not have. And you won't have.
I think you come in here hoping Orthodox Christians will throw Russians off the bus and run over them, but we offer you another perspective because we go to church on Sunday with these good folks and they have come from this land and most have many, many family members at home in Russia or Crimea who live and suffer through this. With respect, we know more than you do about it. Just this past Sunday I sat with a lovely couple. This woman IS FROM Crimea itself! She's from the very spot where the Russians currently occupy. She was THRILLED the Russians are there! Her mom and family are just full of joy! They see it as liberation and returning home. The media has presented it to you as an invasion, an annexation, a conquest, whereas the Russians and Crimeans are seeing reunion.
Rusmeister, a frequent poster in here at TAW, has really opened my eyes and taught me to see world affairs not through what I hear on the news, hear on talk radio, or my president tells me. Rus lives in Russia and frequently reminds us that these things are more complicated than we like to believe. And he's right! He has helped me a lot in seeing the big picture. I'm more cautious in my appraisals and arrogant Western chauvinism and jingoism. I think some posters who come in here with a jingoistic approach get humbled or angry when they see that, though imperfect and extremely flawed, Russia isn't always in the wrong and the bad guy of Cold War days.
You don't like me bringing up America's past misdeeds, but if you really put them in context, it becomes silly for us to constantly pontificate to the East how to live when we break our own rules regularly ever single decade. Look at America through Eastern eyes and you see a country that stole land from Native Americans, built their industry on the back of black slaves, dropped a nuke, "manifest destiny" conquered the pacific and created a mini-empire, and after WWII became the world police while using the CIA to run drugs in Southeast Asia, create coups de'etats, install puppet regimes, train terrorists, invade countries, and speak out of both sides of their mouth. Why should Russians trust us either? Do you understand that perspective?
You are weary of "America-bashing," but many of us are tired of jingoism and Russia-bashing. We may pull out the Iraq invasion card, but you folks pull out the "Putin is a former KGB!!!" card every time. And in here you basically say that we in TAW must be nutburgers because we actually consider that Putin might really be an Orthodox Christian!? HUH? How in the world do we know he is or isn't? The guy was chrismated, regularly participates in Divine Liturgy and dialogues productively with the Patriarch of Russia. He has fed tons of rubles into the Orthodox Church and they have been building new churches and re-energizing the faith there in an impressive fashion. The man might be a hypocrite, or he might be an Orthodox Christian, though flawed and sinful, who thinks he's doing right for Russia and protecting the interests of the Russian Federation?
You're tired of America-bashing, and I'm frankly sick of people not being intellectually honest. I can be honest about the pimples, warts, blemishes, and scars of my country. Born and raised American, and I'll die here. I've been to many other countries, and I'm always THRILLED to return home. I'm an American through and through. Dad was a Vietnam vet, two grandpas in WWII, ancestry in the Civil War and Revolution. My mom is a DAR member and we're Americans. I'm not some flag-burning hippie wacko, but I CAN and WILL criticize my country when she doesn't live up to her values. And often she doesn't. My intellectual honesty, my faith, my integrity cannot and will not endorse a jingoistic patriotism. My patriotism is second to my faith in Christ.
