@gurneyhalleck1, hello. Thanks for the extended reply. I will try to address everything I can, but without quoting your post, which I think would make this too unwieldy. I will use many declarative sentences rather than arguing everything at length.
It's okay with me that you thought I sounded younger than I am.
I agree with you that reality is (usually, well, almost always) quite different from what the media serves us. I can't tell you much about the news outlets you mention ("CNN, MSNBC, PBS, NBC and the gang") because I have nothing to do with them. The only time I look for anything like that is when I want a story roughly about something I otherwise believe to be true, and I need a source in English to share with someone or post here. If you think I listen or or read that stuff as "news"...well, I guess then you think so, but I don't. I have no stomach for the ideology or the format. I can't do it. I know generally what they say and that's enough.
Russian (state) media is also nauseating, but I try to keep up because it's not so "in the air" here (except as it penetrates our media space, which it does) and I feel compelled to know what they're saying.
For the record, I don't believe that there is never violence committed by black Americans against other black Americans, I don't believe that all gay people are cute, sweet, and unimpeachable, I don't believe that conservatives are all racist pigs (I witness way less racism among my conservative friends than among my liberal...well, acquaintances), I don't believe that everyone who owns a gun or several is a nut (or even that most are), I don't believe that no one has adverse reactions to the Covid vaccine (or other vaccines), I don't believe that all Middle Eastern countries are deadly dangerous, I do believe there is such a thing as globalism (although I think it's helpful to say what you mean by it before talking about it at length), I don't believe that the West is good and the East is evil, I don't believe that abortion is delightful / health care / harmless to all, I don't believe that atheists are delightful and religious people are dopes, I don't believe that Christianity and Marxism are "compatiable" so I don't believe that Christianity is good only when it overlaps with Marxism because I do not believe Christianity can overlap with Marxism (either the stuff they call Marxism today, or the actual writings of Marx), I don't believe that capitalism is "pure piggery," I don't believe that the history of the US is "100% oppression".
And I certainly don't believe that "Russia bad." I considered moving to Russia and trying to get citizenship or at least long-term residency for some time. When I was younger, I strongly considered going there for higher education, believing it to be better than what I would get in the US (I didn't know much, but I think I was right about that). Much of my life has been spent on Russia. I think I can say honestly that I wish the best for Russia. The government of Russia, however, is not the same as Russia. And the government of Russia cares less for Russia than I do.
I had a friend, a woman who was older than me. No "dating" or flirting or crush element. A true friend! A blessing from God, I believe. I saw her go crazy to the point that her crazy beliefs brought about her death. I can tell you more privately if you want (I don't mean to be cryptic, I just don't want to say that much on the thread). I blame myself for her death. Maybe I shouldn't, but I do. I've talked to a couple priests about it, I pray for her repose. I noticed recently that the way I feel about her is similar to how I feel about Russia. Now, Russia's actions in Ukraine are grievously evil. But if we focus on Russia for a moment, which is where my focus has been for most of my life, then, at least in my understanding, I am watching Russia commit suicide. I don't wish for Russia to commit suicide. I really don't wish for Russia to murder Ukraine.
With my friend, it became impossible to penetrate her crazy beliefs. She surrounded herself with yes-men and went into a world of madness and then died.
Russia is committing suicide. I do not wish for the process to be carried out to completion. Russia's actions do not protect Russia or traditional values. They make Orthodox Christians look like terrorists and give aid and comfort to the trans cult and the other totalitarian cults like them, in the West and in Russia. A vote for Putin is a vote for CRT and puberty blockers.
The CRT stuff is completely nuts and dishonest. Madness. And I agree: it's enraging that people want to claim it's not there...when it is. Then you end up going in circles not about whether it's good (it isn't) but what it even is: "CRT is only taught in graduate education..." "Okay, hold on. What a normal person means by CRT is all this business about white people being awful, about race being the most important feature of any person, and all that. Right?" "Oh, well, CRT is only taught in graduate programs..." And then they go off and try to force teachers to teach this nonsense. It's a perfectly disingenuous presentation of an evil thing. If at least it were a sincere presentation, because they believed it was good, you could work with that. But it hijacks the appearance of sincerity to recruit cult members at a young age. It's all evil.
Now, you say that the media has an agenda. Sure.
Russian media also has an agenda.
I have a lot of experience dealing with people who were socialized in the Soviet Union. I'm just going to say what I think is true, and a reasonable description of "how things are" in Russia. You aren't required to agree with me. But I'm going to use declarative sentences just to make it relatively brief.
Russia is an abusive society. It has been openly, unquestioningly abusive for over a hundred years. There was a brief break in the 90s. Since Putin came to town, we have been dealing with ever greater abuse and sliding towards totalitarianism (like the trans cult, but with nukes).
It's best compared to an abusive tyrant of a parent. An unrepentant alcoholic, not in treatment. Neglects / abuses the kids. Passes out. Believe me, I'm not joking about this kind of thing. Children very often continue to sympathize with and want to stay with an abusive parent. The parent is all they know. They love the parent despite everything. Often they believe or try to believe that the parent is doing good things. Or that they themselves are the cause of the bad things. This line is often taken by people (also non-parents) who abuse children: "You're making me do this."
Putin has cast himself in the role of the abusive parent. His followers (and that's far, far from the whole population of the RF) live in terror and they believe that only sticking closer to the abuser will keep him from doing something worse. This is not conscious for most of them.
It is a gross perversion of civil authority and a gross perversion of the notion of fatherhood (basically Putin is a new tsar, so that's an appropriate comparison). It is anti-family because it tries to make all its prisoners into frightened children. It tries to turn mothers and fathers into frightened children at the same level of dependency as young children. It flattens the family. It is anti-family and anti-Christian.
Yeah, I don't doubt that there's nonsense going on in Ukraine. When you blow up or threaten to blow upa power structure, the worst elements rush in to scramble for part (or all) of the pie. This is how we got the Bolsheviks. Nicholas II let things get so bad that the empire collapsed. The Bolsheviks only had a shot once there was a power vacuum. So destabilizing Ukraine is another way Putin is helping the "puberty blockers" movement, as I said above.
I personally have met a family of refugees (not the dad) from the (largely) Russian-speaking areas under heaviest assault. People I didn't know before this. No Nazis were bothering them. No one was stopping them from speaking Russian. As you say, the media (including Russian media) often paints a picture that is unlike reality. Putin's media also does this.
You could find a lot of guys and some women in this country with Nazi tattoos. I wouldn't support a Russian-Chinese invasion of the US, with the stated intent of taking over the country and brainwashing us all into believing that they loved us.
Putin and his inner circle are not worried about drag queen story hour and so on. They don't care about that stuff at all. It is utterly irrelevant to them. They are exactly like the Bolsheviks and the trans-cult people: they hijack vocabulary about things that are from God (kindness, family) for their own power. That is it. Putin himself should be treated as a cross between an enraged and tired toddler (needs a strong hand to put him to bed, or he will not stop until he drops), a trans cultist (needs to control every aspect of everyone's behavior and personality), and the KGB agent that he actually is (was)--someone whose entire personality is dedicated to imagining enemies in order to increase his own salary.
Putin does not see a threat to any tradition, families, anything. He does not care about those things. He sees only competition for power. In a way, he is like Marjoe Gortner, the child who was used as a puppet by his parents (link:
). From when he was practically a toddler, he was trained to act as a "preacher" and was "ordained" at age 4. He was trained to move in this or that way to accentuate this or that word in his memorized preacher-speeches. A "child preacher" novelty on the revival circuit. Putin similarly uses some of the words that sound Orthodox, but he does not know, or care, what they mean. However, he is not being puppeted by his parents, but by the passions. They speak with his voice and they encourage the same in others. It is like having Bruce Jenner for a patriarch. It excites those who have similar weaknesses and tells them that sin is good.
Putin is the poster child for disordered passions and unrepentant sin.
And (and rus, I don't mean to talk about you behind your back, I am just using the third person because GH mentioned what I said about your rhetoric) I do think that rus's thinking is poisoned (to a degree) by the now-totalitarian and abusive form of government under which he and his family live. It's not a moral failing and it's not spiritual condemnation when I say it. I said thinking, but I should have said rhetoric, as I can't observe the thinking directly. I have seen this stuff more than once in people who are Russian or are under heavy "Soviet influence" for a long period. I can even feel it working on me sometimes, and I don't live there.
And I have said before there were (important) times when rus was right and I was wrong. I have said so to rus privately and on TAW in public.
Navalny is a politician (well, now a political prisoner). He works the "pride" people and he also has worked the (open) Russian Nazis. He is a little like the Whites during the Civil War. He does not have a totally coherent vision (some parts of it are coherent). The Whites included monarchists and constitutional democrats, all kinds of people. They were anti-Bolshevik. That is what united them. Navalny represents the anti-totalitarian movement.
What someone who is being mistreated in a prison has to do with any of this is beyond me. Navalny did not order this genocidal invasion. I would not be totally comfortable with Navalny as president. I have seen a lot of him and I do believe he would be preferable to Putin, especially if he made good on his promise to reduce the power of the presidency. It is hard to know what Navalny would be like in office. I don't think even he himself knows. But in any case, I know other Russians who I would be much happier with.
You know why Putin had people apply Novichok to the crotch of Navalny's underwear, right? Not because he's into pride events. Because he's popular. End of sentence.
Putin is as interested in Orthodoxy as a normal person is interested in toilet paper. It is disposable garbage to him. Only if he "needs" it and it isn't there does he think about it. That's why he keeps it, or the appearance of it, on hand.
Most Russians have even less interest in Orthodoxy than Putin does. Even rus has said on here that news of the re-Christianization of Russia has been overstated.
There is a bunch of stuff about how the OCA is all about pride parades and wokeness. I overheard a woman in the line to venerate the Cross refer to Obama as a "monkey in the White House." (definitely Obama, definitely money, I think that was the phrase) That wasn't Orthodox, but it sure wasn't woke, either. I haven't been to every OCA parish and I don't know what goes on here and there. I don't see Father Matt on here promoting gay marriage. Maybe there is such stuff, I'm not the OCA police. But with the ROC we see a break with tradition such as I never imagined:
Bomb our parishes? Utterly ignore the pleas of our clergy as they beg us to stop murdering their parishioners? No problem, boss!
Yet still, some act like the OCA is puberty blockers 24 / 7 and the ROC is...traditional? What is traditional about making no objection to the mass murder of your own flock? Where is that in Tradition? I mean this. Is there precedent for this? Did anyone see this coming?
No jurisdiction is perfect. But the leadership of the ROC has gone off the rails utterly.
I am well aware of the nonsense and evil that goes under the name of Marxism in the US at present. I am well aware of the pedophile campaign to get access to ever-younger kids...in schools!
And Putin's Russia aids them. Every bullet fired, every meter of ground, is another kid getting his (or her!) first dose of puberty blockers. That is a rhetorical move on my part. There is not a one-to-one correspondence, but Putin does aid the trans movement.
I have listened to Rus on this. We do have some common ground. But I do not believe that Russia negotiates in good faith. It has not yet presented a coherent set of requirements. The closest thing to that is still up on RIA Novosti -- it says the entire country needs to be under perfect Russian control for a generation and the population needs to be brainwashed. Okay. Well, no one is going to agree to that. I do not see any evidence that the RF is interested in actual negotiations.
Yeah, negotiations are preferable to murder. But what do you do if one party is constitutionally incapable of negotiating? Everything the RF does and says broadcasts that.
"This guy fought a home invader! Why didn't he just
negotiate with the violent criminal who broke in shouting '
I'm here to destroy your family!! Stop resisting me!! You are me! Stop pretending you are not me!'"
I aware of the personalities of the posters on here and I have learned stuff from the people you mention. I know they have been patient with me more than once. But that people are good, pious, nice to strangers online, or even saintly does not mean they are right about everything. That I express my opinions on here does not mean that I think people who don't share those opinions are evil. Sometimes I do engage in rhetorical snarking: "Okay, if you believe that, than you must believe this, right?" That is a rhetorical move that I see is not ideal on these threads. Sorry to anyone who thought I really meant that they did believe whatever. What I meant likely was: there is a consequence to acting in the way you prefer, and I believe that what I just mentioned is that consequence.
Don't be impressed. Anyone can learn Russian. I brought it up only because it seemed relevant to your query.
I don't think people who disagree with me about this are "armchair idiots."
I do think that our ways of thinking in the US (liberal, conservative, traditional, libertine--these categories) are subject to "invasion" by Russian propaganda because we are not used to, not immune to, the forms that corruption, cynicism, and evil can take on Russian soil. It sneaks around our defenses. That is part of why I get jumpy on these threads. To me, Russian (I mean fascist Russian, not any Russian -- plenty of great Russian culture out there) propaganda is a very dangerous trojan horse. Like the rainbow flag.
Who doesn't like rainbows, right? But they package something bad in that. Abuse of children, for one thing. Totalitarian control of speech and exercise of religion, for another.
Who doesn't like tradition, non-insanity, families, stability, praying for people? (Okay, some don't, but a lot of people do see the appeal) That's the trojan horse here. What's inside it is the destruction of the ROC and the slow suicide of Russia as a viable state.
And, of course, genocide.