Is Russophobia The New Anti-Semitism?
That’s a real question. And it could make 70% of Americans — the 70% that see Russia as a threat — as re-branded Nazis.
Let it be clearly understood that the Russian is a delightful person till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental he is charming. It is only when he insists upon being treated as the most easterly of western peoples instead of the most westerly of easterns that he becomes a racial anomaly extremely difficult to handle. The host never knows which side of his nature is going to turn up next”.
Rudyard Kipling
If you put that in context with everything else we knew the Russians were doing to interfere with the election, and just the historical practices of the Russians, who typically, almost genetically driven to co-opt, penetrate, gain favor, whatever, which is a typical Russian technique.
James Clapper, former head of CIA.
“It’s like anti-Semitism,”
Vladimir Putin on allegations of Russian “meddling” in US elections.
“It’s like anti-Semitism,”
American Contradictions
Many Americans will argue that Russophobia is not like antisemitism in any way at all; they will tell you they don’t hate Russian people as individuals — just Vladimir Putin, who is a public figure.
Putin is also a person and an individual. Or do all public figures give up their humanity the moment they take office?
But never mind the logic. Argue with an American who talks this way and he/ she will say something like “there are good people and bad people” not that that really means anything at all — but implies that Russians can only be trusted if they are “our Russians”. On Facebook, these closet racists will cite a CNN article or WaPo or the NYT, which will cite various unidentified sources, rumour and made-up shit.
Americans do not like Truth. And they hate Truthtellers. By defintion, a Truthteller must be Russian. Umm…Like Julian Assange. And Edward Snowden.
Americans see the world through the VR headsets of the Mainstream Media, CNN, WaPo, the NYT — and most important of all — Hollywood, where Russians are almost always the “bad guys” and have ugly tattoos.
The style and color of each person’s headset is different; the content, the same. Those headsets glitch constantly — but nobody takes them off.
It is all so confusing….
Americans will argue that antisemitism is a kind or racism — but Russophobia is not — ignoring the fact that Jewish people are not a “race”, even according to the current vague definitions of the term — but rather an ethnicity — like being Russian. Hitler hated the Russians more than the Jews. In fact, the Jews were just number 3 on the list after the Roma. The Jews Hitler thought were at least Jews, whereas the Russians and the Roma were mongrels.
On the other hand, “Americans”, who really occupy only a small chunk of the Americas but see themselves as owning both American continents, North and South, really see Russians as either “genetically” different (Clapper) or a “racial anomaly” (Kipling, who was British but thought like an American), both of which are dehumanizing.
I don’t subscribe to this thinking but I am Canadian and, while my country is part of North America and actually larger than the US, I am not “American” — so, what do I know? And Canada has the world’s largest Ukrainian diaspora, opening its arms to Ukrainians at the end of WWII fleeing Communism and possible justice for for war crimes.
Origins
OK….why are Americans like this?
It all started with the Puritans.
The Pilgrim Fathers were separatist — and religiously supremicist Calvinists who had left England for the Netherlands despite Holland having a more compatible religious atmosphere.
They came to America seeking economic opportunity, receiving licenses from Britain who were happy to get rid of them as an intolerant and troublesome cult, which, in many ways they were. The Puritans believed in predestination — that only a few — the Chosen went to Heaven. They also believed that people who didn’t share their beliefs — were in the thrall of the Devil. Also, that material success in life was a sign that God loves you. Simply put, God hates losers.
While Puritanism has died out in its original form, thanks to huge numbers of immigrants of different persuasions — it was a core culture — and in its way me. The way of thinking — the fundamentalist meme — persists.
So, America’s neo-Puritan culture thinks America is Heaven. And the Rich are Chosen. If you are not rich, well, you are American and then chosen over people of other nations.
One nation under God, right?
Heaven, however, must have an Antithesis and an Adversary. So Putin is Satan and Russia Hell, and that will remain the case unless Putin gets a Green Card or Russian becomes the 52nd State.
Putin is also Hitler 2.0 — who used to be Satan but is now dead — along with his alternative (and evil) political system. Of course, we imported his very best henchmen for the CIA and modernized and Americanized his quaint old, atavistic Teutonic system.
According to Ameicans hating a country and its leader is never antisemitism, except when you are talking about criticizing Israel and its leaders, when differing with the political ideology of Zionism is hate speech.
Where O where is anti-Semitism?
This is a taboo question — because you’re supposed to know the “right” answer — but this answer is highly elastic and changes with the time, place and situation, which means you have to pay attention to what we call rather inappropriately “the News”.
Suffice it to say, anti-Semitism is whatever the New York Times tells you.
But you really need to pay and subscribe to keep up.
Unfortunately, I don’t have the money so I have had to figure it out myself.
I therefore look at history…
Anti-Semitism is most definitely not about genetics.
In Britain’s very antisemitic 19th Century Conservative party, Benjamin Disraeli was a popular Prime Minister for many years despite being ethnically Jewish.
Disraeli was a convert, and defined himself as British and Church of England. And he did not wear funny hats or his hair in braids. British anti-Semitism at the time was less about bloodlines and more about dress and behavior.
If anti-Semitism were about genetics, then to be pro-Semitic you have to be Pro-Palestinian as well as Pro-Israeli.
The majority of Palestinians share the same DNA as Israeli Asian Jews — since most of them were originally Jews who converted to Christianity or Islam. In fact, these people are more Jewish at the cellular level than most Israeli European Jews, many of whom are descended from non-Hebrew converts. Of course, Palestinians do not want to self-designate as Jews — nor could they, even if they wanted to.
Israel would prohibit that by law.
So, anti-Semitism is not really racialist, except in certain definitions — such the Nazis’ — who drew on American and British culture to co-opt a kind of racial exceptionalism — Aryanism — which held that only Aryans were truly human and everyone else — especially Jews, Slavs, Roma and blacks, but especially Russians — were Untermenschen”. Nazism was an intrinsically exceptionalist ideology.
Today, the only truly exceptionalist ideology is Americanism.
The Jews were, as I have said, a tertiary focus of Aryanism, but dealt with first because a.) they were there, all around b.) the had wealthy c.) they were easy targets d.) the Zionists wanted to leave anyway.
Roma you could just kill. Everybody hated them.
Hitler wanted Russia’s resources. And planned to kill a hundred million people or more and enslave the rest. But the USSR had an army. So Russophobic genocide was put on the backburner while the Germans’ practiced on the Jews.
Hitler looked to American white exceptionalism for inspiration.
America had had its Indians and large chunks of land that White settlers wanted, which resulted in the US Indian Genocide. The Americans could slaughter blacks and Latin Americans and Filipinos with impunity to create their empire? Why not Germany?
The Germans looked east to the Russia’s vast lands.
Today the American Empire has shown itself the true successor to the Third Reich. It covets Russia. That’s what the Ukraine is all about. America was Chosen by God. It is the exceptional country. Why should the Russians have all those resources?
Western Ukrainian are pretty Aryan looking. Russians are mongrels. And Vladimir Putin is Jewish (through his mother).
It Matters How You Look
Notice that this Jewish girl Rosa, who Hitler really liked, looks very “Aryan”. Appearances matter. In fact, Rosa looked a lot more Aryan than Adolph.
Anti-Semitism is really “Otherism”, as in “other than human”; alien. You know an alien be cause he/she/ it looks different.
For hundreds of years, Orthodox Jews lived in culturally identifiable communities in the US and were easily recognized by their unique clothing, hair, and behavioral styles.
That’s a problem in the US of A, which is multi-ethnic and multiracial — strictly speaking, a nation of others. The Americans have a workaround: you have a constitutional Right to be different, so long as you conform to the values of white, middle class society. It’s OK to be Jewish if you give Xmas presents. Everyone is equal! But since some are “chosen” and “exceptional” some are more equal than others in a society.
Style matters most — and social class, if the color of your skin is different.
Now these guys are definitely “different”.
Still kinda difficult to criticize because the clothing thing is a kind of uniform. We all love uniforms, don’t we? And cosplay! And these guys costume is off limits for criticism. Best to just categorize them as “eccentrics” and hurry on your local bar.
On the other hand, Muslim uniforms are not so benign. And cannot be ignored.
Blacks and Chinese and Mexicans have a similar problem, Here, skin color matters. But still style, of course. This guy is not really brown. Pretty “white” really”. But “race” here is defined by clothing choices.
However, if you speak “white” English, go to “white schools”, belong to the mostly white managerial or professional class, and pledge allegiance to the Flag, vote Democratic, and recognize Americans as chosen….well, Barak was the whitest half-black man ever.
Chocolate milk is a different color — but it is still milk — delicious milk — but milk.
Tellingly, Obama did nothing to help American blacks outside of his social class. In office, Barry’s Mom was almost erased from history, along with his Kenyan relatives. Mom didn’t fit the “black president” story and the relatives, Obama’s true blue/ black Americanism. f
“Americanism”
As we have seen, Aryanism was just a spinoff of Americanism, a not very good copy. Then again, the Nazis didn’t have Hollywood.
The irony is that Americans today are told to think that Russia is fascist! And Putin as the Russian Fuhrer.
In reality, Russia is a multiparty parliamentary democracy with a high degree of dissent, left and right. Putin regularly gives very long hour interactive national talks to which anyone can phone in. Behind him, comments scroll on screen — including criticisms. Compare that to US Presidential press conferences, which are carefully scripted with reporters fearing to ask questions that might get them cut off from “sources”. Without a doubt, Putin is conservative — but the most principled leader of modern times — with a reverence for the rule of Law.
The USA, however, is not a parliamentary democracy like Russia — it is a “constitutional republic” — with its constitution set up to protect the privilege of elites — and initially to protect slavery. In 1911, Eugene Debs wrote of the constitution:
It is not in any sense a democratic instrument, but in every sense a denial of democracy. The Declaration of Independence had been democratic and revolutionary; the Constitution, however, was autocratic and reactionary.
The US is really a one-party state, a corrupt oligarchy, as no less than Jimmy Carter has written. The two official parties represent the Few, not the Many. Biden succeeded Trump as Trump 2.0 and almost immediately the US took steps to strengthen its authoritarian controls of the media, with heavy handed censorship of and by the “social media”.
Remember how I said that in America, style matters? Today Republicans and Democrats really differ only in style, not substance. Is the US becoming fascist? The question is really could it ever be a democracy?
Yet, US tried to foist its own two hundred year old quasi-fascist, neo feudal system onto Russia with the collapse of the USSR — and indeed, almost succeeded in doing so. The US loved Yeltsin as Russia’s Nero, fiddling, or rather boozing while the country burned.
It is Putin who brought the oligarchs to heel, rebuilt the economy and restored Russian pride. There are still oligarchs in Russia but now they must serve the Greater Good. Putin saved Russian democracy and while national restoration still a work in progress, there is progress — unlike in the US, which sees increasing militarism, social violence, inequality, and censorship. As American lose their freedoms, Russians gain theirs.
While America flounders, the Russians and the Chinese have made huge leaps in technology, with better social standards, and public accountability over the last two decades.
Just as the Jews in Europe were hated for their success, so too do Americans hate the Russians and the Chinese for theirs. Russia and China would only be accepted if the were American vassal states, open to exploitation. Hence, “Russiagate” — and their “information war” on the Russians for their “aggression” in Georgia, the Crimea, the Ukraine, and elsewhere.
Putin is right
So Putin is right: Russophobia has its roots in the same psychology that spawns anti-Semitism. Their roots are really the same, although the flowers may be different.
In an article published in the NYT, Putin wrote:
“It is extremely dangerous to encourage people to see themselves as exceptional, whatever the motivation.
There are big countries and small countries, rich and poor, those with long democratic traditions and those still finding their way to democracy. Their policies differ, too. We are all different, but when we ask for the Lord’s blessings, we must not forget that God created us equal.”
There is the thing: Americans don’t think God created everyone equal. According to the Puritans most people went to Hell.
AntiSemitism was for the Nazis, the natural concomitant of an exceptionalist, exclusionary worldview, which upheld the notion that there were two kinds of human beings — Aryans who were human — and everyone else, who were subhuman. That resulted in genocide.
Since its founding, Imperial Washington has been almost constantly at war and since WWII — 19 wars — not counting coups and “regime changes. The official number of civilian casualties is 12 million but the actual number could be 2 or 3 times greater.
What is really the difference between Aryanism and Americanism? The“Americans” have, in fact, outdone the Nazis.
When Putin compares Russophobia to antisemitism, it is both apt and appropriate.
