Russia’s Anti-U.S. Sentiment Now Is Even Worse Than It Was In Soviet Union

[Purveyor]

By Michael Birnbaum March 8 at 5:16 PM

MOSCOW — Thought the Soviet Union was anti-American? Try today’s Russia.

After a year in which furious rhetoric has been pumped across Russian airwaves, anger toward the United States is at its worst since opinion polls began tracking it. From ordinary street vendors all the way up to the Kremlin, a wave of anti-U.S. bile has swept the country, surpassing any time since the Stalin era, observers say.

The indignation peaked after the assassination of Kremlin critic Boris Nemtsov, as conspiracy theories started to swirl — just a few hours after he was killed — that his death was a CIA plot to discredit Russia. (On Sunday, Russia charged two men from Chechnya, and detained three others, in connection with Nemtsov’s killing.)

There are drives to exchange Western-branded clothing for Russia’s red, blue and white. Efforts to replace Coke with Russian-made soft drinks. Fury over U.S. sanctions. And a passionate, conspiracy-laden fascination with the methods that Washington is supposedly using to foment unrest in Ukraine and Russia.

Read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/europe/russias-anti-us-sentiment-now-is-even-worse-than-it-was-in-soviet-union/2015/03/08/b7d534c4-c357-11e4-a188-8e4971d37a8d_story.html

[uhnope]

1. nice article about how fascist the daily life of Russia is becoming

“This anti-Western propaganda radically changed the atmosphere in the society,” said Lev Gudkov, the director of the Levada Center, the opinion polling firm. “It has become militarist.”

[MBS]

17. It feels like a real change in personal attitudes

and one that saddens and worries me.

[MattSh]

2. I wonder when WaPo will write this story...

America’s Anti-Russia Sentiment Now Is Even Worse Than It Was In Reagan's America.

[geek tragedy]

8. Obama tried giving Russia a chance.

Not his fault that culturally backwards nation embraced fascism and bigotry in the form of state-sanctioned persecution of its GLBT community.

Russia is unpopular across the globe, much less so than the US is. With good reason.

[Rex]

3. So people think that Russia just became some western worshiping country with a name change?

I'm not really sure if Russia is even more dangerous now than when it was the USSR, but yeah probably. Think, you went from a centralized government with a few leaders to one man that probably had Nemtsov killed. The standard blame CIA line make no sense really.

I say a lot of evil shit about the CIA, but trying to destabilize Russia and start WWIII? No gain in that. Putin just stepping up the jingoism and the populace following along like good pups. Now I really do believe he had that guy killed.

[malaise]

4. As if the furious rhetoric against Russia ever stopped in the West

These days I laugh a lot

[geek tragedy]

5. It did until they reverted to the bigoted, culturally backwards

ways of their past by persecuting the GLBT community and invading their neighbors.

[HereSince1628]

11. Who are the "they"?

I think the use of such a term is a tell for failure to understand that the Russian Federation isn't a monolith politically or in any other way. The use of 'they' really needs to be carefully considered or it becomes a dust cover blanketing ignorance.

Metanalysis of an international pool of studies on acceptance of pre-marital sex and homosexuality done in 1998 by Eric Widmer suggests that attitudes in Russia at that time were similar to those in 'western' nations. It's interesting to note that in that study the US stood as an outlier among English speaking nations, being less accepting than those nations, and more closely aligned with less accepting attitudes of homosexuality as in Sweden.

Of course, political power is subject to changes, and that changes the landscape both in terms of propaganda, popular belief and the law.

The rise of a nationalism in Russia the late 90's and a 'United Russia' politics based on appeals for "stability" led what was an understandable anti-chaos orientation of a secular party dedicated to pragmatism into a quite socially conservative 'anti-radicalist' posture aligned with fundamentalist orthodox values.

Although understandable popular fear existed regarding rapacious capitalism and separatist terrorism, dissidents and 'deviants' (Pussy Riot and LGBT's) became popular overt targets upon which to demonstrate Putin's commitment to "social stability". It's gone far too far for we who look on, and this repression is what we tend to focus on.

But in many respects it is a phenomenon not unlike the emergent wave of repressive conservatism that swept across Wisconsin, Michigan and Ohio with it's links to conservative religious beliefs hiding under the phrase "family values"

LGBT rights are certainly suppressed in the RF by a 'popular' government controlled by the United Russia party.

United Russia is a catch all party within which exists a range of views, although social conservatives dominate. Even so, while currently dominating Russian politics at all levels, it is something near half the electorate in the RF that is estimated to be loyal to that party.

It seems that within Russia there are people who dislike Putin's party, just as Russians disliked communism, just like democrats in WI dislike the current dominance of a politics of corporate libertarianism/activist calvinist right.

[elias49]

13. Good post. Thanks. nt

[geek tragedy]

14. Russia is fairly monolithic when it comes

to anti-GLBT bigotry and embrace of authoritarianism. Virtually all legislators belong to one of three authoritarian parties (Communist, Putinistas, Zhironovsky).

[HereSince1628]

16. Recognizing, of course, that Putinistas isn't the name of ANY political party in the RF.

I agree that there is LGBT repression. I agree that LGBT repression is a useful tool for Putin to display authority and it's linking to orthodox catholic beliefs promotes acceptance that display of repression.

Russians bought into Putin and imo got a lot more than they bargained for... none the less alternate opinion and dissent exists, even in the face of suppression.

Zhironovsky is also not a party name. He is leader of the strangely named for us, Liberal Democratic party.

Use of superlatives remains a sign of reliance on generalization, stereotyping and hyperbole.

The evidence as available about belief within the RF suggests that views on LGBT in Russia were CLOSER to views on LGBT in the US than they were to Norway and Britain. Rather than disappearing entirely, the persistence of dissent suggest these views have merely been pushed underground.

As such, and consistent with what I am saying... it seems incorrect to apply to ALL Russians generalities that apply to practices of the oppressive authoritarians.

[geek tragedy]

18. Zhironovsky is the LDPR, just like Putin is United Russia.

And Russia is a cultural cesspool of anti-GLBT bigotry. The state media tells us as much.

http://rt.com/politics/most-russians-oppose-gay-marriage-and-gay-pride-events-poll-140/

Around 85 percent of adult Russians said they were strongly against a law that would allow same-sex marriage, the Levada Public Opinion Center reported; 87 percent said they opposed the idea of holding regular gay pride events in their cities.

Researchers claimed that the percent of supporters of same-sex marriage in Russia fell from 14 to just 5 percent over the past three years. The number of those who do not oppose gay pride events is a consistently low 6 percent.

About 23 percent of those polled said they understood the concerns held by Russia’s sexual minorities, and believed that they should be left to themselves, minimizing societal intervention in private lives; three years ago, 24 percent of Russians held this belief.

Another 27 percent said that the society must provide ‘psychological aid’ to gay people, compared to a previous 22 percent.

On the other side of the spectrum, some expressed strong opposition to homosexuality: 16 percent of those polled suggested that homosexuals should be isolated from society, 22 percent said that the treatment of homosexuality must be made compulsory, and 5 percent said that homosexuals should be ‘exterminated.’

The number of Russians who do not oppose gay pride events is equaled by those who want to "exterminate" all GLBT people inside Russia's borders.

The number who think they should be left alone is equal to the number who think they should be brainwashed by quack "gay therapy" psychotorture.

Culturally backwards and bigoted applies to Russia as a whole. If Russia were a US state, it would be the most culturally backwards and bigoted of any US state, and by a huge margin.

http://www.pewglobal.org/2013/06/04/the-global-divide-on-homosexuality/



This is not a people or a culture from whom we have anything to learn.

[Duckhunter935]

7. It did for many years

they were even invited and were part of the NATO partnership program. That all changed with one person, Putin.

NATO–Russian relations are relations between the NATO military alliance and Russia. Cooperation between Russia and NATO started in 1991. In 1994 Russia joined the Partnership for Peace programme.[1] During the 1990s, the two sides signed several important agreements on cooperation.[2]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/NATO%E2%80%93Russia_relations

[Takket]

10. Is that the same Putin that

Last edited Mon Mar 9, 2015, 07:31 AM - Edit history (1)

Is lauded by the GOP as the gold standard of international leadership?

[treestar]

9. Yes it did

Maybe that's their problem. They became no threat and a third world country.

The rhetoric went over to the terrorists, Muslims and the mideast. That's where it was for the military industrial complex. The masses of the US aren't concerned about communists. They are concerned about terrorists.

It would be tough to be a superpower and then lose that (though you gained a lot of freedom in the transaction). There was a Cold War and the US won. Plus they lost all those satellite countries, which chose to go back to being separate countries, so those countries finally "won" back what they had lost.

[Duckhunter935]

6. Well when all you get is 24 hour a day Putin propaganda

not surprising. I think the normal Russian people are being duped. I feel sorry for them and have no problems with the people just the dictator in charge.

[Blue_Tires]

12. "...Nemtsov's death a CIA plot to discredit Russia..."

Those folks would fit right in on DU

[stevenleser]

15. Easy to manipulate public opinion when you control the political and media apparatus and punish

those who don't toe the line and make brutal examples of them.