You can imagine my surprise today when, while I was scanning through my RSS subscriptions in my Google Reader, I saw that La Russophobe had written an “Editorial” lambasting me and my opinions on Russia. I’m proud to say that I am now on the list of La Russophobe’s most hated Russophiles. What an honor.
For those of you who don’t know about La Russophobe, it’s an anonymous anti-Putin, anti-Russian hate-filled blog. The blog itself is actually quite well produced and very voluminous in its daily posting about how “scary” Russia is becoming under Putin. The blog is quite obviously someone’s full-time job. The blog owners care very much about touting their viewership numbers which leads one to believe that there must be a direct correlation between the performance of the blog and the compensation received by the blogger(s).
I would guess that the blog is being produced by a think tank-like group in new York or Washington, DC. While we may not know the identity of the bloggers behind la Russophobe, I would venture to guess that the motivation for the blog is related to NATO’s expansion in Eastern Europe. How?
Without an enemy, NATO becomes an anachronism and kind of irrelevant. With the end of the Cold War many people suggested it was time to shut-down NATO. However, were NATO to be shut-down that would negatively impact weapon sales to current and new NATO members. Remember that each Eastern European country who joins NATO needs to completely scrap all their old Soviet weapon systems and buy new weapons from military companies in NATO countries. Therefore, the expansion of NATO is actually more about “market share” and business than about competing ideologies.
La Russophobe plays a very important role in creating this myth that Putin and Russia poses a serious threat to Europe. By continuously printing outrageous opinion pieces and spinning everything happening in Russia in a negative light, La Russophobe has made it somewhat acceptable to bash Putin and Russia. Kind of ironic that they are doing this bashing just as Russia is becoming one of the most power economies in the world.
We are now seeing mainstream media in the West and US Presidential candidates saying many of the same things that are printed on La Russophobe. This is frustrating for those of us who actually live here in Russia and see on a daily basis a very different Russia than the one most Westerners read and hear about.
In this socalled editorial, La Russophobe mentions my affiliation with another positive blog focused on Russia called “Russia Blog.” Actually, I don’t even know the guys who created the Russia Blog other than a couple emails where they asked if I would be willing to let them re-publish a couple of my own blog posts on their Russia Blog. I told them sure, why not? They seem like good guys and I have benefitted from the increased exposure.
La Russophobe kind of amusingly suggests that I’d “sell my Grandmother if it would make me a buck.” Besides the fact that both my grandmothers are deceased, I find it strange that such an over-the-top Conservative American blog would be upset by someone who seeks to conduct business in Russia. Didn’t everyone want to increase trade with Russia 20 years ago with the idea that Capitalsim would bring change to the Soviet Union. And now all of a sudden, doing business is bad? Whatever.
The reality is that I live and work here in Russia because I not only like living here a lot but I also strongly believe that the opportunities that exist here now in Russia are amongst the best in the world. Is my blog related to my doing business here? Sure. I write positively about Russia because that’s how I feel. My positive feelings about Russia are also what brought me back here again. I will never apologize for being a very vocal supporter of Russia, in general, and Putin, in particular.
Sure, Putin may not always win on style points but he has gotten the job done in a time and a place where that’s quite an accomplishment. Every month that passes proves my support of Putin is well-founded and correct. The thing to remember about Putin is that he truly has the best interests of Russia in mind when he makes decisions. Part of the problem with Putin is that he has lacked a President in the United States with whom he could have a serious dialogue about the serious issues confronting both countries.
Lastly, I think I might have embarrassed the guys behind La Russophobe when I was able to buy the domains www.larussophobe.com and www.russophobe.com Can you imagine that they went to such trouble to create this big blog and they forgot to register their own domains. They went with Blogger because of it’s anonymity but they should have had the foresight to buy the domains. If anyone would like those domains, let me know. I have no use for them myself.
So, I am now proudly on the most-hated list of La Russophobe!!
PS: Yes, I did make a prediction about how the transition between Putin and Medvedev might happen and I was wrong. Oh well, can’t win them all ))))
