--- Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com> wrote:
> Try saying a kind word about Pootey-Poot to your
> average American
> leftist and they'll look at you like you're a
> monster.
>
That's largely the result of poor knowledge coupled with ideological predisposition. Similarly, people who are ideologically predisposed to feel a certain ay about, say, China, will learn just enough and only enough to reinforce their ideological predisposition (and very few people in the US actually know more than a smattering of either Russia or China).
US'rs who have an opinion are usually one of two types. There are the people who idealized the USSR and/or sympathized with Gorbachev, and therefore are ideological predisposed against Russia for having dashed their dreams (despite the fact that Gorby laud Putin as if he were the second coming of, well, himself). Such people want to believe in the The Collapse of Socialism Ruined Everything narrative, and so will believe ridiculous hyperbole about how everybody in Russia is so poor they are eating their own feces. Alternatively, you have the people who really hated the USSR and have now simply transfered this sentiment onto its successor and want to believe in the Russia Is an Eternal Menace and Despotism narrative. They believe ridiculous hyperbole about Creeping Re-Stalinization and so forth. It has nothing to do with what is actually going on.
You would think that the 50% drop in poverty in Russia would have merited a Z Magazine article or two, but apparently not. It sure would have if Putin spoke Spanish.
Nu, zayats, pogodi!
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