Three visitors on here right now, one each from Russia, Ukraine, and the United States, the most recent from Russia. The most recent post read was on publicoccurrenc.ru and is http://publicoccurrenc.blogspot.com/2013/05/rooski-shhh.html?m=0. Therefore...Confident, confident that the gent or gentette who read that fun-poking "Rooski" post is the Russian. It makes me feel bad. It makes me feel guilty. That "Rooski" post was written, as I recall, just about exactly one month before "the greatest crisis of my life" as I have put it (and have meant it), the Snowden revelations.
They must think I'm a hypocrite; a blinded American nationalist hypocrite swine. Almost never have I written anything positive about Russia or its people. Yesterday, I called them terrible, despicable. That was honest. For what that's worth. That is how I feel.
I'm not clear why I have warm feelings for China, the Chinese people, just as bad, if not worse. Maybe because I have met them, have corresponded with many; they are interested in what I think about them, there have been several Chinese who I have felt a real personal, almost an intimate, connection with: my Red Guard friend, Kitty, Dr. Youqin Wang, Dr. Rongfen Wang, Dr. Mo, Ms. Ye, Zhang Mu. I feel, yes "I feel their pain," I do. There is real empathy there. They have reached out to me. They have been honest with me, some have lied to me, some have obfuscated, some have stonewalled. All of that is human interaction. There are those who loathe me, who I worry, perhaps frighten, but I KNOW they care about what I write about them and their country. They, some of them, some repeatedly, thank me, just for my interest. That has endeared the Chinese people to me.
Publicoccurrenc.ru has not been up long, I don't really know how long, maybe a year, Google never told me, I didn't know there was a publicoccurrenc.uk either and inexplicably a publicoccurrenc.sg, Singapore. But about a year or two ago I started noticing an impressive, sustained surge in readers from Russia, before I knew of the .ru version. It is clear to me that the Russians are reading this site carefully, the whole site. They want to know what I've been thinking and writing about a whole range of things. They want to know about me. I have been flattered. When I see that someone has read a long-ago post on a non-Russian topic I now thing, "It's a Russian." Maybe half the time I have been right. It touches me, I admit. I thank the Russians who pay attention to me, I thank them in print. By contrast, when I see there's a hit on one of the Chinese evergreen posts, I KNOW, no matter where the reader is from that he or she is Chinese or of Chinese descent. Chinese don't read the personal posts that would give them some idea of who I am. The Russians do. I have warm and fuzzy feelings toward Russians when I see that but I just do not like the Russian people generally. Just don't like them.
That 2013 post recalls an actual incident that occurred during the Cold War so it was honest. Honesty is overrated. I don't remember what prompted it but it was a Rooski post which means I was making fun of them, showing my dislike for them. I would not have written that post a month later but the disrespect, the contempt that I felt has now has morphed into unvarnished anger. Yet, in all this interest in publicoccurrenc.ru, not one Russian has ever written to me. Hell, Muslims have written to me. Not Russians. I don't trust the Russian people and I may have good reason to mistrust them. Maybe they're just keeping tabs on an American enemy. Sounds hubristic, I confess, but having a blog about public occurrences and writing in the hard, hard-hitting style that I do, I wonder. China blocks this blog, has messed with the site. Having this blog encourages suspicion, paranoid thinking. Anyway. I enjoy channeling my anger toward Russians with humor. I seldom write humorously about Islam because I hate Islam. I don't hate Russians, I "merely" dislike and distrust them. I, the Obamas,
the American people don't like or trust Russians either. We have too much bad blood that goes back generations and now, in Putin's second stint as president, the cautious feeling out, seeing if it was possible, is gone. It's gone for as far into the future as any of us can look. There is no going back. Not this generation nor the next generation of Americans will ever think, "Is it possible? To be friends with Russia?" No. No, it is not. There is no going back from the invasion of Ukraine, from this hare-brained and ominous notion of a "Greater Russia," from the shoot-down of MH17, from the hateful statements coming from the Kremlin. There will be no reset, there can be no reset. It's all over, as far into the future as any mortal can see.
They must think I'm a hypocrite; a blinded American nationalist hypocrite swine. Almost never have I written anything positive about Russia or its people. Yesterday, I called them terrible, despicable. That was honest. For what that's worth. That is how I feel.
I'm not clear why I have warm feelings for China, the Chinese people, just as bad, if not worse. Maybe because I have met them, have corresponded with many; they are interested in what I think about them, there have been several Chinese who I have felt a real personal, almost an intimate, connection with: my Red Guard friend, Kitty, Dr. Youqin Wang, Dr. Rongfen Wang, Dr. Mo, Ms. Ye, Zhang Mu. I feel, yes "I feel their pain," I do. There is real empathy there. They have reached out to me. They have been honest with me, some have lied to me, some have obfuscated, some have stonewalled. All of that is human interaction. There are those who loathe me, who I worry, perhaps frighten, but I KNOW they care about what I write about them and their country. They, some of them, some repeatedly, thank me, just for my interest. That has endeared the Chinese people to me.
Publicoccurrenc.ru has not been up long, I don't really know how long, maybe a year, Google never told me, I didn't know there was a publicoccurrenc.uk either and inexplicably a publicoccurrenc.sg, Singapore. But about a year or two ago I started noticing an impressive, sustained surge in readers from Russia, before I knew of the .ru version. It is clear to me that the Russians are reading this site carefully, the whole site. They want to know what I've been thinking and writing about a whole range of things. They want to know about me. I have been flattered. When I see that someone has read a long-ago post on a non-Russian topic I now thing, "It's a Russian." Maybe half the time I have been right. It touches me, I admit. I thank the Russians who pay attention to me, I thank them in print. By contrast, when I see there's a hit on one of the Chinese evergreen posts, I KNOW, no matter where the reader is from that he or she is Chinese or of Chinese descent. Chinese don't read the personal posts that would give them some idea of who I am. The Russians do. I have warm and fuzzy feelings toward Russians when I see that but I just do not like the Russian people generally. Just don't like them.
That 2013 post recalls an actual incident that occurred during the Cold War so it was honest. Honesty is overrated. I don't remember what prompted it but it was a Rooski post which means I was making fun of them, showing my dislike for them. I would not have written that post a month later but the disrespect, the contempt that I felt has now has morphed into unvarnished anger. Yet, in all this interest in publicoccurrenc.ru, not one Russian has ever written to me. Hell, Muslims have written to me. Not Russians. I don't trust the Russian people and I may have good reason to mistrust them. Maybe they're just keeping tabs on an American enemy. Sounds hubristic, I confess, but having a blog about public occurrences and writing in the hard, hard-hitting style that I do, I wonder. China blocks this blog, has messed with the site. Having this blog encourages suspicion, paranoid thinking. Anyway. I enjoy channeling my anger toward Russians with humor. I seldom write humorously about Islam because I hate Islam. I don't hate Russians, I "merely" dislike and distrust them. I, the Obamas,
the American people don't like or trust Russians either. We have too much bad blood that goes back generations and now, in Putin's second stint as president, the cautious feeling out, seeing if it was possible, is gone. It's gone for as far into the future as any of us can look. There is no going back. Not this generation nor the next generation of Americans will ever think, "Is it possible? To be friends with Russia?" No. No, it is not. There is no going back from the invasion of Ukraine, from this hare-brained and ominous notion of a "Greater Russia," from the shoot-down of MH17, from the hateful statements coming from the Kremlin. There will be no reset, there can be no reset. It's all over, as far into the future as any mortal can see.
