While Russian forces invade Georgia...

[fpb]

...the silver and bronze medallists of one of the Olympic gun competitions not only shook hands, but hugged and did everything in their power to demonstrate the deepest love for each other. The silver medalist was Russian, the bronze Georgian. The BBC commentators were all over this like white on rice, calling it a wonderful display of the power of sports to bring people together.

I find it revolting.

The proper word for it is collaborationist. It is, traitorous. It is, quisling. Sorry, but if your troops have just invaded my country and killed hundreds if not thousands of my people, I will NOT shake your hand and I will NOT act as your friend. There are too many dead between us. I hope the Georgian woman is chased out of her country by popular rage.

Comments

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You as good as say that you do not want to be told about Russian atrocities in Chechenya. Good. I won't tell you about them. Besides, if you have lived so far and not heard them by the score in the news, you must have lived a pretty sheltered life. Or, more likely, made a damned effort to avoid them. If a man who lives in the time of a major villain - and Putin is indubitably a major villain - comes to me and tells me that he has never heard any harm of the man, to me that is not evidence against the villain, but against the man. There is such a thing as a refusal to hear evidence, and it is evidently your attitude.

Who in God's name ever mentioned Pontius Pilate? You evidently are reduced to dragging the most incoherent red herrings across the trail rather than discuss the central fact: that you are siding with murderers and criminals; and that you expect me to side with Italian murderers and criminals only because they are Italian. I suppose that you imagine that because Pilate was from central/ southern Italy, I should find him worth defending; that is certainly part of your logic - so to call it.

[fishlivejournal.livejournal.com]

This is the worst, so I'll deal with it.

I have not, at any point, said I don't want about Russian atrocities. In fact, I specifically said that you should speak out against them as they happen. Guess what? *You haven't*
You've been too busy complaining about Olympic athletes.
Now, what do you think will happen if you actually complain about an atrocity? The simple response from any defender of Russia will be "yeah, some nutter who called Olympic athletes traitors for hugging accused us of war crimes."
And no matter how obvious the proof, no matter how horrific the crimes, anything you say will be ignored.
And you expect me to cheer you on?

In any political dispute, there will be people who just slander the other side irrespective of the truth. Now, you try to avoid doing that, yes? But frothing at the mouth about some woman who is trying to do the right thing makes you *look* like you are that sort of person - which means any time you have something intelligent to say, it'll fall on deaf ears.

Now there were some interesting points in some of your replies, but frankly I can't be bothered wading through the venom to answer them.

[fpb.livejournal.com]

You talk as though it were my business to convert the "supporters of Russia". First, I am not so arrogant; second, if anyone, after several years of Putin government, tens of thousands of civilians dead in Chechenya, relationships with Europe at an all-time low, 150 murdered journalists at home, Litvinenko killed in London in a way that left no doubt as to the origin of the killers, and the hitman who did the actual murder promoted to the Russian Parliament for his trouble - if anyone has been able to contemplate this multiplication of crimes and still be able to be a "supporter of Russia", then the word is not supporter, it is accomplice. And I have no interest in criminals and their accomplices. I write to please myself and the few people who read my work. If you want something else, I dare say you can find enough know-nothings, hypocrites and traitors in any major mass medium. Like the Brutish Broadcasting Creeperation and its accomplices.