Russians Reject Putin And His War On Ukraine - Rachel Maddow - MSNBC

[Rhiannon12866]

Rachel Maddow rounds up negative reactions from Russian sports figures and cultural icons to Vladimir Putin's invasion of Ukraine as Russians continue to risk immediate arrest for speaking out against dictator Putin and his war. Aired on 02/25/2022.

[L. Coyote]

1. K & R

[DFW]

2. At age 15, I was one of a quarter million people marching on the Pentagon

It was in 1967, to protest American military involvement in Vietnam. Lyndon Johnson hated it, but it never occurred to him or to the Generals in the Pentagon to arrest us or violently break up our ranks.

Putin would have built a wall around us and turned us into a concentration camp.

When a savage wrong is inflicted upon a nation, most of the world rallies to their side. On September 12, 2001, after the events of the day before, most of the world declared, “today, we are all Americans.”

Today, we are all Ukrainians, and quite a few decent Russian voices are joining in, both from their prominence and their “ordinary” citizens. I put that in quotes because in today’s Russia, no Russian with the courage to publicly protest the invasion of the Ukraine is “ordinary.”

[Rhiannon12866]

3. Though I realize the choice to wage war was all on Putin

I am baffled why Russians would go along with it, though I know that there are thousands protesting, facing arrest or worse. I did spend time in the USSR in the late '80s, my grandmother asked me to go with her when she joined a peace group and this was their initial trip to visit their "sister town." And it really was a remarkable trip - we visited Moscow, Sochi (on the Black Sea - closest city to our "sister town," Krasnaya Polyana, 2 1/2 hours up in the Caucasus Mountains), Tbilisi (capital of what was then Soviet Georgia) and then-Leningrad.

And not only were we welcomed by Russian peace groups, but there were statues and plaques all over, commemorating those lost in WWII, fought on their own soil. Even in the small local school in Krasnaya Polyana, there were plaques in honor of the students who lost their lives in that war. There was even a museum on the top floor where the next generations could learn about the horrors of that war - so it would never happen again. And of course there was Leningrad, the hardest hit, where thousands starved and died.

There was even a similar museum in the Caucasus outpost where we stopped for dinner on the way back to Sochi - which I later learned was a "vacation" destination for KGB - I was questioned by one of them about who we were and why we were there.

And yet here they are, waging a war of choice when they hoped it would never happen again.

[DFW]

4. It has much to do with media control

One of our friends here has had a Russian girlfriend for about 25 years. She visits but speaks only Russian, and so still lives in Russia. They talk on the phone a lot. He said she recently had been unconsciously spouting the Putin line on the Ukrainian situation because the Putin media is the only source of information she has.

[Rhiannon12866]

6. That does make sense now, but the people we met were dedicated to peace

And they were all ages, from the school kids - we sang peace songs with one class in the school - to one older woman who had served as a nurse during WWII who said "Please, when you go back, tell your president that we want peace." I still get choked up remembering that lady.

[lapfog_1]

5. Fuck the Russians

they have had 22+ years to get rid of this KGB war criminal.

They not only haven't done it, but sometimes they support this asshole because he is a "strong leader"... but they know he starts wars and has his opponents killed.

Ask Pussy Riot about any form of protest.

We put up with 4 year of a much milder form of this sort of dictator... and we (so far) have gotten rid of him, despite the disinformation incessantly sowed by... Putin.

They need to march on the Kremlin. 5 million of them, demand his resignation, withstand the FSB and the police (they can't arrest and jail everyone)... and haul his ass out and give him the Mussolini treatment from the nearest lamp post.

Otherwise they can simply fuck off... we should institute sanctions on ALL russian citizens, russian companies, remove russian products, and not sell anything to russia. Nada. complete travel ban. Until Putin and his cronies are gone and the RUSSIAN army is gone from Ukraine.