11 Comments
User's avatar
Tom Welsh's avatar

'“The Russians can be here at any moment! The Russians have a huge army, ready to invade. We need to be prepared to fight and resist them, because if we don’t, they will destroy our country and kill our families!” That is what our lieutenant used to tell us in the 1970s during military service'.

Exactly what Goebbels told Germans during the 1930s. Some people just don't learn.

Expand full comment
Mediocrates's avatar

If you want a good laugh and an insight into American paranoia (still applies today) the watch this movie.

https://www.themoviedb.org/movie/31918-the-russians-are-coming-the-russians-are-coming

Expand full comment
Free Radical's avatar

That 1966 feel-good COMEDY provides insight into what? putin's the bitch whining about "existential threats." Paranoia? Or just an excuse to invade the neighbors? It's both.

Repeated threats to nuke Western European cities don't make haven't helped.

Expand full comment
Tom Welsh's avatar

I went to see it when it first came out. They turned the "R" around to make a small joke.

Remarkably for an American movie, the Russians are depicted as perfectly ordinary men from first to last, and quite sympathetic. As the movie is a gentle farce, I don't think it's a spoiler to say that they run aground or something, and set out on foot to seek help - causing completely unjustified panic. The comic timing is very good.

Expand full comment
Franz Kafka's avatar

They say IQ of 80 is acceptable in Western militaries.

Expand full comment
Scott's avatar

Smart enough to load and fire, not smart enough to ask why.

PERFECT!

Expand full comment
Franz Kafka's avatar

The only thing in the world bigger than the Euro-narcissists baseless self-love, is Russia.

Why would Russia want 200,000,000 crazy people? With or without their asylum?

Expand full comment
Tom Welsh's avatar

Since 1990 Russia has been going in the opposite direction; trying to get rid of people who are useless, more trouble than they are worth, or actively vicious.

Expand full comment
Franz Kafka's avatar

I would say since Putin around 2000.

Expand full comment
Tom Welsh's avatar

Yes; exactly so.

Expand full comment
Michael  Lynch's avatar

The Bolshevik boogeyman died 33 years ago, but no one told the West. Russia remains the all-purpose villain—blamed for every war, coup, and political bowel movement since the czars. From the Crimean War to Ukraine and Crimea again, from Cold War propaganda to hot takes on Twitter, the script never changes. When the narrative collapses or the polls tank, just dust off the Red Scare playbook, point at the Kremlin, and mumble something about 'Putin' and ‘defending democracy.’

‘Russia, Russia, Russia’ lives on—undead, unburied, and always ready for its next cameo appearance.

Expand full comment