A court in the central Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod has jailed a woman for wearing rainbow earrings, the human rights group Egida reported late Wednesday, marking the second case of its kind after Russia banned the so-called “LGBT movement” as an “extremist” organization in November.   According to Egida, law enforcement agents tasked with combating “extremism” detained the woman after a group of “aggressive people” approached her and her friend at a local cafe and filmed them on camera.

ngl russia is not making it easy to give critical support lol

  • Carguacountii [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
    26·
    11 months ago

    I think Vijay Prashad wrote something about Russia like its viewed in the West as either the Vatican or hell… not hell, he uses a different word, its a much better phrase than I’m able to remember. But the point being that dichotomy between the source of moral authority, or the opposite (I guess alluding to Moscow as the fourth Rome).

    On this particular topic, my own view is that Russia is restricting the rights/priviledges of what they term the ‘international’ LGBTQ movement, because I think the west uses wealthy urbanite associations of that kind in Russia (particularly St Petersberg/Moscow) for spying activities. At the same time, Putin has said (though ofc its necessary to examine what is done, not just what is said) that the LGBTQ community is part of Russian society, and shouldn’t be attacked or victimised - this is probably because as a legalist ruler he wants to be in compliance with various legal obligations, and also doesn’t want internal conflict. I think he isn’t particularly opposed to the restrictions, because of the support it wins from the Orthodox church.

    I wonder also with this particular topic, how much of the impetus for these kind of anti-progressive movements is to do with political kompromat. Certainly I don’t think most of the elite, like aristos or capitalists for example, really care about sexual preferences, but rather its a useful political tool if the masses (are persuaded to) consider it immoral. Like with the ‘Lavender Scare’ in the US, but then I’ve also seen a CIA testimony saying that they (I paraphrase) ‘like homosexuals because they’re useful’ referring I think to the usefulness of having something over someone. I suppose I mean, I wonder how much (alongside other factors) the passage of anti or pro LGBTQ laws is to do with wanting a political weapon, or alternatively as a kind of disarmemant treaty among the ruling classes.

    • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
      32·
      11 months ago

      because I think the west uses wealthy urbanite associations of that kind in Russia (particularly St Petersberg/Moscow) for spying activities.

      This has a factual basis, many LGBT communities in the global south are aware of it. Being LGBT in a country shit for LGBT people re: almost all of them makes it easier to blackmail you and spam you with propaganda that somehow America and the west are a significant leg up on LGBT rights, somehow. And of course they sweeten the deal by giving you money

      • Carguacountii [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        18·
        11 months ago

        yes, and i think the state response is predictable - round up as many as you can on spurious identifiers (sumptuary laws like these rainbow jewelry), interrogate them and get them on record, and try to judge who is or isn’t a threat to state security, or who can be useful or ‘turned’.

      • WithoutFurtherBelay@hexbear.netEnglish
        7·
        11 months ago

        ok, but this does all sort of seriously put into question why these countries continue to even allow homophobia to exist as general consensus. That’s a huge security issue and it’s not one you can fix by just killing gay people, because the whole reason they’re being blackmailed is because nobody knows they’re gay yet. Why exactly do these countries go the more labor intensive and probably controversial route of interrogation and suppression when they could just start like, distributing queer theory?

        • kristina [she/her]@hexbear.netEnglish
          13·
          11 months ago

          but this does all sort of seriously put into question why these countries continue to even allow homophobia to exist as general consensus

          Frankly it’s because of brainworms and old propaganda. Cuba and East Germany explicitly mentioned this was a part of why they’re championing LGBT rights

          • WithoutFurtherBelay@hexbear.netEnglish
            3·
            11 months ago
            CW corpses and undead

            Ah, so we’re basically trying to prevent the undead corpse of the USSR, impaired heavily by the systemic disease known as a capitalist-run economy, from fully disintegrating before it can take out fellow zombie-state US with it, and as a side effect of the aforementioned zombie-like state it is barely capable of self-regulation and legislation like this is basically a regulatory version of the various fluids leaking out of a zombie’s body (the wounds were inflicted by the US while they were both “alive”*.)?

            And in the mean-time the actually functional states like Cuba or even China are slowly attempting to adjust to the zombie apocalypse currently playing out?

            Edit: *: The USSR was actually alive, the US was granted a state of malevolent intelligence for it’s own self preservation by its head liches

    • Kaplya@hexbear.netEnglish
      18·
      11 months ago

      Have you read this report titled Woke Imperium: The Coming Confluence Between Social Justice & Neoconservatism? You might find it interesting.

      Excerpt:

      Key Findings:

      • The advocates of American primacy within the United States foreign policy establishment historically rely on prevailing ideological trends of the time to justify interventionism abroad. The new ‘woke’ face of American hegemony and projects of empire is designed to project the U.S. as an international moral police rather than a conventional great power—and the result is neo-imperialism with a moral face.
      • This is an iterative and systemic process with an internal logic, not one controlled by a global cabal: when the older rationalizations for primacy, hegemony, and interventionism appear antiquated or are no longer persuasive, a new rationale that better reflects the ruling class norms of the era is adopted as a substitute. This is because the new schema is useful for the maintenance of the existing system of power.
      • The rise of a ‘woke’ activist-driven, social justice-oriented politics—particularly among the members of academia, media, and the professional managerial class—has provided the latest ideological justification for interventionism, and it has become readily adopted by the U.S. foreign policy establishment. These groups now have an even greater level of symbiotic relationship with state actors.
      • Professional selection and advancement under these conditions require elite signaling of loyalty to ‘progressive’ universalism as the trending state-sanctioned ideology, which further fuels the push towards interventionism. This combination of factors encourages a new institutional and elite consensus around trending shibboleths.
      • The emerging hegemonic posture and its moral imperialism are at odds with a sober and realistic appraisal of U.S. interests on the world stage, as they create untenable, maximalist, and utopian goals that clash with the concrete realities on which U.S. grand strategy must be based.
      • The liberal Atlanticist tendency to push moralism and social engineering globally has immense potential to create backlash in foreign, especially non-Western, societies that will come to identify the West as a whole with niche, late-modern progressive ideals—thus motivating new forms of anti-Westernism.
      • Carguacountii [none/use name]@hexbear.netEnglish
        11·
        11 months ago

        I haven’t - although I think having read the intro that I’ve seen it quoted without attribution. I will read it!

        Its reminiscent of a lecture I watched about the British Empire in India (I forget the name, but can probably find it again if you’re interested), where the lecturer drew a parallel between the colonial concept of ‘empty land’ (like in Australia, ignoring the people who were living there, or indeed the US), and a similar concept used to justify conquest of obviously more populous and urbanised places like India, one example being with this kind of accusation about women - that the people there were ‘savages and weren’t treating their women properly’ (betraying of course the accuser’s view of women, as property without agency), and that a ‘white coloniser’ would have a better idea about how to ‘treat women’ (property, like land) than the native inhabitants. I suppose related to the liberal and religious concept of the civilising ‘burden’ of the coloniser. But we have seen this used very recently, with Afghanistan.

        In any case, thanks for the link!

        • Kaplya@hexbear.netEnglish
          12·
          11 months ago

          Yeah it’s written by one of those realist think tanks (personally I have some issues with the realist takes despite their seemingly rational argument but this paper is quite clinical and objective from a materialist standpoint and makes compelling argument for the case it is presenting).

    • voight [he/him, any]@hexbear.netEnglish
      10·
      11 months ago

      Putin joining my extremist stance that Pride is gay Zionism and will ultimately result in factional warfare between us and the TERF gays and lesbians, the Greenwaldians who will purge bisexuals, the creation of gay Israel, and other abominations