Russia Qatar have both made the news recently for being “anti-gay.” Russia for tightening up their ban on LGBT propaganda, and Qatar for not allowing “OneLove” armbands at the World Cup. Yesterday some Russian students asked me what I think about the whole thing. Well, here’s an explanation of my stance on the issue. My argument hinges on two main points:
Point 1:
I read all of these western media outlets howling with rage that the bad, mean Russian and Qatari people are being mean to LGBT beliefs. The argument goes that the LGBT flag represents peoples’ basic right to love and interact with whoever they want. One Love. Who could possibly be against that? Okay. Well, here’s a question. How come Soviet WWII monuments are being torn down across Eastern Europe? This is a big enough logical QED that I could end the article on this one point if I wanted. If western regimes refuse to tolerate Russian symbols and actively destroy them, why should Russia tolerate western symbols?
Western pundits argue that monuments to the Red Army Soldier aren’t innocent symbols of defeating Hitler. They represent Russian imperialism, so are oppressive and need to be torn down. So the monuments are torn down and in many countries it is even illegal to celebrate Victory Day at all.
Interesting, isn’t it? “Our” side argues that Russian symbols are insidious and amplify Russian culture, but at the same time we insist that our symbols do not. The LGBT flag is what I call a Schrodinger’s symbol, it simultaneously symbolizes nothing and everything. If a conservative attacks the flag, its supporters will insist that he’s lying and their flag doesn’t represent all the things he’s claiming. In reality, the flag is a Trojan horse with a ton of political and ideological baggage – a whole framework of ideas and agendas that LGBT supporters aggressively push for while simultaneously denying it.
LGBT rights is presented in the western media as a grassroots altruistic movement. In reality, it’s a political weapon being centrally controlled by Washington, and it really has nothing to do with actual LGBT people.
To make my point clear, here’s a related example of a symbol being misleading. The recent death of Mahsa Amini, a Kurdish woman who died in police custody in Iran. Amini was reportedly arrested for improperly wearing her head scarf, and that’s how the story is peddled to international audiences. It’s a matter of the bad Iranians oppressing women, and who could be in favor of oppressing women? Of course it is bad and not even open to debate. But in actuality this wave of riots has almost nothing to do with women’s rights.
Again, and I cannot stress this enough, Amini was a Kurdish woman, making her the perfect martyr for Kurdish separatism. This wave of unrest targets hairline fractures in Iran, which is weak from decades of sanctions. Iran is under siege by a mostly unseen enemy. Older people who remember the revolution and the war with Iraq can understand why things are the way they are. More importantly, these people can easily understand that however distant war may seen, it could come to their neighborhood at any moment. The Iranian government might be objectively very bad and unfair, but if it collapses, that would effectively end Iranian civilization. Western countries could and almost certainly would invade, destroy every Iranian city, kill millions, and Iran’s cultural treasures carted away to British museums, probably in the same corridor as their Iraqi counterparts.
Just like with the issue of Kurdish separatism in Iran, LGBT rights represented by the flag are falsely characterized in a way that makes debate impossible. As their argument goes, if you oppose the flag, you must be against LGBT people having rights. The actual arguments against the LGBT flag, like the sexualization of children, are ignored.
The LGBT flag has the same political purpose as the canonization of Mahsa Amini. To weaken and destroy the rivals of the international world order. This isn’t a conspiracy theory or a hypothetical, it’s a fact with precedent. For starters, notice how the LGBT flag seems to materialize in every conflict? Even in a Ukrainian field, or the Syrian desert? Neither of those conflicts have anything to do with LGBT rights. If anything, they’re the opposite of LGBT rights. Are Ukrainian nazis and ISIS fundamentalists big fans of gay love? I doubt it. But the LGBT flag has become such a powerful imperial symbol of the world order, it’s important to bring out – even if just for a few minutes for a photo op.
Hans, are we the baddies?
Consider Russia’s “Pussy Riot.” They’ve been irrelevant for years and I actually hesitate to write about them – if I’m going to give a failed band publicity they should pay me. But I don’t think any of those silly women actually have money by now so there’s no point in asking. Anyway, Pussy Riot was allegedly about bringing freedom to Russians, but how did they go about that? By being as deliberately gross and disruptive as possible, and harass churchgoers. You can actually see this same tactic on display at pride parades and other “leftist” movements in the USA. They don’t try to cordially engage the opposition. They just yell and scream and break things. It’s white noise that exists to gaslight and psychologically break down civil society. It’s literally the same tactic as an interrogator playing loud music into the ears of his captive. No normal person wants his family to be harassed by a deranged naked person on the street, and it’s easier to just relent to his demands than try to fight back.
At some point along the way, Pussy Riot attracted the attention of the US State Department, who rewarded their antics with showers of funding and attention. What legitimate reason would the USA have for sponsoring a Russian punk band? If you’re skeptical, imagine if the situation was reversed. Just owning a Russian passport is enough for a western artist or public figure to be canceled, lose his job and sponsorships, receive death threats, and possibly even be prosecuted as an enemy agent. It’s amazing cognitive dissonance, we accuse Russia of the same tactics that we’re using against them, but in the same breath deny that we’re doing it.
Point 2
Every society can only have one dominant culture, and this culture is mandatory. It cannot be avoided. If a family in Russia decides they don’t want their children exposed to Russian culture, it is simply impossible. A child will be exposed to Russian ideas, norms, and symbols at almost every waking moment and nothing short of locking him in the basement will shield him for it. This same statement holds true for any culture in the world. Even nations that are multi-cultural still have a dominant belief system. For example, Kuwait has a large Christian population numbering 18-20% (mostly immigrants) but it is still an undeniably Islamic country and Islamic ideas reign supreme. If Christians, atheists or any other group dislike this, there’s nothing they can do except leave. This isn’t good or bad, just the way it is. No society can survive internal conflict, one group eventually has to dominate the others. If such internal rivalries remain unresolved, then an external force will exploit this weakness and conquer the land for themselves, and that’s very important to remember.
When a new belief system manifests, and survives long enough to become hegemonic, it goes through three phases.
-The current hegemonic group resists to this new group of believers and persecutes them.
-If this persecution fails, the new group eventually gains enough followers to be accepted.
-The new group eventually becomes the majority, and is then mandatory, with believers in the former hegemony being persecuted until they’re completely removed from power, or perhaps destroyed entirely.
Once again I have to remind everyone that this process is not good or bad in the moral sense, it’s just the way humanity works. Christianity became accepted then overpowered paganism. Islam overpowered Christianity and paganism. In what is now the USA, European settlers began arriving in the 15th and 16th centuries, and in increasingly greater numbers. Native Americans destroyed some of these settlers, tolerated others, or in some cases even actively helped them – and that’s what the holiday of Thanksgiving is all about. But how did the story end? Eventually, Europeans became numerous enough that tolerating them was no longer voluntary. Then, it wasn’t even an option to not be ruled by Europeans, or be allowed to exist on “their” land at all. Now, the New World is European, and that’s simply human nature. Every country in existence today is built on the bones of their rivals.
Conclusion
Consider these as the actual political goals represented by the LGBT flag:
-Infiltrate and disrupt geopolitical rivals, like Russia.
-Rainbows, unicorns and puppies are a nice cover for discretely laundering money to people that are totally unrelated to those things, like Kurdish separatists or Azov Battalion.
-A form of post-nationalism that suffocates local nationalism. Perhaps the most literal example, national flags are bad and represent oppression, so are replaced by the nice rainbow flags.
-Population control. Hmmmm. There are now officially more than 8 billion people on Earth, and our elites keep saying that there are too many of us and the population needs to be culled. Convincing as many young people as possible that they’re gay seems like a pretty efficient way to do it. A recent survey at an American school found that almost half of all students identify as LGBT. Truly astonishing, and even more astonishing, this movement seems to disproportionately affect girls, with as many as 70-80% of transgender cases being female-to-male. So when I see that figure of “45%” – I have to emphasize that this is an even worse demographic disaster than it might first appear. If the LGBT movement continues to grow at the same rate as it has over the past several years, it might succeed in removing the majority of girls from “the game” – chemically and often surgically transitioned. Imagine what that will do to the birth rate.
If for no other reason, it is smart to ban “LGBT propaganda” because, as unfair as it sounds, if any country expects to survive more than a few generations they have to embrace natalism to some degree.
Ian Kummer
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Yes, very good points. And the Trojan horse analogy is very good, or a wolf in a sheepskin. Whatever. It’s also important to see where the offence comes from and who is the defending side.
The most cruel thing is that with Russia and Iran it is a lot about natural resources, not any kind of a value conflict (same case with the New World, actually, because with the exception of the Pilgrims, people moved there to get money).
Wolf in a sheepskin was the Fabian Society’s original logo. They used the turtle too.
These people are odious liars and I believe they come from the depths of History, always been around, and when given the chance they raise their despicable heads and we have to crush them.
Very good article Yan, you have a clear reasoning.
The Rainbow Flag IS the NAZI flag of the 21st century. Look at these goons dressed in black, hiding their faces, and intimidating working class Americans: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRkVEtOy3ls
They are chauvinists for globalism.
Love your commentaries, Ian, and I hope you don’t mind a few random thoughts from a gay male (i.e., myself) —
1. Whatever we may think about the mores of a culture, it’s really something that that culture has to decide for itself. Forcing our morality on another culture is at least counterproductive (when Blinken admonishes the Duma not to pass anti-“gay propaganda” legislation, all he does is encourage the Duma to pass such legislation), and possibly wrong too. I may be less than thrilled about the new Russian legislation (a lot hinges on what counts as “propaganda”) and am naturally opposed to any death penalty, let alone a death penalty for homosexual acts, but the most we can reasonably do is offer asylum to such people. It’s up to each culture to grow and change at its own pace, if it chooses to grow and change at all.
2. The issue of sex and gender is complex, at least to people of good will. On a chromosomal level the overwhelming majority is either XX or XY, but there are exceptions. On the gonadal level one does encounter such exceptions as the occasional hermaphrodite. In any case, sex is not the same thing as gender — this is an American misconception based on a certain level of discomfort with the word “sex.” Anyone thinking the two are the same need only go to a place like Thailand, where one learns quickly that sex is biology and gender is a matter of socialization and identity. I have two transsexual cousins-in-law; they’re accepted as such in their culture, for which the notion of homosexuality is something that might as well be beyond the universe.
3. The important lesson for kids is to be kind and respectful to everyone, as long as they’re not out to hurt you. I realize that being a transsexual teen must be hella painful. On the other hand, I also know that lots of teens are still “discovering themselves” sexually. I know from experience that the boy who was in love with me when we’re both 14 may well find out he’s straight after all at 15 . . . or vice versa. The guy who paints his fingernails and dresses androgynously at 15 may want to transition at 18, or may decide he’s happy being a guy after all. So the idea of gender reassignment surgery is not one that can be taken lightly, and deciding on it has to be the product of a lot of thought, involving not just the individual but medical professionals and, unless they’re violently uncooperative, the parents as well. Teach kids that most guys like girls, and some guys like guys; you can decide what’s right or wrong, but live in peace with everyone as long as they live in peace with you.
4. That flag. Hmm. Are we talking the one with six stripes? The one that annoyed all the Euros who had a seven-striped Peace flag? (It annoyed them to the point that they started putting the word “Peace” or “Pace” on it so as not to be confused with the gays.) Or are we talking the one with the extra five-striped triangle wedged in, which is supposed to show us that we all like black and brown and even white people too? (Curiously, the original six stripes avoided ethnicity altogether, but I guess we gays just have to commit to an ethnicity now. Pity.) Hardly matters. See my point 1 above. Yes, I like my place in the sun. No, I don’t appreciate being a cudgel to beat over the head of societies that are in the way of the usually bloodthirsty neocon agenda.
There’s no death penalty in Russia
Indeed, and it’s still legal in Russia (although being openly gay in Chechnya can be fatal). I was thinking at this point not about Russia but about countries like Saudi Arabia and Iran, and I should’ve been clearer.
But note here too that the USA has no problems with the death penalty for gay sex in Saudi Arabia, whereas it constantly pillories Iran for the same thing. Which addresses my last point, which I’ll reformulate as follows: The USA is interested in human rights of any kind only when they can be used against a country that poses an obstacle to its imperial ambitions.
> Convincing as many young people as possible that they’re gay
You are being shy here, Ian.
If you can be convinced you are gay this should imply you are not hardwired one, rather bixewual or something, and can be peer influenced in both direction.
So if you was convinced to be gay, then later you can be convinced – even for a week – to be not gay and procreate.
What is really disturbing is pushing of chikdten castration disguised as gender correction surgery.
“convincing gay” can be undone later. Castration – less so.
Well, yes. And enthusiasts for the trans movement act like puberty can be turned on and off like a light switch with no consequences. These drugs were literally invented as chemical castration.
Was this “three axes”, M777 ?
https://t.me/Z4LPR/336
I know, should’ve feel a great deal of shadenfraude about enemy’s tech, but still…
The Mahsa Amini story was yet more propaganda…
Iran Joins SCO; Next Day, “Spontaneous” Riots Erupt …
“In the case of Mahsa Amini, courtroom video shows her in apparently perfect health, walking into the hall of justice, taking a seat, remaining there for some time, then getting up and walking to another part of the courtroom, where she appears to have a verbal altercation with a female officer. Amini then collapses suddenly, as if she were suffering a heart attack or stroke. (Note that the CIA has the ability to induce sudden death by apparent heart attack, whether immediately or delayed.)
The anti-Iran propagandists initially insisted that Amini had died as a result of police beating, strenuously denying that she suffered from a brain tumor for which she had undergone an operation. Later it emerged that the propagandists had been lying, and that Amini had indeed been operated on for the brain tumor. Regardless of her real cause of death—a police beating (such things can happen anywhere), natural causes, or a CIA plot—it is obvious that the CIA was going to manufacture and hype stories of “young attractive Iranian women beaten to death by morality police” by whatever means necessary, and that Amini’s sudden demise the day after Iran joined the SCO was hardly a coincidence.
https://crescent.icit-digital.org/articles/iran-joins-sco-next-day-spontaneous-riots-erupt
Once upon a time, back in ye olde year of 2012 for example, I was pro gay rights. I would have considered appearing side by side with homosexual people in public fora. But then I realised that “gay rights” was not about gay rights: it was a political programme to be used as an imperialist tool, just like the original 19th century “civilising mission” of the Europistani colonialists was the excuse to attack, occupy, enslave, and loot Asia and Africa. Further, there is no end to this “gay rights” thing: first it was homosexual people, then “transgenders”, then whatever “gender fluid” is, then people claiming they can choose their own pronouns, and now it’s no surprise that ephebophiles and paedophiles demand inclusion in this patently political power grab jamboree. From being pro gay rights I have – this is only part of my 180° away from liberalism – become at best neutral, and am on the verge of joining, the “totally against” side. And it is the political imperialist agenda of the LGBTACDEFHIJKMNOPQRSUVWXYZ lot that is responsible for this.
Yeah, i can relate…
There is some not so fine line between “we were born like that and we do not hold blame for it” and “this should be normal and fashionable and privileged”
Of course,the same thing can be said about women’s rights. If you were in the USA prior to the wars against Iraq and Afghanistan, you’ll recall that there was plenty of manufactured outrage about the way the Taliban treated women, to say nothing of the supposedly insatiable rape appetite of Saddam Hussein and his sons. All this from a country that had allowed its own proposed Equal Rights (i.e., for women) Amendment die in the late 1970s. And today we have a Democratic Party that is interested in abortion rights only as an issue to scare reluctant followers to the polls.
It is useful to separate the following two questions:
1. Is the USA using “rights for minority X” as a weapon to further its imperialist ambitions?
2. What rights, if any, should minority X have?
When you really, really, REALLY love anime….
https://www.newsweek.com/russia-planned-attack-japan-2021-fsb-letters-1762133
A letter authored by the whistleblower…. has been analyzed by Christo Grozev, an expert on the FSB.
In August 2021, Russia was “quite seriously preparing for a localized military conflict with Japan,” the agent said in an email to Osechkin in March. The FSB agent suggested that Russia instead chose to invade Ukraine months later.
“Confidence that the countries would enter the stage of acute confrontation and even war was high. Why Ukraine was chosen for war in the end [the scenario was not changed much] is for others to answer,” they wrote.
It all makes sense now, doesn’t it?
I can’t help linking a popular Russian meme here: http://neolurk.org/wiki/%D0%9A%D0%BE%D1%82_%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B4_%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%BC%D0%BF%D0%BE%D0%B9
https://aurelien2022.substack.com/p/europes-inner-demons
Maybe an interesting writer about European history and politics.
This specific essay on “why hating Russia” feels somewhat too wordy for a somewhat obvious conclusion “we need an enemy, outside or among us”
Others might happen more interesting