Is it Moral to Criticize Our Superiors?
WARNING: you will go straight to hell for even reading this.
Don’t worry, this isn’t going to be another rant about how morality is nothing more than Carthaginian peace terms set by the victors of the last great war. I actually have a couple of very specific points and examples to make. Recently, someone shared some posts on Telegram with me from Russian samizdat. I didn’t know how to work the contents of the posts into a blog entry, but then I figured that I ought to say a few words about Russian samizdat in general to try and explain some things first.
A Brief History of Samizdat
Before Telegram came along, there was LiveJournal, where many Russian bloggers gathered to lambast Putin and the Kremlin from literally all sectors of the political quadrant. You would be hard-pressed to find a single Kremlin supporter anywhere on the entire blog site, which was essentially a streamlined Wordpress for Russians. Then Telegram came along and triggered a veritable explosion in samizdat. All of a sudden, it became easier than ever to share and discuss the news and connect with like-minded people. Unlike Twitter, there are no algorithms on Telegram so what you look for is what you get. Furthermore, a typical post is similarly character-limited per message, but it is substantially higher than the Twitter cap, allowing for short blog entries. Telegram occupies a kind of golden mean between the pithy one-or-two-liners of Twitter and the sprawling screeds of LiveJournal. Posters have to be succinct, but they can also flesh out their thoughts somewhat. The effects that mass adoption of Telegram has had on Russian society should and probably are being studied. Never before has there been such a concentrated and coherent source of anti-Kremlin news so readily available to the Russian people. Anyone who uses the internet regularly, 45-year-olds and below, has access to this direct source of information. The channels are run by SMO veterans, by minor political figures, by ideologues of various stripes and just by various run-of-the-mill internet cranks as can be expected.
Of the literally hundreds of major channels talking about politics in Russian all over the FSU, not all of them are hardcore anti-Kremlin channels dedicated to toppling Putin. Most of them are generally just dedicated to complaining about the endless stream of abuses of power and corruption cases that plague the Slavlands. A lot of these channels are anti-you-know-who, even though it isn’t the main focus of their efforts, nor would most of them even admit to being anti-them. Its just, if you’re going to be complaining about politics in the Slavlands, you’re going to eventually start criticizing the people who actually own and run everything and make life hard for the peasants that they lord over. I, of course, condemn these peasants for criticizing their superiors.
It is very immoral of them to do so.
When we’re talking about generic Z-channels that cover various aspects of the war, most of them, well, they cover various aspects of the war. They don’t dedicate themselves to never-ending streams of Kremlin-hate. But they will occasionally critique the rulers in Russia and this makes them so so so different from ZAnon in the West. The contrast really does make you realize that ZAnon bloggers are on the payroll of someone because they have an inhuman level of tolerance for the decisions of the higher-ups in Moscow. Complaining about the government is such an inherently human thing to do that when you don’t see it being done on occasion, you just know that you’re dealing with propaganda, and very clumsy propaganda at that. Because it’s not like our overlords haven’t mastered the art of creating subtle propagandist assets in the West.
But in Russia, where literally no one understands what the Kremlin (or Kiev for that matter but to a lesser extent) stands for and where everyone has to either be bought or coerced to adopt the government line, you can almost see hear the quota tickers being clicked each time a Western Zanonner produces his agreed upon bi-weekly standing ovation of the Shoigu with such boot-licking fervor that even Stalin would have blushed and have had a word with his spooks about such over-the-top enthusiasm on display.
“Hey comrade, at least pretend to disagree with me from time to time, because you’re laying it on too thick!”
Real samizdat looks nothing like what Westerners are being fed.
Organic posters will occasionally allow themselves to grumble about the government.
That’s what I do here. That’s why I am the real thing. The last “alternative” blogger left in the alternative infosphere. At least about Russia and Ukraine.
OK, so take this example sent to me by a colleague from a generic Z-channel.
…
Actually, let me summarize the story quickly. Basically, the MoD embezzled the money allocated for vehicles and so regular Russians have been forced to use their own vehicles or to raise money to repair and buy their own vehicles to fulfill their combat or support missions. Instead of supporting the effort and praising the Russian people for their camaraderie, Shoigu and the FSB have been persecuting volunteer organizations since even before the start of the SMO. He claims that the work of volunteers discredits the war effort by spreading the myth that there are shortfalls in the military. Such a thing cannot exist because Moscow is more moral than the Satano-Nazis though. What, you disagree? Are you admitting that you are Satano-Nazi? A-ha! That’s what I thought! Checkmate, Satanist!
Here:
I was forced to write this text because of the news that the high brows at the group’s headquarters (this is confirmed) from the “great mind” decided, as I believe, to compensate for the lack of availability of vehicles that they should have according to the regulations but which in reality is irrevocability scrap metal at whose expense? Take a guess. Correct, at the expense of serving personnel who have learned to quickly solve the transport problem, forced to buy vehicles with their own money, receiving cars and other vehicles for funds from fees in the departments’ channels, in the form of humanitarian supplies from people and organizations, as well as authorities in the regions, who support their fellow countrymen.
Now, we have covered the charges of “discrediting of the war effort” that have been leveled at volunteers before by the Russian government. It is one of the topics that only this blog allows itself to cover, despite vociferous moral condemnations from our Z-colleagues.
I mockingly refer to such high crimes as “discrediting the Shoigu” for good reason because we ought to call things by their proper names and not hide behind euphemisms and bland bureau-speak.
And yet despite the continued arrests of patriots in Russia, posts like this continue to be made on Russian samizdat.
Next, he describes how the Shoigu passes regulations to fine and penalize and impound these volunteer vehicles in the name of public safety. At least they had the decency to not call it a COVID threat like they usually do. Russia is still battling there unique COVID DisCR13ITATi-0N strain, doncha know?
We should count our blessings at this point.
How exactly this idea would ensure road safety, which is declared as the basis of this new document, is not clear to me. Exactly the same, I believe, as certificates for various non-standard equipment, when the conditional “piece of hardware” becomes “safe” after receiving the piece of paper from the MoD. This does not cancel the laws of physics in the collision of solid and elastic bodies.
Below are a few quotes from the document:
- All personal cars should be seized, placed in impound lots, and their further use prohibited.
- Prohibit the operation of vehicles received free of charge through humanitarian aid from municipal and state enterprises, legal entities and individuals until they are registered with the subsidy bodies of the RF Ministry of Defense and the completion of registration actions with the VAI bodies, ensuring the legality of the operation of weapons and military equipment.
- Eliminate cases of allowing unprepared vehicles to operate, regardless of the importance and urgency of the tasks.
Finally, he points out that Moscow is full of stolen vehicles from Donbass, some of which are driven openly by the wives and lovers of officials who haven’t even bothered to swap out the plates.
Hmmm. I still remember hearing a sincere gasp when in Moscow I saw a premium crossover with DONETSK military license plates with a woman of a very typical “Insta” appearance. And also from the fact that armored vehicles, which, instead of transporting and evacuating fighters AT AND AROUND THE FRONT FRONT, travel around towns and villages 50/70 km from the “front line”, between “repair stations” and shops.
Now, having shared this discrediting information posted by a disgruntled Russian patriot, have I become an immoral person? Will Yahweh smite me for helping the Nazi-Satanists? Have we regressed back into a caricature of the Dark Ages in Western discourse? Will the FSB arrest this man for discrediting the Shoigu, who is second only to Jesus Christ himself and therefore beyond reproach by any mortal person?
Over several recent posts, I’ve taken to pointing out that, actually, under a representative government, such criticism is taken as a sign of robustness in the body politik by an engaged citizenry committed to doing their own personal part to making society a better place to live.
Or in simpler ZAnon words: TREACHERY.
I remember doing an interview in which Aussie Uzbek warned me that I would be punished by the FSB for criticizing Russia during Not-War time. He has subsequently been gifted a Russian citizenship by the FSB while still in the embassy for his good work in the info-trenches and I am sure he reported me to his higher-ups as well. The RF rewards petty criminals and liars who have no scruples because the Kremlin is run by such people and so it feels comfortable doing business with such people. It is easier to simply buy or coerce loyalty out of someone. It is harder to actually stand for something that other people would willingly want to support out of conviction. That would require some accountability in front of one’s citizens and allies, and we can’t have that in the SMO, which is veering dangerously into “discrediting of the Shoigu” territory, so maybe they will be forced to retire and memory-hole this SMO business soon as well.
Next, I thought I’d share some more recent Satano-Nazism from yet another large Z-patriot samizdat account. This time, about the FSB hunting down and deporting Donbass vets so that they can be arrested by Russia’s esteemed partners in the FSU. Here:
Comrade “Philologist” raises the right questions (https://t.me/philologist_zov/735), which have already interested the entire patriotic community of Russia, except the Kremlin itself. And he even gives answers to them, which, in general, are also correct. But there is something that the comrade is missing.
For convenience, we will compile all the questions into one and formulate it this way: why does the Russian Federation stubbornly not protect Russians? To answer this, it is worth making a significant amendment. The targets of repression in the countries of the former Soviet Union are not only Donbass veterans, but also completely peaceful citizens. The main motive here is their support for Russia. And in most cases, even their words are enough. We have all heard about the mass persecution of pro-Russian citizens in the Baltic states, Armenia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, not to mention pre-war Ukraine.
Sure, but the Kremlin censors information about the ethnic cleansing of Russians.
For many years, you weren’t even allowed to point out the ethnic cleansing going on in Donbass! Minsk II had solved all that, remember! Only conspiracy cranks and NAZIS! doubted the sacredness of Lavrov’s great diplomatic masterpiece!
How quickly the peasants forget!
Nowadays, you are still not allowed to talk about the treatment of Russians in the FSU and propagandists like Shapiro have even explained why: because it smacks of Hitlerism.
Yes, the voice of Russia has claimed on his show that because Hitler stood up for the welfare of Germans being killed on British orders by the Polish government in Gdansk and organized a humanitarian limited policing intervention in brotherly Poland to save lives and “denazify” and “demilitarize” Poland, that Russia cannot do the same. By the way, it is illegal to compare Russia to Nazi Germany, and the SMO as well. And yet, you have propagandists like Shapiro warning about how Russia better tread carefully to not end up looking like Hitler, obviously drawing said parallels by even bringing them up. By pointing out that Hitler, who was pure evil and possibly even a Nazi (Satanic), was trying to return marooned Germans to Germany, in the context of Russia’s SMO, repeatedly, Shapiro was essentially saying, “I support the SMO, but don’t get any funny ideas, Russians, you better not start thinking about other territories”.
How he gets away with saying what he does is … well … some people in Russia have krishas over their heads and can say whatever they want, while people such as myself need to tread a lot more carefully, clearly.
Russia has, in my opinion, legitimate claim to many territories that were carved off from her by the Bolsheviks and then in the 90s by Yeltsin and recognized by Putin later, of course. This is a dangerous and provocative statement to make in Russia, and it won’t make you any friends among the ruling class and Putin’s spooks, who exist to find and arrest people who allow themselves to speak like this.
Like the north and west of Kazakhstan. Russians all over the FSU were ethnically cleansed, in many cases within Russia proper. Putin was a top spook at the time, and he and his buddies did nothing while his boss, Yeltsin encouraged this to happen.
Yes, this became widespread in 2014, but everything has been clear at least since the 90s. How much intelligence does it take to think that states that literally expel Russians from “their” territories will suddenly become friends? Not much, but the Russian Federation did not reach this conclusion, because it simply decided to turn a blind eye to all this chaos.
Worse, Putin props up anti-Russian governments around Russia. Like saving Tokayev’s Russophobic government that even now is working to ban Russian and even Cyrillic in the name of combatting Nazism. I kid you not. But more on Kazakhstan another time.
Like the revolutionary Kiev government, which was a) recognized by Putin b) financed by Russia’s oligarchs (still the supplies flow to Ukraine!) c) Moscow helped assassinate the pro-Russians in Donbass d) refused Poroshenko’s offer to take Donbass e) tried to hand over Donbass and Crimea, but were prevented by Boris Johnson, etc.
Anyway.
The Russian Federation thoughtlessly sent money, equipment, and weapons to the CIS countries, gave jobs to migrants, to the detriment of its own citizens, and then it turned out that these countries suddenly wanted to join NATO. Then we know: “we believed, we were deceived, we believed again, we were deceived again,” and now the SMO has been going on for the second year. Well, mistakes happen, even if they are so stupid. You just need to draw conclusions for the future and change tactics. What is the Russian Federation doing? He persistently continues to sponsor such “friends”.
Oops. Putin is just too naive and trusting. It is his greatest failing. He is simply too moral for this world.
This is because he is a true Christian and you are a nasty Nazi-Satanist that doesn’t believe in the power of Eternal Friendship Joyfulness Happiness Defeat of Nazism in 1945!
Russia literally supports Kazakhstan's economy and its army. In response, the republic participates in sanctions, cooperates with NATO, pursues an open Russophobic policy, and Tokayev just spits in Putin’s face, refusing to recognize the L-DPR and Crimea. What is this if not a complete repetition of the scenario along which the crests moved? But we still pay Ukraine’s grandmas, with which the government buys weapons to kill Russian people.
Yeah I think he is referring to “Russian” banks like Alfa taxing remittances and sending money to the UAF. If you guys know what he is referring to, link it in the comments, I remember seeing it somewhere, but didn’t save it.
What is this? Stupidity, hopeless situation or deliberate destruction of the country? I would like to think that this is stupidity, but everything points to a merger of the last two factors. The weak-willed political leadership of the country itself allowed the crisis to arise, when soft power is no longer enough to restore a dominant position in the East. Fearing to go too far, Putin will never even make an attempt to seize the initiative, and his entourage (whose task is only to make money) will not allow forces ready to take radical steps in the name of the country to get into power.
Yes, as Nikola and I discussed recently, Putin’s government was put into power to prevent Socialist and Nationalist forces in Russia from overthrowing the Globalist satrapy set up by Yeltsin.
There is hopelessness and betrayal here, but by no means stupidity. There are programs to protect Russian-speaking citizens. There are Rossotrudnichestvo, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, human rights ombudsmen, and so on.
They exist, but they have no meaning.
My own family can’t move to Russia despite having served in the USSR and being Russian. We simply don’t qualify. Millions of Russians marooned all over the FSU are in even worse shape than my folks.
The Kremlin probably just doesn’t want Whites and that is probably why they rejected the Boer farmers and refuses to help conservative Westerners move over in any significant numbers as well.
Them’s the facts.
Militiaman Benes Ayo escaped deportation to Latvia with great difficulty and received a Russian passport thanks to public support. The authorities tried several times to extradite him to Latvia. Human rights activist Vladimir Linderman, expelled to Latvia, where they are persistently trying to put him behind bars. Yevgeny Shcherbak, also a Donbass militiaman, whom the domestic special services extradited to Kazakhstan. Ermek Taychibekov, serving a second term in Kazakhstan for supporting Russia. Sergei Shalashov, Evgeniy Vdovenko, Valikhan Sultanov were also convicted in the Republic of Kazakhstan for participating in the Donbass militia. And this is only a small part of the immense list of oppression of Russians in “friendly” countries. The list of those who were helped looks much smaller.
I hate to harp on about this, but I literally got threatened with deportation to Ukraine, despite having lived and worked in Russia, where I would have ended up arrested for draft-dodging by the Russian FSB, which is busy deporting Russians who served in Donbass to FSU countries where they will be sent to be tortured in jail.
My case was nothing special though. The Kremlin hates Russia-supporters in the FSU because we would complain about how we were being mistreated and appeal to Moscow for help on occasion, which made Moscow look bad because they weren’t ever going to lift a finger to help us and would have preferred that we pipe down and die quietly.
As a result, the answer to the question “why doesn’t the Russian Federation protect Russians?” sounds like this: the Russian Federation is doing business, and not building a strong state as opposed to the West, but attempts to protect people who will be regarded as such.
In order not to anger business partners, the Russian Federation remains silent.
And now, having a complete picture of what is happening, we understand that to questions regarding the protection of Russians we need to add the question “...if the government itself in the country is anti-Russian?” The answers, Comrade Philologist, will be completely different. However, we know them and tirelessly name them. I would like to know your opinion on this matter.
And there you have it.
By the way, speaking of discreditation, Yury Ievich, the Donbass combat medic who got arrested for complaining about the lack of medical supplies on the front leading to needless deaths of Russians (released after outcry by TRAITORS complaining on Telegram) says that some Russian generals were just recently bundled up in a carpet and whisked off to answer for their crimes to Moscow. Here:
Good news from the front. Literally yesterday. Several scum, degenerates, f*ggots, who through God's oversight [lmao nice] became generals, were finally arrested for allowing heavy losses. They took me them to Lefortovo [prison for Kremlin’s prisoners in Moscow]. Let's all pray that these degenerates get what they deserve. And so that there would be such news as often as possible, until finally news like this stops. We hope for the most brutal justice against everyone who allows such unjustified losses [of our soldiers].
I ask you again, is it immoral to share news concerning the arrest of negligent generals? The answer is of course, that it will be moral or not depending on whether the media is allowed to cover this news and how they will cover it. If I disagree with the coverage, or talk about it at all when the higher-ups prefer just to hush the news up, I am immoral. See how that works? Sorry, sorry, I promised to not rant about morality again, didn’t I?
Back on topic.
Of course, the Russian military is in very sorry shape indeed and everyone knows it.
Shoigu and Serdyukov before him absolutely gutted the military on the Kremlin’s orders, who were told to do so by Langley, probably. The Russian military has always been a bastion of conservativeness, patriotism and Russianness compared to the Party or the spooks or the oligarchy, so it was important for Putin to de-Russify it and completely reform it into a mercenary force, like the one that we see now losing the war in Donbass.
I’ve written about this several times before as well. Ignore the click-bait title. I need to make my bread somehow and you ingrates refuse to support the blog:
I bring all these topics up, at once, because we’ve had an influx of raw recruits in recent days. This is a kind of orientation for them to acquaint themselves with some of the core theses and themes of this blog. Morality, censorship, the Kremlin, and lots and lots of Slavlands lore.
I’ve politely asked my casual readers to step up and sign on to become full-fledged Stalkers several times now, but I’ve had a whopping ZERO new paid subs since I turned over my new leaf and stopped cajoling and abusing my casual readers. Nothing. Nada. Zip.
Here, read this appeal and see if it doesn’t change your mind:
If this appeal fails, well, I think that you guys know what comes next …
The new readers don’t know who they are messing with. They think I’m a nice guy blogger. They simply don’t know. They haven’t seen the horror. They don’t know what I will inflict on my casual readers to get them to come to their senses and to get them to do the right thing.
I just want you to be informed, dear reader. But to inform you, I need to get paid. If you think this blog is for free, you have been woefully misinformed. All readers MUST pay the toll. There are no exceptions. And I will go to any lengths to make sure you are informed … that is, I will go to any lengths to make you pay me the money that you and I both know that you owe me.
Fellow Stalkers, I appeal to you next. Speak sense to them if you can. We’ve seen what the bad times on the blog were like. I don’t want that and I know that you don’t want that. Help me help us all to avoid that path. Please. I beg you.
I don’t like what they are making me become …
Please … just do the right thing and pick up the paid sub. Your stinginess and ingratitude is putting us all on a road of darkness and pain and grief. Don’t force me to go down that road again. Because even though I can try to lie to myself and say, “you’re not like Rolo, the previous owner of this blog, you’re better than he is, more moral even!” I know that this is not really true. Only a steady count of paid subs keeps the darkness in my heart at bay. Keeps it from being unleashed on my casual readers.
Know this.
When the lights go out and the pavement turns the gravel, and your guzoline runs out, I will be waiting for you there at the end of that road as you frantically turn the key in the ignition.
But there will be no escape for you. Nor for anyone who refused to pay the toll.
I think it helps if you consider this blog to be a kind of chain letter. Once you opened it, you have to pay up and then pass it on or face the curse. And I am that curse.
*tap* *tap* is there a problem with your engine, sir?
You have now entered the wasteland territory of a feral war-engine bloatlord. He doesn’t care that you took a wrong turn or that you just wanted to use the rest stop. He feels no mercy and fears no pain.
And neither do I.
Do you even comprehend the grave danger that you are in now???
Only you can bring the horror to an end!
You must pay the toll!!
Do IT NOW!!!
…
..
.
Thanks in advance for your support!
See you tomorrow!
I’m guessing that the initial question was rhetorical, but of course it’s not moral to criticise our superiors. Our superiors decide what is right and they say that criticising them is bad so that’s that. Morality 101.
Rurik, why doesn’t Rolo give up on Russia and support Belarus with his tax shekels instead? He would be a hoot at somewhere like Belta, and the cheese and salami are delicious.
FFS don't inflict us with some Dreizin shit tactics, I never gave him a cent despite his abuse (and I'm glad since he showed himself a Gaza genocide apologist).
You got to realize that you're either doing the influencer game and prostitute yourself and maybe make a living or fight the good fight and stay poor. This is the old soul way, the distrust of money as a necessary evil. This is what distinguish of from the chosen.
Americans / protestants have been corrupted by the lure of easy money it's Mammon all over again.
Your content is way too niche to make enough money. I don't know many person that could understand it and not even one single person that wouldn't dismiss it as crackpotery.
I believe it's a hidden gem but I could be wrong you could also be a CIA plant.
You chose to adress intelligent readers. Don't use BS emotional tactics to get money, they'll give if they consider it's worth their time / money.
FWIW I never pay for content online (I make slightly better than minimum wage in France), what does it tell you that I paid for yours?