Every nation has its own foundational myths. God knows the way Americans mythologize their founding fathers to so far beyond the bounds of credibility doesn't bother them.
The idea is people who point out a movie like Pearl Harbor is inaccurate aren't attacked in the US.
Meanwhile in the U.S. you can very well be sued into submission and silence if your opponent is sufficiently deep-pocketed. Not exactly congruent to top-down repression of unruly bloggers as happens occasionally in Russia. But still, we in the U.S. aren't always as free to "tell truth to power" as we might like to think we are.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strategic_lawsuit_against_publ...
What triggers them is any suggestion that the Nazis were good and suggesting the surrender of St Petersburg to the Nazis would have been great definitely falls into that category for the majority of Russians.
On top of that St Petersburg really has a problem with violent Neo Nazis groups, or at least had - don't know how it's today.
I'm actually pro freedom of speech to a degree that most people in Europe are not (I would allow them have their stupid demonstrations) but the truth is that in most countries some ideologies are forbidden. Nazism is forbidden in most parts of Europe or how about showing public support for ISIS.
I'm 100% sure it is forbidden everywhere in Europe (maybe with UK being the only exception).
Well, it's not like anyone's trying to get the USSR officially reconstituted. But there does seem to be a very deep undercurrent of respect about what the USSR stood for (as a form a "Greater Russia", in effect), independent of the CPSU's hegemony over it.
As exemplified by, for example, Putin's famous statement about its collapse being "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century". And the widespread contempt for Gorbachev for having presided over it (or at least for having caved into under far too generous terms for Russia's geopolitical adversaries).
It does bother some of us. In fact, it's one of the things that annoys me most in political discourse with some individuals, especially religious ones. While not religious myself, I at least respect a few key portions of the Christian Bible, namely the portions of the Gospels demonstrating and advocating for true compassion and mercy for others, and the detachment of self from worldly possessions. Which is almost exactly counter the Religious Right's views in the US. Those who have nearly deified, certainly sanctified or beatified, the Founding Fathers and authors of the Constitution, along with their apparent view of the Constitution as a sacred text, despite its obvious flaws and amendments over the centuries. And who view wealth as the measure of a man, while simultaneously claiming to be devout Christians.
"Render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's" and "No Man can serve two masters" are passages which, I'm very nearly convinced, few US Christians have read or consider important.
But what was accomplished by the American 'Founding Fathers' was extraordinary and some of them were truly exceptional people.
Not in a Ra-Ra Blind Patriotism way. Just look at the choices they made and the scope and magnitude of the results of their actions.
"what was accomplished by the American 'Founding Fathers' was extraordinary" actually what they achieved was a bit of a cop-out, in fact T. Jefferson helped draft the Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen which was a much more progressive document in scope and content. That is, so much more could have been accomplished in social, cultural, and political terms.
I mean having things like "Liberty consists of doing anything which does not harm others" and "The society has the right of requesting account from any public agent of its administration" or "Any society in which the guarantee of rights is not assured, nor the separation of powers determined, has no Constitution" directly in the consituion instead of The Three-Fifth Compromise shows what each society finds important and necessary to be enshrined in the Constitution.
The Declaration of the Rights of Man was an idealistic credo that was never the basis for French government policy and was made a mockery of by the Terror.
The US founding was extraordinary.
But ultimately at this point the US is culturally on a completely different level compared to backward nationalist countries like Russia. Maybe you're not familiar with American education, but a good portion of what we learn at a young age is actually national self criticism. In my personal experience I'd estimate almost half of my history education up to high school was on
- the terrible things we did to the Native Americas
- the terrible things we did to Slaves
- the terrible way we oppressed African Americans
Even when we learn about the founding fathers, time is always take out to point out the hypocrisies that happened at the time. I think the fact that a bunch of intelligent men were able to found a national structure that has lasted this long and has managed to regulate itself away from tyranny is truly magical and a great historical achievement. The more I learn about it, the more improbably it all seems - there were so many chances for it to go wrong. What are they on in France, their fifth republic? Or is it their 6th?
ETA: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_slavery#Among_indig...
That doesn't happen (yet... until Trump) in the USA or western democracies.
Thank you.
Your ability to report on Clinton's shortcomings has been dismal in comparison to Trump. It's clear there is an editorial bias.
Please explain to me why Trump's changing-room-gate has been on the main page all week, but there hasn't been any coverage of Clinton's suggestion of assassinating Assange with drones? Both are deplorable, private comments said (at best) in jest.