I'm feeling comfortable.

[Jesus Malverde]

I grew up hating the Russians. I was educated that no other people threatened freedom, democracy, liberty and the world like the Russians did.

Then overnight, I was supposed to put aside my years of hatred and indoctrinated bias. Just like that, we embraced our enemy (because capitalism) and all was ignored.

It was then revealed to me by the media that the Russians were actually people and not monsters.

It's happening again.

We've come full circle. I can now let those familiar memes, the ones I suppressed, rise up and comfort me.

I'm proud knowing that we live in the land of Freedom, Liberty, Opportunity and Democracy while they live enslaved in a corrupt police state run by oligarchs.

Fact: the Russians have funny bathrooms and enough missiles to kill every human being on the planet.

USA USA USA #1

[Warpy]

1. One batch of cousins is half Russian

so I went through the Cold War feeling like a traitor because I didn't hate Russians. I had little use for their government and I had little use for ours, so things were pretty even on that score, too.

But yes, I can see the whole stupid thing starting to build again. The far right needs somebody to hate at all times.

[Jesus Malverde]

6. A turning point for me was meeting a Russian who had grown up in the soviet system

and learning that their schools were better than ours in educating literature, history, classical music etc.

[Warpy]

11. As feudal as their brand of socialism turned out

they were still all about lifting the lower classes up, at least as far as intellectual and artistic lives go. That was a laudable aim.

I always lived in the sort of neighborhoods immigrants live in (cheap) and I heard a lot of Russian spoken in Boston and I hear a little spoken here.

[kelliekat44]

2. And they suffer from massive alcoholism and fetal alcohol syndrome. You need something to cheer you

in such a dreary place.

[uppityperson]

3. I speak out against racism, sexism, homophobia, etc where ever I see it, where ever it is.

No "usa usa usa" for me but simply noticing and addressing bigotry everywhere and trying to not let it slide.

[Bluenorthwest]

4. I raised with no such antipathy toward Russia I am sorry you were

The homophobia gets no pass from me. That's also a function of my upbringing.

[Jesus Malverde]

5. It's the weekend...lets fire up a copy of "Red Dawn"

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0087985/

Wolverines!

See it's all coming back...

[Fumesucker]

7. It's nice having someone to look down upon for a change

I do kind of wonder how the Freepers are handling the cognitive dissonance.

But not remotely enough to go and look.

[Jesus Malverde]

8. I went to Vietnam a couple years ago.

Never met more awesome people and culture, they let me travel their country with open arms and welcomed me everywhere.

I think we killed about one million of them, and lost 50,000 of our brothers and sisters doing it.

It was strange to connect all that.

[Fumesucker]

9. It's enough to make you wonder how we get into this crap sometimes...

Most people are pretty decent I think, it takes real talent and effort to make implacable enemies.

[OilemFirchen]

10. Having befriended quite a few Ahiska Turks,

all of whom had been living in Russia without the benefit of citizenship or human rights, I have a slightly different impression about the pastoral Russia you imagine. Their history, culminating in a humanitarian exodus to the U.S. in the early 2000's, is ever so slightly chilling.

I'm interested to hear about a native group of U.S. citizens living here statelessly within the past fifteen years. Should make for a very interesting comparison.

Here's a starting point for illumination.