Putin re-routed...

[ftlaudft]

Here's a continuation of the discussion started by the pics of barefooted and black-belted Vladimir Putin. We've been discussing turnons and turnoffs and everyone agrees that we don't choose our turnons; they seem to choose us. We also agree that fantasies are a good thing and I think we agree we all like a guy in a uniform.

But some of us can't be sexually stimulated by certain uniforms (German Nazis and Russian KGB uniforms, for example) because we have associations with people who suffered at the hands of the German invaders and also from the cruelty of fellow Russians who were KGB.

Freyr points out that it's well for us to point out the horrors that occurred under communism. But we must also remember the injustices committed against workers in Britain and in the United States, especially during the 19th century and the first part of the 20th. I would suggest that we go even earlier and look at the Spanish conquistadores who came to the New World to bring their culture, their civilization, their religion - and who succeeded in making the native people their work slaves while they, the Spanish, robbed from them, the native Indians, their wealth, their minerals, their gold.

We've heard a lot about pointing the finger lately and I think finger-pointing is a good thing. The United States is still a great nation. If it is not the greatest, it is at least one of the three or four top contenders. I'm going to turn off my phone now, so "don't beep for me, Argentina" just because you did not make it to the list.

A good nation will look for injustice and point the finger at it. A great nation will look for injustice and point the finger at itself when it has not supported its ideals. A great nation will admit its errors and try to correct them.

I remember attending a Panikhida, a requiem or memorial for the dead, in a Leningrad working church. It was long ago, at a time when being seen entering a working church was not politically correct. The people were remembering those who died when the Germans besieged the city and murdered the women and their children who tried to flee. The memorial was also for those who died at the hands of their fellow Russians, although no one mentioned the KGB. I will never forget the faces of sorrow on the old women, the babushki, and the few old men who attended. The Russian Orthodox music was moving and the poetry of the liturgy very uplifting. "With Thy saints give rest...." "Vechnaya pamyat." "Eternal Memory..."


Back in this country, I started reading about the injustices committed against the American Indians. It's true, there were no moving prayer services for the dead, such as the one I had attended in Leningrad. But books were being published, like "Bury my heart at Wounded Knee." Movies were beginning to show a truer picture of what had happened to the Indians, like "Dances With Wolves." In all my years studying American history, I had never heard of such things. But in the United States it was possible finally to discover the truth and to publish the truth.

I don't think the greatness of a nation can be measured by the number of cars with flags flying from their windows. We have to look instead at how a nation takes care of its very young and its very old, how it educates its children, how it cares for its sick, and how it treats its minorities. No nation is perfect. The good nation will acknowledge its mistakes. The great nation will do more than acknowledge: it will fight constantly to improve and to grow.


How have we treated our minorities? What have we done to the Indians? What is our track record with Blacks? What are we doing with our immigrants, legal and illegal? What more could we be doing? What should we be doing?

So many questions! I wish I had more answers. But the challenge of living is looking for them.

[Freyr]

I don't think the greatness of a nation can be measured by the number of cars with flags flying from their windows. We have to look instead at how a nation takes care of its very young and its very old, how it educates its children, how it cares for its sick, and how it treats its minorities. No nation is perfect. The good nation will acknowledge its mistakes. The great nation will do more than acknowledge: it will fight constantly to improve and to grow.


How have we treated our minorities? What have we done to the Indians? What is our track record with Blacks? What are we doing with our immigrants, legal and illegal? What more could we be doing? What should we be doing?

So many questions! I wish I had more answers. But the challenge of living is looking for them.

I agree with everything you've said here. I would just expand on a few points.

Remember, only 50 to 60 years ago, being homosexual in our country could mean a jail sentence or mandatory psychotherapy which could mean electro-shock therapy or hormone injections to "cure" this person. The US has made great strides forward in its treatment of minorities, but there's still a great distance to go.

Another big point between ourselves and the former Soviet Union is our history. While the US and the colonies before hand had a history of voting and legislating to decide issues, Russia (from whence the Soviet Union sprang) has only recently (within the past 100 years) moved from a royalist government to something that's basically democratic. And that revolution was violent and lead by a minority, not necessarily a populist revolution. Getting used to that type of shift of social consciousness takes time, usually decades but it could take longer. They, too, have a long way to go in recognizing minority rights and how they deal with them.

[ftlaudft]

Minorities! I always found the Russian people warm and loving and surprisingly full of good wishes for America. But they do have a bad record for mistreatment of their minorities. Some have even called Russia the cradle of anti-Semitism.

But we have to look at our own treatment of minorities. In the history of the gay minority, one of the saddest chapters, as Freyr mentions, is the forced electric shock treatment used on gays to straighten them out. Some became vegetables. Some died. It's been stopped, but we shouldn't forget. What people did once they may try to do again.

What confuses me is the attitude towards gays as a threat to marriage. How are you or I threatening the marriage of Sarah and Todd, for example? They're not worried about the waitress in the diner with the big boobs. They're not worried about the usherette at the Juneau Cinemateque who wears a skirt so short you can see the fur line. No, the threat comes from ordinary schmucks like you and me, who whack and shack as discreetly as we can, and probably not as often as we like. How can they think that the big threat to their marriage is the gay couple in a residential suburb of Philadelphia who have sex twice a month with the shades down and the lights out?

Honey, if your marriage is so shaky you have to worry about us, then maybe you ought to learn a few new tricks. Try something different. Read the Kama Sutra. Rent a few porno flix. Try role playing. Just leave us alone! We have enough trouble trying to remember whose turn it is to be on top! Or who gets to be Tarzan tonight and which one has to play naughty Cheetah!