Tuck It Away, Western Meltdown As Russia Simps For Likes
Or How The Masks Have Been Torn Away By A Journalist
Breathless, fawning, excited, desperate, needy - it’s been painful watching Russia and Russians feel validated by the presence of a former CNN employee. People forget that Tucker Carlson has moved around the political spectrum and as a good friend told me, he’s in it for Tucker. He is, rightly so. He has made Russians feel relevant again and shown up the western media as a hateful mish-mash of psychos, deviants and hypocrites. It has even shown up politicians and ‘businessmen’ who preach about free speech, yet the thought of Vladimir Putin being heard in the West without the slant of some undereducated ‘expert’ (ie grifter) has sent them into apoplexy.
Jail him, ban him, silence him - elected EU and US politicians want a journalist punished for doing their job. Oh, and Evan “Grifter” Gershkovich gets a name check each time too. That’s what Russia thinks of journalists, the BBC screech. The BBC. The British Broadcasting Corporation. The state-owned and run media empire that is based in London. London, England. Where Julian Assange remains imprisoned, awaiting extradition to the USA on charges of exposing American war crimes. It feels like I ate a magic mushroom over the weekend and awoke in some weird parallel universe. So briefly, what is going on?
Christiane Amanpour, who never met a cheque she didn’t fancy, destroyed CNN’s chances of ever having a sitdown with Vladimir Putin following her theft of the interview with Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the car crash it turned out to be. She screeched that Tucker is doing Putin’s work. So too the oddball Steve Rosenberg, the BBC header in Russia, who can play all winning Eurovision songs on the piano. A man who has yet to report or write a single good thing about Russia since 2018.
Bill Browder, the ‘businessman’ who gets so much airtime with seemingly rational journalists, without ever being asked about his role in ponzi schemes here. A man who ripped off pensioners and vulnerable people, escaped justice, let a junior employee take the fall and die in prison. A corrupt, corrupting person who also had a go at Tucker Carlson for speaking with another human being. But if western politicians and self-acclaimed “for corrs” are furious, it is a different kind of pathetic mania here in Russia.
Tucker went to a French-owned supermarket (Ashan) to see if the shelves really were bare. The nation rejoiced - now the stupid western media will see we’re not living off Red Cross handouts (was one reaction from Moscow media). He went to McDonalds - he had 2 burgers and fries and….see, he knows McDonalds is still here, haha, he’ll expose the scam (was the reaction from a state broadcaster). If Tucker took a poo, there was an update about it. Russians were delighted to finally be seen again. To finally be vocalised, by an American who has platformed the left, the right, pro-vax, anti-vax and Barack Obama’s former lover - if we are to believe it.
You see, no matter what the Russian government or Russians will say publicly, privately this is the truth - They long to be accepted by London. Westminster knows, really knows, that it can skewer Russia over and over and Russians will take it. Russians will accept it so that somehow, sometime, they’ll be given a pat on the head once more. It is the reason for so much anger amongst the political and media class here, rejection by a country they really do want to mirror. The term Anglo-Saxon is well known to us Irish, yet in Russia it is all-inclusive discrimination. Americans, Irish, British, Aussies, Kiwis - all Anglo-Saxons. It’s a - please love us, I hate you - teenage vibe of a country and people who simply want to be accepted.
But they never will be. Because, like Arabs, when they go to London to splash cash, they’re seen as something below human. Speaking with a London-based real estate agent in 2007, she bragged about flogging property to Russians, Ukrainians and Kazakhs, and ripping them off. She laughed about them wanting to be near x or y shop or school. Her colleague offered support with getting their children into ‘good’ schools. She said they were cash cows to be milked and when things turned, slaughtered.
You see, this desire to be noticed, accepted, seen. It’s not alien to the Irish. Call a successful Irish actor English or British and we’re outraged. Give Paddy a pat on the head and tell us, “Sure aren’t you all wonderful”, and we are weak at the knees. The deep-seeded (not just seated) feeling of inadequacy comes to the fore when we think we might be interesting to the ‘big boys’. Russians are the same. Indians are the same. Australians, well, they’re Australian. But one thing is for sure, the visit of an American journalist to Russia has done more good for the local psyche than winning a World Cup. It has given reason to hope that maybe, maybe those brothers and sisters in the “collective West” will see that Russians are people too. That Russians, their President, want peaceful relations with their neighbours and maybe, just maybe, lining up nuclear missiles, tanks, cannons and guns along Russia’s borders, pointing into Russia, is not conducive to feeling safe in one’s place in the World. Maybe peace is a chance worth taking. And leave the whinging self-proclaimed “western for corrs” to X/Twitter for their diatribes about how great they truly are.
Alan, thank you so much for another letter from Our Man in Russia that went right home...and made memories pop up in my mind (the Auchan you mention, is it the one in ul. Vavilova in Donskoy district?). I really look forward to the interview going public tonight.
Many journalists choose to market "themselves" That is their first objective. What is in it for me.. They will work for the highest bidder.. Tucker has seen this opening to become "the man who got an exclusive. Dont ever trust scum journalists.I saw a t first hand what they were like in sport. Vile Thanks