John Chuckman
COMMENT POSTED TO AN ARTICLE BY DMITRY ORLOV IN RUSSIA INSIDER
“Putin Now Thinks Western Elites Are 'Swine'”
https://russia-insider.com/en/putin-now-thinks-western-elites-are-swine/ri26363
Putin's speech was excellent.
His priorities and projects are those of a truly gifted leader, which is exactly what he is. By far the greatest of our era.
Dmitry Orlov's summary of the speech is well-written and concise.
I liked the article - although its title is poorly chosen because it strays almost completely from Putin’s emphasis - until I came across the following two quotes:
"...you need to look no further than the astonishingly idiotic “Green New Deal” being touted by the freshman congresstwit (how’s that for a gender-neutral appellation?) Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez..."
And: "...ignoramuses like Ocasio-Cortez, who think that transportation needs can be provided by electric vehicles powered by wind and solar..."
Well, to be very frank, the greatest ignorance displayed in the article is in Mr Orlov's choice of words and choice of target here. Just appallingly short-sighted.
As a former petroleum industry economist, I can assure readers that Ocasio-Cortez’s vision is unrealistic and rather flighty, but I can do so without calling her names, including made-up childish ones.
Coining a term like “congresstwit” for Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is remarkable only for its lack understanding. It much resembles the pointless stuff one reads nauseatingly over and over from the Alt-right, words like “Libtards” Such terms are funny only to thirteen-year-olds with severe acne problems.
It’s name-calling – showing absolutely no different intent than Israel’s worst defenders who call critics “anti-Semites.” It’s not funny, it says nothing except something unfavorable about the writer, and it calls into question the writer’s judgment.
To my mind, even worse, is the choice of enemy here being attacked in these quotes. American political leadership is packed with vicious, arrogant, and even dangerous figures – a whole herd of them from Bolton and Pompeo and Rubio and Graham to Clinton and Obama and Wasserman-Schultz.
Ms. Ocasio-Cortez is a very young, well-intentioned new politician, one with some the very naïve ideas of her generation, but one with no political power. Why would you pick her for an enemy? It shows a lack of judgment as well as, I believe, a strain of prejudice.
She is a target for many of the worst folks in the Alt-right camp, the real belly-over-the-belt types. People immensely more dangerous, given any political power, than she would be.
America has many dangerous demons, but she is not one of them.
