Ichabod's Kin
A place for politics, pop culture, and social issues

Spring and summer of 2009 found the adoption of a new hero by
right-wingers–none other than a Russian blogger who was not
from the “Pravda” they assumed, nor was he of the importance
they were led to believe, but a legend only in his–and their–minds.

Desperate for new mud to sling, right wingers the nation over are turning to an unlikely source: Pravda–you know, supposedly the old Soviet news organ. If you were not blessed with a certain blog forwarded to your computer at the time, you may have seen it reprinted, in part, in some easily misled newspapers. I say, “in part”, because a particularly offensive remark was at times omitted.

Under the byline of “Stanislav Mishin,” aka “Mat Rodina,” the U.S. is said to be undergoing a very un-American takeover, to wit, “Marxism.” And who should know better than a Russian? Of course, no one pays attention to foreign writers of any stripe–except the American right wing, when some unknown scribe stumbles into saying something they happen to like. And what they like, in this case, is that a lame-brain thousands of miles away considers America a “dumbed down,” “godless” society whose religion has sold out to pseudo-Marxism, and whose “final collapse” is marked by the election of Barack Obama. Of course, we’ve heard all this before from Republican party leaders, and will hear it again, ad infinitum, ad nauseum for the next eight years, so Mishin is desperately in need of some new material.

In hopes that no one else gets sucked in, let’s talk about Mr. Mishin and then about Pravda. “Mishin” is not an expert, nor is he very bright; he is a blogger–and not all bloggers are equal, and he has other ideas you will not like. He self-identifies as Russian Orthodox, a large communion whose leaders are not in the habit of lecturing other religions, so it is highly unlikely they consider this little goofus their spokesman on faith and morals.

As for the original Pravda: keep in mind that Boris Yeltsin shut down that rag nearly 20 years ago as the official voice of Soviet communism. The former staff ran in every direction, cranking up countless new publications and all grabbing the name “Pravda,” the first emerging as a tabloid and another the internet-based, and unrelated, Pravda Online. The best-selling one is also called, you guessed it, “Pravda,” but it’s not the one Mishin writes for; so he’s not all that big a deal there, and apparently has more American readers than Russian, thanks to impressionable folks here who should be getting their info from reputable sources–oh, but I forgot: the internet is well-suited to the American attention span, which has shrunk to about two seconds at a whack. Hey, maybe that’s what Mishin means when he calls us “dumbed down”! (Note to those who think he’s wonderful: he’s talking about you!)

By the way, the “Pravda” Mishin writes for also touts, “…girls, hot movies, sexy news…” and such, meaning we need not stand for his rants about our loose morals.

Dear friends, I repeat, Mishin is a blogger, and some are just Walter Mittys sitting all day in their pajamas in front of their puters with fierce hopes of entering your brain just because you see their name in cyber space–sort of like kids who pass notes in school or write deathless poetry on bathroom walls. Truth be told, some modern blogging is largely mentally infantile graffiti circulated by knuckleheads passing themselves off as adults.

A telling note was struck when, amid his screed about the U.S., Mishin went off track and launched into a tirade against homosexuality–something often deleted in reprints of his drivel in local papers; perhaps they don’t want you to know the whole truth about him.

Mishin and his ilk are why we must protect and promote the real press–responsible people who do the heavy lifting of news gathering and its dissemination, and who purvey defensible ideas from legitimate sources. Imagine an America full of idiot bloggers from whom we got all of our news! Neither Marxism nor socialism is scarier than that.

In truth, Mishin is “dumbing down” his own society, and dummies here are the sieve through which his nonsense trickles down into ours.