We have a badass over here!

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Obama includes openly gay athletes in 2014 Olympic delegation
"King and Cahow are both openly gay athletes. Gay rights groups have urged the Obama administration to use the delegation selection to make a point about Russia's treatment of gays and lesbians."

"In what may be another slight to the Russian president, Obama, Vice President Joe Biden and first lady Michelle Obama will not attend the opening ceremony. This marks the first time since the 2000 Summer Olympic Games that a president, vice president, first lady or former president won't be part of the opening ceremony." (source)

That'll surely show 'em bad Russkies! I can see from now what's gonna happen next, tovarisch Putin appointing Edward Snowden head of the Russian Olympic delegation in Sochi and going all-preachy about transparency and honesty in international politics. And the shit'll keep rollin' rollin' rollin' baby. ;)

Now this is curious:

"I have no patience for countries that try to treat gays or lesbians or transgender persons in a way that intimidate them or are harmful to them". (source)

Kudos, that's such a noble, princpled stance, Mr Prez. Well, perhaps if we're to remain fully consistent with this so-boldly stated principle, then the US should be sending lesbian delegates to Riyadh to bow down before the King on Barry's behalf, no? Or better yet, not send anyone in protest to their treating of gays or lesbians or transgender persons in a way that intimidate them or are harmful to them (to put it very mildly in KSA's case). After all, he's having "no patience" for "such countries", which for some reason should include, I don't know, the likes of Saudi Arabia as well? Otherwise, if that's not the case, then the conclusion is that there must be some other additional criterion that I've remained blissfully unaware of, which serves to negate the above-stated principle in some mysterious way.

That said, the Russian anti-gay-"propaganda" law is bullshit and a disgrace. The "think about the children" sort of reasoning has never been the strongest argument in existence for crafting legislation that potentially affects millions of people - but then again, it's not like Russia's leaders have ever cared about these things too much, have they. Putin has already gone to tremendous lengths to craft and image of Mr Tough Guy for himself, and create a Great Russia narrative, and acting tough on public displays of homosexual affection plays just fine into the demands and expectations of the hard-line segments of Russian society (which seem to be an overwhelming majority, I daresay) - as spearheaded by the super-conservative Orthodox Church of Russia. Which, curiously, seems to be on the very same page as the various neo-Nazi groups in Russia on this particular issue. Yep, we all know of the status of LGBTs in that country, so no surprises there.

As for Obama, some of his most devout clappers call that a bold move, even a "checkmate". Sort of showing the finger to Putin in a fashion. Some have even gone as far as to call it an act of retaliation to the way Putin arguably "embarrassed" the White House during the whole Syria-WMDs affair (the actual term being used there is much more explicit, mind you). And a revenge for Snowden, of course. So I guess we should Watch Out, Cuz We Have A Badass Over Here!

Your move, Putin. Maybe you'd send a squadron of drunken Siberian bears to Capitol Hill to wreak havoc on the lawn in front of the White House? That'll scare 'em lame mothafuckin' no-doers in Congress shitless, I bet! (Unless someone shoots those pesky intruders for acting too strangely in such proximity to Mr Prez). Or... or, he could land that paraplane on Times Square - ya know, the one he used for steering that flock of birds into whatever direction Dear Leader had figured the brave bright future was awaiting them?

Ps. I hear an eminent US politician or two have walked out in protest to commemorating that evil commie Mandela. Clearly, Mandela should've made a few more shirtless horse-riding shots to appeal to particular parts of the American high-ranking public way better. Oh well, that was just an idea.

Comments

[malasadas.livejournal.com]

I was going to post on this later -- I think the move is a pretty good one. Very low political cost, but relatively high on the messaging. A lot of people I know have called for an outright boycott or to "move" the games based on Russia's odious law and increasingly appalling record on LGBT rights. That was never going to happen. No other major nations would get on board with that, and the IOC seems incredibly reluctant to take this up boldly, possibly fearing backlash and counter boycotts of future games from conservative countries. Moving the games was never a starter -- no country could have prepped to host on 6 months notice.

So there's this. Several other European heads of state won't be going. President Obama is not going. Vice President Biden is not going. Neither of their wives are going. No sitting member of the President's cabinet is going. So we are sending Billy Jean King who is openly gay and an activist. Caitlin Cahow is openly gay. Interestingly enough, neither former Homeland Security director Janet Napalitano nor figure skater Brian Boitano have ever admitted to be being gay, but both have been surmised over the years to be in the closet.

One can snark, I suppose, about the lack of consistency in maintaining Presidential level relations with a tyrannical state like Saudi Arabia while giving Putin a fairly sharply extended middle finger, but nobody currently in Washington invented Real Politik -- Saudi Arabia sits on top of too many hydrocarbons to tell to go get stuffed, but Putin is busy bullying neighbor states who dare to seek closer relationships with the E.U. and is actively churning up hatred against an unpopular minority group for his own political gain. It's of the moment and worthy of the criticism. And it is also pretty much daring Putin to enforce his law against the U.S. delegation because Billy Jean King is not exactly one to keep her mouth shut. I suspect she'll gladly give many public interviews where she will spread "propaganda" that caan be "viewed by children". So yes, your move, Mr. Putin. If Ms. King DOES openly defy the law with zero consequences perhaps it will undermine Putin's ability to use it against homegrown activists.

For the record: Senator Cruz is an ass, but he didn't walk out of the Mandela memorial to protest MANDELA. He walked out when Raul Castro spoke. I don't consider it a particularly laudable action -- he went for Mandela's memorial and my sense of decorum suggests he should stay for what he went for -- decline to applaud Castro, but walking out was just making it about himself instead of the man he supposedly went to honor.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

Well his aunt was tortured by the Castro regime, so ya, what an ass for making it about himself.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Saudi Arabia sits on top of too many hydrocarbons to tell to go get stuffed

I think this has more to do with geopolitics and who the US considers their buddies than the relative weight of said country's natural resources (although Russia's are nowhere near as significant for the US as Saudi Arabia's are, granted).

That said, I'm liking the prospect of a number of international athletes openly daring the Russian authorities to enforce this law, and embarrassing Putin when those fail to do so. That will be fun to watch.

As for Ted Cruz, hell, his constituents (http://abcnews.go.com/blogs/politics/2013/12/ted-cruz-criticized-for-praising-nelson-mandela/) seem to be holding (http://www.christianpost.com/news/he-was-a-no-good-murdering-communist-ted-cruz-supporters-lash-out-at-senator-for-praising-mandela-110286/) him on a very short leash (http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2013/12/06/the-gop-has-a-nelson-mandela-problem.html). It must be kinda disturbing for a politician when he arrives at the realization that his voters are way more extremist than he is, and demand that he duly falls in line, lest he risks being kicked out of the big game, come the next election.

[soliloquy76.livejournal.com]

Wouldn't it just be icing on the cake if Ms. Napolitano and Mr. Boitano took this opportunity to come out?

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

but nobody currently in Washington invented Real Politik

The English invented football and they get their ass regularly kicked in it since others have taken up the game and are playing it better than its original inventors, so yeah. :-)

The most amusing part about US-style realpolitik is the constant slogan being waved into the public's faces, "The values that America stands for" - which is being pronounced with such pathos, while simultaneously doing the exact opposite to what America supposedly is "standing for". But that's just realpolitik with a 21st century flavor, I suppose.

Some might call this snark, others would call it calling a spade a spade. Not like it'd change anything anyway, but still. There must be at least someone preaching upon how they're acting (or acting upon what they preach - whichever way you prefer to look at it).

[airiefairie.livejournal.com]

Let's see how Putin will respond to gay and lesbian participants in the Olympics coming from various countries purposefully demonstrating their sexual orientation through making relevant statements and displaying LGBT symbols during the Games. What is he going to do, arrest them and jail them? Blacken parts of the footage and *bleep* parts of their statements? I doubt it.

Obama is setting an example. Some will boycott. Others will openly defy this law. It may be a small step which probably will not force Russia to reconsider this law outright... but it is a step in the right direction, it creates a push in that direction which could snowball into something bigger and with more profound effects.

It is good that you mentioned Mandela, because the world boycotting the apartheid government in all possible ways contributed a lot to its downfall and ultimately to Mandela's release, and everything that followed after that. Since we have already mentioned Realpolitik here, a primary principle of Realpolitik is that the best way to influence a country is to punch a hole into its pocket and squeeze. Little gestures like this one potentially create the conditions to do just that.

I am not very familiar with this Ted Cruz guy, and something tells me I haven't missed much. =)

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

Like malasadas said: it's realpolitik. Ideological purity in all matters and in all actions at all times would be wonderful, but is impossible. Maybe that's a cop-out; I'm sure those affected by these types of laws might feel that way. But there's also wisdom in picking one's battles so as not to lose the war.

Also: in b4 Putin's paid blog brigade comes in to tell us that the law doesn't say what the law says.

[mahnmut.livejournal.com]

Don't you love it how "this is just realpolitik" has now effectively become the main fall-back excuse for these sort of conspicuous discrepancies between word and action. It's the equivalent of, "Meh..."

[dexeron.livejournal.com]

That's not an invalid criticism. I think it neglects, however, the same problem single-issue voters face: if one isn't willing to compromise a little in the short-term, in the name of larger interests, one will often end up getting none of the things they want. Instead of small gains now (or a slight delay of gains, with the promise of more substantial gains later,) by insisting on all of the gains now, they get none of them. It's not missing the forest for the trees, it's being so focused on the growth of one specific tree that they neglect the forest fire approaching that will burn them all down.

Of course, that reasoning is completely meaningless and hollow to people actually being oppressed by systems and laws NOW. "Hey, just be patient. I know you're being oppressed, imprisoned, killed, etc, but if you're just patient, we'll get around to you and even if you don't survive, well, sorry about that..." It's hollow and cold and if we're weighing "realpolitik" as some kind of scale, it's crappy that we're weighing actual human lives in the balance, especially when the negative repercussions of our leader speaking out wouldn't even be, say, a war.

I do think realpolitik is a real thing, and it's a brutal calculus whenever its evoked. You're right, though, that it's probably too easily used as a lazy way out of having to make hard choices. And in this case, there's probably truth to both arguments.

[imfromjasenevo.livejournal.com]

According to legends, Stalin in the same manner angered Hitler. Kaganovich (jew) was included in german-sovetic diplomatic group.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

...And look what happened next!

[abomvubuso.livejournal.com]

Actually Cruz not only didn't protest against commemorating Mandela, he had some words of praise for Mandela, which brought him into hot water with his supporters (weird, huh). But that's already been hashed out here.

This thing between Obama and Putin is a jab-for-jab game at this point, I suspect. And it might have more to do with their respective domestic public rather than the Russo-American relations.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

which brought him into hot water with his supporters (weird, huh)

It isn't that weird. Assuming many of those supporters are Cuban Americans. They don't have any love of Mandela, and many go so far as to dislike him. I mean, in Florida a MLB manager was suspended for saying a nice thing about Castro. Cuban American's where so pissed they wanted to boycott the team. Imagine their anger when a man of Mandela's stature throws his strong support behind the man, and Mandela being a strong supporter of human rights at that.

[telemann.livejournal.com]

What an odd reaction to something that's pretty good. As a gay man who knew people who were outed and then subsequently thrown out of the service because they were simply gay, or people with AIDs or HIV who were bared from entering the United States, until President Obama changed this rule, which allowed the International Aids Conference to be held in the United States in 2012. So seeing President Obama condemn Russia's deplorable lack of humanity in its treatment of an entire class of citizens, and stand in solidarity with their gay citizens, I think it's fantastic.

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

It is. It would've been even more fantastic if he had done the same or a similar thing regarding other countries with a similarly or even more horrible track record in terms of their treatment of LGBTs apart from Russia which happens to be grinding his nerves quite a lot lately. Because this apparent selectiveness in the fights he's picking seems to create the impression of being grudge-driven.

All of the above in no way neglects the achievements he has made for defending LGBT rights - a thing that has at no point been argued anywhere in the above post.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Billie Jean King is indeed badass!

I'm pleased by this move. I do agree we're entirely inconsistent about such things. And Obama making such a public issue of it will be ripe fruit for curing our hypocrisy on Saudi Arabia, etc. I can hope it gets lots of press. Nail us! I welcome the valid criticism. Maybe we'll stop.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Also, I thought that the Saudis were cool with Gay on the down low?

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

The Saudis have a reputation of being the most corrupt family in the Muslim world. What they are cool with for their own family members varies quite a bit from the opinions of the students of the Wahhabi schools that they fund.

[policraticus.livejournal.com]

This is what constitutes badassery now?

LOL.

The citizens of Aleppo were unavailable for comment.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Those Syrian citizens would have prefered to be bombed by American bombs.

But pointing such out in context of a positive gay rights move comes across as a bit...I dunno, bitter? Not during Christmas!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

http://www.thenation.com/blog/177659/what-will-billie-jean-delegation-mean-lgbt-rights-sochi#

"The most important question however is whether this move by the Obama administration to send the "Billie Jean Delegation" will serve to make the situation on the ground better for LGBT people in Russia or will it just serve to open the door for more repression? Will this provide a pretext for Putin to maliciously say that LGBT activists inside Russia are just tools of the United States? Does the intervention in a grass roots movement by the world's number one super power create more or less oxygen for the brave people fighting for their freedom inside Russia? After the smoke has cleared and all the delegations have gone home from Sochi it is the only question that really matters."

[mikeyxw.livejournal.com]

Why single out the US for singling out Russia? There are plenty of other countries who are playing similar diplomatic pranks who are also silent when it comes to Saudi Arabia. Don't you think you should be consistent in your calls for consistency?

I don't mean this as a defense of the US's support for Saudi Arabia, which I consider rather shameful. Really, this is just to illustrate that outrage is more effective when it's focused instead of spread across all who deserve it.

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

I don't mean this as a defense of the US's support for Saudi Arabia, which I consider rather shameful.

Something I never understood... this idea that if a country does something against the values of the US, then we either make them our enemies or suffer the "if you really cared, why are you friends with..." type of comments. Iran doesn't have a good record with LGBT, how are we helping them as enemies? We aren't. Not to mention, if the US does try to enforce their values on a country, we get the "how arrogant of them..." type of comments. In reality, we are always more likely to impact positive changes through friendship, rather than through confrontational means (unless perhaps through war).

Why single out the US

Your answer is right there. It's the US.

[htpcl.livejournal.com]

Politics is a dirty, hypocrite business. Is that what you've been trying to convince me?

Congrats. You've succeeded!

That said, whatever would make those hateful fuckers look silly, is allright with me.

[the-rukh.livejournal.com]

He hasn't done every single thing we want so we should shit on the few good things he's done. Is that where you're coming from?

[luzribeiro.livejournal.com]

Oh, I agree with you that when he does something nice he should be instantaneously decorated with tons of laurels and probably be given a second Nobel Peace Prize.

What, that wasn't what you were arguing? Oh well. Now you know what it's like to be responded to with blatant strawmen.

(In case you were actually interested in more nuance about where I actually am "coming from", I'd direct (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1805526.html?thread=143962582#t143962582) you to the (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1805526.html?thread=143968470#t143968470) thread above (http://talk-politics.livejournal.com/1805526.html?thread=143981782#t143981782) - but only in case you cared to abandon the fallacious rhetoric for a little while).

Ps. I'm surprised there's been no use of the "U hate him cuz he's black" argument just yet.

[luvdovz.livejournal.com]

Gee, gotta love all the defensiveness radiating from some of the responses here. From hyperbolic misrepresentation of the point (a.k.a. strawman), to, "Meh, your country is no better" (a.k.a. ad hominem). Means you've stepped on quite a few toes.

[ddstory.livejournal.com]

Yo, y'know who was hatin' on Amerka before it became mainstream? Stalin! Also, Hitler!

The conclusion is inescapable! You're a hipster Commie/Nazi (pick an option)!

[brother-dour.livejournal.com]

Pro-GLBT rights and smacks Putin in his proverbial face-in-need-of-a-fist face? Oh yes, good stuff here.

Bonus: it is bound to piss off a lot of Right-wing American nutjobs too: Liberal agenda! Liberal agenda! Attack on family values! Wharrgarrbl!!!

[sophia-sadek.livejournal.com]

For some reason the '36 Olympics comes to mind. Jesse Owens was da man!

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

Let us note that he achieved this despite being considered quite lynch-able in his own country.

[yes-justice.livejournal.com]

How many states in the USA still have sodomy laws (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sodomy_laws_in_the_United_States)?

[cheezyfish.livejournal.com]

Better question, how many are enforced?