Rad Geek People's Daily

The Russian government’s ongoing war against Ukraine is, of course, awful and by all means ought to be denounced, opposed, if possible resisted.

This kind of thing, however, is not a sane or intelligent response to that, let alone an appropriate one.

I suppose it will be ploddingly obvious to point out that the Russian government (which is not actually the government that was in place back in 1882 — although that other one, also, was a very, very bad militaristic government) is not the same thing of Russia as a people, or the entire history of modern Russian culture. But I will say that nevertheless, and the idea that a terrible war in Ukraine is a good reason to open up a second front in the orchestra pits against the menace of Russian concert overtures is hysterical, illiberal and would be alarmingly belligerent if it weren’t so goddamned self-importantly ridiculous.

(Link thanks to Jesse Walker.)