As story of the Alamo heads to its bloody and legendary climax on March 6, 1836, commenter Michael West filed another update on what transpired on yesterday’s date, March 1, but corresponding to today, because 1936 was a Leap Year. Michael’s running account is indispensable, and I am so grateful for it. He writes,
March 1, 1836: The Alamo defenders are down to their last 5 full days.
The “Mina Volunteers” — a militia unit from Bastrop, Texas—departs for the rendezvous in Gonzales. Captain Joseph Lynch begins recruiting up and down the Brazos River to form a company and march to Gonzales. Captain Phil Coe does the same up and down the Colorado River. Captain Robert McNutt and his 2nd in Command Gibson Kuykendall activate a company in San Felipe (west of what would eventually be Houston).
These are just a handful of the many companies gathering across Texas as rapidly as they could to make their way in answer to Colonel Travis’s plea for aid, all while the civil drama plays out in Washington-on-the-Brazos. Texas’s Declaration of Independence, to be officially declared the next day, was finalized by George Childress.
Behind enemy lines, south of Urrea’s “Coastal Column” a somewhat interesting character, Dr. Grant, and the fledgling remains of his wild mission to raise a rebellion in Matamoros continues to wander north, soon to meet its fate in a far less spectacular end that Grant probably had envisioned for himself. Meanwhile, at the Alamo, the truce apparently has come to an end as Santa Ana noted the Texans fired a cannon, ending the truce and apparently cancelling any offer of amnesty he had made. In further Alamo lore involving a fact that seemed too perfect to be true, the shot from one the cannons fired that day actually struck the house that the dictator was occupying.
Santa Ana’s army was still not at full strength, and was not expected until the 3rd of March.
The most distant Texan reinforcements were about 150 miles from the Alamo, the rest closer. At a rate of about 30 miles per day on horseback, the farthest reinforcements could reach the Alamo in five days. As the men rushed westward with all their zeal, they would have been quietly reminded that they were each groups of 15 to 45 men charging headlong out of wooded terrain and into open prairies, towards a Mexican army of several thousand.
Now in more mundane and present day ethics matters;
1. Now THIS is hubris! Talk about not knowing your lane…Dr. Bruce Glavovic, 61, a professor at Massey University in New Zealand, has joined two colleagues in the field of environmental research to declare, in an academic journal, that climate scientists should stage a mass walkout and stop their research until nations take action on global warming. I have a better idea. Why don’t climate scientists come up with consistent projections that actually pan out, be honest about what they don’t know, and stop telling the public and policy-makers what to do when their job is to provide scientific information, not speculation, not guesses, not hysteria, and definitely not amateur opinions on law and governance? Beyond that my message to them if they go on strike is “Don’t let the door hist you on the ass on the way out, you arrogant jerks.”
The juvenile tantrum of an article raises the questions climate scientists have asked themselves lately, we are told: “Is what we’re doing with our lives really making a difference? How can we get elected officials to act on the threats that we’ve so clearly identified?”
Welcome to the world of an ethicist, guys!
2. Small Consolation Dept: At least we still have more respect for freedom of thought than…Germany. Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was fired from the Munich Philharmonic orchestra this week. His offense? He is a friend of Russian President Vladimir Putin, and refused to publicly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter explained in a news release that the decision came after he issued an ultimatum to the 68-year-old Russian conductor. “I had expected him to rethink and revise his very positive assessment of the Russian leader,” Reiter said. “After this didn’t occur, the only option is the immediate severance of ties.”
In this country, we call such ultimatums “compelled speech,” and it is a violation of the First Amendment, like loyalty oaths and some of the other rights breaches inflicted on Americans during the Red Scare. Both political parties flirt with the unethical practice when they demand that elected official X condemn controversial figure Y for legal conduct and speech.
3. Gee, is it wrong of me to keep pointing out what a biased, left-wing propaganda machine the New York Times is in part to annoy the commenters who keep denying it? (If so, I don’t care.) Completing the same page that Charles Blow devoted to his Trayvon Martin and Black Lives Matter lies, the Times gave a platform to a completely false screed by a far-left shill, Emily Tamkin. Her topic: “How the American Right Stopped Worrying and Learned to Love Russia.” It is the equivalent of libel. The American Right doesn’t “love Russia,” and it was Barack Obama who mocked Mitt Romney in their 2012 debate when the Republican pronounced Russia as the preeminent foreign threat to the U.S. Obama also snoozed when Putin took the Crimea. What evidence does Tamkin cite to justify her accusation? Let’s see:
- One pundit, Fox News’ slippery, “say whatever will up ratings” pundit Tucker Carlson, whose opinion on the Ukraine invasion is at odds with all of his conservative colleagues at Fox.
- J.D. Vance, the infinitely flexible anti-Trump/pro-Trump opportunist who is about as popular among conservatives as crotch rot
- Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Oban, who, need I point out, isn’t an American
- Conservative pundit Rod Dreher, who stated that he did not want to go to war with Russia over Ukraine, hardly an expression of love, and, dumbest of all,
- Trump, who “praised” Putin last week by saying the Russian dictator is “smart.” Putin is smart, or was, or usually is when he isn’t invading sovereign nations. Based on the astounding degree of criticism Trump’s simple statement of fact has received, one can only assume that American leaders are obligated to call Putin “Poopy-pants,” or the equivalent. I don’t necessarily “love” those who I know are smart; I don’t even necessarily like them. Stalin was smart. Nikita Khrushchev was smart. Fidel Castro was smart. Ho Chi Minh was smart. Bill Clinton is smart. Newt Gingrich is smart.
- This one’s funny: Tamkin thinks the fact that a poll shows 62% of Republicans think Putin is a stronger leader than Joe Biden is evidence that the Right “loves” the Russian leaders. It’s only evidence that 38% of Republicans aren’t paying attention. Who isn’t a stronger leader than Joe? That’s a mighty low bar. If I loved everyone I thought could top Joe, I’d spend all day hugging strangers.
The column is incompetent, and would only be deemed worthy of publication to editors who have as much contempt for conservatives as the writer does.
Ethics Alarms 
1. I agree with your assessment. If these so-called scientists want to act like the equivalent of 2-year-olds holding their breath until their faces turn blue, then let them do it. Eventually they will have to give up when they realize it’s not getting them anywhere. You’d think scientists would be a little smarter about these things.
2. So cancel culture comes to Germany. It’s not surprising because Germany still has a very top down culture where if the boss says “jump!” the employees say “how high?”. You can also be thrown into jail in Germany for displaying certain symbols or even being photographed with them in the picture. But I don’t think they are really that far ahead of us. You can still be fired here for tweets the date back to when you were a teenager, or private conversations that no one but the participants were meant to hear, or for having the wrong opinion and expressing it. So where’s your BLM lapel pin?
3. I had very low expectations of the New York Times as it was. However, this is a new low. As you point out, this is not just poking holes, or poking fun, or saying the other side is wrong and this is why, this is our and out lying and throwing mud. The Times started on this path in 2016 when it abandoned all pretense of objectivity. It should come as no surprise that it has come to this.
By the way, the same guy who wrote that column you alluded to in your post that preceded the State of the Union has now written another satirical and unfunny column saying that the speech was incredibly unifying. The man is a complete and total Democratic party hack who would write that the sky was green if the party said so.
Dr. Bruce Glavovic, 61, a professor at Massey University in New Zealand, has joined two colleagues in the field of environmental research to declare, in an academic journal, that climate scientists should stage a mass walkout and stop their research until nations take action on global warming.
Sounds like a great idea. Why don’t all these silly, unserious people walk off their jobs? In fact, I encourage them to walk off and find some other line of work, like maybe, fast-food server.
Regarding the fired conductor, we are seeing this exact same thing in America, only by private corporations. It shows no sign of abating, either. In fact, it is likely accelerating. And the government is cheerleading the firing, canceling, and deplatforming of “wrongthinkers.”
Finally, it seems that Trump in particular and conservatives in general are guilty of supporting every bad thing in the world, and we need explanations from Leftists like Tamkin so that us weak-minded proles can see what is so obvious to our betters. The bottom line is, if the Left thinks it’s bad (whether or not that’s a rational conclusion), Republicans, conservatives, and Trump are in favor of it.
The best remedy — don’t read the Times, the Post, or … well, most big-city papers. They are just pure propaganda and proud of it.
Speaking as a conservative. I don’t think Tucker Carlson’s opinions on the Ukraine invasion are gaining any traction with conservatives. I agree that it is just a ratings ploy.
I do believe that we would have been smart to seek a relationship with Russia that would help counter the China threat, as distasteful as that might be, without emboldening the Russians. Not that I have any idea how that could be done. Shades of the WWII alliances, I suppose.
1–If these scientists/researchers really want to give their hissy fit some teeth, they should publicly refuse/donate their funding/salary checks.
Want a stumble/bumble/mumble response from the all-knowing slobberings of the enlightened?
Ask them: “What have you done, what are you doing, and what will you do going forward to address this grave crisis.”
3. There is a flip side to this, and it is that to some on the right, Putin is nowhere near the threat to liberty that the Left poses. In fact, they could arguably invoke the same logic Mohammed Ali expressed in 1966 when he pointed out that the Viet Cong never called him a certain racial slur.
* Putin’s never called conservatives or Trump supporters deplorable – Hillary Clinton did that.
* Putin isn’t trying to transition children behind the backs of their parents – But left-wing school boards made it school policy.
* Putin never sicced the IRS on the Tea Party, the Obama Administration did.
* Putin hasn’t wanted to put people on trial Nuremburg-style over disagreements over environmental policy – but RFK Jr. and some Democratic AGs did.
You get the picture. Blue America has treated Red America like subhumans who are beneath respect or dignity, and who need to know their place.
So why should Red America be all hyped up for a war with Putin on the say-so of the same people who have engaged in verbal and emotional abuse of the Right for arguably a quarter-century? And why is Blue America so shocked that Red America sees no reason to stick its neck out for Blue America’s beef with Putin?
Beats me, but 80% of Red America doesn’t think Biden is being hard enough on Putin., of the remaining 20%, 11% are content with his “strength”, and 7% “don’t know”… leaving a paltry sum in the “Biden is being too tough” category.
The 80% reflects the fact that the conservative media has been (correctly) banging on the issue of Biden still buying oil from Russia after crippling US fossil fuel extraction, while the left-biased MSM is burying the issue.Another problem caused by untrustworthy news sources is that polls no longer measure attitudes from the same perspective.
Because Smart America doesn’t understand how anyone could disagree with it and Just America won’t let anyone disagree with it. I am for fighting Putin, but not because he’s not woke, or not liberal enough. I’m for fighting him because if we let him get away with a war of conquest we set a terrible precedent, and I believe it is not in our best interest to let him conquer Ukraine.
“Putin is nowhere near the threat to liberty that the Left poses.” That’s undeniably true. But 1) It’s a rationalization #22 argument and 2) you need to add, “Yet.” If Russia (when Russia) takes Ukraine, and we start seeing hints that Poland is next, we are back to the good old “Crazy Murderous Dictator On The March And Everyone Is Inclined To Let Him” days. You recall how ell that turned out…
My position on Putin is that he needs to be kept in check. Trump was doing that by recycling the playbook Reagan used in the 1980s: Bolster alternative sources of oil and gas and send prices through the floor, crippling Putin.
That said, do I think this Administration can competently run a military campaign? No. If anything, the last 14 years have shown that our military establishment is NOT capable of this, and the Democratic Party has actively, over the last 30 years, pursued policies that left us much less able to hold an aggressive Russia off.
The actions and words of Blue America have consequences, and the bill’s come due on them.
Items 2 and 3 in this post are an exceptionally unfortunate juxtaposition of poorly understood matters that are leading your readers into exactly the sort of ideological rabbit hole that you say they should avoid. So I must comment.
Valery Gergiev didn’t just “refuse to publicly condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.” He has been a Putin stooge for years and decades. In a certain way, so has been the Russian superstar operatic soprano Anna Netrebko. Those two figures IN PARTICULAR are being dropped not just at one orchestra in Germany, but everywhere, including Netrebko for her remaining performances this season and next at the Metropolitan Opera. (Although Netrebko played a preemptive game of “you can’t fire me, I quit” in a PR battle with the Met and a number of European opera houses.) The Munich Philharmonic may have asked for a statement from Gergiev about Ukraine that they weren’t going to get, but that’s simply the final provocation.
Meanwhile, the world of opera and classical music in general is absolutely crawling with Russians, and do you see them being fired en masse? Of course not. Extrapolating from one or two figures with a long, objectionable history to a generalization about cancel culture in Germany or elsewhere is simply incorrect. Earlier this week, the New York Times had a significant commentary by its most recently retired classical music editor explaining all this, and the difference that you missed. But apparently you didn’t read it.
Similarly, the New York Times this week had a more significant story than any of these columns that you’re obsessing about regarding the now very heavy shift of Hispanic voters in Texas from the Democratic Party to the Republican Party. In fairness, I believe the Washington Post has done this too, although not as well or comprehensively. NYT field reporters who team up are very good at getting varied and interesting personal quotes on analytical and trend stories like this.
Jack, Charles Blow and whoever on earth Emily Tamkin is aren’t going to go away from the New York Times, any more than the more conservative writers like Ross Douthat and Bret Stevens are going to be dropped just because a lot of other NYT readers howl about THEM. The stories that I cited here and that you didn’t read don’t suddenly vanish just because Gilbert and Sullivan wrote some operetta in the 1880s that you think proves that those articles don’t count. It’s your choice to continue doomscrolling through the New York Times every day only seeking those items to raise your blood pressure and prompt predictable responses from certain readers who brag that they don’t even look at the NYT at all and, I can tell, don’t even realize what’s in it. It’s hugely misleading and leads to the mistakes in context that I noted above.
PS Yes, Mitt Romney was right.
Regarding the conductor: False. Just because you choose to characterize the facts differently does not mean what I wrote was misleading. I read the Times new story (though not the Times critic’s analysis, since, frankly, I don’t care what the critic says, since my point is not about music, and there is only so much time I can spend on all the stories and issues I cover here.
Below is the entire Post article.It confirms what I wrote and my assessement to a T. Gergiev being a “Putin stooge,’ whatever that means, is irrelevant: it is like calling Robert DeNiro a Democratic Party stooge. The man is a conductor: his “support” is simply public favor, which he has every right to declare. It also is not germane that the conductor and the singer are being dropped by other organizations around the world.(I was aware of the parallel situation with the singer, but it’s the same situation, and the #2 was about the ethics involved, not the music world. If you examined the resources here rather than try to rehabilitate the New York Times, you would have noted that “Everybody Does It” is the #1, and most obvious, of the more than a hundred rationalizations on the EA Rationalizations list. It cannot be cited, as you cited it, as mitigation of unethical activity. Both are musicians, and their friendships, political support and positions are not “provocations” justifying firing them, no matter how long-standing. The fact is that in this country, as it should be anywhere that individual liberties are respected and the force of public opinion is not used to intimidate the non-conforming, who an artist is friends with and has supported in the past or present, as well as political views, is absolutely irrelevant to their art. (The same should be applied to any other individual.) None of the articles quoted the conductor as specifically cheering on the Ukraine invasion: we were told in both the Times and the WaPo that he to “reject the invasion” after an ultimatum to do so. That IS compelled speech, AS I WROTE. I would refuse to say what I was ordered to say by an employer even if I happened to believe it. There was nothing in my characterization that we misleading in the least. The conductor’s friendship with Putin and past support doesn’t change the unethical nature of what was done to him in any way from an ethics and freedom of expression and thought perspective.
Regarding the focus on #3: Your wan attempts to deny the undeniable regarding the Times’ bias is just bizarre, and if I didn’t know you to be sincere, I would assume you are trolling. I asked in another thread for you to back up your fantasy by showing a single example of the Times ever mis-informing readers in a way that benefited conservative or Republican interests the way its many, many “fake news” items about “Russian collusion,” Jan. 6, and other matters bolstered false progressive /Democratic narratives. You haven’t produced one, because there aren’t any. (That was the “dishonest waiter” test). Along the same lines, I’d ask you to find any Times op-ed that expressed such extreme (and badly argued) conservative biases and propaganda as the two essays I cited, never mind a entire page’s worth. To the contrary, when a US Senator opined in a mild op-ed that troops should be sent in to restore order in cities where BLM had taken over portions of some cities, the paper’s staff revolted and the op-ed editor who green-lighted the piece had to resign. Then the Times added a disclaimer. Blow’s column was infinitely more extreme and misleading than Sen. Cotton’s, yet sparked no action at all by Times staff or readers. What does this tell you? Amazingly, that the Times isn’t biased to its teeth, apparently.
As for the Hispanic support story: Why do you think coverage of this proves anything? The Times has no choice: the trend is obvious. Yes, it’s bad news for Democrats, but not the kind that can be spun or hidden, or on in which that hiding the truth would help the Left. I have a file on this issue, but there is no rush to get a post on it up, because it is an ongoing development..and one that I expected. I happen to know a lot about this, because I oversaw a study on Hispanic attitudes and business for the U.S. Chamber. Its conclusions: this is a group that shares the attitudes of mainstream Americans: conservative, religious, family oriented, entrepreneurial, hostile to socialism. That it would start voting GOP as the Democrats drifted Leftward was predictable. Noting the development doesn’t show that the Times is moderating its bias, or is any more trustworthy.
Here is the whole Post new story:
Russian conductor Valery Gergiev was fired from the Munich Philharmonic orchestra on Tuesday because he supports Russian President Vladimir Putin and has not rejected Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the German city’s mayor said.
Munich Mayor Dieter Reiter said in a news release that the decision came after he issued an ultimatum to the 68-year-old Russian conductor to reject the invasion. When Gergiev, a close friend of Putin, did not respond by Monday, Reiter said he was left with no choice but to dismiss the conductor.
“I had expected him to rethink and revise his very positive assessment of the Russian leader,” Reiter said. “After this didn’t occur, the only option is the immediate severance of ties.”
The move to dismiss Gergiev, a prominent classical music conductor who has led the Munich Philharmonic since the 2015-16 season, follows a stretch of widespread anger toward the conductor for his refusal to denounce Putin. Some of Gergiev’s concerts have been canceled, and he’s been asked to resign from honorary positions because he has not spoken out against the invasion.
Marcus Felsner, Gergiev’s manager, announced Sunday he was dropping his client for backing Putin. Felsner, who described Gergiev as “the greatest conductor alive and an extraordinary human being with a profound sense of decency,” said to the Guardian that the conductor would not and cannot “publicly end his long-expressed support for a regime that has come to commit such crimes.”
“In the light of the criminal war waged by the Russian regime against the democratic and independent nation of Ukraine, and against the European open society as a whole, it has become impossible for us, and clearly unwelcome, to defend the interests of Maestro Gergiev,” Felsner said in a statement, noting the decision to drop the conductor was “the saddest day of my professional life.”
Gergiev did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Tuesday. He has yet to speak publicly about Russia’s invasion.
The announcement comes as Russian forces gathered menacing strength Tuesday. While Ukrainian soldiers and ad hoc civilian militias have provided tenacious defense of major cities, a Russian projectile appeared to strike near Kharkiv’s administration building and a convoy of tanks, troop carriers and artillery more than 40 miles long threatened Kyiv. Five hours of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations near Belarus’s border on Monday failed to yield a breakthrough, with the two sides agreeing only to continue discussions in coming days.
The Moscow-born Gergiev is a star maestro who regularly packs opera houses and concert halls. He has made no secret of his bond with Putin, whom he has known for decades. The conductor has endorsed Putin’s presidential campaigns and sided with the Russian leader in denouncing the band Pussy Riot, which had spoken out against Putin’s control over the nation’s culture.
In addition to being the longtime artistic director of the Mariinsky Theater in St. Petersburg, Gergiev was honored by Putin in 2013 as an official “Hero of Labor,” the Atlantic reported. That same year, at the Opening Ceremonies of a million-dollar expansion to the Mariinsky Theater, Putin offered a birthday toast to Gergiev, who had just turned 60, according to the New Yorker.
In 2014, Gergiev was among those who signed a letter supporting Russia’s annexation of Crimea from Ukraine. He also conducted a 2016 concert in front of Russian soldiers in the Syrian city of Palmyra shortly after it was recaptured from the Islamic State, according to the BBC.
The classical music world has responded to Gergiev’s recent inaction. The Verbier Festival in Switzerland confirmed that Gergiev had resigned as music director at its request. He has been dropped by the Vienna Philharmonic’s five-concert tour in the United States, the Edinburgh International Festival, and the Festspielhaus theater in Germany. Milan Mayor Giuseppe Sala told reporters Monday that Gergiev would no longer conduct “The Queen of Spades” at the La Scala theater.
“I don’t think he will be there, I think at this point we can rule it out,” said Sala, who is also La Scala board chairman, according to Reuters. When asked about whether Gergiev responded to La Scala’s request for him to speak out about the invasion, Sala said, “The maestro did not reply to us.”
The Rotterdam Philharmonic Orchestra has also indicated it would drop Gergiev if he continued to support Putin. A September festival he was expected to conduct would be canceled if he did not speak out against the invasion, the orchestra said.
Reiter, the Munich mayor, noted that he terminated Gergiev’s contract three years before his deal was set to expire.
“With immediate effect, there will be no further concerts by the Munich Philharmonic Orchestra under his direction,” he said in a statement.
I know you read too fast, it can’t be stopped, and so the errors in your response start right at the beginning. Sorry!
The other article was not from the Times’ critic. It was, as I said, from the recently retired classical music editor, and was an informative news analysis and explanatory note. The critic is somebody else.
Gergiev is a long-time Putin stooge and it’s nothing whatsoever like calling Robert De Niro a Democratic Party stooge. De Niro said F Trump at the 2017 or 2018 Tonys; Gergiev’s sycophancy goes back decades. And the Democratic Party is not the same as Vladimir Putin, no matter what this website writes.
Saying that Gergiev is just a conductor entirely misses the cultural relevance. Such a position has way higher general cultural status in both Russia and Germany than it does in America.
Putin didn’t use the wrong pronoun or something; he’s waging a brutal unprovoked war against a peaceful neighbor and engaging in what everyone can see are war crimes in the very first week. We often agree on what’s not consequential; this most certainly is.
Two sentences in the following paragraph appear to ask me to name a conservative op-ed in the NYT, when I already did in the last argument I had with you, and you didn’t acknowledge it (the one from two black conservatives questioning currently educational trends’ helpfulness for minority students). They’re called “Guest Essays” now, and frankly, *most* days I see at least one “liberal” and one “conservative” Guest Essay in the Times if not more. You have to try to miss them.
Finally, just here in Washington, the personnel backbone of a great number of orchestras, choruses, and other serious arts organizations are Russian and Asian performers. If all this terrible censorship and cancelling were going on, these organizations would be reeling from their loss of Russian artists. No such thing is remotely happening, nor will it.
Fully conceded that the New York Times never should have cancelled some of its own staff over a sitting senator’s op-ed which was a valid piece of argument, agree or disagree with the opinion. The Times made various mistakes especially in the 2019-2020 period. It’s published, what, 1 million articles since then? This constant haranguing over this those past events is robbing people of information and sending people down ideological rabbit holes, which aren’t good things, left or right. And by today’s standards, I’m not even really liberal, so if you can’t take it from me – and thanks for the troll allusion – who can you?
What an amazing number of irrelevancies! One right after another.
1. Critic/Retired music editor. Meh. A distinction without a difference in this context.
2. Long time/ recent. Irrelevant. “Stooge” does not describe substantive conduct as you use it.
3. Cultural status is still just status, and “support” in this context does not reach the level of “accessory.” Is it like Frank Sinatra being Kennedy’s “stooge”? So what?
4.What Putin is currently doing does not make a former or current supporter/friend an accomplice or accountable in any way, nor obligate such to “condemn” anything. Compelled speech, and guilt by association.
5. The issue is this example of punishing someone for not toeing a required line. That others aren’t being treated similarly is irrelevant as well.
NOW—are you deliberately ducking the questions I asked? It sure seems like it. The question was: Where are the NYT news stories or op-ed that misrepresent facts to harm progressive positions and support the other side? There aren’t any—just “mistakes” that go in the opposite direction.
I will only add to this a bit of theoretical whataboutism. What if A friend’s job or position in society was contingent on publicly having to denounce climate change or some other policy matter or face economic or cultural termination. Silence is not consent. This is nothing more than a loyalty oath. And, BTW most of Hollywood are stooges of the Democrat party. DiNiro is merely one of the most vulgar because it allows him to stay in the spotlight when the only role he is now qualified to play is a dirty Grandpa.
What’s striking about this conversation on an ethics website is the stubbornness. Neither the host nor, I’m guessing, the other commenters knew much of anything about Valery Gergiev, and the host simply folded a single story about him into an American anti-cancel-culture template. I come along and add critically important context and provided an additional resource, and the response is “No! Danger! Don’t Read!”
There’s also the interesting ethnocentrism. “Gergiev is just a conductor.” Pop superstar would be more like it, in the context of German and Russian classical arts. It’s weird, I usually think of this sort of misapplication of the American environment and framing of issues with the woke left, for example, viewing the Israeli-Palestinian conflict through the lens of American black and white, which has nothing to do with it when the essential issue remains to this day Palestinian rejectionism backed by the threat of terrorism against non-combatants.
There must be ten thousand Russian musicians, singers, ballet dancers, actors, directors, choreographers, arts craftspeople and on and on who are expatriate or who regularly work in the West. If a general move takes hold to disemploy them the way Germans in America were shunned, disemployed and silenced during World War I, I will be the first to speak out in opposition. Here, exactly two artists of longstanding irresponsible support of a global thug who’s now committing unspeakable crimes against an innocent people are being held to account, and we can’t get past the idea that it’s just like some kid being disenrolled in a university because of some text or tweet that they wrote when they were 15. Come on. Thanks and enjoy the rest of the day.
We know all we need to know. He didn’t start a war. He’s a conductor, and as long as he’s a competent conductor, his friends, beliefs, political opinions and personal associations should not affect his employment at all.