The neo-McCarthyism against Russian civilians marches on with the news that tennis player Daniil Medvedev will be blacklisted from Wimbledon unless he denounces Vladimir Putin:
Daniil Medvedev, the world No 1 tennis player, could face a ban from Wimbledon unless he provides public assurances that he is not a supporter of President Putin.
Nigel Huddleston, the sports minister, told a hearing of the digital, culture, media and sport select committee today that the government would only allow individual athletes from Russia or Belarus to compete in events in the UK if they received assurances that the individual was not linked to the Russian or Belarusian states or their leaders.
The tournament, which is scheduled to launch on June 27, has already banned the countries of Russia and Belarus from competing. However, athletes from those countries can compete as neutral individuals but only if they publicly denounce Putin.
Forcing an athlete to choose between his country and competing, between renouncing a dictator like Putin (which could bring harm to him and his loved ones) and competing at Wimbledon, is obscene.
This approach is what’s most indefensible about the Woke Gestapo. Silence is no longer acceptable. Neutrality means you’re the enemy. You must openly and proudly declare you are on the right side, the correct side, the APPROVED side of an issue, or you will be destroyed.
How is that any different from McCarthyism?
It’s not.
But why would the West want to behave in such a craven and shameful way unless, of course, we want to turn the Russian people against us?
This sort of virtue-signaling, this unholy moral exhibitionism, might give these smug elites all kinds of self-satisfaction, but it’s doing nothing to alienate Putin. If anything, these attacks on Russian civilians — including denying them medicine — make us the bad guys, the bullies, the fascists.
Even at the height of the Cold War, we didn’t blacklist artists and athletes. But back then, this was a world still run by adults who understood that we 1) wanted the Russian people on our side and 2) we couldn’t very well hold the moral high ground if we were the ones were running around blacklisting and bullying demanding purity tests — you know, like Stalin.
What’s especially galling is that these elitist bullies are the same people who suck up to China, despite a human rights record including genocide. These woke bullies would not only never dream of demanding a Chinese athlete denounce their own country or president, but almost all of these bullies are also actively doing business with China.
Just last year, China’s Zhang Zhizhen was allowed to compete at Wimbledon without being forced to denounce his president or his country’s ongoing persecution and annihilation against the Muslim Uyghurs. Nor should he have been blacklisted or forced to take a political stand against his own country.
We are not at war with Russia.
Why, then, are we waging war on Russian civilians?
All this is is bullies shrouding their sick desire to bully in virtue.
P.S. What’s going to happen when English athletes are told they can either denounce Wimbeldon’s fascist blacklisting or be sent home?
Follow John Nolte on Twitter @NolteNC. Follow his Facebook Page here.
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