A Stitch in Haste

Many conservatives, and I suppose libertarians, get rather indignant when they see silly, and ignorant, young people wearing the frighteningly popular Che Guevara t-shirts.

Fair enough. Guevara was a terrorist and an all-around evil and despicable man. But to me the far more outrageous idiot fashion statement are the jackasses who wear "CCCP" clothing.

The only thing worse than a jackass wearing CCCP clothing is an American jackass wearing CCCP clothing.

And the only thing worse than an American jackass wearing CCCP clothing is an American jackass wearing CCCP clothing at the Olympics:

Johnny Weir, winner of three consecutive U.S. figure skating titles, was sporting a throwback warmup jacket from the old Soviet Union after his Olympic practice session Thursday.

"CCCP,'' the Russian acronym for the Soviet Union, was lettered across the chest of the red, zippered jacket. On the left sleeve of the jersey he wore in practice, "Johnny" was spelled out in Russian letters.

"It's not that I'm anti-American or anything like that ... I just admire Russian culture and Russian skaters for their strength and their perseverance through everything they go through," said Weir ... "It would be the same as someone wearing a Madonna T-shirt."

Good grief, was the Cold War really so long ago? Do we really need to have a remedial history and geography lesson?

So be it: The USSR (i.e., "CCCP") was not "Russia." The USSR was "Russia" and the 14 sovereign nations that Russia (often with the help of collaborator Communists) invaded, conquered and assimilated:

Armenia
Azerbaijan
Belarus
Estonia
Georgia
Kazakhstan
Kyrgyzstan
Latvia
Lithuania
Moldova
Tajikistan
Turkmenistan
Ukraine
Uzbekistan

The citizens of these nations never were and are not now "Russians." And to wear a "CCCP" jacket is an insult not only to the people of these nations today, but also to the legacy of the tens of millions of (non-Russian) people from these (non-Russian) nations whom the "CCCP" condemned to decades of misery (and, all too often, to wholesale slaughter). To wear "CCCP" is not a celebration of "Russian culture," but an endorsement of the most brutal, most murderous regime ever to reign on Earth.

When you are an "ambassador of goodwill," as Olympic athletes are purported to be, one should not be flippant in displaying one of the two symbols most antonymic to goodwill (the other being of course the swastika).

Stated differently, with the privilege of competing in the Olympics comes the obligation not to be a complete moron.

Shame on Weir, who owes every single person in those 14 nations an apology and deserves to be expelled from the Games.