Willingness of Teachers to Wear Foil Hats to Block NATO Rays Shows State of Russian Society under Putin, Sidorov Says

Paul Goble
    Staunton, Nov. 15 – For the last week, the Russian media hves been full of stories about a group of teachers who fell for a Belarusian prankster’s joke about how foil hats could bloc NATO rays from destroying their brains and not only made and worse such hats but taught their students how to do so.
    When the prankster presented himself as a United Russia deputy and called on teachers to fashion aluminum foil hats to block NATO, the results exceeded all his expectations, Vadim Sidorov, a Prague-based expert on regional relations in the Russian Federation (idelreal.org/a/shapochki-iz-folgi-kak-vybor-rossiyskogo-obschestva/33202868.html).
    While government media reacted with restraint and many Russians with laughter, those who reflect on what this incident says about Russian society under Putin can only be appalled. Teachers, who in most places are intended to raise a new generation capable of critical thinking, have shown themselves ready to engage in the most “insane and servile” activities.
    Those who do things like putting on foil hats are certainly going to be willing to falsify elections or attack groups of their fellow citizens if they believe that the powers that be want that, Sidorov says; and consequently, teachers who put on foil hats are only the tip of the iceberg of a much larger problem  in Russia: servility and insanity.