27 October 2017. What Happened to Free Speech? Russia Allows Dissenting Voices on Its Media… What About America?

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If it’s true Twitter banned RT, it’d demonstrate the ideological collaboration between state and corporate sector. Very troubling move…

26 October 2017

Ajamu Baraka

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Editor:

Read this. It’s about Russian counter-propaganda methods and there are few idle words in it (The Saker can be an insufferable anti-Semite at times; it does surface a bit, but it isn’t his focus here). Look at these excerpts:

One of the techniques Russian talk-shows regularly use is to show a short report about the latest crazy nonsense coming out of the USA or Europe and then ask a pro-US guest to react to it. The “liberals” (in Russian political terminology, a hopelessly naïve pro-Western person who loves to trash everything Russian and who hates Putin and those who support him) are intensely embarrassed and usually either simply admit that this is crazy nonsense or try to find some crazy nonsense in the Russian media (there’s plenty of that, too) to show that “we’re just as bad”. No matter what escape route they choose, the “liberal” ends up looking like a total idiot or a traitor. …

The only people who can seriously accuse the Russian government of trying to crack down on opposition pro-Western political parties or anti-Putin ideas are folks who have no factual knowledge about Russia at all. Either that or they’re deliberately lying. That includes the vast majority of Western political leaders (in the USA and in Europe) who now scramble to increase the budgets of traditional Western propaganda outfits such as VOA/RL/RFE or who want to create new propaganda outlets to “bring a democratic message to the Russian people”. In reality, the Russian people get a daily dose of Western propaganda (AKA “democratic message”) courtesy of the Kremlin, and that’s something that the imbeciles in power in the West can’t even begin to imagine, never mind deal with. …

In the age of the Internet and satellite TV, you can’t target your message solely at a domestic audience, nor can you prevent the other guy’s propaganda from reaching your own domestic audience. The Americans still operate as they did in the mid 1970s… they target their biggest propaganda efforts at the domestic audience as if the entire world didn’t carefully parse everything CNN and the rest of them say, and they believe that the West is only unpopular in Russia because of “Putin’s control of the media”. It’d be impossible to be more out of touch with reality than these people. The truth is that about 80 percent or more of Russians support Putin precisely because they’re exposed to the Western propaganda machine and its message on a daily basis. …

Furthermore, and at the risk of sounding like a Russian propagandist myself, I’d say something that’s quite evident, but still hard to believe… Russians have no need to lie, their propaganda is fundamentally truthful, fact-based, and logical. There’s no Russian equivalent of the Pokemon story. When western leaders demand that Russia withdraw her forces from the Donbass, Russians have no need to make up some convoluted story about how the Russian military is in the Donbass, but that these forces are as invisible to the observer on the ground as they are invisible to the satellites in space. The Russians don’t have any need to lie about their operations in Syria because what they say they’re doing there and what they’re actually doing there is one and the same… liberating Syria from Daesh. I could multiply the examples, but my point is simple… unlike their American counterparts, Russians don’t engage in policies that they can’t justify before their own public opinion or before the public opinion of the rest of the planet. Sounds simple? Then, why is it that the USA seems to be comprehensively unable to say the truth about anything they do? Being truthful doesn’t prevent Russians from being crafty, however, and the way they “jiu-jitsu” Western propaganda output to their own benefit is very clever. Clearly, somebody in the Kremlin learned painful lessons from the dysfunctional and, frankly, ridiculous Soviet propaganda machine. …

Okay, the Russian counter-propaganda effort is very sophisticated and effective. However, is it ethical? I think that it very much is. Here’s why. Firstly, as I said, Russians don’t fabricate lies. What they report is usually factually true (I say “usually” because I know too much about how journalism really works behind the scenes to have any illusions of the “they always say the truth” kind). Secondly, they use the enemy’s own stupidity. Nobody would call Aikido “unethical”, yet you use your opponent’s moves and force against him (“combining forces” in Aikido terminology). Thirdly, outrageous, over the top, and disgusting as some of the clowns shown on Russian TV are, they don’t misrepresent the reality of [the West]. Yes, sure, true Russophobes are a tiny minority in the West (at least, where the people are concerned… especially in southern Europe and the USA), but Russophobes or their puppets practically control the régimes in power in the West. As for the Western media, it’s wall-to-wall Russophobic to such a degree that I’d call it unambiguously racist.

Therefore, yes, Russians use the immense arrogance and poorly-concealed hatred for Russia of some of the more pompous and least-intelligent representatives of the West to paint an absolutely fair and accurate representation of the Western ruling élites. If the message were “everybody in the West hates you”, then, this’d be grossly unfair, deceptive, and unethical. However, if the message is “the Western élites hate you”, then, the message is absolutely fair, truthful, and ethical. …

One of the main weaknesses of the US political élite is that they never bothered to seriously study political science, never mind Marxism and, even less so, Hegelian dialectics. Which is too bad for them because they now completely overlook the fact that the internal contradiction of the [Western] propaganda machine creates a reaction that’ll make Russia Today, Sputnik, and the pro-Russian Internet even more attractive to Western audiences than it already is. In fact, every effort to crack down on “Russian propagandists” will only serve to strengthen the latter, making the perusal of pro-Russian sources something sexy and exciting.

However, don’t expect American “liberals” to admit any of the above. American “conservatives” are on a holiday from reality, but American “liberals” live in a shibboleth-soaked “alternative reality” that has no grounding in the real world at all. At least, “conservatives” worship money and power, which are real, although somewhat amoral and ruthless. The “liberal” doesn’t consult reality at all… after all, didn’t they vote for Hillary Clinton and continue to defend her (and her manifestly-evil programme) today? I need to add no more…

BMD

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Does Russia Force Underage Girls to Take Virginity Tests? Western Media Says “Yes”, Reality Says “Nope”

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Editor:

This is much like the story on alleged gay concentration camps run by Kadyrov in Chechnya. It’s 100 percent pure unadulterated unalloyed bullshit. Nothing more need be said on the matter… read it and see how stupid Western liberals are. They really believe this shit.

BMD

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Did you know that Russian doctors are required by law to check the “integrity” of each and every young Russian hymen, and then report any signs of sexual activity to the police? We didn’t know either! Until of course, we read this brave report published by the Independent:

Doctors in Russia have reportedly been instructed to perform virginity tests on underage girls. […] Health Minister Vladimir Shuldyakov said doctors must follow the order and “inform police about all cases when virginity was lost as well as about cases of pregnancies and abortions involving girls under 16-years-old”. The order instructs doctors to check the “integrity of the hymen” and look for signs of damage.

Where to begin? Well, for starters… Russia’s Health Minister is V I Skvortsova. This Vladimir guy is the health minister of Saratov Oblast, which is sort of like being the head health honcho of Tumbleweed NE. Amazingly, even the garbage Daily Mail article cited by the Independent managed to correctly identify Shuldyakov as the Health Minister of a small region of Russia. However, the Independent simply refers to him as “Health Minister Vladimir Shuldyakov”; Saratov isn’t even mentioned in the Independent’s report. Also, Shuldyakov cancelled his order three days before the Independent published its hymen horror story:

Minister of Health of the Saratov Oblast Vladimir Shuldyakov cancelled his order, according to which doctors were obliged to inform the police about cases of deprivation of virginity and pregnancy of schoolgirls, the head of the press service of the regional Ministry of Health, Aleksandr Kolokolov, told RIA Novosti.

Will the Independent correct its story? Or, at least “update” it? Of course not. Friends… we’re reaching levels of bullshit that’d make William Randolph Hearst blush. He’s the creep who invented the modern “save the young girls from the savages!” tabloid story. So just to recap, the Independent:

1. Portrayed a provincial official as Russia’s top health official
2. Reported on an “order” that was cancelled three days prior

What we enjoy most about this hilariously 100 percent false story is that the Independent cited a tabloid… and then somehow managed to make the story even more wrong. Say what you will, but that requires “skill sets”.

18 June 2017

Russian Insider

http://russia-insider.com/en/politics/does-russia-force-underage-girls-take-virginity-tests-western-media-says-yes-reality-says

Masters of Absurd Propaganda: USA Continues to Lie About Ukrainian Crisis

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American publicist Eric Zuesse remarked that American propaganda is “so ridiculous, no intelligent and informed person would give it any serious consideration whatsoever. It insults the public’s intelligence”. He emphasised that the entire case for Western sanctions against Russia is a pure lie, nailing the Obama administration for what he called its blatant propaganda and sheer hypocrisy. Zuesse referred to the US State Department’s “Ukraine Travel Warning” issued on 16 July aimed at preventing American tourists from travelling to the Eastern Ukraine and the Crimea. Apparently aimed at frightening the US tourists out of their wits, the “warning” claimed that “individuals, including US citizens, have been threatened, detained or kidnapped for hours or days after being stopped” at checkpoints in Donetsk and Lugansk. It also warned Americans against visiting the Crimea as “the Russian Federation maintains an extensive military presence”.

The Obama administration obviously doesn’t care that the reality on the ground differs tremendously from what it’s saying. US officials also remain silent about the fact that before Washington intervened in Kiev’s domestic affairs, the Ukraine was a unified and democratic country. Zuesse pointed up, “Obama… replaced the existing Ukrainian President, V F Yanukovich, who, like all of his predecessors, was corrupt; and the US propaganda-machine publicised his corruption, virtually ignoring the fact of corruption’s normalcy in at least the post-Soviet Ukraine (corruption greatly encouraged by the USA). The USA didn’t replace him because he was corrupt. The USA replaced him because he supported a non-aligned Ukraine… neither a stooge to the USA nor to Russia”. However, a non-aligned Ukraine wasn’t exactly what Washington needed.

American activist Chris Ernesto wrote in 2014 that, remarkably, the American political establishment (most notably, Zbigniew Brzezinski) “mapped out” the battle plan for the Ukraine decades ago. Ernesto quoted Brzezinski’s 1997 book, The Grand Chessboard:

The Ukraine, a new and important space on the Eurasian chessboard, is a geopolitical pivot because its very existence as an independent country helps to transform Russia… However, if Moscow regains control over the Ukraine, with its 52 million people and major resources as well as access to the Black Sea, Russia automatically again regains the wherewithal to become a powerful imperial state, spanning Europe and Asia.

So far, Washington has desperately tried to bring the Ukraine into its fold. Eventually, in November 2013, the USA instigated a standoff with the Ukrainian government, the so-called “Euromaidan”, which then turned into a “blatant” coup. American analyst Brandon Turbeville wrote in April 2015, “[E]arly on, there were individuals in the Ukrainian government who recognised that there was an international and NATO-centred plot at work in their country, designed to overthrow the President and other elected officials using ‘swarming adolescents’ and other more violent elements of protest and destabilisation”.

The Crimea’s secession from Ukraine, as well as the unwillingness of the Ukraine’s former eastern regions to recognise the illegitimate junta obviously contradicted American plans. Zuesse noted that, thus far, “the US State Department rejects the legitimacy of the overwhelming, and the repeatedly polling-confirmed, desire of the Crimean people to cease being Ukrainian (which they had been only from 1954 to 2014). As for the residents of the Donbass, Obama needs to get rid of them, because they voted over 90 percent for the man he overthrew. If they stay alive and within the Ukraine, then, the régime that Obama installed will get voted out of office”. Zeusse remarked that the irony of the situation is that V V Putin wants the Donbass to remain a part of the Ukraine, whilst Obama doesn’t want them to return to the Ukrainian fold. Furthermore, whilst the Kremlin urges the Ukrainian government, the EU, and the USA to follow the Minsk II Accord, the Obama administration goes even so far as to claim that Russia “has ignored the opportunity to resolve the crisis in the Ukraine diplomatically”. Zeusse observed, “A more devilishly lying country than the USA of today is hard to imagine. It’s even a dictatorship… its government represents not the public (as its founders had intended) but its aristocracy (which those founders had tried to overthrow… and did overthrow, in their own era)”, adding that meanwhile Washington continues to try to fool public opinion.

6 August 2015

Sputnik International

http://sputniknews.com/politics/20150806/1025477420.html

Editor:

Orthodox people… we have to face a disturbing fact. We have elements within us that support and aid the opponents of Holy Rus and the Holy Church. Of course, some are obvious, such as Potapov, Paffhausen, and Dreher… conscious and unrepentant supporters of the ravening Republican aggressors against the Motherland. The Republicans have LIED in a major way about the Rodina since 1946 (on top of whitewashing Nazis and their accomplices)… it’s nothing new for them. Many Establishment Dems joined them in Truman’s time… most of the rest jumped on the Russophobic bandwagon after 1991. Only one American politician has the potential to break this stranglehold…

Bernie Sanders…

If Senator Sanders is sincere in his programme, and I believe that he is, then, the only way that he can pay for it is to halt the present spiralling warmongering in foreign parts. That’s the choice… perpetual warfare or social justice at home. Here’s the sad part for Orthodox people… most konvertsy align themselves with the Republican opponents of Holy Rus (and opponents of justice in America) on the grounds of “Pro-Life”… I kid you not. These immature brats have placed abortion and homosexuality at the centre of their faith… they’re obsessed with them. However, the Church doesn’t wave placards or march in rallies… it prays. That’s what it does, but that doesn’t satisfy these former-Proddie simpletons. They support those who urge on the murderers of our priests and children, all because such pigs are “anti-abortion”. That’s upside down! That’s Jabberwockian! However, they swallow American Exceptionalism wholesale… shall they stay within a group that’s consciously “Russian Orthodox?” I don’t know… but they’re enablers for those who kill, destroy, and brutalise… some “Pro-Life” that…

Yes… there’s propaganda… but that’s not as bad as those who repudiate reality for their manufactured simulacrum thereof. We face the latter… it’s much more insidious and much more dangerous. Think on that, Orthodox people…

BMD

“Forbes” Outs the Shocking Truth about the Crimea and the Ukraine

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Forbes entitled its article ”A Year After the Russian Annexation of the Crimea, Locals Prefer Moscow to Kiev”. In fact, Forbes based its piece primarily on two studies by authoritative western polling agencies… the American Gallup and German GFK. The latter, incidentally, is the largest German polling outfit, being amongst the four leading polling “gurus” around the world. Therefore, I think there isn’t any reason for even the most biased Westerners to question the results of their research. After analysing the survey results, journalist Kenneth Raposa came to a shocking conclusion for a Westerner on the attitudes of Crimeans to the current situation, ” The locals… whether Ukrainians, Russians, or ethnic Tatars… are unanimous on one thing… life in Russia is better than life in the Ukraine”. He reminded his readers about a study conducted by Gallup in cooperation with the Supervisory Board for International Broadcasting in 2014 in the Crimea. At that time, almost 83 percent of Crimeans said that the results of the March referendum really reflected their wishes and aspirations. Almost 74 percent of respondents were confident that reunification with Russia would have a positive impact on their quality of life, only 5.5 percent thought the opposite…

Therefore, in January-February 2015, after the first year of reunification, GFK decided to poll the Crimean people for their attitudes on it. For a western organisation, their results were simply sensational. They reported that 82 percent of Crimeans unambiguously approved reunification of the Crimea with Russia. Another 11% favoured for the most part. That is, 93 percent of Crimeans were positive about the results of the March 2014 referendum! Only 2 percent were against reunification. Kenneth Raposa concluded that these two studies by prestigious Western institutions strongly suggest that the outcome of the referendum in 2014 completely reflected the factual situation. Only 1 percent of Crimeans believe that the Ukrainian media gives objective information about happenings in the Crimea. Another 4 percent said that the Ukrainian media is “more objective”. On the other hand, 45 percent of Crimeans believe that the Ukrainian media purveys falsehoods, and another 35 percent stated that it’s more false than true. Raposa pointed up that the GFK survey didn’t indicate how people came to their conclusions.

Only 13 percent of Crimeans believed that their financial situation deteriorated over the last year (do recall the Ukrainian horror stories about the “starving” Crimea). Opposed to that, 21 percent believed that their financial situation improved significantly, 30 percent think it got better, and 35 percent said that their financial situation remained somewhere near last year’s level. For comparison, in the Ukraine at the same time, Ukrainian pollsters found that 94 percent of respondents reported a sharp deterioration in their standard of living! The top issue that concerned Crimeans was the war in Novorossiya (42 percent), followed by inflation (40 percent), transport blockade of the Crimea (22 percent), and personal financial problems (19 percent).

Raposa “hammered” Ukrainian nationalists and American fans of intervention in other peoples’ affairs. He noted that Crimean society is united and unanimous in agreement on the existing course of affairs, but one can’t even think of unity in the Ukraine. He said that, according to western polling institutions, there is a severe schism in Ukrainian society that objectively threatens the Ukraine’s territorial integrity. Only 19 percent in the so-called “Eastern Ukraine” and only 26 percent in the so-called “Southern Ukraine” support EU integration. (as it is very different from those Ukrainian “sociologist”!), on the other hand, 84 percent in the Western Ukraine, 60 percent in Northern oblasts, and about half of those in Central oblasts support that policy. Support for Ukrainian accession to NATO is even lower than support for EU membership in the so-called “Southeast”. Even in the Western Ukraine, only 53 favour NATO membership. The support for European integration in various Ukrainian regions coincides with their support of the USA and their role in the events of 2013-14.

Forbes is one of the most respected publications in the world, reflecting the opinion of a large part of the Western élite. Raposa’s article is a kind of surrender of the part of that élite to reality… Crimea became Russian in the first place because its people wanted it that way. Yes, the “Euro-Atlantic” choice of the Ukraine… that’s “not set in stone”. Meanwhile, the Ukraine forges a contrived reality, purposed to manipulate and maintain the martial spirit of the ultra-right. Almost all major Ukrainian media outlets completely ignored the GFK and Gallup poll results, indeed, most major Ukrainian publications shouted the strident headline, Most Crimeans Want to Return to the Ukraine. The source of this tawdry fluff was a yellow tabloid, Крым: Реалии (Krym: Realy/Crimea: Realities). In it, we can admire quite original news. Despite the sensational headline and text, the author conceded that there’s no basis for it in sociological research, they claimed that it came from an “online survey” allegedly carried out by the online edition of the reputable newspaper edition of Крымская Правда (Krymskaya Pravda: Crimean Pravda).

It was ridiculously easy to find the underlying cause of this one. Krymskaya Pravda itself said that Ukrainian hackers attacked their website . It effectively blocked them; the Ukrainian hackers actually were quite derisive (their famous informational troops?) in their attempt to force the site to show the “right” results for the survey. If the real attitudes and the real results of opinion polls don’t match what the Kiev junta wants to see, well, they can just hack the site. Then, they can force the media to publish it “voluntarily”. This situation highlights how one must take any information published by Ukrainian “journalists”. The most disgusting thing about this is that people from the Northern and Western Ukraine tend to lack “living” contacts with the Crimea, so, they believe this rubbish to the point that many are even willing to go to “beat” the Crimea [back into the Ukraine] by force of arms.

In general, an article in Forbes is a very positive sign; it says that sensible elements in Western society are trying to beat back the “hawks”, who live in a fantasy world. It’ll be some time before good-sense wins the day, but it looks like the end is coming for evil and misfortune…

24 July 2015

RuSMI

http://rusmi.su/news/07-2015/news2943.html

Politrussia

http://politrussia.com/society/forbes-rubit-shokiruyushchuyu-753/