PUTIN
AND THE PRESS:
THE DEMONOLOGY SCHOOL OF JOURNALISM
The major influential western
print media are engaged in a prolonged, large-scale effort to demonize RUSSIAN
President PUTIN, his politics and persona. There is an article (or several
articles) every day in which he is personally stigmatized as a dictator,
authoritarian, czar, ‘former KGB operative’ and SOVIET-style ruler; anything
but the repeatedly elected President of RUSSIA.
But then again one needs a bad
guy, to point the finger at. After WW2 it was the communists, then with 9/11
Islam and now a combination of both. Humanity needs always a scapegoat in order
to justify certain actions. 9/11 was instigated because the cold war had ended
and at that time RUSSIA was no more the evil entity, thus evil ISLAM had to substitute,
giving certain WESTERN entities the excuse to implement the war on terror and
subsequently a new sort of world order, in order to justify total control and surveillance
ORWELLIAN style in order to curb in democracy and too much freedom, the out of control
data highway offered to modern civilization.
Thus it is of no surprise that he
is accused of hijacking RUSSIA from the ‘road to democracy’, as pursued by his
grotesquely corrupt predecessor BORIS YELTSIN; of directing the bloody
repression of the ‘freedom loving CHECHENS’; of jailing innocent, independent
and critical oligarchs and robber barons; of fomenting an uprising in the
‘democratic, newly pro-WESTERN’ UKRAINE and seizing control of CRIMEA; of
backing a ‘bloody tyrant’ in SYRIA (elected President BASHAR ASSAD) in a civil
war against ISIS terrorists; of running the RUSSIAN economy into the ground;
and of militarily threatening the BALTIC and EASTERN EUROPEAN NATO member
countries.
MEDIA
PSY - OPS
In a word, the media have
propagated an image of an ‘out-of-control autocrat’, who makes a mockery of
‘democratic’ norms and ‘WESTERN values’, and who seeks to revive the ‘SOVIET (aka
Evil) Empire’.
The corollary is that ‘WESTERN
powers’, despite their peace-loving propensities and fraternal attempts to
bring RUSSIA into the democratic ‘fold’, have been ‘forced’ to now surround RUSSIA
with NATO military bases and missiles; to finance a violent coup in the UKRAINE
(on RUSSIA’S frontier) and arm the UKRAINIAN putsch government and neo-fascist
militias to ‘restore democracy’ and violently suppress ethnic RUSSIAN
‘separatists’ in EASTERN UKRAINE. We are told that US and EU sanctions against RUSSIA
were carefully crafted ‘diplomatic’ measures designed to punish the MOSCOW
‘aggressor’.
In reality, the WESTERN media has
relentlessly demonized VLADIMIR PUTIN in a campaign to further NATO military
expansion and undermine the RUSSIAN economy and its national security. The goal
is ultimately to force a ‘regime change’, restoring the neo-liberal elites who
had pillaged RUSSIA’S economy during the 1990’s and whose economic policies led
to the premature death of over 6 million RUSSIANS due to deprivation and the
collapse of the healthcare system.
PUTIN:
DEMON OR REALIST, AUTOCRAT OR DEMOCRAT, VASSAL OR INDEPENDENT LEADER?
The WESTERN media has backed
every oligarch, gangster and fraudster who has gone on trial and been convicted
during PUTIN’S term in office. The propagandists tell us the reason for this
affinity between the WESTERN media and the oligarchs is that these convicted
felons, who claim to be ‘political dissidents’ and critics of PUTIN’S rule,
have been dispossessed, and jailed for upholding ‘WESTERN values’.
The WESTERN media conveniently
ignore the well-documented studies on the source of the OC (Organized Crime) -oligarchs’
wealth: The violent and illegal seizure of multi-billion dollars-worth of
natural resources (aluminum, oil and gas), banks, factories, pension funds and
real estate. During the YELTSIN period the oligarchs controlled thousands of
armed gangsters and engaged in internal warfare during which thousands were
killed, including top government regulators, police officials and journalists
who dared to oppose or expose their pillage and property grabs.
PUTIN’S prosecution of a mere
fraction of the most notorious oligarch-gangsters has won the support of the
vast majority of RUSSIAN citizens because it represents a return to law and
order and the return of stolen public wealth.
THE
TRUTH, NOTHING BUT THE TRUTH, SO HELP ME GOD
Only the WESTERN media has dared
to refer to these convicted felons as ‘political victims and reformers’. They
did so because the oligarchs had become the most loyal and submissive assets in
the US and EU governments’ efforts to convert RUSSIA into an irreversibly weak
vassal state.
The WESTERN media constantly
refer to President PUTIN as the ‘authoritarian ruler’, despite the fact that he
has been repeatedly elected by large majorities in competitive elections
against WESTERN backed and funded candidates. His popularity is attested to by
opinion polls conducted by WESTERN agencies.
In 2015, President PUTIN’S
support soared to over 85%. The pro-WESTERN RUSSIAN neo-liberal politicians
scored in the low single digits according to the same independent polls.
Clearly the RUSSIAN public does
not want to return to the poverty and chaos of the WESTERN-backed criminal
politics of the 1990’s.
Whatever reservations working and
middle class RUSSIANS have over President PUTIN’S style of decision-making,
they clearly value his crackdown on organized crime-controlled elections, CHECHEN
terrorism, and his restoration of RUSSIAN military defense of its frontiers,
including the annexation of CRIMEA, following the US-engineered coup in UKRAINE.
Every day, the WESTERN media
recycle reports of the ‘decline and demise’ of the RUSSIAN economy, blaming
‘statist’ mismanagement of the economy by PUTIN. They claim ‘declining living
standards’, the ‘negative growth’ of the economy and the ‘growing isolation’ of
an ‘expansionist’ RUSSIA in the face of WESTERN sanctions.
MASS
MEDIA PRESENT THE NEO-LIBERAL ‘OPPOSITION’ JUST AS IS THE CASE IN LATIN AMERICA
These media claims are laughable.
Readily available data demonstrate that living standards of the vast majority
of RUSSIAN citizens have significantly increased under President PUTIN’S
administration, especially after the utter collapse under the free marketers of
the1990’s. RUSSIAN workers receive their pay, pensioners their pensions,
enterprises their loans – on time. During the ‘free market’ days of BORIS
YELTSIN, workers went up to a year without pay, pensioners were selling their
heirlooms in the street to survive and enterprises paid extortionate interest
rates to oligarch controlled banks! Comparative data, easily obtained, are
deliberately ignored by the mass media because it doesn’t fit the demonological
narrative.
The mass media present the
neo-liberal ‘opposition’ and ‘liberal critics’ as RUSSIAN democrats defending ‘WESTERN
values’. They forget to mention that these ‘liberal critics’ have been directly
funded by WESTERN foundations (NATIONAL ENDOWMENT FOR DEMOCRACY, SOROS
FOUNDATION, etc.) and RUSSIAN non-governmental organizations (NGO’s) with
longstanding ties to US and EU governments, intelligence agencies and exiled RUSSIAN
billionaires.
The so-called ‘RUSSIAN’ democratic opposition revealed their
abject servility to WESTERN interests when they openly supported the UKRAINIAN
coup and KIEV’S bloody assault on ethnic RUSSIAN-UKRAINIANS in the eastern ‘DONBAS’
regions of DONETSK, LUHANSK and ODESSA. Whatever shreds of respectability and
credibility the ‘democratic opposition’ retained with the RUSSIAN public, up to
that point, was lost. They were seen for what they are: propaganda arms of WESTERN
imperialism and mouth-pieces for neo-fascists.
Background
Information: UKRAINE
MOST
IMPORTANT UKRAINIAN MINISTRIES WERE GRANTED TO FOREIGN-BORN INDIVIDUALS WHO
RECEIVED UKRAINIAN CITIZENSHIP
UKRAINE
AND THE WEST
THE
DONBAS SEPARATISTS AND THE CHRISTIAN ORTHODOX CHURCHES INVOLVEMENT IN THE
CONFLICT
UKRAINE’S
STRATEGIC BUDZHAK
THE
WESTERN MASS MEDIA CHARGE PUTIN’S GOVERNMENT WITH THE SAME CRIMES THAT THEIR
OWN GOVERNMENTS COMMIT.
After the US State Department’s VICTORIA
NULAND admitted to channeling $5 billion to fund the 2014 coup in UKRAINE and
after the POLISH regime boasted of training far right street fighters, whose
mob violence served as a pretext for the coup, and after neo-fascist coalition
partners in ODESSA of burned alive four dozen ethnic RUSSIAN-UKRAINIAN citizens
opposed to the coup, the WESTERN mass media accused PUTIN of ‘intervening’ in UKRAINE.
This was because RUSSIA had convoked a referendum in CRIMEA, in which over 80%
of the electorate voted to secede from the illegitimate UKRAINIAN coup regime
and rejoin RUSSIA.
In truth, the PUTIN government is
a victim of the WESTERN power grab in the UKRAINE, with RUSSIA having to
absorbed hundreds of thousands of ethnic RUSSIAN refugees driven out of the DONBAS,
yet the WESTERN media portray PUTIN as the executioner. Meanwhile the WESTERN coup-makers
and their far-right allies are depicted as victims… forced to bomb and decimate
the DONBAS region.
The charade continued. The WESTERN
media portray the subsequent punitive, economic sanctions imposed by the US and
EU on RUSSIA as a result of PUTIN’S ‘aggression’, referring to RUSSIA’S defense
of CRIMEA’S self-determination and the rights of the millions of bilingual
ethnic RUSSIAN citizens of UKRAINE.
RUSSIA’S
SYRIAN EQUATION – OUTRAGE AMONG WESTERN ENTITIES
The absurdity and convoluted
nature of WESTERN demonological propaganda has reached new even more bizarre
heights with their hysteria against RUSSIA’S military support of the secular SYRIAN
government against ISIS and other jihadi terrorists.
The WESTERN mass media have
launched a global campaign charging that the RUSSIAN air force bombs ‘non-ISIS
military bases’, presumably the bases of WESTERN-backed ‘friendly’ jihadi
terrorists. This ridiculous ‘reportage’ and its accompanying ‘photos’ were
published before the RUSSIAN air strikes even took place!!
Apparently timing doesn’t matter
in WASHINGTON’S ‘alternative universe of lies’!
NATO passed its political line to
the media that RUSSIAN support for the legitimate regime of President ASSAD
must be discredited; that the RUSSIAN presence is ‘provocative’ and responsible
for ‘creating tensions’ in the region – after years of WESTERN-sponsored jihadi
terrorism against SYRIA!
PROPAGANDA
WAR WAGING BETWEEN RUSSIA AND THE WEST
Obedient to its masters, the WESTERN
media breathlessly ‘reported’ that the RUSSIANS were ‘really’ engaged in SYRIA
in order destroy the pro-WESTERN ‘fighters’ leaving ISIS alone.
No credible evidence for this
propaganda was ever presented. They trotted out aerial photos of wreckage,
which had likely been lifted from previous US bombings.
RTV
VERSUS CNN – NOW THAT’S A NEW ONE…
What infuriates the WEST even
more is that RUSSIA has learnt from its WESTERN counterpart and thus has
adopted the same style Media propaganda the USA has done for centuries with CNN
style “real-time” information and propaganda tactics, through its own version
called RTV.
RUSSIA has finally adopted US
style war coverage with RTV.
The media’s clumsy execution of
the PENTAGON’S line managed to embarrass even the US Secretary of Defense, ASHTON
CARTER, who backed off of such claims and called for an explanation from RUSSIA.
Even Secretary KERRY, who now seeks to secure PUTIN’S military support for the
US against ISIS while withdrawing RUSSIA’S political backing of President ASSAD,
has cautioned the media to modify its line, now that the US favors ‘greater
coordination’ with RUSSIA – but under US leadership. The media has recently
conformed to this line, although it has not managed to explain how WASHINGTON
could now work with the demonic President PUTIN.
MASS
MEDIA – HAS BECOME THE MOST POWERFUL AND INFLUENTIAL TOOL SINCE THE CREATION OF
THE CYBER HIGHWAY
WESTERN media is engaged in an
intense long-term propaganda campaign to demonize President PUTIN. Its role is
to convince world public opinion and world leaders to blindly follow the US and
EU, as well as their ‘allies’ and vassal states, in a campaign to degrade and
undermine RUSSIA, and consolidate a unipolar empire under US tutelage.
The WESTERN mass media is
important; but it must be remembered that the media is an instrument of
imperial state power. Its lies and fabrications, its demonization of leaders,
like President PUTIN, are one part of a global military offensive to establish
dominance and to destroy adversaries.
The more intense the imperial
campaign, the riskier the power grab, the greater the need to demonize the
victims.
This explains how the escalation
of the rabid anti-PUTIN propaganda campaign coincides with the single biggest WESTERN
power grab – the UKRAINE coup (‘regime change’) – since WEST GERMANY annexed EAST
GERMANY, and NATO and the EU incorporated the BALTIC STATES, EASTERN EUROPE and
the BALKANS into the WEST’S strategic alliance. The WEST’S bloody break-up of
the YUGOSLAV federation was part of this strategic program.
DEFYING
LOGIC – OR IS THERE A GREATER PICTURE TO IT ALL?
The problem with the WESTERN
demonization of adversaries, whether it is RUSSIA, IRAN and CHINA today, or
earlier CUBA, LIBYA and YEMEN in the past, is that WASHINGTON and the EU face
severe economic crises at home and military defeats abroad by armed ISLAMIC and
nationalist resistance movements.
The US had invested hundreds of
billions of dollars to prop up a shaky puppet regime in US-occupied IRAQ, yet
the US-trained and supplied IRAQi Army fled as the BAATHIST-ISLAMIST ‘ISIS’
quickly over-ran half the country.
US troops have occupied AFGHANISTAN
for fourteen years, losing tens of thousands of lives and limbs and yet the nationalist-ISLAMIST
TALIBAN can easily take over AFGHANISTAN’S third largest city, KUNDUZ
(population 300,000), and occupies three quarters of the rest of the
countryside.
LIBYA and SOMALIA are a disaster.
And still WASHINGTON allocates a half billion dollars to train pro-WESTERN
mercenaries to overthrow SYRIA’S President ASSAD – mercenaries who give up
their arms or join ISIS the moment they cross the border from JORDAN or TURKEY.
The US trained mercenaries have handed over untold millions of dollars’ worth of
heavy and light weapons and armored carriers to ISIS and AL QAEDA. The EU and
the US face the dismal reality that LIBYA, SOMALIA and SYRIA are over-run by
anti-WESTERN ISLAMIC fighters.
THE
PROPAGANDA MYTH OF CHINA'S ECONOMIC COLLAPSE
In
ASIA, CHINA is demonized in the WESTERN media, portrayed as being on the verge
of collapse, facing a hard landing, even as CHINA grows at 7%. The Western
media wring their collective hands over the crisis in CHINA while BEIJING
finances two new international development banks for $100 billion, raises its
contribution to the IMF and brings 50 countries, including most of the EU but
minus the US and JAPAN, into a new infrastructure lending institution.
TWO
BIG QUESTIONS FACE THE US AND EU:
Why do the WESTERN media launch a
campaign of demonization that doesn’t correspond to reality? What is the goal
of such demonization, which objectively undermines the possibility of forming
tactical alliances to end the US’ military losses, political defeats and
diplomatic isolation? The US needs RUSSIA to defeat ISIS.
THE
CAUCASUS EQUATION
For MOSCOW, the fight against
ISIS is crucial to RUSSIAN national security: Thousands of CHECHEN terrorists
(some trained by the US) are fighting with ISIS and threaten to return to the CAUCUSES
and terrorize RUSSIA. Unlike the US public’s opposition to WASHINGTON’S role in
forcing ‘regime change’ in SYRIA, the RUSSIAN public supports MOSCOW’S military
support for the SYRIAN government because the CHECHENS’ campaign of terror
within RUSSIA, especially the 2004 massacre of hundreds of school children,
teachers and parents in BESLAN, is seared into their memory – a fact
conveniently ignored by WESTERN media when it ‘sympathizes’ with CHECHEN
‘freedom fighters’.
Background
Information: CAUCASUS
THE
WINNING FORMULA TO DESTABILIZE RUSSIA’S CAUCASUS AND THE MIDDLE EAST
GEOPOLITICAL
IMPORTANCE OF THE CASPIAN BASIN IS REACHING NEW LEVELS AMID GROWING CONFLICT
ZONES THROUGHOUT THE WORLD.
DOUBLE
EDGED US POLICIES – PURE IGNORANCE OR STRATEGIC OBJECTIVE?
In reality, WASHINGTON should
have a common interest to ally with RUSSIA in the fight against ISIS in SYRIA
and IRAQ. However OBAMA is committed to ousting ASSAD (RUSSIA’S ally) to expand
US dominance in the MIDDLE EAST in partnership with SAUDI ARABIA. Clearly there
are insurmountable contradictions between short-term military objectives
(fighting ISIS) and strategic imperial political imperatives (consolidating US-
SAUDI hegemony over the MIDDLE EAST and IRAN).
WASHINGTON has moved to end its
isolation in LATIN AMERICA by re-establishing diplomatic relations with CUBA.
Meanwhile, WASHINGTON retains the economic blockade of CUBA and its huge US
military base in GUANTANAMO. CUBA is seen as a tactical political ally in
‘moderating’ the leftist government of VENEZUELA and pressuring the COLOMBIAN
FARC to disarm, even as WASHINGTON deepens its military presence in the
continent.
OBAMA signed off on a nuclear
agreement with IRAN (but the crippling sanctions and blockade remain in place)
in order to secure TEHRAN’S support for the war against ISIS in IRAQ and the TALIBAN
in AFGHANISTAN. Temporarily, the WESTERN
mass media has ‘toned-down’ its demonological reporting on IRAN and CUBA, for
tactical purposes.
The OBAMA regime has adopted a
‘good cop/bad cop’ (or schizophrenic) posture with RUSSIA on SYRIA – Secretary
of State JOHN KERRY speaks of joint co-operation with MOSCOW while Secretary of
Defense ASHTON CARTER proposes to militarily confront ‘RUSSIAN aggression’. The
media hasn’t made the switch because they don’t know which orders to obey or
which line to ‘parrot’.
In the meantime, the domestic
economic crisis deepens, ISIS advances, the TALIBAN approaches KABUL, the RUSSIANS
are arming and defending President ASSAD and millions of refugees, fleeing the
war zones, have over- run EUROPE. EUROPEAN border wars are raging. And OBAMA
wrings his hands in impotence. Demonology offers no allies, no solutions and no
positive path to peace and co-existence.
Adapted by Geopolitical Analysis
and Monitoring from the article originally written by James Petras
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