This is how brainwashing works. (Orwell covered it all already in 1984). just keep repeating the message, as if it were a banal truth, over and over again. The masses, who do not access other sources of information and apply critical thinking, (and not everyone has the time or ability to do that), will come to accept your lies as reality. For example:
Russia has not been invaded by another country since the end of the second world war – apart from the humiliating Ukrainian counter-invasion of Kursk – while having repeatedly invaded other countries and illegally annexed their territory. [1]
This is from the Guardian, in a piece attributed to Warren Murray and “other writers and agencies”. Leave aside the obvious prejudice in the “humiliating” counter-invasion, in reality a stunt which killed thousands more Ukrainians for no result, and look at the “repeatedly invaded other countries”. They are talking about Russia since the collapse of the USSR. I had to stop and do a reality check. Am I going mad? Have I just missed a huge swathe of recent history? No. They are just lying. I have tried as hard as I can, but can’t think of a single country Russia has invaded since 1991. Possibly the authors mean Georgia. The 2008 Russian-Georgian war is frequently trotted out as an example of “Russian aggression”. In reality, Georgia, probably under a sense of false optimism following promises about their NATO membership, launched an operation to take South Ossetia, a disputed territory in the north of Georgia which was then controlled by Russian peace-keepers. Russia responded by taking South Ossetia under their direct control. During the war Russia launched attacks beyond South Ossetia into Georgia. The EU report on this war even acknowledged that Tbilisi started the war, since those were facts that could not be avoided, but complained that Russia had gone too far. However; this is absolutely normal military practice. If you face an enemy, of course you do not simply attack on the frontlines, but you aim to attack in the rear as well. (As Kiev is trying to do against Russia). Russia, if you like, subsequently “annexed” South Ossetia – though, the missing context, is that this was a region which was already in a struggle with Georgia for independence. There is also Abkhazia – another region of Georgia which was already in an independence dispute with Georgia and whose independence Russia supports. (You could, if you like, call this some kind of effective annexation, though, again, the missing context is that of the history of conflict between the people of this region and Tbilisi, quite independent of any Russian “aggression”). The misrepresented Georgia case aside I can’t think of any other country Russia has “invaded” since it became Russia. Yet, Warren Murray and his colleagues are happy to put their names to a line about “Russia repeatedly invading other countries”. Sheer lies. I wonder why they do it? The main theories are;
- The Guardian is effectively controlled by British Intelligence, either directly or through various proxy schemes such as the “Integrity Initiative”. This is an explanation based on geo-political (and financial) power projection, which depends on an ideology of legitimacy (“rules-based world order”).
- They are liberals. Liberals loathe Russia because as a country after the fall of the USSR and given the choice to choose liberalism, chose authoritarianism, wilfully rejecting liberalism, and giving it a slap in the face. Liberals just can’t get over this. Despite a key tenet of liberalism being tolerance, it turns out that modern liberals are terrifyingly intolerant of non-liberalism. This is an ideological-psychological explanation which references liberalism’s deep roots in materialist hedonism.
- Careerism. This theory is not a sufficient theory. It requires that at the editorial level one of the above two apply. However; once that is established, careerism can explain why individual journalists sell their souls and, instead of doing journalism, become scribblers for Big Brother.
Notes