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Putin's Totalitarian Propaganda Machine
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
November 19, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Forced to live under the dark cloud of Fascist
propaganda, 62-year-old former KGB colonel and three-term Russian Federation
President Vladimir Putin figured out early how to destroy Russian budding free
press. Seizing totalitarian control
of the state, Putin ended Russia’s six-year experiment with a free press under
Soviet Premier Mikhail Gorbachev and late Russian Federation President Boris
Yeltsin. When Putin succeeded
Yeltsin May 7, 2000, he move quickly to dismantle Russia’s free press, returning
Pravda and Tass as the only official Russian news agencies. Once controlling the message, Putin instituted controls on the budding Internet, blocking
news broadcasts from Russian consumption giving a different story than the ones
found on Pravda and Tass. Insisting
Washington “wants to subdue us, wants to solve its problems at our expense,”
Putin preached to the pro-Kremlin choir.
Putin’s message attempts to put the blame on the U.S. for all of Russia’s
economic woes, caused because of U.S. sanctions.
Rarely mentioning anything about the European Union, Putin’s pernicious
propaganda targets, like the Cold War, only President Barack Obama and the U.S. Putin blames the CIA for the Feb. 22
coup in Kiev that toppled former Russian-backed Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovich. He rarely mentions
anything about the EU or 60-year-old German Chancellor Angel Merkel who carries
the EU’s condemnation of Putin’s March 1 seizure of Crimea. “No one has succeeded in doing so [subduing] in the history of Russia, and no one will,”
insisted Putin, fabricating the us-against-them narrative leaving Russia
isolated at the G20 economic summit in Brisbane, Australia. Nowhere does Putin accept any
responsibility for violating Ukraine’s sovereignty.
Controlling the Russian media, the Russian public is fed a daily diet of
how the U.S. tries to dominate Russia.
Like Orwell’s prophetic novel “1984,” Putin’s “Big Brother” whips up
daily hate against Obama for contrived acts against the Russian state. Insisting the U.S. and its allies in
Europe try to “protect others’ national interests,” Putin feeds the most vile
propaganda to rank-and-file Russians.
One the one hand, Putin insists on Pravda and Tass that U.S. sanctions
haven’t worked. On the other hand,
he cites the deteriorating ruble and Russian stock market. Calling Europe “U.S. allies,” Putin
sends the unmistakable message that Washington is out to get Russia, prompting
Putin to take extreme measures like annexing Crimea and now backing pro-Russian
separatists in Southeaatern Ukraine.
Putin seeks a political solution where Southeastern Ukraine, like
Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia, secedes from Ukraine.
Putin doesn’t accept the right of former Soviet satellites who became
independent Dec. 25, 1991 to determine their own destiny. He sees any affiliation with the EU
or NATO as a direct-and-provocative threat against the Kremlin. When the Warsaw
Pact mutual defense treaty for the Soviet Union and allied satellites collapsed
Jul1, 1991, Putin insists NATO agreed to not sway any former Soviet states. He views Ukraine’s desire to
affiliate with the EU and NATO a clear violation of the Warsaw Pact ending
agreement. Putin’s message panders
to the most brainwashed elements the Russian public, believing that the current
economic misery directly relates, as Putin says, to the U.S. “subduing” or
dominating Russia. “No one wants to exacerbate the situation in the world,” said Putin, referring to current
East-West tensions that hark back to the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
Sending strategic nuclear bombers and warships to patrol around the
globe, Putin claims he’s put the West on notice that Russian aims to defend its
interests. Whether Putin admits it
or not or whether recognized by the Russian public, he’s turned back the clock
on East-West relations to the Cold War.
All the hard work of Gobachev and Yeltsin has been tossed to the wind,
reverting back to the worst propaganda since Stalin ruled the Soviet Union April
3, 1922 to Oct. 16, 1952. Telling
the Russian public that the U.S. wants to “subdue” Russia tells the public that
today’s flagging economy directly relates to U.S. domination. Putin doesn’t admit that he brought
current economic misery on Russia by violating Ukraine’s sovereignty and
territorial integrity. Putin
pretends he respect Ukraine’s borders, while, simultaneously, stealing its
territory, claiming it was originally mean for Russia anyway.
Putin’s twisted propaganda panders to the most oppressed elements of the
Russian state, needing some scapegoat to blame for bad economic conditions. While European foreign minister
meeting in Brussels Nov. 17 refrained from more sanctions, Putin’s behavior
prompted strong condemnation for Merkel and other EU leaders. Were it not for German industry’s dependence of Russian petroleum and natural gas, Putin
would lose immediately a multibillion-dollar contract. No one wants to dominate Russia,
they simply want Russia to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of
Ukraine. All things point toward
more Russian encroachment in Southeastern Ukraine, eventually annexing Donetsk
and Luhansk. There’s little the
U.S. and EU can do short of stationing troops in Kiev and Odessa, Ukraine’s
capital and strategic Black Sea port.
Putin’s now turned Russia into a pariah state.
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