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Putin's Slippery Propaganda Keeps on Rolling
by John M. Curtis
(310) 204-8700
Copyright
November 23, 2014
All Rights Reserved.
Like ubiquitous conservative radio talk shows in
the U.S., 62-year-old Vladimir Putin plays the global media like a balalaika,
exploiting top global media outlets to get out his twisted propaganda. Blaming
the U.S. and European Union for “isolating” Russia, Putin vowed that he would
never allow the West to put Russian behind a new “Iron Curtain.” Forget about Putin’s decision to
invade and annex Ukraine’s Crimea, that, of course, Putin evades responsibility. Stationing tens-of-thousands of
Russian troops on the Ukrainian border, sending thousands more unmarked forces
to back pro-Russian separatists in Southeastern Ukraine, Putin also fiercely
denies what’s become obvious to everyone around the planet. Liquidating Russian fledgling free press under former reform-minded Russian Presidents
Mikhail Gorbachev and Boris Yeltsin, Putin makes no apologies for returning
Soviet-style dictatorship.
Western media outlets covering Putin’s every word, give him easy access
to global propaganda, pushing his twisted views of world events. Putin insisted there’d be no
“catastrophic consequences” to ill-advised Western sanctions. With most pro-Western investments leaving Russia, Putin’s left with alliances with China,
India and other developing countries.
He still supplies Europe about 30% of its energy needs, prompting German
Chancellor Angela Merkel to reconsider alternatives to Moscow. Merkel knows first hand what it’s
like to grow up behind the “Iron Curtain,” where scarcity and poverty abounded. Germany’s post-WWII economic
recovery, built out the ashes of its Nazi past, is one of the great success
stories in world history. Merkel
isn’t about to take Germany back to its East Berlin days, where a new Stalinist
leader wants of reclaim the Soviet Union’s past glory.
Using every media source at his disposal, Putin puts the burden of
today’s deteriorated relations with West at the feet of the U.S. and EU. Speaking only to Kremlin-backed news outlets
Tass and Prvada, he takes no responsibility for Russian’s heavy-handed approach,
intimidating former Soviet satellites.
“We understand the fatality of an “Iron Curtain” for us,” obliquely
referring to his recent isolation at the G20 Summit in Brisbane, Australia. Putin refuses to see how he’s become
the primary architect in Russia’s economic downfall. “We will not go down this path in
any case and no one will build a wall around us.
That is impossible!” Putin preached to Tass, accepting no blame for
putting Russian in bad stead with the U.S. and Europe. Gorbachev and Yeltsin did everything
possible to rescue the old Soviet Union from its totalitarian past.
Whether he admits it or not, since taking office in May 7, 2000, Putin’s
done everything possible to reverse the freedoms and free market reforms of
Gorbachev and Yeltsin. When he
blames the West, he’s diverting Russian public attention away from his role in
isolating Russia in the eyes of the nation’s most prosperous democracies. When he says he won’t let the West put Russia behind an “Iron Curtain,” he states the
exact opposite of reality. He put Russian behind bars violating Ukraine’s territorial integrity seizing Crimea March
1, threatening neighboring countries and sending Russian air and navy assets
around the globe. Since Putin’s
2008 land grab in Georgia’s South Ossetia and Abkhazia, he realized that the
West lacks the military resources to stop the Russian army from picking
low-handing fruit. No one in the
U.S., EU, NATO has the military assets to stop Putin in Eastern Europe.
Putin’s pernicious propaganda denies that Ukraine has anything to do with
the West’s economic and travel sanctions.
He wants the Russian public to believe Russian remains a victim of
Western Imperialism, something espoused during Soviet times. “When Russia starts . . .
safeguarding people and its interests, it immediately becomes bad (in the view
of the West),” he said, telegraphing his twisted message to the Russian people: Russian is under attack by the West. Putin claims that any disgruntled
Russian-speaking population from the former Soviet Union is fair game for
Russia. When he speaks of
protecting Russian “people and its interests,” there are millions of former
Soviet citizens wanting their old Soviet jobs, health care and pensions back. Whatever economic burden exists from
U.S. and EU sanctions, it pales in comparison to paying more government largess
to former Soviet citizens.
Putin propaganda gets so random, so farfetched, so off-the-wall that even
the most benighted critics must see the hypocrisy. “You think it’s over our position
over East Ukraine or Crimea?
Absolutely not! If it wasn’t for that, they would have found a different reason. It has always been like that,” Putin
told Tass, never questioning their Lord’s poppycock.
Putin wants Russians to blame Russia’s economic austerity on the West as a vast conspiracy to
destroy mother Russia. Putin readily blamed the sharp drop in worldwide oil prices on the U.S. and Saudi’s
attempt to damage the Russian economy.
“It the price of energy is lowered on purpose, this also hits those who
introduce those limits,” blaming the drop in crude oil prices on nefarious
U.S.-Saudi manipulation. Putin
wonders why he lacks credibility in the West:
A free press exposes his twisted propaganda and shenanigans.
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