Putin’s propoganda keeps Russians in the dark about Ukraine and more

[Blue_Tires]

By Editorial Board August 31 at 6:49 PM
PRESIDENT VLADIMIR PUTIN, his bitter resentment at the Soviet empire’s collapse metastasized into seething Russian nationalism, has marginalized the political opposition, muzzled dissidents and intimidated independent voices in civil society. In prosecuting his widening war in Ukraine, he has also resurrected the tyranny of the Big Lie, using state-controlled media to twist the truth so grotesquely that most Russians are in the dark — or profoundly misinformed — about events in their neighbor to the west.

Most Russians get their news from state-
controlled broadcast outlets, which have moved beyond mere propaganda into outlandish conspiracy theories and unhinged jingoism. The shoot-down of the Malaysian airliner in July, over territory controlled by Russian-sponsored militias in Ukraine, was spun by Kremlin’s media mouthpieces into a provocation orchestrated by the West. With few countervailing views in the mainstream media, many Russians believed the spin or had no idea what to believe.

In support of those Russian-sponsored militias in eastern Ukraine, now backed by growing ranks of Russian troops and weapons, Moscow has created a fantasy that plays on Russian victimization. By this rendering, the forces backing Ukraine’s government in Kiev are fascists and neo-Nazis, a portrayal that Mr. Putin personally advanced on Friday, when he likened the Ukrainian army’s attempts to regain its own territory to the Nazi siege of Leningrad in World War II, an appeal meant to inflame Russians’ already overheated nationalist emotions.

In the absence of independent and free reporting, few Russians realize that Russian soldiers and armaments are in action in eastern Ukraine, albeit (as in Crimea) in uniforms and vehicles stripped of their identifying insignia and license plates. With no free media, Russians are left to fend for themselves against a firestorm of falsehoods.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/putins-propoganda-keeps-russians-in-the-dark-about-ukraine-and-more/2014/08/31/6ba4114a-2fc5-11e4-9b98-848790384093_story.html


I will say it's becoming easier and easier to identify the "useful idiots" in this charade...

[GeorgeGist]

1. Indeed it is.

[NuclearDem]

2. "But the MSM" in 3...2...1...

[geek tragedy]

4. Even here the fascist supporters of Putin push noxious hate sites like

"the vineyard saker" an eastern orthodox christofascist hate site that denies the Holocaust and peddles enough anti-semitism to make David Duke blush.

Anyone doing a site search will find Putin apologists/fascists promoting that nazi garbage.

[CJCRANE]

5. This may be true but what is the endgame

of this demonization?

What was the endgame of the demonization of Saddam...Gadaffi...Assad?

What did that achieve?

It's just a recipe for chaos.

We need responsible leaders who work for peaceful cooperation.

(And yes, how is this different from our MSM who didn't report on the massacres in the East of Ukraine, who ignored ISIS massacres in Syria for years, who forgot about Boko Haram after a few days? It's fair enough if we have to fight over resources but let's not pretend we as citizens have any democratic input in this).