I'm Provoked by a recent (but already forgotten) example of how the government lies and the media brainwashes people.
I’ve written previously about Scott Horton’s fabulous new book Provoked: How Washington Started the New Cold War with Russia and the Catastrophe in Ukraine. It’s truly a masterpiece. Everything you ever wanted to know about how that deplorable situation came to be.
You can get it here, along with other Essential Things if you want to use my affiliate link for the purchase.
Today I want to share an excerpt from Scott’s book. It’s just a brief section describing how insane “we” were in the West early in 2022, after Putin’s invasion of Ukraine. I’ve omitted the footnotes. You’ll have to get them from your copy when it arrives!
Scott mentions a video compilation in the passage, and you can find that embedded as well.
Enjoy!
Confidence is high
Presidents Biden and Zelensky both at times admitted that they would have to concede Russian sovereignty over Crimea and the “independence” of the Donbas, just as they both periodically acknowledged that Ukraine would eventually have to foreswear NATO membership and maintain neutrality between Russia and the West.
But the US government and media launched a massive propaganda campaign on behalf of the war denying that reality, based on Ukraine’s pure victimhood combined with its certain ability to turn the tide and defeat Russia if only the West would lend a hand. They swore the war began win an “unprovoked attack” by Russia — they must have repeated it a hundred thousand times — and that the policy was to help Ukraine take back “every square inch” of territory lost, “including Crimea”. The talented video editor Matt Orfalea put together a nearly unbelievable montage of these ridiculous claims by government officials and their media handmaidens that Ukraine was winning and was sure to humiliate Russia and drive them out in disgrace. “Russia has the second strongest army in Ukraine,” liberal Democrats who do not know the first thing about Ukraine, Russia, war, or anything else all joked to each other with the confidence of consensus at a flat-Earth convention.
CFR president Richard Haass and Benjamin Wittes of the Brookings Institution both publicly threatened regime change in Moscow in February 2022. Republicans and Democrats of all descriptions began demanding no-fly zones over Ukraine and escalated intervention against Russia there. The lesson of what can happen when the US does so was completely lost on them.
Around the country, people bought in. They put up Ukrainian flags everywhere, like yellow ribbons during Iraq War I — at the local civic center, at the car dealership, in your neighbor’s yard. Americans who had no idea where Ukraine was, or assumed it was already part of Russia a few weeks before, were now on board for the current thing. It was a massive influence operation.
The pre-Musk center-left liberal Twitter swarm went wild. According to social networking analyst John Robb, they even got out ahead of the White House with their demonization of the Russians, truly helping to preclude the political possibility of productive talks before and just after the war began.
Popular culture, mostly led by Western governments, went nuts: Officials in New York poured out Russian vodka, while the governor of Utah banned it from all state liquor stores by executive order. Rep. Eric Swalwell said the US should “kick every Russian student” out of American universities, while the Canadian Hockey League banned Russian and Belarusian players from their import draft. A private hospital in Munich banned Russian and Belarusian patients, a Russian singer was fired from the New York Metropolitan Opera, a Russian star tennis player was excluded from Wimbledon, and Russian teams were banned from international soccer. Russian and Belarusian runners were prohibited from the Boston Marathon, Dostoevsky was at least temporarily banned from a university in Italy, the Welsh Cardiff Philharmonic Orchestra banned Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture, a Russian cellist who played with a Ukrainian pianist and denounced the war, was still cancelled in Switzerland, the European Film Academy launched a global boycott of Russian films. Social media giants Facebook and Instagram, meanwhile, lifted their bans against calls for violence against Russians, while the former ended its prohibition on praise for the Azov Battalion. Even Russian cats were banned from international competition.
Pretty great, right? Now go get that book!
And thanks for indulging me in the promotion of a great book written by a great guy.
Naturally,
Adam
AFAIK, the origin of the yellow ribbons was the 1979 Iranian hostage crisis, inspired by the Tony Orlando song "Tie a yellow ribbon 'round the old oak tree," which I'm certain as a resident of LV you're quite familiar with.
The song has nothing to do with hostages, it's about a prisoner who's hoping his gal still loves him.
For whatever reason it became a thing. I remember because one of the hostages was from my hometown there were ribbons everywhere, even more ribbons than Terrible Towels, if you can imagine. He got a parade when he came home.
Somehow what started as a symbol of affection (women wearing ribbons in their hair, and tying them to trees), morphed into support for International meddling. Edward Bernays would be so proud of our state department marketing teams.
Remember when abysmally low-IQ, low-ethics people attacked poutine because they thought it was spelled and pronounced too closely to Putin? https://www.abc.net.au/news/2022-03-08/poutine-restaurant-menu-vladimir-putin-ukraine-invasion/100891202