Russia: the Four Evilest Big Lies

Many writers assume that Big Lies are created by Big Liars, who know they are spreading untruths and do what they do with conscious motives.

Hitler is a good example of one of these "Big Liars"-- yet that little mustached. failed artist thought he was telling the Truth-- and that Jews, Socialists and Slavs were the real liars. His ideology was based on a mythology-- a quasi-religion-- which he believed-- but which was rooted in his culture.

So, it is that while I love Caitlin Johnstone, read her – as you should – and support her—I think she sometimes misses the point in your elegantly written criticisms of the media and propaganda. She too often seems to assume conscious, premeditated attempts to deceive by those at the top of our civilizations— when in fact the tail wags the dog—meaning that these people are mirroring significant elements of public prejudice, created over decades if not centuries.

"They know not what they do" said Jesus on the cross and died.

The danger to our world does not lie in the putative attempts of our “leaders” to "persuade" the public of things they know are untrue— but rather from their inability to discern truth in the first place.

They are like the leaders of a lynch mob. Blinken, Biden, the Clintons, Trump – are driven by the clambering mass of those behind him, right down to the street level.

Israel now is a lynch mob like that…

And the US has been mobilizing international lynch mobs against Russia for a long time.

The saddest thing is that can only do that because the mobs "live" the Big Lies.

In the deep South, people would bring their kids to watch black people being tortured and killed in the most painful ways. We still teaching our children cruelty and indifference.

(Big) Lie #1

Russia started the war.

…the war didn't start in February last year. It started in 2014. The full-fledged invasion happened last year, but the war, the illegal annexation of Crimea, Russia went into eastern Donbas in 2014. NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg

But it was the illegitimate, unelected government of Western Ukraine that unleashed the dogs of war, seeking to ethnically cleanse Eastern Ukraine in 2014.

Crimea accordingly voted to join Russia, which Russia accepted— perhaps because Crimea had never been legally transferred to Ukraine under the Soviet Constitution-- and after the breakup of the Soviet Union had become the Republic of Crimea, which was annexed by Ukraine – forcibly – in 1995.

At the same time, Putin tried to broker a compromise between Eastern Ukraine and Western Ukraine and refused the request of Eastern Ukraine to join the Russian Federation.

Eastern Ukraine had voted for independence, as is/was its right under international law, which states that the people have a right to self-determination when they are not legitimately represented in a larger state. 

This was the argument of the American colonists in seeking independence from Great Britain in the 18^th century, although the American colonists had some degree of representation in the British Parliament, whereas Eastern Ukrainians had none in 2014.

But neither Western Ukraine nor the West had any interest in upholding the Minsk agreements, which Angela Merkel has revealed were just a way of buying time for NATO to build an army for full-scale invasion.

In the meantime, Western Ukraine continued its ethnocidal attacks, shelling civilian settlements.

Eastern Ukraine did not get the representation that it was promised.

So, it was not Russia who started the war.  It was neo-Nazi Western Ukraine-- and its NATO supporters, principally the US.  And that was back in 2014 .

Stoltenberg got the date right anyway.  The rest is a lie. Too bad he can't see it.

Lie #2

Russia invaded Ukraine.

You can't be reluctant to give up your lie and still tell the truth.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Russia did not “invade” Ukraine.  Certainly not in 2014.   But everyone uses this word "invade" even people regarded as “progressive” such as Seymour Hersh.  

As Western Ukraine stepped up shelling in 2021, Donbass and Lugansk voted for independence in 2022, as was their right. 

Russia recognized their independence – as was its right under international law. 

And it signed a mutual defense treaty-- again, it’s legal right.   Then intervened to protect these new countries from Ukrainian and stop a criminal war, which NATO had started.

There was no invasion of Ukraine — if only because Donbass and Lugansk were no longer parts of Ukraine— but newly independent nations.

Since Russia was stopping an essentially internecine conflict— not starting it –Putin refuses to call it a “war” —but rather a Special Military Operation.  His aim is not conquest – but to restore peace and order and a measure of justice. The word “war” is forbidden because it gives credence to a lie. Words matter.

To give up a lie, we must change the language we use.

Lie #3

Russia is a totalitarian state

The public mind is collective consciousness directed by the Collective Unconscious.

Russia what it is today is the product of 790 years of tyranny and oppression - first 243 years under the Mongol Yoke and then 700+ years under domestic despots, tyrants and oppressors. The Russian culture, the politics and the state apparatus are the products of this almost 800 years of perpetual tyranny - it demonstrates itself both in the national character and in the Russian politics and rulers.

Susanna Viljanen: Quora— 40,000 followers

All Big Lies are "memes"-- which are ideas or behaviors transmitted culturally— rather like DNA is passed on from generation to generation biologically. Your genes define your nature; your memes realize your nurture.

Ms Viljanen obviously has a lot of people who agree with her – a lot more than agree with me! But her ideas are in no way unique. "Memes" like the ones she recites are always derivative – not generated by facts, actual history, or anything rational but given to her in the same way that her DNA has been given.

Keeping in mind the viruses work at the level of DNA and RNA, you can also think of memes as viral. Like COVID, you pick them up by close contact, usually from friends and family. Where is your mental mask? Why isn't there a vaccine?

These memes find expression not in physical sickness but in the Big Lies that I have been writing about, social disease and war. Mental sickness.

In the case of Russia, an important Big Lie is that Russia is a degenerate totalitarian state.

Politicians in the West and the media and the public in general tend to say things like, "I have nothing against Russian people just the Russian government" but this is a disingenuous caveat. It’s usually accompanied by” The Russians are brainwashed”. This is also the line of many leftist critics.

Ms Viljanen's opinions are more representative of what the general public believes—that is not just the Russian government, nor even Vladimir Putin, it is the Russian people themselves who as a result of history and culture are fatally flawed—irredeemable.

Of course, in the modern era, everybody is supposed to be …“tolerant”. Black, white, brown, gay, trans —even Russians and Chinese—all good— as long as they conform to American middle-class standards, which are ironically very black and white.

East is East, West is West-- never the twain shall meet.

Kipling

Where I live, it's different.

Here in Japan people think differently about truth and lies—”tatemae” (建前), literally, that which is built in front -- in other words, your social façade. "Honne" means true feelings. The Japanese make a clear distinction between social reality and that which is personal or true.

As I've indicated, Western concepts of truth and falsehood are both culturally bound— and also dichotomous—either/or. There are no shades of gray —which leads to not just lack of flexibility but a narcissistic thinking—cultural egoism.

The word "uso" in Japanese means "lie". But it is used indiscriminately when you hear something surprising, or you disagree with something.

"John is going to marry Jane". If an English-speaking person said, "you're a liar"-- that would be insulting. A Japanese person, however, can say, "uso!" Which would mean "amazing", "unbelievable", WOW! Nobody takes offense.

By contrast, since nobody in the West wants to be a liar— but since the truth can be uncomfortable— socially unacceptable or just difficult to confirm— people tend to take the easy way and accept Big Lies and the matrix of contradictions that they represent —which institutionalizes false belief.

In the end these people begin them living the lie.

The truth can be spoken only by someone who is already at home in it; not by someone who still lives in untruthfulness and does no more than reach out towards it from within untruthfulness.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

If you live a lie, you are not necessarily a bad person – just wrong. On the other hand. evil, as Hannah Arendt said, is banal – the result of a failure to think.

Was Hitler a bad man? He didn’t think so. He liked kids and dogs.

Bernile Nienau (Jewish) who Hitler called his “joy”.

Hitler did bad things. But so did every US president since 1945.

Big Lies are of course abstractions of reality, not reality itself.

Bernile Nienau was reality.

But:

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Hitler's solution for the German people was such an abstraction—straightforward, logical-- exterminate half the population of Russia, and keep the other half as slaves, with a few designated as "Aryan".

This resembled Churchill's solution at the end of World War II for the continuance of the British Empire when he joined with significant actors in the American government to set up a program to nuke all of Russia's major cities and achieve Hitler's goals.

The atomic bomb promised to destroy large cities by deploying only a few instead of many thousands of bombers and to swiftly break the enemy’s will to wage war through the devastating effects of the new weapons. In 1945, the United States planned for "Operation Totality" in which they would drop up to 30 nuclear weapons on about 20 cities in the USSR in the case of an attack by the Soviet Union; three years later, they were already planning with 133 nuclear weapons.

Was Churchill more or less evil than Hitler? There is a basis for comparison.

Today the West continues working with such abstractions: it wants to destroy Russia. Killing a lot of Russians is a bonus, since that would make colonization much easier, as was the case in American colonization of North America--a cultural and human genocide.

However, to resolve moral contradictions. Russia and the Russians have to be demonized just like the "red savages" of North America and there "barbaric" cultures in colonial times.

Hence the canard that Russia, a new and developing federal democracy, with constitutionally mandated human rights and freedoms, and an argumentative, diverse, and opinionated, if unruly electorate has to be branded as "totalitarian"— when in many respects it is freer than most Western "democracies", including the United States of America.

After all, what Western democracy has a leader who gives five-hour press conferences when anyone, including members of the public can phone in and complain?

Without teleprompters, Western democracies would collapse.

Evil is the product of the ability of humans to make abstract that which is concrete.

Jean-Paul Sartre

Lie #4

Russia went to war to prevent NATO expansion

This is another Big Lie is popular with the left as it is with the right, Caitlin Johnstone again, who argues that Russia had a right to "invade, going back to the Cuban missile crisis.

Stoltenberg again:

President Putin declared in the autumn of 2021, and actually sent a draft treaty that they wanted NATO to sign, to promise no more NATO enlargement. That was what he sent us. And was a pre-condition for not invade Ukraine. Of course we didn't sign that.  

He wanted us to sign that promise, never to enlarge NATO. He wanted us to remove our military infrastructure in all Allies that have joined NATO since 1997, meaning half of NATO, all the Central and Eastern Europe, we should remove NATO from that part of our Alliance, introducing some kind of B, or second-class membership. We rejected that. 

What is this true?  No.

This is what the draft treaty actually said.  Note that there was no threat of war if the West did not comply.

The Parties shall refrain from deploying their armed forces and armaments, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas where such deployment could be perceived by the other Party as a threat to its national security, with the exception of such deployment within the national territories of the Parties.

The Parties shall refrain from flying heavy bombers equipped for nuclear or non-nuclear armaments or deploying surface warships of any type, including in the framework of international organizations, military alliances or coalitions, in the areas outside national airspace and national territorial waters respectively, from where they can attack targets in the territory of the other Party.

The Parties shall maintain dialogue and cooperate to improve mechanisms to prevent dangerous military activities on and over the high seas, including agreeing on the maximum approach distance between warships and aircraft.

Article 6

The Parties shall undertake not to deploy ground-launched intermediate-range and shorter-range missiles outside their national territories, as well as in the areas of their national territories, from which such weapons can attack targets in the national territory of the other Party.

Article 7

The Parties shall refrain from deploying nuclear weapons outside their national territories and return such weapons already deployed outside their national territories at the time of the entry into force of the Treaty to their national territories. The Parties shall eliminate all existing infrastructure for deployment of nuclear weapons outside their national territories.

The Parties shall not train military and civilian personnel from non-nuclear countries to use nuclear weapons. The Parties shall not conduct exercises or training for general-purpose forces, that include scenarios involving the use of nuclear weapons.

The US, Britain and France, are the only NATO countries with nuclear weapons.  

The treaty simply says that nuclear states should not maintain bases with nuclear capabilities within nonnuclear states in a threatening manner, which is now currently the case.  It does not limit NATO’s capabilities for conventional war.  But it seeks to reduce the chance of accidental nuclear exchanges, which almost happened twice in the 20^th century.  In addition, NATO would have to promise not to expand further into former Soviet states, honoring the original promise given to Gorbachev.   So Ukraine and Georgia would be off-limits.

The idea here is to reduce threat and to promote dialogue and exchange rather than confrontation.  Sounds pretty reasonable, right?

But……

What happened next according to Stoltenberg?

So he went to war to prevent NATO, more NATO, close to his borders. He has got the exact opposite. He has got more NATO presence in eastern part of the Alliance and he has also seen that Finland has already joined the Alliance and Sweden will soon be a full member.

As usual, however, there are contradictions.

In 2022, there were already NATO countries bordering Russia, in close proximity to major population centers with NATO bases, principally the Baltics.  And Finland and Sweden?

"We do not have such problems with Sweden and Finland, which, unfortunately, we have with Ukraine. We have no territorial issues… no disputes… we have nothing that could bother us from the point of view of Finland's or Sweden's membership in NATO.

"Only they should plainly and clearly realize that there were no threats before, now, if military contingents and infrastructure are deployed there, we will have to respond in a mirror manner and create the same threats to the territories from which threats are created to us."

Vladimir Putin

Naturally, Russians did not want to see things worse with NATO bases in an Anti-Russian neo-Nazi country on its borders.

But…Ukraine is not Cuba. Russia is not 60s America threatened by missiles in Cuba.

As mentioned, Russia sent its forces to the Ukraine to support the new republics of Eastern Ukraine, protect Crimea and prevent ongoing ethnocide – to stop a war— not start one. NATO bases are a separate issue.

Keep in mind, that it was Russia that try to negotiate after the initial successes of its military action in 2022 and which withdrew troops from around Kiev as a sign of good faith.  It was the West who nixed the deal.

Stoltenberg is lying.  NATO is lying.  The US is lying.  The mass media are lying.   The trouble is they don't know they are lying.

As Hitler said— but did not fully understand—Big Lies leverage a primitive logic, which relies on public prejudices and culture if not apathy, to ensure a veneer of credibility. People are not made to believe. They want to believe.

Their consent is not “manufactured” —but already given. Chomsky should have relied less on Herman and read Lippmann more closely.

Packaging in public relations a.k.a. propaganda makes it seem like the focus is on persuading the public when in fact it just siphons off funds from companies to advertising agencies in the interest of brand differentiation, not that there is generally any difference between brands.

For example, World War I had empowered women to do a lot of things that man had traditionally done but couldn’t since they were off at war dying for Big Lies. One of those things was smoking. But the manufacturers— rich upper-class white guys— and no idea about how ordinary people lived. Edward Bernays conned them to believe they were in control – when they were not. Culture is a river. Most of us swim. The rich have their little boats. But the current takes us all to the same place.

Hitler did not make the German people anti-Semitic – they already distrusted Jews. The Holocaust would have been impossible without the enthusiasm of Germans and Ukrainians who hated Jews. The tail wags the dog.

So, it’s easy for Stoltenberg to live the lie about the Russians because ordinary people in the West distrust the Russians just as they once distrusted the Jews.

The past is a lie – the future is truth

Big Lies are always inherited from the past. The truth however defines the future.

Ukraine was never the Cuban missile crisis redux for a simple reason. Times have changed.

Static nuclear bases, such as could exist in Ukraine if it joined NATO and likely will exist in Finland, are anachronisms, rendered obsolete —or at least much much less significant militarily— as a result of Russian advances in nuclear technology and delivery systems.

The West’s insistence— generally accepted by both Left and Right— that the Russians went to war to prevent Ukraine joining NATO and NATO bases on Ukrainian territory is a strawman argument In the end, this is a dangerous misconception.

Live the lie. Watch someone die. It could be you.

More on that another time.

Doggy tails

I have lots of tales about dogs. Some years ago my father died and I traveled to Canada for his funeral. I got along with my mother quite well for periods up to two hours but not much longer than that— so I opted to stay at the next-door neighbor’s, to "avoid inconvenience" for her—what the Japanese call uso mo hoben—a social lie. I came down with gastroenteritis and was bedridden for five days. For those five days, a golden retriever—Rajah— stayed by my bedside to look after me. His eyes spoke to me. A doctor of the soul.

When he died later at the age of 16, I mourned as we should for all those who give us their lives.

I hope you liked this article. It's a bit long and complicated—but I also think the subject deserves it.

If you liked it, please show your support by buying me and Jet and Ichi— who thinks he is a dog— a coffee.

You can click here-- or on the picture.

When you buy a coffee, you can also add a comment.

I write personal notes to everyone who buys me a coffee whether or not they themselves say anything.