(Yesterday at 6:57 pm)Leonardo17 Wrote: Benjamin Abelow:
I’ve never heard of him. He has just two books on Amazon and he has a master’s degree in Medicine (After a BA in History). So I’m not saying anything but I don’t know
NATO Issue.
Populists and fascists do not use the same language we use. Since they are superior to Truth itself when they say “NATO is at our border” it means: “The Imperialistic USA is going to deploy missiles in an area where we were in control in the past”.
It’s not a problem if the masses agree and/or truly understand this rhetoric. The only thing that matters is that enough people (in their own country) believe or pretend to believes this BS and keep repeating to one another that “NATO is at their border”.
Another similar phrase is “We won’t let LGBT destroy our family structure”. I’m not even going to elaborate you see the point.
On Propaganda:
Old school communist have this trait in common. When they asked Fidel Catro if there would ever be elections in Cuba when he defeated Batista in 1059 he replied “Para Que?” (For what?).
They believe that their ideology in based on the hard as concrete rules of dialectical materialism and that their way of doing things is the only logical way of doing things. So they had these elite or inner circle of the communist party who knew and understood what needed to be done. And they had this feeling of superiority toward the ignored masses who had to be taught and brought to understand the only possible reality.
So this is the legacy of the propaganda machine of Putin. That’s how they know to do things. And there is probably even more to it than what I know.
Still: Lenin had launched the red terror (for instance) because he believed in some utopian project that he thought could be realized somehow. So why is Putin Brain-…ing his people + the people of the world like any other vulgar dictator in any other part of the world?
About Benjamin Abelow: I understand he's not famous. I repeated his name because it looked as though people were changing the subject to talk about Noam Chomsky. Chomsky didn't write that book. It was recommended by a journalist who has read the book, and has a very good track record on these matters. For example, he was not fooled by all the lies about Saddam Hussein's WMDs.
(Chomsky himself, though he did great work, is such a polarizing figure that I find it's best not to even mention him. People flip out.)
Of course the only way to judge the book would be to read it.
A lot of people (not only populists and fascists) seem to think they are "superior to truth itself." Just look at those saying that Ukraine could defeat Russia. So much of what people believe is based on passion, partisanship, and wishful thinking.
Each claim has to be evaluated on its merits. If it's true that NATO has expanded to the border of Russia, and if it's true that NATO countries deploy missiles, and if it's true that the US is imperialistic, then you can't devalue those statements by comparing them to a wildly different claim about LGBT people. These two axioms -- that NATO is Good and LGBT is Good -- may go together in the modern Neoliberal mind, but the truth of the one doesn't depend on the truth of the other.
As for propaganda, the US is soaked in it, and lots of people believe it. The only way I know to guard against it is to find journalists and academics who have long histories of arguing against the propaganda, who then turned out to be correct.
The Utopian projects of the 20th century did indeed turn out to be failures, and were often covers for more sinister plans. What is our project now? To bring all of the world's resources under US control, not for utopian reasons, but just because we can? People have been so trained to react like Pavlov's dog when they hear the word teRrorISm that they will gladly give up basic freedoms and endorse violence abroad.
But look what's happening: free speech is being severely curtailed in the US. First they came for those who spoke against genocide and ethnic cleansing, but who will they come for next? And look at Syria. Assad was nobody's favorite, but Hillary and Trump and many others warned that getting rid of him would lead to terrible sectarian violence. And look, that's come true. People are getting massacred, because the US and Israel prefer a country that's weak and in chaos over a country whose resources they can't control.
