Compiled by Dick Bennett for a Culture of Peace, Justice, and Ecology
https://jamesrichardbennett.blogspot.com/2024/12/omni-sovietrussophobia-anthology-4.html
What’s at Stake: from Wikipedia: In the dystopian novel Nineteen Eighty-Four (1949) by George Orwell, the Two Minutes Hate is the daily period during which members of the Outer and Inner Party of Oceania must watch a film depicting Emmanuel Goldstein, the principal enemy of the state, and his followers, the Brotherhood, and loudly voice their hatred for the enemy and then their love for Big Brother.[1]
The political purpose of the Two Minutes Hate is to allow the citizens of Oceania to vent their existential anguish and personal hatred toward politically expedient enemies: Goldstein and the enemy super-state of the moment. In re-directing the members’ subconscious feelings away from the Party’s governance of Oceania and toward non-existent external enemies, the Party minimises thoughtcrime and the consequent subversive behaviours of thoughtcriminals.[2] MORE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Minutes_Hate
See preceding three anthologies on Soviet/Russophobia
See The Red Scare and McCarthyism (1984), Judith Baca.
CONTENTS
Scott Ritter. “Red Scare 2.0: Russophobia in America Today.”
Paul Robinson. “Canada’s ‘New Red Scare’….”
Video. “Durham Report a ‘Whitewash.’”
CBS News. Drone Strike on Kremlin.
Jeremy Kuzmarov. Russia excluded from Human Rights Council, De Zaya’s The Human Rights Industry.
Elizabeth Vos. Pelosi and Palestinian Protesters.
Joe Lauria. Psyopcracy USA.
Stephen Cohen. US fear and loathing of China too.
Helen Caldicott. Missile Envy and US ”clinical paranoia.”
ACURA: American Committee for US-Russia Accord.
TEXTS SOVIET/RUSSOPHOBIA #4
OLD SOVIETPHOBIA PATHOLOGY NOW RUSSIAPHOBIA
“The Red Scare 2.0: Russophobia in America Today.”
SCOTT RITTER. FEB 28, 2023.
https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/the-red-scare-20-russophobia-in-america
I have been wrestling with the issue of Russophobia in the United States for some time now. As someone who cut his academic teeth studying Russian history in college, and who, at an early stage in my development as an adult had the opportunity to live and work in Russia during the Soviet era, I have a deep, yet admittedly incomplete, appreciation for Russian culture, language and history. This appreciation has empowered me to make informed judgments about Russia, its political leadership, and its people, especially when assessing the interactions between Russia and the United States today.
Void of this background, I would expect that I would be susceptible to the Russophobia emanating from the US government and echoed without question by a compliant mainstream American media. With it, I am able to see through the falsehoods and mischaracterizations that appear deliberately designed to warp the sensibilities and logic of Russophobia’s intended audience—the American people.
Recently, I ran across an essay that had been published by the Ambassador of Russia to the United States, Anatoly Antonov, in the Russian newspaper, Rossiyaskaya Gazeta, and subsequently posted on the Russian Embassy Facebook page. The title of the essay, Russophobia as a malignant tumor in the United States, is, admittedly, provocative—as all good, thought-provoking titles should be. After reading it, it became apparent to me that, in the interest of combating Russophobia, I should help bring the Ambassador’s essay to the attention of as many people as possible.
[Russia Seeking Peace]
“Russia,” the essay opens, “has always venerated and respected the rich cultural traditions of all countries. This is the core of our national identity, mentality, and statehood. Culture must always remain the bridge for strengthening trust between the peoples, however complicated the relations between the states may be.”
There was no “cancellation of culture” even during the Cold War. A lesser-known fact is that the first Tchaikovsky International Competition in 1958 was won by Van Cliburn, an outstanding pianist and U.S. national. His sensational performance in Moscow at the height of the Cold War helped break down barriers and gave hope for finding mutual understanding based on love for classical music.
The story of how Harvey Lavan “Van” Cliburn, a tall, curly-haired Texan pianist, conquered Moscow is legendary. By 1958, US-Soviet relations were tense, impacted as they were by the politics of the Cold War. To promote a thawing in relations, the Soviets and Americans proposed a series of cultural exchanges. The Soviets, for their part, convened the first International Tchaikovsky Piano Competition, named after the famous Russian composer, Pyotr Ilyich Tchaikovsky.
Tchaikovsky is perhaps best known in the United States for his rousing 1812 Overture, the melodic Nutcracker Suite, once a Christmas staple, and the unforgettable Swan Lake ballet. The premise of the competition was to invite 50 musicians from 19 countries to compete in an international competition designed to highlight Soviet accomplishment in the arts. A distinguished jury, headed by Dmitri Shostakovich, a legendary composer in his own right, was convened to judge the competition.
Cliburn was one of several Americans invited to compete. His rendition of Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto, considered one of Tchaikovsky’s most popular compositions and, as such, familiar to all, leaving little room for error or misinterpretation, brought the crowd to its feet. Olga Kern, one of Russia’s finest classical pianists, said of the performance, “Van Cliburn won because he played in a grand way. Soaring. It was beautiful; the piano was singing. It sounded so new and fresh. It was incredible.”
Scott Ritter will discuss this article and answer audience questions on Episode 49 of Ask the Inspector.
Popular legend has it that Shostakovich was uncertain whether he could award first prize to an American. When the famed Soviet composer approached Nikita Khrushchev for advice, the Soviet leader asked, “Is he the best?” Shostakovich replied yes to which Khruschev announced, “Then give him the prize!”
Van Cliburn returned to America a hero and was given a ticker-tape parade down New York City’s Avenue of Heroes, the only musician ever to be so honored. Time Magazine put him on its cover, with the headline, “The Texan Who Conquered Russia.”
Six months prior to Van Cliburn’s achievement, the Soviets had put the world’s first satellite, Sputnik, into orbit, an act that left many Americans feeling vulnerable and uncertain. The country still reeled from the Red Scare politics of Senator Joe McCarthy, whose admonition that “you cannot offer friendship to tyrants and murderers…without advancing the cause of tyranny and murder” continued to resonate in certain circles even after his death in 1957.
[I am listening to Tchaikovsky’s first piano concerto at this moment, and thinking of Arkansas’s great peacemakers—J. W. Fulbright, Betty Bumpers, Suzanne Pharr, and more. –D]
Van Cliburn’s performance did, in fact, help “break down barriers” and give “hope for finding mutual understanding.” There’s no lie in the essay penned by the Russian diplomat.
“Cultural cooperation,” Ambassador Antonov’s essay noted, “helped melt the ice then. Its significance cannot be overestimated also in our days because the universal language of art unites people of different nationalities, whatever is going on in the realm of big politics.”
It was, in short, an historic event, one worthy of continued attention and recognition. And, largely because of the singular accomplishment of Van Cliburn, the International Tchaikovsky Competition went on to become one of the best-known and most respected music competitions in the world.
[Russophobia v. music.]
[HOWEVER, ignorance, brainwashing, and bigotry in those 3 steps smashed Van Cliburn’s and Krushchev’s peace achievement. –D]] “The competition,” the essay observed, “was excluded from the World Federation of International Music Competitions in 2022 amidst indiscriminate Russophobia.”
This, too, is a true statement. On April 13, 2022, the World Federation of International Music Competitions voted by an overwhelming majority to exclude the International Tchaikovsky Competition from its membership. In a press release the federation declared that “Many laureates of the Tchaikovsky Competition are among the leading artists of today. However, in the face of Russia’s brutal war and humanitarian atrocities in Ukraine, the [federation] as an apolitical organization cannot support or have as a member, a competition financed and used as a promotional tool by the Russian regime.”
In 2003, following the invasion of Iraq by the United States—an act widely acknowledged worldwide as a blatant act of aggression that violated international law, the Van Cliburn International Piano Competition, one of six American music competitions are part of a network of some 120 internationally recognized organizations that comprise the federation, and whose collective goal is to “discover the most promising young talents in classical music through public competition,” was not excluded by the World Federation of International Music Competitions.
So much for the “apolitical” status of the federation. The exclusion by the federation of the International Tchaikovsky Competition is an inherently political act, a clear example of Russophobia. To pretend otherwise is illogical—but then again, Russophobia (“the fear or dislike of Russia and its people, often based on stereotypes and propaganda”), like all other phobias, is inherently illogical, representing as it does an excessive, extreme, irrational, fear or panic reaction derived from ignorance of the subject in question.
“And yet,” Antonov declared, “despite that, representatives of the United States still seek to become laureates and winners of this prestigious contest. The 2023 Tchaikovsky International Youth Competition, by the way, was attended by 128 gifted performers from 14 countries, including the United States.”
Again, not a false statement—the XI International Tchaikovsky Competition for Young Musicians was held in Moscow and St. Petersburg in January 2023. There, 27 young musicians from Russia, China, the Republic of Korea and the United States were selected for participation in the final round. The top two spots were awarded to competitors from China, while the third spot went to a Russian performer. But Americans were there, participating, and that is what matters.
[Russophobia v. art.]
Russian artists are considered among the world’s most accomplished, and many of their works can be found in art galleries around the world. And yet, even here, Russophobia has raised its ugly head, as the Russian essay so pointedly notes. “The anti-Russian ‘hate virus’ is giving metastases and continues to affect the United States,” the essay states. “It has also infected the leading US art galleries that are now trying to outdo each other in their efforts to ‘cancel’ Russian culture.
“The Metropolitan Museum of Art,” Ambassador Antonov reports, “has reclassified great Russian painters Arkhip Kuindzhi, Ivan Aivazovsky and Ilya Repin as Ukrainians guided by the fact that they were born in Mariupol, Feodosia and Chuguev, which is nothing short of a complete absurdity.”
Once again, the assertion put forward in the essay is factually correct. “The Met continually researches and examines objects in its collection in order to determine the most appropriate and accurate way to catalogue and present them,” a Met spokesperson said, commenting on the reclassification. “The cataloguing of these works has been updated following research conducted in collaboration with scholars in the field.”
The “collaboration” the Met speaks of came in the form of online pressure from someone the Met described as a Ukrainian art historian, Oksana Semenik, whose Twitter account, Ukrainian Art History (@ukr_arthistory) ran a concerted campaign criticizing the Met for incorrectly labelling the works of Arkhip Kuindzhi as Russian. “All his famous landscapes were about Ukraine, Dnipro, and steppes,” Semenik tweeted. “But also about Ukrainian people.”
But, as the Ambassador’s essay points out, “This does not withstand any criticism at least because the artists considered themselves Russians. Just in case: ethnically, Ilya Repin was Russian, Ivan Aivazovsky was Armenian and Arkhip Kuindzhi was Greek. All three were born in the Russian Empire – when Ukrainian statehood did not exist.”
Kuindzhi was a landscape painter from the Russian Empire of Pontic Greek. When he was born, in 1841, the city of Mariupol was one of the subdivisions of the Yekaterinoslav Governorate of the Russian Empire. The landscapes he painted were, at the time they were produced, depicting Russian scenes, and Russian people. Kuindzhi, by any account, was a Russian artist.
While Ivan Aivazovsky may have been ethnically Armenian, he and all of Russia considered (and considers) him to be an iconic Romantic painter who is considered one of the greatest masters of marine art of all time. Indeed, several of Aivazovsky’s works hang in Ambassador Antonov’s residence in Washington, DC.
Prior to the reclassification, the Met described Aivazovsky as such: “The Russian Romantic artist Ivan Konstantinovich Aivazovsky (1817–1900) was widely renowned for his paintings of sea battles, shipwrecks, and storms at sea. Born into an Armenian family in the Crimean port city of Feodosia, Aivazovsky was enormously prolific—he claimed to have created some six thousand paintings during his lifetime. He was a favorite of Czar Nicholas I and was appointed official artist of the Russian imperial navy.”
As for Ilya Repin, his father had served in an Uhlan Regiment in the Russian army, and Repin was a graduate of the Imperial Academy of Fine Arts in Saint Petersburg.
The Russophobia of the Met did not stop there. As Antonov’s essay notes, “Another example of ignorance by the Met is the renaming of Edgar Degas’s ‘Russian Dancers’ to ‘Dancers in Ukrainian Dress’.” . . . . MORE https://www.scottritterextra.com/p/the-red-scare-20-russophobia-in-america
However, one cannot pretend to turn a blind eye, as the Met does, to the fact that its most ardent proponent for the cultural cancellation of Russia in the Met is not a simple Ukrainian “art historian,” but rather a journalist-activist affiliated with a partisan Ukrainian organization that receives funding from a US government-controlled agency that has a chip on its shoulder against Russia for being evicted as “undesirable.”
By acting on Ms. Seminik’s passions regarding the re-classification of longstanding Russian artists as Ukrainian (something the Kiev Post has described as the “Decolonization of Ukrainian art”), the Met has allowed itself to become, wittingly or otherwise, a de facto tool of anti-Russian propaganda.
This is not the proper role of a major American cultural institution.
Here I will let the anger and frustration of the Russian Ambassador to the United States to manifest itself without comment:
Judging by the rhetoric of the American art beau monde, Vasily Kandinsky, a native of Moscow, and his works are next in line to be ‘ukrainized’. There is a heated discussion on whether the fact that he studied in Odessa is a good reason to treat him as a Ukrainian artist.
Here arises the question for the museum innovators who until recently admired Russian culture: why they have set about perverting historical reality only now? Isn’t this sudden “revelation” just a banal tribute to political fashion? Anyway, the time will come for the US cultural elite to sober up and be embarrassed of its doings.
Perhaps. But the reality is that what passes for culture today in America is anything but, especially when it comes to all things Russia. Liquor stores have poured “Russian” vodka out in protest of the Russian military incursion into Ukraine, ignorant of the fact that many of the brands they were disposing of originated from places other than Russia.
Other absurdities abound. The Miri Vanna, a well-known Washington, DC-based Russian restaurant, has renamed the famous “Moscow Mule” mixed drink (two parts vodka, three parts ginger ale, and a squeeze of lime juice) has become the “Kyiv Mule,” and the long-time Russian staple, borscht, has been redefined as “the masterpiece of Ukrainian cuisine.”
But the culture war against all things Russian has serious connotations as well. The Russia House, an established Washington, DC-based Russian restaurant, was vandalized in the weeks following the Russian incursion into Ukraine, leading the owners to shutter their doors for good (the restaurant, like many others, had temporarily closed due to the Covid-19 pandemic.)
In New York City, the iconic Russian Samovar restaurant came under attack simply because of its name, forcing the owners to fly Ukrainian flags and profess their open support for Ukraine, lest they, too, be subject to attacks that would derail their business.
It is not just Russian culture that is being cancelled in the United States, but Russian people, including those dispatched to the United States by the Russian government for the singular task of improving relations between the two countries. A recent exposé published in Politico, entitled “Lonely Anatoly: The Russian ambassador is Washington’s least popular man,” observes that “Russia’s ambassador to the United States can’t get meetings with senior officials at the White House or the State Department. He can’t convince US lawmakers to see him, much less take a photo. It’s the rare American think tanker who’s willing to admit to having any contact with the envoy.”
Ambassador Antonov is not the only Russian official singled out for diplomatic isolation. In March 2022, at the request of the Ukrainian embassy’s defense attaché, the Canadian Embassy orchestrated a vote by the Defense Attachés’ Association, a professional and social organization for defense attachés and their spouses whose dean is selected by the Defense Intelligence Agency, to expel Major General Evgeny Bobkin, the Russian Military Attaché assigned to the Russian Embassy in Washington, DC, from the group.
“It was hard to believe that xenophobia could take roots,” Ambassador Antonov observed, “in a state which is supposed to be resting on the principles of cultural and ethnical diversity and tolerance to different peoples. Nevertheless, US politicians not only encourage hatred of everything Russian, but actively implant it in the minds of citizens. In recent years, they have never stopped fabricating baseless accusations to justify tougher sanctions.”
One of the problems confronting the Russian government and people today is the quality of individuals that comprise what passes for “Russia experts” in America today. Gone are the days when men such as Jack Matlock, the former US Ambassador to Russia, or Stephen Cohen, the deceased Professor Emeritus of Russian and Slavic Studies who taught at Columbia, Princeton, and New York University, dominated the halls of academia and power. Both men possessed a deep appreciation of Russian history, culture, traditions, language, and politics. Erudite and tough, they articulated for better relations between Russia and the United States.
Today, they have been replaced by people like Michael McFaul, the former US Ambassador to Russia under Barack Obama, and Fiona Hill, a National Security Council “expert” on Russia in both the Obama and Trump White Houses. Both McFaul and Hill have expressed a Putin-centric approach when assessing Russia, where everything is explained through an incomplete and narrowly focused concentration on the Russian leader over the Russian nation.
The contrast between the approaches taken by Jack Matlock and Stephen Cohen, on the one hand, and Michael McFaul and Fiona Hill, on the other, could not be more stark; the first argued for bridging the differences through better understanding, and the other for managing differences through containment and isolation.
One promotes peaceful coexistence based upon principles of shared humanity.
The other promotes never-ending conflict fueled by Russophobia.
“Russian culture,” Ambassador Antonov concludes, “does not belong only to Russia. It is the world’s treasure. We know the Americans as appreciative connoisseurs of true art. Not so long ago tours of the troupes of the Bolshoi and Mariinsky theatres as well as our renowned musicians drew packed houses and were always greeted with a storm of applause. The local audience is apparently longing for Russian performers and art exhibitions.”
“Isn’t it time to stop the Russophobic madness?,” the Russian Ambassador asks.
That, I believe, is the question that defines our times, and our collective fate.
Who among us will be the next Van Cliburn? Who will challenge the modern McCarthyism by refusing to bow to the insane pressures of Russophobia, and decide instead to engage with the Russian people as people, with full respect and admiration for their culture, heritage, traditions, and history? This journey doesn’t require a trip to Moscow. Defeating Russophobia begins here at home, simply by choosing not to buy in to the madness promulgated on the part of those who seek to promote conflict by promoting fear generated by ignorance.
When it comes to stopping the madness of Russophobia, there is no time like the present. Because if we allow fear-based prejudice to prevail, there may be no tomorrow.
Paul Robinson. “Canada’s ‘New Red Scare’ is profoundly undemocratic.” ACURA(Nov 13, 2024). .
In the past decade, a disturbing phenomenon has arisen in the Western world. One might call it the “New Red Scare.” According to many, the West is the target of a highly sophisticated, professional, and dangerous campaign of foreign subversion, coming mainly from the Russian Federation. Accusations abound against “Russian agents,” “Kremlin influencers,” “Moscowproxies,” […]
Read in browser »
WATCH: “Durham Report a ‘Whitewash’”
Video: https://consortiumnews.com/2023/05/19/watch-durham-report-a-whitewash/
The final report by Special Counsel John Durham into Russiagate’s origins is full of details but is ultimately a whitewash, says Alexander Mercouris on The Duran channel. Read here…
“Russia claims U.S. planned alleged drone attack on Kremlin.” CBS News Updated on: May 4, 2023.
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/russia-ukraine-kremlin-attack-drone-moscow-blames-us-and-retaliates
Jeremy Kuzmarov. Mronline.org (6-14-24).
On April 7, 2022, the UN General Assembly voted to exclude Russia from the UN Human Rights Council.
Originally published: CovertAction Magazine on June 7, 2024 (more by CovertAction Magazine).
WarAmericas, Europe, Gaza, Israel, Middle East, Palestine, Russia, Ukraine, United StatesNewswireOrganization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW), Responsibility to Protect Doctrine (R2P), UN General Assembly
UN General Assembly votes to suspend the membership of the Russian Federation in the Human Rights Council during an Emergency Special Session on Ukraine. [Source: news.un.org]
On April 7, 2022, the UN General Assembly voted to exclude Russia from the UN Human Rights Council. The resolution received the required two-thirds majority of those voting, minus abstentions, in the 193-member Assembly, with 93 nations voting in favor and 24 against.1
The vote was highly politicized and reflected the success of the Western information war against Russia, which was falsely blamed for launching an unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, and for committing the overwhelming majority of atrocities in the war, including a massacre at Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv, which independent investigators concluded was actually carried out by Ukraine.
Alfred de Zayas, a former senior lawyer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner and Secretary of the UN’s Human Rights Committee, wrote in his book The Human Rights Industry (Atlanta: Clarity Press, 2023) that the UN General Assembly’s decision to exclude Russia “added to the general atmosphere of Russophobia that we have seen over the last three decades,” and “to the world’s perception of engineered bias in the UN itself, where the manipulation of States’ votes was enabled by a failure to call for a secret ballot, as requested by Russia.”2
Alfred de Zayas. Born in Cuba, de Zayas grew up in Chicago and obtained a law degree from Harvard and Ph.D. in modern history from the University of Göttingen. He worked with the United Nations from 1981 to 2003 as a senior lawyer with the Office of the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Chief of Petitions. [Source: wikipedia.org]
De Zayas noted further that, if exclusion were undertaken objectively by the General Assembly, one would expect the exclusion of other offenders, including but not limited to the following:
· Several NATO countries, for the war crimes and crimes against humanity committed by their force during the wars of aggression against Yugoslavia, Iraq, Libya, Syria, etc.
· Saudi Arabia, among others, because of its genocidal war against the people of Yemen and because of the gruesome assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi at the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul in 2018.
· India for its systematic war crimes and gross violations of human rights against the people of Khashmir, including widespread extra-judicial executions.
· Azerbaijan because of its aggression against the hapless Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) during the blitzkrieg of September-November 2020, where the crime of aggression, war crimes and crimes against humanity were committed, including torture and execution of Armenian prisoners of war.
· Decades of systematic killing of human rights defenders, social leaders, syndicalists and Indigenous peoples by successive Colombian governments and lethal paramilitary forces.
According to de Zayas, the UN’s Human Rights Council, since its creation in 2006, has not served human rights well; rather it has manifestly served the geopolitical and informational interests of the United States and the European Union.
These interests center on the demonization of Russia, which guarantees “that the maw of the U.S. military-industrial-digital-financial complex can continue to be fed, and its war on the world, contrary to the purposes and principles of the United Nations, can be pursued, even when it pushes the purported ‘rules-based’ international order.”3
The Human Rights Industry
De Zayas’s book, The Human Rights Industry,. . . .MORE
Elizabeth Vos. “Russiagate & Gaza.” Consortium News (1-31-24).
Instead of criticizing a government credibly accused of genocide, a leading Democrat applies a debunked partisan smear to pro-Palestine protesters and wants the F.B.I. to investigate them, writes Elizabeth Vos. By
Just a few years ago, the Russiagate narrative dominated the news sphere: anyone who questioned the status quo was labeled a Putin puppet or a Russian bot, including American journalists.
In recent months, Israeli officials have similarly labeled anyone and any organization who opposes them as anti-Semitic or Hamas sympathizers, even going so far as to label the International Court of Justice anti-Semitic.
Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi took both narratives a step further over the weekend, calling on the F.B.I. to investigate pro-Palestinian protests for alleged financial ties to Russia.
Her statements came in the wake of the ruling from the International Court of Justice (ICJ), which stated that there is prima facie evidence of Israel committing genocide in Gaza though the ruling stopped short of ordering a cessation of Israel’s military actions in the strip.
Instead of turning away from Israel, as one might expect if a nation is credibly accused of genocide, Pelosi attempted to deflect from Israel’s guilt and its loss of support among the U.S. public by blaming pro-Palestinian protests on Russia, and specifically Russian President Vladimir Putin. . . . MORE
In other words, Western countries are increasing their active involvement in what may be legally deemed a genocide, based on the word of Israel alone and without hesitation, rather than withdrawing support for Israel in the wake of the ICJ ruling that there is plausible evidence that Israel is committing genocide.
It seems that no legal, moral, or political repercussions are severe enough to dampen the U.S. and Western support for Israel.
It is against this appalling background that Pelosi made her statements painting pro-Palestinian protesters as Putin plants and calling for the F.B.I. to investigate them, so desperate does she appear to continue supporting Israel’s genocidal agenda.
Control of Information
It’s not a physical enemy to combat but rather powerful messages lodged in millions of people’s minds. It’s come to rule over us. Read here…
MERICAN EMPIRE, ANALYSIS, CN LIVE!, COMMENTARY, CONSORTIUM NEWS, INTELLIGENCE, ISRAEL, MEDIA, PALESTINE, PROPAGANDA, ROBERT PARRY, RUSSIA, SPRING FUND DRIVE, UKRAINE
Former Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld; U.S. Army General Henry Shelton, chairman, Joint Chief-of-Staff and Senator John Warner (R-VA), at Pentagon press conference. (Jim Watson, USN/Wikimedia Commons)
By JoeLauria
Cathy Vogan, executive producer of Consortium News‘ webcast CN Live!, coined a new term to describe rule by psyops, or psychological operations: psyopcracy. And Consortium News‘ existence is devoted to fighting it.
According to Wikipedia: “Psychological operations (PSYOP) are operations to convey selected information and indicators to audiences to influence their emotions, motives, and objective reasoning, and ultimately the behavior of governments, organizations, groups, and individuals. The purpose of United States psychological operations is to induce or reinforce behavior perceived to be favorable to U.S. objectives.”
William Casey, C.I.A. director under Ronald Reagan, said: “We’ll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false.” Thus the American people are continuously subject to a number of psychological operations otherwise known as “the news.” Combating these false constructs of the world through media is Consortium News‘ mission.
U.S. intelligence officials feed journalists disinformation to create a false narrative that is intended to mislead the public and cover-up what is actually taking place.
The constant reinforcement of these lies becomes entrenched in the public mind and after time comes to be accepted as unquestionable truth.
Here’s an explanation of how the C.I.A. did it in Vietnam:
Through such operations, the American people were led to believe for years that the United States was winning in Vietnam, when it was actually losing, as the Pentagon Papers proved. Since then, many examples have followed of completely false stories being planted into people’s minds to start and keep a war going, the fake WMD narrative in Iraq perhaps the most infamous.
Today the wars people are being fooled about are in Ukraine and Gaza.Sometimes a psyop doesn’t involve inserting false information, so much as leaving out what’s true.
The American people, and by extension people around the world, have been led to believe that an unprovoked Russian madman started the war in Ukraine. That’s because they are purposely not told that the war actually began in 2014 after a U.S.-backed coup in Kiev led Russian speakers in Donbass to declare independence, after which the coup government militarily attacked them. Other facts are removed from the story, such as Russia’s proposed treaties with the U.S. and NATO in December 2021 that would have prevented Russia’s intervention in the Ukrainian civil war.
The history of Israel’s ethnic cleansing of Palestine is also whitewashed to lead the U.S. public into believing that Israel is the “victim” that is only “defending itself.”
Robert Parry, the founder of this website, in March 2017 wrote the article, “How US Flooded the World with Psyops,” in which he reported for the first time: “Newly declassified documents from the Reagan presidential library help explain how the U.S. government developed its sophisticated psychological operations capabilities that – over the past three decades – have created an alternative reality both for people in targeted countries and for American citizens, a structure that expanded U.S. influence abroad and quieted dissent at home. The documents reveal the formation of a psyops bureaucracy under the direction of Walter Raymond Jr., a senior CIA covert operations specialist who was assigned to President Reagan’s National Security Council staff to enhance the importance of propaganda and psyops in undermining U.S. adversaries around the world and ensuring sufficient public support for foreign policies inside the United States.”
So many people are subject to psyops that telling the truth becomes a formidable task. You become the one that is out of step. You are the one that seems to be mad.
Consortium News‘s mission since 1995 has been to fight against psychological operations that have come to rule over Americans, convincing them of all manner of falsehoods, such as that their nation is motivated by humanitarian and democratic principles in the world rather than naked greed and a lust for domination.
And that the Ukraine war was unprovoked and Israel is just defending itself. Help us fight the psyopcracy: Please Donate
See the Stephen F. Cohen Archive https://usrussiaaccord.org/category/stephen-f-cohen/
CHINA TOO
Stephen F. Cohen. “Why US moves have failed to ‘contain’ China and instead ‘bring us close to war’.” 8 Jul 2024
Illustration: Henry Wong
Jeffrey Sachs is an economics professor and director of the Centre for Sustainable Development at Columbia University. This interview first appeared in SCMP Plus. For other interviews in the Open Questions series, click here.
You were part of a high-level US business and academic delegation to China in March. What are your thoughts about the trip and the meeting with Chinese President Xi Jinping? What has been achieved and what has yet to be done?
The China Development Forum was an excellent opportunity, as usual, for an update on China’s economy and foreign policy outlook. Chinese leaders have a very realistic view of the domestic and also the global situation, notably regarding the tensions with the US. In my own view, the US-China tensions are overwhelmingly caused by the American anxiety that US power is waning around the world. US policymakers are reacting defensively and fearfully, and often very unwisely.
I wonder if you could elaborate more about the unwise China policies made by the US? Can you give us some examples, and why were they unwise?
The US launched a policy around 2015 to “contain” China, including several components. These policies – spelled out in a 2015 article for the Council on Foreign Relations by Robert Blackwill and Ashley Tellis – included the attempt to create trade agreements, such as the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) designed to exclude China, increased export bans on hi-tech products such as advanced semiconductors, increased trade barriers to China’s exports to the US (and Europe), increased militarisation of the South China Sea, new military alignments such as Aukus, and opposition to Chinese initiatives such as the Belt and Road Initiative. . . . MORE
SEEKING PEACE, PREVENTING AND STOPPING US WARS, ABOLISHING NUCLEAR WEAPONS, ENDING US PATHOLOGICAL HATRED OF RUSSIA
Dr. Helen Caldicott. Missile Envy: The Arms Race and Nuclear War. Bantam Books, Rev. ed., 1986.
“From the beginning, the nuclear arms race in America has been fueled by a mad lust for power, first in the Air Force and later in the Navy; by a fascination with scientific, esoteric, and intellectual pursuits; by clinical paranoia about the Soviets; and by rapacious greed by our military industries” (74).
This book was written over 30 years ago, but it is as relevant today as it was then, as an early history of the animosity of the USA toward its ideological rival. I suggest you read the chapters “Pathogenesis” and “Etiology: Missile Envy and Other Psychopathology” first. –Dick
Introduction
The Terminal Event
The Iron Triangle
Pathogenesis: The Pathological Dynamics of the Arms Race
Physical Examination
Case History
Germs of Conflict: The Third World
Etiology; Missile Envy and Other Psychopathology
Prognosis: How Long Will the Earth Survive?
Therapy
BREAKING THE BIGOTRY, SEEKING AMITY
Mission Statement of The American Committee for US-Russia Accord (ACURA): The American Committee for US-Russia Accord (ACURA) is a nonpartisan, tax-exempt educational organization of concerned citizens from different professions — business, academia, government service, science, law, and journalism — who are deeply concerned about the serious decline in relations between the United States and Russia.
ACURA is the successor organization to the Committee for East-West Accord which was founded by the late Professor Stephen F. Cohen in 2015. Steve recognized far earlier than most the danger posed by a return to hostile relations between the world’s leading nuclear powers.
We believe the atmosphere of mutual hostility between the US and Russia does not serve US national security interests, nor does it serve the cause of a more peaceful world. While we believe it is important to recognize that we have serious disagreements with Russia, these should not close the door on dialogue or on the possibility of cooperation on matters of mutual national interest.
Indeed, given the stakes, the need for dialogue and cooperation has never been more urgent. Yet over the past several years we have watched in dismay as agreements covering areas as disparate as arms control, economics, energy, education, science, space, culture have been discarded or endangered.
The primary mission of ACURA is to promote diplomacy, dialogue and cooperation with Russia. Our goal is to stimulate public awareness regarding the dangers of a new Cold War by encouraging open, civilized, informed debate among Americans with different, even opposing, positions, perspectives, and proposals.
ACURA seeks to do this in as many ways as possible, including sponsorship or cosponsorship of events in Washington and across the country–at universities, nongovernmental organizations, and citizen organizations such as Rotary Clubs and World Affairs Councils.
We believe, as Steve did, that the way forward is not through the rhetoric of mutual demonization, but through a sincere effort to undertake the hard work of mutual understanding.
It is ACURA’s goal to make a lasting contribution to that work. Please mail checks to:
American Committee for US-Russia Accord (ACURA)
2808 Broadway, Box #18, New York, NY 10025