Thread: Russophobia in media

Originally Posted by RedFox

There is one single fact that should be added to all this crazy stuff about "Putin's aggression" "Putin's regime", "Putin's propaganda" etc in the Western media to get the point.

The fact is: all Putin's' oligarchs keep their money in Western banks.


The picture can be attributed not only to Russians and Ukrainians, but to all nations:

Sorry I don't understand. What's the exact relevance of the Russian oligarchs keeping their money in Western banks?

So according to me, the Russians can do whatever they like in their own country. Whether Putin is a dictator or not doesn't matter to me. It's obvious that most Russians prefer him over the altarnatives, either way. Democracy in many ways, is an illusion. As long as Russia is stable with good living conditions for its people, I don't care.

The Ukraine situation is very complex and although I don't think Russia is completely innocent, it didn't start any of the problems. The South Ossetia situation I simply don't consider Russia to be the aggressor. Either way - Russia is not guilty of a fraction of the suffering in the world that the US has created recently.

My main criticism against Russia (although it's really none of my business) would be:

1) Corruption
2) Income differences - I.e. poor pensioners and rural dwellers vs oligarchs. Should not be allowed imo. But this is true for half the world, not just Russia!
3) Environmental policies should be stronger. (again, Russia is no worse than half the rest of the world on this, including the US).

Originally Posted by Hanna

Sorry I don't understand. What's the exact relevance of the Russian oligarchs keeping their money in Western banks?

In this thread, as well as at this website as a whole, we talk about USA, Russia, France, Germany etc as if they were real players of the world policy. "USA did that". "Russia does that". "France says these things". Worse yet, we take it personally, as though they were our parents or friends. We call it "patriotism", but it is just nonsence and insanity.
Goverments are not our friends, and they do not care about us. The only thing they care about is money.

When we talk about international relationships and policy, there are no such independent beings as "Putin", "Russian government", "Russian politics" and so on. As well as there are no such things in western countries too.
Putin has no real power since he has no real control over "his" money.

The world is ruled by corporations, that control financial system, natural resources, industries and media.

Nationality (as well as patriotism, religion etc) is just one more thing that is used to control people. Europeans can hate Russians, Russians can hate Ukrainians, Serbs can hate Croats and so on, if it is economically profitable for our rulers. And those rulers are the same, no matter if you live in Russia, Ukraine or Sweden.

That is my point.

Thank you for giving me only 3 days suspension, sir Lampada. I am back and eager to start over again having my grammar corrected. I will no longer involve myself on politics and anti-Semitism.

Well, after listening to western remarks - or was somebody quoting Mein Kampf? - at the UN General Assembly, it's very clear now how most of the Russophobic media originates. Any country that wants "world order" on their terms only, will target any other country that opposes their dreams of global domination. Intelligence services are skilled at disseminating disinformation to achieve their goals. Apparently, Palestine raising it's flag, on Wednesday, at the United Nations somehow threatens that domination dream, as well. As for me, I will be watching and cheering as the Palestinian flag is raised. Imo, the UN should be a venue for dialogue and world order, not a venue for neurotic dreams of exceptionalism or world conquest.
Disinformation is a powerful tool. It has been used to generate popular support for geonocides and is now being used to target specific peoples and countries. It is also being used now to curb the learning potentials of students in schools - there are no educated pawns to control. But fortunately the EU - and especially Germany - are starting to realize how many regional and global issues can't be resolved without Russia. To resolve those issues and ensure regional security, the disinformation campaign targetting Russia must end. I will be watching for that to happen - at least in Europe.

Deleted. L.

Originally Posted by dinlot

Deleted. L.

Dinlot is banned for 7 day for trolling and flaming

So tiresome that people bring Hitler and Stalin into this discussion about modern 21st century Russia! Please don't do it here!
That's the level of discourse that the Western bias would like the discussion to be at! IMO it adds nothing we don't already know. Whether you are defending Russia, or criticising it, these personages belong in historical threads

Another thing I am thoroughly fed up with in Western and media and online, is the following:

• As soon as any Russian person defends his country, he is accused of being "brainwashed" by Putin's propaganda, and similar ridiculous statements. Or he is a "Putin stooge", if it's an official person.
• As soon as any Western person challenges the propaganda vignette of Russia online, they are accused of being a "Russian psy-ops agent", "troll factory worker" or similar.

This is so devious, because it aborts the discussion without the person not even having to counter the argument. All that's needed is to accuse the opponent of not being genuine. At the same time the US is developing bots and and a batallion of staff to skew online discourse. In addition to funding media such as Radio Free Europe and various more subtle approaches to manipulating the discourse.


Coming across some of my old posts here, I actually saw this new anti-Russia climate coming, back in 2010! Sad when a negative prediction like this comes true.

It's obvious to me that somebody in the US wants the Cold War back: they've got all mainstream media with them.

European countries and media, having stopped thinking for themselves - get the news about Russia from US media and press releases. Instead of, say, going to Russia and drawing their own conclusions!
Why are we getting our news and views about Russia from the USA! Russians are our neighbours! We can judge Russia ourselves, and form our own relationships.

What is the goal of these US led agitators? Divide and conquer? Increase weapons sales...? Something else?
I don't really see it. But whatever it is, it's destructive.

I have long since started seeing the US as the bully and aggressor in world politics, and Russia as the least bad of the major powers. Russia correctly predicted the outcome of interference in Libya, Syria, Iraq etc. Russia's media reports more honestly about many aspects of European politics and news, than do European media themselves.

I find the situation very, very sad - for us Europeans, and for the Russians! After the Cold War the hopes were so high for friendship and understanding across the whole continent. But now we are back to lies, propaganda and scaremongering again.

Originally Posted by Hanna

,,, European countries and media, having stopped thinking for themselves - get the news about Russia from US media and press releases. Instead of, say, going to Russia and drawing their own conclusions!
Why are we getting our news and views about Russia from the USA!,,,
What is the goal of these US led agitators? Divide and conquer? Increase weapons sales...? Something else?
I don't really see it. But whatever it is, it's destructive...

Well, the first part is easy to answer. Consumerism and apathy.
An Apple employee in China offed himself because he knew he could never afford to buy an iPhone. And a lot of people in the US have more than one job. Wages are kept low enough that people don't have very much free time to learn what they really need to know. If I didn't have so much money thrown at me, I probably wouldn't have very much free time to learn anything either. And advertising. Nobody's cool unless they have iPhone, a late model Ferrari, and hangout with celebs, right? Money, money, and more money.
Corporations get all the money, most of the people have to choose between food and insurance, and everyone becomes corporate pawns who care more about products and fame than they do about personal honor or pride.

And apathy. Most people in the US are either Democrats or Republicans because other parties never win. So now those 2 parties = winners and winners must be right. But the international narrative of the 2 parties is almost identical.
Well, people don't have time to learn and the leaders they respect are all saying the same thing. People who have no time to learn - and no way to ever win if they did - will probably just believe whatever their leaders tell them and those views are all over the news.

For the part in bold - whatever the goal is, it's pointless. Russia is highly evolved and very much a part of almost everything happening on the planet. And from the legitimate polls I've seen, the Russian people are very proud of their culture and their country. Imo, it's not "Putin's Russia" that we are seeing - It's "the Russian peoples' Russia". So even if something happened to Putin, I totally believe that Russia would continue very much the same as it is now.
I hope that's true. Despite everything our country and Europe has done, a member here helped me with my Russian grammar today - that's why I edited my signature. They didn't have to help me but they did and that's very cool. Stuff like that is worth a ton more than any iPhone or Ferrari. So the world needs countries like Russia if only to remind us that there's more important stuff in life than consumerism and money.
What's really sad is all the time that's wasted on useless propaganda that could have been used for people and friends.

Привет, Ханночка!
Привет, RedFox!
Привет всем!

Хочу напомнить, что у нас есть правило об использовании русского языка во всех разделах, за исключением нескольких:
"9 - All posts must be in English or Russian, except for the special "Beyond Russian" section of the forum where you can use several other languages.".

Я не буду сильно настаивать на его соблюдении, но я знаю, что раздел Политики был создан с целью помощи студентам знакомиться с политической терминологией и уже заодно получать представление о российской политике.

Well the winds are turning and more and more people are beginning to see that they can trust Russian media to repeat the important stories that mainstream will ignore.

I can't say how good or bad Russian media are at domestic news. But right now I am seeing more honesty about Europe and the Middle East from Russian media than any other media I have access to.