"This is why a lot of allegations of stories being “planted” in the media, or NGOs somehow linked to dark government agendas are, at a minimum, exaggerations. Journalists will write stories that reflect their view of the world, and will reproduce interpretations of events that are congenial to them. In turn, these interpretations reflect common ideas and assumptions in the intellectual bubble where most of them live. A western journalist abroad picking up something from Twitter will call a contact back home or at the local Embassy, and it’s likely that they will find the interpretation they get convincing, because they come from the same background with the same assumptions."
Noam Chomsky's takedown of Andrew Marr truly never grows old:
Andrew Marr: How can you know I’m self-censoring?
Noam Chomsky: I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.
"Noam Chomsky: I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting." ...great quote of an ignominious man, there are other intellectuals that never saw the light of "making a living" thanks to our noaM.
"As I always say, you can’t get money to train policemen properly, but you can easily get money to set up an NGO to collect complaints about bad police behaviour. This isn’t as bizarre as it sounds, because for many countries the priority is happy-clappy initiatives that don’t risk any fallout if things go wrong."
The technical term for this is called a "PMC jobs program".
This is also why, when the Totebag Set hear the slogan "defund the police1" what that means to them is "take money away from the undeserving (blue collar, mostly male, largely white unionized cops, most of whom lack Serious Academic Degrees and who are famously unwoke) and give money to the deserving (white collar, largely female social workers with appropriate academic credentials and who can trusted to uphold the latest standards of political correctness)."
You mention the Islamists in Europe, but you fail to mention how the nationalist parties have grown over there, and they are strictly against immigrants, and mostly Muslims. What do you reckon, civil wars? I'm super willing one of those parties get the majority in one country to see what happens. Vive Le Pen lol.
Ending a otherwise interesting analysis in an islamofobe rant is a habit of Aurelien. The reason is probably psychological.
In reality the islamists in Europe are insignificant. They reach a small portion of a small minority. They make headlines, they don’t make policy and they never will.
So what would happen in relation to Muslims if Le Pen won office in France? You already have the answer from neighbouring Italy, where a similar candidate won the last election: nothing.
The problem that they spin their propaganda around isn’t real, so once they are in government, and have to handle real problems, they simply forget about it.
I didn't intend a rant, and I'm not frightened of Islam. My point was a technical one, that there is no substitute for long-term cultivation of ordinary people if you want to establish a political force and power-base. The Left used to do this, but doesn't any more. The only example I can think of at the moment, at least in Europe, is the Islamists, and their long)-term cultivation and radicalisation of the immigrant community in France is visibly having an effect.
My point was technical as well (please note that I did not say that you were an islamophobe, much less a racist). I talked about the ending of the text, called it a rant because it seems emotionally based and badly thought through and called it islamophobic because it mimics claims that islamophobes make as if they were true. At least three obvious islamophobes in the comments section seem to share my evaluation.
On the failures of the left we largely agree. It goes hand in hand with the insider bureaucracy coups that ended the mass- or at least popular movement character of the workers parties in the seventies and eighties.
A prime example of the is the ongoing left party congress in Sweden. They are adopting a new program. When I read it I was very confused. I said to my self: “wait a minute, this is not a program, this is a very long but not very well written op-ed by a paid NGO representative.”
Turns out it was deliberately written that way to give the leadership room for political deal making with out being bound by decisions made by the members.
You are not a member any more, you are more like a follower on twitter or a fan of a football club. Sad state of affairs.
@ Aurelien : And still... Just daring to mention this cultivation and radicalisation and their intended effects is already bordering with "islamophobia". At least according to this very same Left. Or whatever it became nowadays. That's how strong this propaganda is.
BTW I like JM Greer concept of magic as "the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will".
While he is sometime difficult to follow on this particular topic, the way I understand it, what he calls magic is in many ways quite similar with propaganda. As indeed, propaganda act like a spell. And under the right spell people stop seeing what they are not supposed to see while whoever see it anyway is called crazy...
do you think the lgbtq gender groups with their activity of cultivating young people of Gen Z and A via social media and entertainment, also count? I've read a few statistics from US schools saying about half kids today are ''queer'' or something like that.
The so-called concept of "islamophobia" is just a clever part of islamist propaganda.
It's how they counter any criticism of their political agenda by claiming that it is unacceptable criticism of their religion, hence racism.
And it's indeed quite effective as the last thing good people want is to be called racists.
It's how propaganda works : convince people that they are such or such if they don't accept whatever propagandists want them to believe.
But you right at least on one point : the demographic and political situation in Europe is such that it is not sure it's still possible to do something whoever could be elected...
A fobia is not racist, it’s a clinical condition (I’m a trained mental health professional) where you react with fear to something that is not dangerous.
Let’s take Sweden as an example: about two percent of the population are practicing Muslims. And that’s practicers of islam in any organised form. A tiny fraction of those are islamists. Even if all of them were they would have no influence.
During the Syria civil war the salafist were aligned to NATO and on the offensive. A total of 5000 salafists travelled to the country. That sounds like a lot until you realise that it was out of almost 500 million Europeans.
So my friend, you are entitled to your feelings, just don’t confuse them with facts.
Yes, this is the whole point to say that people who refuse propagandists' political agenda are suffering from some kind mental condition. "Fobia" is the favorite one now days. But it's an old trick. In USSR, people who dared to contradict the official ideology would be sent in mental institutes. In China, to re-education camps.
Of course, thinking to be surrounded by demented people is bordering on paranoia.
But it goes much further than that. It's much more vicious : nobody want to be considered as suffering from mental disorder. And in the meantime, nobody could be asked to argue with such people as it would be pointless.
Hence it's the best way to stop any discussion. Call whoever is arguing with you "fob-something" and that's it. Whatever the predicament.
(And Swedish people... Frankly... No later that today I saw pictures from Sweden where people they welcomed as refugees were throwing rocks at their cops because some Israeli girl was allowed to sing a song... So lucky for them if this is all about a tiny fraction of few % of the actual population. But I really doubt it...)
Now you are out right lying. I happen to live in the country. There was a fairly big march protesting state run television marketing the Zionist genocide in Malmö, but there were no rocks thrown at the police, you just made that up.
Apart from that I am not going to discuss with your feelings. As a mental health professional I know that there is no point. If you want to be fobic please don’t let me get in your way..
Oh no, you’re Scottish right. Remember the so called civil wars in Britain? That was the English slaughtering you. So technically: sorry, you’re still an arab.
Of course I can. It’s spelled “fobi”. In Swedish. Did you notice the dots over the o in my name or is your eyesight as muddy as your thinking, anglosnob?
A nice try to educate the unwashed masses about how things "akchually" are.
This is the the example of the very thing Aurelien so often writes about: how today's left and liberals are completely out of touch with reality. Did you ever try to guess why ordinary people in dozens of non-Muslim countries, from China to Spain, view Islam as a problem DESPITE epic attempts at "tolerance" propaganda from the top? What do you think will be the outcome if this propaganda would be at least neutral?
As tobestablishment lecturers about tolerance they are highly problematic.
One problem is that they don’t practice what they preach. They travel in all-white circles and live in all-white affluent areas.
And their fake humanitarian concerns are just virtue signalling. They say the correct things to show their peers that they are part of the congregation and that they are holier and purer in thought than the unwashed masses.
And it’s not like the people doesn’t notice, so their rituals and charades only solidify the sentiments that they pretend to challenge.
When Clinton called those who disagree with her sexist racist deplorables my first reaction was that I would start a punk band called The Deplorables, not because I am a sexist or a racist but because I hate that f-ing hypocritical mass murder.
Oh, a fellow lowlife. Cool! There aren’t many of us around here, most Aurelien hang arounds are disgruntled establishment.
So let’s do this the punk way: Oi! Get me some facts or get out of my face. If you don’t I will put my fist through yours, loser!
Aaah, it feels good to speak honestly for once, thank you for giving me the opportunity.
As for anti Muslim sentiments in Spain (and France, Great Britain) they are based on old school racism. Racism is the ideology of colonialism, and those countries all had colonies in Muslim countries. (So in reality it about hating arabs and packies, not fearing islam).
China is fighting a fairly small western sponsored armed salafist insurgent group. Apart from that they have not problem with the Muslim part of the Chinese population. Xinjiang is being modernised, and there are plenty of newly built mosques.
Hey, why don’t you go visit one of them? You might learn something.
"As for anti Muslim sentiments in Spain (and France, Great Britain) they are based on old school racism"
Ah yes like in Rotherham cases for example. Also very interesting what "colonialism" did we have in Balkans where almost everybody hate Muslims. Or in India (see new Modi's laws totally supported by Hindu population). Ottoman/Turco-Persian I guess?
Btw I am Russian and while here we're very friendly with the european part of Russia's Muslims who have been living by our side for 400-500 years (namely Tatars and Bashkirs) and blended into our culture, Central Asian migrants are hated by, again, pretty much everybody including native Muslims.
That's a dumb comment. As an individual, you can't stop wars from happening. In the US I'm also waiting for some civil unrest as well. The situation is dire, it can't go on. As far as willingness goes, I wish the politicians were smarter and closed the borders a long time ago. Just prepare yourself for the event, it's all you can do.
It was just a follow up to your "Vive Le Pen !" joke... If it was a joke. Closing the borders won't help France manage it's banlieues and better the life of its French and/or alien inhabitants.
I'm personally in no hurry to see a far right (to put it mildly) party in power in France or elsewhere.
Remarkably effective essay, notably in the way it addresses question of propaganda and Western understanding of power.
In zhongwen ("Chinese"), de (from dao-de-jing), means that which benefits all, I.e generosity love and so on. Often translated as virtue or power, a contemplative reading of daodejing will indicate that de must be closely associated with jing, which is well translated as classic, which in turn indicates that 'all' above must be interpreted timelessly, eternally, immortally.
daodejing is a remarkably seminal work requiring a lifetime of contemplation and your reference to Islamic lore appears to have some concurrence.
Ps, zhongwen has no upper case letters despite that Pinyin uses them. I would also like to mention that there is no definte article in zhongwen. Trying to express this clearly in current English makes my eyes water.🫤
It seems that the thrust of the essay shifted from the games "nations" play to the games "social elites" play.
This is not exactly a new phenomenon: this is the story of duc d'Orleans (the leading "liberal" among the French revolutionists in 1789) and the Vendee (where the peasants, who, early in the Revolution, took the advantage of social upheaval to burn manor houses--and the land documents within them--decided that the Revolutionist elites were more trouble than they were worth and rose up in an armed uprising). For all the royalist symbols the Vendeeans took up, they weren't exactly pro-monarchy as much as anti-Revolution, where Revolution just meant a bunch of self-important do-gooders in Paris detached from the reality elsewhere who had too much power for their own good. Of course, nobody "won," back then either--the Vendeeans were crushed by force; duc d'Orleans lost his head, literally, but at the hands of other revolutionists, not the peasant rebels, Napoleon came out of nowhere and briefly won, but was crushed by the Grand Alliance against him, and so on....
I read excerpts of a US State Department person discussing the errors that led up to the government of Niger asking the US military to leave the country. The gist as I recall: we did not understand the new government, we did not understand the dislike of the French and that that attitude rubbed of on us, and we demanded that Niger chose,us or them. In other words the all to wearily common errors and omissions of what passes for diplomacy in this administration. More broadly, it also concurs with your assertions about liberalism's disinterest in viewpoints other than its own and finally assumption by the PMC that its view of itself and of the world are universals.
On another note, there is a little book titled On Bull Shit which makes the point that effect and not truth or falsehood is the only goal as is true of all propaganda.
Let me argue that "politics" independent of the Street is not really politics. Ideologie, certainly. But these days the two are mistaken to be the same thing.
"Elitism", liberal or otherwise, is really a form of non participation. Sometimes it is led by a beautiful romantic image of a better world, sometimes not, but the key is this non participation and eliding of the Street.
In contrast, real politics can only be done by those that actually care about (or dare I say, love) people around them as they are, BEFORE deciding on how and where to lead them .
I thought this essay would lead us to the situation in Georgia... where pretending that the local government is targeted by Western propaganda is presented by Western pundits as Russian propaganda. Or something like that...
"Elitist political Liberalism, with its disdain for ordinary people, will never understand the importance of the Street, and never bother to talk to the people, but in the end, the Street will have the final word. It always does."
perhaps this is why the current generation of techno elites is so obsessed with moving the rest of humanity into the Virtual World instead? The Virtual Street is maybe something they can at least understand, and control.
Aurelien, do you think you could find someone better quality trolls? Two jumped me today. I told them they were idiots and that they should just f off. Which they apparently did. Now, where’s the fun in that? I’m an old street fighter, I want my opponents to at least try to stand their ground before they go down.
1) "In the modern sense, propaganda can be said to have begun with the Bolsheviks, "
That depends on what you mean by "In the modern sense". As far as I can see, 'modern' propaganda can easily be found in the run up to, and during, WWI - before the Russian Revolution, and aspects of the tropes used then have been clearly re-used for current wars e.g. 'The Angels of Mons' and 'the Ghost of Kiev', the murder of babies by German troops and Hamas, etc. Probably such usages could be traced back to the Boer War, even the Crimean War. So I don't see why the Bolsheviks should get especial mention for 'modernity'.
2) "western journalists just believe sources who look and sound like them"
Nonsense. Noam Chomsky pointed out long ago that reporter are made aware pretty quickly of what their editors will welcome, or bin. In turn the editors are aware of the proprietors wishes, and the proprietors in turn know exactly what the advertisers want. The whole business is a self-regulating cycle for establishment propagandising. They "look and sound like" each other because there is no other way that they could behave while continuing to hold down a job. (Exceptions like John Pilger and Robert Fisk just prove the rule).
3) Which leads me to my last point. This whole article (as described typically in point 2 - but there are quite a few other examples here and in other articles) is dedicated to whitewashing the establishment - sometimes, as above, at the expense of pretty obvious truths.
I enjoy many of your articles, some very much so, but this bias, which I assume arises from your diplomatic career and may be either conscious or unconscious, spoils so many of them. I don't suppose that you will change your laboriously acquired world view, any more than I would mine, but it is a real pity.
There is something I would like to point out, the nazi success was less about resisting the asiatic hordes of the east, and more a reaction to communism. If you look at studies of voter motivation at the time, resistance to communism was the primary reason for support of the nazi party, which is interesting as this proves to be a reaction to the effects of the communist propaganda.
If communist agitprop hadn't been so successful, the nazi party wouldn't really have an actual platform.
This is an important point, as we see the current rise in 'Far right extremism" today as a reaction in the street to the successful islamist propaganda. Those who support the Far right are often ordinary people who are very concerned about the rise of Islam in their neighbourhood. Sometimes which the liberal elites tend to downplay and blame on "islamophobia", as they continue to cooperate with islamist parties, especially on the left. Something which is having ruinous effect on support among european working classes for leftist parties.
This interplay of state propaganda, and grassroots reaction means that political outcomes are often the inverse of what the propagandist intended, such as political victories for parties that advocate for repatriation of the moslems in european, by any means necessary (this is an issue that is rapidly gaining ground among a large sector of the streets).
The Nazis were socialists themselves, however they viewed the social struggle from a primarily racial and ethnic perspective instead of a class one. If anything, you could say it was a battle between two forms of socialists movements with opposing views on what the core struggle was. However in terms of their war on Russia, there was definitely a preset bias in Western views, as the Asiatic Hordes were very common stereotype often invoked. This goes so far as many in the West believed (and many still do) the Nazis should have won, if only they didn't also attack Britain and France.
I would go so far as to state the Allies wouldn't have entered the European theater if the Soviets weren't on the brink of taking the whole continent. As Patton himself made clear in his many statements on the ''Hordes of Russia"', I doubt that was an isolated belief, one that persists very well today as many western comments about the ''Evil Russian Orks'' can attest.
« And whilst it’s true that all over the world popular entertainment and fast-food restaurants are dominated by American companies, I’m not sure you can show that, in practice, that has actually rebounded to the credit of the US »
An unfortunate choice of words –
The US corporations exporting these products have certainly made a lot of money
Film, for a few short years on the East Coast, then in Hollywood to escape the patent holders, was set up from the start to peddle the American way of life
In general very early films, especially the Lumières’, were already stylised documentaries rather than fantasies
Film, in the US, was never considered an art form, hence subject to Federal control, and initially very much aimed at the working class to the exclusion of the middle and upper
To export a way of life is to export chosen themes of conformity and aims – boundless individualism, you too can be a star, the just operation of the law, and so on
Such globalised harmonisation of cultural and ideological norms is certainly a form of power, and not soft either – Chaplin is still a success in the Andes and the Sahel
Plus – as often has been remarked – the reduction of the crowd to the audience
You – as far as I can see – neglect to point out the most commonly pointed out failure of propaganda – that it is said the Russians always took care to point out – you USniks believe your own propaganda, we do not
Recently, in Ukraine, it seems that the US propaganda preceded the war to such a degree in such loud volume that the US ruling class had no or very little idea of what they were letting themselves in for
"This is why a lot of allegations of stories being “planted” in the media, or NGOs somehow linked to dark government agendas are, at a minimum, exaggerations. Journalists will write stories that reflect their view of the world, and will reproduce interpretations of events that are congenial to them. In turn, these interpretations reflect common ideas and assumptions in the intellectual bubble where most of them live. A western journalist abroad picking up something from Twitter will call a contact back home or at the local Embassy, and it’s likely that they will find the interpretation they get convincing, because they come from the same background with the same assumptions."
Noam Chomsky's takedown of Andrew Marr truly never grows old:
Andrew Marr: How can you know I’m self-censoring?
Noam Chomsky: I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting.
"Noam Chomsky: I’m not saying you’re self-censoring. I’m sure you believe everything you say. But what I’m saying is if you believed something different you wouldn’t be sitting where you’re sitting." ...great quote of an ignominious man, there are other intellectuals that never saw the light of "making a living" thanks to our noaM.
Well then, it should be easy to name a few and point out briefly why and how it happened that they couldn't make a living.
Am lost. Do not immediately see what you are referring at.
"As I always say, you can’t get money to train policemen properly, but you can easily get money to set up an NGO to collect complaints about bad police behaviour. This isn’t as bizarre as it sounds, because for many countries the priority is happy-clappy initiatives that don’t risk any fallout if things go wrong."
The technical term for this is called a "PMC jobs program".
This is also why, when the Totebag Set hear the slogan "defund the police1" what that means to them is "take money away from the undeserving (blue collar, mostly male, largely white unionized cops, most of whom lack Serious Academic Degrees and who are famously unwoke) and give money to the deserving (white collar, largely female social workers with appropriate academic credentials and who can trusted to uphold the latest standards of political correctness)."
You mention the Islamists in Europe, but you fail to mention how the nationalist parties have grown over there, and they are strictly against immigrants, and mostly Muslims. What do you reckon, civil wars? I'm super willing one of those parties get the majority in one country to see what happens. Vive Le Pen lol.
Ending a otherwise interesting analysis in an islamofobe rant is a habit of Aurelien. The reason is probably psychological.
In reality the islamists in Europe are insignificant. They reach a small portion of a small minority. They make headlines, they don’t make policy and they never will.
So what would happen in relation to Muslims if Le Pen won office in France? You already have the answer from neighbouring Italy, where a similar candidate won the last election: nothing.
The problem that they spin their propaganda around isn’t real, so once they are in government, and have to handle real problems, they simply forget about it.
I didn't intend a rant, and I'm not frightened of Islam. My point was a technical one, that there is no substitute for long-term cultivation of ordinary people if you want to establish a political force and power-base. The Left used to do this, but doesn't any more. The only example I can think of at the moment, at least in Europe, is the Islamists, and their long)-term cultivation and radicalisation of the immigrant community in France is visibly having an effect.
My point was technical as well (please note that I did not say that you were an islamophobe, much less a racist). I talked about the ending of the text, called it a rant because it seems emotionally based and badly thought through and called it islamophobic because it mimics claims that islamophobes make as if they were true. At least three obvious islamophobes in the comments section seem to share my evaluation.
On the failures of the left we largely agree. It goes hand in hand with the insider bureaucracy coups that ended the mass- or at least popular movement character of the workers parties in the seventies and eighties.
A prime example of the is the ongoing left party congress in Sweden. They are adopting a new program. When I read it I was very confused. I said to my self: “wait a minute, this is not a program, this is a very long but not very well written op-ed by a paid NGO representative.”
Turns out it was deliberately written that way to give the leadership room for political deal making with out being bound by decisions made by the members.
You are not a member any more, you are more like a follower on twitter or a fan of a football club. Sad state of affairs.
@ Aurelien : And still... Just daring to mention this cultivation and radicalisation and their intended effects is already bordering with "islamophobia". At least according to this very same Left. Or whatever it became nowadays. That's how strong this propaganda is.
BTW I like JM Greer concept of magic as "the art and science of causing changes in consciousness in accordance with will".
While he is sometime difficult to follow on this particular topic, the way I understand it, what he calls magic is in many ways quite similar with propaganda. As indeed, propaganda act like a spell. And under the right spell people stop seeing what they are not supposed to see while whoever see it anyway is called crazy...
do you think the lgbtq gender groups with their activity of cultivating young people of Gen Z and A via social media and entertainment, also count? I've read a few statistics from US schools saying about half kids today are ''queer'' or something like that.
Good exemple indeed.
The so-called concept of "islamophobia" is just a clever part of islamist propaganda.
It's how they counter any criticism of their political agenda by claiming that it is unacceptable criticism of their religion, hence racism.
And it's indeed quite effective as the last thing good people want is to be called racists.
It's how propaganda works : convince people that they are such or such if they don't accept whatever propagandists want them to believe.
But you right at least on one point : the demographic and political situation in Europe is such that it is not sure it's still possible to do something whoever could be elected...
Look: being wrong is a clever part of nothing.
A fobia is not racist, it’s a clinical condition (I’m a trained mental health professional) where you react with fear to something that is not dangerous.
Let’s take Sweden as an example: about two percent of the population are practicing Muslims. And that’s practicers of islam in any organised form. A tiny fraction of those are islamists. Even if all of them were they would have no influence.
During the Syria civil war the salafist were aligned to NATO and on the offensive. A total of 5000 salafists travelled to the country. That sounds like a lot until you realise that it was out of almost 500 million Europeans.
So my friend, you are entitled to your feelings, just don’t confuse them with facts.
Yes, this is the whole point to say that people who refuse propagandists' political agenda are suffering from some kind mental condition. "Fobia" is the favorite one now days. But it's an old trick. In USSR, people who dared to contradict the official ideology would be sent in mental institutes. In China, to re-education camps.
Of course, thinking to be surrounded by demented people is bordering on paranoia.
But it goes much further than that. It's much more vicious : nobody want to be considered as suffering from mental disorder. And in the meantime, nobody could be asked to argue with such people as it would be pointless.
Hence it's the best way to stop any discussion. Call whoever is arguing with you "fob-something" and that's it. Whatever the predicament.
(And Swedish people... Frankly... No later that today I saw pictures from Sweden where people they welcomed as refugees were throwing rocks at their cops because some Israeli girl was allowed to sing a song... So lucky for them if this is all about a tiny fraction of few % of the actual population. But I really doubt it...)
Now you are out right lying. I happen to live in the country. There was a fairly big march protesting state run television marketing the Zionist genocide in Malmö, but there were no rocks thrown at the police, you just made that up.
Apart from that I am not going to discuss with your feelings. As a mental health professional I know that there is no point. If you want to be fobic please don’t let me get in your way..
You are "a trained mental health professional" who can't spell 'phobia'?
Btw: you are a phaddie. Remember the photato phamin? Your ancestors were staved to death because you are the arabs of the anglosaxon homeland stuphid.
Oh no, you’re Scottish right. Remember the so called civil wars in Britain? That was the English slaughtering you. So technically: sorry, you’re still an arab.
Of course I can. It’s spelled “fobi”. In Swedish. Did you notice the dots over the o in my name or is your eyesight as muddy as your thinking, anglosnob?
But you are writing in English - not Swedish - so you spelled it wrong.
:-)
A nice try to educate the unwashed masses about how things "akchually" are.
This is the the example of the very thing Aurelien so often writes about: how today's left and liberals are completely out of touch with reality. Did you ever try to guess why ordinary people in dozens of non-Muslim countries, from China to Spain, view Islam as a problem DESPITE epic attempts at "tolerance" propaganda from the top? What do you think will be the outcome if this propaganda would be at least neutral?
As tobestablishment lecturers about tolerance they are highly problematic.
One problem is that they don’t practice what they preach. They travel in all-white circles and live in all-white affluent areas.
And their fake humanitarian concerns are just virtue signalling. They say the correct things to show their peers that they are part of the congregation and that they are holier and purer in thought than the unwashed masses.
And it’s not like the people doesn’t notice, so their rituals and charades only solidify the sentiments that they pretend to challenge.
When Clinton called those who disagree with her sexist racist deplorables my first reaction was that I would start a punk band called The Deplorables, not because I am a sexist or a racist but because I hate that f-ing hypocritical mass murder.
Oh, a fellow lowlife. Cool! There aren’t many of us around here, most Aurelien hang arounds are disgruntled establishment.
So let’s do this the punk way: Oi! Get me some facts or get out of my face. If you don’t I will put my fist through yours, loser!
Aaah, it feels good to speak honestly for once, thank you for giving me the opportunity.
As for anti Muslim sentiments in Spain (and France, Great Britain) they are based on old school racism. Racism is the ideology of colonialism, and those countries all had colonies in Muslim countries. (So in reality it about hating arabs and packies, not fearing islam).
China is fighting a fairly small western sponsored armed salafist insurgent group. Apart from that they have not problem with the Muslim part of the Chinese population. Xinjiang is being modernised, and there are plenty of newly built mosques.
Hey, why don’t you go visit one of them? You might learn something.
Sigh.
"As for anti Muslim sentiments in Spain (and France, Great Britain) they are based on old school racism"
Ah yes like in Rotherham cases for example. Also very interesting what "colonialism" did we have in Balkans where almost everybody hate Muslims. Or in India (see new Modi's laws totally supported by Hindu population). Ottoman/Turco-Persian I guess?
Btw I am Russian and while here we're very friendly with the european part of Russia's Muslims who have been living by our side for 400-500 years (namely Tatars and Bashkirs) and blended into our culture, Central Asian migrants are hated by, again, pretty much everybody including native Muslims.
Are you super willing to live there when it happens?
That's a dumb comment. As an individual, you can't stop wars from happening. In the US I'm also waiting for some civil unrest as well. The situation is dire, it can't go on. As far as willingness goes, I wish the politicians were smarter and closed the borders a long time ago. Just prepare yourself for the event, it's all you can do.
It was just a follow up to your "Vive Le Pen !" joke... If it was a joke. Closing the borders won't help France manage it's banlieues and better the life of its French and/or alien inhabitants.
I'm personally in no hurry to see a far right (to put it mildly) party in power in France or elsewhere.
Remarkably effective essay, notably in the way it addresses question of propaganda and Western understanding of power.
In zhongwen ("Chinese"), de (from dao-de-jing), means that which benefits all, I.e generosity love and so on. Often translated as virtue or power, a contemplative reading of daodejing will indicate that de must be closely associated with jing, which is well translated as classic, which in turn indicates that 'all' above must be interpreted timelessly, eternally, immortally.
daodejing is a remarkably seminal work requiring a lifetime of contemplation and your reference to Islamic lore appears to have some concurrence.
Ps, zhongwen has no upper case letters despite that Pinyin uses them. I would also like to mention that there is no definte article in zhongwen. Trying to express this clearly in current English makes my eyes water.🫤
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It seems that the thrust of the essay shifted from the games "nations" play to the games "social elites" play.
This is not exactly a new phenomenon: this is the story of duc d'Orleans (the leading "liberal" among the French revolutionists in 1789) and the Vendee (where the peasants, who, early in the Revolution, took the advantage of social upheaval to burn manor houses--and the land documents within them--decided that the Revolutionist elites were more trouble than they were worth and rose up in an armed uprising). For all the royalist symbols the Vendeeans took up, they weren't exactly pro-monarchy as much as anti-Revolution, where Revolution just meant a bunch of self-important do-gooders in Paris detached from the reality elsewhere who had too much power for their own good. Of course, nobody "won," back then either--the Vendeeans were crushed by force; duc d'Orleans lost his head, literally, but at the hands of other revolutionists, not the peasant rebels, Napoleon came out of nowhere and briefly won, but was crushed by the Grand Alliance against him, and so on....
I read excerpts of a US State Department person discussing the errors that led up to the government of Niger asking the US military to leave the country. The gist as I recall: we did not understand the new government, we did not understand the dislike of the French and that that attitude rubbed of on us, and we demanded that Niger chose,us or them. In other words the all to wearily common errors and omissions of what passes for diplomacy in this administration. More broadly, it also concurs with your assertions about liberalism's disinterest in viewpoints other than its own and finally assumption by the PMC that its view of itself and of the world are universals.
On another note, there is a little book titled On Bull Shit which makes the point that effect and not truth or falsehood is the only goal as is true of all propaganda.
Thank you Aurelien🙏
Let me argue that "politics" independent of the Street is not really politics. Ideologie, certainly. But these days the two are mistaken to be the same thing.
"Elitism", liberal or otherwise, is really a form of non participation. Sometimes it is led by a beautiful romantic image of a better world, sometimes not, but the key is this non participation and eliding of the Street.
In contrast, real politics can only be done by those that actually care about (or dare I say, love) people around them as they are, BEFORE deciding on how and where to lead them .
I thought this essay would lead us to the situation in Georgia... where pretending that the local government is targeted by Western propaganda is presented by Western pundits as Russian propaganda. Or something like that...
I'm not an expert on Georgia, sorry, although I've been there. I'll leave that for someone who is?
https://youtu.be/GwWqzwlORoI?si=wY5_3UojN5iCI0Qb
The Duran have some excellent points about this Foreign Agent Law
Fair enough 👍
"Elitist political Liberalism, with its disdain for ordinary people, will never understand the importance of the Street, and never bother to talk to the people, but in the end, the Street will have the final word. It always does."
perhaps this is why the current generation of techno elites is so obsessed with moving the rest of humanity into the Virtual World instead? The Virtual Street is maybe something they can at least understand, and control.
Again, sorry for the delay..
Here an italian translation:
https://trying2understandw.blogspot.com/2024/05/giochi-che-le-nazioni-giocano-ma.html
Aurelien, do you think you could find someone better quality trolls? Two jumped me today. I told them they were idiots and that they should just f off. Which they apparently did. Now, where’s the fun in that? I’m an old street fighter, I want my opponents to at least try to stand their ground before they go down.
1) "In the modern sense, propaganda can be said to have begun with the Bolsheviks, "
That depends on what you mean by "In the modern sense". As far as I can see, 'modern' propaganda can easily be found in the run up to, and during, WWI - before the Russian Revolution, and aspects of the tropes used then have been clearly re-used for current wars e.g. 'The Angels of Mons' and 'the Ghost of Kiev', the murder of babies by German troops and Hamas, etc. Probably such usages could be traced back to the Boer War, even the Crimean War. So I don't see why the Bolsheviks should get especial mention for 'modernity'.
2) "western journalists just believe sources who look and sound like them"
Nonsense. Noam Chomsky pointed out long ago that reporter are made aware pretty quickly of what their editors will welcome, or bin. In turn the editors are aware of the proprietors wishes, and the proprietors in turn know exactly what the advertisers want. The whole business is a self-regulating cycle for establishment propagandising. They "look and sound like" each other because there is no other way that they could behave while continuing to hold down a job. (Exceptions like John Pilger and Robert Fisk just prove the rule).
3) Which leads me to my last point. This whole article (as described typically in point 2 - but there are quite a few other examples here and in other articles) is dedicated to whitewashing the establishment - sometimes, as above, at the expense of pretty obvious truths.
I enjoy many of your articles, some very much so, but this bias, which I assume arises from your diplomatic career and may be either conscious or unconscious, spoils so many of them. I don't suppose that you will change your laboriously acquired world view, any more than I would mine, but it is a real pity.
https://www.philipp-blom.eu/books/a-wicked-company
Thank you for a fascinating essay.
There is something I would like to point out, the nazi success was less about resisting the asiatic hordes of the east, and more a reaction to communism. If you look at studies of voter motivation at the time, resistance to communism was the primary reason for support of the nazi party, which is interesting as this proves to be a reaction to the effects of the communist propaganda.
If communist agitprop hadn't been so successful, the nazi party wouldn't really have an actual platform.
This is an important point, as we see the current rise in 'Far right extremism" today as a reaction in the street to the successful islamist propaganda. Those who support the Far right are often ordinary people who are very concerned about the rise of Islam in their neighbourhood. Sometimes which the liberal elites tend to downplay and blame on "islamophobia", as they continue to cooperate with islamist parties, especially on the left. Something which is having ruinous effect on support among european working classes for leftist parties.
This interplay of state propaganda, and grassroots reaction means that political outcomes are often the inverse of what the propagandist intended, such as political victories for parties that advocate for repatriation of the moslems in european, by any means necessary (this is an issue that is rapidly gaining ground among a large sector of the streets).
The Nazis were socialists themselves, however they viewed the social struggle from a primarily racial and ethnic perspective instead of a class one. If anything, you could say it was a battle between two forms of socialists movements with opposing views on what the core struggle was. However in terms of their war on Russia, there was definitely a preset bias in Western views, as the Asiatic Hordes were very common stereotype often invoked. This goes so far as many in the West believed (and many still do) the Nazis should have won, if only they didn't also attack Britain and France.
I would go so far as to state the Allies wouldn't have entered the European theater if the Soviets weren't on the brink of taking the whole continent. As Patton himself made clear in his many statements on the ''Hordes of Russia"', I doubt that was an isolated belief, one that persists very well today as many western comments about the ''Evil Russian Orks'' can attest.
« And whilst it’s true that all over the world popular entertainment and fast-food restaurants are dominated by American companies, I’m not sure you can show that, in practice, that has actually rebounded to the credit of the US »
An unfortunate choice of words –
The US corporations exporting these products have certainly made a lot of money
Film, for a few short years on the East Coast, then in Hollywood to escape the patent holders, was set up from the start to peddle the American way of life
In general very early films, especially the Lumières’, were already stylised documentaries rather than fantasies
Film, in the US, was never considered an art form, hence subject to Federal control, and initially very much aimed at the working class to the exclusion of the middle and upper
To export a way of life is to export chosen themes of conformity and aims – boundless individualism, you too can be a star, the just operation of the law, and so on
Such globalised harmonisation of cultural and ideological norms is certainly a form of power, and not soft either – Chaplin is still a success in the Andes and the Sahel
Plus – as often has been remarked – the reduction of the crowd to the audience
You – as far as I can see – neglect to point out the most commonly pointed out failure of propaganda – that it is said the Russians always took care to point out – you USniks believe your own propaganda, we do not
Recently, in Ukraine, it seems that the US propaganda preceded the war to such a degree in such loud volume that the US ruling class had no or very little idea of what they were letting themselves in for