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Common Knowledge vs. Reality: The propaganda ghosts of the Cold War

by Denis Churilov

Russians are extremely sceptical people. This is partly due to the fact that the modern Russian history has been turbulent, rollercoaster-like, with ideological frameworks changing a few times within a single person’s lifetime.
Take the last 40 years, for instance: Soviet propaganda, blatant anti-Soviet propaganda during Perestroika years, (neo-)liberal propaganda, followed by the economic reforms and privatization, which led to a disappointment in capitalism and “free market” by the majority of the population during the 1990s, the attempted “de-Sovietization” information campaign with a second wave of anti-Soviet propaganda during Medvedev years. The list goes on.
There is an old joke: Russia, among all countries, has the most unpredictable past. Russian society’s view of its own history is very fluid, with official narratives changing every 4-12 years. The re-evaluation of paradigms happens often, with debates on fundamental historical and political issues being vibrant and mainstream. Most Russian people have learned how to be sceptical and how to not easily trust the official stories.
Things are different in the West. Unlike Russia, the Western world has been largely living in the same psycho-historical matrix since the late 1940s. Westerners tend to be more trustful when it comes to the mainstream media and official narratives. The scary thing is that we now have an entire generation of Western intellectuals and politicians who grew up on Cold War propaganda.
All the propaganda/psy-ops frameworks that were originally developed by organizations such as the Psychological Strategy Board under Truman and Eisenhower administrations have turned out to be so successful that even the successors of those who designed them started to believe in the propaganda too. The anti-Soviet myths/”memes” contaminated academia decades ago. Many models and research papers have since been based on misconceptions that grew out of the Cold War era anti-Soviet and general anti-Communist propaganda. It all made an impact on the “common knowledge” domain, with many myths seedling roots in the education system, forming people’s values and worldviews. The narrative began to self-replicate. The narrative (which often provides a groundbase for people’s values and, therefore, identity) has become resistant to newly emerging data (the real empirical and archive data that used to be unavailable to Western researchers before the 1990s).
Their views on the Soviet/Russian history is only a part of it, evidently.
But myths and misconceptions have very little to do with real history. Without understanding the real history, we can’t predict the future. Our ability to make optimal decisions becomes compromised by our inability to model and to prognosticate, simply because we don’t understand the past processes and events correctly. Individuals who live on false memories and delusions, those who have a distorted perception of reality, like people who suffer from various forms of schizophrenia, don’t tend to do well in life (at least, on their own). Same concept applies to society. A society whose collective decision making is compromised by decades of continuous self-replicating propaganda can be dangerous, primarily to itself.
As a side note, we live in the age of nuclear weapons.
 
 

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Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 1:39 AM

This we bs ite is as “fa ke as fu
ck” and has prove n t ome that it has a n aut omated com m ents re spon se system in ope ra tion …!

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:43 AM

..claims that it has the backing of it’s…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:42 AM

…rael….

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:42 AM

Is…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:41 AM

…race, suicide’s…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:40 AM

J E W I S H , sympothectic (brainwashed) white…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:38 AM

…murdered! by…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:37 AM

…chopped off before they were…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:36 AM

…had their breasts…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:36 AM

…women were raped and then…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:35 AM

…have any idea of just how many German…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:34 AM

Do YOU! yes I am talking to you…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:32 AM

…s way about 10 months ago…

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:31 AM

z-G had got it

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:30 AM

if Z-O

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:30 AM

dead by now

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:29 AM

been

Adrian
Adrian
Sep 14, 2017 12:29 AM

I would of

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Sep 13, 2017 1:15 AM

If a video is blocked, put the title in YouTube’s search box, normally works.
John Doran.

jdseanjd
jdseanjd
Sep 13, 2017 12:57 AM

Cutting through the fog of propaganda.
“The first head of state to make clear his intention to bring together Jews from around the world in a state that would be their own was Lord Cromwell, in the 17th century. His project, clearly explained, was to use the Jewish diaspora to expand English hegemony. This project has been defended by all successive Brit govts & registered by Benjamin Disraeli in the agenda of the Berlin Conference.”
http://www.voltairenet.org/article187030.html
scroll down to ref [ 13 ]
Rothschild & pals had financed & plotted the English Revolution, 1640 – 1660. Their reward was the establishment of the Bank of England, 1694. They would in turn finance & plan the French, Russian & Spanish Revolutions, WWI, WWII, the cold war & in fact both sides of every war since the Napoleonic. Wars & rebuilding are run on debt & there’s lots of profits in debts, for banksters.
Banksters founded, funded & fostered both Fascism & Communism, & have so corrupted our Western democracies that I now regard them as Fascism posing as democracy.
1773, Rothschild & pals met to plan world domination.
Adam Weishaupt brought the old “Protocols” up to date for them, evolving a 25 point strategy.
One was to pursue Liberal political policies. Another to control the media, & politicians. Another to ruin the youth through drugs & sex.
Books: Pawns in the Game, William Guy Carr. The Creature from Jekyll Island, G. Edward Griffin. The Illuminati, Jim Marrs.
I first saw “Pawns” ref’d in this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BplUD6kQYU&t=392s
Retired Head of FBI Tells All Illuminati, Satanism Pedophile Rings
One Hr four mins.
See also: Youtube & BILL STILL MONEY MASTERS
3.5hrs.
These Banksters are Khazars, from the Caucasus mountains, who assumed the Jewish religion, which permitted charging interest. The plan is the destruction of ALL nations including Israehell & the USAsylum, the destruction of 95% of world population, for ease of control, & the establishment of a world totalitarian govt.
John Doran.

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 12, 2017 1:27 PM

Reblogged this on Worldtruth.

bevin
bevin
Sep 10, 2017 7:56 PM

“..The scary thing is that we now have an entire generation of Western intellectuals and politicians who grew up on Cold War propaganda.”
And what is really scary is that this propaganda was all pervasive. It shaped, and is shaping still, the work of our historians, rendering much of it almost useless in its insistence that Capitalism is a Good Thing and that its critics are, at best, idiots but at worst proto-totalitarians.
In fact the relationship between Russia and the maritime Empire(s) of western Europe and its colonies is remarkably unaffected by changes in the political ideas of the Kremlin’s principal inhabitants: Russia is the enemy because it is the obvious alternative to the Empire.
As the Soviet Union it inspired national liberation movements in an authentic way, requiring almost nothing in the way of material assistance to pave the way not only for such successful revolts as those in China and Cuba, not to mention South Africa and Algeria. Today’s Russia, despite its ideological distance from communism plays a remarkably similar role in demonstrating, to a long cowed world, that the Empire is incredibly brittle, its power musclebound to the point of strategic impotence and its rulers, the loyal swallowers of ideological nonsenses, incompetent and dangerous only because of their proximity to the levers of nuclear toys bound to seal their doom if ever used.
The difference between Russia and the Empire is that between the Mir community and the plantation.

rehmat1
rehmat1
Sep 10, 2017 7:27 PM

Dennis needs to study the so-called the five-decades Cold War between the Soviet (Communist) Russia and United States from some objective source.
Soviet Russia was ruled by Zionist elites just like they ruled United States during that period. Both had secret agreement to control the Europe and the so-called Third World by occasional political rants and military threats which never materialized as both powers were allies against German Nazis who are falsely accused of killing Six Million Jews during WWII.
How many Western historian idiots dare to mention that just before Hitler came into power, USSR dictator Josef Stalin established the first Jewish state inside USSR on May 7, 1934?
https://rehmat1.com/2010/06/13/birobidjan-the-first-jewish-state/

Reg Varney
Reg Varney
Sep 12, 2017 2:13 PM
Reply to  rehmat1

Don’t the Zionist still run America today ?

mohandeer
mohandeer
Sep 12, 2017 3:25 PM
Reply to  rehmat1

rehmat.
Stalin was first married in a church to a non Jewish woman who died(Teke or Keke)of typhus. He then married again and had a son and daughter(the daughter Svetlana defected to the US & settled in Britain and died about ten years ago)also not Jewish. When Svetlana wanted to marry a Russian Jew name of Kaplar? (he was a Russian film maker)- Stalin disapproved and the young chap died. Make of that what you will.
Your obsession with placing Zionists in every slot you can ram them in, does you no favours with regard credibility. Not every square inch of the planet has been infiltrated by Jews and Zionists.
Most of your posts offer good links to informative articles, but your predisposition of blaming everything bad on this planet on Jews and Zionists as being the sole perpetrators or influence is becoming monotonous. I like visiting your site but your credibility is going to suffer big time if you cannot change tack in prevailing winds of facts.
You didn’t mention that Stalin worked for Rothschild and organized robberies against his employer, or that he did several stints in prison or exile because of his bank/railroad heists(many of which were owned by prominent Jews who embraced the Zionist cause). Perhaps these activities of Stalin, whom I consider to be a reprobate of the first order(but state theft had worked for the rich, so why not the poor?)do not quite fit the narrative you have claimed as fact? If you are intent on interpolating Zionism into every discussion on world affairs, you might at least back up your prejudice with truths, Stalin was known for his anti-Semitic views and of using prominent people to bolster his position then disposing of them – Leon Trotsky comes to mind. He was also known to have set up an oblast where Jews could live as long as it remained totally Russian orientated. The persecution started up again and the Jews left Birobdizhan. Did you conveniently forget the Doctors witch hunt and the Night of the Murdered Poets?
Although the proponents of Zionism run deep and are far reaching, they cannot be blamed for everything, in our turbulent past, many evil but powerful men(and women)have played their part in foul deeds and still do today – they are not all Zionists or in the claws of that particularly monstrous ideology.

rehmat1
rehmat1
Sep 15, 2017 4:25 PM
Reply to  mohandeer

@ mohandeer – I like your ‘self-denial’ style on Zionist Jewish/Christian hand behind almost every evil event.
It’s not me but the real Jews like Gilad Atzmon, Steve Lendman, Dr. Richard Falk, Paul Eisen, Roger Tucker, Jeff Blankfort, and over 7,000 other Western Jewish intellectuals who have expressed their disgust over the Jewish elites’ sick history for the last 2,000 years.
According to Yeshayahy Leibowitz, a observant orthodox Jew philosopher,
“the Jewish religion died 200 years ago. Now there is nothing that unifies the Jews around the world apart from Holocaust.”
“You can’t understand the history of Jewish suffering without looking at Israeli barbarism. Maybe fear is also what fuels the Israelis self-denial that every piece of land in Israel is actually Palestine, say Atzmon.
https://rehmat1.com/2010/02/25/gilad-atzmon-proud-to-be-a-self-hating-jew/

labrebisgalloise
labrebisgalloise
Sep 10, 2017 6:55 PM

Spot on Denis! I was minded of all this 10 days ago when the BBC chose to mark the centenary of the Bolshevik revolution with a “promenade” performance of Prokofiev’s “Cantata for the 20th Anniversary of the October Revolution,” (along with works by Tchaikovsky and Shostakovich directed by maestro Gergiev). The Prokofiev cantata is an unusual work (including a maxim gun and megaphone in the vast orchestra), which was not actually performed in the USSR until 1966, consisting of setting of texts by Marx, Lenin and Stalin. Of course, the BBC being the BBC, they had to provide some “balance” by providing listeners with some other narratives in line with current revisionist thinking (i.e. that there is/was no difference between the USSR and Nazi Germany and that Hitler and Stalin were identical twins). To this end they employed musician Gerard McBurney to write the programme notes and author Julian Barnes to give the interval talk. McBurney earned his money by simply describing Prokofiev’s chosen texts as “repulsive;” Barnes by reminding us that the great Dimitri Shostakovich was motivated throughout his whole life by nothing more than his fear of Stalin. No nuance, no debate – just the underlying throb of war-drums. I couldn’t help remarking that both McBurney and Barnes were privately educated/Oxbridge boys and that probably no great damage has been done because, by and large in Britain, these are probably the only sort of people who listen to or broadcast anything remotely serious from the BBC these days.

rtj1211
rtj1211
Sep 10, 2017 6:35 PM

If a society collectively has a distorted perception of reality, then it is those who stand for reality who do very badly. It is not the truth which matters, it is the view of the majority, realistic or warped.
The BBC staff do very well projecting nonsense about global wars. Have done for 50 years. Almost the entire UK Press pushes never-ending lies about war, finance and much more. People who follow the party line do very well thank you very much. Challenging the lies is a career derailer.
Every business in the UK pretty much spies on its employees, but talking about this truth is career suicide. So you lie about ‘company culture, values’ and other diatribe.
It is not about the truth, it is about money and power…..

rehmat1
rehmat1
Sep 10, 2017 10:04 PM
Reply to  rtj1211

BBC had always been a Zionist lies mouthpiece – whether it’s Holocaust, antisemitism, 9/11 or 7/7. Even though Britain is best friend of the organized Jewry .
In 2014, BBC’s former top gun, London-born Danny Cohen, told a conference in Jerusalem that watching the rise of anti-Jew incidents in the UK and most of European nations since the recent Israeli attack on Gaza has made him come to the conclusion that Britain is no longer a safe country for his fellow Jewish community to live in.
“I’ve never felt so uncomfortable being a Jew in the UK as I’ve felt in the last 12 months. And it’s made me think about, you know, is it our long-term home, actually. Because you feel it. I’ve felt it in a way I’ve never felt before actually. And you’ve seen the number of attacks rise. You’ve seen murders in France. You’ve seen murders in Belgium. It’s been pretty grim actually. And having lived all my life in the UK, I’ve never felt as I do now about antisemitism in Europe,” Cohen said.
https://rehmat1.com/2014/12/22/bbc-jews-are-not-safe-in-britain/