The View of Russia in the West
Paul Craig Roberts
President Donald Trump shakes hands with Russian President Vladimir Putin during the their bilateral meeting at the G20 summit in Hamburg, Germany, July 7, 2017. Source: Reuters.
The upcoming Trump/Putin summit is hampered by the crazed portrait of Russia painted by presstitutes. Jonathan Chait, Amy Knight, Max Bergmann, Yaroslav Trofimov, Roger Cohen, and the rest of the conscious or de facto CIA assets that comprise the Western presstitute media have turned Putin into a superhuman who controls election outcomes throughout the West, murders people without rhyme or reason, and has President Trump under his thumb doing Putin’s bidding. Who could imagine a more extreme conspiracy theory?
Jonathan Chait in New York magazine writes that “the dark crevices of the Russia scandal run deep,” so deep that “it would be dangerous not to consider the possibility that the summit is less a negotiation between two heads of state than a meeting between a Russian-intelligence asset and his handler.”
So here is Chait, who brands truth-tellers “conspiracy theorists” coming up with the greatest conspiracy theory of our time that President Trump has been a Kremlim asset since 1987. Chait provides a ”crazy quilt of connections” to illustrate his absurd conspiracy theory that “it’s not necessary to believe that Putin always knew he might install Trump in the Oval Office to find the following situation highly plausible: Sometime in 2015, the Russian president recognized that he had, in one of his unknown number of intelligence files, an inroad into American presidential politics.”
Chait believes that Russia is also behind the UK’s exit from the European Union. “Driving Britain out of the European Union advanced the decades-long Russian goal of splitting Western nations apart, and Russia found willing allies on the British far right.”
Chait gets even more conspiratorial. He admits that Paul Manafort’s indictments for alleged white collar crimes are not related to Trump’s election, having occurred years previously in Ukraine. Nevertheless, Chait is certain that Manafort is shielding Trump even though according to Chait Manafort is facing many years in prison. Why would Manafort shield Trump? Chait’s answer:
One way to make sense of his behavior is the possibility that Manafort is keeping his mouth shut because he’s afraid of being killed. That speculation might sound hyperbolic, but there is plenty of evidence to support it. In February, a video appeared on YouTube showing Manafort’s patron Deripaska on his yacht with a Belarusian escort named Anastasia Vashukevich.”
Chait’s article is long and heavily weighted with innuendo. Chait, or whoever wrote the article, possibly the person who wrote the Steele Dossier, collects every disparaging fact and fantasy about Trump and assembles them in a way to paint a portrait of a person who must also, without much doubt, be a Russian agent. If the public can be convinced of this, the military/security complex can assassinate Trump and blame Putin for getting rid of an asset who was exposed by the Russiagate investigation, no longer useful, and perhaps prepared to spill the beans.
Another conspiracy theorist, Amy Knight, writes that “The real question is where does the Russian criminal state end and the criminal underworld begin, and how do they work together in what amounts to a new murder incorporated?”
Yaroslav Trofimov tells us in the Wall Street Journal (July 7) that “Putin maps out his own empire” to replace the lost Soviet one.
In the Washington Post Max Bergmann tells us that Trump is going to sell out NATO in Helsinki. This line leads to the supposition that Putin is using Trump to unleash the Russian military on Europe. Many conspiracy theorists have come together on the view that first the Baltic States will be invaded and then Putin will move on to Germany and the rest of Europe. The New York Times’ Roger Cohen even pulls Marine Le Pen into the plot which widens to include ethnically cleansing the West of the refugees from Washington’s wars.
This is the level of absurdity that the American media delivers to the public’s understanding of foreign affairs.
Dr. Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. Roberts’ latest books are The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West, How America Was Lost, and The Neoconservative Threat to World Order.
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Meanwhile Shaun Walker’s imaginary friend – “Roland Oliphant”, aka Shaun himself – is in Helsinki to report on the Trump/Putin summit for both the Graun (as Walker) and the Daily Telegraph (as “Oliphant”)
https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/07/16/donald-trump-us-president-vladimir-putin-has-always-dreamed/
One wonders what the CiF hordes, like Strummered and RonRafferty will make of this disgusting deception?
Walker, meanwhile, is making two sets of fees, and two sets of expense claims for his rank duplicity. And seems able to simlate the editorial positions of ideologically opposed publications.
[There is not, nor ever has been, an accredited British journalist in Moscow named Oliphant. The lists are tightly controlled]
“Driving Britain out of the European Union advanced the decades-long Russian goal of splitting Western nations apart, and Russia found willing allies on the British far right.”
Gotta luv that…
Well, I’m probably what Chait would consider to be British far left, and I still think Brexit is a good idea. It’s a convenient myth that Brexit is a tory thing.
The problem with a propaganda system populated by moronic swine from whose ranks all decent, honest and intelligent members were purged long ago, is that, when there is NO opposing opinion allowed to test the ludicrous lies and hypocrisies that they spew, and every fakestream ‘discussion’ (or, if you masochistically prefer that unctuous usage, ‘conversation’) is simply an exchange of virtually identical opinions, the presstitutes can only differentiate themselves by engaging in a contest of excess ideological correctness. So every Masha Gessen, or Luke Harding or Rachel Madcow simply needs to keep increasing the fervour and extremity of their denunciations, lest they fall out of favour with the ideological Thought Controllers who pay them their blood money. The dull mediocrity of Western publics needs constantly increasing stimulus, too, to join in the approved nightly News hates against Evil Putin, Evil China, Evil Iran, Evil Assad etc, lest they fall into a stupour of indifference, or, worse yet, begin to question their Masters, political and doctrinal. It’s like the survival of the vilest, an unnatural selection for lying, dissembling, misrepresenting and hysterical posturing. Western Civilization at the end of its tether-or leash, if you prefer.
I’ve just watched two shows on our Government owned but Murdochite controlled ABC TV. One was a bunch of presstitutes and one superannuated Rightwing ‘think-tank’ coprolite, discussing politics (like energy policy with NO MENTION, as ever, of climate destabilisation). The other a multi-culti bunch with one hijab, a ‘feminist’ so-called ‘Lefty’ from the local Fraudian cess-pool, and a couple of hard Rightists, two Murdochites and one a former, failed, politician.
The frenzy of Russophobic hatred of Putin was EXTRAORDINARY. These nut-cases are truly deranged. If my ears did not deceive me, the ‘feminist’, who was quite agitated, declared that the twelve Russians ludicrously ‘indicted’ by that crook, Mueller, were ‘convicted’, but she had to back-track when she realised her error of enthusiasm. The fact that the USA is the greatest interferer in the affairs of other states in history, by orders of magnitude, including Russia, was, as ever, unmentionable. That Snowden et al have conclusively shewn that the USA is the greatest hacker on Earth, was, likewise, VERBOTEN. On and on they raved, as usual seemingly competing with each other to be the most hysterical. It was quite a sight.
All sympathy to you, MM. I, too, used to become apoplectic at the ABC’s lies/propaganda but in the interest of my health and sanity I stopped watching their ‘news’ and ‘current affairs’ and stopped reading their online ‘news’. My one-person boycott will do nothing on its own, but there is a bit more tranquility in my life since I gave them away.
Mulga Mumblebrain: “one superannuated Rightwing ‘think-tank’ coprolite”
Coprolite: marvellous! Have you been eavesdropping on our family conversations here? I haven’t heard that expression used by anybody else in recent years. Which of course might be a marker of my relatively advanced age. Sigh…Who is said coprolite, to whom you refer?
The hideous Gerald Henderthing, but it is an insult to fossilised turds.
I must add coprolite to my list of put downs.
Do you use the word meretricious – to act like or dress like a prostitute.
Of course, some people think it is akin to meritorious and accept it as a compliment.
As Putin so wisely said, thousands of citizen journalists using social media have reported from Russia on their world cup experiences, blowing Western propaganda to smithereens.
The lesson of this is not to change the MSM, but to ignore it and to create truthful messages via tens of thousands of independent social media voices.
Such drivel from the world’s most powerful media machine – most worrying in view of the fact that questioning independent-minded readers are after all a tiny minority. God help us all.
Thanks PCR and all he commenters here. In keeping with all the magnificent conspiracy theories can I suggest everyone get a grip and consider Mueller. I know that it hurts to ponder this man but his motivation and role is obvious. He is not after Trump, he is doing a Nelson and putting the telescope to his blind eye. It is Mueller who is the Mindermast in this game as he is the top agent. Clearly he has been a Russian asset for decades, he has the compromat on Killary, the smut on Wasserman-Shultz, the wood on the Awans, and the unlimited budget from Rosenstein to carry out his scam. Mueller alone controls Trump and therefor in the top Russian Mindermast. There will be no end to his devilishly cunning investigation so that all of his fellow traitors are saved by the statute of limitations or their own death. Now MSM stick that conspiracy in your pipe and smoke it!
PCR is quite right when he outlines the crazy stories being spun by desperate Neo-Con and Liberal talking heads in the US. But they largely have themselves to blame for the fabrication of fact-less diatribes and lies.
In the US there’s the NYT and the WaPo both owned by two of the world richest oligarchs Bezos and Murdoch. Both use their wealth and privilege to work propaganda Armageddon on the establishment as well as the general population. “Kill Bernie” was a Clinton strategy backed by Liberals and Neo-Cons alike, unfortunately Clinton was indistinguishable from Trump except for one thing, she had form, Trump was not just an idiot but an outsider to boot.
So the electorate did what it does best when it has the chance and that is “stick the boot in” to the establishment. We had BEXIT in the UK and our transatlantic cousins had Trump.
After the failing of the Neo Con and Neo Liberal projects across the western political landscape Russia or more importantly Putin became a totem for corruption and deception in the west. But it was just a mirror, a black mirror of the western establishments own psychosis. So as the lies have continued to form and grow so they inevitably become more fantastic and implausible.
The Post-Novichok world has become a stranger and stranger place and the bottom seems to have finally dropped out of the rabbit hole.
It’s turned out the alleged ‘victirm’ was keeping the ‘novichok’ in a bottle in his own bathroom at home. Time for obese Nazi wazzock Simon Heffer to jump off a cliff in disgrace.
The latest lie from the UK ‘authorities’ is that ‘novichok’ can last for FIFTY YEARS!!!! Next, surely, must be that it has mutated and achieved the ability to replicate itself and is spreading out over the ‘septic isle’.
reinertorheit: “It’s turned out the alleged ‘victirm’ was keeping the ‘novichok’ in a bottle in his own bathroom at home.”
Are we seriously expected to believe this? Really?
The derangement is terminal. Trump is not the disease, but just the symptom of the disease reaching its end-stage. I happened by accident to hear May declaiming after her meeting with Trump last night, and I doubt that I have ever heard such a sewer of false consciousness in full spate. Almost every word, every pause for intake of sulphurous breath, every accent and change in pitch was deranged to the point of parody, but it wasn’t funny. Either she, and the bedlam she represents, are stark raving mad, or they are some emanation from a region so diabolical, yet ludicrous, that it frightens one even to contemplate its existence. Besides creatures like May, even Trump or BoJo look semi-human.
Excerpt: “Whether against Chemical Weapons in Syria or against Russian Aggression in Eastern Europe, our cooperation (the PM and the POTU$) on Insecurity is the best of any two countries in the world.”
Basic defense reaction; the smaller the dog, the louder the yap. From today’s Saker:
“Say Russia disables or even sinks a US Navy carrier with a couple of hypersonic missiles. What would you do as a US President? The Russian Navy simply does not have as lucrative and highly symbolic target as a US prestige aircraft-carrier; but even if you decided to strike at the Admiral Kuznetsov or the heavy nuclear missile cruiser Petr Velikii, would you risk using nukes even though the Russians might reply in kind? There is currently no US cruise missile capable of hitting, nevermind sinking, either the Kuznetsov or the Petr Velikii — both of whom have advanced air defenses which can easily defeat even a swarm of subsonic US anti-ship missiles, especially if they are escorted, which they will be.
The bottom line is this: the recent Russian advances in missile technology have basically made the US surface fleet pretty much useless in a conflict against Russia (and probably against China too). At the same time, Russian advances in air defenses have not only made the entire US ABM system basically useless, it also denies the USA the cornerstone of all its tactics: air superiority. This reality is slowly but surely sinking in.”
Hence the chorus of yapping against Russia from the FUKZU$A pack, “willing to wound and yet afraid to strike” — Pope .
That’s super news for the MIC – billions or trillions will have to be poured into new weapons and ships and planes.
There’s a two minute video of how it works here:
https://www.greanvillepost.com/2018/07/12/lee-camp-endless-war-explained-in-2-minutes/
US aircraft carriers are only for bombing defenceless countries ‘..back to the Stone Age’, great sport for the Exceptionals.
This kind of breathless weaponry talk will be welcomed by the US defence industry: they need more money to step up. Endless loop, nothing learned from the Cold War.
[[ Jonathan Chait, Amy Knight, Max Bergmann, Yaroslav Trofimov, Roger Cohen, and the rest ]]
This list goes on, and on, and on. We can Iulia Ioffe, Con Coughlin, David Frum, Uri Friedman, Rachel Madcow, Nick Cohen, Owen Jones, Simon Tisdall… and so many more.
Even in the sphere of something as innocent as classical music, NATO-funded bigots like David Nice and Norman Lebrecht have been spending their time writing off the stellar performances of world-famous performers such as Anna Netrebko (“Putin’s primadonna”), Denis Matsuev, and Valery Gergiev.
It is not only the above hacks but all British TV channels, including the BBC, ITV and Sky which put out endlessly slanted information against Trump. Just last night the BBC news commentators were busy twisting Trump’s words to give the impression that he was telling May what to do on Brexit when in fact his words were totally innocuous in saying he had heard that May’s white paper seemed to suggest remaining in the EU rather than leaving it which he had believed the British people had voted for. In which statement he is precisely correct. He said further that if the UK was to remain in the EU in trade terms then this would be likely to mean the UK would not be able to do a trade deal with the US, since the EU would restrict it from doing so. In fact he spoke the truth but this was presented by the BBC’s reporters in a heated fashion as threatening the UK.
I for one would like to put an end to the BBC and its heavily weighted agendas promoting sexual deviants and welfare spongers and turning the UK against its best friends. There are many in the UK who agree with me.
Trump is no friend of Britain whatsoever. This absurd lump of child-caging lard should never have been admitted to Britain. He should be sat back on his plane this afternoon, and the rest of his Nazi agenda should be cancelled. DIsgusting sack of fascist blubber.
theroyalsecretinfo: “I for one would like to put an end to the BBC and its heavily weighted agendas promoting sexual deviants and welfare spongers…”
Which one of those two categories inconveniences you the most?
Sexual deviants gave up on me decades ago. I didn’t think “welfare spongers” inconvenienced me much, so I checked:
UK:
https://www.indy100.com/article/benefit-fraud-tax-dodging-paradise-papers-evasion-avoidance-billions-government-statistics-8056846
US:
@Reiner.
"Damn with faint praise, assent with civil leer,
And without sneering, teach the rest to sneer;
Willing to wound, and yet afraid to strike,
Just hint a fault, and hesitate dislike" -- Alexander Pope
Very apt, Vexarb. I can’t help thinking that ‘teach the rest to sneer’ cries out for the slight edit: ‘teach the West to sneer’.
Awful lot of Zionists there, and their stooges. Odd, given Putin’s friendly attitude towards Israel. And the idea of Americans sneering at Russian musicians is truly ludicrous. Liberace versus Richter or Gilels-priceless!
Somehow they would elevate David Oistrakh as he was a Ukrainian.
Richter was born in Ukraine, but declared himself a ‘Soviet citizen of German ancestry’.
Maybe it’s more important to them that David Oistrakh is/ was/ Jewish.
I think we can give them their Van Cliburn and Ruth Slenzinska – Liberace isn’t everybody’s cup of tea, even in America…
Van Cliburn was much more highly regarded in the Soviet than he was in the USA. He would have had a much greater career if he’d stayed in the USSR after winning the Tschaikovsky Prize.
Noel Coward raised a big Laugh over Liberace in Las Vegas:
“Even Liberace (we presume) does it”.
If you anything about London, there is no career why spying/secret societies is not the price of entry to the inner sanctum. Medicine: full of spies. Music: plenty there. Science research: infested Etc etc.
Music is a bitchy career like any other: their career is pulling heartstrings, so mind control should come naturally.
David Nice is a failed numpty who cannot find a critic posiion at any UK publication. Nor will he, with his avowed public intent to boycott all performances by Russian musicians. His trashy poison pen attacks on Russian performers only serve to show the empty bitchiness in his talentless writing.
reinertorheit: “Anna Netrebko (“Putin’s primadonna”)”
If that’s so, what splendid taste Putin has! Here’s Netrebko singing with the equally splendid Dimitri Hvorostovsky (sadly, dead from a brain tumour in 2017):
They all went to the ‘Tom Clancy School of Journalism’
Dipsticks.
Dr Roberts writes an interesting article but all the names he mentions are probably those who have sold their soles for thirty pieces of silver.
I am sure all of them would describe themselves as journalists but it is generally acknowledged that news should be separated from comment or opinion. If what they write contains no facts or news then maybe the only thing that is true is their name but even that might be in doubt.
I must confess to being a bit of a fan of President Putin and as a sign of respect, I would like to see the Russian people refer to him as “Sapsan” Putin, this being the Russian for the peregrine falcon the fastest bird in the world who likes nothing better than big fat western pigeons for breakfast.
I would like to see the Kremlin breeding them and so attain the same status as the ravens at the Tower of London and perhaps given the protection of the president rather like the royal swans with the Queen of England.
Sapsan versus Pigeon who wins?
‘Sapsan’ is already the name of the fast train linking Moscow with St Petersburg. Naming Putin after such a train might suggest another kind of confrontation with the West entirely:
Russian bullet train vs. Thomas the Tank Engine.
When it comes to trains your analogy is spot on.
The Sapsan high speed train has an occupancy rate of 84% I wonder what HS2 will achieve?
The future of rail transport lies in the Vectorr by Flight Rail Corp in California with their update on Brunel’s atmospheric railway.
Sold their souls, bro, not their footwear.
I’ve had some passing recent contacts with a relatively new Russian expatriot whose political motivation for the move was the post-graduate professional advantage of a considerably better prospective career path in considerably better-paid positions than he would easily find in Russia. So I took the opportunity to enquire of his take on Putin. His answer was that Putin was an advanced narcissist who, therefore believed that he was always right. And the problem with that? A shrug. On those things my informant thought that Putin had wrong, Russia was being led in the wrong direction.
Did I mention I have since invented a new newspaper game, based on the picture above the cutline? I’m calling it Spot the Handler.
I would ask your liberal student friend to name one politician of recent times who is not a narcissist.
Your ‘friend’ is the narcissist, old boy. A greedy one, too, and betting on the West might prove a reckless gamble.Psychological projection is so very banal.
Interesting set of replies and downvotes.
(1) He’s not my “friend” and I’m not sure how “passing recent contacts with” could be construed to suggesr he was.
(2) He’s didn’t strike me as being anything otherbthan the population average on the NPD scale; rather, for his degree of obvious intellectual accomplishment his unassuming modesty was impressive.
(3) I would not count it as greedy to emigrate from a situation where one’s specialism is insufficiently prominent in the prevailing mileau to provide a reasonable living pursuing it, and the nearest moderately congenial generalist occupation pays hardly enough on which to raise and educate a family before one is too old to be bothered, any more than I would suggest that an RMIT (say) graduate should pass up an opportunity to get on a fast track to a tenured position at the MIT (say), with a far higher degree of job satisfaction and a better family income because of some tribal loyalty to the Prahran Two Blues. Would you, really? You really beileve that Fred Schepsi or Peter Weir or Phil Noyce or Mel Gibson, etc., should not have hightailed it to Hollywood for a while as soon as they had the chance. Or Barry Humphries should have stayed on Bondi Beach eating Christmas turkey and drinking mulled wine all his life?. Or Robert Hughes should have passed up a shot at New York? Or Germaine Greer should have told Warwick and Cambridge to get lost? Or Julian Assange should have stayed in Townsville writing basic computer routines? Come on.
With regard to other replies here, he’s not by any means a “Russophobe” either; in fact he positively beamed with pride when I said it was good to see Russia coming together again so well after Yeltsin pissed (so to speak) so much of it away. Nor, as far as I could tell, is he in either Australian or the British senses a “liberal”; nor, except insofar as anyone with half a brain is a lifelong student, is he one of those any more, either. And although his opinion of Putin is s9gnificantly lower than mine, he’s by no means a Putinophobe, either. My guess is that if I had lived in Putin’s Russia for most of my life, and spoke Russian as my first language, my opinion of him would also be considerably more nuanced than it is as an outsider looking in,.
However, it’s probably the case that he wouldn’t fit in too well around here. For one thing, though a greater acquaintace with him might modify my observations on the matter to date, he has relatively few of the characteristics I’d normally ascribe to a bot.
An interesting article by John Helmer which might interest you.
http://johnhelmer.net/russian-foreign-policy-according-to-the-routledge-handbook-for-academics/
Helmer makes the point that Russian academics are much less well paid than western academic ‘experts’ on Russia
“…According to the current salary schedule for Russian academics, Konyshev and Sergunin get paid about Rb30,000 ($500) per month for work like this; their Anglo-American counterparts are paid on average $8,500. Obviously, there’s more money in the Anglo-American line. A handbook on the resistance of Russian intellectuals to the earnings differential doesn’t run to 450 pages…”
But, it would seem that one reason for the lower pay of the Russians is their propensity not to contribute to the ideology promoted by their western counterparts, an ideology promoting the narrow interests of the ruling class.
“..Other Russian contributors to the handbook also tell tales of Russian foreign policymaking from multiple records of what happened. This leads them to conclusions which are the opposite of the western academic reports. For instance, Valery Konyshev and Alexander Sergunin of St. Petersburg: “the military’s role in Russian foreign policy is quite limited: the use of military force is seen as a last resort, when other — non-military means — are exhausted, and it is done in a rather limited/restricted way… As Putin enjoys stable domestic support, the MoD’s [Ministry of Defence] impact on decision-making could rise only as a result of a decline in relations between Russia and the West…Moscow has used just enough military force to achieve policy goals, but not more. Coercion was conducted by degree, in measured doses.”
Your ‘acquaintance’s’ estimation that Putin is an ‘advanced narcissist’, is, in my opinion, crap. I hardly know for certain of course, but after watching Putin with Oliver Stone and parts of his annual press conferences with the people and at other gatherings, I see no signs of the egomania that so tragically and comically afflicts so many Western political droogs. Compared with Obama or Trump, Putin is plainly honest, candid, intelligent and moral.
Agree, MM. I, too, am something of a Putin-watcher and find him very impressive. I would add that not only is Putin ‘plainly honest, candid, intelligent and moral’, he is obviously very well read, knows history and geopolitics, and can hold his own in any discussion or debate.
Putin is also polite and respectful. Sometimes his western interviewers ask some spectacularly rude and stupid questions. He gets pissed off, but keeps it civilised.
Putin and Megyn Kelly:
Galloway is a bit rougher:
So glad that chap left Russia, one less Russophobe there… Russian church supports VVP, the wise elders from Mount Athos pray for him, 55 million people have just voted for him, his achievements are obvious and many, that’s more than good enough for me. And like everyone he ain’t perfect and ain’t no magic fairy.
In today’s Guardian Shaun Walker, never one to use his phone to record the evil Putin events he sees says, apparently without any sense of irony
“At the Guardian, we try harder than many to give a balanced picture of Russia.”
LOL, beyond parody,
John, that insanity is one of the fruits of forty years of purging the Western fakestream media of all but Rightwing psychopaths, who know that their well-paid jobs, in an age of mass pauperisation, depend on TOTAL ideological reliability. Simon Jenkins going off-reservation in recent days is intriguing, but only points out the total Groupthink among his colleagues. Walker’s ludicrous untruth is exactly akin to FoxNews’s infamous ‘Fair and Balanced’ tripe.
Yes I always remember Walker as the ace reporter who broke so many stories about Russia which turned out not to be true. As for Russian balance at the Graun oh the irony – he got the wrong B word – clearly he meant bias…
My favourite is the one about Russian cheese.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jul/10/congealed-tipp-ex-to-odour-of-gym-russias-cheese-fakers-fail-the-taste-test
This paranoia piece by Walker straight from the Guardian’s fromagerie displays all the underlying traits of bias resulting from undiagnosed culture clash so evident in Harding’s work as well.
What Walker failed to point out in this piece which is emblematic of the quality of Graun jurnos is that all these shit cheese brands are largely owned by or copying foreign companies producing the same synthetic shit they’ve been producing in the west for years.
Recently the French football team interestingly have been praising the quality of Russian artisan cheeses but no mention of such positive things at the Graun.
@IceCream. I agree with Hilaire Belloc, In Praise of Cheese, and buy European or local Israeli “craft cheese” when I can. But last night I just bought some Russian “supermarket cheese” from Boris’s minimarket round the corner, and enjoyed them both with salad and small potatoes grilled in the jacket — a simple convenience meal. As for taste and “perceived value” factors, I would rate these cheeses in the same class with my Russian lenses from the old Soviet Ukraina: cheap and good.
One was a smoked cheese, the other plain. Both were typical supermarket sliced and polythene packaged. I tried to decipher the brand (Svalya??) and the types (Tyrmamam and plain Rossyikyi??). Perhaps some knowledgeable reader could tell me whether they belong to the class decried by the AZC propaganda outlet, or to the class praised by the French football team?
By the way, would that be the same French football team now due to play Croatia? Described as the only African team remaining in the World Cup?
Svalya is actually a Latvian brand. But the cheese in the packet might have been made in Russia, to sidestep the latest idiotic sanctions from Druncky Junky. Juncky was looking very unwell this afternoon – another litre of whisky for breakfast, no doubt.
Shaun Walker means balanced like on on a pirate ship with toes over the edge of the plank.
Shame that Shaun Waker failed to bring in the opinions of his imaginary friend – the fake reporter “Roland Oliphant”. The blubbery blubber has used this made-up name (Oliphant) as bogus ‘corroboration’ for his made-up stories about Russia – including a ludicrous tale of both of them (ie Walker alone, with his made-up collaborator) standing at the Ukrainian border, and watching ‘a column of Russian tanks charge across the frontier for over an hour”. Needless to say, ‘neither’ of these journos managed to get a photo of the event. They later published a photo of a tank in a street in Ekaterinburg – hundreds of miles away in the Urals – taken three years previously. Waker is the epitome of crass, fake news.
Why do you think Oliphant isn’t real? I’ve seen him in a few videos ‘reporting’ for the Telegraph.
maningi BTL SyrPer:
“Imperialism on Trial: Tour in UK – Part 2 (Today Jul 12, 2018)
Speakers include former MP George Galloway; independent journalist Eva Bartlett; former UK Ambassador to Syria and Bahrain, Peter Ford; Prof Peter Kuznick, Director at Eurasia Future, Adam Garrie and independent journalist Vanessa Beeley.
Remark: Part 2 is even better than the first part.”
Sometimes I wonder if people are not being split in 2 groups .The bull$hitters and the people that believe them and the ones that at least make efforts to find the truth and look upon the bull$hitters with disdain .
Justin Raimondo makes similar points
https://original.antiwar.com/justin/2018/07/11/are-the-russia-gate-fanatics-crazy-or-just-cynical/
“..I looked in on the Chait production, and came upon his reiteration of the Alfa Bank computer link – this was a story, you’ll recall, that claimed there was a stream of communications between this “Kremlin-connected” bank and the Trump organization. This, we were told, was almost certainly Vladimir Putin sending instructions to his zombie-agents in the Trump White House. Yes, this was actually the story, backed up by several computer “experts” – except it turned out to be advertising spam. Chait repeats this story, adding it on top of the several dozen other conspiracy factoids he throws in the mix – but without mentioning that the computer signals were simply ad-bots. On the basis of this, and a string of other “interactions” with Russians, we are supposed to believe that the omnipotent Russian intelligence agencies hatched a plot 30 years ago to put Trump into the White House. This is a conspiracy theory that’s so shoddy and far-fetched that not even Alex Jones would touch it with a ten-foot pole…”
The Democrats, impotent in the face of policies indistinguishable from their own, have gone mad. The only alternatives for them would gave involved risking the ire of the donors who transform untalented hacks into untalented hacks with lotsa money.
We are enduring the same process of elite derangement in Austfailure, in regard to China. The fakestream media presstitutes have never reported China in any but a negative light-after all they are ‘mere Asiatics’ living in a Communist Hell, without ‘human rights’, ‘the rule of law’ or those precious ‘Western moral values’ that we enjoy. But since the USA ordered its assets here, ie the entire military/intelligence apparatus, 99% of the political leper colonies and the business ‘elites’, to get on board with its war-plans against China, in 2011 when Obama announced the ‘pivot to Asia’ in our Parliament, the sheer hysteria of hatred and abuse has only grown more and more bellicose, by the day. The so-called ‘Greens’ are now joining in as well, another sign of the familiar process of Western Green parties marching to the Right, that we see in its most advanced stage in Germany. I see it as the group derangement of the elites in Western kakistocracies who seem really to believe that they are ubermenschen destined, through Divine intercession, to rule over the ‘ lesser breeds’, forever, and offended, as well as terrified, by the impertinence of the ‘Yellow Peril’ in creating a clearly superior economic and social order to that of the West. Given the raw race hatred that so clearly underpins this process, war is inevitable, and that will be that.
All true, MM, and the Australian MSM including the ABC are just as bad on Russia and Putin. On foreign policy reporting they are nothing but antipodean mouthpieces for Washington.
Here’s a compilation showing what the February 2014 putsch in Ukraine has led to, the first several minutes of it inform vividly and clearly what a real interference in a country’s affairs is.
If those who keep peddling the involvement of Russia in the US election process can come up with identical evidence there would be a case to answer, otherwise they should shut up.
It is certainly entertaining to see the media who complained about “fake news” and “nutty conspiracy theories” descend into increasingly paranoid tosh themselves. And to note that the acceleration of their bullshit seems to have really begun after their attack on “the nuts”.