There is an anecdote about how, in Stalin era USSR, everything would somehow be blamed on Trotsky. Soviet economy didn’t meet 5 year plan output targets? Trotsky’s fault. Collectivization of agriculture has unintended effects on food supply? Trotsky’s fault. Building collapses? Trotsky’s fault. Factory machinery stops working? Trotsky’s fault. Fall down the stairs? Trotsky’s fault. Etc.
Now, as applies developments in the USA, it may be said that a similar pattern appears in evidence.
You didn’t like the latest Star Wars films? Russian hacker’s fault.
Criticizing The Last Jedi online is, it would seem, an unpatriotic act. You *dare* to feel that the plot’s a bit wtf perhaps due to the studio having other priorities – and worse, to express these views on social media? YOU ARE UNDERMINING THE VERY FABRIC OF AMERICAN DEMOCRACY, CITIZEN.
I’m not even kidding. This is *actually* what is being said.
To be sure, it is not exactly a new thing in the ‘popular culture’ and ‘creative’ industries – when an audience doesn’t respond positively (or, perhaps, as ebulliently positively as some might like) to a work, to declare that it is because they “don’t get it”. That they are, perhaps, “unworthy” of what has been placed in front of them, and lacking in whatever critical faculty of discernment is apparently required to see the masterpiece fo what it “truly” is.
Although I cannot help but note that that is *also* how the “new clothes” are sold to a certain Emperor in the old children’s story. [replete with, as almost invariably gets left out, the corresponding ‘aesop’ at the end, where the child who dares to disrespect royalty by pointing out he’s buffoonishly naked in public, is imprisoned for that most turgid crime of speaking the truth – and especially where others may perhaps dare to hear it and respond accordingly].
Yet this is not even at the level of that famed maxim of Bertolt Brecht – the one about how, if ‘the People’ have lost the Confidence of their Government … it would perhaps be simpler to simply dissolve ‘the People’ and elect another than to get the government in question to change course.
For this is not a case of a great artist losing confidence in his audience, for being lacking in quality and taste.
But rather, a fairly explicit statement that if you don’t just meekly go along both in thought and in word and ‘declaratory’ deed with the Company Line (whether this ‘company’ is Disney or the Democrats) … that you are a subversive! That you are a traitor! And worse than that – that you are either *directly* in league, in cahoots with the dastardly ‘”post”-Communist’ ideological enemy across the sea … or you are *actually* an unperson. Simply some sock account or automated troll-bot, whose genuine opinion can be safely ignored or actively weaponized against what you support. That most supreme of ‘de-legitimations’ – being reduced from ‘personhood’ to some ungainly combination of ‘marionette’ and ‘clockwork’.
And all of this, over a cash-in film trilogy intended to appeal to children and aging nerds with a surplus of disposable income for the TIE-in marketing.
The next step, of course, will be the targeting and identification of these “subversives” – those who have already *dared* to implicitly sabotage a Hillary Clinton 2020 Presidential Run by expressing unfavourable opinion about a forgettable movie three years before.
After all – if it is easier to believe that the problem lies with the intended audience rather than the ‘product’ [whether a film or an extensively/excessively choreographed and staged political candidacy], then considering the significant numbers involved, it is far easier again to believe that the ‘problem’ more pointedly lies with entities not even really *part* of the ‘intended audience’ – yet who nevertheless exert a most malefic and difficult to counter psychic influence over those you covet in support.
With the insidiously broad scope and spectrum of who is liable to be subpoenaed and hauled in for questioning in the context of Congressional and FBI probes into alleged “Russian interference” in the *last* Presidential election … it would perhaps be sensible to suggest to ordinary Americans on social media that they consider adopting, for their own safety, the advisory maxim indigenous to Stalinist Russia:
“First, do not think. If you think, do not speak. If you speak, do not write. If you write – do not publish. If you publish, do not, whatever you do, sign/do so under your own name.
And if you *do* publish under your own name …
… don’t be surprised.”
Good to see that our gubermint has got with the program and is also now blaming da RUSSIANS????
Yep GAP
forget about the Russians
The more insidious danger is already here, recruiting in our universities and drenching our culture with their own reckless versions of democracy and militarism
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/us-military-plan-biological-weapons-insect-allies-virus-crop-darpa-a8568996.html
https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11952874
Francesca: “The more insidious danger is already here, recruiting in our universities and drenching our culture with their own reckless versions of democracy and militarism”
Indeed. Thanks for posting those links: we here clearly have much more to worry about than whether Fancy Bear is run by the GRU.
It’s disturbing to see what amounts to a proposal to propagandise the rest of us, in an attempt to slip questionable technologies into the NZ environment. And in my view, it’s even more disturbing that NZ scientists are allowing themselves to be dragged into this, apparently by the promise of funding.
I’m sure that their intentions are good, but they need to be alert to road-to-Hell issues. And it doesn’t sound as if they are.
Anent Fancy Bear, I’ll say this: that site has alerted us to the extent of doping – sanctioned via the TUE system – among US sports stars. Among others, we now know about the Williams sisters (referred to as the Williams brothers by some). I’ve seen on – I think – a Russian website the side-by-side images of the slender Sharapova and the muscly Serena Williams. Williams’s picture has the legend “muesli”, Sharapova’s “meldonium”. Heh! About sums it up really.
Nice comment. The NZ Olympic committee should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for going along with the ostracism of Russian athletes based on the testimony of ONE ex Russian proven drug cheat who now lives very comfortably in America thanks to ?. His testimony is the McClaren report.
Ike: “The NZ Olympic committee should be thoroughly ashamed of themselves for going along with the ostracism of Russian athletes….”
Couldn’t agree more. And other commentators here share that view. Here’s an article from a couple of years back. Worth a read, if you haven’t already seen it.
https://www.radionz.co.nz/news/sport/307003/olympics-russia-ban-punishes-the-innocent
The Last Jedi was utter garbage and an insult to both Star Wars lore and its fans. Worse yet, instead of apologising (or even saying nothing), Lucasfilm employees and the film’s director (roundhead Rian Johnson) have doubled-down and have been openly insulting Star Wars fans, calling them things like “overweight white man-babies living in their mother’s basement”. Then they act all surprised when Solo bombed at the box-office, blaming everyone but themselves. Saying we are “Russian bots” is just the latest denial of reality.
Disny bought the Star Wars franchise from Lucas films and thought it a great idea to appoint 3 different directors to film a trilogy taking one apiece. JJ Abrams directed the first films and introduced new characters. Then Ryan Johnson comes along and kills off all the new characters and some old ones. Do our has it that Disney execs are brining back JJ Abrams to film the third episode and possibly split the third instalment in to two movies so we can forget how awful the second instalment is. Nothing to do with Russia is was just that Ryan Johnson hates the Star Wars franchise. In Hollywood, the way it works is to make a name for yourself you have to do one “profitable” movie for the studio so you can do one.
Thing about Ryan Johnson is he’s really good with special effects but a really crap story writer where as JJ Abrams writes really good stories.
There’s a scene in Snokes thrown room when one of the red imperial gaurds goes to whack Rey and Rey turns her back and the guard hesitates when he could have run her through and Ryan Jihnson leaves that scene in the movie. It’s not Russia’s fault Ryan is a shit sci fi director.
The only good thing to come from The Last Jedi was it introduced me to talented YouTubers like Mauler when I felt I was surely wasn’t the only person to think that the movie was terrible. Watch his “unbridled rage”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9QJRw56cOVw
He followed that up with an exhaustive 5+ hour video series to explain in excruciating detail why The Last Jedi is a shit Star Wars film, despite what critics say (it has an inexplicable 91% positive critic review score on Rotten Tomatoes, while only 45% of people liked it).
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLBBJXQJJavX2VueOEqGSaBNsGaHZREWEr
https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/star_wars_the_last_jedi/
RedLetterMedia recently released one of their infamous “Mr. Plinkett Review “of the film BTW (although it was seriously late to the “we’re mostly Russian bots” party by this point):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f83D18xL7VE
Nitrium: Apologies for the misspelling of your nom de guerre; that was my bloody phone auto-edit! Grrr….
I’v got no sympathy for Putins methods, neither can I say what drives Putin. I don’t know well enough his history, personality, characteristics but in any are Putin was thrown up as a result of the Cold War other wise Putin wouldn’t have gone into politics and its thrown up a generation that’s ready for change. So it’s in the context Putin took over or Boris Yeltsin’s successor would have taken over. And it’s quite clear to every one who the preferred President of Russia is.
Sam: “I’v got no sympathy for Putins methods, neither can I say what drives Putin.”
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. If you’re thinking of the Salisbury incidents, you’ll find this a useful read:
https://en.news-front.info/2018/09/28/skripal-case-israeli-expert-on-the-work-of-the-special-agents/
As to what drives Putin, I can only say that it’s not what western msm claims. This commentator will enlighten you, I’m sure:
https://thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com/2018/03/27/even-with-a-translator-the-west-still-just-doesnt-get-putin/
“Putin was thrown up as a result of the Cold War other wise Putin wouldn’t have gone into politics…”
Putin was in the KGB until 1991, when it ceased to exist. He then went to work for the Mayor of St Petersburg. In 1996 (the year the CIA rigged the presidential election so that old lush Yeltsin would win) he went to Moscow to work in the Yeltsin administration.
He became acting president in 1999, after Yeltsin resigned, then he comfortably won the 2000 presidential election.
When he came to power, the Russian economy was a basket case following the depredations of the oligarchs and western neolibs during the Yeltsin years. He set about rescuing it, in which enterprise he’s been remarkably successful, to the chagrin of said oligarchs and neolibs. That’s why the Yanks in particular hate him: he stood on their hands and stopped them stealing any more Russian assets.
A couple of things: firstly, Putin became acting president because Yeltsin was persuaded to resign. That resignation forestalled a coup: by the late 90s, the Russian Establishment was alarmed at the state of the economy. Had Yeltsin not resigned, he’d have been ousted. And Putin turned out to be a formidable ruler, to an extent that nobody could have foreseen.
Secondly, when western pollies and the msm constantly beat the anti-Russia and anti-Putin drum, don’t believe a word of it. Never forget that these people don’t play with a straight bat. Never have.
Putin remains president, not because of rigged elections, but because the people contimue to want him as their president.
Im not a big believer in the ability of the field of psychology to explain things. Russia runs assassination programmes, so does America, Isreal, France did to us and the Rainbow Warrior.
Maybe Putin was dropped on his head as a baby. Who knows. Plenty of things that are left undesired.
Sam: “Russia runs assassination programmes, so does America, Isreal, France did to us and the Rainbow Warrior.”
Say what? Where’s your evidence for all of these assassination programmes? Do you remember the Rainbow Warrior incident? I do. There was no assassination, nor was it France’s intent to kill anybody. They wanted to sink the ship, to stop it sailing to Mururoa.
“Maybe Putin was dropped on his head as a baby.”
Again: say what? A pretty facile comment, if I may say so. It puts me in mind of what I heard Max Cryer say today about Americans: that they know nothing about NZ, so they don’t “hear” anything that’s said about it.
It appears that you have been so influenced by western propaganda, that you can’t “hear” and process a countervailing view about Putin. I repeat: he isn’t the ogre that the west characterises him. He isn’t a thug, he’s a person who happens to be very good at his job, thereby pissing off western political elites.
Read the links I posted. You’ll be better-informed if you do.
+1 Sam
Nitrous: “The Last Jedi was utter garbage and an insult to both Star Wars lore and its fans.”
I was never the target demographic: I was dragged along by family members to see the first three movies.
From that standpoint, I think only those first three were worth watching. Everything after them was variably garbage. I’d add that those family members have come round to my view as well.
Even in the original 1970/80’s trilogy the special effects just blew every ones mind but it was nothing in comparison to the story. Stuff the biggest onscreen explosion or what ever. We just want good writing.
Sam: “Stuff the biggest onscreen explosion or what ever. We just want good writing.”
Exactly. The Knowledgeable One in my family has said that the movies were as good as they were, in spite of, rather than because of, George Lucas. It seems that his excesses had to be restrained. Harrison Ford is reported as having said to Lucas something like: “George, you can write this shit, but that doesn’t mean we can say it!”
Seems like Jacinda’s announcement yesterday that we now believe all this shite is co-ordinated with everyone else. https://www.rt.com/news/440356-russia-coordinated-hacking-accusations-nato/
We all agree so it must be true ! forget evidence , boring, petty . nit picking humbug.
Cheers D J S
David Stone: “Seems like Jacinda’s announcement yesterday that we now believe all this shite is co-ordinated with everyone else.”
Yeah, I’d noticed that as well. I remarked to a relative that now we have Nederland getting in on the act: another unimportant country jumping up and down, in an effort to be noticed.
The Dutch story in particular stretches credulity paper-thin. They claim to have expelled four GRU officers travelling on Russian passports, and they left behind bucketloads of forensic evidence, including taxi chits from GRU offices to Moscow airport, and a laptop which indicated they’d tried to hack OPCW and JIT (or something) sites. And we’re expected to believe this twaddle? Numpties: the Dutch are as bad as the Poms at concocting credible scenarios.
Although of course it may say everything we need to know (and don’t need to fear) about the sort of Keystone Kops-type operations run by the security services in Nederland and UK.
On the other hand, Russia has professional Intel services.
D’esterre, you expend a helluva lot of energy defending a russian autocrat and his oligarchy. Your interest in this is-??
It’s all rather amusing hearing “the Russians dunnit”. Of course they did, along with USA, UK, EU, China, Uncle Tom Cobbley and all. Yes, we all dunnit, the Yanks in particular, election meddlers par excellence. Then there’s Google, spies on every internet search…wonder if the Russians, Israelis, Indians, Peruvians have hacked them too?
Sam: “I’v got no sympathy for Putins methods, neither can I say what drives Putin.”
I’m not sure what you’re getting at here. If you’re thinking of the Salisbury incidents, you’ll find this a useful read:
https://en.news-front.info/2018/09/28/skripal-case-israeli-expert-on-the-work-of-the-special-agents/
As to what drives Putin, I can only say that it’s not what western msm claims. This commentator will enlighten you, I’m sure:
https://thenewkremlinstooge.wordpress.com/2018/03/27/even-with-a-translator-the-west-still-just-doesnt-get-putin/
“Putin was thrown up as a result of the Cold War other wise Putin wouldn’t have gone into politics…”
Putin was in the KGB until 1991, when it ceased to exist. He then went to work for the Mayor of St Petersburg. In 1996 (the year the CIA rigged the presidential election so that old lush Yeltsin would win) he went to Moscow to work in the Yeltsin administration.
He became acting president in 1999, after Yeltsin resigned, then he comfortably won the 2000 presidential election.
When he came to power, the Russian economy was a basket case following the depredations of the oligarchs and western neolibs during the Yeltsin years. He set about rescuing it, in which enterprise he’s been remarkably successful, to the chagrin of said oligarchs and neolibs. That’s why the Yanks in particular hate him: he stood on their hands and stopped them stealing any more Russian assets.
A couple of things: firstly, Putin became acting president because Yeltsin was persuaded to resign. That resignation forestalled a coup: by the late 90s, the Russian Establishment was alarmed at the state of the economy. Had Yeltsin not resigned, he’d have been ousted. And Putin turned out to be a formidable ruler, to an extent that nobody could have foreseen.
Secondly, when western pollies and the msm constantly beat the anti-Russia and anti-Putin drum, don’t believe a word of it. Never forget that these people don’t play with a straight bat. Never have.
Putin remains president, not because of rigged elections, but because the people contimue to want him as their president.
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