NP - Russian Sanctions

[Thomas Eckhardt]

On Tue, 18 Mar 2014 09:28:13 -0400
  alice malice <alicewmalice at gmail.com> wrote:
> Well, forgive me if I misapplied your ideas or statement. 
>I thought
> your point was that Putin was the lesser of two devils 
>(the greater
> being the US-backed government--a dubious claim). Isn't 
>this Putin's
> propaganda?  You say the US gort this going with the 
>expansion of
> NATO. More propaganda from Putin.

No, my point was not that Russia was the 'lesser of two
devils.' And how in the world would Putin claiming that he 
is 'the lesser of
two devils' qualify as Russian propaganda? I mentioned the
expansion of NATO in passing.

> And, I know exactly what I'm talking about. I never said 
>that Putin
> has won the hearts and minds of Germany, its major 
>parties or major
> newspapers. That's your misapplication of what I said. 
>Apology
> accepted in advance. I posted from the Guardian on the 
>propaganda
> impact of Putin's machine. It doesn't claim, and I never 
>claimed that
> Putin has won the support of major parties or major press 
>in Germany.

Ok, then what *are* you talking about? You wrote "(...)
the Putin propaganda machine is quite effective in
Germany (...)"


The Guardian article, by the way, is a joke:

"Though there were nationalists and far-right nationalists
among Kiev’s protesters, and there are some in the new
interim government, there decidedly weren’t and aren’t
many – if any – bona fide fascists. This line has been
both taken up and debunked (thoroughly), but any
discussion of fascists at all is a Kremlin win."

(With regard to "fascists", I again point to Max
Blumenthal's article in Salon. I reserve judgment for the
articles linked in the original Guardian piece that 
supposedly
"thoroughly debunk" the fascist/Nazi line of argument as I
have not yet read them.)

What the Guardian is saying here is that one should not
discuss the fascists in the interim government because
this plays into Putin's hands. Soon it will be regarded as
a thought crime if one agrees with Putin that 2 plus 2
equates 4.

I am especially fond of that "- if any -".


The following excerpt must be an attempt at satire. They
can't possibly be serious:

"Putin has also insisted that Yanukovych’s ouster was not
just illegal but a coup, and he has pointed fingers at the
west for orchestrating and backing the culprits. Again,
slivers of truth work in Putin’s favor: Kiev’s parliament
removed Yanukovych on constitutionally murky grounds,
though everyone else has now accepted them; because
Senator John McCain and European leaders visited Kiev, it
looks like the west really *did back* those obstreperous
radicals."

Yes, that's exactly what it looks like.

Thomas

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Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l