News & Analysis.
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Vince Dhimos
Eric Zuesse at Strategic-Culture.org writes that, according to Gallup polls, Americans are grossly deceived in believing the world loves them when the same Gallup in worldwide polls shows that trust in America is dropping like a stone while another Gallup poll shows that Americans today believe their country is gaining more approval than ever. And that’s in countries that are essentially aligned with the US. But the trouble with the Gallup report is that it does not tell us what 134 countries they chose, out of the 195 countries in the world. They do, however, tell us that they ignored the Middle East. What Eric says is all true, but he misses what I think is the most important point. These polled foreigners also have a very low opinion of Russia, about as low as their opinion of the US. And frankly, there is no reason for this whatsoever except propaganda in the msm of the US and states aligned with the US and the inability of people in these countries to understand how they are being manipulated to hate Russia, the country that is clearly taking the lead in world diplomacy. In other words, the fact that Russia is also polling low and yet has done nothing to merit this is simply due to propaganda from the msm. And note this: I opened the official Gallup site and discovered that the names of the 134 countries polled did not appear there. In order to get the full poll, the reader must submit an application including personal details to Gallup (which I did). But the fact that the Middle East was ignored tells us all we need to know about Gallup’s bias. The US destroyed much of the region and the people there can hardly be expected to trust the US, so Gallup kindly spared Washington the embarrassment. In fact, the ASDA'A Burson-Marsteller Arab Youth Survey 2018 tells the really important story, namely, that whereas before the Russian involvement in the Syrian war in 2015, Arab young people said they trusted the US more than Russia, the opposite results were found a few years later. This is where the focus must be because, like the Gallup poll, the Middle East is ignored in Western media. Middle Eastern news reports not aligned with Western msm, such as those found at sites like South Front, Al-Masdar and even some Israeli sites like Haaretz provide up-to-date reports on progress in the Syrian war, political news about the Middle East, Israeli airstrikes in Gaza and Syria, and the ongoing wanton murders of unarmed civilians in Gaza and Jerusalem, relations between Middle Eastern countries and Russia, Russian arms sales in the region, and other news that is virtually banned in the West. 52% of Americans think Russian military power is a direct threat but have little or no information on the context in which Russia is building up (such as the – for them – terrifying expansion of NATO to the Russian border); 1/3 of Americans see Russia as US’ arch rival (top position, more than N Korea), and 73% see Russia unfavourably (again with almost no knowledge of context) – despite the fact that Trump fans believe Trump wants good relations with Russia, while 2/3 of Russians see the US as the main enemy, which makes sense. This negative view of Russian among Americans makes no sense at all since many Trump supporters voted for him because they thought he would bring peace with Russia, but now apparently many of them have allowed Trump himself to convince them the Russia is a dangerous enemy even though it is clear that his negative assessment of Russia is due solely to his desire to convince the Democrats and his Neocon enemies that he agrees with them. Most likely he is terrified to be labelled as a Kremlin stooge and for this reason is pretending to be anti-Russian like the Democrats. If he were even the least bit articulate, he could turn this whole narrative around and prove that the Democrats are just warmongers who are threatening world peace with their scare tactics. Instead he caves. Now, of course, there has been a robust and constant (essentially 24/7) propaganda campaign against Russia in the US, with the Democrats accusing Russia of interfering with the elections and with Trump actually cooperating with the Democrats – and Neocons—who promulgate this narrative. Which is all the more absurd because we thus have Trump punishing the Russians with sanctions for supposedly helping him get elected even though common sense tells us 1) that such is impossible with the limited means at the Russians’ disposal, and 2) that no one would sincerely wish to punish someone for helping them get elected president! You would think a man of integrity with sufficient intelligence to debate the Democrats on this key issue would have been able to defeat this absurd Democrat narrative. But that is not happening. And if the American mind cannot be won by intellectual means, then they are reduced to lower animals grappling with each other over the satisfaction of their basic needs. No civilization can stand under these circumstances. An American with normal mental faculties would consider that, after all, based on the amounts of money that the Russians can afford to spend, the Russian propaganda to which Americans are exposed must surely be less than 1% of the propaganda disseminated by each of the political parties, counting both direct paid political ads and the biased commentaries of journalists who support one or the other party, and therefore, the effect of the Russian propaganda is certainly negligible. Yet, by and large, Americans are apparently not challenging the absurdity of blaming the Russians for stealing the elections. Nor are they questioning the fantasy of “Russian aggression.” The poll results reported above prove this. Americans are going right along with the flawed and dishonest narrative spouted by the lying msm and political class. Of course, to figure all this out requires a bit of intellectual effort, and it appears that Americans are not willing and/or not able to make this effort, suggesting that Americans are dangerously naïve. There are, of course, people who have functional intelligence that enables them to support their families in professional careers. Yet when it comes to analysing political situations, they are completely helpless. They are analogous to idiot-savants, some of whom can add up a long column of figures in their heads – a feat well beyond the ability of mere mortals – and yet are incapable of doing any sort of complex analysis that normal people do every day to survive in the workaday world. This raises the question: Is America a nation of idiot-savants? It’s a fair question in light of the above-reported poll results. There are also the myriad other accusations against the Russians, which make no sense whatsoever. After all, it was American NGOs and government officials and their European allies that went to Kiev and instigated and promoted the illegal and violent Maidan coup and then targeted the Ukrainians with propaganda that convinced them that people who speak Russian are somehow evil. Normal people would not even entertain such an empty headed notion for a second. They’d think it was a joke. Yet the US government and, to a large extent, the US grassroots, support a Ukraine featuring Pravyi Sektor, which is openly and proudly fascist and can trace its roots to “heroes” like Stepan Bandera, who collaborated with Adolph Hitler. The US has managed to imbue the Ukrainian population with a virulent and dangerous form of anti-Russian sentiment that has induced the government and militia groups to attack peaceful Russian speaking communities in Donbass, even burning some pro-Russians alive in one instance which is given short shrift in the Western press – in fact, BBC reported this without attributing the atrocity to any group, as if it had been a simple accident. Further, a significant segment of Ukrainian society belongs to openly fascist groups like the Azov Battalion and the Pravyi Sektor. And the US government is fine with that. In fact, Washington sends deadly weapons to this openly fascist government so that they can continue to kill people in Donbass without being able to articulate why they are doing this. After all, why explain your actions when your willing lemmings will buy your propaganda anyhow. The outcome of all this Russia hate in Ukraine was that the people in Crimea were rightfully afraid to be part of this hateful nation that threatened their very existence, and chose by referendum to accede to Russia. Apparently Americans and the rest of the West believe, against logic, that this accession of Crimea to Russia (not the same as annexation) is “Russian aggression.” A half-way intelligent American would realize that the Russians were right to accept these Crimeans into their country, regardless of the propaganda, because after all, the Americans were the real aggressors in initiating and promoting the illegal coup, and the Ukrainian government – hand-picked by the US – provoked the Russian speaking parts of Ukraine to the extreme. But where are all the halfway intelligent Americans? Gallup found mostly gullible victims of US propaganda. Further, the Georgian war was not Russian aggression at all. The Russians were defending the South Ossetians from Georgian aggression, even though the Russians were blamed for aggression there as well, the knee-jerk reaction of the US to any military action by the Russians. A little research makes this clear. But yet, every move the Russians make is labelled as evil or at least hostile to American interests and as the above-described Gallup poll results show, virtually the entire West swallows this yarn. If the American people can’t see how they are being hoodwinked, then they are victims not only of government and msm propaganda but of their own naiveté. It seems that only a near-collapse of the US economy will convince Americans that they have been beating a dead horse all these years. And with a $22 trillion debt hanging over their heads, it can’t be too far away. Relevant: https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2019/03/02/gallup-finds-americans-have-been-very-deceived-regarding-united-states-image-around-world.html https://www.voanews.com/a/new-poll-examines-how-russians-americans-perceive-each-other/4809670.html
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