[Aaus-list] NY Review of Books - Crimea: Putin vs. Reality by Timothy Snyder

Max Pyziur pyz at brama.com
Fri Mar 7 16:33:02 EST 2014


NY Review of Books - Crimea: Putin vs. Reality by Timothy Snyder
This is the third installment in Timothy Snyder’s series on Russian 
ideology and the Ukrainian revolution. Earlier articles examined the 
Kremlin’s Eurasian ideology and its propaganda about the Kiev uprising.
http://www.nybooks.com/blogs/nyrblog/2014/mar/07/crimea-putin-vs-reality/


" ... In view of its patent absurdity, why is this propaganda so important 
to Putin’s regime? Most obviously, propaganda serves the technical purpose 
of preparing the way for war.  ..."

" ... But propaganda has a deeper and more important function. Propaganda, 
at least in the old Soviet Union, was not an edited version of reality, 
but rather a crucial part of the endeavor to create a different reality. 
..."

" ... Soviet propaganda was not a version of the world in which we live 
but rather a representation of the world to come. ..."


"The costs of what Russia has done are very real, for Europe, for Ukraine, 
and for Russia itself. Russian propaganda has elegantly provided a 
rationale for Russian tactics and articulately defined a Russian dream for 
Ukraine. But in the end propaganda is all that unites the tactics and the 
dream, and that unity turns out to be wishful. There is no actual policy, 
no strategy, just a talented and tortured tyrant oscillating between 
mental worlds that are connected only by a tissue of lies. Putin faces a 
choice: use far more violence, in the hope that another surge will finally 
make the dream come true, or seek an exit in which he can claim some 
victory—which would be wise but deflating. He appears to feel the weight 
of this choice."



Reads like Tony Montana near his delusional end: "Say 'hello' to my little 
friend."

This all may just lead to somebody "playing rough."


MP
pyz at brama.com


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