ONLY A MASOCHIST WOULD MEME ABOUT UKRAINE
How to argue for peace in Ukraine when the whole world is brainwashed: PART ONE
INTRODUCTION
My dear reader, I must talk to you about a subject that has vexed my on-line discourse for the past three years and was the inspiration for many of my early memes. It’s a subject that you will likely will disagree with me on: the conflict you know as “Russia’s war on Ukraine,” but one that is more accurately framed as the “U.S./Russia Proxy War in Ukraine.” You might even call it “Biden’s proxy war on Russia,” as support for Ukraine was the policy he cared the most about. Throughout his presidency Biden began every major address by pushing the war effort in Ukraine. Genocide Joe’s number one priority in terms of policy was ensuring billions in funding to Ukraine and Israel, even at times when American infrastructure was crumbling and the federal government’s response to natural disasters was woefully inadequate.
But this is not just Biden, the U.S. and NATO have been pushing conflicts with Russia since the 1990s and Biden is the latest vessel to implement what the war machine has always wanted. NATO was created to defend against the Soviet Union; in the absence of a Soviet Union it exists to fight Russia and antagonize for war more broadly. Plus, as Biden’s mental faculties were declining, all hands-on decisions regarding foreign policy were made by Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. Regardless of whatever partisan framing you want to give the war’s title, it never would have begun if the powers that be had been competent and well-meaning enough to prioritize peace negotiations over war.
It has been hard to find friends and easy to makes enemies on this issue. On Israel/Palestine my antiwar peeps are on the leftist subreddits and are easy to find on Twitter and TikTok. On Ukraine my people are hard to find, (at least until recently) right-wingers and left-wingers all mostly agreed that there are two kinds of people: Ukraine supporters and Putin’s Puppets. The online community who agree with me are the hosts of YouTube alternative news shows and their following, or select randoms yelling into the void of Substack. The numbers of “antiwar” leftists on the issue of Ukraine have been woefully low because the propaganda supporting it has been so effective – really I have never seen more effective and wide sweeping propaganda in my life -- that people all along the political spectrum have accepted the neoconservative framing.
The antiwar populist right, who take a libertarian position against American interventionism, have been the most vocal against funding Ukraine. The public in general have been conditioned by Russiagate to believe the right are somehow in bed with the Russians so the smear job of labeling them as “Putin’s Puppets” or “Russian trolls” has been easy to make and instantly believed. And now we exist in a bizarro world where in the eyes of the general public supporting peace is a fringe right-wing position and wanting endless war is a moderate liberal position. I will get into the leftist argument against the war in part two. But the corporate Republicans in power, like Lindsay Graham and Marco Rubio, ensured that Biden got bipartisan support for his Ukraine war funding. Because the Ukraine war is not a Democrat or a Republican effort -- it is a neoconservative effort -- and the military industrial complex controls both parties.
I have consumed so much media and engaged on this topic so much that it was become personal for me. And for a moment it was scary too.
In mid-2022 I made the mistake of posting the above meme on the “antiwar” subreddit. At the time the sub was filled with posts of how heroic Russian protesters protesting Putin’s escalations were. Those protestors are brave but the point of these posts was to denigrate any Americans who are protesting Biden’s foreign policy. They intentionally miss the point that Americans have no sway on what the Russian government does but they can sway their own government through protest. When I posted it initially, I got positive comments and about a hundred upvotes. But then the bots and propagandists working for the department of homeland security swooped in and the post was downvoted to zero and the comments became loaded with accounts calling me a puppet of Putin (it is difficult to tell the difference between intelligence agents and people genuinely brainwashed by war propaganda but a look at user post history shows I was attacked by a combination of both). In order to control public discourse on this issue US intelligence agencies were running an orchestrated campaign across all social media platforms to ensure wrongthink on Ukraine was squashed. Please see links below from Lee Fang and the Intercept with more information on this.
When I realized what was happening, I got scared. Does this mean the feds are going to start monitoring my online activities? Will I be doxed by an overzealous Ukraine advocate? The tone of the messages were very creepy, along the lines of “I can see from your post history that you are giving aide and comfort to the enemy,” as if having a contrarian opinion meets the definition of treason. I deleted the meme because this felt like more heat than I can handle. But then someone took the meme, edited the last panel to make it seem homophobic and posted it with my watermark (I stopped putting watermarks on my memes after that). I sent a message to the moderator of the antiwar sub asking for this meme to be removed. But I got no response. Then I realized I screwed up posting on this sub because there is only ONE moderator. All subreddits have multiple moderators because no one person could oversee all the activity unless it was their paid full-time job. Having just one moderator shows it has been taken over by a government agency tasked with monitoring and influencing online discourse on US foreign policy.
Aside: I recently returned to antiwar to see it had loosened up a bit on this issue. As the Trump administration now is pursuing a policy of peace talks the feds have stopped persecuting people who speak out against the war in Ukraine. There was even a post of a video showing a man with down syndrome who was forcibly conscripted into the Ukrainian army. The government has eased up on censoring about Ukraine but they are going full throttle censoring speech on the Israel/ Palestine conflict.
Then these users started following me across subs and arguing with any post I made on this subject, trying to creep me out with the we’re watching you vibe. I was on the sub dedicated to the YouTube show Breaking Points, which has had some good reporting on Ukraine. One user posted, “How come this is a normal sub but whenever the subject of Ukraine is brought up we are flooded with bots?” And it was true, any discussion on this subject was squashed by relentless Ukraine bots. This also happened on any subreddits dedicated to YouTube personalities that took the position of wanting peace talks in Ukraine. Once subs become infiltrated by people subverting the original intention of the sub all one can do is leave. Over time I was banned from several subs for my position. And honestly, I became intimidated and stopped posting on this subject for a while. I had to ask myself: did I come to Reddit to have a bad time and get put on a government watch list? Am I enjoying this?
Over the last year as the propaganda machine has loosened its reigns and more and more truth on the subject has filtered out, I have lost the fear and started to engage again. Mostly I am responding to other people’s posts and arguing with them in the comments section. This is a time consuming and mostly fruitless endeavor. Every time I say “America should stop fighting a proxy war and negotiate peace,” I am hit up with comments like “you’re Putin’s useful idiot,” “source?” and “the only way to end the war is for Russia to get the fuck out.” And over and over I have to type the same lengthy answers, supply the same links, and for what? Some guy in the comments section (me) cannot successfully deprogram against overwhelming propaganda. So the purpose of this article is to address every possible objection in a question and answer type format. Then, next time I get into an argument with someone I can just cut and paste my prewritten answer with supporting links and then be done with it. Even if I didn’t change their opinion, I still destroyed them with a superior argument. If you agree with me on this subject you can do the same; just cut and paste an answer from this article with the supporting links and call it a day. It is not worth spending your time going back and forth with brainwashed folk. At least you did your part trying to throw them a bone of education. I just wish I had written this article when Biden was still president, because the overall viewpoint is anti-Biden, not pro-Trump. Because Trump’s Ukraine policy is the silver lining of a dark cloud bursting with the executive action equivalent of acid rain. And yes, Trump’s rare minerals idea is bad.
Sources:
Newsweek: How Many People Have Died in the Russia-Ukraine War?
Cato Institute: Four Western Provocations That Led to U.S.-Russia Crisis Today
The Intercept: Leaked Documents Outline DHS's plan to police disinformation
My biggest and best source is journalist Aaron Maté. He is a writer who cares passionately about this issue and one can be honestly educated on this issue just by following his articles and YouTube videos alone. When someone says source, I should just be able to say “go read Aaron Maté,” and I will be linking and quoting much of his work. One person I was arguing with said Maté is ‘not the best journalist on this subject but they best journalist that confirms your bias.’ And he has a point. My bias is that I am automatically suspicious of the activities of the US security state when they lead to involvement in war and I am open to believing that their activities are nefarious. Maté shares this bias, but he is a journalist who vets his facts and does not come to hyperbolic conclusions. That is why I trust him.
There is another Maté objection I should address. After mentioning Maté to someone I was debating on Reddit, the guy googled him, and cut and paste parts of his Wikipedia page that said “In June 2022, the Institute for Strategic Dialogue (ISD) published an analysis of social media accounts, individuals, outlets and organizations who disseminated disinformation about the Syrian conflict. Maté is said in the report to be the most prolific spreader of disinformation about the Syrian conflict since 2020 among the 28 actors the group investigated,” and that he is not credible because he spoke at the United Nations on Syria hosted by the Russian Federation. The reason for this is that no western country wanted to know the truth about the Douma chemical attack in Syria, and to speak he needed to be invited by a member country. But that does not mean he owes Russia anything. He has called Russia’s invasion of Ukraine illegal and condemns any Russian military aggressions. In a video on how NATO provoked the war in Ukraine, Maté says, “It’s important to make a distinction between being provoked and justified. To argue that Russia’s invasion is justified one has to meet a very high burden that I believe Russia has not met, but when it comes to the issue at hand I think there’s an overwhelming case that the answer is yes . . . our governments are behind the provocation.” And he makes his case very succinctly in this ten-minute video. Please watch.
I took a look at this ISD website and they have articles like “Recommending Hate: How TikTok’s Search Engine Algorithms Reproduce Societal Bias,” which is basically a report made to justify the banning of TikTok because it has too much pro-Palestinian speech on it. The site has all kinds of reports that analyze what they call hate and misinformation -- but really this is an international censorship group.
And because discussing propaganda and misinformation is so important when talking about Ukraine I have to link to renown scholar Noam Chomsky’s view on the Ukraine conflict. Also I would urge everyone to read his book Manufacturing Consent. In the book he discusses how the media worked with the government to misinform the public so they would support wars in southeast Asia and central and south America from the from the 60s to the 80s. The teachings are very relevant now to understanding how consent for the Ukraine war (If Putin isn’t stopped, there will be a domino effect and he will conquer all of Europe) and against Palestine (If you don’t support Israel you are an antisemite who backs terrorists). But the response I get is one that is decades old: that Chomsky is a genocide denier in Cambodia and later Bosnia. Neither of these accusations are true, he debates the numbers of the dead, who actually did the killing, and the definition of genocide. He never denies genocide, in fact throughout his career he has done the opposite and called attention to under reported genocide and mass killing in central and South America, as well as Asia.
But I have found that the people who demand that the point I made in the comments section be backed up by a source are never satisfied with the source provided. And after a quick glance at the source they will counter with a comment saying that it is not credible and link to one they think is better, which usually is a corporate establishment news organization of record. But these people don’t know that when it comes to foreign policy the New York Times often does very little journalism and a lot of stenography. They have their sources at the intelligence agencies that tell them what to say and then they print it with little push back and minimal verification. Journalists these days never ask “why don’t you negotiate peace?” they ask “why aren’t you doing more for the war effort?” When major publications do tell the truth about foreign wars it is only when enough time has passed that nothing can be done about it.
That’s why for every alternative media source I provide I will also be providing links to more mainstream publication that the normies will be less likely to argue with. One shouldn’t just rely on alternative media. I do think it is important to read establishment news but one must read it with the critical thinking skills needed to dissect the facts from the spin, always reading between the lines. That’s where good alternative media comes in handy: to add context and decode the bias of mainstream articles you might have missed with a straight reading.
And with regard to links to YouTube videos, I have had people tell me “a link to a podcaster giving their opinion means nothing to me.” Ok, yes a person giving their opinion is not the same as objective reporting. But I am providing you a link to this particular video because in the video the hosts are making an argument that is based on facts, and they are providing a different perspective on a story you may already know and are discussing establishment news sources that you trust. I do not link to videos of right-wing influencers shooting the shit. All video links will be accompanied by print article links that verify the same information since you think print is more credible than video.
Sources:
Chomsky: OPCW cover-up of Syria probe is 'shocking'
Noam Chomsky - The Atrocities in Cambodia
The Cynical Farce about Cambodia
“You’re spreading Russian Propaganda,” “You’re parroting Russian misinformation,” “You’re a Putin’s Puppet,” and “how’s the weather in St. Petersburg?” are frequent responses I get when I post that I think peace is preferable to continued war and I criticize the US for blocking peace talks and fighting a proxy war. Now I have never posted anything positive about Vladimir Putin and I have never denied that the February 2022 invasion was illegal. Russia has agency and is responsible for who it kills. But people have been conditioned to immediately respond to any criticism regarding US policy in Ukraine as being pro-Russian and feel compelled to do the hall monitor version of McCarthyism. Making baseless accusations and name calling is not an argument. Can you be specific on what you think I said is false? Do you need a source to verify the statement peace is better than war? How do you think Putin pays me? Does he Venmo me the money or does he have a henchman who drops off paper bags of rubles?
But I am willing to ask this question of myself. Do I believe propaganda?
Propaganda is defined as “1: the spreading of ideas, information, or rumor for the purpose of helping or injuring an institution, a cause, or a person. 2: ideas, facts, or allegations spread deliberately to further one's cause or to damage an opposing cause.”
Definition two says that FACTS can be propaganda can just as easily as RUMOR can. With propaganda facts land harder than rumor. For example, there is a rumor that Zelenskyy has a cocaine problem. But the only evidence is that he seems very amped up in interviews and there are supercut videos of him sniffling a lot. This rumor has not captured the imagination of the general public because there isn’t enough proof so it is not effective propaganda.
At the beginning of the Ukraine war there was propaganda that Putin was throwing people out of windows. There had already been stories of him poisoning his political opponents so when I heard the windows story I thought “that sounds about right,” and didn’t feel a need to investigate. The seven people who were alleged to be thrown out of windows were all Russian oligarchs, but as Newsweek points out “the seven oligarchs' lack of known criticism of Russia's invasion and freedom from sanctions lists muddies any potential alleged links between Russia and their deaths.” So that means that these deaths are suspicious and could have been done by Putin’s order even though he doesn’t have motive to kill them. Still, it’s likely enough that Putin is behind these deaths to convict him in the court of public opinion. Plus, Americans are blocked from accessing Russian media so any source that would refute this (maybe the oligarchs are killing each other, and Putin isn’t involved?) is unavailable. That is effective propaganda.
Journalist Lee Fang writes: “In other words, factual information with emotional language that simply overlaps with anything remotely connected to Russian viewpoints is considered disinformation, according to this U.S.-backed consulting firm helping to guide the efforts of Ukrainian think tanks and media . . . These included allegations that NATO is using Ukraine as a pawn in a proxy war against Russia and concerns that Ukrainian politicians are corrupt.”
One night in 2011 I came across a documentary on Colonel Muhammar Gaddafi of Libya. Much of documentary focused on Gaddafi’s perverted sex life. It said he would have school-aged girls abducted from schools and taken to his sex dungeon where they would be sexually tortured for days. Then they would be dropped off on the street, crazed and in shock from the traumatic experience. Months later I saw on the news that he had been dethroned and killed by a poker rammed up his ass. I thought, “that guy fucking deserved it.” I didn’t realize I had been manipulated by propaganda. Libya’s government had been overturned in a CIA orchestrated coup because Gaddafi wanted to get off the standard of the petrol dollar. Having all petrol being traded in dollars is what gives America much of its enormous powers to sanction countries around the world. The media manipulated me (no coincidence this documentary was being shown when it was) to focus on Gaddafi’s perversion, while cable news intentionally did not provide honest context for the reason the coup occurred.
But now is a moment for you to gain insight. Like if you asked a schizophrenic to entertain the thought that maybe the voices in their head are not real and they said ‘yes those voices are hallucinations’ – then this person has gained insight into their condition. So here’s an idea you are going to have to struggle with: Americans are the most propagandized population in the world. Yes, YOU believe propaganda and your brain is violently fighting any deprogramming that tells you the truth: the US isn’t actually spreading democracy, it’s spreading war and instability throughout the world. The government and the media have lied to you about every war and conflict in Vietnam, Honduras, El Salvador, Syria, Palestine, Iraq, Afghanistan and others. Why do you think they are now telling you the truth about Ukraine? The media has manufactured your consent by convincing you this is a war for Ukraine’s freedom against the Russian invaders, when this is an American war against Russia using Ukraine as a proxy.
An example of CNN pushing the neoconservative agenda in 2022:
When I was in college teachers wouldn’t allow us to use Wikipedia as a source when writing an essay because it is frequently inaccurate and manipulated by users -- but people have forgotten the rules of English teachers. I’m sure you won’t believe this but the CIA is writing Wikpedia articles in order to propagandize Americans. According to Wikipedia the statement “the US is using Ukraine as a proxy” is Russian propaganda. But it is true propaganda. We know it’s true because westerners who have an interest in keeping the war going have admitted this. Top of the list is former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson, who is famous for sabotaging peace talks between Russia and Ukraine in April 2022, said in a recent interview “we’re waging a proxy war” in Ukraine. This statement backs up a Russian narrative, and if he had said it in 2022 he would have been called a Russian propagandist. But he said it in 2024 when the American narrative was beginning to crumble. Marco Rubio, who backed every major Ukraine funding bill, now also describes it as a proxy war. And as secretary of state, he is privy to information to know what the US government has been doing behind the scenes; but I’m sure he knew the truth long before taking that office.
Let me tell you some Russian propaganda. Regardless of who is at fault for starting the war, Russia has won most of their objectives and continuing the war will mean that Ukrainians will die for nothing. Joe Biden’s horrible leadership in Ukraine has led to a preventable war with hundreds of thousands of casualties. If you continue the war Russia will just gain more ground and more people will die. People who told you Ukraine could win were lying to you from the start. Look at a map. Russia is a lot bigger and has all the resources it needs to win a drawn-out war. However Russia is not powerful enough to beat a united NATO. The idea that it would follow up the conquering of Ukraine with a rampage through Europe is ludicrous.
Buy stock in Raytheon
The corporations of the military industrial complex: Boeing, Raytheon, RTX and Lockheed Martin are doing blockbuster business thanks to Ukraine and Israel. If you are looking for a good return on your investment you should buy stock in these companies. According to Yahoo! Finance “Europe witnessed its steepest rise in three decades and saw its defense spending total $480 billion in 2022 . . . RTX Corporation has received $3 billion worth of orders since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, that are tied with replenishing Kyiv . . . Lockheed Martin Corporation guided multiple launch rocket system, as well as the Javelin anti-tank missiles - have proven pivotal in Ukraine’s war efforts against Russia . . .”
This war is happening because a war always has to be happening. The Afghanistan war was wrapped up so there had to be something new in its place. People are dying for greed, and that is what you are being manipulated to support. Watch this video of Zelenskyy visiting a US arms plant and signing bombs. The American arms industry love Zelenskyy. And a new selling point for the war is that it is a jobs creator and much of the money stays home with American corporations. Yes there are a lot of factory jobs dedicated to that industry but most of the money does not go in the pockets of those workers. No, the ruling class keep most of that money, and the war is a scam to funnel your tax paying dollars to the arms manufacturers.
As Leonid Ragozin put it recently: “The West has brilliantly defeated Moscow (and perhaps to some extent – truth) in the information domain across multiple media platforms serving different audiences. And yet, it is bound to lose in the battlefield to a man who might be brutal and criminal, but who favours substance over form and whose decisions are grounded in reality rather than wishful thinking: Vladimir Putin.”
America has won the propaganda war but Russia won the war.
This is the end of part one of what will be a four-part article. Part two will focus on the difference between the populist left and the populist right’s argument against war in Ukraine.
Thanks for reading!
Sources:
AP: Video of Zelenskyy talking about cocaine is deceptively edited
Full List of Russians to Fall Out of Windows Since Putin Invaded Ukraine
The Ecologist: Why Qaddafi had to go: African gold, oil and the challenge to monetary imperialism
Al Jazeera: The Big Picture -- The Lust for Libya: How a nation was torn apart.
Yahoo Finance! Top 20 Defence Contractors of 2024
Al Jazeera: The blame game over the debacle in Ukraine has started
AP: Ukraine’s Zelenskyy visits Pennsylvania ammunition plant to thank workers and ask for more
Due Dissidence: Morning Joe GIVES AWAY THE GAME in Ukraine War Pitch
Breaking Points: Pentagon RACES To Censor Leaked Documents
The Nation: Neo-Nazis and the Far Right Are On the March in Ukraine
