Thursday, December 29, 2011
We lost the propaganda war
The title refers to the Cold War, on which I have been meditating recently, what with the death of Vaclav Havel and the release of the new, completely inadequate version of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy. While militarily and politically the West won, in the more insiduous field of propaganda, it lost. We can see that in the neurotic anti-Americanism that makes people support some of the most oppressive regimes and ideologies in the world, in the continuing support for the once and future President, now Prime Minister Putin because he appears to be anti-Western, and, above all, in the refusal to face up to the truth about Communism. If you have any doubts about this, have a look at this interview the BBC conducted about the events of 2011 with their historian of choice: the life-long Communist and Stalinist (as long as it was the party line) and denial of Communist crimes, Eric Hobsbawm. I suggest you keep a sick-bucket somewhere close to hand.
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Glad to say I've never heard of the bureaucrat Hobsbawn or read him...
ReplyDeleteNot a bureaucrat but an historian. I can't believe there is anybody who has not heard of him. His books are everywhere, he is on every reading list and he is interviewed far too frequently for my liking.
ReplyDeleteHobsbawm is notorious and is akin to the Judas sheep. As for the BBC I gave up watching it a long time ago, and now I find even BBC radio to be un-listenable.
ReplyDelete(As posted on a blog that links here:) If anyone wants to understand why it is that the British establishment is entirely debauched they need know only that Robert Conquest has a CMG and Eric Hobsbawm has a CH. (The Marxist is a month older than the great man.)
ReplyDeleteOff the mark as usual, Helen. The Left did win the propaganda war but this has little to do with Anti-Americanism or support for Putin. Quite the opposite. True leftists like the late Hitchens have been pro-American for years because they understand how America has changed since the days of the Cold War. It is America as the violent enforcer of globalism and liberalism which is now the seat of world revolution and the destroyer of culture and identity. America is Soviet Union 2.0.
ReplyDeleteAnd one of the BBC's favourite organisations sought for opinion on social matters is 'DEMOS', founded by the staff of 'Marxism today' after the cold war funding (and readership) disappeared. Recent 'chairs' of Demos have included the future EU commissioner 'Nick Clegg'.
ReplyDeleteI can't listen to Radio 4 anymore, inside the BBC bubble the lefty 'journalists' can't smell the stink of propaganda and stale stateist ideology that permeates practically all of their output.
Butterworth wrote: It is America as the violent enforcer of globalism and liberalism..
ReplyDeleteGood point. And inassimilable immigration/multiculturalism, which has resulted in the fragmentation of the Europe.
So nice to have two trolls instead of one. And it is good that the idiot Adrian Butterworth who is, on his own account, anti-capitalist, i.e. socialist and a nationalist, has now started reading other postings apart from the ones he is told to read, which is on Russia. Or is it the fact that I mentioned Mr Putin that drew him to this one? Interesting experiment to be conducted here. Oh and DP111, there is no "the" before Europe. Maybe it was a misprint but maybe you just don't know about articles and that, if I may say so, is a mistake made by people whose first language is a Slavonic one.
ReplyDeleteYou'll have to forgive Helen, DP111. In her world anyone who disagrees with her or who approaches a topic from a slightly different angle must be a troll ordered by Putin to post on her blog. (Even if you happen to have a generally favorable view of the anti-Putin protests as I do) The reason I haven't commented on her EU articles is because I generally agree with them having been a frequent reader of EUreferendum for years.
ReplyDeleteHobsbawm is a scumbag traitor like to Noam Chomsky, and both should have been shot years ago.
ReplyDeleteDear little troll. You are once again spewing forth rubbish without bothering to check the truth. If you read discussions on this blog instead of using it for your rants (not that I mind though I am beginning to find them repetitive) you would see that there are plenty of those who disagree. Sometimes we convince each other, sometimes we agree to disagree. That is not what you are doing: you are ranting according to a fairly predictable pattern. Hence, the distinction between you and the other one with the Slavonic grammar and those who actually argue. You are, undoubtedly a troll who repeats well-worn matras. Those who disagree with me on something I write are people who disagree according to what they think or believe. There is a difference. Now take it back to the people who are feeding you with your rants.
ReplyDeleteNobody is feeding me with mantras, Helen. The notion that the Russian government is busy trolling an obscure blog read by a handful of British eurosceptics is truly delusional.
ReplyDeleteI'm not sure exactly what you mean by "inadequate" in respect of the film of 'Tinker, Tailor...'. It was not, and could not be, an exact replication of either book or TV series for very obvious reasons. However, I thought it captured exactly what I call the elegy to a long-lost England which le Carre's book illustrates so well.
ReplyDelete