Originally published at: Russian woman in Ukraine is being shelled but her parents in Moscow don't believe her | Boing Boing
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Her parents are good “putinittes”. I feel for her, they probably voted for tRump too…
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Trump is still president, and COVID is hoax, мой ребенок.
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Putin sure knows how to use propaganda.
Look how many Americans refuse to believe anything that contradicts the narrative they hear on Fox News, then imagine how much worse the problem would be if there were no other news sources in the country.
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Immediately thought of this. Parents believing obvious propaganda over the experiences of their own children deserve to die alone and afraid, abandoned by those they have failed.
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Luckily, that could never happen here in the US.
Bahahahaha I couldn’t even keep a straight face while typing it
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She’s so upset by this little disagreement that they may never hear from her again.
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I’ve been hearing a number of variations of this story - Russian family members of those in Ukraine simply refusing to believe what’s going on. It’s pretty depressing in terms of what it says about human willingness to believe propaganda.
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Russian media also say that the Ukrainians are firing from civilian areas and mounting “provocations” by firing missiles at their own cities, so they’ve got answers for everything.
ETA:
“I called her again in a few days, hoping she followed my advice, read some independent news outlets, and watched videos I sent her,” Artem said. “Unfortunately, nothing changed at all. Even after the destroyed apartment buildings in Kyiv, Kharkiv, Cherkasy, Sumy… She said we were hitting our own citizens with high-precision artillery.”
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I hope republicans are paying close attention, and have enough self-awareness to realize that trump has always used the same manipulations on his followers.
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One of these fakes, a screenshot of a nonexistent “CNN” report about actor Steven Seagal being spotted in Ukraine, was shared and then deleted by prominent podcaster Joe Rogan on Monday.
https://edition.cnn.com/2022/03/05/politics/fact-check-fake-cnn-ukraine/index.html
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Russia has long been a stage 3 propaganda nation: the official line was ridiculous, and that was the point. The message was not meant to convince you that everything was wonderful and everyone was happy and that unicorns flew over the Kremlin shitting rainbows every morning. The message was meant to convince you to shut the hell up because the authorities could say whatever they wanted and there was nothing you could do about it.
People within Russia have said that it was explicitly at that level: that you were free to believe what you want, but you couldn’t publicly contradict the government line.
Well, Russia has officially gone into stage 4: you are meant to believe this. And it’s not necessarily a moral failing when you’re living a totalitarian Orwellian regime which controls all the sources of information, and you really do see five lights. Because they really do see five lights. They really do believe that Ukraine was always part of Russia, that Ukrainians are simultaneously gay Jewish Nazis, and their Slavic brothers under occupation, that Putin loves them and wants them to be happy. Because it is now compulsory to believe it, and their lives are at stake if anyone thinks they don’t.
This isn’t like the US, where your uncle with Fox News on in the corner keeps going on about immigrants shooting all the jobs while stealing welfare in the deepstate. Your racist uncle has other channels he could turn to at a moment’s notice. He won’t be arrested if he tries to watch anything other than Fox News. He has a choice. Russians, right now, don’t. It’s not that we should castigate them for believing what literally every official news source they have access to is telling them it’s compulsory to believe, it’s that we should be so much more in awe of the people who are holding on to the truth, in a country where the truth is literally illegal.
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Being charitable here, but I wonder if this is some kind of deep denial that allows these parents to keep functioning, otherwise the knowledge that their children were/are in such extreme danger would cause a complete psychological breakdown.
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I don’t entirely disagree with your point, but remember that there are Russians protesting this war. The woman whose parents don’t believe her is also from Russia, but hasn’t fallen into believing Ukraine is attacking itself. Yes, it’s oppressive and terrible, but it’s not literally mind control. I would say that refusing to believe your own daughter when she tells you her life is in danger is absolutely a moral failing, in any circumstances.
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I see your point, but I think the thing to remember is “In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act”.
We can moralise about how we’d act in those circumstances, but we didn’t wake up to realise that it has almost overnight become literally illegal to disagree with the government. We have other news sources who aren’t telling us that anyone who says different than the official sources is not just lying, but a Nazi and the enemy of the state. We are seeing news of those protests and arrests which Russians aren’t seeing. (And as foreign news reporters get arrested or leave before they are arrested, we will see less and less of them.)
The whole point of what Putin is doing in Russia right now is to make those people who are still protesting go away. Certainly to make them invisible.
Those people who are still protesting in Russia, I don’t think we realise exactly how brave they are just to go into the street and say “Putin is lying”. And I fear that it won’t be long before all the bravest people have disappeared into the Russian prison system, if they’re lucky. And the brave people who are left won’t be shouting anything in the streets, they’ll be back to samizdat and whispers in the dark and wondering whether the person they’re confiding in is FSB or not.
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“provocations” Jayzus.
How the fuck does one “provoke” an invading army?
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That’s easy. All you have to do is exist.
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Well, that’s just it. You don’t have to do anything. They’re sufficiently provoked to start with.
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Unfortunately, we must acknowledge that the fascist death cult is a world-wide phenomenon. Sacrifices of children to Moloch’s furnace, enabled by the systematic promotion of ignorance, is a distinct part of it. We’ve seen it with American ammosexuals and Qnuts and we’re seeing it here.
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