The Great Class War of Ukraine, Through the Eyes of a Liberal

Today I came across a well-written article in the New York Times, The ‘Wild Field’ Where Putin Sowed the Seeds of War. A well-written propaganda piece masquerading as a news story. Journalist Jeffrey Gettleman uses compelling descriptions and well-placed dog whistles to convey a clear message to America’s liberals, and antagonize their deepest trigger, irrational hysterical fear, disgust, and hatred of working class people.

What’s particularly fascinating is that I just recently mentioned the class war aspects of the Ukraine conflict:

Look at the western propaganda surrounding the war in Ukraine over the past 8+ years, and really think about the implications of it, and how those implications apply to ethnicity and most of all, social class… consider this theatrical trailer for the 2018 Ukrainian propaganda film Donbass.

The trailer tells you everything you need to know. The heroes of the film, emphasizing the German journalist, and the middle class car owner. Really, think about this for a moment, and how telling it is that the very first “hero” shown in the trailer is a German journalist, not even a Ukrainian. See, the Kiev government and their propagandists strive to portray themselves as affluent middle class liberals, and that’s part of the reason why this “drama” goes to such ridiculous lengths to stroke the egos of western liberal journalists. Meanwhile, Donbass depicts Russian separatists in Eastern Ukraine as dumb, ignorant, redneck white trash. There’s a long sequence making fun of dumb, stupid Russians in a trashy wedding, and another long sequence making fun of a trashy Russian woman trying to convince her grandmother to leave her apartment and go to a separatist stronghold. These cinematic sequences have no value or moral lesson except to emphasize to the western viewer that “Ukrainians” are affluent (and probably homosexual) liberals consistent with “European values.” Meanwhile, Russians are portrayed as working-class people who are stupid and should be viewed with contempt.

Gettleman’s article four years later follows the same template and invokes the same stereotypes. The good-guy Ukrainian Oleksandr Khainus is a well-to-do land owner and a politician in the local liberal(!) party. The pro-Russia guy, Volodymyr Tsyhankov, is a redneck who pickles fruits and vegetables from his garden. But Gettleman’s real heroes aren’t even local oligarchs like Khainus. They’re the journalists:

People flooded into the Donbas streets waving Russian flags. At first, said Alisa Sopova, a journalist for a Donbas newspaper at the time, “We were sure they were fake people brought in from Russia to pose for Russian TV.”

“But when we went out and talked to them,” she said, “we learned they were locals, working-class people, mostly. And it was frustrating. They were just falling for manipulation, and we knew they’d suffer for it.”

Ms. Sopova, who is now studying anthropology at Princeton [emphasis mine], tried to reason with some of them, including her grandmother. “I told her: ‘You’re using banks. You’re getting your pension. Do you realize what you’re supporting will destroy it all?’”

But they did not listen.

“They didn’t know it would turn out this way,” she said. “And now it’s too late.”

If Khainus doesn’t quite resonate with our liberals, then Sopova the journalist studying at Princeton definitely will. See how it works? Pro-Ukraine people in Donbass are portrayed as smart and well-educated, pro-Russia people are portrayed as under-educated and easily manipulated by Putinist propaganda.

Of course there’s a section about the weaponization of language, a tactic that our liberals are absolutely in love with:

“I’d go into the supermarket to buy some meat, and the shopkeeper tells me, ‘If you don’t speak Ukrainian, I’m not going to sell you any meat,’” Mr. Tsyhankov said. “I’ve been speaking Russian my whole life. How do you think that made me feel?”

He looked down at his hands, humiliated even by the memory.

What I found even more peculiar is how the author emphasized that Tsyhankov likes Americans, but made no such mention about the Ukrainian politician Khainus. At first, this might seem as odd, shouldn’t the good guy readers are supposed to sympathize with be the one who likes Americans? Well, no, not if your readers are liberals who hate and fear American workers just as much as they hate and fear Russian workers.

And that is the linchpin to all the propaganda surrounding the Ukraine conflict. The stereotype of the ignorant redneck Russian is completely interchangeable with the ignorant redneck American. In the eyes of liberal elites and their sycophants in the legacy media, American Trump supporters and Russian Putin supporters are two flavors of the same working-class enemy.

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The comic is from Stonetoss (oh boy, when’s he right, he’s right).

Ian Kummer

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