Remember that old Hans Christian Anderson story about emperor who walked through the streets naked, and everybody had to pretend he had clothes, out of fear of death? Good thing it’s just a silly story and didn’t become reality, right? Aside from fairy tales, when we imagine totalitarianism, we reflexively invoke alleged examples from other countries and cultures. We rarely even invoke Nazi Germany. We say “This is just like Stalinist Russia!” or “This is just like Maoist China!” In reality, we are in an echo-chamber of our own making, and our perception of other cultures is just a mirror image of our own.
In George Orwell’s 1984, people have to believe and repeat demonstrateably untrue statements, and are arrested and tortured if they don’t comply. “War is peace, freedom is slavery, ignorance is strength.” Many of these falsehoods require personal and society-wide amnesia, such as the statement “we are at war with East Asia, we have always been at war with East Asia.” This is of course untrue, as the alliances between the world’s three great super powers are constantly shifting. Sometimes Oceania is allied with Eurasia against East Asia, and sometimes allied with East Asia against Eurasia (sometimes, presumably, Eurasia and East Asia are allied against Oceania).
When the main character is arrested and tortured, and in one of these psychological games he’s forced to accept 2 + 2 = 5. In other words, he has to accept, and actively embrace, an obviously untrue statement just because an authority figure told him it’s true. Tomorrow, 2 + 2 might equal 3 or 7, and he must accept these new ideologically correct statements with equal enthusiasm.
In one of his other books, Animal Farm, the emancipated farm livestock hold political meetings, but regardless of how they’re marketed, they’re not actual debates. Any time a political dissident attempts to speak, the sheep chant “four legs good, two legs bad!” drowning him out. It’s not discourse, it’s just an act of blunt force, white noise, to drown out and silence all opposition.
Now consider the Orwellian realities of the “collective west” and “rules based world order” today. It is impossible to define a woman unless you’re a biologist. Men can have periods and become pregnant. Women can get ovarian cancer in their penises. If a person speaks against any of these socially accepted truths, he must either be exiled, or seek redemption in a humiliation ritual.
Major League Baseball pitcher Anthony Bass will reportedly catch the ceremonial first pitch for the Toronto Blue Jays when they kick off their weekend of gay pride celebrations, according to multiple sources.
Bass recently apologized after sharing content on social media that advocated for Christians to boycott Target, Bud Light, and other entities pushing pro-LGBT ideology.
The player said that his post had hurt the “pride community,” which he said includes some of his friends and relatives. He said that he had also apologized to his teammates and that he is “using the Blue Jays’ resources to better educate” himself.
Normal people have to keep silent out of fear of punishment. The problem with being silent though is that silence is consent. The regime becomes progressively more absurd and sadistic with increasingly more absurd demands, like brainwashing children to not know what gender they are. But eventually, even the most stubborn dissident is institutionalized, like an inmate in prison, and comes to love Big Brother.
That’s one of my biggest complaints about what is commonly referred to as “new conservatives” (as opposed to neo-conservatives, or the so-called “alt-right” which was mostly imaginary). These younger conservatives in their 30s and 40s have this idea that “wokeism” is a new thing that only started about 10 years ago. This couldn’t be further from the truth. Wokeism even as a leftist idea goes back to the 1960s, maybe even earlier. Younger conservatives also seem to consistently fail to make the connection between woke gender ideas and classic Orwellian totalitarianism. In 1984, the regime goes out of its way to kill human passion and eroticism. Really, what we’re seeing today isn’t so different, and has the same end result. Every human social space used to have some level of latent, harmless eroticism. Now, men are afraid to even talk to women or be alone with them at work. Gender ideology took this to its extreme, yet logical, conclusion. Take a human being, like a woman that nobody seems to be able to define anymore; pump her full of chemicals, cut off her breasts, mutilate her genitals. She’s not a sexual being anymore, now she’s the perfect automaton for the regime. Gender transition is quite horrifying, sadistic, dangerous, painful, and doesn’t even deliver the promised results of looking like the opposite sex. If you don’t believe me, look at a picture of the process here.
Humiliation and mutilation rituals are not new, and in western society, they go back hundreds of years. But you don’t have to go all the way back to the inquisition or scarlet letter Puritanism to find relevant examples. In the 1950s, chemical castration was a routine punishment for British men who broke anti-sodomy laws. Alan Turing is an example of someone who was viciously cancelled by a conservative regime. His work in decrypting German codes arguably make him the one person most responsible for saving Britain from total defeat in WWII. And yet, he ran afoul of the regime in fairly random way. He made a routine police report of a robbery in his home and in the course of the investigation, authorities discovered that he had a habit of inviting young men over for sex. For this harmless recreational activity he was doing in his own home, one of the country’s greatest heroes was publicly humiliated, canceled, and forced to take chemical castration drugs. Incidentally, chemical castration is now considered by the media to be safe, harmless, and with no lasting consequences, and should be given to as many children as possible so they can choose their own gender (preferably the opposite one).
As for older conservatives, the baby boomers, I don’t understand them, and understand them less as time goes on. I’m 34, so was too young to know any better when the so-called “Arab terrorists” attacked the World Trade Center in 2001, justifying the Global War on Terror, the biggest blunder in American history. And yes, in geopolitical terms, I would characterize it as an even greater blunder than the war in Vietnam. What exactly were boomers thinking when they bought this lie wholesale? And it’s not even about being tricked twice, this generation of American voters has been tricked repeatedly throughout their entire lives. The bad Soviets putting explosives in children’s toys in Afghanistan. The bad Iraqis throwing Kuwaiti babies out of incubators. The bad Libyan soldiers being given Viagra to “weaponized rape” women. Boomers believed every ridiculous lie they were fed over decades, yet have the nerve to carry on with this pretentious attitude of superiority over everyone else.
When it comes to Ukraine, we’re being fed a lie again, and a huge amount of pseudo-history, much of it retroactive. I don’t remember the Cold War naturally, but I have read a lot of American books about the Soviet Union. And of course there were all my school textbooks that talked at length about how bad Stalin was and the Soviet Union was evil and all that. And yet, I don’t remember anything about the current Ukraine narrative. I mean really. If Russians and Ukrainians are ancient archenemies going back hundreds of years, isn’t it weird that it’s hard to find even one book, even an American book, that so much as mentions this before 2016, maybe 2015 at the absolute earliest? In my old school textbooks, Stalin was evil because he starved millions and millions of people, there was no mention of him hating Ukrainians specifically (why would a Georgian guy care about the difference between Ukrainians and Russians? I have yet to see anyone explain that)
Yes, I feel like that guy in 1984. I’m not crazy or misremembering things, I know this for a fact. There was absolutely nothing in any of the media I grew up with suggesting that Russians and Ukrainians are two distinct and antagonistic ethnic groups.
If it was in fact true that Russians have oppressed Ukrainians specifically because they’re Ukrainian for hundreds of years, wouldn’t there be a huge number of American books and Hollywood movies going back to the 1950s? Wouldn’t we have at least one blockbuster thriller with Charlton Heston and John Wayne as heroic Ukrainian freedom fighters against the Russian hordes?
For history books, look at American authors like Reina Pennington in the 1990s and early 2000s. When writing about various historical figures in the Soviet era, there is (as far as I’ve seen) no mention of whether a specific person is “Russian” or “Ukrainian,” and apparently the distinction mattered so little it wasn’t even worth mentioning.
One form of media where there’s quite a bit of public pressure to be historically accurate is computer games. It’s understood that historical nations and factions have to be simplified to fit into a game, but there still must be some basic recognition of where ethnic and cultural splits occur. For example, medieval Turks, Arabs, and Persians can’t be lumped together as one faction, as that would be heretically inaccurate and a lot of players would get mad, especially players from those regions of the world. Their people, civilizations, and militaries were distinct enough that they must be differentiated even in a game. The Holy Roman Empire can be classified as one faction, even though in real life that wasn’t exactly true, but it’s still close enough and everyone understands why a game wouldn’t have dozens of different factions that are all basically the same.
So, let’s look at American games from a past era. Like the 1999 game Age of Empires II: there are no Russians and Ukrainians, just Slavs. The 2002 game Medieval Total War differentiates Slavic nations, but no Ukraine. They’re just part of the Russian faction. The 2006 sequel Medieval Total War II also, made no distinction between Russia and Ukraine.
Maybe there were tons of books, movies, and games talking about the Ukraine™ as a fierce separate nation of people who never wanted anything to do with Russia and I’m simply mistaken. If anyone knows of such an example, I’d appreciate you point it out in the comments.
Now that’s just talking about English, because, ironically, Ukrainian-language books about Ukraine being separate from Russia are apparently so scarce, Biden authorized $100,000 to translate American books about Ukraine into Ukrainian. According to the US embassy website, grants will be given to eligible Ukrainian publishers to translate English books into Ukrainian about… Ukrainian and regional history. Excuse me, but isn’t it weird for Ukraine to not have enough books about Ukrainian history so they have to literally translate American books into their own language? Actually, I’m sure there are thousands of Ukrainian books about this topic, but they’re too Russian. The “Ukraine is separate from Russia” meme is so new, American taxpayers are on the hook for producing new books to push the idea that this has always been true.
Why wouldn’t Cold War propagandists in the CIA push the narrative that Ukraine is an ancient and separate civilization from Russia? Wouldn’t that be a great talking point to push as hard as possible? Well, yes. It would have. I think they would have pushed the narrative, but simply hadn’t thought of it because the “Ukraine is separate” idea didn’t yet exist.
I know I have at least a few readers here older than myself, so if some of you could give some insight on the Ukraine/Russia narrative and how it’s changed over your life, I would appreciate it. Because frankly, as far as I can tell, it was invented out of almost nothing after Maidan. And not even immediately after Maidan, propaganda machine didn’t really swing into full power until a couple of years later.
Ian Kummer
Support my work by making a contribution through Boosty
All text in Reading Junkie posts are free to share or republish without permission, and I highly encourage my fellow bloggers to do so. Please be courteous and link back to the original.
I now have a new YouTube channel that I will use to upload videos from my travels around Russia. Expect new content there soon. Please give me a follow here.
Also feel free to connect with me on Quora (I sometimes share unique articles there).
I’m older than you).
The issue is quite complicated or quite simple, depends on whether you want to cut out all the historical crap and admit that there is little to no difference between Eastern Slavs, or you want to dive into details of conspiracies aimed at dividing Russia/Russian Empire/USSR.
Ukrainian nationalism appeared several times in history, mainly in Western regions. It was groomed by foreign powers to weaken Russia.
Speaking of Western Ukraine, even the infamous Galitchina used to gravitate to a general Russian identity not very long ago at historic terms. The people used to call themselves русины. Things started changing when those lands belonged to the Austro-Hungarian Empire, I guess. Some were absorbed by the ruling nation, some radicalized, some just disappeared.
Yet, I guess you got it right: attempts to make Ukraine great again never took this scale. There were some subversive separatist groups, but no one outside those [groomed] groups would openly say that Ukrainians and Russians are TOTALLY different.
Well yes, I was mostly curious if older westerners can recall how far back this current narrative goes. I don’t think it goes back far at all. As I said, 2015 or 16.
I was raised as an “ukrainian-american” (metro detroit, i’m now 44); emphasis on the ukrainian. The best analogy I have found, is the jewish story. Think diaspora; holocaust = holodomor.
An example of orwell’s cognitive dissonance is that ukraine only exists and prospered in soviet times; with the western ukrainians insisting on the belief of the holodomor (and russia wanting to wipe ukraine off the map) – leads to …
the best analogy might be a traumatized child in between the father(land) and mother(land) ?
[the most petulant of children hail from lviv? father – germany/bandera mother – russia living in a polish city given american money and stories]
*[Is it surprising that hasidic judaism also started in thee ukraine? I am not anti-semitic = my understanding is that jews have been used in similar means all across europe (see balfour declaration as how to control middle east oil).]
here is an interesting article: https://stanislavs.org/roman-dmowski-the-ukrainian-question-political-prophecy-of-1930-coming-true/
“There is no human force capable of preventing Ukraine, separated from Russia and transformed into an independent state, from becoming a crowd of conmen from all over the world, who have been chafing in their own countries; capitalists and those seeking capital, organizers of industry, technicians and traders, speculators and schemers, thugs and organizers of any kind of prostitution: Germans, Frenchmen, Belgians, Italians, Englishmen and Americans would rush [into Ukraine] with the help of locals or nearby Russians, Poles, Armenians, Greeks… A peculiar League of Nations would gather here…
These elements, with the participation of smarter, more skilled in business Ukrainians would produce the guiding layer, the elite of the country. But it would be a special elite, probably because no country could boast such a rich collection of international scoundrels.
Ukraine would become a thorn in the flesh of Europe; people dreaming of cultural production, of a strong and healthy Ukrainian nation, maturing in their own country, would be convinced that rather than their own country, they have an international company, and instead of healthy development, rapid progress of decay and rot.
Whosoever thought that the geographic location of Ukraine and its area, that the state in which the Ukrainian element finds itself, with its spiritual and material resources, and finally, that the role which the Ukrainian question has in today’s economic and political position of the world could be otherwise – he does not have an ounce of imagination.
The Ukrainian question has various advocates, both in Ukraine itself and abroad. Among the latter especially, there are many who know very well what they are doing. There are those, however, who would solve this issue by separating Ukraine from Russia, which they present as very idyllic. Those who are so naïve would do well to keep their hands away from her.”
When I was young, my A-level Russian teacher was a lady who had left Russia with the White Army as a girl. Her family had an estate near Yekaterinoslav (Dnepropetrovsk) and she said that at least before the Revolution, it was harder to understand the people there compared to further north (they spent most of their time in St Petersburg), she never had the impression they were speaking a different language, just another local peasant dialect.
However, in 1917, the Ukrainian SRs stood for the Constituent Assembly separately from the main body of the party, which would suggest that there was at least some kind of national feeling to which a separatist party could successfully appeal.
And of course, in Brat 2, the Ukrainian mafiosi in Chicago airport tells Viktor “Москаль менi не земляк” (probably not spelled right) which isn’t historical proof, but it must have seemed like the sort of thing someone in that position might say for them to put it in the script.
A couple of years ago while home alone I watched a Ukrainian movie (that was me trying to be fair and give both sides a chance to make their case) about the 1917 separatist movement. The movie tried really, REALLY hard to insist that there was some racial difference between Ukrainians and the “muscovites.” Which was funny because – in part because of the convoluted plot and forgettable characters – I absolutely could not tell them apart. For example, there would be a new scene with a bunch of people talking about their military plans, and it would take me several minutes to figure out if these were supposed to be the Ukrainians or the Russians, and sometimes I just had no idea. It was additionally confusing because nobody even dressed differently, they mostly wore plain black, probably because that’s what’s trendy in Hollywood right now and the Ukrainian studio was trying to copy the “gritty” aesthetic.
The actual history is that Cossack hetmen asked for Russian protection 300 years ago.
Russia was hesitant, knowing it would entail a war with Sweden, which it did.
Crimea was given away by Kruschev to commemorate 300 years of brotherhood.
The UA case, it’s hard to find a parallel. 100% of the population can speak Russian, only half can speak passable Ukrainian and are now engaged in language courses to improve. But this ethnogenesis (their constitution is one of the few that protects the “genetic heritage”) is supposedly the effect of Russian oppression, even though nobody can tell the difference and the majority of families feature members from the “other” side.
A very good example of a western “expert” peddling “alternative facts” is Prof. Martin van Creveld in Jerusalem(!) he is an expert on Russian history who wrote a book about Stalin (the bad holodomor guy)
The most hilarious of his article for me was this:
“As per the latest census, 67 percent of Ukrainians use Ukrainian as their “native” language whereas 29 percent use Russian. Most Ukrainian speakers are concentrated in the west and center of the country; whereas Russian ones inhabit in a long arch that starts in the north, extends to the east, and ends in the south. Yet “native” does not necessarily mean day today, as many Ukrainians start using Russian either when they attend school—formerly, having to do so was part of Moscow’s attempts to Russify them—or, as adults, as part of normal social life. To add to the confusion, about 30 percent of the population use both languages interchangeably both at home and elsewhere.”
https://www.martin-van-creveld.com/2336-2/
I think we’ve all seen enough videos of Ukrainian soldiers by now to notice that very few are able to coherently speak Ukrainian under stress, and most speak Russian. No time for virtue signaling when you’re getting shelled.
Another thing to bear in mind on the historical front is that if you go to the Ethnographic Museum in St. Petersburg, there is a map of the nations / languages of the Russian Empire. My memory fails me on exactly how it was described, but the shading for the language that included what would today be Ukrainian went a lot further east than the current borders of the Ukraine. They clearly saw today’s Ukrainian as part of a series of dialects of Russian and many of which would still be considered Russian today.
Ian, I’m a Boomer twice your age. 30 years ago I was conditioned to be just as you described. 20 years ago I began to question my beliefs and understanding. I fell for the Iraq and Afghanistan stupidity because I was so conditioned. 10 years ago after reading fabiusmaximus.com for years my perspective changed completely. I am ashamed of my former self.
Ever since I went through that period of shame, repentance and effort at redemption I’ve learned so much from the new sources I’ve found. You are one of those and I’m grateful. It’s why I reward you and your father.
In my younger days I read Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. The scenes of the meetings in Animal Farm are repeated today in town hall meetings and school board meetings all over the USA. It’s an assault on reason. The sheep are Neolib Transgender supporters in the vast majority of cases. It’s horrifying and I fear being rounded up and put in a Concentration Camp.
That’s how bad I feel but I won’t shut up or give up. As you wrote, silence is consent.
Honestly I’m just bloody glad you’re over here with us Russian “untermenschen”. At least A FEW Americans will survive with their brains not infested with puppeteer mindvirus crap. Heck, I hope more still-sane Americans might follow suit and move to here to save their minds and souls. Maybe we might get a whole American ethnic community of sorts, like we got Tartars or Dagestani ethnic groups or the now-famous Buryat Mongols. Either way, at least this matter will survive into historical record – that this madness was not natural but perpetrated upon the American population. Dumbed down by ruined education, manipulated by malicious deep-staters and wrecked pop culture.
Still, excellent of you to point it out – that prior propagandists never seized upon this idea, showing that this idea is brand new. Much to my horror, alas, the modern Western populations are so degraded and dumbed-down that I DO in fact see them, on social media and other online stuff, accepting the new revised historical narrative and treating prior history as “fake news”. It’s horrifying what Western upbringing has become for people, what pliable tools it makes them into. Frankly, never heard of anything anywhere like this from anyone who lived in our oh so evil bad USSR.
I despise Frederick Forsythe, and I hate to even cite this anti Russian warmongering lowbrow “author”, but he did write a book called “The Devil’s Alternative” in the early 1980s about a Ukrainian “freedom fighter” group that captured a supertanker.
About the boomers:
I have realised long ago that Americans, by and large, love being ignorant. They hug their ignorance to their chests like a rare and precious resource, and they hate anyone who dares point out that they could do some research to know what they are talking about.
Besides that, Americans are the world’s worst tribalists. This includes the “boomer” group. Some of these people were my “friends” on Orkut back in the mid 2000s, because they opposed the Iraq war. Overnight, literally overnight, as soon as Barack Hussein Obama took over from George W Shrub at the White Louse, these sane people became raving warmongers and still are to this day.
*same not sane
Tribalism is insane.
2014 was also the year con/gress repealed a law from the 30’s that prevented the US govt from using propaganda on its own citizens.