Propaganda and Soviet Susceptibility

Westerners are turning into Soviets

A recent comment from a NAFO troll on one of my YouTube videos got me thinking about this topic. He said, “There will be a lot of properties up for auction once Ukraine liberates Crimea and takes away all purchases that did not follow Ukrainian law.[1]”

I can only assume why this bottom feeder, as Deborah L. Armstrong would call him, may have posted on my YouTube channel. He may have thought I would be scared, abandon my home in Crimea, and flee for my life. But, on the other hand, he might have thought I was what Deborah calls a surface swimmer and highly susceptible to propaganda. Unfortunately for him, I tend to be what she calls a deep diver and not vulnerable to his scare tactics.

What I do and recommend all my readers do is what George Carlin advises and “question everything.” I taught this to my children, and I urge you to also teach it to yours.

“Question everything you read and hear. Question authority. There is a whole lot of bullshit that needs to be detected and avoided.” – George Carlin – It’s bad for ya (2008) (paraphrased)

Unfortunately, westerners are starting to turn into surface swimmers. Scare tactics and propaganda work on them quite easily. Like their brothers and sisters from the former USSR, they trust what the government and western mass media tell them without looking deeper at issues.

They are taking on what I call the “Soviet factor.”

The “Soviet Factor”

A personality trait that is predominant in people from the former Soviet Union is that they are trusting of others. To this day, they teach this community-based worldview to their children. Researchers call this generalized trust versus the particularized trust evident in westerners. This trust is what makes former Soviets susceptible to perception management techniques.

They have a community-based worldview and an ingrained trust[2] in most people. They have taught this same trait to their children, and they, in turn, teach it to their children.

This trait developed during the Soviet Union. People chose their Soviet of Workers’ Deputies (later Congress of Peoples’ Deputies) from their coworkers. These deputies represented the workers at the Soviet Congress Meetings. As friends, neighbors, and coworkers in their respective communities, people trusted them to speak for the community’s needs. At the end of the Congress, they would return to their local communities to work in the factories again. As such, these deputies would have to live amongst their peers and answer for any decisions they made. This situation conditioned citizens to trust what their leaders told them and made them susceptible to propaganda.

The Western Soviets

Western governments told people as they grew up that the USSR was a giant propaganda machine that did not distribute the truth. Furthermore, westerners grew up with the story that their media is unbiased, objective, and truthful western press was. Hence, their governments were similarly conditioning their citizens to believe in the information their leaders and media provided to them.

This western conditioning is why we have so many surface swimmers these days. Society has conditioned them to believe what their media and governments tell them. For example, the U.S. Embassy in Moscow has recently twice warned all Americans to leave Russia at once. The reason given was:

“Russian security services have arrested U.S. citizens on spurious charges, singled out U.S. citizens in Russia for detention and harassment, denied them fair and transparent treatment, and convicted them in secret trials or without presenting credible evidence.” – U.S. Embassy in Moscow

Russia recently arrested and tried American citizens, and the United States called the trials a “sham.” In addition, the U.S. government implied the punishment was excessive, and the media quickly pointed to sentences under the laws of the United States. The goal of this was to get people to view Russia negatively.

However, just like foreigners must follow U.S. law when visiting the United States, our citizens must follow the laws of any country they visit.

So, “swim deep” and dig deeper. Question everything, including authority.

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[1] For the record, I deleted the troll’s comment because I entertain neither Russia vs. Ukraine debates nor trolling on my YouTube channel.

[2] Original research paper in Russian

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