This reminds me of an interview with one of the principals I heard a long time ago about the production of “Mash”. Apparently it was originally conceived as a straight drama but they tried the addition of a laugh track and it became great comedy without changing the script. Peter Pomerantsev’s essay would be improved with a laugh track in that it could be honestly seen as the dark comedy that it is and would at least be good for a laugh.

In this ironic essay on the power of Putin’s propaganda It would be an additional level of irony if the irony was not apparent to the author but I don’t believe that to be the case. His attack on and description of the propaganda is itself propaganda, not merely by definition but by the common connotation of the term in its strongest sense. There can be no doubt that Putin’s government uses propaganda but to me at least the act of putting it all in the hands of an evil genius [luckilly for them, our stupid enemies all seem to have a few evil geniuses pulling deadly strings] who can pull a string and make one or another other of many groups jump to whatever tune he chooses is, I believe, a concocted device to help create a simplistic understanding of a more complicated story so as to sell a product. Pomerantsev is selling a product. Right now his product is scary stories about Putin and Russia. To push for closing the sale he is using hype. Still, he managed an impressive 1.5 paragraphs before making a Hitler Youth comment.

He [Zurkov] claps once and a new political party appears. He claps again and creates Nashi, the Russian equivalent of the Hitler Youth, who are trained for street battles with potential pro-democracy supporters and burn books by unpatriotic writers on Red Square.

What, I wonder, is the clapping code that tells Russia’s equivalent of the Hitler Youth to stay quietly at home shaving their heads and getting more tattoos but not making a ruckus until they are called for by the pulling of a string. I think maybe Pomerantsev has heard the sound of one hand clapping and interpreted that  mental Rorschach splatter as the equivalent of a technical blueprint designed by the evil genius whose diabolical genius is a necessary plot device to sell his own story.

Another belief of mine is that we must recognize that if the Russian population is so susceptible to thought control, that our population may share the same weakness. If we accept that our government along with pundits representing certain points of view or ideologies also puts out a lot of propaganda, then we should expect that it overstates or completely creates emotionally charged attacks against Putin while also being deceptive about itself in ways designed to encourage belief in its stories and support of its actions. That is propaganda's main device. Is it logically consistent to believe that enough Americans were deliberately mislead in their beliefs by clever wordsmithing that they stupidly voted, against their best interests, for Republicans but not believe that they might be mislead on international issues by the same sources? I don’t think so, but maybe that's just me.

One thing that struck me was that the essay was written like a novel about a charismatic villain who wields great power through his relationship with a greater power that he cleverly controls. Very Strauss-i an. When we hear in a novel the voice of the omniscient story teller we have heard the truth of the story because that truth is whatever the story teller says it is. In a novel the author can honestly tell us the inner workings of the man’s psyche, his motives, his wishes, and his desires.Peter Pomerantsev does not have that privilege regarding his story about a real life person in a real life situation in another universe far far away unless we give him the suspension of disbelief required of us to see the power of his charge as presented, to give it face value

Another thing I noted was that at one point, because it serves the author's purpose of demonstrating the evil genius' great power, we are told that he saved the pig’s [Putin's] bacon when it appeared Putin might lose a close election. His propaganda coup saved the day. If we are to believe that then we must believe that Putin could have lost an election. Hmmm.That isn't the common idea floated about Russian elections.

Surkov’s genius has been to tear those associations apart, to marry authoritarianism and modern art, to use the language of rights and representation to validate tyranny, to recut and paste democratic capitalism until it means the reverse of its original purpose.

But, but ... ... oh, never mind. I’ll just try to face the revealed truth and accept it as both a price and a perk of living in the one great super power.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality—judiciously, as you will—we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors … and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Did Zukov say that? Clever bastard, we are in his diabolical grip for sure. Glad to see someone noticed.