Putin, Putin, Everyone Put the Boot In

The effectiveness of US propaganda depends on the fact that it is wall to wall. On the fringes are Wacko bloggers like former UK Ambassador Craig Murray, a self-hating Englishman who claims that the Russian economy will soon be smaller than that of Spain, or was it Portugal, or perhaps Estonia.

The Canadian take: And the evidence is?

Then there are the news mags. Der Spiegel, for example, with its front cover damning Putin for the shoot-down of Malaysia Airlines Flight MH17 (with the words "Stoppt Putin jetzt!" over images of the victims of the crash) without, as it turns out, any evidence whatever. And there's the Economist, edited by the loony Russophobe, Edward Lucas, who in a recent public forum tried to convince an astounded audience that Russia is less of a geopolitical player than Estonia (pop. 1 million) (at 42 minutes in). Plus Canada's dental waiting room fixture, Macleans, which simply calls Putin a mass murderer. If you're gonna abuse someone, no point in beating about the bush, obviously.

And by no means of least importance, the daily coverage by the MSM reassuring the booboisie on a daily basis that Russia is basically finished: is not a threat at all, really, however much she is insulted, threatened, or taunted, notwithstanding the seven thousand nukes and a new ICBM in production. Indeed we can look forward to seeing Russia again open to looting by the Western multinationals as in the good old Yeltsin days. The only obstacle is that little runt Putin, the New Hitler, to be disposed of like, you know, how we disposed of those other New Hitlers, Saddam and Gaddhafi.

Yesterday's (Toronto) Globe and Mail, the self-proclaimed Canadian National Newspaper, provides a nice example of this low key propaganda under the Business Page headline: "Putin's oil worries are far from over". Russia, the article states, desperately needs high oil prices to lift its energy-fuelled economy out of recession, blah, blah, blah. Funny thing, though, the article says nothing about Harper's oil worries being "far from over", yet Canada exports more oil per capita than Russia and like Russia has seen a sharp devaluation of its currency since last year's slump in the price of oil. Moreover, whereas Russia is a low-cost oil producer, Canada's tar sands oil is the costliest to produce of any oil on the planet, with the result that, with the recent slump in price, the oil majors have slashed tens of billions from planned tar sands development, and have fired tens of thousands of Canadian workers.

Meantime Russia's oil industry continues to expand, with Rosneft and BP reaching agreement just the other day to proceed with development of the one-billion barrel Taas-Yuriakh field in Eastern Siberia. And why not. The Russians managed to pump almost ten million barrels a day in 2001 when oil was at $20, so they're not likely feeling unbearable pain with a sharply devalued ruble and oil at $60.

But however stupid the propaganda, it works. Most Canadians think Harper is right to insult Putin whenever the chance arises, to send Canadian fighter jets to pose a menace to Russia's Western border, and to send military aid and military personnel to train Kiev's Russophobic Nazis, under the direction of US gauleiters such as Tony Blair and  Mikhail Saakashvili.

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RT: Bloomberg's Coverage of St. Petersburg Econ Forum Was Embarrassing. Here Are the Highlights