Quote:
Originally Posted by sdskinsfan2001
I'm here right now too. Does that mean every Russian is OK with it? No. But there are a lot that are and support it. Really hard to feel bad for Russians, when their country is butchering people and are close to starting another world war.
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Good exercise in studying propaganda and how effective it is.
The modern world knows the line about denazification (of a country with a Jewish president who personally had family die in the holocaust) is absolutely a lie - even if we agree there is probably some racists in Ukraine they most likely make up an overwhelmingly small portion of the population (i.e. less than 5% - making up that number off my limited knowledge of Ukraine) and surely they pose no major threat to any large group of the population.
And another question is "how many Russians are dissatisfied with Putin" and not "do they exist at all" - because we know they do exist based off Alexander Navalny's popularity. Sure we can guesstimate how many Russians hate Putin but aren't willing to speak up due to fear of authority. But how do we get from there to "why are so many Russians supporting the war in Ukraine", and "is it an overwhelming amount of the population that actually supports the war?" And if that is the question - propaganda is a key part of the answer. Because if the majority of media in Russia is state sponsored and that is mostly what people consume - then the state sponsored media is playing a key role in convincing the people that the war in Ukraine is justified.
Amazing to me to think about, because growing up the history we learned in schools was about how effective Hitler was in controlling the narrative and convincing Germans that Jewish people were an actual threat - and my mostly public school education actually had me convinced that we had come so far as Americans to learn the lessons of history that were learned by blood - i.e. we could recognize propaganda and disarm it before it ever did us harm, and yet here we are in 2022 and the internet has played such a key role in convincing so many people the world over to question everything that comes from positions of authority. Just thinking about it is mind-boggling. We've come so far - and yet we've hardly gone anywhere at all.