European Agitprop

The war against “fake news” generated by Russia is being waged by the elites in the European Union, just as it is here in the USA.

The op-ed below from the Hungarian daily Magyar Hírlap provides an overview on the latest propaganda emanating from Brussels, which is designed to overcome the “fake news”.

Many thanks to CrossWare for the translation:

European agitprop

[(agitprop = agitation and propaganda. The short version was frequently used in communism to describe subversive activities or organizations – translator]

by Lóránt Károly
November 30, 2016

In the long run propaganda that is not aligned with people’s everyday experience loses credibility fast.

With a vote of 304 yes, 179 no, and 208 absent, the European Parliament has taken a position about propaganda against the European Union and the strategic communications to fight against it. The presenter, the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs, believes this is necessary because the European Union, its member states and its citizens have come under greater and more systematic pressure by state and non-state actors supplying information, disinformation, misleading campaigns and management of propaganda intended to undermine the objective information provided by ethical journalism. All this misinformation is biased or used as a tool for political power, and aimed against democratic values and interests of the EU.”

It quickly comes to light in the report that they are talking about the propaganda of the Islamic State and Russia, but in reality they just take note of ISIS to qualify the Russians in this way (that is the equivalent of incitement to terrorism). The leaders of the EU do not really fear any danger to the cleanliness of European souls from the brochures and imams of Islamic State, but from Russian television broadcasts and news portals. Because “the Russian government has aggressively used a variety of different devices and channels, such as think tanks and special foundations (like Russzkij Mir), special authorities (Rosszotrudnicsesztvo), multilingual TV stations (for example, Russia Today), the fictional news agencies and multimedia services (Sputnik), cross-border social and religious groups, as the regime intends to show up only as a defender of traditional Christian values; social media and Internet trolls are calling into question democratic values, showing the division of Europe. They provide support for establishing and developing an image that the real European Union can be found in the eastern region of declining states.”

Then they continue in this manner: “The Kremlin is financing political parties and organizations in the European Union in order to undermine political cohesion… the Kremlin’s propaganda directly targets specific journalists, politicians and individuals in the European Union.”

The report emphasizes, that “hate speech or incitement to violence or war cannot hide under the guise of freedom of speech,” and “urges legal initiatives in this regard,” which means they are lumping the Russian television broadcasts together with hate speech and they wish to pursue legal means against them.

Conversely, EU propaganda should be strengthened and directed against Russia in all forms, however, because it promotes democracy and freedom of speech, as the 56th paragraph of the report phrases it: “…calls on the Commission and Member States to strengthen the protection of journalists in Russia and the European Union’s neighborhood and to support Russian civil society [Soros Rent-A-Riot organization — translator] and invest in relationships between people… the biggest obstacle to the Russian disinformation campaigns would be if there were free and independent media in Russia; we believe that the European Union should aim at achieving this”.

The report, which emanates the atmosphere of 1950s communist propaganda, most likely originated with the party of Angela Merkel, the German CDU-CSU, because the votes which were required to accept the proposal came from the European People’s Party, which is mostly loaded with CDU-CSU representatives. The large number of absentee votes came from another German party, the Social Democrats (they make up the bulk of the Socialist group). In their vote a role was likely played by the fact their ex-Chancellor and party President Gerhard Schröder is the chairman of the Supervisory Board of the Nord Stream AG consortium, which is partly owned by Russian interests and provides the bulk of natural gas for Germany.

It’s also interesting who voted against the report and who voted against their own group. The propaganda war, which, as in the past, is preparing and serving a new cold war, was rejected by right and left sides of the European Parliament, but on the left the European United Left stood, while on the right were the groups representing Freedom, Nations-Europe and Direct Democracy. The Socialists and the People’s Party — those names arise from some shadowy historic past — have nothing to do with values of the left or right; these are the direct servants of the Euro-Atlantic Elite. Our “great friend” Guy Verhofstadt obviously voted for the propaganda war, but his liberal group mostly stayed against it or neutral. Among the Hungarians, Jobbik rejected the report while the Socialists stayed neutral; everybody else voted yes for the proposal.

EU politicians and propagandists are mistaken if they think relying on the wisdom of Goebbels: “that people will believe anything if they are told it many times”. Over the long term propaganda, which is not supported by the people’s daily experience, becomes discredited. The problems of the EU cannot be blamed on Russian propaganda, but the unrealistic constructs of the EU and the disastrous economic and social policies of EU leaders. Blaming the problems on Russian subversive activities proves just as futile as it was in vain at the time when the failures of communism were blamed on the imperialists.

13 thoughts on “European Agitprop

  1. This is the type of BS which bounces off Eastern Europeans like turd dried on the sun too many days… I think now all the people in the USA who voted Trump understand the same thing: media and governments lies without any morality and any consequences! I think a new era begins and despite the sweaty efforts of the elite, as they can’t maintain their propaganda machinery in the way they were able to lead the sheeple in the last century.

  2. “Blaming the problems on Russian subversive activities proves just as futile as it was in vain at the time when the failures of communism were blamed on the imperialists.”

    Hardly anything can be added to this great bon mot!

  3. Every time a flimsy term like “hate speech” is used, can someone not demand a definition, where its boundaries lie and whether it does, or doesn’t, include true statements?

  4. Sorry, but I’m having trouble even following this narration. Example: “They [social media and Internet trolls] provide support for establishing and developing an image that the real European Union can be found in the eastern region of declining states.”
    Please name these declining states. And why cannot the image of the real European Union be found in the western region of these states?

    • You have to remember this the EU elite’s narrative!
      The failing states are the Visegrad Four: Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic and Slovakia. All of them refused to accept “cultural enrichment” and their “fascist, right-wing xenophobic dictators” like Viktor Orbán erected fences, argues against the infinite wisdom of the fearless leaders of the EU and forcing his suppressed poor masses to live without above mentioned enrichment. Not to mention, they refuse to centrally filter their media like every good REAL democratic countries do and just let “propaganda” like the existence of no-go zones, migrant crimes and rapes, terrorists in their midst, illiterate masses who never want to work at all etc etc… spread.
      Now these are the failed states!

        • Yep, exactly that! We are nothing more than conveniently closely located market for their produces. New improved and cheaper (less transportation cost) colonies.

  5. The last paragraph of this article sums it all up. Peoples experience belies the nonsense coming out of Elite organs. The Alice in Wonderland explanations about fake news and the Russians as the cause of the troubles is already discounted by normal people. Hopefully…the collapse of the banking system { built completely on fiat currency and the fractional reserve scam } will take place way before the ” Invasive ” demographic explosion planned by the Islamists. The Visograd four…Geert Wilders.. Le Pen..Putin, and hopefully ; Trump, may soon make short work of the Globalist plans. The mainstream media in the States is a laughing stock, and talking-to itself. When foodstuffs get scarce because of credit based distribution difficulties ; the average person will turn on the Eurocrats with a vengeance. Think the French Revolution was bad ??. Watch what is heading your way.

  6. not sure what is the message here.

    on the one hand, the EU project has degenerated into self-serving, nihilist, demagogical, corrupt, and even oppressive imperial caricature

    on the other hand, Russia under Putin has morphed into fascist imperial monster combining neo-stalinist, clerical, monarchist, nazi pan-slavic, etc, and yes, even Islamic (google Kadyrov) ideology patches, – all used to preseve Putin’s sacrosanct archaic new caste order based on KGB/mafia/big business power triade. and on agitprop as well, certainly.

    so where is contradiction, – they can’t be both bad at the same time?

  7. If you understand German, do watch this Maischberger programme: http://www.pi-news.net/2016/11/tv-tipp-lengsfeld-radke-bei-maischberger/ The topic: how accurate is the accusation ‘Lying Press’, made at Pegida demonstrations. A bus driver and AfD member, Joachim Radke, completely wipes the floor with professional journalists and academics. He is highly intelligent, well-spoken but with a real Berlin accent and has nerves of steel – no doubt needed to be a bus driver in Berlin.

    It is telling that he comes from the GDR, so knows all about propaganda and state-controlled, single-opinion press. He emphasizes that back in those days they used to listen to West German radio to get a different point of view, but then formed their own opinions out of all the information they could gather.

  8. This stuff is straight out of Orwell’s “1984”. The shackles of censorship and repression are blamed on the Brotherhood and Emmanuel Goldman, who is assigned responsibility for every disaster incurred by the calcified bureaucracy. The only efficient government bureaucracy is the thought police.

    We know about the persecutions of Tommy Robinson, Geert Wilders, Nigel Farage, Elisabeth Sabaditsch Wolff. The only reason these people are facing mainly fines is simply the timidity of the bureaucracy, which doesn’t have the guts to come down hard on public dissenters. Like the cowards and bullies they are, once they totally insulate themselves from accountability, anything is possible: midnight disappearances, assassinations, mysterious explosions…anything.

    The Visograd 4, plus other marginal countries such as Austria, may have a new lease on life with the election of Trump. Undoubtedly, they were planning on using NATO troops as the internal enforcement police. Hillary would have happily engaged in the scheme, but Trump is unlikely to. So, the Visograd countries have an extra 4 to 8 years to harden their physical defenses and develop insurance policies against EU aggression.

    It’s pretty apparent that the EU apparatchiks cannot engage in the realm of ideas, so they immediately go to criminal penalties for free expression. It’s the surest sign of a politically and ideologically-bankrupt totalitarianism, which the EU most surely is.

    • You are spot on, NATO was already used in this role in the Balkan conflict against Serbia.

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