“We’ve always been at war with Eastasia”
The Soviets were known for their revisionary history, a situation Orwell fictionalized in Nineteen Eighty-Four and immortalized in the quote with which I’ve titled this post.
But it goes on in post-Soviet Russia today, as this ruling indicates:
Russia’s Supreme Court has upheld the conviction of Perm blogger Vladimir Luzgin for reposting a text which states that both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union invaded Poland in 1939. The Supreme Court’s ruling came on September 1, 2016, the 77th anniversary of Hitler’s invasion of Poland, 17 days before the anniversary of the Soviet invasion from the east…
Perhaps the most chilling aspect of this is that the Perm ”˜historian’, the courts, the prosecutor are doubtless well aware of the historical facts. Luzgin has more than likely been prosecuted for revealing inconvenient facts, and the Russian prosecutor, courts, as well as a historian have all proven complicit in this cynical travesty.
…In parallel with its military aggression against Ukraine, the Kremlin has been trying to reinstate the Soviet narrative about the Second World War in which details of the first almost 2 years during which the Soviet Union was Hitler’s ally are blurred, and the collaboration justified.
Please read the whole thing.
[NOTE: I’ve written before about historical revisionism, here.]
Russia also blocks games and media that depic the NKVD’s atrocities against Russian soldiers and citizens accurately.
They claim that Russian army never did fire at Russian soldiers retreating… which may technically be true, if the NKVD is a civilian security and not a Russian army unit.
That RTS game set in WWII, Heroes and something, was banned and pulled from Russian store shelves as a result of their federal protection of history.
Meanwhile, Americans are worried instead about Japanese textbooks.
American schools, colleges and universities have long practiced historical revisionism is it reasonable to expect the Russians to be different?
As for convicting bloggers, many on the left would eagerly support such a development and with a leftist/liberal SCOTUS, it would be entirely possible, even predictable.
In any collectivist system, eventually all thought, speech and behavior will be declared to be either forbidden or mandatory.
In parallel with its military aggression against Ukraine
The violence of the coup and subsequent military aggression was birthed and progressed with Western backing. Another social justice-inspired humanitarian disaster of the progressive wars.
Historical revisionists are competitors in the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist of the activist game, where narrative is elective truth, and the actual truth is just a narrative that must be competed for like any other.
The competitive challenge of countering historical revisionists goes into why my explanation of the law and policy, fact basis – ie, the why – of Operation Iraqi Freedom hews to the controlling law, policy, and precedent that defined the operative enforcement procedure for the “governing standard of Iraqi compliance” (UNSCR 1441) and, in the operative context, the determinative fact findings of the Saddam regime’s categorical breach of the Gulf War ceasefire that triggered enforcement with OIF.
The decision for OIF is a straightforward fact pattern. Hence, the reliable way to cut through the conjecture and disinformation that have obscured the Iraq issue is to re-frame the Iraq issue on the foundation of bedrock law, policy, precedent, and facts that make up the OIF decision.
In that context, anchoring my explanation in President Clinton’s Gulf War ceasefire enforcement is purposed to break through Democratic historical revisionists and reach Clinton-supporting Democrats.
Anchoring in President Clinton’s Gulf War ceasefire enforcement is also essential for properly explaining President Bush’s decision for OIF because Bush carried forward Clinton’s case versus Saddam – including Clinton’s assessment of “the very kind of threat Iraq poses now: a rogue state with weapons of mass destruction, ready to use them or provide them to terrorists, drug traffickers, or organized criminals, who travel the world among us unnoticed” (17FEB98) and “Iraqi actions pose a continuing unusual and extraordinary threat to the national security and foreign policy of the United States” (28JUL00) – and Clinton’s operative enforcement procedure to “bring Iraq into compliance with its international obligations” (P.L. 105-235).
Notably, the prevailing yet demonstrably false narrative of the US-led Iraq intervention that’s been adopted by the Democrat-front Left, including Clinton, and Trump-front alt-Right, including Trump, originated as a Russian historical revisionism product that pre-dates the Bush administration.
The difference in the politics is due to Democrats who upheld President Clinton’s Gulf War ceasefire enforcement by countering Russian historical revisionism in the politics subsequently adopted the same Russian propaganda to vilify President Bush’s Gulf War ceasefire enforcement in the politics despite that Bush’s Iraq enforcement dutifully carried forward Clinton’s Iraq enforcement.
Meanwhile, Republicans, instead of doing their part to competitively counter the historical revisionists, have mostly conceded the demonstrably false narrative of OIF, despite the readily accessible law, policy, precedent, and fact record that plainly demonstrates that President Bush’s decision for OIF was correct on the law and facts.
Clarification:
Notably, the prevailing yet demonstrably false narrative of the US-led Iraq intervention that’s been adopted by the Democrat-front Left, including [Hillary] Clinton, and Trump-front alt-Right, including Trump, originated as a Russian historical revisionism product that pre-dates the Bush administration.
—
“Clinton” in the rest of the comment refers to President Bill Clinton.
“Historical revisionists are competitors in the Narrative contest for the zeitgeist of the activist game, where narrative is elective truth, and the actual truth is just a narrative that must be competed for like any other.” Eric
I think I understand what you are saying from a pragmatic POV. Nevertheless, I cannot agree that the actual truth is just another narrative. I get stuck there every time I read that.
Objective truth is not a narrative, it is reality itself. Anyone who doubts the existence of objective truth, can easily settle the question by dropping a two hundred pound barbell on a bared foot.
Anyone who doubts the existence of objective truth, can easily settle the question by dropping a two hundred pound barbell on a bared foot.
That is why Lucifer deceives entire nations. Once the mind control succeeds, nobody will be allowed to test it, they will instead be tied down by family and friends, and made to recant their “mistaken beliefs”. For if the entire family, if the entire nation, and even the entire world believes that a person is wrong, how long will that person withstand the pressures of humanity?
How would that person “know” the entire world believes he is wrong? That that hypothetical person is insane. Oh the pressures of humanity.
“if the entire family, if the entire nation, and even the entire world believes that a person is wrong, how long will that person withstand the pressures of humanity?” Ymarsakar
John Stuart Mill argued, “If all mankind minus one were of one opinion, mankind would be no more justified in silencing that one person than he, if he had the power, would be justified in silencing mankind.”
While I agree with that sentiment, it’s irrelevant as far as objective truth itself is concerned. Whether all of mankind define falsity as ‘truth’ changes reality not in the slightest.
“And yet, it moves…” Galileo Galilei
Comments have now entered Profundity Alert Category IV.
OM,
While I agree that the air is rarefied up here on Mt. Olympus, I have no doubt that you can navigate the shoals that threaten when entering “Profundity Alert Category IV” rapids…
GB:
🙂
While I agree with that sentiment, it’s irrelevant as far as objective truth itself is concerned. Whether all of mankind define falsity as ‘truth’ changes reality not in the slightest.
That would be the case, except for armies under totalitarian governments. THey can make reality fit their illusions, to an extent, if only by killing people and remaking human beings.
It is precisely because the arguments against that were too weak to convince the Left, that the Left is mobilizing their assets for End Game. Power is the language they speak. Even if you could convince them of Objective Truth and nullify their philosophy, their power would still remain uncontested. Which would make it similar to a religious war against Islam. Even if their beliefs are false, they still obtain earthly power as a result of it. The beliefs can be denied, the power still exists in objective reality.