Kim Iversen gives an EXCELLENT Propaganda debunking [Video]

“Sometimes, you just gotta laugh.”

We have been treated to a true spectacle of anti-Russia propaganda coming from Ukraine, the United States, Europe and a whole lot of unknown sources looking for anything from video hits to actually acquiring and manipulating the ‘court of public opinion’ in the way they want to go.

In the West that manipulation has been all about supporting Ukraine. The story follows a familiar template, of course, that of the “besieged underdog” who is oppressed by the Great and Powerful Super Tyrant and manages by wily thinking and clever moves to throw off the Tyrant and utterly defeat him.

It is a great story. We see it in our holy Scriptures over and over. Jacob and Esau. Joseph and his brothers, David and Goliath. Every Marvel Cinematic Universe movie ever made. Star Wars. The television series Battlestar Galactica, Jericho, Buck Rogers… We could go on and on and on.

But this time, there are significant flaws in the narrative. It is too loud. Too obvious. Too easy.

And apparently, dishonest as hell.

Apparently some folks who wanted to prop up the notion of the plight of the Ukrainians thought Americans would fall for a 21st century equivalent of this:

Well… I guess we got this one:

But do we?

Well… for that I bring to you Kim Iversen’s episode of “Rising” and, well…

There is no such thing as the Ghost of Kyiv… unless you are flying a trusty videogame.

Folks, one has to think. When have you ever heard of such legends springing instantly to life in six days’ time? As far as I can remember, only the week between February 24th and March 3, 2022. As tales would have it, there are probably more heroics in the Russian-Ukrainian War in this last week than we ever saw in the entire history of World War II.

The real story, as Kim points out, is that there is a massive disinformation war taking place. The “information” that we see reported is manufactured and stitched together using many methods, and not always the highest of tech, either. But the Internet breeds a gullible crowd.

This is actually aided and abetted by the noteworthy absence of propaganda originating from Russian media. There are, by contrast, very few reports of stunning victories, or of losses, or of… anything.

And there is a reason for this, which is quite simple: The Russian military has some pretty strict controls on not allowing its soldiers to take video or photos and share them. One Russian colleague told me that her friend’s son who is in the Army sent her an SMS telling her that all phones were being collected by the unit’s commanders. The mother acknowledged the message, and her reply SMS received no reply back. Apparently the phone was no longer in use.

Could this be rumor as well? Not likely. I was told about this directly enough – mother to my friend, to me. Only two steps. But these are consistent with the notable media silence on all Russian media outlets concerning the war.

Sputnik International seems to be the best Russian source of war information that I have been able to utilize. It has an English-facing site, and it got the attention of the US enough to get banned there. Use your VPN’s, folks, and you can get it. Now, a few years ago, admittedly, yours truly quoted a piece from Sputnik that was absolutely not true. I did not know it, but an informed colleague in the journalism biz informed us that there was a problem, and we corrected the error with a suitable retraction. Sputnik had misrepresented something and apparently, very badly.

However, whatever went wrong with the agency may have been fixed, and now, Sputnik seems to be quite well balanced, with an absence of drama and sensationalism in its coverage of the war, but a far more businesslike approach.

It is further important to recognize that in Russia, the war is not being greeted with a sense of “great Russian patriotism.” It is true, for example, that there are anti-war protests taking place in many Russian cities, most notably Saint Petersburg and Moscow. However, these demonstrations are not reported to be particularly large. The overall sense in Russia appears to be sadness more than any sort of patriotism or outrage, even at the severe economic sanctions dished out against this country by the US and Europe. I, too, am personally beginning to feel the effects of these measures, as my access to my American financial accounts is cut off and I cannot presently transfer money between my Russian and American accounts. This is problematic to some degree. Also, the massive devaluation of the ruble – falling from about 76 per dollar to 117 per dollar at one point today, plus the “ganging up” of European suppliers with their hysterical cutting off of goods and services to Russia, means there are steep price hikes on things like diapers, durable goods and so on, all of which are being sold like hotcakes. There may be some real shortages coming, depending on how long the war takes to be resolved, and how deep the West’s hysteria is after the war is over.

So, no, this is not about “Great Russian Power!” – but it is also accepted by many people here as being sadly necessary.

To give American readers a possibly equivalent context, we must look at the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962. A similar situation happened to America at that time, when Nikita Kruschev agreed to Cuba’s request to place nuclear missiles on the island to repel a feared US invasion. As all Americans knew when I was a child, Cuba is a scant 90 miles away from the southern tip of Florida. To have Soviet missiles so close was a true red line for President John F. Kennedy, even though his Bay of Pigs invasion was already in the history books (as a failed attempt and the spur for the missiles being placed there in the first place).

President Kennedy won the standoff, gaining a publicly visible dismantling of the missiles, for the whole world to see, and verified by the United Nations, but he also gave a public declaration that the US would not invade Cuba again without some prior provocation. The US also secretly removed the missiles it had placed in Turkey. The famed Moscow-Washington hotline was also established as the result of that crisis.

So, looking at the situation with Ukraine and Russia, the situation is even more dire. Ukraine borders the Russian Federation for more than 1,400 miles. The two countries are right together.

And Ukraine wanted to join NATO, and President Zelensky was talking about taking Ukraine off the “never nuclear” status it had been on. The Russians had been complaining about this security threat for many years, and answered only with rebuffs as the US continued to encroach more and more, filling Ukraine with American weapons and anti-Russian propaganda and rhetoric to inflame an already resentful group of people into warfare that started with the EuroMaidan events in 2014, escalated into a regional conflict in the Donbass region and finally exploded into full-scale warfare which is apparently only now coming into its fullest use of force.

Is it right? Is it wrong? Well, I made a promise not to opine on this during the course of the war, and I am (believe it or not!) trying to hold to that promise.

The American / NATO / EU side holds that Vladimir Putin is trying to put the Soviet Union together again, and to that end he intends to gobble up the former Soviet republics a little at a time, and, so the story goes, apparently Ukraine is a vital land to Russian interests. Also, apparently, Putin is just a very, very, very, very, very… (to infinity and beyond) bad man, because… he is Putin. Oh, wait, because he is KGB… or perhaps because he is only a “candle lighter” in the Orthodox Church (quite a candle holder, as he actually built a whole monastery compound on Valaam which I have been to myself, set right next to his summer home, which I have also been to, if only to walk around it. Valaam I could show you, but the home I was asked never to share the photos over the Internet, and I never will. You will just have to come and see it for yourself.)

Yes, an opinion is slipping out – that the American arguments are not really based in fact. They aren’t. But these are the arguments being pumped out all the time and I have to say them in an attempt to be fair. A lot of people, for some reason, still believe that Putin is eager to reinstitute Communism. He isn’t, but try convincing any of these folks of that!

So, on one hand, we have a narrative of fearmongering based on a bad memory of history, a latent post-Cold War memory that is often used as movie and entertainment fodder of many types (books, video games, TV shows as well as films, etc.) and an enormous amount of ignorance shared by many Americans, perhaps unintentionally, but face it – most of our people know absolutely nothing about international affairs. Why should they? The United States is king of the heap in the Western Hemisphere, so why even pay attention to the Eastern one?

Except they do. We pay lots of attention to oil fields, to Russia, to the international economy, to China and so on. But we don’t do it in a very honest way, and I think we have to be real about this. Most Americans have never left their country. They have no idea that cultures operate that even while the people look the same, different mores and attitudes prevail. There are still civilized nations that take Christianity as a serious matter to be obeyed and followed to the letter in how we live our lives. There are still a great many Europeans and others around the world who place God, family and country as of utmost importance, who love their homelands and would die to protect them.

Let’s face it. America is cynical as it can be, steeped in godless secularism to the point where many people have nothing to do but run each other down, sometimes into suicide, on social media. A large proportion of the populace is drugged, on cannabis, cocaine, uppers, downers and all-arounders. They are lost, demoralized and frightened by COVID, by vaccines and by the color of their neighbors’ skin.

Why? Because the media tells them to be. Why does the media do this? Because the people of the US want to be entertained.

When you have it all, what do you do?

That is a big part of the American psychosis we are currently feeding through propaganda, lies and a determined effort to avoid and deny the facts and the truth… and the Capital-T Truth.

Is this my opinion? I am going to say, “no.” It is my observation. 

And it is not that America is a cesspit while Holy Russia has re-emerged. Not at all. I am very positive about much that Russia has done to embrace its Christian heritage, and huge steps in that direction have taken place, but not with everyone. I edit subtitles and work with absolutely foul programming that would make X-rated movie goers blush sometimes. You want dark? Try a Russian drama. Yikes.

But there is movement in Russia towards a Christian identity. There is movement in America away from that identity into some sort of self-absorbed “God is my buddy” at best identity of Christianity, and that is simply not correct, and the results are self-evident.

This piece is already very long, but hopefully the information serves the reader and viewer to understand that in order to successfully assess the war, we have to know the truth about it. Right now, we don’t. Not from either side, though through different pathways – sensastionalism versus silence. Emotion versus Logic. Passion versus Historical fact.

These are not compatible with one another in terms of knowing what is going on, and hence, truly what to think. All I am arguing for is the need for a pause, to back away from everything that bombards us about this conflict (even my very piece here!) to stop, reflect, pray, to be sober and of reasonable mind… then and only then, to act as seems right.

To do so may change absolutely nothing that has happened, but for one thing – actions taken in reason have power. Emotionally driven political hissy-fits are dangerous and weakening.