People’s responses to news-events are determined by personal prejudices: NOT logic, facts, and truth.

Eric Zuesse

I shall give a specific example, to demonstrate how that works:

On April 3rd, I headlined, at The Duran, “Putin’s Enormous Blunder” and argued that Vladimir Putin, the President of Russia, had severely harmed Russia’s national security by his having failed even to try to negotiate with Finland’s Government in order to get them not to enter America’s NATO anti-Russian military alliance. One can see my article by clicking onto it linked here (at its headline, just above); so, I won’t repeat it, other than to summarize it, as follows: a key part of it was pointing out that whereas in the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, U.S. national security was endangered by the possibility of Soviet missiles being placed in Cuba a mere 30-minute missile-flight-time away from being able to blitz-nuke America’s central command in Washington DC, the current crisis regarding Ukraine instead of Cuba is a reverse-direction version of the same thing: Russia’s national security is endangered by the possibility of American missiles being placed in Ukraine a mere 5-minute missile-flight-time away from being able to blitz-nuke Russia’s central command in Moscow. In BOTH cases, the danger is the first-strike blitz beheading of one’s central command, so fast as to make impossible the President’s identifying that the blitz-launch had definitely occurred and then for that President to launch his own country’s thousands of retaliatory missiles in response. Finland’s entering NATO is almost as enormous a national security threat to Russia as Ukraine’s entering NATO would have been, because Finland has the second-nearest border to The Kremlin: Finland’s is a 7-minute missile-flight-time away, as opposed to Ukraine’s being a 5-minute missile-flight-time away. But Putin (who was emphatic that Ukraine not enter NATO) was shockingly relaxed about Finland’s becoming a NATO member.

A reader commented (and received on it a net rating of +6 from other readers regarding it):

Mr. Zeusse said – “Central to Russia’s concerns in having offered the proposal [on 17 December 2021, to the U.S. and to NATO, regarding Ukraine] was the 1962-Cuban-Missile-Crisis-in-Reverse issue that America is threatening Russia that America might place its nuclear missiles in Ukraine only 300 miles (or five minutes of missile-flying-time) away from blitz-nuclear bombing The Kremlin.”

This is an attractive analytic posture, but is fundamentally flawed.

The Cuban crisis was spawned by precisely the same circumstances being faced by Russia way back then as they are now forced to deal with once again today.

Russia’s placement of nuclear missiles in Cuba was her RESPONSE to the American provocation of placing strategic nuclear missiles in Turkey, just a few minutes flight time from Moscow.

The pathology of current developments closely mirrors the events leading up to the 1960’s Cuban Crisis in every respect. One might assess the Russian doomsday drones and their breathtaking hypersonic capabilities as their 21st century answer to this new American provocation.

The difference this time around is that Neocon psychopaths have full control of the American government, and unlike the Kennedy administration, they have no reverse gear.

I replied (and received on it a net rating of -3 from other readers regarding it):

As I’ve said before (when I first introduced this argument), the fact that there were U.S. missiles in Turkey [at the time of the Cuban Missile Crisis] is irrelevant to my article’s narrative and analysis. Yes, the initial aggression in that 1962 instance was from America. But so what? So: the U.S. Government back then was the aggressor back then. Your mind has a problem recognizing what is relevant and what isn’t. My argument is unaffected by the fact that you are obsessed with (the U.S. Government’s evilness since 25 July 1945).

Another reader responded to my reply (and received a net rating of +6 from other readers regarding it):

Sorry Eric, I don’t buy your rebuttal.

Cause and Effect is a universal principle that affects everything. It is foolish to dismiss the placement of American missiles in Turkey.

If an entity causes another to feel threatened existentially it must realize that it will also face an existential threat.

This is the way.

I responded to that:

My point is that the fact that in the Cuban Missile Crisis, the fact that America was responding to what the USSR had done in response to what America had done (placing missiles in Turkey and in Italy) is irrelevant to whether or not in today’s crisis Putin ought to have offered a peace treaty to Finland (and to each of the then-existing 28 NATO-member nations). It has no logical relevance to that. Your concept of “Cause and Effect” is fictitious there, because irrespective of whether in the Cuban Missile Crisis the aggressor-nation was America or was instead the USSR, Kennedy and Khrushchev both did the right thing to negotiate a solution that served the national-security interests of both countries. Putin didn’t even try to negotiate with Finland about this present matter. (If he tried in secret and was told no, then he failed to try again in public; so, in either instance, he effectively didn’t even try, at all.) If U.S. missiles will become placed 507 miles away from Moscow as a result, then Putin’s incompetence in this matter won’t have been the main cause (referring here to the reality of “Cause and Effect” here), and the U.S. Government’s evilness and the stupidity of Finns will have been the main cause; but Putin’s incompetence will have greatly facilitated America’s missiles becoming placed there. It will then have been a contributing factor to that horrific result. The fact that as I am writing this, your comment has a positive 6  rating from readers here, indicates that lots of the readers here share and endorse your illogic, but this does not affect the truth or falsity of anything that I have said either in the article or in my response here to your comment.

The Duran is a strongly pro-Putin website. I post there because I am generally far too favorable toward Putin for the CIA and the FBI and Google and the entire U.S. regime and media-censorship operation to allow any mainstream, and even almost all non-mainstream, U.S.-and-allied news-media and commentary sites to publish articles from me. (Consequently, now, almost only sites that Google blocks from coming up in a Web-search are still publishing even a few of my submitted articles, which is why many of my articles don’t come up at all in a Web-search.)

I am writing now about this matter, of people’s illogic — insensitvity even to relevance (or not) — because I believe that the only reason why the readers at The Duran overwhelmingly did not like, but disagreed with and rejected, my article, is that it criticized Putin. Irrelevant ‘arguments’ against logic, facts, and truths, that they are prejudiced against (such as that Putin displayed incompetence on any major matter) find acceptance from them, notwithstanding the logical irrelevance of those arguments. My having pointed out that assigning blame in the 1962 incident is irrelevant to whether or not Putin was incompetent in his response to Finland’s application to join NATO, was simply ignored. How can anyone think that Putin’s having failed even to try to negotiate with Finland about the matter (in order to reach a win-win solution to it) was competent on his part? How does assigning blame for the Cuban Missile Crisis have logical relevance to whether or not Putin should have at least tried to negotiate a solution with Finland? Now, U.S. missiles might be placed in Finland only 507 miles (a 7-missile-missile-flight-time) away from blitz-nuking The Kremlin. How can this possibility be acceptable to the Russian people?

I hope that some mainstream news-sites (I submit my articles to virtually all of them) will publish this article because it DOES criticize Putin; but, I doubt that they will, because the article that it links to, and which my comments here were defending, contains too many truths that are censored-out — prohibited, banned from publishing — by all U.S.-and-allied media.

The net result of all of this censorship throughout U.S.-and-allied countries, is that what the public overwhelmingly believe is ONLY what is acceptable to some accepted faction — such as either Democratic or Republican, or liberal or conservative, faction — of the regime. For example: if one reports news or commentary that is acceptable to Democrats, those will be people who have been brainwashed with that Party’s propaganda; and, if one reports news or commentary that is acceptable to Republicans, those will be people who have been brainwashed with that Party’s propaganda. Seymour Hersh, Glenn Greenwald, and many other great journalists, have been thrust out of the paying, megacorporate, media, and forced to rely only on “blogging” — and still the regime suppresses them, even as bloggers. The result of all of this is mass-mind-control in order to get ONLY political candidates whom The Establishment allows to become a nominee of either the Republican or the Democratic Party being placed onto the ballot or having enough money to campaign effectively. The most important logic, facts, and truths, are now cleansed-out altogether from the U.S.-and-allied public square. It’s the new way of dictatorship. Everything now is being judged only on the basis of the given audience’s prejudices, NOT any logic, facts, and truths that conflict with what the particular audience already have been fooled to believe. How can one reach individuals who accept ONLY logic, facts, and truths — not AT ALL prejudices? Do such people still even exist?

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Investigative historian Eric Zuesse’s new book, AMERICA’S EMPIRE OF EVIL: Hitler’s Posthumous Victory, and Why the Social Sciences Need to Change, is about how America took over the world after World War II in order to enslave it to U.S.-and-allied billionaires. Their cartels extract the world’s wealth by control of not only their ‘news’ media but the social ‘sciences’ — duping the public.