Putin is 'Profoundly Anti-Modern.' Masha Gessen Explains What That Means for the World

[Nevilledog]

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Ezra Klein
@ezraklein
Listening to @mashagessen describe what it was like to be in Moscow as the invasion is like being given a portal into a parallel world. But it's a parallel world reshaping our own.

Don't miss this one.

nytimes.com
Opinion | Putin is ‘Profoundly Anti-Modern.’ Masha Gessen Explains What That Means for the World.
The Russian American journalist on how Putin’s war in Ukraine is playing out inside Russia’s highly controlled media environment.
11:28 AM · Mar 11, 2022

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/opinion/ezra-klein-podcast-masha-gessen.html

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https://archive.ph/H3vkS

For Western audiences, the past few weeks have been a torrent of information about what’s happening in Russia and Ukraine. Daily updates of Russian military advances. Horrifying videos of buildings exploding and innocent civilians being killed. Announcements of increasingly severe economic sanctions and major corporate pullouts. Charts showing the collapse of the ruble. Story after story about the hardships facing the Russian economy.

Most Russians, however, are living in an alternate reality. This week, the Russian government made it a crime for journalists to spread what it considers false information about the “special military operation” in Ukraine — information that would include calling the war a war. As a result, many Western news organizations, including The Times, have pulled their employees out of Russia. The Kremlin has made it nearly impossible for people in Russia to access independent or international news sources. Russian state media coverage of the conflict has been, in the words of my guest today, “bland and bloodless.”

That raises some important questions: What do ordinary Russians know about the war being waged by their government? How are they interpreting the collapse of their currency and impending financial crisis? What are they being told to believe? And is the propaganda machine working?

Masha Gessen is a staff writer at The New Yorker and the author of many books on Russian history, politics and culture, including “The Man Without a Face: The Unlikely Rise of Vladimir Putin” and the National Book Award-winning “The Future Is History: How Totalitarianism Reclaimed Russia.” And, perhaps most important, Gessen has been on the ground in Russia in recent weeks trying to understand how ordinary Russians are seeing and interpreting the world around them.

*snip*



Transcript here
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/03/11/podcasts/transcript-ezra-klein-interviews-masha-gessen.html

[hunter]

1. Putin's head is stuck in the twentieth century.

That will be his downfall.

[Walleye]

2. Another thing he and Trump have in common

[orwell]

4. According to Masha...

...it is closer to the mid 19th century. He seems to want to pretend the 20th century didn't exist.

[hedda_foil]

5. More like the 19th Century I think.

[orwell]

3. That was an amazing read...

...chilling but amazing.

Masha's best case scenario is horrifying. Ezra as always is a great interviewer.

Thanks again for the reference.

[AmBlue]

6. Oh, but those 21st century Super-Yachts!!

Not so "anti-modern" there, are we?

As an important aside, we have in effect a nearly identical parallel reality machine here in the U.S. courtesy of Faux, TFG, and hate radio that blankets the airwaves across our nation. As I listen to how Putin's false narrative and hermetically-sealed state propaganda machine is holding an entire country hostage to lies of a "bloodless special operation" of de-Nazification in Ukraine, I can't help but feel nearly half of the U.S. is on a sad but inexorable march down a similar horribly deluded path. A path that, if we don't change course, will ultimately incite Americans to kill fellow Americans. Please tell me I'm wrong.

[uponit7771]

7. Looks 55% of Russia's population is under 40, they don't remember USSR and has experienced

... happier times.

Going BACK to USSR days will shock the shit out of them seeing Russia is now more sanctioned than NK.

Just think, what would happen if China shut off all exports to US ... yeah, that ... but worse