Is German media just not blasting anti-China and anti-Russia propaganda 24/7?
It absolutely is, but we have a different material relation to the war because it is just two countries away from us, a million Ukrainian refugees are here, our gas prices are soaring, a pipeline that was a Russian-German project got blown up, we’re a vassal state instead of being the center of the empire and so on. It affects us more directly than it affects Americans. The war is so close that many of the people that fled it just drove here in their car. It has suddenly become a normal, everyday thing to see UA license plates when you’re driving. And while US propaganda is nothing new here, it is a relatively recent development that it has been this intense. During the Iraq war, there was widespread opposition here, and that absolutely included the press. There’s nothing like that anymore, even critical journalists have been successfully muzzled and need to hide their criticism of UA behind a thick layer of jingoism. For example, i recently read an article about the dire situation of LGBT soldiers in the Ukrainian army. As gay marriage is illegal there, people can’t even burry their partner when he has fallen in battle. Many have to completely hide who they are. But instead of calling that out openly, it was burried deep in the article, which started out with emphasizing how patriotic the queer community in Ukraine is. It just went on and on telling us how much the gays love fighting for a state that constantly oppresses them. As a cherry on top, the whole thing was illustrated with a picture of a car flying rainbow and Ukrainian flags. Absolutely sickening how they instrumentalize LGBT people and pinkwash Selenski’s reactionary regime. Stuff like that is very common now. And it used to be totally different. When the US made up its lies about Iraqi WMDs, our press very publically called that out. When the US went to war, they explained concepts like embedded journalism, told readers expressly to view info from the USA with a huge grain of salt and pointed out the propagandistic dimension of American news coverage. That was just 20 years ago. We now see that America has made sure to never let that happen again.
But some people remember. You’re not gonna notice it in a comment section under one of these propaganda articles, where warmongering libs cheer each other on in their vitriolic hatred for Putin while nazis sneak in and use the opportunity to spread revisionism like the “double holocaust” narrative. But when i talk to people in person, i see opposition to the war all across the political spectrum. From communists to radlibs to socdems to conservatives. Unfortunately the most vocal opposition comes from the far right, where it is not driven by an opposition to imperialism, but by nationalism, hatred for refugees that easily rivals the russophobia of libs and a glowing support of Putin’s most reactionary policies. There is mobilization for anti-war protests from both the left and the right (and the left mostly pays close attention to not be infiltrated and avoid a “querfront” type situation), but as of now, the cryptofash who already built up a strong presence on the street during the anti-mask protests are seemlessly moving over to pro-Russia protests, sometimes including assaults on Ukrainian passersby.
It’s a messy and complicated situation here. Very hard to agitate against the war outside of far right brigades. I’ve tried, but i found that thought-out, analytical, sourced posts critical of the US propaganda are more likely to be removed than the most shallow pro-Russia posting that just treats this war as a team sport where they’re stanning the out-of-town team. There’s an active effort to only allow reactionary opposition to be platformed, as that makes it easier to uphold the lie that this is a fight between a progressive defender and a reactionary aggressor when it’s actually two reactionary powers struggling over their spheres of influence. The biggest callout of the war early on came from Alice Schwarzer, the most influential terf in Germany. The press uses these people so they can uphold the illusion of pluralism and impartiality while at the same time being able to discredit any critics as chuds.
It absolutely is, but we have a different material relation to the war because it is just two countries away from us, a million Ukrainian refugees are here, our gas prices are soaring, a pipeline that was a Russian-German project got blown up, we’re a vassal state instead of being the center of the empire and so on. It affects us more directly than it affects Americans. The war is so close that many of the people that fled it just drove here in their car. It has suddenly become a normal, everyday thing to see UA license plates when you’re driving. And while US propaganda is nothing new here, it is a relatively recent development that it has been this intense. During the Iraq war, there was widespread opposition here, and that absolutely included the press. There’s nothing like that anymore, even critical journalists have been successfully muzzled and need to hide their criticism of UA behind a thick layer of jingoism. For example, i recently read an article about the dire situation of LGBT soldiers in the Ukrainian army. As gay marriage is illegal there, people can’t even burry their partner when he has fallen in battle. Many have to completely hide who they are. But instead of calling that out openly, it was burried deep in the article, which started out with emphasizing how patriotic the queer community in Ukraine is. It just went on and on telling us how much the gays love fighting for a state that constantly oppresses them. As a cherry on top, the whole thing was illustrated with a picture of a car flying rainbow and Ukrainian flags. Absolutely sickening how they instrumentalize LGBT people and pinkwash Selenski’s reactionary regime. Stuff like that is very common now. And it used to be totally different. When the US made up its lies about Iraqi WMDs, our press very publically called that out. When the US went to war, they explained concepts like embedded journalism, told readers expressly to view info from the USA with a huge grain of salt and pointed out the propagandistic dimension of American news coverage. That was just 20 years ago. We now see that America has made sure to never let that happen again.
But some people remember. You’re not gonna notice it in a comment section under one of these propaganda articles, where warmongering libs cheer each other on in their vitriolic hatred for Putin while nazis sneak in and use the opportunity to spread revisionism like the “double holocaust” narrative. But when i talk to people in person, i see opposition to the war all across the political spectrum. From communists to radlibs to socdems to conservatives. Unfortunately the most vocal opposition comes from the far right, where it is not driven by an opposition to imperialism, but by nationalism, hatred for refugees that easily rivals the russophobia of libs and a glowing support of Putin’s most reactionary policies. There is mobilization for anti-war protests from both the left and the right (and the left mostly pays close attention to not be infiltrated and avoid a “querfront” type situation), but as of now, the cryptofash who already built up a strong presence on the street during the anti-mask protests are seemlessly moving over to pro-Russia protests, sometimes including assaults on Ukrainian passersby.
It’s a messy and complicated situation here. Very hard to agitate against the war outside of far right brigades. I’ve tried, but i found that thought-out, analytical, sourced posts critical of the US propaganda are more likely to be removed than the most shallow pro-Russia posting that just treats this war as a team sport where they’re stanning the out-of-town team. There’s an active effort to only allow reactionary opposition to be platformed, as that makes it easier to uphold the lie that this is a fight between a progressive defender and a reactionary aggressor when it’s actually two reactionary powers struggling over their spheres of influence. The biggest callout of the war early on came from Alice Schwarzer, the most influential terf in Germany. The press uses these people so they can uphold the illusion of pluralism and impartiality while at the same time being able to discredit any critics as chuds.