The interview that Russian President Vladimir Putin recently gave to American independent journalist Tucker Carlson was more than just an interview. In an approach reminiscent of the famous German journalist Emil Ludwig, Mr. Carlson tried to get a real conversation going, with serious answers to serious questions. Therefore, and unlike the style of most of today’s Western journalists doing interviews, he actually listened to the interviewee, without trying to steer him into making statements that satisfy the US imperial propaganda apparatus.
Rather than an interview, what we saw was a master-class in history, skillfully delivered by the Russian President. Needless to say, most of it seemed novel to Mr. Carlson, who admitted to having studied history as an undergraduate. Likewise, most of what Putin said is certain to be news to the elites, journalists and the general public in the “West.” Certainly in the US, but I am afraid also in Europe, which has been under US occupation and incessant, systematic brainwashing for eighty years now.
It should be pointed out that the US is built on the conscious denial of history. In the eyes of both the US public and its leading elites, the US remains outside of history: it is a “shining city upon a hill” that all the rest of the world is looking up to in never-ending amazement, hoping to be able to partake of its wonders. If only for that reason, Putin’s history class was necessary, but if it will be helpful must be seriously doubted.
Those who make the decisions in the US Empire will be impervious to Putin’s message. Apart from sheer intellectual incapacity, an additional impediment to understanding what the Russian President said will be a serious case of cognitive dissonance. After all, given the embarrassing public appearances of US President Joe Biden, as he stumbles on stairs and stammers through the brief notes he is given to recite, it must hurt the collective self-esteem to watch Putin acting like a real statesman. The self-confidence that Putin exudes is only more reason for embarrassment and shame and will certainly deepen the cognitive dissonance.
It should be borne in mind that not too long ago, numerous Western leaders publicly praised Putin for being a great guy, on the level, trustworthy, reliable and intelligent. That same guy is now leading a military campaign in the Ukraine that has made it clear for all with eyes to see that the West is militarily, diplomatically and culturally inferior to Russia. It sure takes a lot of lies, spinning and generating counter-narratives to make those facts recede into the background. As a matter of fact, the moment is approaching when Western elites need to accept the inevitable, namely that the Ukraine cannot survive, certainly not in its present form.
Then what about the display of Ukrainian flags all over the EU and NATOstan? We have been seeing those yellow-blue flags and ribbons on public buildings, government offices and indeed everywhere in the public space, even on thousands of web sites, testifying to their unwavering support and sympathy for the Ukraine. Such public displays are still mandatory, since the Ukraine supposedly embodies “Western Values.” These need to be defended against the brutal invasion by a “dictator” and a “war criminal,” who is depicted as the latest reincarnation of none other than Adolf Hitler. (Of course, the supporters of the Ukraine in the West are closing their eyes to the fact that hard-core Ukrainian nationalist zealots tend to admire people like Stepan Bandera, who worked hand-in-hand with Hitler’s soldiers).
But what about those “Western Values?” There was a time not too long ago when these were the humanistic values of the Declaration of Human Rights dating from 1948. In essence, this Declaration is an elaboration of the Enlightenment principle that “all men are created equal,” as enshrined in the US Declaration of Independence.
Today, those values have been replaced by others, represented by abbreviations in capitals, such as “BLM” and “LGBTQ.” As a matter of fact, when “all men (mind you, this term as used until recently, covers all of humanity) are created equal” this perforce includes “people of color,” men who think they are a woman or a dog, and women who think they are a man or a cat or whatever. Nevertheless, the new, capitalized “Western Values” are supported and promoted throughout the world by mostly three-letter entities and agencies such as NED, HRW, AID, CIA, WEF, WHO, IMF and numerous others, including NATO and the EU.
The new “Western Values” are protected by strict censorship on social media and stringent hate-speech legislation, outlawing any comment about anyone which that person objects to. For any sane person by now, the only sure way of avoiding trouble and prosecution under hate-speech laws is to keep one’s mouth shut. That is what Western democracy has morphed into: a complete madhouse.
In Germany, football/soccer fans were reprimanded for stating there are no more than two genders; in much of the EU, there are stringent laws against “Holocaust Denial,” whereas the pressures are mounting to make “Climate Denial” illegal as well. In Canada, lawmakers are planning to outlaw any criticism of legislation banning “fossil fuels,” while in Israel they intend to make it illegal to question the official narrative of what happened on October 7, 2023, when Hamas crossed the border into Israel.
In line with those wonderful “Western Values” it is apparently possible to expel people and deprive them of their civil rights for insufficient language skills. That is what the government of Latvia (an EU member state) is doing. They have begun to throw out Latvian citizens of Russian descent who are considered unable to speak Latvian properly. At the same time, the University of Latvia in the capital Riga is expanding its courses taught in English to foreign students who will never even bother to learn Latvian at all.
The Ukraine is being supported by the EU because it wants to remain seceded from Russia, of which it has been an integral part for centuries, as President Putin has explained so eloquently. At the same time the EU has been preventing the independence of Catalonia, for which a vast majority of Catalan voters as recently as 2017 expressed their support. So the Catalans want to have their independent state like the Ukraine, and with solid reasons, for Catalonia (as the Kingdom of Aragon) boasts a tradition of independent nationhood since the Middle Ages. Apparently, double standards are also part and parcel of “Western Values.”
To top it all off, one in four members of the 705-seat European Parliament has a criminal record. We are talking here about people that, mostly in their home countries, have been visited, questioned or detained by the police or convicted in a court of law. In other words, the highest representative organ in the EU is made up of ordinary criminals. For one quarter, but still, those people enact laws that the 450 million EU subjects have to adhere to! An admirable feat, to say the least.
The core of the problem is that Western elites and peoples may think they have “values,” with many wishing to uphold these, but that is just not possible. This is because since the mid-1980s the West in fact only adheres to one single value: money. Everything in the “West” is expressed in monetary value, everything has a price. And where everything has a price, there remains nothing of value. Therefore, even the one value that the West has and truly respects, that is money, is meaningless.
That is why those “Western Values” are a total sham.
Vladimir Putin has eloquently shown this in the interview he granted Tucker Carlson.
The Western public is deeply indebted to President Putin for showing their rulers what the facts are, what Russia is all about and how things really work. The moment those rulers realize they have no values, they will also understand Mr. Putin’s lesson.
Ep. 73 The Vladimir Putin Interview pic.twitter.com/67YuZRkfLL
— Tucker Carlson (@TuckerCarlson) February 8, 2024