{"id":180428,"date":"2018-12-13T06:28:46","date_gmt":"2018-12-13T06:28:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180428"},"modified":"2018-12-16T06:42:26","modified_gmt":"2018-12-16T06:42:26","slug":"the-pathetic-uber-conformish-northern-europe-is-possibly-the-saddest-most-brainwashed-place-on-earth","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/?p=180428","title":{"rendered":"The Pathetic, Uber-Conformish Northern Europe Is Possibly the Saddest, Most-Brainwashed Place on Earth"},"content":{"rendered":"

Paul Robinson \u2013 Russia Insider Dec 5, 2018<\/a><\/h1>\n

Headlines often don\u2019t reflect the content of stories. Editors know that it\u2019s the headlines that gather readers, and so they do their best to jazz them up so as to make the stories sound far more important or controversial than they really are. In the current frenzy of Russia-related fearmongering, this has meant that followers of the media have been subjected to a deluge of scary-sounding headlines making it seem as if Russians and their agents are spreading chaos everywhere, only to find on reading the stories that it\u2019s a massive fuss about nothing and that substantive evidence supporting the headlines is almost entirely lacking.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

So it is with the Atlantic Council latest report, The Kremlin\u2019s Trojan Horses 3<\/a><\/em><\/strong><\/span>, which is the third in a series purporting to expose high-profile Europeans who are subverting democracy from within as witting or unwitting agents of the Russian government. The title implies that the report is going to be full of hard-hitting revelations of politicians and journalists taking the Kremlin\u2019s money, acting on its orders, and saying or doing things which genuinely threaten the European way of life.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

\"Drinking<\/a>

Drinking the Kool-Aid<\/p><\/div>\n

And indeed, on its website, the Atlantic Council tempts you to read the report by saying that, \u2018the Kremlin\u2019s tentacles do not stop in Ukraine, Georgia, or East Central Europe. They reach far and deep in the core of western societies.\u2019 But the result is a disappointment. For what the report actually tells you is that in Northern Europe there is next to nobody questioning the prevailing narrative about Russia. A better title might be something like The Almost Absolute Conformity of Northern European Elites and the Total Absence of Russian Tentacles.<\/em><\/strong> No doubt, however, nobody would read such a thing, and so we get a big scary title instead.<\/span><\/p>\n

The Kremlin\u2019s Trojan Horses 3<\/em> looks at alleged peddlers of Russian influence in four countries: Denmark, the Netherlands, Norway and Sweden. The introduction informs us that Moscow is engaged in a \u2018continuous, multi-vectored and multi-layered effort\u2019, which is \u2018aimed at undermining democratic institutions\u2019. To aid it, the Kremlin \u2018has sought to cultivate and support a network of like-minded political forces\u2019, which \u2018pursue and advocate for the Kremlin\u2019s interests\u2019. These people, says the report, \u2018undermine European interests, unity, and long-term security\u2019, an inflammatory charge which I\u2019m sure the people in question would reject.<\/span><\/p>\n

So who are these \u2018Trojan horses\u2019? Well, it turns out that they are few and far between.<\/strong> In Denmark, writes the report\u2019s author Alina Polyakova,<\/span><\/p>\n

I have no knowledge of any Trojan horses, defined by a deceitful nature and subversive policies, serving the Kremlin\u2019s agenda; if they exist they are not operating at a level high enough to warrant mention here.<\/span><\/p>\n

The confession that there aren\u2019t any Kremlin Trojan horses in Denmark does not, however, stop the Atlantic Council from disgracefully putting the photograph of one member of the Danish parliament, Marie Krarup, on the front cover next to the title Kremlin\u2019s Trojan Horses<\/em>, thereby implying that she is one. According to the report, Krarup\u2019s sin is that although she is recorded as having said that \u2018Russia has an autocratic and unpleasant political regime\u2019, she has also added that, \u2018It would be great if \u2026 the Danish \u2026 media would try to add more nuance to their coverage of Russia\u2019. Nuance \u2026 how dare she! <\/strong>Fortunately, we are told, this shockingly bold call for more subtle thinking is out of line with the overwhelming mass of more sensibly inclined public opinion.<\/strong> \u2018In general\u2019, the report concludes, in Denmark, \u2018the contours of public discussion leave little room for Putin apologists\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

Much the same is true of the Netherlands, Norway, and Sweden. The report says that there is some sympathy for Russia on the \u2018political flanks\u2019 in the Netherlands, but it struggles to come up with much beyond a single trip by politician Geert Wilders to Russia. <\/strong>The prime example cited of alleged Russian meddling in Dutch politics is the 2016 referendum on the subject of Ukraine\u2019s EU association agreement. But the report fails to produce any evidence that the Dutch citizens of Russian and Ukrainian origin who campaigned against the agreement were in cahoots with the Russian government. The sole exception is a claim that one of them, Vladimir Kornilov, had \u2018high-level contacts within the Kremlin, including nationalist Russian political philosopher Alexander Dugin and Putin\u2019s advisor Sergey Glazyev\u2019. In reality, as any half-informed commentator should know, neither Dugin nor Glazyev is \u2018within the Kremlin\u2019. One has to wonder who the real peddler of disinformation is \u2013 the Kremlin, or the Atlantic Council.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

As for Norway, the report tells us that, \u2018Norway\u2019s small claque of <\/strong>Russlandverstehers <\/strong><\/em>is marginal\u2019.<\/strong> There is, apparently, \u2018no indication\u2019 that any of the parties in the Norwegian parliament have \u2018received Russian support or shifted Norwegian politics regarding Russia\u2019. Beyond a few bloggers and the occasional \u2018pro-Russian\u2019 article in newspapers, voices challenging the mainstream view on Russia are almost entirely absent, so much so that \u2018the most prominent Russian influencer in Norway\u2019 is the Russian ambassador \u2013 a clear indication that the Russian government doesn\u2019t have an army of Norwegian Trojan horses at its disposal. The section on Norway ends up with a rant about the Russian news agency Sputnik<\/em>, again an obvious confession that native Norwegian collaborators are next to non-existent.<\/span><\/p>\n

Finally, the report tells us that there \u2018are no openly pro-Russian parties\u2019 in the Swedish parliament, although some are supposedly \u2018open to influence\u2019, a sinister sounding phrase which suggests rather more than the evidence proves. The report identifies a few Swedish politicians and bloggers, mostly on the far right, who have expressed some sympathy for the Russian point of view, but it\u2019s hard to see that they amount to much.<\/strong> After all, as Ms Polyakova tells us, \u2018Geopolitically, Sweden is firmly oriented towards cooperation with its Nordic neighbors, the EU, the United States, and NATO\u2019.<\/span><\/p>\n

In short, after telling us that Moscow is engaged in a multi-layered campaign against Western democracy, and after leading us to expect an expose of a large network of Kremlin agents who are acting to subvert Europe from within, what the report actually reveals is that there are really very, very few people among the elites of Northern Europe who depart even a fraction from the current narrative that suggests that \u2018Russia is the enemy\u2019.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

It doesn\u2019t take much to get labelled as the Kremlin\u2019s \u2018Trojan horse\u2019 \u2013 even suggesting that a bit more nuance might be a good idea seems to be grounds for suspicion. Yet the Atlantic Council can come up with only a handful of names who are prepared to do even that.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

In that sense, this report is very revealing. Critics of Russia often complain that state control of the media leads to an absence of different viewpoints on key issues. Yet what we see here is that in parts of the Western world, there is an almost absolute conformity of belief among the ruling elite, a conformity so total that it\u2019s doubtful that even a totalitarian state could match it.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Despite this, it seems that Atlantic Council feels that there is not too little, but too much, dissent.<\/strong> Pro-Russian views are \u2018gaining traction\u2019. Whereas once they were held by maybe 1% of elite opinion formers, now maybe they are held by 2%. We must act!! The danger is great. The fear is palpable. It really is amazingly silly.<\/span><\/p>\n

Original source<\/span> Irrussianality<\/a><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Certainly when it comes to questioning the establishment-prescribed Russia line they are<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":39262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[61,91],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-180428","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-Commentary","category-russia"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180428","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/39262"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=180428"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180428\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":180451,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/180428\/revisions\/180451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=180428"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=180428"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.thetruthseeker.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=180428"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}