Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by paganel | Hacker News Reader

Interesting that the North-Koreans are trying to beat the Westerners at their own meme-based propaganda game.

I've started noticing a similar trend in regards to the war in Ukraine. When you've got all the establishment (political&intellectual&cultural) and the press on one side and one side only (Ukraine's and Zelensky's) then the other side (in this case Putin and the Russians) becomes the "counter-cultural" force, the"bad guys" that the "under-current" present on the "good guys"'s side might try to emulate out of spite at some point.

Again, interesting stuff, because I have the feeling that the West is kind of "losing" this aspect of the propaganda war, I mean, they're losing the fight when all they present to the world is a united front of "goodness". They're leaving the "counter-cultural" side of the "war" to their enemies (in this case the Russians), not a good sign.

I'd say the US was much more careful about this sort of stuff back in the '60s going all the way to the '80s, I'd say in this day and age movies like "Apocalypse Now" or "Rambo I" (a Vietnam veteran "combating" against the US Army on US soil!) would never get made because they would "break" that unified front of "goodness". It was also through movies like "Apocalypse Now" and "Rambo" that the US won the Cold War (I grew up as a kid on the East side of the Wall, if it matters).

On the contrary, I'd say the Ukrainians are absolutely masterful at this, and their enemies (the Russians) have utterly lost the plot.

It all depends on your information bubble it seems.

> It was also through movies like "Apocalypse Now" and "Rambo" that the US won the Cold War

What?? Can you explain that?

We were attracted by Western “culture”, that’s what brought the Wall down. We had a sort of “culture” on our side, too, but it was all positive and as such it seemed fake, especially to the younger people/generations.

From a distance the Western culture didn’t seem fake, it looked like the real thing (again, also because it was able to “present” to the world all its contradictions).

Of course that this is all a very complicated discussion (to this day I think the punk culture in the West was “masterminded”/instrumentalized at keeping the generation most affected by the Great Stagnatation at bay), but most probably a web forum is not the best place to hold it.

Apocalypse Now, Rambo, and Punk culture were genuine. We did not have the kind of censorship that you did, it’s that simple. We were free to criticize our government and replace them every 4 years. You weren’t.

If you think those things were engineered in some easy and not self-emergent, then that’s a conspiracy theory without much merit in my mind. But I love to entertain these things and if there’s a way to reach you outside this web forum, let me know.

You're assuming the west (or the US specifically) is not actually helping Ukraine out in this way. They've been on this since weeks before the invasion even happened. By putting it all out there, they really messed with Putin's plans.

I've always assumed they've been helping Ukraine out with propaganda. This whole invasion is like a wonderful insight into the Russian military for the US which would be invaluable. Or maybe they already knew that anyways.

I've been very impressed with Ukraine, seriously. Even if others' are helping, so what - they're not the ones who invaded a neighbouring country.

> By putting it all out there, they really messed with Putin's plans.

How? The invasion still happened.

It only showed the US knew it was gonna happen and was powerless to stop it. Nor did the US (or other countries) send weapons and supplies in advance. But at least they got to say I told you so..

It was a terrible strategy.

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