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[-] Makan@lemmygrad.ml 35 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

Translated into English through Google:


The video app TikTok is full of pictures of young Russians who tell of their lives. Freshly renovated apartment blocks with kindergartens, full supermarkets and busy streets design an image of comfortable normality.

The influencers are happy to show how local companies have replaced McDonald’s and Coca-Cola with at least equivalent offers. The subliminal message of the propaganda videos: Western sanctions cannot harm Russia.

A platform of several economic research institutes funded by the Federal Ministry of Economics now supports this message with data. It proves how the Russian economy is booming in the midst of Ukraine war.

While China, India, and Turkey have not quite offset the elimination of foreign trade with Europe, rising domestic demand is leading to a real job miracle. The Federal Government could make the Federal Government envious of upgrades-driven economic growth and low public debt.

The European hope from the first day after the attack on the neighbouring country to force Russia quickly to return with economic sanctions has not been fulfilled. The Russian citizens do not rebel simply because they lack Nescafé and Heineken. Payments and banks have not collapsed. The Russian state can easily pay pensions, wages and benefits.

This shows that in a multipolar world, the West has lost global economic power. Russia is finding new trading partners – also for oil and gas, the foreign exchange providers. Unlike other rogue states, the country has a historically grown full-fledged arms industry. Display

And Putin has even succeeded in stabilising the fluctuating order and eliminating opponents such as mercenary leaders forefying Prigozhin.


More to the article if you want to read more.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 50 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago)

It is truly astonishing to consider how anyone could believe that Russians would rise up over frivolous matters like this. Moreover, I'd argue that there is a certain degree of racism in these narratives that rely on the notion that Russians or Chinese cannot independently produce products comparable to Western standards on their own.

In fact, the whole portrayal of liberal democracy as the sole legitimate form of governance amounts to little more than contemporary marketing for colonialism. This concept functions as a pretext for invasions disguised as benevolent civilizing missions and is directly connected with the notion that Western goods are superior. It's part of an overarching narrative that portrays the West as bringing enlightenment to "uncivilized" societies.

[-] halykthered@lemmy.ml 37 points 4 months ago

Can you imagine the blood in the streets if americans couldn't get their chicken nuggets? No more coors light? I think it's an american-centric line of thought to believe that other countries would revolt over losing their little treats like the US would.

[-] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 17 points 4 months ago

always projection :)

[-] CicadaSpectre@lemmygrad.ml 15 points 4 months ago

Reminds me of Prohibition and how violent it got all because Americans couldn't get booze. To this day, I don't doubt there'd be an uprising if they ever tried that again here. We're dependent on bread and circuses, and we project like no other.

[-] halykthered@lemmy.ml 17 points 4 months ago

More snacks and projection than a drive-in movie theater.

[-] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 5 points 4 months ago

Ya know, I don't think this is that far off from the truth, though naturally there are degrees to product worship and dependency on it among USians. I do think it makes a kind of sense if you consider how many in the US (in varying degrees) are void of a sense of identity or social responsibility and drift in nihilism. I mean, people are to some extent encouraged to form their identity around what products they're into. And on a national level, what else have USians got? Jingoism? Pride for being a colonizer and imperialism in a barbaric legacy? Some people in the US do have religion, but with varying levels of taking it seriously.

I myself have had times where I get very into a product (such as a video game) and the surrounding "community" (though the word "community" in this kind of usage is sort of silly with how loosely affiliated and discordant it tends to be). I'm lacking sources on it right now that I can recall, but I feel like I read once that this was intentional in some way, the conjoining of "product" and "community."

But either way (intentional or no) you can observe it with ease online, where it's virtually inevitable to run into zealots for a given product who will defend it so viciously, you'd think it was their firstborn on trial.

[-] MeowZedong@lemmygrad.ml 1 points 4 months ago

I'm lacking sources on it right now that I can recall, but I feel like I read once that this was intentional in some way, the conjoining of "product" and "community."

If you find it, I'd appreciate a share. Any searches including the two words are poisoned by articles trying to tell you how to turn your brand into a community. Each search is just page after page of that shit.

[-] amemorablename@lemmygrad.ml 3 points 4 months ago

I'll try to remember to if I can find it. Web searching has indeed become a pain. I tried to do some just now, but didn't have much luck. Through a link in one article, I came upon one source that is vaguely related to what we're talking about, but not really on the point of specifically combining product and community. It's also sort of a shallow summary and may be stuff you've already heard of: https://www.businessinsider.com/birth-of-consumer-culture-2013-2

These quotes from it specifically stand out to me:

"We must shift America from a needs, to a desires culture," wrote Paul Mazur of Lehman Brothers. "People must be trained to desire, to want new things even before the old had been entirely consumed. We must shape a new mentality in America. Man's desires must overshadow his needs."

Bernays shattered the taboo against women smoking by persuading a group of debutantes to light up at a parade — an event he leaked to the media ahead of time with the phrase "Torches Of Freedom" — thereby linking smoking with challenging male authority.

But, this isn't really the specificity of intent I thought I had found something on before. Maybe I confused someone extrapolating intent from outcomes in the past, or it's just out there in the mass of the internet somewhere and is hard to find.

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this post was submitted on 12 Jul 2024
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