What percentage of people in Slovakia believe in political propaganda based on hatred? Demographics
Roughly, it will be about 50%, according to the Globsec survey. Each of these people believes in Kremlin propaganda with varying intensity. A certain group of people can defend various hateful hoaxes and fake news extremely aggressively. The presidential elections in 2019 will also be a very good public opinion poll, where Štefan Harabin, with even more extremist rhetoric than the radical Kotleba party, will be among the favorites.A big advantage is that young people are less involved in politics and therefore are not such a vulnerable group. I see pensioners as the most vulnerable group – nowadays, more and more pensioners are starting to use the internet and social networks. Unfortunately, the reality is cruel and after the age of 60, a person's intelligence begins to decline very quickly, making them more susceptible to stupid propaganda. I know many people who have become very foolish in their old age, and this does not only apply to political topics, but in general.
The strength of Kremlin propaganda is its aggressiveness. In contrast, the other camp, which is on the side of good, is very passive and inactive.
Too many useful idiots
In Slovakia, we have too many useful idiots who are willing to help with propaganda, either for money or out of personal conviction. We Slovaks are a nation of fools and useful idiots.Too many very active and aggressive useful idiots are a greater danger than the Russian government. The Russian government is just taking advantage of the situation, taking advantage of the stupidity and naivety of the Slovak nation.
Slovak useful idiots are more Catholic than the Pope and more Putinist than Putin. In some aspects, Slovak disinformation pro-Kremlin media are more radical than their domestic Russian counterparts. Just as a small example, Putin himself admitted that the unrest in Ukraine was not spontaneous, that Russian soldiers were involved in it, whereas here in Slovakia we hold the view that the unrest in Donbas is exclusively an internal problem of Ukraine, with which Russia has nothing to do. Such propaganda has already infiltrated even serious, Western-oriented media. Putin's statement here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4p9K07vK12A
Too few people/activists are fighting against propaganda. The media is not fulfilling its role.
It is said that evil exists from a lack of good. The problem is not so much that there is aggressive hateful disinformation propaganda, but that there is no one to stand up to this evil.For evil (Hitler) to come to power, it was enough for good people to do nothing. And we are in exactly the same situation in relation to the hateful pro-Kremlin media, which are growing like cancer, and we all turn a blind eye to it and try our best to ignore this problem as if it does not concern us. The indifference of society is outrageous. Damn Slovak nation!
The problem is not that hate media exists. The problem is the enormous lethargy of society, that there is no one to criticize them.
Only two media outlets (Denník N and Denník SME), with not very high viewership, are actively fighting against fake news. The other media outlets are just idly watching, and that is a huge mistake, and from a moral point of view, it is extremely irresponsible when they refuse to balance the aggressive one-sided information of Kremlin propaganda.
Activist Juraj Smatana, as well as the two aforementioned media outlets, are doing a very good job. Their philosophy is to fight against fake news. This is very correct because if they did not warn about fake news, the Kremlin-supported media would produce them 20 times more often than before, and people would naively believe them as pure truth. The disinformation media themselves have understood that fake news does not do them any good, and they are trying to reduce their number and frequency. By the way, for comparison, in the most watched Russian media, the number of hoaxes is several tens per day.
However, Juraj Smatana, as well as the two aforementioned media outlets, are making a fundamental mistake. They monitor and focus exclusively on disinformation/hoaxes. In reality, however, a much more serious problem with alternative disinformation media is the spread of hatred and hostility against opinion opponents and the West as such. Civic activists should not only monitor fake news but also monitor hatred and draw attention to this problem so that it can be addressed, and draw attention to the fact that people should stop hating each other.
Even the desperately and critically small number of activists and personalities who fight against pro-Kremlin media have gone in the wrong direction. In Slovakia, the real problem with pro-Kremlin media has never been called by its true name, and that is hatred. If we don't correctly diagnose the true nature of the problem, then how can we effectively fight against it? And this is precisely the root of the problem, why we are losing this information hybrid war.
It is also about the moral decline of society. Our whole society is disoriented and blinded. How is it possible that I am the only person who has publicly pointed out the problem that disinformation media spread hatred? Why doesn't anyone else join me? Why do we have such a strange mentality that everyone relies on someone else to do it for them? Isn't this a disgrace to the entire Slovak nation? Are we really in such a great moral decline that no one else in the entire Slovak society cares except me? How is it possible that I don't know a single activist who would be bothered by hatred? How is it possible that we are more bothered by fake news than by hatred? A fake news story in itself is more or less harmless compared to hatred, which incites people against each other, prevents serious discussion, destroys interpersonal relationships, and undermines society at its very foundation.
If there were the same number of equally determined and passionate people in Slovakia on the side of the Kremlin's propaganda as there are on the side of the fighters against hatred and disinformation, then the Kremlin's propaganda would be scattered to dust in Slovakia within two weeks.
Slovakia and the Slovak nation are like an organism without an immune system. On the one hand, we have subversive propaganda, but there is no defensive reaction to this action, similar to what is happening in the Czech Republic. In the Czech Republic, at least quality media serve as a healthy counterweight, an immune system against subversive disinformation.
Not all supporters of Kremlin propaganda in Slovakia are brainwashed and mentally broken. I believe that most people are interested in the truth, but they just don't have access to quality media that would balance out the disinformation.
Why is Putin and his policy so popular in Slovakia?
According to propaganda, Russia is a counterweight to the evil, expanding hegemon, the United States, which has carried out military interventions in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya. For this reason, we must hate the USA and love Putin as the savior of the planet, who is a symbol of the guarantee of peace in the world.However, this argument never mentions the other side of the coin. The fact that American presidents have publicly apologized for these military interventions is not taken into account.
Furthermore, it is not mentioned that our beloved perfect Putin initially supported the US military intervention against Al-Qaeda Islamists. He supported the military intervention in Iraq. Even in 2011, when the UN voted on military intervention in Libya, Russia, with President Medvedev, abstained from voting and did not use its right of veto, which many expected, so Russia supported the intervention in Libya.
People who believe in this propaganda simply do not know this information because they are people with very low intelligence. If they knew this information, they would immediately cool down in their aggressiveness. It is necessary to raise awareness in this area and awaken people.
The idiots who believe in Kremlin propaganda do not realize that Putin started the war in Donbas, so he is not a peaceful peacemaker. Evidence here
Furthermore, when you ask why people love Putin, they will tell you that Putin is Russia, Russia is a Slavic country, and we believe in the ideology of Slavism, Pan-Slavism, the unification of Slavic nations led by our good father Vladimir Putin. Slovakia historically has quite good relations with all Slavic countries, and therefore the ideology of Slavism is very popular, unlike Poland, which historically had many serious grievances and conflicts with Russia.
Anyone who criticizes Putin's policies is labeled by aggressive, hateful debaters, or by the propaganda of pro-Kremlin media, as an anti-Slavic Soros agent who tries to harm society.
However, this ideology stems from the immense stupidity and low intelligence of our Slovak nation. The Russians themselves would not believe us if we told them that we in Slovakia can believe in such absurd nonsense. A person who believes in such a thing should go back and repeat their primary school education.
Slavism is not a bad ideology at its core, but the Russian Federation is a multinational and multicultural country, so it is certainly not an ideal country for Slavism. Even if Putin wanted to cultivate Slavism in Russia, he could not afford to do so because it would provoke civil unrest from non-Slavic nations. They have already fought a civil war with the Muslim Chechens, and Russian politicians certainly do not want that to happen again.
Mikhail Romancov, an expert on Russia, pointed out in one of his lectures that Russians (Slavs) will be a minority in their own country in 15 years. The demographic situation in Russia is desperate – the population decline is serious – the birth rate is low. Statistics improved slightly after the annexation of Crimea, but not for long. Another problem that plagues Russia is the demographically very significant emigration from Russia to countries with better economic conditions. On the contrary, a demographically significant number of Muslim populations from post-Soviet countries immigrate to Russia. Putin is destroying the Slavs, he is pursuing anti-Slavic policies, but in Slovakia, he is revered as a protector of the Slavs by useful idiots.
The Kremlin / Moscow is very well aware of this stupidity and primitiveness of the Slovak nation, and therefore they can very well use the promotion of Putin and his policies through this false idea of Slavism.
Another reason why people believe in the Kremlin's propaganda is that NATO and the USA are allegedly encircling Russia, threatening it and preparing to attack it. The truth is, however, that state propaganda only distracts from the real social problems of Russians with military propaganda, which is also criticized by the Russian government, for example, by the opposition singer Vasya Oblomov. Putin is not afraid of the Alliance, but what he is really afraid of are his own citizens, opposition politicians such as Alexei Navalny or Igor Girkin Strelkov.
Comparison: How Slovaks and Russians Believe in Kremlin Propaganda
While I don't know a single person in Slovakia who would be bothered by the hatred of pro-Kremlin media, on the contrary, Russian opposition internet media, which is followed by about 10 to 15% of people there, very actively criticize the hatred in state propaganda, whose main goal is fake news through which they try to evoke hostile sentiments in Russians towards the USA and the West.For example, the Russian opposition singer Vasya Oblomov also actively criticizes the hatred in state propaganda.
Despite the propaganda, when Russians hear the truth, they can admit it and take it into account, here's an example. In contrast, about 30% of people in Slovakia are so strongly fanatical about pro-Kremlin propaganda that they would even lay down their lives for it, and they reject any other opinion on principle, labeling it as Soros's subversive propaganda. Russians are not as bigotedly fanatical about propaganda and hatred as Slovaks are.
There is no dumber nation on this planet than the Slovaks. We do not appreciate democracy and we want a dictatorship and tyranny here, the same as in Russia.
While people in the Slovak media learn nothing negative about Putin's policy, and even serious media do not try to aggressively balance the one-sided pro-Putin news of pro-Kremlin media, on the contrary, in Russia at least 10-15% of people follow the opposition internet media, where they learn the truth. Russians are more objectively informed about Russian politics than Slovaks – we may not like it, but it is a fact. Even if something critical of Putin's policy appears in our media, which happens very rarely, it is usually only cosmetic criticism, very weak analyses and very weak arguments.
The hateful Kremlin media should be sincerely grateful to Juraj Smatana. Instead, they hate him.
If the pro-Kremlin media were genuinely interested in truth and honesty, they would be grateful to this man and thank him. Criticism is a good thing. Criticism moves a person forward so that they can do their job better. But why so much hatred?The problem is that pro-Kremlin media are not interested in the truth, but in aggression, hatred, and lying to people.
An extraordinary state should be declared.
What is happening in Slovakia is really crazy and really unbelievable. People have gone completely mad. If I were the Minister of Defense, I would declare a state of emergency, a state of threat and destabilization of the entire country. Slovakia is brought to its knees not by military means but by hybrid warfare, where the mind of the Slovak nation has been controlled through the useful idiots of Kremlin propaganda.If someone had told me 5 years ago that the future of Slovakia would be like its present, I would not have believed such a person and would have sent them to a psychiatrist.
We live in a perverse time when the more absurd, primitive, and hateful propaganda someone spreads, the more people believe it. People in Slovakia have completely lost their sense of what is normal. The person who spreads hatred is considered a fighter for good and truth, and whoever publicly says that they are bothered by hatred in Kremlin propaganda is labeled a malicious agent of Soros who is trying to harm society.
We live in a time when madness is considered normality and normality is considered madness.
Media
TASR has recently slightly improved the quality of its reporting on Russia after the departure of the controversial Rezník. What shocks me, however, is that individual commercial media outlets simply do not publish many press releases that are negative about Russia, which is a huge scandal. It is practically censorship. Do Slovak journalists have such a great need to kiss Putin's ass that they will censor a large part of the negative information about Russian politics?It is also a huge scandal that the Slovak media do not write their own articles about Russia and only passively take over overly diplomatic, politically correct, and low-quality news about Russia. The fact that we only have about 5 journalists in Slovakia who seriously deal with foreign news is a real shame. I dare say that even Zimbabwe has better journalism than Slovakia. Analyses and quality reports on Russia in the Slovak media are as rare as water in the desert. While normal media cowardly remain silent, the Kremlin-backed disinformation media are damn active and aggressive in their demagoguery. When the media do not lift a finger to balance the lies, then we cannot be surprised why aggressive disinformation is so successful.
Andrej Kiska
I was not at all enthusiastic about the victory of the pro-American president Andrej Kiska at that time. The situation was completely different. Before 2014, there were not such serious problems in Russian politics as there are today. Putin still perceived the West, the EU and the USA as a friend and wanted to cooperate with them. At that time, the media were a little less critical of US policy and more critical of Putin's policy than they should have been. That's why I supported alternative media to a small extent in some things, because they brought a different perspective,(although I was aware of fake news back in 2014, and from the very beginning of alternative media, I was bothered by the hatred in them) .
In the meantime, however, the situation has changed and has swung to the complete opposite extreme, and Slovakia has reoriented itself from the West to the cult of Putin and aggressive Kremlin propaganda.
Pro-Kremlin views strongly dominate the media and politics, and today I am very happy and grateful that Kiska, as one of the very few politicians, has the courage to go against the current and express a different view than the pro-Kremlin one.
The thing that reinforced the factor for which I had a negative opinion of Kiska in the past was that he was a supporter of illegal and unregulated migration, which, thank God, he has since changed.
Štefan Harabin
Harabin is one of the most popular people spreading Kremlin propaganda. He is a stupid, useful idiot.It must be acknowledged that Harabin was, I emphasize was, despite various controversies, an intelligent person. In the meantime, however, he has gone crazy. As of May 10, 2018, we can say with complete certainty that Štefan Harabin is not a normal person and suffers from some kind of mental disorder.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_3kv-eXBTg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LDuzjU-an5o
God forbid Slovakia that such a madman becomes president!!
Harabin also has a much harsher rhetoric than Marián Kotleba himself.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MAk9kb81MOo
I don't want to criticize Harabin – I honestly feel sorry for this man.