by Robert Wilkinson
Beware of "whataboutism." Beware of those who argue false equivalences, and insist that because no one is pure, we're all equally flawed. This is a Soviet-era propaganda technique to deflect from the point into irrelevant and false comparisons.
As we read in Wikipedia on Whataboutism, "When criticisms were leveled at the Soviet Union, the Soviet response would be "What about..." followed by an event in the Western world.”
Here’s more: “The Guardian deemed whataboutism, as used in Russia, "practically a national ideology". Journalist Julia Ioffe wrote that "Anyone who has ever studied the Soviet Union" was aware of the technique, citing the Soviet rejoinder to criticism, "And you are lynching Negroes," as a "classic" example of the tactic. Writing for Bloomberg News, Leonid Bershidsky called whataboutism a "Russian tradition", while The New Yorker described the technique as "a strategy of false moral equivalences". Jill Dougherty called whataboutism a "sacred Russian tactic", and compared it to The pot calling the kettle black.
US president Donald Trump has made use of whataboutism and some commentators have argued that he appears to be imitating Putin in this regard....”
Which brings us to this article in Business Insider by Sonam Sheth titled ‘Facts don't matter': How Trump uses one of Putin's favorite propaganda tools, where he makes the point that the current president and his cabal use “whataboutism” to attempt “to deflect criticism by drawing false equivalencies and shifting the narrative. … At its core, the main purpose of ‘whataboutism’ is to ‘destroy the democratic values of the truth,’ one analyst said.”
From the article:
A few weeks ago, President Donald Trump took to Twitter to slam Attorney General Jeff Sessions and special counsel Robert Mueller as the FBI's counterintelligence investigation over whether the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow in 2016 gained traction."So many people are asking why isn't the A.G. or Special Council looking at the many Hillary Clinton or Comey crimes. 33,000 e-mails deleted?" he tweeted."... What about all of the Clinton ties to Russia, including Podesta Company, Uranium deal, Russian Reset, big dollar speeches etc.," he added.
It was just one of many instances where the president has taken criticism levied against him and pointed it in someone else's direction. In doing so, Trump is utilizing one of Russia's oldest propaganda tools, which the Soviet Union used when its socialism was compared to other countries both inside the USSR and by the rest of the world.
Whenever the USSR was criticized for its crimes or flaws, defenders routinely pointed to grievances committed by capitalist or fascist countries, said Michael David-Fox, a professor at Georgetown University and an expert on modern Russia and the USSR…..
Another classic example occurred more recently when NBC host Megyn Kelly interviewed Putin in June. In response to questions about Russia's interference in the 2016 election, Putin replied: "Put your finger anywhere on a map of the world, and everywhere you will hear complaints that American officials are interfering in internal election processes."
"Whataboutism" appears to serve Putin by enabling him to take the position that it's not America's role to "lecture Russia on democracy when it has had such a poor track record of establishing them on its own watch," said Vadim Nikitin, a Russia analyst and freelance journalist. Most of all, Putin's finger-pointing at the US' own foibles is done in an effort to force others to "accept all sides as morally flawed," he added.
This administration has engaged in these deflections since before it began. Here’s more:
During a 2015 interview on MSNBC's "Morning Joe," co-host Joe Scarborough pressed Trump about Putin's crackdowns. "He kills journalists that don't agree with him," Scarborough said."Well, I think that our country does plenty of killing too, Joe," Trump replied, without addressing the specific criticism aimed at Putin.
Trump doubled down on his defense of the Russian strongman after taking office in January. During an interview with then-Fox News host Bill O'Reilly shortly after being sworn in, Trump said he respected Putin. O'Reilly pushed back: "Putin's a killer."
"There are a lot of killers," Trump replied. "We have a lot of killers. What, you think our country is so innocent?"
It was a shocking pronouncement from the leader of a country that had, up until that point, taken a firm stance against Putin's documented attacks on human rights and basic freedoms. More importantly, in making those statements, Trump appeared to be doing the Russian leader's job for him by echoing his own talking points….
We’ll close this section with more about this tactic of false equivalence:
Later that month, as questions about whether members of the Trump campaign colluded with Moscow continued to escalate and more of Trump's associates began lawyering up, Trump tweeted, "Hillary Clinton colluded with the Democratic Party in order to beat Crazy Bernie Sanders. Is she allowed to so collude? Unfair to Bernie!"But given his thin skin and tendency to deflect criticism, Trump appears to have shed light on one of the key dangers "whataboutism" can pose to those who use it.
A method in which "you're always blaming someone else," often reflects back on the accuser, David-Fox said.
Trump "routinely blames others for the exact missteps of which he is accused, even in advance, or preemptively, when something negative is forthcoming," he added. "But if you do this too transparently, it becomes clear that you're projecting onto others what you are afraid of."
Anyway, please read the entire article, since knowing about this is as important as to know when we’re being “gaslighted,” another very nasty tactic used by psychopaths to take attention away from their abusive behavior. The author speaks about this being a way “to avoid any argument and to sound like you speak from your soul," and how this tactic is being used by other authoritarian leaders in our world. He goes on to give several examples of the administration seeking to make false equivalences trying to shift the topic being discussed, including what was said about the travel ban (“Obama did the same thing”) and Jeff Sessions’ contacts with Russians (“The same Ambassador visited Obama 22 times”) .
On a final note, a Russian reporter who has vast experience covering these things calls this “Putin's favorite propaganda tool,” and states
"Facts don't matter," Kovalev said, explaining what Putin's relationship with the media was like. If "you're raising a serious issue, [he will] respond with a vague, non-committal statement," Kovalev said."'Mr. President, what about these horrible human rights abuses in our country?' 'Thank you, Miss. This is indeed a very serious issue. Everybody must respect the law. And by the way, don't human rights abuses happen in other countries as well?'" Kovalev said, laying out a hypothetical question-and-answer scenario between Putin and a reporter.
He elaborated on the phenomenon in an interview with USA Today, saying: "The thing is that when you think it's your mission to make him [Putin] admit a lie, or an inconsistency in his previous statements, when you try to point out those inconsistences or catch him red-handed lying, there's no point because he'll evade your question, he knows that he can just drown you in meaningless factoids or false moral equivalencies..."
Beware of deflections and false equivalencies when in a discussion that seems to keep going off the rails into directions unrelated to the original point. And of course, besides pointing out false equivalencies, as we were taught when much younger, “Just because someone else is doing it is no excuse for you doing it,” also known as “two wrongs don’t make a right” (even if two Wrights make an airplane ...)
Ending on that lighter note, knowing when you’re being “whatabouted” and “gaslighted” can keep you sane in the midst of this strange Neptune in Pisces illusion being spun during these times of weird scenes inside the gold mine.
© Copyright 2017 Robert Wilkinson
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