Follow up to Carlson’s interview with Vladimir Putin | Gilbert Doctorow

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[–]kingsmegLiberté, égalité, fraternité 1 insightful - 1 fun1 insightful - 0 fun2 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

I read this piece and I laughed at this:

With this objective in mind, I continue to believe that Putin’s decision to deliver a 30 minute history lecture at the opening by way of answer to Carlson’s question of why Russia invaded was a bad decision. It was bad for several reasons. One is that it was boring for the general public. Yes, the interview attracted 140 million ‘hits’ on Carlson’s website, but we are not told how long those viewers stayed tuned. Secondly, Putin is not a professional historian and anything he said would be pulled to pieces by academics in the States, not just by the usual journalistic commentators. Thirdly, the history going back to the 9th century had nothing to do with the decision to invade Ukraine, which was prompted and justified internally in the Kremlin by reasons of Realpolitik, not by what is called Romantic Nationalism.

So mr. Doctorow knows not only who Putin's audience was, but what his purpose was in reaching them and how he should have achieved his goals?

[–]RandomCollection[S] 2 insightful - 1 fun2 insightful - 0 fun3 insightful - 1 fun -  (0 children)

https://archive.ph/JmOIa

As I said yesterday, the Kremlin elites hoped that the interview would get around U.S. censorship and bring the Russian perspective directly to the ears and eyes of the broad American public, which also, of course, includes American elites. It is highly likely that Tucker Carlson was on the same wave length, since Americans are the folks he hopes to entice to become paying subscribers to his Network and also because he likely believes he can influence the course of history by waking up his compatriots. Each time Carlson brings in 40 million viewers he puts to shame the likes of CNN whose viewer numbers are ten times less, if I may be generous to them.

Yep Tucker and Kremlin both have their own objectives. That doesn't mean that what they are saying isn't factual and accurate, but it does mean that we should apply critical thinking skills to what they say.

With this objective in mind, I continue to believe that Putin’s decision to deliver a 30 minute history lecture at the opening by way of answer to Carlson’s question of why Russia invaded was a bad decision. It was bad for several reasons. One is that it was boring for the general public. Yes, the interview attracted 140 million ‘hits’ on Carlson’s website, but we are not told how long those viewers stayed tuned. Secondly, Putin is not a professional historian and anything he said would be pulled to pieces by academics in the States, not just by the usual journalistic commentators.

Americans are famous for their short attention spans.

As for the historians, well, most of them in the West are biased, so of course they'd try to distort him. The Western MSM and academia were going to try to dishonestly portray him in the worst light possible.

Another point - often the shills criticize Gilbert as some "Putin puppet", but you can see here that he is very willing to point out where Putin has, in his view, made mistakes.