Fortune Telling from Watching Videos
The pro-Kremlin disinformation evolves, adapts to new circumstances, adopts new methods, approaches and means. A good liar must be a good listener. Disinformation campaings carefully gauges grievances, superstition and prejudice of the target audiences, and feed into various conspiracy theories. Even a rock video can be employed to “prove” groundless claims.
According to a pro-Kremlin outlet in Armenia, a warning about the war in Nagorno-Karabakh was issued in Lady Gaga’s video 911, more than a week before it commenced. The video contains referral to a classic, highly visual art-house Soviet-Armenian film, The Colour of Pomegranades. The 1969 film is considered a milestone in cinema history and Lady Gaga’s video re-images several scenes carefully. At one point, the Armenian word զգուշություն – “zgushut’yun”, “caution” – is displayed. And here, the outlet hi-jacks the Lady Gaga’s visually stunning video and goes into something that must be called a semiotic frenzy:
Lady Gaga represents Armenia, struck by a car-driver – Azerbaijan. She was on a bicycle, symbolising the weakness of Armenia in the face of the Azerbaijani aggression. Her bicycle is crushed. A woman in Armenian clothing sits by her son, wrapped like a mummy with a red cross. This symbolises the large number of casualties among Armenians. Lady Gaga falls in to a coma, and has a vision of an American cowboy (Trump’s America).
Reading the Tea Leaves
Tasseography is the “art” of divination through tea-leaves, coffee grounds, beer residue or any other suitable medium – in this case: rock videos. The fortune teller identifies shapes and forms and delivers various enigmatic messages, carefully studying the interlocutor’s reactions. This approach is fairly common in pro-Kremlin media: Russia’s largest daily annually shares “interpretations” of the cover of The Economist:
The renowned journal is called the global mouthpiece of the Rothschilds; the oldest financial clan of the planet. According to the publishers, it is read by six million readers every week. Among them – world leaders in politics and economy. [The covers] offer not merely prognosis; they are the visions, vectors and ambitions of the Western elites. That’s why they are interesting for us.
Earlier covers with the predictions were colourful, contained riddles, collages, computer matrices, even Tarot cards and ciphers based on the famous da Vinci code.
For several years, the Komsomolskaya Pravda has devoted its pages for de-coding the Rothschilds’ secret messages from the Rulers behind the Scenes. One of its columnists has even suggested a name for those rulers: The Elders of Zion, referring to an old anti-Semitic pamphlet.
Conspiracies Galore
Most disinformation this week is less colourful. Frankly, rather blah. We find the usual unfounded, frequently repeated and rarely innovative tropes on Nazis, on blood-thirsty Liberals and on the US, attempting to encircle Russia. We have the usual attacks on Poland, Lithuania and Ukraine for their alleged interference in Belarus, and we find some well-worn stories, tailor-made for the German public on COVID-19: “Masks and tests make no sense”, Kremlin-owned RT tells its German audience, while Moscow authorities prepare stricter measures to make sure masks are worn and tests are made. And only Russia has managed to produce a vaccine against the COVID-19. Most of these cases are really old hat. Still, old lies are also lies.
Belarus continues to be in the focus for the disinformation outlets: the tens of thousands, protesting for more than two months after the flawed elections are merely puppets, moved by powerful puppet-masters around the world. The pro-Kremlin media’s coverage of the protests in Kyrgyzstan follow the same pattern: a conspiracy of foreign forces.
And here we are back with the powerful Masters behind the Scenes. The pro-Kremlin fortune-tellers, interpreting the Lady Gaga video reaches the same conclusion: behind the war in Nagorno Karabakh stand the global elites:
In fact, the illuminati have issued a warning through her about the war against us, planned by the occult globalists.
A cynical attempt to exploit the tragedy of the war. Russia is given a role as a saviour, the one who withholds Turkey:
Russia is sending Armenia the light, help, though the country does not take any actions by itself; only withholding the snake.
The secret of successful disinformation is, just as with fortune-tellers, the ability to tell sweet lies to a selected audience. Tell Germans that wearing a mask is useless; tell the audience in Russia that masks are good. Repeat the lies until they are smooth… Adapt, adjust…
Disinformation comes in many shapes: we see hahaganda, blah-blah-ganda, and now – Gaga-ganda. Disinformation definitively evolves.
