{"id":56725,"date":"2024-08-07T06:59:01","date_gmt":"2024-08-07T04:59:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/?p=56725"},"modified":"2025-08-07T01:48:24","modified_gmt":"2025-08-06T23:48:24","slug":"if-everything-is-putin-then-nothing-is-putin-the-big-favor-some-people-are-doing-the-kremlin","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/08\/07\/if-everything-is-putin-then-nothing-is-putin-the-big-favor-some-people-are-doing-the-kremlin\/","title":{"rendered":"If everything is Putin then nothing is Putin: the big favor some people are doing the Kremlin"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The unhealthy belief in conspiracy theories is not something exclusive to the extremes of the political map, contrary to what some believe.<!--more--><\/p>\n<p><rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/04\/20\/neither-putin-nor-soros-some-data-that-certain-people-on-the-right-seem-to-ignore\/\">Neither Putin nor Soros: some data that certain people on the right seem to ignore<\/a><\/rel><br \/>\n<rel><a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/04\/05\/polands-hard-reproach-to-france-and-germany-for-their-lukewarm-attitude-towards-russia\/\">Poland's hard reproach to France and Germany for their lukewarm attitude towards Russia<\/a><\/rel><\/p>\n<p>There are people who see the presence of George Soros, for example, behind everything that happens. <strong>If you support Ukraine and reject Putin, then you are a puppet of Soros, according to some.<\/strong> It is a stupid belief that we have suffered for years that we want to reject the Russian dictator. There is an equally stupid belief among the left and centrism: <strong>the idea that if you are conservative then you are a fan of Putin<\/strong>, an idea that ignores <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2020\/03\/05\/the-george-soros-of-moscow-vladimir-putin-and-his-support-to-the-radical-left-of-the-west\/\">the Kremlin's support for the far left<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/01\/23\/ten-facts-right-wing-people-who-sympathize-with-vladimir-putin-seem-to-ignore\/\">the Russian dictator's nods to communism<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>It is worth remembering that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/05\/06\/polands-accurate-warnings-on-russia-in-2021-ignored-by-the-eu-and-the-one-it-launches-now\/\">it was precisely Poland's previous conservative government that warned most about Putin for years<\/a>, warnings that were ignored by the two dominant partners of the European Union, Germany and France: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/04\/05\/polands-hard-reproach-to-france-and-germany-for-their-lukewarm-attitude-towards-russia\/\">it was the lukewarmness of the centrist Merkel and the socialist Macron that fueled Putin's ambitions<\/a>. Ambitions that were also fattened by <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/04\/09\/macron-que-pidio-evitar-los-insultos-a-putin-insulta-y-difama-al-primer-ministro-de-polonia\/\">France's illegal arms sales to Russia in violation of the 2014 embargo<\/a> over the annexation of Crimea and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/01\/28\/el-favor-del-partido-popular-europeo-a-putin-que-denuncia-el-primer-ministro-de-polonia\/\">the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline with which Germany wanted to receive Russian gas<\/a>, leaving the eastern countries at the feet of Moscow.<\/p>\n<p>It is good that part of Europe has finally woken up from its flirtations with Putin, but it is indecent that they are now embracing a conspiracy theory that uses Putin to settle any debate. On August 4, we saw an example of this in a centrist Spanish newspaper. <a href=\"https:\/\/web.archive.org\/web\/20240804204637\/https:\/\/www.abc.es\/opinion\/editorial-abc-caldo-cultivo-desinformacion-20240805183055-nt.html\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Abc published an editorial on the protests in the United Kingdom against mass immigration<\/a>, in which it stated the following: <em>\"<strong>The shadow of the Kremlin, present in any outbreak of social and political fracture registered in the free world<\/strong>, looms over the disinformation campaign that has mobilized thousands of young Britons since last week.\"<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The statement by Abc that I have highlighted in bold <strong>is as absurd as believing that everything bad that happens in the West is Soros's fault<\/strong>. What is truly astonishing is devoting an editorial to the unrest in the United Kingdom <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/08\/05\/islamism-and-the-selective-heavy-handedness-of-the-left-wing-the-case-of-keir-starmer\/\">without citing its cause: the murder of three girls by a young man of African origin<\/a>, a crime that has been the straw that broke the camel's back for many Britons after years of enduring <strong>growing insecurity that is silenced by many media outlets, claiming that those who complain are the \"extreme right\"<\/strong>, as if that would solve the problem.<\/p>\n<p>Not only is ABC\u2019s claim absurd, but <strong>it is also a conspiracy theory that benefits the Kremlin to say that Russia is behind every conflict in the West<\/strong>. There are undoubtedly people who are willing to believe that it is reasonable to point to everyone involved in a conflict in the West as Putin\u2019s agent, just as there are people who accuse you of being a puppet of Soros if you reject Putin, but <strong>compulsive belief in conspiracy theories generally causes many people to not take those who hold such ideas seriously<\/strong>.<\/p>\n<p>In this way, with its conspiracy theory, <strong>Abc is doing Putin an unwitting favor.<\/strong> If you try to make people believe that everything bad is the result of a Russian conspiracy, then what you will do is that many people will not believe any accusations against Russia. <strong>If everything is Putin, then nothing is. With its attitude, Abc achieves the same effect as people who see Soros everywhere:<\/strong> that people who are minimally sane believe that every supposed conspiracy is a hoax.<\/p>\n<p><strong>It is a fact that Russia is trying to destabilise the West in many ways,<\/strong> but this must be combated in each case, with data and evidence, and not by inventing false conspiracies. <strong>The most clumsy way of stopping the Kremlin is to try to combat Russian disinformation with more disinformation.<\/strong> That is what ABC did with this editorial. An editorial that does a disservice to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2024\/07\/03\/new-hoax-from-the-deputy-director-of-el-plural-now-attacking-counting-stars-putin-pays\/\">those of us who have been denouncing the abuses and crimes of Vladimir Putin for many years<\/a>, while <a href=\"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/2022\/02\/15\/juan-manuel-de-prada-y-las-mentiras-de-su-propaganda-a-favor-de-putin-en-el-diario-abc\/\">Abc offered an opinion column to Juan Manuel de Prada to spread his lies in favor of Putin<\/a>, a column that <a href=\"https:\/\/www.abc.es\/autor\/juan-manuel-de-prada-1060\/\" rel=\"noopener\" target=\"_blank\">that newspaper maintains today<\/a>. What a strange way Abc has of fighting Russian propaganda.<\/p>\n<p>---<\/p>\n<p><small>Photo: Mikhail Svetlov.<\/small><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The unhealthy belief in conspiracy theories is not something exclusive to the extremes of the political map, contrary to what some believe.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[19536,10373],"tags":[106,258,10731,7887],"class_list":["post-56725","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-we-said-yesterday","category-world","tag-abc","tag-juan-manuel-de-prada","tag-russia","tag-vladimir-putin"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56725"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=56725"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/56725\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=56725"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=56725"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.outono.net\/elentir\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=56725"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}