Parsing Biden's words is a thankless task, because whatever he actually says, his White House handlers and the compliant media will quickly 'clarify' if it clashes with their narrative. With that caveat in mind, some of his remarks at Wednesday's solo press conference in Geneva, following the meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, could be considered revealing.
"As usual, folks, they gave me a list of the people I'm going to call on," Biden admitted at the start, "they" being the White House staff, presumably.
Whereas Putin sparred with reporters for nearly an hour, and took questions from US outlets, Biden lasted only about half as long and the only Russian he called on worked for the US government outlet Current Time. He also revealed that he watched Putin's presser at least in part, indirectly confirming that scheduling was not why he declined a customary joint appearance.
Biden's preference for media-manufactured narratives - even when they clash with observable, proven facts - has been pretty conclusively established by now. He actually repeated one of them on Wednesday, claiming - falsely - that "literal criminals" at the US Capitol "killed" a police officer. The 'Capitol insurrection' narrative is what the ruling Democrats are currently leveraging to turn the power of the US security state against their political opponents.
Comment: What Dems do to the Republicans, they ultimately do to themselves...in any upcoming lost election.
Another narrative he invoked was of "America as an idea," along with the bit recycled from March when he said that any US leader must discuss human rights because those are American values and "who we are."
He was referring to talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping then, and Putin now, in the context of "personal relationships" being the most important thing in foreign policy. However, when his predecessor attempted personal diplomacy with Russia, China and North Korea, the media-Democrat establishment in Washington shrieked in horrified outrage. Clearly, to them it matters less what is done than who is doing it, and to whom.
There was a particularly surreal moment on Wednesday, when Biden tried to argue that Putin is driven by desire to gain approval and standing in the eyes of the "world," presumably referring to the US and its allies (or vassals). Reporters may not think it matters, Biden said, but he was "confident that it matters to him," meaning Putin. He asked rhetorically:
"How would it be if the United States were viewed by the rest of the world as interfering with the elections directly of other countries and everybody knew it? What would it be like if we engaged in activities that he engaged in? It diminishes the standing of a country."
Comment: And with that, the whole world united in a 'grimace' of solidarity.
Many people justifiably saw this as totally lacking in self-awareness. What does he mean, "if"? The US has literally been interfering in elections and toppling governments for decades, through military coups and color revolutions, some of which - such as Serbia and Ukraine, twice! - Biden was involved in himself.
Yet few noticed Biden's curious phrasing: it's not about whether the US is actually doing these things or not, but whether it was "regarded around the world" as such. In other words, narratives over facts.
Which brings us to Biden's understanding of Russia and Putin. He told reporters he read "most everything" that Putin has written and speeches he's made, as well as "a couple of very good biographies."
That last part is key - the English-language biographies of Putin are almost universally penned by professional "Russia-watchers" in think-tank-land. These are the same people who've been predicting Russia's impending collapse for 20-plus years now and tend to conjure nonexistent "doctrines" into being. They should be taken with an asteroid-sized chunk of salt, not at face value as Biden seems to be doing.
Whatever he may have said to Putin, Biden sent a very clear message to Russians during his press conference. In the early 1990s, he said, "Russia had an opportunity, that brief shining moment... to actually generate a democratic government" and "it failed." Instead, Biden argued, Putin united Russia around government power, which has not helped its prosperity, power or standing in the world.
Needless to say, actual Russians have a different recollection of that "shining moment" as one of rampant crime, oligarchy, pillaging, poverty, and humiliation at the hands of US 'advisers' propping up President Boris Yeltsin's government - to the point of helping him, shall we say, "fortify" the 1996 election.
"It's hard to imagine having more direct control over a foreign country's political system — short of a straight-up military occupation," as Russian expat journalist Yasha Levine argued in his description of the 1990s.
Another typical tactic of propaganda narratives is to accuse the other of things that are true of oneself. When Biden argued that Russia's alleged behavior "diminishes the standing of the country that's desperately trying to maintain standing as a world power" and that Moscow is "not able to dictate what happens in the world," it was hard not to hear confession through projection.
Biden is so invested in the narrative he inhabits, he gets testy when anyone challenges it - from voters in Iowa and Michigan to members of the, frankly, obsequious White House press corps. Last month, when questioned about Israel during an electric car photo-op, he "joked" about running over a female reporter. On Wednesday, he unloaded on another female reporter, Kaitlan Collins of CNN, after she questioned his belief about Putin's motivations.
To borrow his own expression, the proof of the pudding is in the eating.
About the Author:
Nebojsa Malic is a Serbian-American journalist, blogger and translator, who wrote a regular column for Antiwar.com from 2000 to 2015, and is now senior writer at RT. Follow him on Telegram @TheNebulator and on Twitter @NebojsaMalic
Reader Comments
The more that he is a man repeating only lines written by others. Even his age and infirmity are not purposefully matched!
The reporter was also arrogant, he did not let Mr. Putin finish answering questions, although Mr. Putin made it clear that he would answer this question, he only wanted to elaborate on the subject.
But there was a question from a reporter, "What should Aerians be afraid of?", From Russia in supposition.
I believe that Americans should not be afraid of anything from Russia, at least nowadays.
This reporter also asked many questions which by themselves suggested that there are only two forces in the world. If something is wrong in the USA, then it is FOR SURE RUSSIA'S FAULT :-)
The world is different, however, there are many forces in the world, many of these forces are trying hard to be invisible.
Like a thief robbing one and then giving one a lecture on how robbing is just bad!
Lobaczewski mentions that normal people freeze in the face of such pathology, as it is alien to a normal persons instinctive substratum. However, I think the Russians are well aware that the west is going down the tubes due to ponerology.
Everyone in the East considers the West to be a kind of pathology. Nobody will call it that, and nobody will say it openly. But people just don't get over here how to be so thoughtless and shortsighted. Of course, people here are also somewhat delighted with the West, because the West offers many interesting technical crap, which would be profitable to produce in such a Russia.
However, there are still a lot of people who remember communism in Russia, Poland and other post-Soviet countries. These people cannot believe that something they have had from childhood suddenly moved overseas, they understand the most.
As for the interview itself, I agree that Mr. Putin realizes the futility of these acts, only that he is not talking to the American government ... HE SPEAKS TO THE AMERICANS!
"I believe in people" ... ended the interview with these words! :-)
I think the lines are already drawn on that score, to be honest. They will just be drawn a little deeper into the sand. So, some will reject it outright, and others will see the truth in it, methinks.
You have read Lobaczewski?,...excellent!
Take care of your country, do not cut down trees, let everyone really live on an equal footing, be it Indians, be it a Negro or somebody else.
DO NOT ALLOW YOUR ATTENTION TO BE DIRECTED FOREVER ON THE OUTER ENEMY !!!!!
You are a large nation, with a large and diverse country in terms of climate and people, remember that ONLY IT MATTERS !!!
ALL LIVES MATTER :-)))))
As for Lobaczewski, the truth is that he is better known in your country than in Poland, but the number of readers is smaller, why would you need to read Łobaczewski in POLAND ??
And so everyone knew how it is, he did not have to read it :-)
For Americans, the "Gulag Archipelago" might have been a shock, but here?
I can't see any harm in reading something like that being very well articulated the way it is. Could give a perspective on the matter that helps join the dots. Lobaczewski writes about the phenomena very well.
Have you read the book?
.There was no point in reading it because ... it was enough to go out into the street or turn on the radio and it WAS ALL ABOUT TO HEAR!
Are you reading the manual of the phone you know well? :-)))
Anyway, that isn't the same thing. No comparison really.
Lobaczewski's book gives an amazing insight into the phenomena. I'm sure everyone in the street understands the problem from experience, but could gain something from reading such a book.
Some time ago I watched a movie that you produced called MOCKINGJAY.
In this film, the author of the book came up with something called KAPITOL, which was like the capital of a PANAM country.
To a man of the East, the West looks exactly like KAPITOL seen through the eyes of some man from the district :-)))
You don't read the long manual of a TV that you know very well how it works. :-)
You don't read TARZAN when you live in the jungle :-)
I would think that not enough people know enough about it!
He did a good job!
But not for us, but for YOU. For you, this book has a great cognitive value because you haven't seen it and you won't learn about it otherwise than from books :-)
Another thing is that during communism the publishing market was covered by CEZNURA, no one PRINTED BY ŁOBACZEWSKI! :-)
The same censorship as it is now on Facebook, for example :-)
Reading the Wave, Secret Hisory of the World etc, gives an even deeper understanding of the phenomena I think.
I know what you are saying, that you and people you know have experienced macro social evil first hand. I haven't! I respect that!
However, the macro social evil in the west is just more sophisticated I think. It runs deeper and is mainly operating at a psychological level and below. It's more Brave New World than 1984. It is softer, more subtle and insidious in general. So ''to them'', more successful perhaps? (Globalist agendas) Still, that isn't the same as bloody brutal regimes, murder, disappearances, poverty, hunger, total breakdown of society, etc!!! Probably more harmful in other ways though, like the loss of soul, spirit, fight and opposition!! Whatever way you cut it, it's all f*cked! I have seen it and experienced it on a micro social level, but haven't experienced it on a macro social level. I know the difference is huge.
I can see it playing out elsewhere, but not experience it directly (macro social evil)
Also, times have changed, so have the methods of manipulation and control. The pathocrats have learned from experience about the battle for hearts and minds. Much better to win in that sphere than in force & violence (very risky) and doomed to fail, eventually! No one would print his work in the west either, I think. Red Pill Press printed his book.
These are just synonyms of something completely different, and this something is not so simply polarized into two poles.
But I know one thing, you can't fight it. Even if you win, in one generation or two, he'll come back again.
I sense you are an intellectual person. Well, I used to be like that myself, but once I noticed that it's mentally impossible to get hold of.
The only thing I can write so as not to write something in the size of the bible are some kind of signposts, pointers.
At the beginning of reading, those that elude the mind, maybe you know some of them?
Carlos Castaneda
Uspensky
Gurdjieff
Wereszczagin
Nag Hammadi
To my knowledge, which, however, is not based on purely cause-effect assumptions, but on the observation of reality and experiences, I can write to you that I have discovered that people, like other beings, are PROJECTORS OF REALITY.
The key to understanding this statement, without unnecessary writing, is the scientifically proven fact: THE OBSERVER HAS AN EFFECT ON THE OBSERVED PHENOMENON.
This, of course, will direct your thoughts in the direction that if reality is our projection, it is natural that all concepts, including GOOD-EVIL, also belong to the set of these projections. So, we make them ourselves :-)
Of course, a human being is not only a PROJECTOR. We are a transmitting and receiving installations. WE DESIGN THE REALITY and simultaneously RECEIVE THE RESULTS OF OUR PROJECTIONS
To be completely precise, it must therefore be said that GOOD and EVIL exist WHEN WE WANT IT and DO NOT EXIST when we DO NOT WANT IT.
The general concept of these statements, then, is a projection and the resultant of countless human projections.
In short :-)