ISTANBULLSHIT: Combing Through the Diplo-babble
In this episode of Reality TV Fascism, we remind you to keep your eye on the bigger plays and not the dark fairytale
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In a recent post by my friend, the cultural archeologist Stephen Douglas, in his Decoding Trolls substack, he breaks down the theater of the ‘Istanbul peace talks’ — a form of narrative warfare that Douglas has identified as part of the deluge of dark fairytales that is Russia’s primary export.
He writes:
Think of ‘Istanbul peace talks’ like a character in your favourite film or folktale, and you get closer to understanding Duncey Putin’s love of that linguistic formula. I first spotted the emergence of this Disinfolklore character of ‘Istanbul Peace Talks’ on 17 March 2022.
Russia planted a story in the Financial Times suggesting Ukraine would agree to such preposterous surrender terms, it was obviously a troll.
Then like any self-respecting perennial troll, the Disinfolklore character ‘Istanbul Peace Talks’ has popped up again and again in Russian Disinfolklore and Duncey Putin’s rhetorical obsessions. Most recently America’s envoy to Moscow returned to DC having received his pro-Russia hypnotic top-up banking on about ‘Istanbul Peace Talks.’
Now Putin has responded to Germany, France, England and Ukraine’s ultimatum with an offer of ‘Istanbul Peace Talks.’
As Russia got its ass handed it to it in the first weeks of its full-scale invasion it believed would be over in 48 hours…
Russia was trying to troll Ukraine into utter capitulation in ‘Istanbul peace talks.’
Russian propaganda which Duncey Putin gets high on though has rebranded these ‘peace talks’ as Russia being generous to Ukraine. And as the reason why when Ukraine walked away, 100,000s of Ukrainians deserved death. That’s the meaning of the character ‘Istanbul peace talks’ in Putin’s mind.
Putin has fallen in love with his own troll.
Douglas developed the study of what he calls ‘disinfolklore’ while working as an international lawyer and diplomat. He found himself on a bridge in Ukraine, ensuring safe passage of civilians from 2015 through 2018, while listening to narratives coming from the Russian side that sounded folkloric to him. He would then find the same narratives planted in Facebook and the media.
As Douglas notes, ‘Istanbul peace talks’ is not a proposed event and instead is a dark fairytale, and the result of the media’s obsession with all this back and forth ‘diplo-babble’ is Putin tried to by himself more time to regroup.
As I wrote back in March, Europe should strike now.
Russia is weak and Europe should go all in helping Ukraine crush Russia before Elon Musk infuses the fascist terrorist state with stolen US cash, as he’s promising to do with ‘space travel to Mars’ — another dark fairytale.
It’s a complicated play so let’s clarify the characters. Here are four of them:
Macron — who is preparing his people for war without being able to openly beat the drums
Trump — Putin’s mouthpiece, pretends to be an influential neutral arbitrar, based on the US’s past role, but in fact the message is constantly that Putin is much more reasonable than Putin’s own messaging would imply
Putin — desperate for a ceasefire to give him time to regroup, but hides this fact behind the fig leaf of seeking peace — all further obfuscated by his fear that his international messaging will be heard by his people, so he salts everything with a heavy dose of tough guy
Zelensky — seeks to broadcast resolve, without dismissing peace as an option, even though he’s well aware that the war is tipping his way
Only two of these players are on the right side of history.
Pick your fucking lane.
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