The nostalgic propaganda that does not know history

Russia is running a vicious propaganda war to support its recent extended invasion in Ukraine. Second World War myths are repeated over and over again.

But Russian propaganda makers are remarkably poor in knowing their own history, or even recognizing what is Russian and what is not.

The samples are simply astonishing.

Here's the День Победы poster:

 

Soviet hero? No: a U.S. Marine fighting in Guam. You can probably figure out the Pacific location from the palm trees, and the weapon is not an SKS, it's an M2 carbine.

 

But this is nothing new.  Previous poster innovations include this one from 2020:

 

This was not a Soviet soldier either - it's a Finnish official war photo from SA-Kuva, the man in picture is Klemet Halonen, photographed by Oswald Hedenström on 4.5.1944, carrying a KP/31 "Suomi" submachine gun.

 

The man's son was even found for an interview.

Or these brave Soviet pilots?

 They are, of course, from a Heinkel He-111 crew attacking in Battle of Britain.

This pair of war veterans, used in TV broadcast on 9.5.2022, was... Bonnie and Clyde. 

But perhaps the most bizarre selection was for the Tobolsk war memorial, where the engraved soldier was a picture of... Werner Goldberg, who was in 1939 described as "the ideal German soldier" by Berliner Tagesblatt.

A similar blunder was that of the fiercely antisemitic Nazis already back in 1939 - the "ideal German soldier" was Jewish.

So what can we conclude? Russia is obsessed with its past heroism, but  does not know it. It is a legend that they think they are repeating, but now they are instead becoming a mirror image of the Nazis they say they are fighting. They do not know or understand the huge role of American help in their fight - T-34's were made of American steel and Russian logistics ran on American-supplied trucks and locomotives.

Russia did not face its past when USSR was dissolved in 1990's. There was no lustration. The old chekist structures picked up and continued and started to build another monster, even more mad if possible but also more corrupt.

And therefore, Russia is doomed to ridiculous failure. With nuclear weapons, it may become the failure of the whole mankind, but there is no Russian glory there. Just shame, shame, shame.

The snake oil salesmen: ivermectin

 Social media is rife with bogus claims about ivermectin being used to treat covid-19.

TL;DR:

• there is no evidence that it helps
• the studies where it was successful have been shown to be falsified or of poor quality, and 
• the claims of success in Japan and India are forgeries.

Japan

It is often claimed that Japan's good covid situation is because they use ivermectin. They don't. The list of accepted covid medications is listen on the Web pages of Japan's Pharmaceuticals and Medical Devices Agency (PMDA). https://www.pmda.go.jp/english/about-pmda/0002.html

Ivermectin is not there.

This is explained in plaintext by Japan Times:

"The drug, used globally to treat parasitic worms and skin conditions, has not been officially approved for use to treat COVID-19 in Japan, the U.S. or most countries in Europe. The health ministry says the drug should be used only in clinical trials in Japan. The use of potentially unsafe imported medications, which may be counterfeit or adulterated, is not subject to compensation provided by Japan’s drug regulator should any serious health problems arise."

The claims about Japan's use of ivermectin are usually based on one interview by one doctor in winter 2021, proposing its use. That's just one person, and you can find persons with silly ideas everywhere. 

Instead, Japan does use the well-proven methods:

• face masks and hygiene
• border measures, quarantines and focused testing
• vaccinations

 

India

India's declining death figures in mid-2021 have also been attributed to ivermectin. And India actually did promote ivermectin in early 2021. But the Indian authorities did follow up, and as case and death numbers were rising in spring 2021, the Union Health Ministry and Family Welfare's directorate general of health services (DGHS) revised guidelines to stop the use of Ivermectin in Covid-19 treatment at the end of May. The guidelines are available at DGHS pages.

The sharp fall in covid deaths in India happened after ivermectin was dropped by DGHS, although it is to be noted that both the registration and reporting of all deaths in India is not working very well, Indian death totals are undetermined, and statistics may be incomplete simply because bureaucracy is overloaded. 

Bottom line: don't use India as an example. The Indian authorities are not stupid and they are not promoting ivermectin. India is a developing country with incomplete statistics, so comparisons to OECD countries are not very relevant.

Instead, what India does is vaccinate the population. They are soon about to overtake the United States in coverage of first doses - despite having a much larger proportion of child population who is currently ineligible for vaccination. Think about that. The U.S. is about to fall behind developing countries.

Examples

Proponents of Ivermectin send screen shots (sometimes forged) of statistics and use pictures of ivermectin kits from India as evidence. But what do those kits actually say? This is one such kit:

But what does that instruction actually say? It says "ivermectin has been demonstrated to inhibit the replicating potential of SARS-COV-2 in cell culture system".

"Cell culture system" means "in vitro", in a petri dish. It's not "in humans".

Of course a substance can inhibit the replication of a virus in vitro; it can even kill it. Re regular bleach kills the virus in vitro. But don't inject bleach.

Not also that the box has a text: "For export only". Why? Because the seller knows it's not good for domestic consumption and is not approved for use. So this is a disclaimer to get off the hook while continuing to sell a parasite medicine to stop a virus for which it does not work.

The actual picture should be:

But it's a Big Pharma stopping IVM!

Conspiracy theorists claim that all the health authorities in all countries of the world have been bribed or pressured by Big Pharma companies so that they can sell covid vaccines.

But a vaccine dose is in between $2 to $20, while the alternative treatments proposed by vaccine opponents, e.g. monoclonal antibodies, can cost $500 to $5000 per treatment. Now which one is the better business? Obviously, drug companies make a lot more money per patient if they sell Ronapreve at $2700 per dose.

And while cheap ivermectin has not been shown to work against covid, another cheap generic drug, dexamethasone, is in the list of drugs to be used in many countries.  Why was it not stopped by the said Big Pharma conspiracy? It's because conspiracies don't work. It's because dexamethasone does work - not a miracle drug, but helps in some cases.