Graph 2, Brazil's total energy consumption (2008)

Red in the graph above = oil + alcohol.

Graph 3, Liquids Producers in South America (2010)

In the graph above we see oil (blue) and alcohol (yellow) - in thousands of barrels per day. As we can see, alcohol makes up in Brazil only less than 25 percent of the volume of oil produced in Brazil.

It must be taken into account that Brazil is an oil importer - imported oil is not shown in the graph above - hence the alcohol share is even lower.

In the graph below, Brazil's oil production and consumption are approximately equal, but Brazil imports a significant amount of oil, since the graph shows both oil and alcohol in barrels together, and not by energy intensity, which confuses the real state of affairs.

Graph 4, Brazil's production and consumption of liquid hydrocarbons in thousands of barrels per day (2002-2012) forecast = forecast.

Alcohol contains only half the energy contained in oil - which means we divide 25 percent (the volume of alcohol produced from the total volume of liquid hydrocarbons) by two and arrive at the figure - alcohol provides less than 10 percent of the liquid hydrocarbons consumed in Brazil and less than 5 percent of the energy consumed in Brazil.
But that's not all. After all, as we saw above, oil is consumed in the production of alcohol, and if we take it into account, the share of alcohol in Brazil is not 80 percent, as the liars claim, but simply insignificant.
But that's not all. Alcohol production depends on the weather. About it In the Amazon they don't write newspapers - it's too scary. Alcohol production could quickly decline due to climate change.
Now about oil from coal in South Africa. Below is a graph showing South Africa's total oil consumption and oil production from coal.

Graph 5, South Africa Oil Consumption and Production 1998-2008, in thousands of barrels per day.
What do we see on the graph? Oil production from coal in South Africa remains at the same level - 7 million tons of oil per year. About 70 million tons of coal are spent on this [ 1 , 2 ]. Oil imports are growing and amounts to more than 15 million tons per year. South Africa produces 250 million tons of coal, but will never be able to produce enough oil from coal for its needs. Why? Because to produce coal you need oil. South Africa is a unique place - there is cheap labor - miners - they largely replace the oil spent on coal mining in other places. Even on a global scale, tens of millions of tons of oil from coal are out of the question.

Shale gas is a topic for a separate discussion - the same mirage as heavy oil.

Conclusion

1. “Scientists”, commissioned by corrupt politicians, make forecasts on the basis of which the country’s leadership sells the last Russian resources.
2. Corrupt journalists write custom articles soaked in lies and the “free” press publishes them.
3. The country's leadership, even if they can strain their chicken brains, are not able to assess the real state of affairs in the Russian oil industry, not to mention the global one.
4. “Scientists” carry out the order and say what they want to hear from above.
5. Oil is rapidly running out and there is no replacement for it.
6. If oil goes down, so will coal production, which depends on oil.
7. Humanity has already entered into a crisis in which it has never been before.
8. And instead of somehow preparing for the crash, Russian temporary helmsmen continue to drive oil abroad.
   

After each Putin press conference or each “direct line,” enthusiastic Russian PR specialists publish statistics - how many minutes and seconds the event took place, how many times Putin mentioned different topics, how many times he received applause. The only thing that PR people haven’t thought of is that they don’t count the number of lies, they don’t assess the diversity and enchanting nature of Putin’s lies. Only Putin's colleagues are voicing grievances that the Russian leader has recently taken offense to.

“As for the fact that someone there, to put it mildly, speaks critically of me, this applies not only to the leaders of foreign, distant countries, this sometimes happens from those who are quite close to us. I sometimes hear, let’s put it mildly, unfair criticism from some leaders of states close to us,” Putin said in an interview included in the documentary “World Order” on the Russia-1 TV channel. According to Putin, “this is simply a manifestation of the lack of culture.” “It doesn't bother me. You know, I have my own style, my own attitude to all these things, I believe that I do not have the right to this, because I must work with everyone in the interests of my country,” Putin said.

If so, then I will try to be extremely uncultured to count the number of lies that Putin told at his last press conference. More than a thousand journalists gathered to hang on every word of an illiterate man who has been portraying a major global figure for fifteen years. Politics, the search for a compromise, maneuvering between possibility and desire is one thing, but it is surprising and monstrous when the leader of a huge country produces pearls that are laughed at by people who at least sometimes read reference books and encyclopedias. Putin acts not just as an illiterate and uneducated person, but as a conscious liar trying to pass off what he wants as reality. In diplomacy, understatement, reticence, and truncated information are allowed, but never outright lies or disinformation. Those caught in a lie several times become outcasts, unable to shake hands. Putin has been lying for 15 years, and recently lies have become the basis of all his public speeches. Press secretary Dmitry Peskov sometimes explains that Putin was “misunderstood,” but everyone already understands that Putin has a genre crisis: he was never a public politician anyway, and now he has completely sunk to a regular at pubs, telling tall tales for his drinking buddies.

The most interesting thing in his speeches is the historical topics. It’s hard to say where he gets inspiration for the next “masterpiece” - either from the “academician” Anatoly Fomenko, or from the blogs of Russian patriots who love to describe the battles of Russian soldiers with Chinese emperors in the 1st millennium BC. Russian Chersonese - from the same place. The idea to erect a monument to Prince Vladimir in Moscow is from the same story. Putin, as a historian, feels something like the court historians of the 18th century who came up with the “Tatar-Mongol yoke” or “the victory of Alexander Nevsky on Lake Peipsi.” Or like the Soviet memoirists of the Second World War, who wrote numerous exploits - from the arsonist of Russian villages Zoya Kosmodemyanskaya to the heroes - the 28 Panfilov men. Russian historians have always been given the task of inventing, embellishing and composing a story that would make the spirit of patriotism stronger and take our breath away.

Putin is not a writer; he, apparently, does not read well “lenses”, certificates prepared for the next trip, meeting or public speech. For example, it may be written there that in Chersonese there really is a Vladimir Cathedral, built in the second half of the 19th century, but Chersonese itself is not Orthodox at all, founded 422 years before the birth of Christ. In 2014, Putin, in his address to the Federal Assembly, stated that “for Russia, Korsun (Chersonese) “has enormous civilizational and sacred significance.” Why on earth is only unclear to Russia; a year before Putin’s speech, Chersonesus was included in the UNESCO list. And with the baptism of Prince Vladimir, not everything is clear. And he was a prince of Kiev, not Moscow, which Putin of course knows, but by his imperial essence he does not recognize, but passes it off as his own.

In his last public speech, Putin committed so many crimes against historical science that it’s time to ask: does he realize that he looks like a complete ignoramus? I think that he is well aware that lying for him has become part of his domestic and foreign policy, part of his image, which is quite suitable for a leader from the Soviet Union. Like Lenin, who did not hesitate to lie about a “bright future”, like Stalin - “about a friendly family of nations”, Putin lies to justify his existence. Like Lenin, Stalin, Khrushchev and Brezhnev, Putin is in no way an economist, so for him, like all communist leaders, lies were always associated with distracting the population from economic problems that they were terribly afraid of. They constantly had to lie, replacing food with beautiful words and often with outright lies.

Putin’s lies are part of his incomprehensible ideology, part of his politics, part of his image and his very existence since his appearance in the Kremlin, when Boris Yeltsin spoke about him so that almost the whole world believed - under Putin, Russia will become a democratic, prosperous and legal country. Yeltsin, as an old communist noklatura, of course, also lied. For Putin, the lies about Russia being well-fed, contented and happy turned out to be a short-lived process; the people themselves were thirsty for another fairy tale, and Putin told it. The problems began when it was necessary to talk about the prospects of domestic politics and then Putin began to lie - about militants, “Islamists”, “terrorists”, about house explosions, about a “sunken boat”, about the opposition that sold itself for cookies, about Bandera’s followers, about a “fascist” Saakashvili."

It was easy to lie when oil prices were good, but it became more difficult when prices went down, when sanctions were introduced, when the population slowly began to understand that something was wrong with the happiness Putin promised. And he began to lie desperately, recklessly. It’s easier with the population; it was hardened during the times of communist propaganda over several generations; you can’t break it with the truth. Lies fell on other countries, which are not accustomed to politicians deceiving; they are accustomed to the fact that a lying politician does not stay in office for long. Putin in the Netherlands or Germany would have worked as a janitor long ago, but in Russia, let me remind you, lying is part of politics, part of the image, part of the mentality, if you like.

And away we go. The Malaysian Boeing, according to state propaganda, was shot down a dozen times in different ways and never by a Russian missile. Sometimes it seemed as if the plane had shot itself down - the lie had confused everyone so much. Putin lied about Crimea several times - about the fact that there were no Russian troops, then he admitted that there were. About Donbass - the same thing. Putin’s lies do not last long; over time, he is pinned against the wall with facts and documents, he makes excuses, and then begins to lie again.

The speech on December 17 before the Federal Assembly still ranks first in terms of the number of lies. Why lie about the Syrian Turkomans (Turkmen), whom Putin has allegedly never heard of? I could look it up on Wikipedia. Or remember how the President of Turkey told him several times that it was impossible to bomb: “I personally told dear Putin that there is no Islamic State in Bayırbucak, there are Turkmen there. Now Turkmens are being killed,” Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at a meeting of the Turkish Chamber of Commerce and Industry. Putin puts on a naive face and throws up his hands - he, it turns out, knows only about the Turkmens in the former Soviet republic, and about the Turkomans numbering up to 3 million people living in Iraq and Syria, in the cities of Tal Afar, Altunkopru, Erbil, Mosul, Kirkuk and Baghdad, he doesn't know. Amazing knowledge for a person who considers himself the head of a “world power.” Or is he lying again?

Three days later, in an interview with the film “World Order” on the Russia-1 channel, Putin lied even more openly. “Türkiye is not Europe,” Putin said. And now it is not historians who should grab their heads, but geographers, who always consider the Bosphorus Strait to be the border between two parts of the world, called the continent of Eurasia. Geopolitician Putin has gone further; he must show that he is rightfully considered the leading leader of the world. Now he went to Afghanistan, saying that “USSR troops were in Afghanistan at the request of the current Afghan government and president.” He did not specify the name of that “president” - whether it was Hafizullah Amin, whose positions were “member of the Politburo of the PDPA Central Committee, Minister of Foreign Affairs, Minister of Defense, Prime Minister, General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee and Chairman of the Revolutionary Council of Afghanistan.” When Amin was killed by Soviet special forces on December 27, 1979, the former Afghan ambassador to Czechoslovakia, Babrak Karmal, was brought in his place. But he also never (!) was a president, the same General Secretary of the PDPA Central Committee, Chairman of the Revolutionary Council (head of state), Chairman of the Council of Ministers of the DRA. It is a pity that Putin did not specify the name of the one who made the request to the USSR; this would have been a new historical discovery. In Afghanistan, the first direct presidential elections were held only in 2004.

To answer the question “why does Putin lie?” easy - he can’t do it any other way, it’s a habit. He accidentally ended up in the Kremlin, accidentally became president, and accidentally had to be at the head of the largest and one of the richest countries in the world. He was never a public politician, never understood responsibility to society. He is like a 3-4 year old child who believes that cheating is, firstly, easy, and secondly, there are no consequences. Parents usually laugh at the intelligence of their beloved child, but the world is already in a daze at the impudence of the Russian president. But Putin cannot be stopped; he will continue to lie, because he cannot do otherwise - he was born that way.

It would seem that we need to be more economical with Russian oil reserves, but temporary workers are determined to pump out all Russian oil as soon as possible, transfer the proceeds abroad and leave the dying country.

For this purpose, recently articles have appeared assuring Russians that everything is in order in the world of oil and Russians will have enough oil for decades, if not centuries...

One such article “KWhen will the oil run out? we'll figure it out. and we will understand that it consists of lies (like all statements of the current Russian rulers).

1. A lie that needs to be presented as truth must be disguised - instead of links to scientific works and publications, the author at the beginning of the article mentions a certain event that took place in a cafe (the word scientific has nothing to do with the event) and some supposed scientists who took part in it.
2. The first lie - If you answer the question when will the oil run out, then you need to divide the oil into that which is easy to extract and that which is difficult. The ease of extraction is largely related to the content of light fractions. Those. To a good approximation, we can assume that light oil is easily extracted, and heavy oil is difficult. The most expensive oil is located off the coast of Brazil, it is light in composition, but its production cost is about $100 per barrel, because the water depth there is about three kilometers and the depth of the well passing through the molten, moving salt is another about 5 kilometers.
3. Another lie - According to the data provided by S.N. Khadzhiev in the world of proven reserves of about 160-180 billion tons of light oil. The cost of its production does not exceed $20 per barrel (Russia).The maximum reserve figure from the outdated BP report is given - they themselves are now making fun of it. If there is so much cheap oil in the world that is easy to extract, then why do they extract expensive oil off the coast of Brazil, in the Gulf of Mexico, and ultimately even Saudi Arabia, instead of drilling in their own Golden Triangle (where only one of the fields they have is 210 35 kilometers - wherever you look, there is oil everywhere) looking for oil in the Red Sea at a depth of 2 kilometers???
4. Why did Medvedev, at a Security Council meeting on December 13, 2010, say that Russia has nothing in its reserves, and that new fields in Russia will not be put into operation in the next 10 years??? Why did they rush to bow to BP and look for oil in the Arctic, which will be golden even compared to Brazilian oil??? Reserves of heavy, highly viscous oils amount to 810-820 billion tons. The cost of its production is approximately $50 per barrel. Another 700 billion tons of oil is obtained if coal is “converted into oil” and 300 billion tons of oil is obtained if gas is “recalculated”. There are so many lies here that you don’t know where to start.... The phrase cost of production does not carry any meaning. For oil production there is one indicator - EROI (energy output to input ratio). So in the 60s, for every unit of energy invested in production, they received 100 units of oil energy. In 2000, only 20, that is, EROI fell by 2 every year, and now it is close to 1 for new fields, and no matter what price Khadzhiev calls and no matter what reserve figure he gives, this is a mirage and this oil will never be produced, but under this The mirage is being stolen, the little that Russia still has left. Converting coal to oil and gas to oil is again a mirage - the transition from one type of energy to another takes at least 50 years.
5. And one more paragraph thickly saturated with lies - Because cheap oil runs out, it becomes economically feasible to develop biotechnology. A striking example of such development is Brazil. There the share of biofuel is 80%. To these opportunities we must add the production of synthetic oil at South African factories, which amounts to tens of millions of tons. In general, rumors about “death”
   oil prices are greatly exaggerated.
   Firstly, about ethanol (alcohol) - here’s a decent study :
   - to produce alcohol from corn, 29% more oil energy is consumed than is contained in the alcohol produced.
   - to produce alcohol from herbs, 50% more oil energy is consumed than is contained in the produced alcohol.
   - to produce alcohol from cellulose, 57% more oil energy is consumed than is contained in the produced alcohol.
   - to produce biodiesel from soybeans, 27% more oil energy is consumed than is contained in the produced biodiesel.
   - to produce biodiesel from sunflower, 117% more oil energy is consumed than is contained in the produced biodiesel.
   
   Secondly, let's look at alcohol production in Brazil
   In the graph below, alcohol production in Brazil. As we can see, it never grew at a gigantic pace, and in the last year it even began to fall.
   cataclysm In the Amazon they don't write newspapers - it's too scary. Alcohol production can quickly dry up due to bad weather.
   
   Now about oil from coal in South Africa. Below is a graph showing South Africa's total oil consumption and oil production from coal.
   1 , 2 ]. Oil imports are growing and amounts to more than 15 million tons per year. South Africa produces 250 million tons of coal, but will never be able to produce enough oil from coal for its needs. Why? Because to produce coal you need oil. South Africa is a unique place - there is cheap labor - miners - they largely replace the oil spent on coal mining in other places. Even on a global scale, tens of millions of tons of oil from coal are out of the question.
6. Shale gas is a topic for a separate discussion - the same mirage as heavy oil.

Conclusion

The above paints a bleak picture.

1. “Scientists”, commissioned by corrupt politicians, make forecasts on the basis of which the country’s leadership sells the last Russian resources.
2. Corrupt journalists write custom articles soaked in lies and the “free” press publishes them.
3. The country's leadership, even if it can strain its chicken brains, is not able to assess the real state of affairs in the Russian oil industry, not to mention the global one.
4. “Scientists” carry out the order and say what they want to hear from above.
5. Oil is rapidly running out and there is no replacement for it.
6. If oil goes down, so will coal production, which depends on oil.
7. Humanity has already entered into a crisis in which it has never been before.
8. And instead of somehow preparing for the crash, Russian temporary helmsmen continue to drive oil abroad.
   

Before the New Year, the “Navalnists”, desperately calling for a boycott of the presidential elections, realized that they would not be able to refute the rules of arithmetic. And they clearly show that the boycott inevitably increases the percentage of votes that Vladimir Putin will receive in the elections.

Therefore, a new cartoon was launched on the Internet.

It turns out that the selfish “Yabloko” is participating in the presidential elections not in order to present Grigory Yavlinsky’s program, in order to explain to citizens the harmfulness of Putin’s line and the need to change the political system and economic course - but only for the sake of receiving government funding!

He wants to make money from the elections - and therefore opposes the boycott, which prevents him from receiving the coveted interest that entitles him to this state funding.

Before the New Year, this “irrefutable” argument was presented to the public (https://site/blog/mmironov/2120252-echo/) by IE Business School professor from Madrid Maxim Mironov, one of the most notorious “Navalnists”. At the same time, Mr. Mironov, who specializes in corporate finance and accounting, can be forgiven for his lack of knowledge of electoral law - from which, as already mentioned, follows an increase in the percentage of votes for Putin if the boycott strategy is successful. But, it seems, he should understand economics? Apparently this is too bold an assumption.

Let's open two federal laws - on presidential elections and on political parties, and find out the following.

The maximum size of the election fund of a presidential candidate is 400 million rubles. The minimum expenses for a party not represented in the State Duma, which needs to not only conduct campaigning, but also collect 100 thousand signatures to register a candidate, are around 200 million rubles.

In accordance with paragraph 6 of Art. 66 of the Federal Law “On Political Parties”, a party whose candidate received more than 3% in the presidential election receives a ONE-TIME payment in the amount of 20 rubles for each voter’s vote. If we assume that Grigory Yavlinsky will receive 2 million votes, the party will receive 40 million rubles. If 3 million votes - 60 million rubles. If 5 million votes - 100 million rubles.

In other words, even if Yavlinsky receives 10% of the votes (with a 50% turnout for the elections), Yabloko, having spent 200 million rubles on the elections, will then receive 100 million rubles from the budget. Half of what was spent.

Will it work well?

Professor Mironov really believes that it is for the sake of such an economic result that Yavlinsky and Yabloko are participating in the elections?

If this is his knowledge of corporate finance, I can only sympathize with the Madrid business school.

By the way, if Alexei Navalny could participate in the elections (from which he was excluded on the basis of an unfair law and an unfair sentence), he would be nominated by any party, and similar accusations of seeking exclusively state funding would be made against him - I am sure that the Madrid the professor would angrily deny these accusations...

As for ANNUAL state funding - which is provided every year - political parties receive it only based on the results of the State Duma elections. And there are completely different amounts of funding: 152 rubles for each voter’s vote. Feel the difference.

At the same time, I note that there is nothing wrong with the principle of state financing in itself: these are not “handouts from the authorities” (as they are sometimes tried to present them). These are funds from the budget, which is made up of voters’ money. And only the money of those voters who voted for a party or candidate goes to its financial support. Which is quite logical.

This is not the first example of lies from the “Navalnist” camp. And, I'm afraid, not the last.

Actually, Putin has long relied on people with the same mentality.

Moscow, July 20 - Russia is going through an era of total hypocrisy. Recent events show that the country is sinking deeper into lies, or more precisely, we are being plunged into this very lie. The outright lies of the authorities, broadcast through “zombie boxes”, began to concern all spheres of life of ordinary citizens. The country has actually drowned in lies, and Vladimir Vladimirovich Putin should be thanked for this.

In recent days, several significant events have occurred in Russia, which may indicate that lies will not only not disappear from our daily lives, but will strengthen to such an extent that it will become unclear where reality is.

Crimean stream of lies

Hypocrisy was clearly demonstrated by the catastrophic events in flood-stricken Krymsk, where the authorities were caught in a shameless lie.

Let's remember: the first thing we learned after the flood was the justification of the Krasnodar leaders: we warned the residents of Krymsk about the danger. Further - more: the authorities allegedly organized a thorough rescue operation. And it was not in vain that the blogosphere was seething, issuing evidence from ordinary residents of Krymsk that the authorities were blatantly lying. President of Russia Vladimir Putin out of this he made a smart PR campaign to save (no, not the residents) his rating: on his second visit to Krymsk last Sunday, the head of state finally decided to meet with the flood victims, and “learned” from them that all this time - for more than a week they outright lied to him. He made a reproof to Governor Tkachev and other leaders, and later stated at the State Council that all levels of government were to blame for what happened - from local and regional to federal.

In other words, the lie was revealed. More precisely, apparently, it is part of a lie, because where they lied once, they will lie twice, and three times, and so on... Now all that remains is to wait for the authorities to acknowledge the breakthrough of the reservoir and the large number of victims. Not 200 people, but much more. There is still information coming from cities neighboring Crimea that Magnitov’s trucks were even taken from them in order to transport corpses. And we are not talking about 2-3 cars. As for the sources of “big water,” Vladimir Putin, during a meeting with residents of Krymsk, said that there are no locks on the reservoir, and therefore there was no discharge of water. He, however, kept silent about the fact that the system for releasing “extra” water there is arranged differently. Nobody told Vladimir Vladimirovich about this? Or did he intentionally leave out this detail?

It is quite obvious that the governor of the Krasnodar Territory and his subordinates tried from the very beginning and are still trying to hide the real scale of the tragedy in Krymsk. And volunteers are regularly asked to clean up the area before big bosses come. Showing off. For whom? Who needs it in this situation, when a third of the city is destroyed? However, this is understandable, Tkachev is trying to stay in his chair, although after the first lie that was revealed, a normal leader would still have resigned, or even earlier.

In fact, Krymsk became a kind of litmus test, which clearly showed that the authorities lie even when there is no reason to lie. After all, nothing prevented the same Krasnodar governor from hiding serious “mistakes” from the very beginning, but from starting an active cleanup, finding the culprits, and emerging from the situation as a hero. It seems that a start was made with the resignation of the head of the Crimean region, but then Tkachev, apparently, got scared, since what happened was apparently his direct fault. By the way, this was pointed out to him by Putin, who was lied to about what happened in Krymsk from the very beginning. And not only him - all of us.

Lies flooded the whole country

However, one should not think that Putin is so “white and fluffy.” The system of total hypocrisy received a “start” in life precisely during his reign. From a source launched at the very top, the lie turned into a huge torrent that covered the country in much the same way that Krymsk was covered by water. Only the entire country was among the victims.

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich that a political system of total lies was established. The declared “liberalization” of the political system further exposed the falsity of this system.

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich that parliament ceased to be a place for discussion. This is already very accessible wrote "New Region" . The State Duma, after false liberalization and the “loss” of United Russia, has now turned into a mockingly cynical “place for discussion”, where EdRo still churns out laws on the orders of the Kremlin. But the “zombie box” shows us a “political discussion”, or simply justifies the adopted laws.

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich that the elections turned into a farce. Who now believes in the integrity of elections and the fair counting of voting results? The overwhelming majority have no doubt that the “wizard” who was left at the head of the Central Election Commission of the Russian Federation will always correct the result in the right direction. But propaganda speaks from the zombie box - the elections are fair.

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich even the political opposition has become false and is controlled from the Kremlin. The leaders of the protest squares - Bolotnaya and Sakharov - do not deserve the slightest trust. Famous blogger and outspoken anti-corruption fighter Alexei Navalny already called on the Internet Lyokhoy Carnival after his assumption of office as a member of the Aeroflot Board of Directors. There is nothing to say about the parliamentary opposition. Everything there has long been under the control of the administration of the President of the Russian Federation. But again, from the “zombie box” we are told that political activity is growing in our country, and the authorities have begun to notice the “opposition” and are introducing Duma “oppositionists” into the State Council for “informed decision-making.”

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich that the number of oligarchs with whom he is so actively fighting in the “zombie box” increased. It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich that official scheme for plundering the country , when leading industrial enterprises received residence permits in London and quite legally (no longer through offshore companies) exported capital abroad, and the country’s gold and foreign exchange reserves went into “storage” in the United States. But they don’t talk about this in the zombie box.

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich, despite his fight against prices for everything and everyone, that prices for everything and everything increased significantly, “free” medicine and education actually became paid, and the cost of housing soared to sky-high heights.

It is under Vladimir Vladimirovich that it is time to rename the Ministry of Economic Development into the Ministry of Economic Degradation of the Russian Federation, the Ministry of Finance into the Ministry of Plunder, the Ministry of Health into the Ministry of Destruction of the Population, and so on...

It was under Vladimir Vladimirovich... This list can be continued as long as you like.

Propaganda is our everything!

The hypocrisy of senior management has spilled over into all regions. Quite unambiguous signals are regularly sent from the Kremlin - create the appearance of a bright present, and as a result, regional and municipal authorities do not hesitate to show off and outright lie. From the “zombie box” come benign statements about the future growth of pensions, wages, “development” programs, “affordable housing” and the like, sustainable development, poverty reduction, the construction of new hospitals and, of course, government megaprojects.

True, they are silent about the fact that it is impossible for old people to live on current pensions, they will not be treated in hospitals for free, they will not teach in schools for free... They report the opening of new kindergartens, but do not say that the local authorities took the renovated building from some public organization that won a grant and used this money to tidy up the premises.

Megaprojects, the implementation of which is carried out under the control of the very top officials of the state, sometimes spoil the blissful picture - either the road will be washed away, or the bridge will “dance”, and sometimes even worse - a flood will happen somewhere. Here you have to get out, and if they get out, they lie.

In the regions lies that are even more blatant and shameless than in the federal “zombie box”. There has been virtually no media freedom outside Moscow for a long time. However, even in Moscow itself, the largest electronic and print media have long been under the Kremlin’s hood. There are certain regions in Russia where individual media reports about what is really happening, but these, alas, are rather exceptions to the rule. As a rule, the farther from the capital the connection with reality in the media becomes less and less. In some remote area, you will not learn from the local media that a gas pipeline has exploded or that an emergency has occurred at all, unless it is of mega-catastrophic proportions. I do not rule out that we might not have known about the flood in Krymsk if not for its scale...

Propaganda and the “zombie box” are our everything. All that remains is to establish the Ministry of Truth on a completely official basis. However, it has long existed behind the scenes - both in the regions and at the federal level. They're just called differently.

Where we are going?..

The article on libel will now return to the Criminal Code. Last week the State Duma adopted amendments to the Criminal Code, and the Federation Council approved them. All that remains is to wait for the signature of the head of state. I would support this law with both hands if it were applied exclusively against government officials and cogs in the propaganda machine for their blatant lies. But the problem is that the libel amendment will work against anyone, but not against government officials. They will continue to talk about a bright present and future, and will try to silence dissatisfied citizens.

One gets the impression that the authorities live in one country, and we, citizens, live in another. They have in power a prosperous country in which production is growing, budget revenues are growing, there are no crises, and the level of poverty and mortality is falling. And we, citizens, live in a country where old people (this is a third of the country’s population) cannot live on their pensions, where young people cannot find work to feed their families, let alone afford to help their elderly parents. We live in a country where going to the hospital results in colossal expenses, so no one is strictly forbidden to get sick. And our incidence rate is “low.” Having children in our country is a great luxury, because from the moment you are born they start squeezing money out of you for everything. But the authorities have a demographic program according to which everything is fine. Probably, in their country everything is really wonderful, but not in ours... In the country of officials there is modernization, but in our country there is a collapse of infrastructure...

The problem is that, by increasing the level of lies, the authorities do not notice the obvious - that at the same time the degree of irritation of citizens who still live in reality, and not in the false picture shown by the propaganda “zomboy”, is growing. Outright lies not only irritate citizens, the lies of the authorities affect the authorities themselves, and the level of trust in them drops after each false statement by this very authorities.

The era of hypocrisy will end sooner or later, and will be replaced by strict sobering up without rose-colored glasses. The saddest thing is that Russia has already experienced such periods. They ended very sadly.

Send this article to your friends