Top 20 Most Cringeworthy Zelensky PR Moments
Top 20 Most Cringeworthy Zelensky PR Moments
The US empire's proxy war in Ukraine has had many jaw-dropping instances of imperialist sociopathy, propagandistic audacity and brazen journalistic malpractice that we've discussed in this space many times, but one of the most cringeworthy and degrading aspects of the globe-spanning narrative control campaign surrounding this war has been the way the nation's president Volodymyr Zelensky has been turned into an ever-present corporate mascot for the most aggressive ad campaign ever devised. The way the most powerful institutions in the western world have been throwing their puppet in everyone's face to sell the empire's proxy warfare puts Ronald McDonald to shame.
Here are 20 of the cringiest moments of establishment PR using Zelensky to market the McProxy War to the western world, in no particular order.
1. A House Republican introducing a bill to place a bust of Zelensky in the US Capitol building
Antiwar's Dave DeCamp writes:
Rep. Joe Wilson (R-SC) introduced a bill this week that would place a bust of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in the House wing of the US Capitol building, an idea that was strongly criticized by more conservative GOP members.
2. The fake Hollywood action hero-sounding "I need ammunition, not a ride" quote
The only source for the quote was a single unnamed US government official, yet numerous mainstream media outlets reported it as fact instead of ignoring it for the baseless nonsense that it plainly was, and now it's part of the official narrative.
3. The Vogue cover shoot
5. Time Magazine Person of the Year
6. Star Wars: Attack of the Drones
7. Zelensky giving a speech at the Golden Globes
8. Zelensky giving a speech for the Grammys
9. Zelensky getting an Academy Award from actor Sean Penn
10. Zelensky addressing the World Economic Forum
11. Zelensky giving a speech and ringing the bell for the New York Stock Exchange
12. Zelensky giving a speech at the secretive Bilderberg Group (probably)
We'd never know if Zelensky actually did end up making a video appearance because of Bilderberg's notorious secrecy, but ahead of the meeting The Guardian reported he probably would:
"The conference room is rigged up with video screens for shy dignitaries to make a virtual attendance, and it’s highly likely that Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskiy will Zoom in for a T-shirted contribution to the talks. Just a few days beforehand, Zelenskiy met with a Bilderberg and US intelligence representative Alex Karp, who runs Palantir, the infamous CIA-funded surveillance and data analysis company."
13. Zelensky giving a speech at the Cannes Film Festival
14. Zelensky giving a speech at the Glastonbury Festival
15. Weird Hologram Zelensky at the Founders Forum in the UK
16. Zelensky meeting with Ben Stiller
17. The Ukrainian flag performance in the US congress
18. The bizarre Biden-Zelensky slow motion action-heroes-walking-away-from-an-explosion video clip
19. Guest on David Letterman's show
20. The obligatory Bono psyop
Honorable mention: Zelensky meeting with BlackRock CEO Larry Fink to help "rebuild" (read: buy up) Ukraine
Honorable mention: DC party at the Ukrainian embassy openly hosted by the US military-industrial complex
Are people not tired of having their intelligence insulted yet?
________________________
My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube, throwing some money into my tip jar on Ko-fi, Patreon or Paypal, or buying an issue of my monthly zine. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list for at my website or on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. Everyone, racist platforms excluded, has my permission to republish, use or translate any part of this work (or anything else I’ve written) in any way they like free of charge. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.
Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2
Wow Penn and Stiller are clueless Hollyweird wankers who either know zilch about sordid Ukrainian / NATO / Nazi history or are propagandist shills of the worst stripe. Stick to making movies, you “ambassadors” of delusion.
Any time there is such a concerted, 24/7, no-holds-barred, no-dissent-permitted effort to sell us anything, especially something that has no impact on us or our lives, and that most people, frankly, are not that interested in, then it becomes a duty to look behind the curtain and ask why the relentless propaganda blitz?