Glenn Reynolds finds the best stuff sometimes.  Especially this piece on Boris Yeltsin that he posted a link and excerpt too.  Very, very good read about Russia, about the history of that period.

Interesting segements

“…News reporting is often subjective; activist reporting is even worse. Unfortunately the majority of reporters choose to describe reality in a way that in their minds would benefit their ideals of political and cultural “progress.” This gives us a skewed picture of events that hampers our ability to understand them….

This alliance retained control over a number of formerly Party newspapers and magazines that were now actively “uncovering the international Zionist conspiracy against Russia.” Every article – be it about nature, food, education, arts, or alcoholism – contained an obligatory Jew-bashing theme, enlightening the nation about how the supernaturally crafty Zionists were plotting to destroy Russia with the help of hirelings like Yeltsin, Gorbachev, or any other potential political opponent.

In their view all Western leaders since the beginning of time were Jewish conspirators. Even the Bolshevik Revolution was a Jewish plot to conquer Russia because Lenin and all his comrades were Jews. Like the Swiftian boiled egg scientists, they actually argued among themselves whether Stalin had been a Jewish agent or a hero fighting against the Jewish menace, killed by Jewish doctors. How could they reconcile this with being part of the National-Bolshevik movement?

This won’t be so shocking if you consider that Marxism is also, in essence, a vast conspiracy theory explaining how capitalist oppressors have conquered the world and are now controlling the people’s minds through cultural hegemony. In the old U.S.S.R., Marxism was branded into people’s brains with hot iron, often causing permanent damage. Now the hollow channels vacated by the daily anti-Capitalist propaganda were being filled with new anti-Semitic content. The irrational fear and hatred of the bourgeoisie was now complemented with the irrational fear and hatred of the Jews. The view of world history as the struggle of the oppressed against the oppressors was supplanted with the struggle of the oppressed against the worldwide Jewish conspiracy. Different symptoms, same paranoia…..

The Americans with whom I discussed these events were surprised at hearing about the high death toll. They didn’t realize it was this bad, nor had they been informed about the anti-Semitic nature of the riots. It seems the media had failed to do its job, which is strange considering that Moscow was swarming with foreign journalists. As far as I can remember, my personal impressions at the time were that in an attempt to stay objective, the Western journalists chose some questionable middle ground – which made their coverage anything but objective.

Some of the Western journalists were even trying to see the events through the eyes of the attacking mob. They did it even after the deadly assault on the TV Center and the killing of its journalists. They continued to do so even after a rebel sniper shot and killed a British cameraman, even when several other Western reporters were wounded, including a New York Times photographer. For some inexplicable reason they refused to see the irrational nature of the extremists they tried to empathize with. All they seemed to be interested in was, feeding on people’s grievances.

Apparently, in their minds, a fascist must always have a swastika prominently displayed on the sleeve at all times – otherwise he’s just a victim working out grievances. These journalists wouldn’t recognize fascism if it smacked them over the head with a hammer and sickle, which is the Soviet version of swastika. They probably wouldn’t have believed me if I were to tell them that in the twisted minds of these ultra-nationalist maniacs, all Westerners were under the suspicion of being Zionist running dogs working to enslave and destroy Mother Russia. To appreciate just how crazy they were, consider the fact that one of their worst imaginary Zionist enemies was Bill Clinton.

I can’t help but think about this media tendency every time I see a Western journalist trying to explain the mindset of a foreign extremist. Quite predictably they end up with projecting Western biases, including the Bush derangement syndrome.

A memo to Western reporters: the extremists hate you and want to kill you just for that little uncomplicated image of you they keep in their hateful delusional minds – that’s why they are extremists, and you have absolutely no control over that. Spare them your personal struggles and complexes. Anything you say will only reinforce their conviction that you are an agent of the international Zionist conspiracy. The more believable your story is, the more cunning and dangerous agent they’ll think you are…..”

Go read the whole thing.  The actual history part is all over there, I just put in some of the parts that struck me as interesting about the press.