project was threefold scientific military and political the plan was to be dead meat and new on the dark side of the moon which would create a dust cloud that would be lit by the sun making it visible from earth where americans what i guess be sitting on lawn chairs watching and cheering go usa or something like that obviously it never happened in the mid sixty's the project files disappeared from the pentagon and the government tried to cover it all up even after carl sagan accidentally revealed details years later project a one nineteen with just one of many crazy planned devised by many government that defines who are digic and are covered up expertly for years make no mistake the same crap is going on today and it's being covered up just as well so the next time you're under a night sky and hears someone blindly trusting their government maybe point out to the moon and tell them the story of project a one ninety two really blow up their

minds tonight let's talk about that by following me on twitter at the resident. who. you you are .

well good. point of this moment in the fossil loan as we follow the international teams fight for receive glory ultimately one holds how much we delve into the mysterious cost of a cult classic underscoring the way in the clearing the road for growth. we've got the future. hello and welcome to crossfire things are considered i'm peter lavelle the idea of russia in russian long obsessed western minds and politics and that obsession has

to date been remarkably dark and even menacing is this because the west projects its own negative self on to others. to cross the perceptions of russian russians i'm joined by my guest neil clark in london he is a journalist broadcaster and specialist in eastern european affairs in berlin we have nicholai petro he is a professor of political science at the university of rhode island and in moscow we cross to vladimir goldstein he's an associate professor of slavic studies at brown university right gentlemen cross-talk rules in fact that means you can jump in anytime on and i very much encourage nicholai if i go to you first in berlin you spent some time in ukraine on a fulbright i understand where it is russian were attitudes about russia come from in the west because obviously you know you can just open up a newspaper or magazine go to

a website or television in the west and well russia has to say the very least a bad name. one can hardly answer that question without first turning to your professor former professor martin believe is a must book about russian western perceptions of russia that's really the first place to start i think the late press professor did an outstanding job in explaining the cultural context the only thing and historical context the essential point is i take it from his book being that whenever russia is strong attitudes against it are especially strong as well in europe the only time russia is viewed favorably in the west is when it is relatively weak the only thing that i might add to his discussion which i think deserves particular attention is the importance of the religious differences between the western and eastern branches of

christianity which have been a sore spot for the past thousand odd years fly to me here in moscow you you were born in a country that was called the soviet union in emigrated to the united states when you listen to americans talk about russians what you what what are your reactions to it a lot of knowledge prejudice both. i think it's a very complex the sure one of the problem is that the russia is unbelievably complex country and on the we will do contra and we will the culture so it's very easy for people to fall into some kind of simplification or stereotype one of the unique features of russian culture is it's sort of attempt to combine the opposite it combines the say secor fries but sometimes with aggression and assertion it's combines you know kindness and cruelty so. as nikolai said at

a time when there are strong all the people tend to see only one side of it one aspect of it of course one of the reasons why you saw the enjoy what i'm doing is the need to continue to be amazed at how complex the countries and i'm learning in myself what i'm trying to teach my students to see both sides there are always have this image over russia is just the model is like ugly duckling you know if you look at the ugly duckling or if you look at this a swarm the rich walks on the ground it's going to ugly and we will be on the beating but when the swarm starts swimming in the water it's elegant and graceful and that's what we're going to have a show from this beauty a russian ballet to maybe some kind of grace and i think the key thing to do for the for the people outside russia is to see both sides and unfortunately i think this is the trouble with western media and i think with a lot of tendency to simplification is that people go just for one thing one side

of it you know neal if i can go to you in london one of the interesting things i find is the west always seems that it believes they can give something to russia he can teach russia it can save russia from itself we've seen this certainly the nineteenth century all the way up to the present looking at victoria nuland testimony to congress i mean it's almost like it teaching english is like a small pupil that can be saved from its parents. oh absolutely and i think there's a kind of smug superiority complex going on here was the kind of racism really we saw this time of the chilean pics where sort of photo left liberals got all their high horses and castigated russia over the gay rights law which russia had passed a year before forgetting the fact that britain had a very similar law up to two thousand or two or three and we had passed by the such a government and in fact forgetting the fact that many western allies in many western i countries homosexuality is actually a criminal offense so there was this kind of smug superiority over russia which i

believe is quite racist actually it's the and we see this also in the patrol of the rebels in the east of ukraine because when you read about them or or hear about them in the british media they're often portrayed as these to the wild savages. people who are sort of beyond any absolutely out of control and of course that's come to the surface again with the mh seventeen disaster and you don't get that betrayal of other rebel groups for example so i think that racism doesn't apply in this russia phobia is absolutely gone off the scale peter the last week in britain i wrote an article for the guardian back in two thousand and six about russia at the time of the murder and i thought it was pretty bad then but it was nothing really compared to what we're witnessing now and as nicholai said why is it so bad today it's because russia is asserting itself russia's standing up for its own rights when russia is weak for example under the yeltsin years that we didn't get but russia phobia russia was allowing the u.s.

to do what it wanted but now that russia is effectively blocking united states plans for global domination basically then it's back to russia phobia in full force mc lyte one of the interesting things and you wrote an article about i was quite brilliant it was last summer i think about values in and a lot of neo cons and all you across the board will say well russia the united states' own suit share the same values and a lot of people but i've been in russia for seventeen years so i think. i have a right to say what i understand about russian a lot of russians don't want western values at all they look at eurovision and say that's not for us there is a gap but it's not because the of the west particularly americans think that you know they're still so superior a lot of people here say i'll pass on that. one thing that people often overlook is the fact that there is a wide array of values both in russia and the west so

it would be incorrect to say that the values for example of a pussy riot group are widely admired in the west perhaps they're admired for their anti russian stance but when for example the same group took. took a stand. religious stand in not for a dom cathedral or in german cathedrals they were widely criticized there one of the things that putin did in his speech last year is to highlight the potentially deep and extensive similarities in values that russian conservatives share with western conservatives and i think that that is going to be an area of increased cooperation and worthy of

exploration on both sides because it is an aspect of the western tradition that many liberal and progressive westerners tend to forget about it vladimir even if the crisis in ukraine has been mentioned in we had this right before. you go back to november when the eunuch overage then president walked away from the association agreement and the european union was furious because they're a superior civilization and they can bring up ukraine they can bring it into the european family and all of that it was the civilizational choice and in itself this is a very condescending view that the west has of this part of the world superiority and you can learn from us and your traditions make you backward. yeah i think that's that's a rhetorical figure is quite bizarre that it's been repeated i think from seventeenth century on the embassy and said russia kind of eclipsed you know poland

. in being a fair and somehow kind of you know this you know catholic polish culture couldn't take it. you know kind of. friend their friend in a kind of nordo friendly acceptance so somehow kind of it actually begin to be explained it's something out of it is something and of a wrong with it and i think this edition continues and i remember vali go listening to a lecture lecture from from western ukraine of course he says and since then became a professor of ukrainian studies in the united states and he was just didn't want to have any doubts about the fact that you know of course ukrainian college is by far superior of course you know so he didn't question it it wasn't like a a in the show of debate in the russia somehow kind of all this behind and of course you know that. doesn't contribute to you know. the part of you know good old majority russian or russian wheelin is. from the west which is good in the west i

want to stress that russians well all the students all these pupils and i but they think like weak studies and they want to learn from the west something which is way to go with a dome a loan from the west for being all lecturing things like lead that is wonderful you know say american traditions you know which are which which are not being projected to show there is a tradition of you know i ben franklin would say that the first duty of a citizen used to questions one's authority you know like the row with the right about civil disobedience and full story great russian representative of the best of russian policy and my it's a role but what we see recently is you know it's not that type of america we see america lectured in bullying and i think russia and other you know that they want to learn something new and they want to. so they're free to communicate with the best in the rest of the culture not not were the rules not with a condescending degree do. you know neal it's a very good point that lattimer break brings up because there are

a lot of good things that you can bring from the west to other cultures and it works here but there's this view that you have to take the whole package and you know by the way we're going to determine how the package is used to me it's remarkable it really is and i think it's sort of cultural imperialism really because there are enormously good things about the west about an e.s.a. but the russians aren't getting them not getting access to them it seems that so i think that the shift has happened since the end of the cold war what we have this very virulent neo conservatism in america and in the west in britain to speak aggressive and use the kind of power vacuum that exists in one thousand nine hundred to step up the pain and of course russia actually feel it's important to understand this why is russia being attacked why gentlemen i'm going to have to jump in here we're going to go to was short break and after that show break we'll continue our discussion on russia stay with r.t. .

please. do you like me you want your comedy news from t.v. . comedy news to be a bear feasted no holds barred fight to the dad. like a vampire biting into the next of the corporate elite billionaire freaks while they're going. well that's what you get with my new show projected tonight. i am the president and i think a society that case i think corporation kind of continue to consume can do i think the banks are trying to get all that all about money and i'm actually sick

for the politicians writing the laws and regulations to tax corporate bankers. there's just too much this is a society. that. well if you're the market a lot. of. people. like to have you with us here on t.v. today i'm sure.

welcome back to cross talk we're all things are considered on peter lavelle to remind you we're discussing perceptions of russia and russians. go back to nikolai in berlin nicholas one of the things i find really quite remarkable when i look at descriptions of russia or a quote unquote behavior can condescending language but when i look at western politicians and i describe what's going on in the geo political environment i always find it very interesting is that russia is always the cues store very often accused of what exactly the west is actually doing brutality the use of force uncompromising go on and on and it seems to me it's just projecting

onto russia because russia has its own national interests and it's going to stare you down this is actually what we have right now but you know it's a projection of all that is bad in the west is projected onto another player and russia is a very familiar one to all of us to have those characteristics. russia i think what you're saying is russia is the west's evil twin brother yes i am yes i am saying that maybe that may be what the western perception but that's why i think it is the issue that was raised just a moment ago about civilizational choice choice is an interesting one to expound upon because from the first moment that i arrived in ukraine last year we had meetings with representatives of the opposition and their line was essentially that whatever happens the e.u. association agreement this was back in september must be signed

because regardless of whether it benefits ukrainians or not at least in the short term it is indeed a civilizational choice and russia's response i think appropriately to that is that's the wrong way to look at it because there is no civilizational choice russia and ukraine are as much a part of european civilization as germany or france or england and until that is more commonly accepted there's going to be a tendency to treat exactly the same type of behavior as you say vastly differently and to adopt these kind of double standards vladimir let's stay with this you know is russia the west evil twin i like to know how do you feel about that. you know i i feel kind of stronger about it is definitely the abuse of double standards abuse

of people chrissy and i think i think it came to prominence as neal pointed out with the end of the cold war cold war actually it was the you know the bed because that was it was a competition and the result of the competition each each system thrive to do better than the u.s. would compete with russia and try to show that they have more tolerant more accepting of god more in college and for individual into british but with the end of the cold war somehow there was an absolute the wrong conclusion was made that since the end of last the cold war means it should be considered that you know that it's economics is bad it's college is bad and it just basically have to repeat things from us and if they don't they would be from us but they they are bad and i think somehow so a friend of mine once once joked that russia lost cold war for us but us lost its second and i think that's that's actually did that to mend the mental for both

cultures and so consequently since us you know lost that knowledge they just projected a bill in the us a the rest spoke for themselves and feel very comfortable about it which is wrong you know it neal it's you know a lot of people criticize the west for the way they promote democracy in the world and they usually use a lot of force second we go to the number of countries libya we have the same syria afghanistan iraq i can go on and on that there's a long history of democracy promotion there but one of the things i find very interesting is that russia doesn't try to promote its system or export it whatsoever it is actually quite modest in that respect it basically says well we'll do what we what we do best here for us but if somebody else has another system well don't and that's their system i mean it's one of the remarkable differences if we have the evil twins. yeah absolutely i think one of the big problems is russia hasn't really been assertive enough in many ways because russia is accused of being

aggressive and assertive and yet it hasn't been at all under president putin and this is been you could argue part of the problem because the west has been emboldened to become more aggressive towards russia because russia hasn't really done anything really you could argue too much in response it's certainly been very modest russia hasn't gone around the world trying to bomb countries to have its own kind of system that would suit russia whereas the u.s. has done that for the last twenty years or so so i think that russia you could argue has been rather submissive actually even under president putin we know is very submissive on the yeltsin and so this is being taken advantage of by the very aggressive neo conservative fold left alliance in the western countries and of course when russia does assert as it did in some of the seti to protect the rights of russians and of course it is a demonized but i think there is a real disconnect peter which i think we should mention between the western elite and the general public because russia phobia is very much dominant among the

western elites you always have to be russian phobic to gain to be allowed to be a member of the political elite in the west nowadays but it's not shared by the general public there was a poll a few months ago which showed that the e.u. was more popular than russia that israel was more popular than russia and the british public certainly off buying into this idea that president putin you know is this bogeyman this new hitler character that the tabloids the rupert murdoch tabloids are trying to portray him as and i think that what happened last week with the mh seventies aster we saw a very crude attempt by the western leitz to try to use this to blame russia without any evidence connecting russia to this disaster and to try to get the general public to hate russia and hate putin as much as they do and so far it hasn't worked we saw hundreds of thousands of people marching last week around the world and in london for garza we don't see how. because the thousands of people marching against russia so it isn't working the elites want us to hate russia and

it isn't working. i find it very interesting is that you know if there is it's a binary here you know when i look at the neo cons in the west and their control of foreign policy russia has a choice either. resists or it bows down if so menders and russia. i will not bow down it will not surrender but there's never the third choice why don't we negotiate why don't we talk and this is this stonewalling that we have been seeing coming out of washington it's really horrific i mean we have been using the example of ukraine here you know the russians before all this started having said to the european union why don't we work together all three all three parties work together let's find a solution it's part of the record no we will not negotiate with you it's under go shabelle this is this mindset that i find very terrifying because you can't negotiate with these people though they say the russians you can't negotiate with it's again projecting. i think it gets back to the issue that i wrote about about

the values gap. which is presumed to exist between russia and the west in the west but which russia does not see. we does have a real disconnect in terms of the reality of what is going on in russia and as a result of that disconnect a lot of positive information about the changes in russia is simply not taken into account which only exacerbates the differences the apparent differences. in fact if you wanted to overcome this crisis and to prevent such crisis from occurring in the future you would literally pursue the opposite policies from the ones that the west is pursuing instead of isolation you should try people to people diplomacy instead of sanctions you would argue as people used to argue back in the

one nine hundred seventy s. in the one nine hundred eighty s. that there should be expanded commercial ties because that conditions and makes both economies co dependent on each other and that would be the real solution to preventing unexpected political outcomes. you know but a lot of me i don't think we're going to see that because it's you know you either surrender or you know we're going to take you on because the rhetoric coming out of a western capitals particularly washington i mean in a way and i don't want to be i don't want to exaggerate this here but we are at war not of the conventional sense of more of a hybrid war i mean there is every attempt to damage russia it is with much as possible here and it's across a wide array of sectors it's not military right now thank goodness but in every other sense there's been a declaration of war. and yeah i agree with this point of the neal singled

out important difference in terms of the west there is a lead and there are common people and the balls when there is that he's as recently as right after this plane tragedy come on you know americans do not support heavy involvement they don't want it in fact the first time of activity five percent wanted some us involved now it's down to eighteen percent so in other words you know people know it's not their neck of the woods they don't it's a complexity they have in the here and into egypt respect for russia and for for the circumstances so they don't want to be involved and then this elite which controls the corporate media and so on is a neo cons and nearly they're all sense and in the show over russia they coincide as they begin to but you know bombard the airwaves and press and everything with virulent anti-rational sort of i would say i would i wouldn't be afraid to use the word propaganda and it would i would question the whole term of elite because when

they read the publications in new york times the washington post in the new republic they are not high quality publications they base their they contain slogans this is not an elite production you know i look at some people like ana applebaum who apparently studied. or nuland who went to brown eyes you know i've never seen it go into my flat i don't know what you learned about russia and judging by her language it's a foul language i don't i would be even careful to call the people who pop public you publish the elite they just basically were very quick to learn and also for big you know terminology and we wanted. i'm afraid we've run out of time middle easterners on a very humorous note i appreciate that many thanks and i guess in london berlin and here in moscow and. watching us here see you next time and remember.

her. well. join us this month in boston known as we follow the international teams fighting for racing glory ultimate trusts one holds how much we delve into the mysterious cost of a cult classic under spunky smart girls away from the heart clearing the road for the. signal that. we've done for the future.

we welcome aaron eight and abby martin two of the two or precocious on the our team network. it's going to give you a different perspective give me one stock oh never i'll give you the information you make the decision don't worry about how breaking this works on the mind it's a revolution of ideas and consciousness. the system. would be described as angry i think in a strong. under single. what's

happening everyone i imagine martin and this is breaking a set so remember chiquita banana was found in a right wing paramilitary death squad in colombia oh well even if you don't they were yes to the tune of one point seven million dollars see back in the ninety's the violence between the chiquita banana supported a you see and it's left wing counterparts far resulted in the deaths of almost fifty thousand people mostly civilians and because of this the families of the thousands of colombians who were killed during the country's bloody civil war had sued the company trying to get accountability for their loved ones however just.