Invasion of the Mind Snatchers

Perhaps as others, I’m still struggling to explain to myself the shocking results of the 2019 Presidential Elections in Ukraine. How could Volodymyr Zelensky, a comedian and political nobody win three-quarters of Ukrainian electorate’s votes?

Searching high and low for an answer, I came across a persuasive observation by Oksana Zabuzhko, a noted contemporary Ukrainians writer, novelist and philosopher. But I’ll get to that at the end of this blogpost.

Except for the Lviv oblast, all others registered overwhelming support for Zelensky, who was regarded by some as a candidate whose support from Ukraine was tepid to say the most. He won the votes of people whose grandparents served in the Ukrainian Insurgent Army and earlier military formations against Russia, Nazi Germany and other invaders. He won among those whose ancestors were killed in the Russian-made famine. He won among people who witnessed the Revolution of Dignity. He won among those whose relatives were killed in today’s Russian war against Ukraine.

What lead to such a dreadful transformation?

Movie buffs may recall the 1956 sci-fi thriller called “Invasion of Body Snatchers,” which was about extraterrestrials that landed in a fictional California town. Alien plant spores fell from space and grew into large seed pods, each one capable of reproducing a duplicate replacement copy of each human. As each pod reached full development, it assimilated the physical characteristics, memories, and personalities of each sleeping person placed near it; however, these duplicates were devoid of all human emotion.

I’m not making light of the elections but I’m proposing that reality has suggested an invasion of mind snatchers.

As I had written, this successful transformation should not startle anyone who is familiar with the book “The Selling of the President, 1968,” which revealed the influence that image making can have on political campaigning. It showed that voters are bored with issues while being influenced with images that can alter their thinking.

Thanks to Ihor Kolomoisky, the gray cardinal and oligarch who reportedly transferred $5.5 billion from Ukraine via Cyprus, 41-year-old Zelensky was polished and shined and to his supporters he epitomized the new, younger generation of Ukraine that could lead the country out of its abyss. He was trained how to perform during a debate and what to say or not say during a political campaign.

And Ukrainian voters took this bait hook, line and sinker.

Their behavior reminds me of a biting observation by American author Orson Scott Card: “If pigs could vote, the man with the slop bucket would be elected swineherd every time, no matter how much slaughtering he did on the side.”

Throughout Ukrainian history and especially leading up to the elections, Russia’s cyber and psy-ops specialists sabotaged elections in Ukraine as they have been doing around the world. The techniques were both sophisticated and down to earth, complete with lies and fabrications.

For example, two websites reported that Lithuanian President Dalia Grybauskaitė, a staunch supporter and defender of Ukraine in its war with Russia, allegedly remarked that corruption, not Russia, is Ukraine’s greatest enemy. I inquired with Ukrainian diplomats and learned that the comment is not true and the websites are known for posting fabrications.

Ukrainian voters demonstrated that they weren’t able or didn’t want to recognize that they were targeted in this latest Russian brainwashing assault. Consequently, they voted against their own best interests, as well as the interests of people who need them most like their neighbors near and far.

And now for Oksana Zabuzhko’s analysis. She believes what happened wasn’t launched today but rather it is the consequence of a diabolical campaign initiated long ago by the Soviet KGB.

Zabuzhko wrote in her recent post: “By way of penetrating education and the mass media, Russian special services are conducting demoralization of the invaded country – this is the first stage of its seizing from the inside – this goal was cited by Bezmenov in the KGB handbook of the 1970s: “We should change the map of the world to such an extent whereby regardless of the mountains of information, you wouldn’t be able to make a smart decision in the interest of your own security and your country’s security” – this is exactly what happened in these elections.”

In other words, the minds of many Ukrainians were snatched and replaced while the bodies remained the same.

Not Indifferent Minority – 25%