HN Theater @HNTheaterMonth

I’m OK with this.

Given that it was a KGB policy to mess with the truth[1] I think it’s fine to try to inoculate yourself from it.

1. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPsKvG6WMI

⬐ notalongtimer

The documentary Hypernormalisation talks about the strategies Bezmenov lines out the four basic stages from a slightly different angle. Worth a watch. Things have gotten even more frightening since this warning. Bezmenov talks as if it's only the left that's targeted by ideological subversion, and maybe that was the primary strategy at the time, but it sure seems like both sides are are in play now.

https://www.filmsforaction.org/watch/hypernormalisation-2016...

⬐ ta988

Also the video posted here is just an excerpt. The full version (1h20 something) is much more clear about how the KGB was considering the left according to him.

⬐ propagandist

It's a great watch for that reason and for laying out just how much of our political systems are pure theatre. Fantastic production to boot.

⬐ ta988

There is almost no "left" (in the European sense) in the US. So yes, not much to subvert.

⬐ jhbadger

Not much in office, no. But say, on US academic campuses you'll find lots of people even in the 21st century who still claim to be Marxist. The traditional Left definitely exists in the US as a subculture.

⬐ raidicy

I wish there were literature or media on the subjects that Curtis covers. I find Adam Curtis is more focused on making entertaining docus than explicitly informative. On occasion in other docs he's made some claims of fact on topics that have more nuance than "yes" or "no".

⬐ propagandist

Simulation and Simulacra is probably where hypernormalisation got its inspiration.

⬐ ripvanwinkle

What jumped out for me is the soft underbelly of free market liberal democracies esp like the US today.

We seem to have little continuity in big picture thinking in the Govt and most things are on a 2 year cycle of trying to get majorities in congress and/or the presidency.

Meanwhile a totalitarian state can plot patiently over two or three decades by which time it might almost be too late for the other side to make a difference.

The situations around Ukraine and Taiwan seem like good examples.

⬐ denormalized

I don't think is true when it comes to foreign policy objectives, especially those centered around energy infrastructure (oil reserves, pipelines, etc).

Consider policies around strategic alliances (Saudi Arabia, Israel) and regime change (Iraq, Syria, Iran, among others) from at least the 90s through the present day.

⬐ rospaya

The US has a presidential position that is too strong (the US-type presidential system is often called one of the worst US exports) but there are long established institutions and mechanisms that keep the ball going. Trump(ism) found gaps and there are enough holes to make a mess out of things like transfer of power, but it's what keeping America from falling apart.

Remember JFK, transfer of power after Nixon, even the Bush/Gore debacle. The whole machinery worked in the end, however flawed.

Totalitarian regimes like China, where you dismantle your opposition, including state institutions, make them very vulnerable. If Xi or Putin disappear tomorrow, there would be utter chaos.

⬐ 8note

A totalitarian state is prone to falling apart - the USSR is a prime example.

Long term, american bureaucrats stay in the government pushing for the same stuff for the length of their career. Even once they've retired, people like Robert Muller come back to put in bits of work.

⬐ tablespoon

> A totalitarian state is prone to falling apart - the USSR is a prime example.

That's taken as an article of faith, but I'm not sure how true it actually is. Sure some totalitarian have fallen apart (the Soviet Union), but others have not (China), and Western liberal democracies aren't looking so stable nowadays.

⬐ pleb_nz

Can you list the liberal democracies that aren't doing so well?

⬐ tremon

I'd point out Greece, Italy, Argentina and Brazil. I'm sure there's a no-true-scotsman argument to be had for each of them, but they're nominally considered democratic republics.

⬐ credit_guy

Totalitarian regimes have a fundamental problem: succession. Very few empires cracked that nut.

⬐ walkhour

Looks like these bureaucrats hold a big chunk of the national sovereignty for someone whose not subject to a popular vote, and this job is for life?

⬐ stjohnswarts

Yep, as long as a "strong, smart" dictator is in power things can move along fine, but the second he shows cracks in his armor plate all the people he has fucked over, berated, imprisoned are waiting in the wings to take him down, and then you get instability. That's one reason China was able to survive. Although it's an authoritarian one-party country, the CCP was smart enough to eject the leader every so many years, they threw away that advantage with Xi and declared him dictator for life. Democracies are messy, but they can also be self-correcting by not letting power aggregate for too long around one cult of personality.

⬐ avgcorrection

This is completely ridiculous.

Consider for one the soft power that the US has.[1] You can just limit this to the seemingly frivilous “everyone wants to wear jeans” point. It is nowhere near anything that the Soviet Union and now Russia could dream of. And the point is even stronger if we just consider the West. To propose that the Soviet Union and now Russia could psychologically undermine America itself is completely outlandish.

Now consider that Russia wasn’t even able to psychologically subvert their “brother people” the Ukranians. A smaller country (although still large) right next to them with a fair amount of Russian speakers. Let’s just for a moment pretend for the sake of the argument that the separatist movements were just indoctrinated by Russia. That was still a failure since the majority of Ukranians ended up being pro-Western.

[1] And I do mean soft and not the “we’ll persuade you to open yourself up to penetration by our corporations” kind of influence.

⬐ commandlinefan

> wasn’t even able to psychologically subvert the Ukranians

Well, not all of them, but the there were enough separatists in Crimea and Donetsk, etc. to destabilize those regions. Were those separatists psychologically subverted, or did they just happen to want to re-join Russia?

They don't have to subvert all of America, just enough of a subvertable multitude to destabilize things.

⬐ avgcorrection

> Well, not all of them, but the there were enough separatists in Crimea

First of all, us Westerners have already questioned how democratic the supposed cessation from Ukraine was. So let’s not get selective now. Russia already had their military stationed their. That could have a chilling effect.

Second of all, plenty of people in Crimea speak Russian. And a lot of the Crimean Tatars were forcefully deported under the Soviet Union. I just bring that up since forceful deportation is not exactly, uh, the tool of a governing party that feels that they can just manipulate their subjects into becoming… whatever the Soviet Union wanted them to become.

> ... and Donetsk, etc. to destabilize those regions.

In your quote you left out the rest of the paragraph where I addressed the separatists. Even if we assume—and this is an insane hypothetical for the sake of this specific argument—that all those separatists were hypnotized by Russia, that’s still a very lackluster result considering that the majority of Ukraine is pro-Western right now. I mean they did commit to an all out war with them. So much for subversion.

But let’s entertain this point for one more paragraph. The separatist conflict started after the 2014 coup which America supported.[1] So the separatist sentiment was in part caused by America trying to subvert the political process of Ukraine (and kind of openly, too). That’s in a way more impressive than Russian subversion considering how far away the US is.

[1] Page 4, https://www.mearsheimer.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Why-t...

> Were those separatists psychologically subverted, or did they just happen to want to re-join Russia?

This feels like a rhetorical question where one of the alternatives is the obvious answer. In case it is the former which is “correct”: it is quite common for peoples and ethnicities to not live neatly in each of their own little nation state. 25% of Latvia, for example, consists of ethnic Russians. Finland has a Swedish-speaking minority. You have Transnistria in Moldova. So what makes an ethnic/cultural separatist region at all weird or unusual? Especially when a major power is willing to unofficially help them out for eight years...

⬐ commandlinefan

> questioned how democratic the supposed cessation from Ukraine was

That’s… the point I was making…

⬐ avgcorrection

Due to the military presence. Not due to some mind-hack nonense.

Does Russia have a military presence in the US? It does not and it never will.

⬐ e40

Well, seems like it was successful in 2016 subverting our election. And, convincing a sitting US President to be a lacky of Putin.

⬐ e40

Do you think I was talking about Biden? Crikey, folks, Trump is still saying nice things about his BFF. It's "borderline treasonous" as Romney said this weekend.

⬐ pdonis

> To propose that the Soviet Union and now Russia could psychologically undermine America itself is completely outlandish.

It's not outlandish at all. Many of the things he describes have actually happened.

⬐ baal80spam

I've submitted this in the past but it was mercilessly downvoted within minutes. Hopefully it sticks this time!

⬐ rglover

Likewise.

⬐ giantg2

This pops up every so often. I've seen this upvoted on here one or twice before.

⬐ fallingfrog

What do you think every major news outlet does all the time?? Go read “manufacturing consent” by Noam Chomsky. The amount of influence Russia has on American thought is negligible compared with the amount of control our own ruling class exerts by setting the terms of what we are allowed to care about. They tell us when to turn a blind eye, when to be upset, what to remember, what to forget. There’s a reason we pay 200 dollars a vial for insulin and everyone seems powerless to do anything about it, meanwhile unlimited funds are always available for dropping bombs on brown people to obtain their oil. For Pete’s sake the enemy is our own ruling elites. They must have decided that a great way to distract the American people from the fact that they’re fucking us with debt and shipping the jobs overseas and torching the climate and leaving nothing for the future is to start another Cold War (worked great the first time, let’s do it again!). They’re kind of out of ideas so they’re going to start doing remakes of old franchises. It’s just the same plot with better special effects. I just thought we were smarter than this. And yet, here we are.

I remember the run up to the Iraq war. NBC, cnn and everyone else had a 24 hour running coverage about the evils of the saddam Hussein regime. They pulled the babies out of jthe incubators, we were told. They had weapons of mass destruction. And people were scared. We had just been attacked. We lined up behind George bush and gave him everything he wanted- the patriot act, which ended up being a massive increase in the surveillance state, a declaration of a state of emergency- anything he wanted. And it’s so, so easy for us now to point the finger at the people alive then and say, “what idiots”. But people were scared. They were shocked and afraid, and that is when you really have to be careful, that’s when the public is most easily manipulated. People are shocked and afraid now, which means that this is the worst possible time to trust any of our leaders or anything you see on the major news networks.

What kind of new patriot act is Biden going to push through? What new foreign policy disaster? Get a grip! Russia is not some kind of puppet master controlling America! There is only one direction this leads and it’s a bigger and bigger enlargement of the intelligence apparatus.

https://youtu.be/EuwmWnphqII

⬐ 1shooner

Is there any clear historical evidence that these specific phases were ever successfully executed? My impression is that mid-century soviet intellectualism loved to put together these kind of grand theories of social engineering.

⬐ nomel

I think existence of all the Russian troll farms suggests that the first phase is is being attempted. I imagine incremental success would be pretty hard to measure. I assume there's some "good guy" government agency tracking it though.

⬐ qgin

Definitely seems like the attempts are still being made. The overly spooky picture being told in this interview seems a bit off since he’s claiming the process had been completed many times over already by the time of the interview in the 80s.

⬐ gideonite

Sounds like the Soviet form of Edward Bernays.

⬐ uejfiweun

I've seen this posted in various places over the years and I think honestly it's just fearmongering. This guy acts like they have some grand plan to shape US discourse and it's meticulously detailed and executed over decades... but that is honestly so implausible. Sure, I buy the idea that Russia and many other countries push propaganda in the US for a variety of reasons - to stir up fights, influence policy, etc. But we have a free marketplace of ideas and the most effective ideas tend to rise to the top. Suggesting that Russia has executed a highly complex strategy to take over the US through the past 40 years is just laughable.

⬐ None

None

⬐ pelasaco

i tried to start a discussion here about it too https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29665487

⬐ savant_penguin

It's bizarre how accurate this is

⬐ alsaaro

How do you figure?

This person thought in the 1980's that American left wing propaganda will subvert and eventually destabilize the United States to a point were they lose a hot war with the Soviet Union, and that the American left wing propagandist will be summarily executed by the Soviet occupiers, rather than be allowed to rule.

Assuming you aren't from a parallel dimension, Bezmenov's predictions proved false.

Did you watch the video?

⬐ avgcorrection

Russia launching a full-scale invasion against a neighboring country surely is the complete opposite of the specter of some cunning Soviet/Russian intelligence officer who deftly turns a whole nation against itself.

⬐ dragonwriter

It's not really the opposite; what the defector describes is the strategy used in the prep work that went into the invasion and which made Putin think that the West would crumble in the face of it.

It did weaken Western countries internally, and the relations between them, but not (at least, I think from evidence so far) as much as Putin needed.

⬐ avgcorrection

Subverting Ukraine would mean to sow so much division internally that a sizable minority of the defending force would be motivated to defect to the other side and to compromise their countrymen. But in actual reality Russia faces a highly motivated and bitterly angry defensive force with a high morale.[1] And those same Ukrainians ousted a democratically elected (although eventually repressive and violent) pro-Russian government just eight years prior.

[1] That’s just what I have heard, living in a different European country. Maybe it’s just Ukrainian propaganda.

⬐ dijonman2

Left wing propaganda is destabilizing the US from the inside.

You can’t be a republican without being called a nut job anymore. We’re more divided than ever.

⬐ savant_penguin

I have watched the video.

The US universities are today full of Marxist propagandists. Left wing politicians who visited and defended socialist dictatorships are elected and reelected. Many tonight shows enjoy calling anyone who disagrees with them the "alt right". This is consistent with Marxist propaganda coming from Americans themselves. The US media pretends there is no burning buildings behind them and call protests 'peaceful'. That is very similar to the idea that people will ignore burning evidence right in front of their eyes. If you make obvious statements about basic biology that contradicts the current insanity you are going to be cancelled. (Again ignoring evidence)

Th US is incredibly divided. People who disagree with the left are consistently called Nazis and yelled down. If you are going to make an event with people that disagree with the left protesters will physically stop you from getting in.

Where do you think putin took that "attacking neonazis" from? Calling your opponent a Nazi to justify taking them down has been a constant political tool in the west

⬐ myth_drannon

Wow, it's really similar in essence to Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine. I wonder if she listened to him when writing the book.

⬐ motohagiography

Having seen this video before, I'm not sure dismissing it because of who has taken it seriously is sufficient as an intellectual response. It's a useful modern articulation of the totalitarian strategy. However, when I think of friends who would never watch it because from their perspective, it's just right-wing propaganda, here are the arguments I think they make against it:

- even if it was relevant at the time back in the 80s, applying it to today is not an accurate comparison

- sovietism wasn't real socialism

- whether what he is saying is true or not it arms ideological enemies and undermines the progressive cause, and is therefore misinformation

- his whole structure is decorating an underlying set of deceptions with facts that make it seem true, but it's not.

- if the soviet agenda is that subtle and complex as he says it could have produced him as an equally false disinformation source.

- governments need to do and hide things to manage people and the economy for the greater good so he's saying normal government techniques are evil to make you paranoid

- if you are educated you know this is how politics really work anyway and being responsible sometimes means compromising for the greater good, etc.

- people use this video to justify their existing racism, homophobia, anti-semitism, misogyny, etc.

These have some truth, but I don't think they persuasively discredit the systemic process of attacking a culture with the predictive power that he describes. They're separate things. There is a lot of prior art on the tactics and strategies of totalitarian movements, most of it in the form of american cold war anti-communist propaganda, which though campy, when you view it again from the present perspective of the US having lost it's surprisingly prescient stuff. The soviet goal was to destabilize and dissolve cultures in the space of a couple of generations, and that's what it does.

Sometimes I think the fall of the iron curtain wasn't the end of soviet totalitarianism, but rather, its liberation from being confined to mere nation states, only to spend the 90's and 00's infiltrating western institutions, and we're seeing the fruit of that today. Most of our current leadership went to university in the 90s and were introduced to a wave of critical theory virus then (last one was the 70s), and we are seeing it in the milennials now.

⬐ avgcorrection

If you want to learn about propaganda and indoctrination then look no further than Edward Bernays and other PR pioneers. People like him came up with a blueprint to manage liberal democracies because nominal freedom requires (according to him) the management of thought in order to make people make the right choices (we are all free to pick between Pepsi and Coke).

Propaganda and indoctrination makes less sense in a totalitarian society. It’s in the name: a totalitarian society needs no consent or illusion of choice because the choices have been made for you. The same applies to merely authoritarian societies to a lesser degree.

Putin had his whole narrative of the Russian Empire becoming a thing again. So that was definitely meant to motivate the average Russian. But on the other hand it is not crucial that Russians buy it; Russians were directly told that people who protest the invasion will get arrested.

There is too much fascination with the Orwellian “thought crime” type of propaganda and indoctrination. Try to have a more pscyhoanalytical approach to it. Like Bernays.

⬐ dev_by_day

> - sovietism wasn't real socialism

This is one of those funny and illogical arguments that come up often and uses a rather common (and ironic) propaganda trick of just denying a massive failure ever existed.

This is the equivalent of stating Nazism wasn't "real national socialism" or Mussolini wasn't using "real fascism".

You can't just pretend away bad outcomes from a terrible system when it doesn't go your way. They deployed socialism and communism and the outcomes were exactly what those systems always bring.

Where has this mythical "real socialism" been tried and succeeded? Venezuela? Its also a disaster. Was that not "real" socialism either?

The reality is Socialism has been most effective while being integrated in a hybrid manner with other systems (Social Democracy). Socialism on its own is a disaster that hands over far too much power to the state and doesn't work economically.

⬐ malermeister

> Where has this mythical "real socialism" been tried and succeeded?

Yugoslavia under Tito.

⬐ hdjjhhvvhga

> Where has this mythical "real socialism" been tried and succeeded?

The only place it really worked were small communes like Longo Maï. Why? Because they are made by people who want it and everybody shares the common spirit. This is only possible on a small scale, never on a state scale when it's pushed down your throat and often you can't leave.

⬐ kelseyfrog

Honestly same for capitalism too. It is only possible to succeed at a small scale. When it is forced on people who don't have a choice it tends to fail.

⬐ hogrider

Who can seriously believe this when so called leftists in the us o ly go as far left as center right moderate parties everywhere else. Who cares about xhomsky level professors, they're not in, politics they can't ever get elected.

⬐ citrusx

You do realize that this speech was actually part of the Russian plot itself? The tell is him calling out Walter Mondale. As we know now, the real "destabilization" started with Reagan.

⬐ qgin

So the demoralization process was complete many times over already in 1984 and the other steps only took a year at most? I wonder whatever became of the United States. I guess we’ll never know.

⬐ jenkstom

Civil rights defenders are there to implement Leninism? What? This probably sounded great in the 80's, but now it just sounds like more disinformation.

⬐ simonh

He’s looking at things through a KGB lens. He doesn’t have any real clue what civil rights was about because he’s not part of western culture, but he was embedded in KGB culture and what he says about that is credible.

⬐ jahewson

Not at all. Pivotal figures in civil rights, such as Du Bois [1] were anti-capitalist and much of contemporary social and legal theory emerged in the 1980s from post-modernism, a direct offshoot of Marxism. The general idea being that if you switch out “class struggle” for “racial struggle” then you get to borrow the rest of Marx’s theory about an oppressed proletariat and the need for revolution to overthrow an oppressive elite.

Americans like to use “marxist” as a slur and to use it out of context to attack political enemies but there is no shortage of actual Marxist who label themselves as such, e.g this professor, found randomly by my Googling for 30sec: https://blog.apaonline.org/2020/06/17/black-lives-matter-as-...

Most people have no idea that they’re regurgitating Marxist ideology when they repeat the phrases and arguments they hear, and of course would never identify as such - but there’s no sense in which making this observation is misinformation.

Personally I lament the fact that people across the political spectrum are digging ideological holes for themselves instead of focusing on how we can all help each other.

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois

⬐ jahewson

FWIW When I say “The general idea” I am back to talking about contemporary Marxism again, not post-modernism.

⬐ dgellow

Postmodernism is the anti-thesis of Marxism, they have nothing in common.

⬐ VictorPath

> post-modernism, a direct offshoot of Marxism

The communists manifesto says

"Our epoch, the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinct feature: it has simplified class antagonisms. Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat."

This grand narrative and ideology spoken with objective certainty with regards to binary oppositions, is the complete opposite of postmodernism.

Milton Friedman's works in a similar vein although on the other side are the opposite of postmodernism as well.

⬐ jahewson

Yes, that’s why it’s an “offshoot”. The founding thinkers of post-modernism were former Marxists and left-wing radicals (in the proper, actual political sense), again this is not a slur, simply a statement of fact. Depending on your political persuasion it may not even be a bad thing! But it is, at least, a thing. In as much as Mormonism is an offshoot of Judaism.

To revisit the original point, civil rights is deeply intertwined with radical left-wing and Marxist politics, for better or worse. Personally I think it’s a shame because civil rights should be for everyone, it is bigger than any political persuasion.

The best thing we can do is de-politicise these movements, the entire political spectrum has become so toxic and divisive.

⬐ bjowen

Okay, you’re using that word in an unconventional sense. In your usage, the US Congress would be an “offshoot” of the British Crown. Movements that stand in opposition to a prior established manner of thought are usually referred to as something like a backlash or a reaction or a breakaway.

⬐ jahewson

Thank you. “Breakaway” would have been a better choice, yes. In that the lineage is there but they are incompatible.

⬐ qiskit

> Civil rights defenders are there to implement Leninism? What? This probably sounded great in the 80's, but now it just sounds like more disinformation.

Not the 80s but 60s. Nixon blamed the civil rights movement of the 60s on the soviets/communism. Nixon's ability to pin the civil rights movement on the soviets/communism made him extremely popular. People forget how popular Nixon was.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/november/7/...

This guy is all over youtube/social media, but he's just stating standard anti-communist propaganda we've had since mccarthy in the 40s/50s.

⬐ otikik

Oh that part is absolutely manipulative.

⬐ dijonman2

What about it isn’t true today?

⬐ akagusu

Today, everything different from the "common sense" spread through the media is considered misinformation.

Think about this war. Everyone is condemning Russia, making statements supporting Ukraine, applying all kind of sanctions against Russia.

Why did not governments do the same when US invade Iraq or Afghanistan?

⬐ jhbadger

Lots of governments did criticize the US. However, there is a big difference between regime change and claiming that a country itself has no right to exist and intending to add it to your country.

⬐ gunfighthacksaw

Leftists today love to parrot the Ukraine are neo-nazi dreck.

Obviously, the USSR is gone but it did manage to demoralize enough people to shill for Russian foreign policy despite Putin being much more fascist adjacent, and enjoying close support from the bellicose Orthodox patriarchs who rail against western politics instead of sticking to droning on about God.

⬐ drewcoo

Strange. I don't know any leftists who argue in favor of the capitalist oligarchs who rule Russia. What cave have your leftists been living in?

⬐ WillPostForFood

That's a strawman - it isn't that leftists "argue in favor of the capitalist oligarchs who rule Russia", but that they make excuses for Putin (blame Nato expansion for causing the crisis), and accuse Ukraine supporters of fomenting war. The anti-war left is a weird (albeit smaller) mirror of the Tucker Carlson right.

But we also acknowledge that the Russian government, oligarchic autocracy as it is, is right to say that endless NATO expansion, for which read extended US hegemony, is not the security structure Europe needs. The chance was missed to abolish NATO when the Warsaw Pact went out of business more than thirty years ago; instead we are left with the consequences of broken US promises not to extend the alliance eastwards.

So Stop the War aims to provide the opposition that the Labour front bench seemingly won’t. The Tories have taken the lead internationally in talking up the crisis, announcing imminent coups, false-flag incidents or invasions almost every day, to the point where even the government in Kiev has asked them to tone it down a bit.

More substantively, they have sent fresh arms to Ukraine and deployed more British forces into Eastern Europe—all the very things which Russia has said it finds most menacing. All this pointless provocation seems to speak of a government which would actually quite like a war to break out, for strategic and doubtless domestic political reasons, particularly since it will not involve any British forces fighting.

https://tribunemag.co.uk/2022/02/keir-starmer-guardian-stop-...

⬐ avgcorrection

By this definition, analyzing history and all its actors is the same as assigning and/or de-assigning blame.

⬐ WillPostForFood

No, not at all. This is a leftist group opposing support for Ukraine. The "analysis of history" is just the rationale. I don't care about the rationale, and that's not the point.

⬐ KerrAvon

I mean, Tulsi Gabbard and Jill Stein makes two, but where's the rest of that version of the left in the US? I think it's basically nonexistent.

⬐ WillPostForFood

If you aren't seeing it you aren't looking. It is admittedly weird, you reflexively think they are right wingers, but dig a bit and you see they are pro-Palestine, pro-Venezuela leftists who see the same conspiracy to start a war as the fringe right:

https://twitter.com/dancohen3000/status/1497607142894968834

⬐ gunfighthacksaw

The cave where they hate the West so much that they shill for its enemies who are much more ghoulish.

My leftists are British and Canadian however. YMMV based on geography.

⬐ SketchySeaBeast

You seem to both know some very extreme individuals and also enjoy painting with extremely broad strokes.

⬐ WillPostForFood

In the Senate investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election they found that Russia was stoking racial discord and supporting Black Lives Matter.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/12/17/18145075/russia-fa...

Anything that divides, causes upset, or is distracting is going to be a good propaganda target, regardless of whether the underlying cause is good or bad.

⬐ rajin444

> regardless of whether the underlying cause is good or bad.

Yeah, that’s the real issue. If we can find a way to be neighborly (literally and figuratively) with those who have opinions (not actions) we abhor we might get somewhere.

But, all somebody has to do is say some opinion threatens their life and that plan is out the window.

⬐ hogrider

What this misses is that China had more political reform under a one party system than any democracy on the world.

⬐ nabla9

He was not a KGB defector. He was a KGB informant who worked for RIA Novosti.

In the west, he earned his money with anti-communist lecturing and his stories became more sophisticated over time.

⬐ newacc9

I see Yuri everywhere, but never Sejna or Golitsyn who reveal the same plan.

https://jrnyquist.blog/2020/03/26/the-sino-soviet-long-range...

⬐ thriftwy

What kind of concentration camps is he talking about, in 1984?

⬐ donatj

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gulag

⬐ thriftwy

In 1984?

⬐ donatj

> Political prisoners continued to be kept in one of the most famous camps Perm-36 until 1987 when it was closed

⬐ reactspa

Why should we believe this guy? He'll say anything to excite the TV show's audience.

Serious questions to anti-Putin Americans: if Mexico developed a cozy relationship with China and Russia, and, as a sovereign nation, decided it wanted to install their nukes on its (Mexico's) land, would America allow it? (This is a serious question, please don't mock it.)

⬐ afrcnc

so accurate with what's happening in the US right now

⬐ DoItToMe81

Bezmenov was a fraud employed by right wing Christian think tanks to claim that the USSR was behind the gay rights movement in the USA to "destroy the west's moral fabric". He was a KGB-affiliated journalist without access to any of the things he has claimed.

His claims are not backed by any released archive, nor any other KGB officer. Note that some of the more outlandish claims, like the USSR funding leftist black nationalists AND far right white nationalists to stoke conflict and damage the stability of the USA, have been corroborated by others and backed by real documentation.

⬐ asguy

Please post sources.

⬐ poxwole

Oh look an ex soviet grifter who was a low level employee in India and can not speak with any authority on the matters of "cultural Leninism"

⬐ zackees

None

⬐ reactspa

Exactly. Why should we believe this Yuri guy? He'll say anything to excite the TV show's audience.

Serious questions to anti-Putin Americans: if Mexico developed a cozy relationship with China and Russia, and, as a sovereign nation, decided it wanted to install their nukes on its (Mexico's) land, would America allow it? (This is a serious question, please don't treat it lightly.)

⬐ odessacubbage

the whole point of the the Monroe doctrine and over a century's worth of misadventures in cuba and latin america is that we haven't and wouldn't.

⬐ missedthecue

Didn't this scenario literally happen in Cuba? It was resolved with diplomacy, not annexation.

⬐ reactspa

"Diplomacy":

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bay_of_Pigs_Invasion

⬐ missedthecue

1. That was an attack by native cubans, not the US military.

2. Well before the Soviets put nukes in Cuba.

⬐ reactspa

Ah, you are right about "2". Thank you.

"1" is debatable (it was US-backed).

⬐ cs702

The more shocking/interesting aspect of this interview, for me, is to hear how the KGB (and its successor organization(s) in Russia, I imagine) would work over multiple decades to "subvert" the people of a country, in four stages -- demoralization, destabilization, crisis, and normalization:

1) demoralize the people of a country over a period of "at least 15 to 20 years;"

2) destabilize the country's institutions over a period of "2 to 5 years;"

3) precipitate a crisis that would normally unfold over a period of "up to 6 weeks;" and

4) normalize the new state of affairs.

Whether the KGB and its successor organization(s) could have or might have been successful is of course debatable, but no one can deny this kind of persistent effort to subvert another country's people over such a long horizon is... audacious (words fail me).

In particular, I find the idea of a long-term government-sponsored program whose goal is to "demoralize" people a bit upsetting: It stands directly against the let's-roll-up-our-sleeves, we-can-do-it optimism for which US entrepreneurs have long been known around the world.

⬐ denormalized

> It stands directly against the let's-roll-up-our-sleeves, we-can-do-it optimism for which US entrepreneurs have long been known around the world.

This is an interesting choice of contrast between the KGB and US entrepreneurs.

How about when compared to US intelligence agencies?

Do you think they are more similar or different in their methodologies?

⬐ baybal2

> How about when compared to US intelligence agencies?

Read my another comment below, by having a whoping 23 intelligence agencies, USA condemned its leadership to a shower of opinions out of which no correct one can be synthesized.

Only the size of antenna maters, not how powerful is the receive amplifier, or the number of them.

If you link up 23 pre-amps in a row, you will not get a 23 times clearer signal, but 23 times more noise.

⬐ elahieh

If there’s 23 times more noise, but the opinions are uncorrelated, that’s where the random forest approach comes into its own for a decision tree based on classification or regression. Like time series forecasting, and you can choose the weights based on how well the agencies performed in similar situations in the past.

“In the multitude of counsellors there is safety” — Prov 11:14

⬐ credit_guy

Countries need to have multiple intelligence agencies. Having a single powerful one is absolutely courting disaster. Dictators understand this simple fact, and all dictatorships have lots of intelligence agencies spying on each other, so a coup becomes less likely. Coups still happen, obviously.

But democracies shouldn't fear coups, you say? 6 of January, I say back. Or Charles de Gaulle (wait, you didn't know that Charles de Gaulle successfully executed a coup in France in 1958? [1])

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_1958_crisis_in_France

⬐ vanattab

did de gaullie execute a coup or did he just fill a power vacuum left as the result of a coup?

⬐ credit_guy

He actually executed the coup. The event is described in details in the book "Coup d'État: A Practical Handbook".

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coup_d%27%C3%89tat:_A_Practica... [2] https://www.hup.harvard.edu/catalog.php?isbn=9780674737266

⬐ vanattab

Interesting. Thanks for the info.

⬐ mise_en_place

The US has multiple intelligence agencies. CIA, FBI, DoD, ATF, Pentagon, NSA. They don’t talk to each other much, which is why 9/11 happened.

⬐ jka

Here's a thought exercise: next time you're reading a press release by the U.S. Department of Defense, try replacing "China" or "Russia" with "the CIA", and see whether the contents of the announcement continue to make sense.

As with any country, different organizations have different missions and philosophies -- and so do the people within them.

⬐ foobarian

I am skeptical because of how small the sample size is. This could well be a case of, a bunch of "spy architecture" astronauts in the KGB come up with this brainy scheme, a bunch of years go by, they find one place where it worked, and go "A ha! Our thing works!"

⬐ doopy1

Check out the book "Confessions of an Economic Hitman" - it's about the US playboook. It's not any better.

⬐ shostack

Nice whataboutism.

⬐ throwoutway

I got the feeling that book was fanciful, and maybe only 30% accurate and 70% fantasy. Has anyone corroborated it?

⬐ doopy1

I don't doubt that the mechanics of how it's done are embellished to make a fun narrative, but the theme of tricking small nations into debt to secure a foothold is very believable to me.

⬐ throwoutway

I agree with that assessment. China is doing this right now with their belt and roads initiative

⬐ jostmey

I don't disagree with the sequence of events, just the cause and effect. I don't think these historical events are orchestrat-able or controlled by governments; rather, these events evolve over time when problems in society are not addressed.

⬐ walkhour

Can't it be both? Problems get worse when they are not addressed and foreign governments contribute to demoralizing the population?

⬐ mantas

Democratically elected governments have a very short shelf life. 4, 8 years if lucky. Meanwhile authoritarian governments have much much more time. And since authoritarian governments tend to have nepotistic tendencies, the play can even span generations.

⬐ nradov

Elected governments come and go, but the "deep state" bureaucracy and associated private think tanks serve to maintain some level of policy continuity. Very few autocratic governments in the modern era have successfully managed a transition to the next generation.

⬐ tremon

Why specifically government-sponsored program? I see parallels with how the free press (i.e. not government) of England undermined the EU over a period of 25 years with misinformation, and then capitalized on the destabilization of the Euro (the Greece bailout) to precipitate a referendum.

⬐ walkhour

You could argue the English press did it because they thought it was the best for the country. This is obviously not the case of this particular government-sponsored program, they have no problem seeing blood on the streets, in fact they know at least some blood is unavoidable.

⬐ ericmcer

This seems like a really effective technique, I am sure left leaning people are pointing at conservatives as being turned Trumpers and Russian shills while conservatives look at liberals as socialists and communists who don't want to work.

The reality is that a society made up of people who think their country is terrible and don't feel any responsibility to work to support it is probably not going to last that long.

⬐ tablespoon

> Whether the KGB (and its successor, the GRU) could have or might have been successful is of course debatable, but no one can deny this kind of persistent effort to subvert another country's people over such a long horizon is... audacious (words fail me).

> In particular, I find the idea of a long-term government-sponsored program whose goal is to "demoralize" people a bit upsetting: It stands directly against the let's-roll-up-our-sleeves, we-can-do-it optimism for which US entrepreneurs have long been known around the world.

Though, IIRC, their subversion projects use a similar strategy to VCs: throw a bunch of efforts at the wall, and see which ones stick. For a lot of it, I don't think they had a big master plan, but tasked agents with coming up and implementing ideas for subversion and disinformation.

⬐ augstein

With all the right wing support Putin is getting lately, I can‘t help but wonder if they were at least partially successful in subverting our society.

⬐ kelseyfrog

He's actually a genius. Why? Because it's all couched in another layer that the audience doesn't have access to. He describes the approach being like judo. Rather than meet your opponent head on, use their momentum against them. That is a tacit admission that the US has momentum in its real weaknesses. This is clear to anyone who has dabbled in US history. There are consistent historical divisions based on class, geography, race, religion, federalism, &c. that defy attempts to be mended. A subverter need not create new divisions, but rather amplify already existing divisions.

That's why so many of his examples are relatable today - we haven't actually fixed anything. And that's why it's unclear if the subversion was successful or not, these divisions already had momentum. They were already going to happen, the subversion, if present, only served to accelerate their unwinding.

This part is the most fun. Peeling back the curtain on these subversions doesn't do anything to make the subversion less effective! He has a reactionary perspective, certainly, but it could just as well be framed through the lens of leftism. It just happens that this particular framing leverages the fears of his audience to a decay of a glorious past whereas the leftist version would be the denial of a glorious future. That's why I like him so much. He's cementing his audience's stance in a way that makes them feel more resolute in their defiance to subversion which amplifies the division. It's like finding a perfectly crafted puzzle. Pure genius.

⬐ graphpercolator

This is all nonsense.

The division is because we haven't had anything to unite over since 9/11. The Iraq war was divisive.

At this point it is half the country living in one media fantasy land and the other half living in different media fantasy land. Both think they are the ones not living in a media fantasy land but believe the other side is. Both think the fantasy land they live in is objectively true.

Just like from your post the fantasy land you are in is no mystery. It is fun to watch this process honestly when you don't have a horse in the race.

If another country invaded the US though this would all disappear instantly overnight. A legit war with China or Russia that brings the threat of intercontinental missiles, this would all vanish overnight.

⬐ nobleach

I keep hearing this on places like Reddit. I see memes parroting this. But with all the right-wing folks I know, I've yet to hear ONE say they actually think this invasion is a good idea, or that Putin is a good guy. I even visited Townhall.com for the first time in like a decade just to see what "the right wing" had to say. And... it's not there. No one other than Donald Trump has actually taken Putin's side. I just now went to check Newmax as I was certain THEY would be lending this support. But no... it simply isn't there.

⬐ belltaco

"A congressman from New Jersey has disclosed that he is receiving calls from viewers of Tucker Carlson’s primetime Fox News show, expressing distress at the Biden administration’s backing of Ukraine in the tense military stand-off with Russia."

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/25/tucker-carlson...

>But with all the right-wing folks I know, I've yet to hear ONE say they actually think this invasion is a good idea, or that Putin is a good guy.

How many right wing folks do you know?

Edit: Here's Candace Owens with 3M followers implying that the first air strikes in Kyiv were the work of NATO because Putin said he's only attacking the eastern parts.

https://twitter.com/RealCandaceO/status/1496699449535602696

⬐ NicoJuicy

I looked her up. I don't think she's that popular though, eg. https://twitter.com/i/status/1497628050829332482

Her posts have 8 k. upvotes sometimes, that's still pretty low.

⬐ nobleach

So we have a guy saying that he's receiving calls against Biden's support of Ukraine. Certainly we have something more verifiable than that, right? That insane tweet by Candace Owens, yep. That is the type of thing I'm looking for. What I'm not seeing is some overall support from "the right".

If this were some big Russian support smear campaign by the right, certainly we should see it in all their normal channels, right? I really do not feel like visiting any more right wing sites to prove my point. The simple fact is, we read comments like the grandparent, and we're supposed to believe that Russian support is wide-spread. The truth is, aside from a couple of nut-cases, both sides of the aisle seem to overwhelmingly condemn this invasion.

⬐ mardifoufs

If I bring up 2 examples of leftists being as pro putin as the 2 examples you have linked does that make both sides ( ;) ) pro putin? Because finding anti-Nato leftists isn't that hard at all.

Seriously, from everything I have been seeing going from meme accounts to trump aligned figure heads, there has been an overwhelming support for ukraine (while criticizing biden of course but that's still not being pro putin). Yes there are some on right who are but thats because the right isn't a monolith. Imo it's just unhelpful and it reeks of terminal partisanship mentality when even a pretty bad situation like this is used to score points against the other side using cherry picked examples even if it's so easily disproven. Inevitably it also turns into a "the other side is not as willing to go to war as we are so they are against us"

⬐ dragonwriter

There are plenty of American leftists taken in by Russian propaganda because it plays to their biases, but the difference from the right-wingers who have been in that the leftists are marginalized politically, whereas a number of the right-wingers are influential, several in major media, some federal elected office-holders, and some people discussed seriously as Presidential candidates for 2024.

Now, part of this is the asymmetry of American politics where leftists, qua leftists, are generally marginalized, but it goes beyond that.

⬐ cryptonector

Not even Trump "has actually taken Putin's side".

⬐ anonymouse008

If you want to know who is secretly aligned with who, pay attention to language. Whoever's vocabulary is shared is an implicit alliance -

Putin has been recently using rhetoric that he must remove "neo-nazis" in an effort to "demilitarize" the rightful Ukrainian people.

⬐ partiallypro

The far Right and far Left (tankies) are both being fairly pro-Putin. The Right just has someone like Tucker Carlson with a big mega phone.

But if you listen to the video, he is talking about using the Left's idealogy as subversion.

⬐ mardifoufs

Funnily enough, if you watch the entirety of the videos from this guy he is pretty clearly talking about leftist subversion. Without taking any side here or agreeing with him, just listen to when he talks about subversive education (for example he talks about a push for more social sciences and other "unsubstantial" education ) or to what he refers to as demoralization (which is according to his definition is saying stuff like america was never great, we shouldn't feel proud of our past, and just in general a constant push for victimization).

It's funny how I guess both sides ended up thinking he is referring to the other side though.

⬐ tablespoon

> Funnily enough, if you watch the entirety of the videos from this guy he is pretty clearly talking about leftist subversion.

Wouldn't subversion be opportunistic, though? Maybe during Cold War, their tactics had more success on the left, but more recently they've had more success on the right. If your goal is to subvert the whole, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

⬐ mardifoufs

From what I understood from his speeches, I think he's saying that some leftist ideology is inherently subversive.

I guess it makes sense and it doesn't have to be pejorative: conservatives are usually more attached to traditional structures while historically leftist groups push for a transformative change. Subversion is a good way to transform a structure.

A good example would be the 1619 projet that, whether you agreed with its message or not, explicitly aimed at undermining the current mainstream narrative on the history of the USA. I can't think of any right wing equivalent

⬐ teh64

There was literally a response to the 1619 project by Trump: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1776_Commission

⬐ kaitai

There is no right wing equivalent because of the structurally different ways in which the right and left position their narratives. The appeal to the right wing in the US is via Christian nationalism and distrust of authority (from scientists to lamestream media to the US gov't). The right wing in the US buttresses its legitimacy by claiming that Christian nationalism is the historically correct point of view and is the "traditional structure". This is in fact false, but the whole point is that the right wing (as you point out) couches its message in terms of "this is the truth and the way it's always been" while the left wing appeals for transformative change. A wholesale move to Christian nationalism would be in fact a transformative change for the US, but you gotta be cognizant of how you sell it, right? The new right-wing distrust for the US military and US intelligence and support for Russia is pretty transformative. It's just good sales.

⬐ ttybird2

Since when is "distrust of authority" a right wing thing? This has been traditionally been a leftist doctrine (with various ideologies such as anarchism focusing on that, along with revolutionary groups that fight against said authorities).

⬐ kaitai

I know! Isn't it amazing?! Yet now it's a hallmark of right-wing thought in the US! My Republican relatives are absolutely sure that everyone in government, medicine, science, and education is lying to them or trying to manipulate them.

⬐ baybal2

> Wouldn't subversion be opportunistic, though? Maybe during Cold War, their tactics had more success on the left, but more recently they've had more success on the right. If your goal is to subvert the whole, it's six of one, half a dozen of the other.

Read what I wrote in another comment. It doesn't matter if it's left, or right for as long as disturbing random discourse keeps your mind jammed, and prevents you from seeing things for what they are.

⬐ ericmcer

Say what you want about the right but they are good for fervent patriotism and turning a blind eye to the government exploiting other countries, the environment, etc. These are definitely not ideals we want to embrace but a blindly patriotic and immoral U.S.A. is a way bigger threat to Russia/China than a self-loathing one constantly battling internally.

⬐ 8note

Is it demoralizing to say that the US was never great? It wasn't, but it was always getting better, and it still is.

To me it seems more demoralizing to look back and think things have gotten worse

⬐ convolvatron

what does it even _mean_ for the US to have been 'great'. its just some kind of pointless narcissism.

⬐ mardifoufs

Yes but a lot of people actually are starting to think that things have actually gotten worse (especially since 2020, and they are obviously totally wrong imo)

And yes of course it's demoralizing, his theory was that if you think your country is evil or based on evil and not much better than anything else why would you ever fight for it? Especially when faced with an enemy who actually believes that he is dying for a great cause, and the best system.

From a cold war perspective, if the other side doesn't believe his system to be superior anymore that could've been decisive to win a war. Just look at the vietnam war and how it (thankfully) ended.

⬐ alar44

We're you alive before 9/11? Things are far worse in the US than 20 years ago. Literally everything.

⬐ pempem

The first feeling I had upon reading your comment was that it felt like it was pulled from the Milosevich playbook, who used Russian support and at one point had potential for Russian troops to help him continue to further divide his country and and basically pursue genocide.

Then my normalcy bias kicked in and I thought "it would never get that bad"

⬐ panzagl

Well, to divide a country you need two sides...

⬐ kova12

Don't forget the "sex cults" he constantly mentioned, that not only came to fruition, even better - everyone is now scared to even discuss how trans should not compete in women's sports for example

⬐ csee

Well they clearly changed tactics, didn't they. RT is right-leaning propaganda and all his most dangerous stooges (Tucker Carlson, Bannon) are too.

⬐ mardifoufs

I guess bannon has a pretty subversive aim but I don't see how Tucker Carlson, no matter how controversial he is, is subversive when he mostly supports traditional power structures. He's basically pushing a bog standard anti war populist narrative,which he has done consistently in the past 4 years regardless of it involved russia.

What I'm essentially saying is that he doesn't really fit into the "demoralize/destabilize/subvert/normalize" framework. But that's not to say he doesn't fit very well in others ;)

⬐ csee

Tucker clips are being broadcasted right now inside Russia as part of their state sponsored propaganda. His description of Ukraine as a US client state and other pro-Putin propaganda is harming Ukrainians.

⬐ ttybird2

I think the question is if he is intentionally spreading information which he knows that it is wrong, which is not necessarily true. This seems to be a common perception of the situation. As for whether it is harming Ukrainians I would say that it is debatable.

⬐ cma

He had on a neofeudalist/neoreactionary/hbd guy just to banter with him (Moldbug).

⬐ polishdude20

The interesting thing is to notice how Putin calls the Ukrainians Nazis. It's like he's thinking that it's an easy word to throw around because our society is so prevalent with people throwing that word around. It's like the subversion tactics were to make it easy to call someone a nazi and make it so commonplace to cancel people that he's literally using that term himself.

⬐ dragonwriter

> It's like he's thinking that it's an easy word to throw around because our society is so prevalent with people throwing that word around.

No, it's more like he is a Russian authoritarian leader appealing to the greatest imagery of Russian national struggle to make a war of aggression look like something more noble.

⬐ csomar

So it looks like they are subverting both sides now. America is screwed.

⬐ noobermin

Bezmenov is ideologically a conservative and pushed conservative ideology once he was in America, so it warrants taking this with a grain of salt. That said, today it feels like Russian misinfo targets anti-establishment groups on both sides, both far-right and far-left types.

⬐ mardifoufs

Oh I completely agree that he doesn't have a lot of credibility but I guess his message is still theoretically interesting even if it's potentially only fiction.

⬐ inglor_cz

This is also from 1984. Things have changed quite a bit from then.

Back then, organizations like Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament were Soviet-influenced.

⬐ rootusrootus

> saying stuff like america was never great

I'd say it is working. The sheer quantity of anti-American rhetoric online, places like Reddit and even on HN, is astounding. Ostensibly coming from our own citizens, in many cases. If this kind of self-loathing is reality, we have a big problem indeed. The optimist in me likes to assume that a good chunk of it is planted deliberately by America's foes.

⬐ ttybird2

The USA did this to itself though, with its actions both against the citizens of other countries and its own.

⬐ tremon

The sheer quantity of anti-American rhetoric online

The only way to make a great country greater is to acknowledge its flaws and strive to correct them. The default mode of communication seems to have been people pointing out US failures, and US people widely shouting them down, regardless of the merit of the claim. That has also been a major factor driving anti-American rhetoric, you can't blame that on foreign influence.

Or, in other words: anti-American rhetoric coming from American citizens is a good thing: it makes the country better.

⬐ baybal2

Putin was in power for around 23 years, during which he completely dulled Western sense of danger by constantly blowing hot, and cold.

What Russians call "blowing fuflo" was certainly in use by the time the second flare up of second Chechnya war - 2003.

They funded a gazillion of cheap academicians, for-profit journalists, and think tanks with no apparent goal besides just keeping the buzz about it going, no matter what the actual argument was.

Basically they reduced the signal-to-noise ratio of sensible political discourse to near none, which then swayed the West into making bad decisions, and assured no high quality leadership can emerge, being outshouted by that cacophonic chorus of random opinion leaders.

The inability to take things for what they are, "analysis paralysis," politicians, and business leaders not being able to put a single coherent paragraph without an army of advisers — this is what it is.

They don't care what people keep arguing about for as long as they keep talking, and doing nothing.

⬐ pvg

The GRU is an intelligence service that's existed in parallel with other ones and is not a 'successor to the KGB'. Perhaps you're thinking of the FSB.

⬐ cs702

Thanks. You're right. I meant both. I edited the comment to reflect as much.

It could be motivated demoralization and subversion.

Former KGB agent Yuri explains:

https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI?t=55

This goes back to Soviet cold-war-era psy-ops. They planted the seeds in the US and now the US is exporting it to the rest of the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPsKvG6WMI

Most definitely cia has a history with manipulating information. But at the point of information, how do you know what to even trust at any level? Evidence can be provided for anything. Information and disinformation all at the same time. This is only increasing - how will anyone be able to sort themselves out? I’m not so sure it’s possible.

https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI

Also 60 seconds of video is a ton of information. And it’s not just one video at a time. The total session aggregated per user per active user is way higher than that. These are behaviors where users use the app all day. Their entire worldview is based on the content within the social network experience.

⬐ 082349872349872

thoughts on sorting oneself out, albeit with difficulty:

seek variety of manipulated information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24600424

systematically analyse received information: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23897577

analyse especially source levels: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24459177

compare https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=24403135 and remember we may have evolved big energy-guzzling brains in order to see through primate politics.

⬐ dfischer

Thank you for contributing something thoughtful and relevant among the disheartening engagements.

⬐ 082349872349872

You're welcome. In connection with Bezmenov you may find the setting of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventeen_Moments_of_Spring#Ba... interesting.

The Arthashastra recommends never acting on intelligence which hasn't been confirmed through at least three independent channels. Russian, swiss, and US secondary sources agree on the the underlying events of that scenario. I guess if the soviets really had had a highly-placed mole like Stierlitz, they could have done more, perhaps have been subtly encouraging top nazis first to prioritise ideology over pragmatism and then to get into speed, into the occult, and into the bunker.

However, I think a simpler explanation for the later events of 1945 would be: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=23401308

====

Nighttime, 1944 Berlin: A ushanka-wearing man with skis and a parachute creeps silently along the hallway of an apartment building. He raps quickly on one of the doors.

A dishelved german in nightcap and house shoes opens after a few minutes.

"The eagles fly over the campfire. Repeat: the eagles fly over the campfire!" whispers the man in the hallway.

"Sorry," says the german, "I'm Otto Stierlitz the plumber, born 1904. You want Otto von Stierlitz the spy, born 1899. He lives up on the third floor."

Many conspiracies can be just explained through emergent behavior. For example, there could be demand for that music, and the labels are just creating content to respond to that demand... without any ethical considerations about what they're promoting, that is.

But to be honest, a conspiracy of some kind could be an explanation, who knows.

For some people, there are substantial tangible, material benefits to dumbing down society.

For example, the "gangster rapper" stereotype is pushed aggresively by the music industry. The popularity of "gangster rap" results in "gangster" aesthetics becoming fashionable, even among law abiding people who are not gangsters. However, when people see a person that resembles the "gangster" stereotype (purely based on their attire) pushed by the entertainment industry, they will be more likely to call 911, eventually resulting in an innocent person being killed for no valid reason. Is this a racist conspiracy? who knows.

Likewise, oversexualization results in people having unplanned kids, causing them to ultimately become poor, and more susceptible to predatory loans, low wages, political manipulation and all the machinery that exists only to abuse the poor. Similar to anti-intellectualism.

And then, glorification of violence, competition, non-compliance, etc... this just makes people very divisive, and in order to dominate a large population you want them to be as divided as possible, and constantly distracted with immaterial disputes while you lobby the government.

So, yeah... it could be a conspiracy. It is very profitable to make people vulnerable and susceptible to manipulation and abuse. Especially political manipulation, which is already prominent in American journalism.

It kind of resembles the psychological warfare techniques used by the Soviets (i.e.: ideological subversion). https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI?t=60

⬐ bad_user

> conspiracy of some kind could be an explanation, who knows

Actually we do know. It’s safe to say that conspiracies involving a lot of actors are mathematically impossible.

https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal...

⬐ 29athrowaway

Can this model be used to accurately predict real data? How reproducible is this research?

⬐ newen

Snowden’s leaks were about a conspiracy that involved many more than a 1000 people and it lasted for years. You get reports about one government program or another that’s been kept secret for decades. These are conspiracies.

Statistically improbable is different from mathematically impossible. It’s also much less improbable when the people involved have to join through rituals like government classification designations.

Again, government programs regularly involve much more than a 1000 people and are known to be kept secret for decades. These programs are clearly conspiracies.

⬐ 29athrowaway

Organized religion involves millions of people and is still alive and well.

⬐ bad_user

Not sure of what conspiracies you’re thinking of, but if actual evidence was leaked, then we are talking about a clear failure of those involved, therefore this is evidence for the claim that large scale conspiracies are indeed impossible ;-)

You can believe what you want of course, but from my POV when the discussion ends up in non-falsifiability land, you might as well talk about the existence of God or Santa Claus, an interesting discussion for sure, but not one that can yield any useful insight.

⬐ newen

If it is possible for a significant period of time, then it is possible. Saying something is impossible because it "only" lasted for 50 years is stupid.

⬐ pjc50

In case anyone is paying attention to this conspiracy theory garbage, I suggest you look at the actual history of particular genres of popular music, especially of black origin, and how it was routinely suppressed. I only found out recently that Daddy Yankee (you may have heard of Despacito) had a lot of trouble with reggaeton being banned early on: https://nacla.org/news/reggaeton-nation

https://youtu.be/IQPsKvG6WMI

> sponsored

Why the past tense? Seems to me like someone is still "sponsoring" racial tensions in the US. This has been in the works for quite some time, and it's paying dividends now: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IQPsKvG6WMI. The entirety of the US media apparatus, as well as the entirety of the political establishment is happy to play along.

⬐ kube-system

> Why the past tense?

Because the Mueller report did not contain any information from the future as far as I am aware. :)

But yes, I don’t think we have any reason to believe that Russia is acting any differently today.