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Comment by motohagiography | Hacker News Reader

The impact of media organizations discrediting and completely debasing themselves over Assange, but also Snowden and a host of other U.S. false issues related to the law enforcement and intelligence community and its contagion into social platforms is what has really cleaved the culture. These are bad people exploiting bad people to ensure that worse people can keep doing terrible things. It's capital-E evil.

Personally I think we could probably trace it back to soviet infiltration of the university education system around the world in the 60's and 70's, which within a lifetime has produced multiple generations of nihilistic bureaucrats trained to seek power for its own sake, and now they occupy our institutions at all levels and have used them to destroy the foundations of the culture and seize its means of production, while subordinating them to a global regime. All without firing a shot. The reason these people believe what they're doing is ok is because someone taught them that the ends justify the means.

The Assange affair is just a symptom of a much more terrible disease, and this witness and the media compliance around him are about par for the course in all of this.

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> Personally I think we could probably trace it back to soviet infiltration of the university education system

What, not into our precious bodily fluids[1]?

This is a facile explanation. America’s politics and culture over the last 80 years have first and foremost been a reaction to the perceived threat of the Soviets. There’s no particular reason, especially as the United States remains remarkably conservative for a developed nation, to blame things on a country that’s been gone for over 30 years.

[1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=N1KvgtEnABY

> There’s no particular reason, especially as the United States remains remarkably conservative for a developed nation, to blame things on a country that’s been gone for over 30 years.

The USSR is gone, but the CPSU is alive, and kicking under a new brand, more determined, aggressive leader, and as a highly distilled, more pure mafia than it was before, without even a pretence of behaving like statesmen.

What does one of Russia’s opposition parties have to do with the state of the media in the US?

Opposition? The true CPSU successor has recently won an election there, scoring up to 146% of the vote in some regions.

My understanding (which, again, is completely irrelevant to this thread) is that Putin and his party are still in complete control of Russia, at least in all ways that matter. But again, I fail to see what Russia’s myriad dysfunctionalities have to do with the topic at hand.

> I fail to see what Russia’s myriad dysfunctionalities have to do with the topic at hand.

I'll explain. See, the thread starter says that US now reaps the consequences from letting people subverted by soviet idiological subversion into the circles of power.

Then people say its all irrelevant as USSR is no more.

Then, I come here and tell to people to open snap out of this. The former CPSU is not only still around, but is even more aggressive, and concerted at idiological subversion.

Now, they are putting an even bigger priority on melding themselves into American political elites, and bureaucracy.

How many more Hunter Bidens are there waiting to join American political establishment? Hundreds? Thousands? Tens of thousands?

Tens of thousands?

I didn't realize that USA national politicians were so virile.

The CPSU was banned in Russia 29 years ago.

> The CPSU was banned in Russia 29 years ago.

And then then it instantly reassembled itself under a new name.

I think this needs clarified, are you be referring to the communist party or United Russia. The communist party has practical no influence outside of Russia and like most opposition parties, little internally either. United Russia is absolutely not Communist, statist yes, communist no.

> United Russia is absolutely not Communist, statist yes, communist no.

At some point they were 90%+ ex-CPSU members, and somehow they are still not communist?

90% communist, and still not communist? Well, lets call them 10% non-communists then, if you want.

> At some point they were 90%+ ex-CPSU members, and somehow they are still not communist?

So? China's actual Communist party isn't exactly very communist anymore.

I'd say the CPSU is dead, but some of its members who liked power shifted with the political winds.

I'm not as familiar with Russia, but it wouldn't surprise me if Putin's ideology is power-for-its-own-sake and nationalism, in that order.

> I'd say the CPSU is dead, but some of its members who liked power more than communism shifted with the political winds.

What is communism? Peace in the world, and utopia for workers?

Or more like mafia-serfdom-militarist system, where actual proletariat are put lowest of the low, and abused by everybody on the party ladder, and what USSR actually was for most of its history?

The CPSU never, ever cared for one, and even lowest tiers in the party were fully aware of this.

In this, it's true that the communist party of the soviet union never ever been the dictionary definition of communism (which they themselve defined) It was a cynical kratocratic cult without any morals.

I guess the point is "communism" was just a flag of convenience for those people, so it doesn't make sense to call them by that if they don't use that flag anymore, and especially if that flag is now used by others.

The CPSU was were anyone that sought power went.

There were people that literally read Friedman and wholeheartedly agreed that were in the CPSU.

Hell, Yeltsin was the 7th most powerful man in the CPSU. He wasn't much of a communist.

According to the excellent book "Putin's people" by Catherine Belton the people who are running the show now were more aligned with the KGB rather than the party.

> more aligned with the KGB rather than the party.

What was "the party?" The party itself been the puppet of:

1. KGB

2. Interior ministry

3. Military

Which were the real power behind it, and essentially were the source of CPSU policy, with ordinary low rank members being mere "shesterkas" errand boys.

So now what was the actual political force running the CPSU is now having an even more direct control of Russia, and without military, and MVD competing with them for power.

The CPSU was never even remotely the puppet of the KGB. The KGB had so little influence in the party that they weren't able to influence it without coups. All of which failed.

The Politburo was always the head of the party.

I'm not sure you have to keep pointing to the boogie man of soviet infiltrators to explain power hungry bureaucrats. Those have existed in literally every society since at least the early bronze age.

Agreed, I think better explanation is much more simple:

Those that will do anything for power have an advantage over others, ergo people at high level positions are disproportionately those types of people.

>> Those that will do anything for power have an advantage over others, ergo people at high level positions are disproportionately those types of people.

One thought is that we could try to fix that problem with some type of screening, but that would be another system to game or corrupt. Also, those kind of people (high ambition and drive) can be really useful in those positions so long as they don't go off the rails.

I like the solution from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Elect some random person as president of the galaxy, but don't tell him about it. Just have conversations with him to find out what he thinks about things, but don't let him know that you actually run the galaxy based on these conversations. If power corrupts, make it impossible to seek power, and don't let the person that wields it know that they have it.

That could go seriously badly if the random person happened to have extreme views. :/

Also it just moves the problem one person down the line.

So the new most powerful position is the person that knows who runs the galaxy and talks to her/him. That person can make up things or sway the ruler.

If you have many people, you now just have an oligarchy.

This is pretty much how the Shogunate in Japan worked.

Once a single war lord controls the “security” of the Emperor, they then wield power and justify all of there actions based on sole access to the Emperor.

This reminds me of the “Goldilocks” strategy the DoD supposedly uses when presenting a President with a menu of military options:

1. Very extreme militaristic response that will surely cause many deaths. Clearly unacceptable.

2. Very weak bordering on non-existent response. Clearly unacceptable.

3. What pentagon has already decided to do. Clearly the “only” viable option.

This isn’t correct iirc. Zaphod definitely knew he was president. The government didn’t consult him about anything, he was just a distraction.

I wasn't talking about Zaphod. https://hitchhikers.fandom.com/wiki/Ruler_of_the_Universe

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/127330116441995264...

It's Russians all the way down, trying to impurify our precious bodily fluids.

> I'm not sure you have to keep pointing to the boogie man of soviet infiltrators to explain power hungry bureaucrats. Those have existed in literally every society since at least the early bronze age.

No, I'd say power hunger is one thing, but what you face now is unique to this poisonous "Soviet Culture." A very special, aggressive brand of social nihilism at the apex of civil society, characteristic of one party/social class governments.

Putin put his own spin on the timeless demoralisation tactic (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bX3EZCVj2XA ,) an even more aggressive targeting of both the new elites, and the establishment (see Biden Jr. adventures with in Ukraine.) Or plainly speaking playing both sides.

Putin's tactics are postmodern, a philosophy that at it's core (despite right wing propaganda around the terms) is intrinsically anti Marxist.

Seeing the ghosts of soviets in every dark corner is something that these very elites we're talking about use to control you and your perceptions of reality.

> Putin's tactics are postmodern, a philosophy that at it's core (despite right wing propaganda around the terms) is intrinsically anti Marxist.

This is what they want the West to believe. They want you to lower your guard, they want you to start working with them, and put thoughts like "hey, maybe those guys are a lesser evil than communists" into your head.

They rely on people who they call "useful idiots" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) in communist lingo to perpetuate, and spread such ideas to the West.

> This is what they want the West to believe. They want you to lower your guard, they want you to start working with them, and put thoughts like "hey, maybe those guys are a lesser evil than communists" into your head.

They're doing a terrible job then. They've somehow created an even worse society for Russians as far as I can tell.

> They rely on people who they call "useful idiots" (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot) in communist lingo to perpetuate, and spread such ideas to the West.

You realize that your citation of Useful Idiot literally points out that there's no record of the term actually being used by the soviets, but instead appears to have been first used by the New York Times?

>Putin's tactics are postmodern, a philosophy that at it's core (despite right wing propaganda around the terms) is intrinsically anti Marxist.

That's not true. Postmodernism and Frankfurt School of Marxism are synonymous in todays culture. However I agree that late stage postmodernism is almost indistinguishable from Real Politik. End result is the same if your worldview reduces everything to power plays between collectives.

Postmodernism was a reaction to movements like Frankfurt School which is pretty much peak Modern. You can see that in how pretty much the only consistent part of postmodernism is rejecting cognitive structures and abstractions for interpreting society like the example you gave of "reduc[ing] everything to power plays between collectives."

A reaction that builds upon and encapsulates Marxist meta-narratives. Yes in theory postmodernism can point to a diverse set of perspectives but in practice it's homogenous groupthink within a Marxist meta-narrative. End result is people operating in worldviews consisting of moral relativism and variations of "Marxist struggles". It's a worldview that has conflict intrinsic to it.

Postmodernism is literally founded on the idea of rejecting meta-narratives.

Lyotard in fact defines postmodernism as "incredulity to meta-narratives".

Exactly... Postmodernism isn't a logically consistent worldview, almost by definition.

It's full of performative contradictions in practice.

Hence the need for "safe spaces". It doesn't stand up to logical discourse when its application is confronted.

The rejection of meta-narratives is the underlying theme of postmodernism, and is common throughout it.

I would suggest you dig deeper into these concepts, as you seem to have basic misunderstandings about what they mean.

And there's nothing wrong with safe spaces. You're not owed "logical discourse" on your terms. People sometimes just want to occasionally not be bothered by every bro who thinks that because they've watched a lot of Jordan Peterson videos that they're suddenly on the pinnacle of philosophical thought. It's tiring in a way orthogonal to the validity of any points being made. Additionally safe spaces aren't typically where instruction is held, and, despite the propaganda, not an effective way to avoid topics completely by design.

>The rejection of meta-narratives is the underlying theme of postmodernism, and is common throughout it.

Sure that's the theme. A theme that's intertwined with Marxist meta-narratives. Like I said, performative contradiction.

>I would suggest you dig deeper into these concepts, as you seem to have basic misunderstandings about what they mean.

Internet stranger trying to appeal to his own authority. Great argument

>And there's nothing wrong with safe spaces. You're not owed "logical discourse" on your terms.

There's nothing wrong with it. It's in the context of Marxist meta-narratives that it becomes toxic.

"No, I'd say power hunger is one thing, but what you face now is unique to this poisonous "Soviet Culture." A very special, aggressive brand of social nihilism at the apex of civil society, characteristic of one party/social class governments"

What you're describing is late stage capitalism.

""Did we aggressively fight against some of the science? Yes," Keith McCoy, the Exxon (XOM) lobbyist, said during a covertly filmed job interview recorded by Greenpeace's UK investigative platform.

"Did we join some shadow groups to work against some of the early efforts? Yes, that's true," McCoy said in the video, which was published Wednesday by the UK's Channel 4. "But there's nothing illegal about that. We were looking out for our investments. we were looking out for our shareholders."

https://www.cnn.com/2021/07/01/business/exxon-tape-video-kei...

The reframing of a company's purpose to "generate shareholder's wealth" is a relatively recent development (1970's) that came on the heels of right wing economic ideas gaining widespread adoption in American universities (Chicago School, etc). This is one of the reasons companies use to justify destruction of society and the planet in the pursuit of more, wealth, power, status, etc.

There is nothing "Soviet Culture" about this or myriad other examples such as the tobacco industry or pharmaceutical companies and the opioid epidemic.

> There is nothing "Soviet Culture" about this or myriad other examples such as the tobacco industry or pharmaceutical companies and the opioid epidemic.

Exactly this is a very good example of it being Randist, and Soviet.

They believed in extreme social darwinism, in kratocracy, in moral legitimacy of their economic parasitism to feed off "weak bourgeois, civil society idiots, and lumpen-proletarian serfs"

I other words, you have to feed fat communist bastards because of their self-proclaimed "class superiority."

True but what's different is the groupthink and "ends justify the means" mentality. There's a qualitative difference

No, those features have also been intrinsic to bureaucrat classes as a whole since the dawn of organized society.

Bueracrats are sort of like neurons in the organism of society. They don't have a lot individual intrisic power, but gain power by moving to common (albeit very complex) beat, and commanding the other types of cells according to the machinations of that emergent beat. That manifests as both groupthink as they attempt to play their part in the neural system as a whole, and "ends justify the means" mentality as they look at the rest of us as other specialized cells that exist to serve the societal organism as a whole.

I guarantee you that on average a 15th century BCE Egyptian bureaucrat trended the same way, as it's core to the space.

Devil is in the details and I also guarantee you there are important differences between how western bureaucrats operate and how they operate in USSR/elsewhere despite any commonalities that can be drawn.

I've never said there weren't differences. Only that the specific aspects being pointed out in this thread as signs of continuing soviet corruption of American values are actually aspects of bureaucracy as a whole older than recorded history.

There's a difference between operating within the constructs of power and having a reductionist worldview of power. The 2nd one is more like a self-fulfilling prophecy.

I'm sorry, but pinning this on soviet infiltration is hilarious and is ironically the result of the exact debasement and exploitation you decry.

In reality, this kind of thing has been going on in the US since the late 19th century. It's a 100% normal thing and there is absolutely no need for an ebil gommunist boogeyman for it.

What you're seeing is those precious institutions operating as intended and as they always did. Just like they do pretty much everywhere.

> Personally I think we could probably trace it back to soviet infiltration of the university education system around the world in the 60's and 70's, which within a lifetime has produced multiple generations of nihilistic bureaucrats trained to seek power for its own sake, and now they occupy our institutions at all levels and have used them to destroy the foundations of the culture and seize its means of production

...

...what?

> soviet infiltration of the university education system around the world in the 60's and 70's, which within a lifetime has produced multiple generations of nihilistic bureaucrats trained to seek power for its own sake

It is only a small cookie in comparison to what people in USSR had to deal daily. Regular bureaucrats being bastards was a given, the only difference being how much. From customary "f__k off attitude," to ones laughing, and spitting you in the face while waving their party member card.

I don't have many ideas how to build a system to keep non-appointed government workers in line. Any kind of promotion system can get corrupted in its own way. There is no magic bullet.

What the West got right in general about bureaucracy were these:

1. Less government officers as such

2. Them being given less duties

3. Good distance in between them (this is what is getting eroded lately, with government service becoming a monolith with rich law schools)

Bad things, and bad class culture perpetuate faster than good ones, and is in generally more resilient against deliberate campaigns for cleansing institutions.

Taking the example of Georgia (a country of,) it was proven to be much easier to oust small time habitual bribe takers, nihilists, or poor performing bureaucrats, than "talented villains" who are both more hardcore in their ill, and are better at hiding their crimes, bad ideological stances, or underperformance.

If you kick out those half-corrupted people, but pass a few completely rotten ones, you often empower the later. They can quickly recruit more co-conspirators from new bloods, and corrupt their surroundings more completely. Paradoxically, half-hearted purges in state institutes can often exacerbate the problem by "distilling the poison."

It takes generations, or an extreme shock therapy to disrupt such institutional nihilism.

“ the ends justify the means.”

I do agree that this sentiment now extends to almost all power and influence institutions.

News outlets produce stories solely as a commodity to influence behavior on behalf of large corporations (paid) or government entities. Journalism integrity is at a all time low in the US and honestly doesn’t look good moving into the future.

Really kind of dystopian :/

> News outlets produce stories solely as a commodity to influence behavior on behalf of large corporations (paid) or government entities.

That would be a big story if true.

This is common knowledge [0], but the common person has come to this conclusion on her own without the help of media. That this would never be "a story" of any size is the point of this discussion.

[0] https://www.poynter.org/ethics-trust/2021/us-ranks-last-amon...

>soviet infiltration of the university education system around the world in the 60's and 70's, which within a lifetime has produced multiple generations of nihilistic bureaucrats

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary proof. Source please?

Interview with Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov who speaks at length about the strategy.

https://youtu.be/bX3EZCVj2XA

Posting this twice in the same subthread would have been enough. [EDIT:] Thanks for deleting the other references!

Pretty sure the user is making sock puppet accounts because I also see this link elsewhere on this thread... wish I had the power to report it.

babybal2 is another user, it's just that this video is a rather effective piece of propaganda.

OP here. Not sure about other people posting it but it’s a pretty well known interview. What makes it propaganda? Do you have a better source for what the IC communities of other countries are doing to weaken our institutions than a defector from a rival country? What do you think our very own CIA does with the opaque budget we provide it with every year?

The same thing. They do the same thing. Don’t turn a blind eye to it.

Also the Assange case is near and dear to a lot of people. It’s evil what’s happening to him. And the only reason it continues to happen is because of the silent consent of people who really probably have no idea what our intelligence agencies are doing and because of the cultivated ineptitude at some of our important institutions.

Yes, CIA does all sorts of horrible things. (On January 6 I remarked that events in Washington reminded me of similar events in Latin American capitals. Bad thoughts!) I'm sure KGB did as well, while it still existed. I'm even prepared to consider that USA college professors have done some bad things. Some professors may even have implied that communism isn't the most terrible invention of humanity.

All of that is true without doubt. But why listen to this guy? "Bezmenov" literally translates to "nameless". [0] He claims in this video to be a propagandist with a history of producing propaganda. His specific claims (e.g. the 15%/85% thing) are totally unverifiable. (And by the way, that does the 15%/85% thing imply about CIA, FBI, etc? Whose opinion do they really want to influence?) Listening to him reminds me mostly of the "incubator babies" girl. If you already believe what he's saying, maybe it's reassuring. If you don't, it won't convince you.

I still don't understand why this character fascinates you so. I honestly wish that more of my schoolmates had been convinced of the benefits of communism. I wasn't, but I would appreciate a modicum of ideological variety. Clearly the way we're doing things in this country is fucked up, and there is very little public discussion of that fact that doesn't boil down to red-blue distraction. Let's try anything else. Ghosts of the Cold War might imply something not to do, but they aren't the solution to our problems.

[0] https://translate.google.com/?sl=sk&tl=en&text=Bezmenov&op=t...

That this was attempted is true. To what degree it succeeded is a matter of argument.

Directly from a KGB defector lecture on this topic.

Yuri Bezmenov - Psychological Warfare Subversion & Control of Western Society Complete Lecture

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GwDdJsdYM3g

Defectors nearly always parrot prevailing scare tactics of a society, regardless of the veracity of those statements. You can see that today with North Korean defectors. Is North Korea an awful country with mind boggling human rights violations? Absolutely. Are North Korean defectors heavily incentived to come up with increasingly out there stories, even stories that are contradicted by their previous stories because they're shunned by ROK society at large and have trouble finding other sources of income than selling tales to the media that won't be fact checked? Also true.

Why do you believe this man is who he says he is? Why do you take what he says to be true at face value?

I find it amusing how people bring up Soviet propaganda in schools and always link this same video to this one person (who criticizes the inability to assess true information), while simultaneously not questioning whether or not they are consuming propaganda themselves. Wouldn't it be funny if this guy is a CIA plant repeating neocon talking points from the 80s?

When I traced back any of the sources that "confirmed" his past, they always dead-ended at his own writing in papers. I'd be interested if you have something else that confirms that this is a "KGB defector".

He has a wikipedia page, with more information on him. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yuri_Bezmenov

As someone that grew up in a totalitarian communist government. What Yuri speaks is consistent with my lived experience of how the communists acted to maintain power, in a country they occupied.

The sources used in that article that mention his Soviet life are this very Youtube video(!), his own writings (sometimes under a pseudonym), a single newspaper obituary with no sources except quotes from people that knew him, or the CIA. I don't find any of that particularly convincing, especially when the topic is "propaganda".

Circular Wikipedia quotes are an amazing propaganda tool in that its a sure fire way to invent evidence for the status quo.

things he says in first 10mins are coherent with what happens on the internet

what's the point of fighting, when you can spread bullshit on other's country internet and divide people?

Bezmenov is great fun but he's hardly trustworthy. His whole professional life was in propaganda. It's like the scorpion crossing the river on the foxes back. He just has to sting.

Seize the means of production...? That has an actual meaning and I don't think that's what you're describing. I assure you that hasn't happened in the US yet. The means of production have generally been controlled by the ruling elite since the founding of the nation.

Bureaucracies aren't "means or production"? It's the rough equivalent of Lenin capturing railroads and other key infrastructure.

According to whom? There is a pretty strict definition of means of production, as it was labeled by Marx & Engels, and 'bureaucracy' as a concept isn't it.

Adding on to this: there is no rough equivalent to Lenin capturing the railroads in the USA, at all. The bourgeoise have controlled the means of production from 1776 til now.

Who owns amazon fulfillment centers? Who owns media companies? Who owns airlines? If it ain't the workers, then nobody has seized the means of production.

Bureaucracies are not the means of production. Actually, Marx specifically sees bureaucracy as the polar opposite of the means of production, and a large part of Marxism is that the bureaucracy and other state apparatus molds itself to the owners of the means of production.

Railroads and infrastructure are the means of production because they're the material things that are required to produce other material things.

I think you are letting your imagination come up with elaborate explanations when very simple ones are available. Soviet infiltration? Come on dude. Seeking power for it's own sake is not uniquely soviet and predates any imagined university infiltration.

Yeah this is some John Birch Society level shit. The Soviets invented being power hungry? The US has used its own brand of Realpolitik to maintain its empire since long before it was “infiltrated by the Soviets,” and has nearly always been co-signed by the media apparatus.

Seeking power is the goal. But the way to achieve it is through consensus building. So you need ideas and an ideology to rally people around you. Like for example these two intellectuals that overtly had the goal of subverting society. They came up with an actual plan how to go about doing it.

Antonio Gramsci https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdsSIWh_VkQ

Theodor Adorno https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4YGnPgtWhsw

That intellectual subversion, and propaganda is and was a political tool is fairly obvious to anyone that has lived under a totalitarian government.

If it wasn't for you I would not have figured out that the Russians are behind this too. But surely the Chinese must have also played some part?

How convenient that all that ails us is always the work of our Enemies.

Never responsible, never accountable, and most importantly, never wrong.

I sort of think you and antman might actually be in agreement here.

Ha ha, yeah pretty sure that was sarcasm.

OK I will admit I am not convinced, but you know what, if compelling arbitrary assumptions against the chinese come up I might make my mind, openmindedness and all.

You left out Iran.

And the Venezuelan communists that rigged the election.

"The impact of media organizations discrediting and completely debasing themselves... is what has really cleaved the culture."

Really, that's what did it? I'd wager that a majority of Americans don't even know who Assange or Snowden are, much less care about them. I think constantly living in self-selected information bubbles might be just a tad more significant..

Having a hard time thinking of any self-selected bubbles that are not aware of Assange or Snowden given that the two big political bubbles have been both assisted (and embarrassed) by Wikileaks.

According to HN, people only care about privacy on HN.

Our own officials, agencies, etc are involved in this stuff & media cooperated with them. The CIA has been using both foreign and domestic “journalism” as a weapon for pretty much as long as it’s existed. If anything, our own practices got worse because of our reaction to Soviet infiltration not as a direct result of the thing itself.

> Personally I think we could probably trace it back to soviet infiltration of the university education system around the world in the 60's and 70's

The Soviet Union is over, you can't keep relying on the Red Scare any more.

I mean, there definitely are problems with US media - concentrated ownership and a reliance on hyperbole, as well as pundits who retreat behind the "it's entertainment, no reasonable person would have taken what I said seriously" defense when sued over their lies. But wheeling out McCarthyism again is ridiculous.

I'm from the USSR and I don't think it's a red scare this time. There's legitimate concern.

Blaming another country for your own corruption is just another form of propaganda.

Indeed. Some citizens in your country having common beliefs or interests as people in another country is their own business. We all have allies and like minded people abroad. Maligning fellow citizens as foreign dupes is a common and despicable tactic. If you find actual evidence of specific crimes, prosecute them, otherwise it's just dirt flinging.

I've never read a first paragraph more fully undermined by the rank speculation of your second paragraph.

I'm imagining a teacher giving eloquent explanation of discrete Fourier transform to students, then going on claim that the whole purpose is compute horoscopes for cats.

Over the last 50 years capitalism has gotten everything it wanted - extremely free trade with minimal tariffs, international agreements on IP and corporate law, and the freedom to offshore production to any number of less-than-democratic states where labor is cheap. And you're saying that this capitalist utopia is the result of soviet infiltration? That's a little hard to believe.

All of the media organizations discrediting and debasing themselves are private companies who prioritize ROI above anything else. They're not run by bureaucrats, but by amoral capitalists. The universities themselves are also increasingly run "like a business".

It takes some serious blinders to look at the consequence of 50 years of free market maximalism and say: "This is the work of the communists".

That's interesting, and I know from the Bezmenov video and commentary on it Barak Obama is supposed to be the prime example of a Marxist infiltrator promoting the rot from the inside.

Except - Obama chose not to prosecute Assange because of potential collateral damage to independent journalism, a well known major concern of Soviet infiltrators (er...). It's only after Trump came to power that his administration got the ball rolling on prosecution and offering Thordarson an immunity deal. It's all in the article.

So what's the contention, that Trump's administration was the result of a Marxist inspired Russian plot to subvert the universities in the 60s? Well, that's a new one.

Dr Robert Malone got censored for speaking out about some of the research being done on Covid Vaccines, including having his name wiped from the Wikipedia article about the invention of mRNA tech and having his premium LinkedIn account deleted. Enough to make a person suspicious...

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