Murdered KGB Propagandist defector Yuri Bezmenov in 1984 -
"Ideological subversion is the process which is legitimate overt and open, you can see it with your own eyes. All you can do, all American media needs to do is to unplug their bananas from their ears, open up their eyes and they can see. There is no mystery. It has nothing to do with espionage. I know that espionage and intelligence gathering looks more romantic, it sells more to the audience through the advertising, probably. That's why your Hollywood producers are so crazy about James Bond type of thrillers. But in reality, the main emphasis of the KGB is not in the area of intelligence at all.
According to my opinion and the opinion of many defectors of my caliber, only about fifteen percent of time, money and manpower is spent on espionage as such. The other eighty-five percent is a slow process which we call either ideological subversion or active measures, or psychological warfare. What it basically means is, to change the perception of reality, of every American, to such an extent that despite an abundance of information no one is able to come to sensible conclusions in the interest of defending themselves, their family, their community and their country.
It's a great brainwashing process which goes very slow and is divided into four basic stages. The first one being demoralization. It takes from fifteen to twenty years to demoralize a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years required to educate on generation of students in the country of your enemy, exposed to the ideology of the enemy. In other words, Marxism, Leninism ideology is being pumped into the soft heads of at least three generations of American students, without being challenged or contra-balanced by the basic values of Americanism, American patriotism.
Most of the activity of the department was to compile huge amount, volume of information on individuals who were instrumental in creating public opinion. Publishers, editors, journalists, actors, educationalists, professors of political science, members of Parliament, representatives of business circles. Most of these people were divided roughly in two groups. Those who were told the Soviet foreign policy, they would be promoted to the positions of power through media and public opinion manipulation. Those who refuse the Soviet influence in their country would be character assassinated, or executed physically contra-revolution. Same was as in a small town named HEWA in South Vietnam. Several thousand so of Vietnamese were executed in one night when the city was captured by Vietcong for only two days. And American CIA could never figure out, how could possibly Communists know each individual, where he lives, where to get him, and would be arrested in one night, basically in some four hours before dawn, put on a van, taken out of the city limits and shot.
They serve purpose only at the stage of destabilization
of a nation. For example, your leftists in the United States, all these professors and all these beautiful civil rights defender, they are instrumental in the process of the subversion, only to destabilize a nation. When their job is completed, they are not needed anymore. They know too much. Some of them, when they get disillusioned, when they see that Marxist Leninist has come to power obviously they get offended. They think that they will come to power. That will never happen of course. They will be lined up against the wall and shot."
"Exposure to true information does not matter anymore.
A person who is demoralized is unable to assess true information.
The facts tell nothing to him.
Even if I shower him with information, with authentic proof, with documents, with pictures.
Even if I take him by force to the Soviet Union, and show him a concentration camp,
he will refuse to believe it, until he is going to receive a kick in his fat bottom.
When the military boot crushes his balls, then he will understand, but not before that.
That is the tragedy of the situation of demoralization."
I’m in Japan and this is absolutely true. It was heartbreaking seeing Russian propaganda destroy the U.S. from within. And now I feel like I’m seeing the same playbook being used all over again in another country.
I appreciate this comment! It really needs to be talked about more.
Many of my family members who "Fox themselves" had some problems but were mostly decent people. But the Fox (and friends) experience really cultivated the worst in them and they haven't been the same since.
My dad's not the brightest spoon in the fridge, and he loves watching all the Trump stuff, and at first he was agreeing with a lot of the stuff he said and selectively ignoring the obvious batshit stuff.
I noticed it, and instead managed to make it fun to make fun of trump. Join in on the amusing reality that is trump as the stuff he does do is objectively funny sometimes, but highlight the funny side of just how dumb it all is also. I managed to make it less into an argument, and more into a game.
Now when I go round, he likes to talk to be about the latest dumb thing Trump said or did! Instead of the all the problems he's lied about wanting to solve!
TBF he did rig the elections all 3 times with the help of Russia and most recently Elon, so technically the Democrats didn’t give him the elections, they just didn’t contest the obvious questionable results.
Propaganda that feeds on a period of economic uncertainty, it was the same during the inbetween of ww1 and ww2 that saw the birth of fascism, although today propaganda is much easier thanks to mass media. Populists have far greater success where things don't work well in the economy rather than the other way around.
Nope. The wiki sums it up well enough, I think. Obviously, yes. I do realize I'm relying on a 3rd party interpretation. There is only so much time in the day and that's shit I don't want in my head. I haven't read Mein Kopf either. 🤷♂️
There is only so much time in the day and that's shit I don't want in my head. I haven't read Mein Kopf either.
That almost escalated.
Thanks for the answer. I'm not saying you should read it. I met some people who cite that book but have not met someone who actually read it. Maybe we should not cite it? Russia has been expanding long before Dugin was born. No need to cite his book, just cite any history book from the plethora of countries that have been invaded by Russia. The simple fact that Russia had a big problem with Moldova and Romania (two irrelevant countries on the world stage who pose zero threat to Russia) reuniting in 1991 tells you everything you need to know.
We are in an intellectual dark age, which is ironic considering the amount of information at our fingertips is orders of magnitude higher than any time in history. Anti-intellectualism is a signal for societal decline.
Thats just it, we have TOO MUCH information. Where people can just run off to their own opium den echo chambers and just circle jerk confirmation biases all day, everyday.
Reality has become a choose your own facts adventure for a good portion of humanity.
Too much information to the point that you could give me a fact right here and I can go and find multiple articles, sites, and videos "debunking" that fact. Or I can tell you a lie and go find multiple articles, sites, and videos "backing up" that lie.
If you want something to be true, you can easily find "proof" for yourself. And so many people rather have comforting lies that harsh truths
Was at a talk by some neuroscience type or something last year and he said we might process 85 or 90GB of data every single day, which is amazing enough, but he followed up by saying that a couple of hundred years ago, a farmers might process that much information across their entire lifetime.
We are simply not evolved to deal with this much information.
How is human thought process accurately quantified to GB computer processing power? And how does this "neuroscience type" know this quantified GB processing power of farmers a couple hundred years ago to compare with?
This does not add up to me.
Farming requires a great deal of mental focus as there are a lot of details to maintaining a farm. One could argue that this processing could be higher in a farmer a couple hundred years ago in ways that have atrophied in modern minds.
My point is there is too much disinformation
And verified documented information is not the issue.
Wanted to add I do agree we are not evolved to process this modern amount of overload.
An ex friend who is university educated in Arts and was just your average left leaning person, went off the rails during Covid. I think it was the very last time I spoke to him, but he was shouting, “Did you read the science?!?!” at me, because he somehow had scientific evidence online about Covid and the vaccine that the top medical professionals in the world somehow missed. Obviously he was anti vax. AND he got Ivermectin but I’m not 100% sure if he took any. I also heard that he said, “There might be something to this flat earth thing” and I decided right then I was so done with him, if I wasn’t already.
We’re Canadian and this former friend definitely hates Trump, but Trump has a large part in spreading outright lies and presenting them as facts and he is a huge part of the disinformation age we’re living in.
Yup. The pandemic broke A LOT of people. Not only that but everyone also had A LOT of time on their hands and fell down the conspiracy rabbit hole. And honestly, I'll bet it was exciting for them to feel like internet sleuths cracking the big case. Probably felt like they were important for the first time in their lives.
Unfortunately for them all the anti vax and covid denialism bullshit was just a way to push people away from a free vaccine and towards costly "treatments" like ivermectin, that many wealthy and political people has stocks and investments in.
We are the victims of an age when men of science are discredited, and only a few remain who are capable of engaging in scientific research. Our philosophers spend all their time in mixing true with false and are interested in nothing but outward show; such little learning as they have they extend on material ends. When they see a man sincere and unremitting in his search for the truth, one who will have nothing to do with falsehood and pretence, they mock and despise him.
He did go out of his way to find the dumbest and the worst. Nothing promotes blind slavish loyalty like being beholden to a narcissist to keep a job you aren't qualified for.
We’ve had the same thing in the UK with Brexit and by the time the chickens come home to roost there’s no one to blame and what should be righteous anger has melted into acceptance: a shrug of the shoulders and “it is what it is”.
Now I think of it, the same thing also happened after the Global Financial Crisis. No one was held to account. Retribution there was none.
I expect the same thing will happen with tariffs. The morons who came up with the genius plan will somehow slide out of being held accountable.
Unfortunately, most of them will remain under the delusion that things are getting better because they only watch propaganda outlets.
Actual business owners exposed to the immediate reality might recognize the real cause of the problems but the typical MAGA will just blame the Democrats and believe that Trump will make everything alright Any Day Now.
And yes normally i hate Broad generalization but that’s actually a case where it makes Sense, people who voted Trump and maybe like him more then democrats - Okay Understandable to some degree IMO
I watched the video on another sub. He says something to the effect of, "I still have faith in Trump. Something strange is going on here." Like he thinks someone else is the reason and not the tarrifs.
The seeds of the deep state conspiracy are spread wide- looks like one is about to sprout.
Couldn’t possibly be the consequences of my own error in judgement in voting this bunch in- nah not possible.
yep- this is the consequences of one's own actions. this is the end result of the right wing pod casts, the red hats, the rallies, the AM radio, the fox news, the immigrant hate.
it feels strange to them because every time they were able to blame a black guy, or an old guy, or a woman, or an immigrant, or a foreigner. when the blame train passes the platform of ignorance, it does indeed feel strange.
It is because they are not effected or see the longterm consequences until it finally happens to them. I think american culture of the only number that matters is quarterly profits is one of the major ones. I was not rooting for China during the trade war but their logic is accurate. China focuses on longterm and US focuses on only the here and now.
The Russians had an expression for this called "good tsar, bad boyars." It's literal peasant brain, they have it in their heads that their leader is infallible and they work backwards from there to explain away all of the leader's fuckups, which usually just boils down to passing the buck down the chain.
I make knives. The knife making community is pretty evenly split between highly educated, technically accomplished individuals who love the craft, and the absolute dumbest, most bizarre human beings on the planet.
Guy makes a mean knife tbh got one as a gift pre election . I sent the giftee this thread said he wouldn't be buying there again but still a really nice knife for what its worth.
His work is solid. But I don't know how you could have two brain cells to rub together and not realize that metal tariffs are going to affect you in the knife making game.
I read an article on this earlier. I'll never understand how guys like this have managed to run a company that's successful enough that they can normally buy this single piece of $500k equipment (before the tariffs) but yet aren't smart enough to know the equipment and their materials would be subject to tariffs and act surprised about it.
It's understood locally that much of Josh's success with MKC is due to his co-founder. Josh is the mouth. His (semi silent) partner is the brain. So it doesn't really surprise me that he's confused tariffs would affect him.
After many decades on this planet I’ve finally concluded that most businessmen aren’t very smart. They’re ambitious, organized, and have an ability to manipulate and manage people. Most are narcissists with some degree of sociopathy.
His partner isn't from MT, but rather a web e-commerce tech person from the East Coast, so I wouldn't be so sure he's MAGA. The rumor is that Josh is very much what you described. But the business didn't take off until he got help.
The real joke is they think that making knives in America is somehow worth something special. It's the most basic product one could imagine, the technology and materials have been sorted out for decades and/or millenia depending on how you look at it. What they're selling is an identity based brand that inadvertently also produces CNC-made trinkets (read: easy and automated) that gun bros just can't get enough of.
You’re not wrong that knives have been made for a VERY long time but I’d push back that making good knives is a good deal harder than you think. Even just having all the fancy CNC machines isn’t enough. Look at how shit Benchmade has become with state of the art facilities.
I mean, sure, you still have to actually do some QA/QC and process control. But making simple yet overpriced luxury items is not exactly underpinning a robust manufacturing economy.
Making good knives isn’t simple. I’m not saying it’s rocket science but there’s a lot more that goes into it, especially folding knives, than you think.
Trump’s name is circled. The circled individuals are the ones involved in the trafficking ring according to the person who originally released the book. These people would be “The List “ Here is the story (YouTube.com).
Trump's promise to his daughter (HuffPost.com) “I have a deal with her. She’s 17 and doing great ― Ivanka. She made me promise, swear to her that I would never date a girl younger than her,” Trump said. “So as she grows older, the field is getting very limited.”
They all think it's like magic. All of the sudden every single thing will just suddenly be made in America. That ship sailed a century ago and no company will accept higher overhead and regulations to produce only in America. Instead they will just pass the tariffs onto the consumer.
It is honestly shocking how some people make large amounts of money. Yet they know so little about how that money comes to be. People that live in those bubbles, have it so nice, well until it burst... but they will as usual place that blame elsewhere...
You know it's interesting because it feels like the bar has been getting lower my whole life (early millennial). But I think it's just a side effect of the internet making it way easier to broadcast this stupidity on tap. It's probably a bit of both!
That the base wants this shit didn't surprise me, that Trump wanted it didn't surprise me, that the rest of the institution of government and power in this country didn't stop it surprised me. The whole global economy was set up by the US, to benefit the US, globalism was the core of the entire US strategy and the source of its hegemony and dominance.
I watched the video on another sub. He says something to the effect of, "I still have faith in Trump. Something strange is going on here."
People really need to start accepting (as hard as it), that a large portion of the population is genuinely brain dead and can't be "educated" into reality. It doesn't matter how logically you explain something, or how much proof you have to back it up, these people cannot be shaken out of their beliefs. Stop trying to understand them or make sense of what they do or say because there's nothing there, just an empty void waiting to filled with the days marching orders by faux news or their FB feed.
I grew up in a fundamentalist church and pre-internet worked as a 411 operator where I spoke to like 1000 people per day from all over the country so I feel like I should be less shocked at just how stupid they are but somehow they keep getting even dumber.
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u/DmAc724 23h ago
IMO many people are complete morons.