Every revolution evaporates and leaves behind only the slime of a new bureaucracy.
Tag Archives: Mobs
Civil Unrest In Guadalupe, February 2009
Researching trouble spots that could predict how civil unrest might unfold in the future, I came across this report from February 2009 ,about insurrection in the French Caribbean. It is described, literally, in black and white terms, as a class war that breaks out along racial lines. The source being The Daily Mail, this might be sensationalistic. But there’s no denying it’s plausible:
“Britons are among thousands of tourists fleeing Guadeloupe after full scale urban warfare erupted on the French Caribbean island.
Trouble broke out on the island earlier last month after protesters began rioting over high prices and low wages.
But the situation escalated this week after protesters began turning on rich white families as they demanded an end to colonial control of the economy.
The troubles come at the height of the holiday season, with thousands of mainly British, French and American tourists on the paradise tropical island.”
Is Google Trying To Think For You?
In the upcoming edition of The Atlantic Nicholas Carr suggests that even Google’s biggest fans are finding the far too solicitous company’s latest technology, Google Suggest, more creepy than cuddly: Continue reading
Through Cowardice We Shall All Be Saved
Cinematical.com (via Greg at Our Holy Cause) has a synopsis of the underrated 1964 movie, “The Americanization of Emily,” with its ironic antiwar message: Continue reading
Francis Bacon On Errors In Reasoning
“The human understanding is no dry light, but receives an infusion from the will and affections; whence proceed sciences which may be called “sciences as one would’. For what a man had rather were true he more readily believes. Therefore he rejects difficult things for impatience of research; sober things, because they narrow hope; the deeper things of nature from superstition; the light of experience from arrogance and pride, lest his mind should seem occupied with things mean and transitory; things not commonly believed, out of deference to the opinions of the vulgar. Numberless, in short, are the ways, and sometime imperceptible, in which the affections color and infect the understanding.”
Francis Bacon, Novum Organum, in Works, ed. J. Spedding et al. (London, 1857-61), iv. 57, cited in “Passion and Action: The Emotions in Seventeenth Century Philosophy,” Susan James, Clarendon, 1997, p. 162.
Rudolf Steiner On Why Plutocrats Love Democracy
“It is interesting that the excellent statement was made in 1910 [by Francis Delaisi, La Démocratie et les Financiers, 1910]: ‘… that big capital has succeeded in creating out of democracy the most wonderful, the most effective, the most flexible instrument for the exploitation of the population as a whole. Continue reading
Earth To Government: No More False Flags
“Those who have studied history know that nothing invigorates and empowers an authoritarian regime more than a spectacular act of violence, some sudden and senseless loss of life that allows the autocrat to stand on the smoking rubble and identify himself as the hero. It is at moments like this that the public—still in shock from the horror of the tragedy that has just unfolded before them—can be led into the most ruthless despotism: despotism that now bears the mantle of “security.” Continue reading
Tomas Schuman: Love Letter To America
Note:
Please note. Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he described then (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred, or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in “The Language of Empire.”]
The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years, at the very least. Instead, we’ve had ever-accelerating state intervention and crony capitalism that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.
Thus the terms that Bezmenov uses in discussing the totalitarian communism of the Soviet system now actually apply to the US, albeit incompletely.
Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to express, since this was the country he defected to, that US propaganda and psyops were far more subtle, and thus in the long run more effective, than Soviet propaganda.
He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships were/are symbiotic and that they have ultimately led to the globalized kleptocracy, in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn the “third way” of corporatized politically-correct social democracy, which is the benign face of the corrupt neo-liberalism that has always been the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions, such as the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others…
There is no longer a west versus east polarity. The division is really between centralizers (neoliberal globalizers, central bankers) and decentralizers, in which, however, some of the decentralization is orchestrated to promote the globalizers’ agenda. One has to know the specifics of every situation. They can’t be understood ideologically.
Ex-KGB Describes Psyops In The US
Update:
Bezmenov divides the stages of ideological subversion into four:
1. Demoralization (15 -20 yrs) 2. Destabilization 3. Crisis 4. Normalization
My speculation:
1. The 1960s – 1980s is the period of demoralization
2. 1990s – 2001 The fall of the Berlin Wall marks the acceleration of this into active destabilization of the US’s economy and foreign policy (the neo-conservative paper, “A Clean Break,” as well as proposals for “full-spectrum” dominance; Yugoslav and Iraq wars; the total financialization and electronification of the US capital markets, leading to the stock market bubble). This period is initiated by the fall of the Berlin Wall, on November 9, 1989 (11-9-1989) and George Bush’s statement about a “new world order” on September 11, 9-11-1990.
3. 2001 – 2008 Period that entails vast changes in the political and economic systems, following two crises – one, political, on 9-11 and another exactly 7 years later, economic, around 9-11 too.
We are now still in the period of crisis, which, in my opinion, will throw up further catalyzing “events’ of all kinds, whether occurring spontaneously in the realm of politics/economics/nature, or whether manufactured.
Note:
Bezmenov was talking about Soviet society and propaganda in the 1960s and 1970s. That means his analysis of the general dynamics of propaganda has to be cautiously reconfigured, when it comes to specifics. The US and USSR he was describing (prior to the 1980s) had clearly differentiated economic/political systems. In the 30 years that have passed since then, the ideological convergence he mentions elsewhere, has in many ways occurred or is in the process of occurring. [I describe this in much greater depth in “The Language of Empire.”]
The USA hasn’t been free-market capitalist in any real way for some 20-30 years certainly, even longer. Instead, its experienced ever-accelerating state intervention/mercantilism and crony capitalism. Now that has turned into the final danse macabre of casino capitalism and pure plunder.
Thus the Bezmenovian analyis might plausibly be applied both to the actual situation in the US, as well as to the propaganda the US directs toward its enemies.
Bezmenov didn’t know, or perhaps chose not to voice (since this was the country he defected to), the fact that US propaganda and psyops have been subtler, and thus in the long run much more effective, than Soviet propaganda.
He also doesn’t acknowledge that at many levels “capitalist” and “communist” leaderships have become symbiotic and created a globalized kleptocracy in which the two ideological forms, while retaining different emphases, copulate and spawn a “third way.” This is the corporatized politically correct social democracy that increasingly seems to be the benign face of corrupt neo-liberalism, which is the power behind the throne of the multilateral institutions – the World Bank, IMF, EU, UN, and others.
ORIGINAL POST
March 07, 2009 — Yuri Bezmenov 1983 Soviet subversion of Western Society
Yuri Bezmenov, a.k.a. Tomas Schuman, soviet KGB defector, explains in detail his scheme for the KGB process of subversion and takeover of target societies at a lecture in Los Angeles, 1983.
Yuri Alexandrovitch Bezmenov is a former KGB propagandist who was assigned to New Dehli, India, defected to the West in 1970, and was interviewed by Edward Griffin in 1985. Bezmenov explains his background, some of his training, and exactly how Soviet propaganda is spread in other countries in order to subvert their teachers, politicians, and other policy makers to a mindset receptive to the Soviet ideology.
He also explains in detail the goal of Soviet propaganda as total subversion of another country and the 4 step formula for achieving this goal. He recalls the details of how he escaped India, defected to the West, and settled in Montreal as an announcer for the CBC.
Note: As I said before about the wikileaks video, the notion that you need to ferret out secret documents, hack computers, or conduct spy v spy ops to understand what’s going on is simply romantic myth. 85% of KGB intelligence ops in the US, according to Schuman, is about ideological subversion or aggressive propaganda, which is intended to demoralize the population so that even when presented with all possible information it’s unable to draw common sense conclusions, protect its own self-interest, or act rationally. Even when confronted with evidence of war atrocities, such as those on the video, people will simply reframe the facts to fit their ideological predisposition.
Albert J. Nock On Mass Man
“The mass-man is one who has neither the force of intellect to apprehend the principles issuing in what we know as the humane life, nor the force of character to adhere to those principles steadily and strictly as laws of conduct; and because such people make up the great and overwhelming majority of mankind, they are called collectively the masses.”
— Albert J. Nock
[I had this down before as Alfred J., sorry…
For patient readers of this blog, no, I do not have dyslexia or ADD, as you might think from the strange ways I mangle names. I’m simply a recovering word-associationist. From years of writing poetry and playing music, I’m far more aural than visual. I posted something from Four Quartets a while back, and I think “Alfred J. Prufrock” was playing somewhere in the back of my mind]
At least, that’s my excuse.