2016/08/12

Moscow's supposed fifth columns

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Political subversion by foreign agents was a common topic in defence policy contexts during the Cold War. Supposedly the KGB was the great puppeteer behind every left wing opinion, group, financing, campaign - and in the event of WW3 leftist saboteurs and sleeper agents would sabotage us politically and our infrastructure, maybe even produce uprisings.

Much of that was bollocks, though the KGB no doubt attempted to become at least a fraction that effective in the West.
Yet WHY were such suspicions , allegations and accusations so widespread?
Aside from some lunatics I suppose they provided a very comfortable excuse for treating the political opponents (the left wingers) as illegitimate. This denial of legitimacy of the political opposition is extremely dangerous to democracy, of course. Democracy depends on the respect for disagreeing positions, and on the idea that elections have consequences - and both legal and legitimately so. The United States had for almost eight years a continuing crisis in this regard, since many whites seemed unwilling to accept hat a biracial man could possibly be a legitimate president.

These days we  have a different situation in Europe (and as an even  more recent development in the U.S.); the right wing is under suspicion of serving some puppeteer in Moscow. This is particularly visible in the German AfD, slightly so in Hungary, to some extent post-coup attempt in Erdogan and now also in Drumpf and his followers.

The story goes differently this time; supposedly Putin - a former KGB officer - reactivated old KGB expertise and is turning right wing populists and autocrats against the West, using distrust of the establishment as fault line in democracies and the EU's aversion to autocracy in Europe as fault line in authoritarian-ruled countries. I suppose this confuses many old Cold Warriors to no end.

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Well, how does such influence happen - if at all?

I suppose the part about autocrats is fairly obvious, but how do anti-establishment radicals attract the suspicion of being Moscow's puppets? 

I suppose there's a substantial distrust in the establishment, and this isn't centred on the most poor people. It's the same story with European terrorists of the Cold War, pseudo-jihadists, racists and communism dreamers; the core of such groups aren't those who are at the bottom of society. The core are at least modestly educated people who fear to lose their relative standing in society.


There's an old anecdote that I remember well because I like it so much:
A father and his son watch a KKK rally and the father instructs his son to not look at the white hoods, but at the feet. The boy looks at the feet and sees cheap and worn-out shoes. The KKK asswipes weren't at the bottom of society (the blacks were), but they feared that -being relative losers- they would end there if blacks became emancipated. They fought against an end of segregation because segregation was probably the only thing that kept them from being at the bottom of society, and they feared this drop in standing.
The poorest of the poor - homeless, beggars, day labourers - have incited much less (if any) revolts and revolutions in history than people who feared dropping into (even) worse times or greedy wealthy people who envied the privileges of the status quo elites (such as merchants and master craftsmen revolting against nobility).

Enough of this detour. For whatever reason, many people mistrust the 'establishment', the most influential and best-of tiny share of the population that's under suspicion of being in control of our lives, rigging both political processes and the economy in their favour. This mistrust is then in search of an alternative ideology and alternative interpretations of events than what we get fed by establishment media. 
Religious reformers / extremists offer one such alternative ideology, and with it the alternative interpretations. The so-called communists (Bolshevists) offered an alternative ideology, extend alternative interpretations and to some extent alternative mass media as well.
Putin no doubt is offering alternative ideology (masculinity/anti-feminism, "strong man" politics etc.), alternative interpretations (all too-often lies) and with RT and other outlets also alternative mass media sources (then multiplied by Western laymen with blogs and other publications) as well.

Let's just look a the case of the Crimea conflict.
A conventional view on the conflict of Crimea would stress that Russia guaranteed Ukrainian sovereignty in the then-existing (Crimea = Ukrainian) borders and the annexation is doubtlessly an aggression. Russia exposed itself as untrustworthy and aggressive, and the way to go is to punish it with non-violent sanctions and to never recognize the annexation as legal or legitimate.
But that's the "establishment" view supposedly. There's another view, and I was quite astonished by how much of reality has to be ignored in order to believe it - and many people appear to believe it.
In this other view the Crimea was never really Ukrainian because only an unjustified change of internal SSR borders in the USSR made it Ukrainian for the first time, early in the Cold War.  The West (USA and EU) is the real aggressor against the Ukraine because it subsidised and incited a coup against the real government of the Ukraine with billions of dollars, including fascists in the coup mob. The people of Crimea didn't want to be Ukrainians and voted so overwhelmingly in a plebiscite that should really be taken seriously. They wanted to rejoin Russia because Ukraine is (after the "coup") the most corrupt country in Europe and "knowledgeable" people like Trump know this well, but the Western mainstream media will never tell anything about this.

There's plenty wrong with this - Western meddling in the Ukraine was likely much softer than the Russian one, the Russian-backed president was ludicrously corrupt, Trump is basically a know-nothing because he has the attention span of a four year old boy and the plebiscite is irrelevant because it was under Russian control without neutral observers and had a suspiciously one-sided result.
The proper way to deal with the Crimea issue would have been to be honest about Crimea likely having a majority pro-Russian population, recognise the right to self-determination and ask the Ukraine to conduct fair and well-observed plebiscites to determine which districts want to secede and join Russia. This could and probably should have been a requirement for joining the EU (once that's a major topic at all), but we know all-too well that several EU countries (*cough* UK, France, Spain) would not go along with this.

In conclusion, there is an in itself somewhat conclusive alternative world view being offered, and whatever people are in search of an alternative to the status quo tend to be susceptible to this offer. The alternative view is so disruptive because it supposedly delegitimises our governments and splits our societies into believers of different "realities" (or reality and fiction, but most likely different fictions).

Now the typical "experts" claim that the West needs to get better at its propaganda to counter Russian propaganda, pseudo-jihadist propaganda et cetera. They want an active info war. I think that's primitive nonsense.  

The answer to such alternative view ideology and propaganda is (if I am at least somewhat correct) not to get louder with the Western mainstream message. The answer is to allow Western non-mainstream messages that are not as harmful as other alternative views to gain more attention. Preferably some non-mainstream messages that remain tethered in reality most of the time and not focused on bigotry and other society-dividing nonsense.
Pseudo communist ideologies were effectively defeated by social democracy in the West, and I suppose the 700+ million people in the EU and North America can come up with modern alternatives as well. The greens and certain progressives won't do, for they drive the emancipation of minorities and women, which triggers aversions in a lot of embarrassingly insecure white men.


S O

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11 comments:

  1. See, that's an example of fictitious alternative view.

    Germany did stick with the Schengen Convention. Some others - especially Austria - chose to use the exceptions, such as article 26.

    It's amazing how much can be learnt about someone's IQ and bigotry from a mere four lines internet comment, though.

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  2. It is a commonly held believe in many countries east of Germany, which also influences residents in Germany. This case made it obvious that asylum and migration reform is required, but the whole bureaucracy of improving live in the world is at stake. One outcome would be racism with all its pseudscience if we try to communicate with the new right. Another would be to see many asylum seekers as having economic motives and offering them a mutually acceptable solution with clear timespans, so we don't build up a large population that does not understand how our country works. I would currently count to some extent includes the Erdogan fanbase and some other Europeans also among the ones that should get along with a different country and political unions, because they do not want to support Germany nor the EU beyond cash cow.

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  3. Suspicions naturally arise when Russian banks finance the Front National, the right-wing populist and Eurosceptic political party in France (equivalent of German AFD or Austrian FPO). It is a legal banking transaction.
    http://www.politico.eu/article/le-pen-russia-crimea-putin-money-bank-national-front-seeks-russian-cash-for-election-fight/

    The ‘Money Religion’ is one of the strongest forms of power.

    Austrian elections results were also cancelled, perhaps, because of ‘some irregularities’ that intended to thwart a FPO victory? Ironically, Austrians seems to have artistic talents, they love architecture, music and paintings, and especially one painter’s spirit (?).

    I am no legal expert, but if we follow the strict rule of Law and Justice (the Constitution of USSR and the Constitution of Ukraine), Crimea is Ukraine.
    Now, who follows the strict rule of Law and Justice in international relations?
    Some have interpreted Crimea as: a 1954 Soviet gift from Krushchev to SSR Ukraine, who loved Ukrainians, in poetic terms, to be the ‘Forbidden Fruit of the Garden of Eden’?
    Sometimes, autocrats believe they are that powerful.
    "Timeo Danaos et dona ferentes" = "Beware of Greeks bearing gifts"; but who could have imagined the situation of 2016, in 1954?
    Neither their parents nor their grandparents.

    We have written Laws, signed Treaties and we have a so-called Justice system since for at least 4.000 year with the Code of Ur-Nammu, the Code of Hammurabi and the Zoroastrian civilization (the ‘grandparent’ of our Judeo-Christian civilization) etc.; but astonishingly, it’s often the ‘Law of the Jungle’ that is applied. Ukraine and Crimea is just one example, Syria is another.

    In what form shall we write Law so that it would be respected?
    What if the Law itself is corrupt?
    I just hope that the current Russian sabre-rattling is just what we are used to.
    The real threat to the establishment is the rejection of the US dollar as world currency: Putin-Erdogan, (once de Gaulle)…

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  4. "Austrian elections results were also cancelled, perhaps, because of ‘some irregularities’ that intended to thwart a FPO victory? Ironically, Austrians seems to have artistic talents, they love architecture, music and paintings, and especially one painter’s spirit (?)."

    Could it be that you are stupid or dishonest? (Combination is also possible.)

    1) There was no instance that votes disappeared or results were changed.

    2) The irregulaities were counting letter votes to early and publish these numbers.

    3) The issues occured mainly in RURAL districts were the people who run the voting station were mainly FPÖ.

    Ulenspiegel

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    1. Ulenspiegel, you ignore how this works.
      People are predisposed towards a certain interpretation and then they get triggered by the slightest hint of info, and keep filling out the many blank pages with their fantasy and prejudice instead of with further inquiry into what's the truth.

      Sadly, this goes many ways, not just the mean and disrespectful ones. It's how human minds work, and it takes either natural or intentional curiosity to do it better.

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  5. "The United States had for almost eight years a continuing crisis in this regard, since many whites seemed unwilling to accept hat a biracial man could possibly be a legitimate president. "

    Just curious, how many non-white German Prime Ministers have their been?

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    1. That's an irrelevant rhetorical question, since the Afro-Americans aren't part of our population. We have approx. 51% female population and had a female head of state for 11 years and counting, though.

      Besides, how could a country on a different continent be linked to whether a man is legitimately president or not? This sounds like a major deflection attempt to me.

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    2. There are always ignorant (or opportunistic people) willing to play on race/religion/sect/tribe/whatever, but equating the opposition to a politician's policies as racism or other form of bigotry is deeply flawed and shallow analysis.

      JFK arguably encountered more resistance based on his religion and Irish origins than BO has based on race - and yes I am that old...

      But the query was in response to the post, which for some reason drags the USA into the mix using a sideswipe based on race. Ironic given more people immigrate to America each year than to the rest of the world combined (!) and a much higher percentage of those immigrants wed into American families than anywhere else in the world.

      Finally, Women's suffrage was established at essentially the same time in the USA and in Germany - just a few millennia late.

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    3. Deeply flawed and shallow is to pretend and imply that differently-originated resistance to a different politician at a different time somehow is a counterpoint to the claim that racism drove the refusal of the legitimacy and legality of Obama's administration.
      There's no logical link, there's no argument.

      The U.S. was mentioned and used as example in the article because
      a) it's a whole third of the Western world in itself
      b) it offered relevant examples and anecdotes
      c) the article of another blogger who finally fed me up enough to write about this topic was written by a Trump follower

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  6. Counter-propaganda
    Anonymous; in Syria, Russians have complete ‘Aerospace’ supremacy, 10.000s of bombs, navy, ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, modern MBT, high tech weapons, Spetsnaz, endless stockpiles of ammo produced day and night for decades in Ural Mountains… vs TOW missiles, DIY weapons and ‘jihadist terrorists’ without adequate uniforms and fragmentation protection (for chest penetrating injuries, helmets, etc.).
    Result?
    It was proven in combat that what they call ‘jihadist terrorists’ are worth 1 man vs 5-10 Russians (like in Chechnya).

    Their hubris is so affected that they are multiplying errors, increasing resources and bases in Iran, Syria that they cannot actually defend. Now, they even dream of the Incirlik base?
    Find the odd ones out: SAA, Russians, Iranians, Shiite Iraqis, Hezbollah, now Chinese to bomb Syrian children and hospitals.
    [APPLAUSE]
    Congratulations!

    Who else are they going to bring in?
    Extraterrestrials with nuclear weapons?
    I am just amazed that ‘Jihadist terrorists’ have not thought of attacking Russian bases and their navy?

    Anyways, Russians rarely show their own failures; ironically, Russian TOS-1 being destroyed by Russian Kornet missile:
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JOaLfgFgZck

    Russians never consider instead, intensifying efforts for a diplomatic solution that would end the suffering of the civilian population.

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  7. I'd say there is no defence in this era of information warfare. Attack is not a defence but it may degrade the oppositions ability or desire to continue attacking.

    The internal culture war will continue, as it always has. There should be no attempt to get in front of the people, but politicians and interested parties will always try.

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