Informare Sub Specie Semioticae
Maybe it is a little funny that Colonel Sanders looks more than a little like Leon Trotsky.
“My mother went well supplied with money, jars of butter, bags of sweet biscuits, fried chicken and so forth.” – Leon Trotsky
Today’s Google Doodle is about the 120th Birthday of Sergei Eisenstein.
Sergei Eisenstein was an early-Soviet propagandist who is perhaps best noted for his trilogy of films: “The Strike“, “The Battleship Potemkin“, and “October” (“Ten Days that Shook the World“) about the 1917 Russian October Revolution. Eisenstein is a notable character for the n01r blog since he was set to direct an anti-fascist version of “The War of the Worlds” in the early 1930’s before he left the US to complete the pro-Communist propaganda film “Que Viva Mexico“. He was a strong career influence on both Francis Ford Coppola and Orson Welles.
I read Lucien Wolf’s enlightening 1921 book: THE MYTH OF THE JEWISH MENACE IN WORLD AFFAIRS or THE TRUTH ABOUT THE FORGED PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION as part of my research into the correlation of eschatology with conspiracy theory and anti-Semitism. This is by far the most authoritative debunking of The Protocols which I have read. You should read it too (it’s free at Google Books and may take you only 30 minutes).
In the controversy which is surrounding the widely condemned recent Russia Insider article (cached version) : “It’s Time to Drop the Jew Taboo”, I feel that calling attention to the very nature of modern anti-Semitism as having been in large part engineered by Russia is important. In this same vein, it is also important to highlight how the article is just another rehashing of the idea that being conscious of anti-Semitism as a real thing is some kind of racism.
With all the talk about Korean market forces being a driving force behind the bitcoin, it is worth revisiting the origins of modern Newsweek. It is a potential conspiracy that interests me a lot. Is it interesting that when Newsweek returned to print in March 2014, that the first cover story was about bitcoin, then trading close to $500?
At the time, at least one Reddit user joked (?) this meant that David Jang (‘David’ Jang Jae-Hyung), a long-controversial “Christian” figure connected to the ownership of the ‘new’ Newsweek was actually bitcoin mastermind Satoshi Nakamoto.
March 2014 is obviously an important milestone in ‘Hybrid Warfare History’, and I have already connected bitcoin to Russian propaganda/intelligence. It bears worth asking if we can ‘mine’ for a connection.
Continue reading “The new Newsweek’s first cover story in March 2014: Bitcoin”
In writing a revision of a paper, I am forced to cut a big section. However, I think it is good enough to post here. This is an expansion of sorts of the biography of Orson Welles and Erika Cheetham I did in the paper “Russian Active Measures and September 11 2001: Nostradamus Themed Disinformation”. There is quite a bit I could add to this, such as my recent blog on “F for Fake”, or that the huge 1982 anti-nuclear peace rally which Welles was a prominent guest at was clearly inspired by the pioneering 1930’s era peace rallies organized by his political mentor Louis Dolivet. Dolivet had been an inspiration of other prominent figures from the rally, such as Lord Philip Noel-Baker. 1983 FBI reports suggested the rally had been influenced by Soviet active measures at the “highest levels“.
To me, given the Soviet infiltration of the peace movement, and his proximity to multiple “cells” of Russian spies (including peace movement figures), this is all pretty compelling evidence of Orson Welles being a Russian influence asset over time (less so for Cheetham to be honest). But maybe you have a different idea?
Continue reading “Orson Welles and Erika Cheetham as Kremlin Agents”
Julian Assange has been granted Ecuadorean citizenship. I’ve often wondered if Julian Assange was the secret author of the 2001-era Sir Cam worm. Known as ‘the worm that spreads secrets‘ it came out in June 2001 and targeted the Government of Ukraine and the FBI. At the time, Assange was a pioneer in computer worms, and suspected in involvement in the 1989 WANK worm that attacked NASA’s Galileo mission. By 2001, Assange had already started WikiLeaks like platforms (leaks.org).
Noting a story about counterfeit Modigliani paintings in the news today, I recalled a bit of research I had done on the film F for Fake, which deals with forgery of Modigliani paintings as a superficial subject. It is time to blog it. In my ‘expert’ opinion, this film is a clever piece of Cold War-era, Russian-inspired, anti-fascist propaganda. Ultimately the film serves as a vehicle to launch ‘legal’ (and carefully worded) smears at the characters of Howard Hughes and the ‘art expert’ community at large. Perhaps I feel guilty to say it is a fantastic and entertaining art film. (See the below if you only watch a moment of it.)
One of the reasons I don’t invest time in money-generating side quests in video games is that the money isn’t real. Who cares if you have a million Gil, GP, ‘gold’, etc. but you drive a Hyundai Accent in real life? (No offense intended — I am so cheap I used to drive one by choice.) In one way, this is how the value of bitcoin and other cryptocurrencies look to me.
Their hyper valuations seem to be based on nothing more than the collective imagination of a bunch of game players hunched in front of their computer screens, having traded World of Warcraft quests for hashing programs. In addition, cryptocurrencies are mined using graphics cards, and this is quite literally where they become “video game money”.
Here’s a little model I whipped up based on my recent findings on post-9/11 conspiracism. I would encourage you to read Ilya Yablokov’s paper: Conspiracy Theories as a Russian Public Diplomacy Tool: The Case of Russia Today (RT) for a greater understanding of how conspiracy theory can be used as an information weapon. Remember, some conspiracy theories ARE state-created.
This model isn’t implying all conspiracies are wrong, bad, or ‘delusional’. Some are real. Certainly, I think being opposed to white power movements is net a ‘good’ thing. But I am asserting that those kinds of beliefs in opposition to populist anti-minority conspiracism may form the basis for mutual counter conspiracism and social conflict/discord which can be cultivated in Russia’s political interest (for example, what happened in Charlottesville).
Also, I propose that the basis for conspiracism seems to be opposition to something which is different or perceived as hostile to the group who theorizes a conspiracy exists. Thus, conspiracy theories may be almost defined by what they are against (‘anti-everything’) — rather than being ‘for’ anything.
Download it as a PDF here: Model of Russian Conspiracism
This is a very simple case to make, so I will keep it brief and to the point. The simple fact is that the “4000 Jews stayed home on 9/11” conspiracy theory is provably connected to the Baathist Syrian government and Ministry of Information, and therefore it is relevant for our discussions on modern Information Warfare.