The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

[liminalOyster]

[quote="[url=http://www.rigorousintuition.ca/board2/viewtopic.php?p=650087#p650087]I didn't title this thread, or I would have avoided the useless and meaningless trigger word "conspiracy."

I titled it that self-consciously to point to something about the appropriation of Conspiracy by unlikely actors (ie Rachel Maddow becoming Glenn Beck in a way.) I was probably over-reaching trying to link it to Wombat's Conspiratainment thing. But you're right - it didn't work. Apologies.

[PufPuf93]

"This discussion at least to me is not about why the Russian government is or is not so bad, any more than the 2002 debate about WMD allegations was about whether Saddam Hussein was bad. When I point out the ludicrousness of most current American "Russia" talk, I do not defend "Russia" any more than pointing out the WMD lie was defending Saddam."

Nail on head as you do so often JackR. TY

[American Dream]

I don't think I named any names at all but it seems obvious that there are defenders of Putin's Russia in Conspiracylandia. Often this correlates with a leaning towards the governments of Syria, Iran et al. Some of these folks are "Neither Left nor Right" types but in the larger world there are also progressives, ala Oliver Stone, who agree.

My key point, reiterated in various ways over time, is that Putin is a class enemy, just as Assad is. I am not with any effort to excuse the blood on their hands. This in no way indicates that I want to justify the crimes of Uncle Sam. Rather, it indicates my antipathy towards State, Capital and Empire more broadly, although in a nuanced way.

When Russia defenders

Strawman, followed by projection:

suggest that I therefore must love Nancy Pelosi et al, I think it is sometimes a straw man/propaganda ploy

This discussion at least to me is not about why the Russian government is or is not so bad, any more than the 2002 debate about WMD allegations was about whether Saddam Hussein was bad. When I point out the ludicrousness of most current American "Russia" talk, I do not defend "Russia" any more than pointing out the WMD lie was defending Saddam.

What is the Russian Conspiracy as RI subject? What sets it apart from the Russian Conspiracy as a regular, plain old subject?

I didn't title this thread, or I would have avoided the useless and meaningless trigger word "conspiracy." I thought the point of it was to have a meta discussion on the phenomenon of the current Russia talk in the U.S., instead of another compilation of corporate media, neocon and D-propaganda about imagined Russian plots to wage war on "American democracy" by hacking U.S. elections and Vermont power grids and brainwashing Midwest populations using $100K in FB ads, etc. etc.

.

[JackRiddler]

More about the badness of Putin and Assad. All easy for me to agree with, and irrelevant to this discussion. (What's the name for that in the fallacy lexikon?)

[American Dream]

Given the state of "anti-imperialist" discourse in conspiracy circles (including here), I consider it very relevant, though not directed at you personally.

[dada]

Perhaps you didn't over-reach, liminalOyster. I think "Russian Conspiratainment" would've worked well as the title of the thread.

I thought the point of it was to have a meta discussion on the phenomenon of the current Russia talk in the U.S.

I think we're getting there. The meta discussion is multi-layered. So far we've got: Russian Conspiratainment:

a) helps Donald. Captures the attention with shiny things, distracting from the essence of corruption. Very real chance that nothing will stick vindicates Teflon Don.

b) helps Democrats Incorporated: Wins them points without having to actually do anything.

c) helps The System (I prefer 'the spectacle' as a blanket term covering institutionalized exploitation/politics/media): Critique of structural rot is cut off at the knees. Similar to a, but on a more immediate, fundamental level.

What else. I think Russian Conspiratainment as "a cycle of ad clicks and wasted fucking time" as Blue said in "the storm" thread, could apply equally well here. So I'll call that d.

My question is, can it be taken it further? Are there any unexpected insights that might holographically materialize by placing the discussion in different contexts, or taking it out of context? I really don't know, I'm just asking.

Considering a third of the Internet now is 'conspiracylandia' as AD puts it (the other two thirds being sex, and consumer fetishism/hobbies) there's a chance we'd find these meta-aspects of this exciting Russian discussion somewhere. So, how meta can we go? I don't think there's any risk that the discussion gets so rarefied as to become meaningless, considering the non-meta discussion itself is meaningless.

[American Dream]

One of the implications of your line of questioning dada, concerns how much of "the Left" in the USA is defacto compromised in that they have thrown their lot in with the Democratic Party and a strategy of inclusion there which precludes firing up the Party as an institution. Other tendencies that are more free to critique include those pursuing third party strategies, radical non-electoral/anti-State tendencies, etc. but such groups and networks are smaller, more marginal and have less resources.

Hence, while we could use more critique from the left of the Democratic Party as institution, it really does seem to be outside of the mainstream action. When push comes to shove, many people who have progressive perspectives can be backed into a corner where they end up supporting the Democratic Party because it seems so much better than the alternative of Trump and the Republicans. By then all is lost, due to the many, many contradictions of the Dem Establishment.

[dada]

One of the implications of your line of questioning dada, concerns how much of "the Left" in the USA is defacto compromised in that they have thrown their lot in with the Democratic Party and a strategy of inclusion there which precludes firing up the Party as an institution. Other tendencies that are more free to critique include those pursuing third party strategies, radical non-electoral/anti-State tendencies, etc. but such groups and networks are smaller, more marginal and have less resources.

Hence, while we could use more critique from the left of the Democratic Party as institution, it really does seem to be outside of the mainstream action. When push comes to shove, many people who have progressive perspectives can be backed into a corner where they end up supporting the Democratic Party because it seems so much better than the alternative of Trump and the Republicans. By then all is lost, due to the many, many contradictions of the Dem Establishment.

And in fact, any group with less resources that manages to make waves, in spite of the virtual 'media blacklist,' is faced with well-funded attacks. If they somehow survive and begin to make inroads, they face the threat of co-option by the Democratic party. These smaller groups are in a difficult, counter-intuitive position. It looks to me that to stay in any way effective, they need to stay marginalized. This doesn't sound promising.

The progressive voice is alienated from the political power scene, reduced to the role of spectator, mute except for the cheers and boos which are permitted. Not unlike the way the individual is alienated from the society which claims it as a member, on the condition that it play by the rules.

It looks to me to be a hopeless.situation. I don't see a way to win within the game as it is being played. Since I can't win according to these rules, I must need to change the game. But what could possibly change the game?

I take look around. I notice that at this historical moment, people are wrestling with the echoes of a postmodern relativism that died at the end of the last century, some twenty years ago, now. The present situation is abstract.

I come to an odd sounding conclusion: The answer (in my opinion) to political questions is not to be found in politics. Nothing less than a total revolution in thought is required. My role is to help spark that revolution. Others may have different roles.

[stillrobertpaulsen]

For those of you who want to go deeper down the rabbit hole of Deep Politics where Trump and Russia (among other things) intersect, I highly recommend reading this latest offering from VISUP. Here, I found out that Trump is connected with one of the primary Mob-Intel facilitators, (drumroll please) Robert Maheu!

Goodfellas: The Dark Tower and Beyond Part I

Thanks to American Dream for finding this. Read the whole thing, you'll find out that among his other mob connections from the 80s is a guy named "Biff."



For real!

[seemslikeadream]

^^^^^

It would appear that Bogatin was in fact quite a high ranking member in the Russian Mafia. The New Republic noted:
"... A Senate investigation into organized crime later revealed that Bogatin was a leading figure in the Russian mob in New York. His family ties, in fact, led straight to the top: His brother ran a $150 million stock scam with none other than Semion Mogilevich, whom the FBI considers the 'boss of bosses' of the Russian mafia. At the time, Mogilevich—feared even by his fellow gangsters as 'the most powerful mobster in the world'—was expanding his multibillion-dollar international criminal syndicate into America."

Bogatin was not the only associate of the notorious Semion Mogilevich to take up residence in Trump Tower either. The New Republic goes on to note that in the early 1990s another associate was a tenant there --one Vyachelsav Kirillovich Ivankov, an alleged enforcer for Mogilevich.

Ivankov reportedly arrived in the United States in 1992 and quickly set up an elaborate protection racket bolstered by Russian Special Forces veterans Ivankov personally recruited. During his time in New York, before his 1995 arrest, he was a frequent guest at Trump's Taj Mahal casino in Atlantic City (which, as was noted before here, was acquired from the notorious Resorts International) and kept a luxury condo at Trump Tower. He was ultimately deported in 2004 and assassinated in 2009 in Moscow.

As recently as 2013 it would appear the Russian mob was running rackets out of Trump Tower. The New Republic notes:

Now that the federal court agreed to unseal the records, the public is set to know a whole lot more about Felix Sater’s grand scheme to unite the Russian and Italian mafias under one criminal enterprise operating out of the penthouse of the Trump Office building at 40 Wall Street.

Here is the court order unsealing Felix Sater’s criminal court dockets:
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=40670

[American Dream]

I strongly believe that Eurasian organized crime groups got such a strong foothold in New York in the post 1992 era with many blessings from the dominant Syndicate. This means the Five Families, their Alphabet Soup friends, City Hall, the White House, etc. How exactly this all went down I can't say but I think they figured out that there was money, power and protection enough for everybody, even if loose cannons had to be disciplined from time to time.

Trump's boy Roy Cohn surely must have known who's who, and where (most) all the bodies are buried.

[liminalOyster]

SLAD, Anyone a better reader than me, I may not be reading closely enough but did I miss some explanation of who "US investigators" are and how their process and oversight work? Not calling it into question but if it is a single entity that identified the IP and/or VPN slip, I'd like to know more about it/them as it would be the node at which corruption would be possible. Assuming I just missed it due to info overload.Thanks.

FBI?

But wait, since when do we trust any intel abc org as an opaque black box? I am confused again by how antithetical credulity on all this is to, say, the 911 commission. This site used to be a little oasis where we could at least respectfully entertain all manner of corruption, SCAD, etc. What accounts for this discrepancy? Sincere question.

* as usual disclaimer - I don't have reason to doubt this story but the implications of whether or not it is true (and "US investigators" should be trusted) are extremely significant way way beyond ostensible Trump/Russia collusion.

** posted to thread I started so as respectfully not to derail SLAD's with meta-commentary that she may or many not want to engage.

[Belligerent Savant]

^^^^

Precisely. It's part of a persistent theme of late: posting articles from mainstream sources at face value.

This forum, formerly, was a venue for persistently questioning the status quo; in many respects, operating under the premise that we are perpetually being misled/misinformed, in part or otherwise, by the status quo, and particularly, the status quo propaganda arm (AKA "mainstream media" , though the tentacles reach markedly beyond the mainstream at this point).

To be clear: the questioning/scrutiny still exists here, of course, but it's increasingly challenging to discern given the pervasiveness of largely mainstream narratives dedicated entirely to 2-3 topics (TRUMP, RUSSIA.. And then there's the ANTIFA-related content -- largely promulgated by a single member, for years -- and still ongoing, well before the more recent TRUMP fixation/pathology).

I recall a comment some time ago from then-moderator WRex to AD, with the astute (yet obvious) observation (I'm paraphrasing here) that AD was by far the NUMBER ONE source of Fascism-related articles and imagery (swastikas; bearded, tattooed, shirtless and angry white guys/"bros", etc.) in this forum.

Ironic, is it not? The #1 contributor of content they claim to abhor (and further, claiming that others within this forum secretly -- or not so secretly -- subscribe to such dogma, therefore compelling AD to "save us" by supplying an endless stream of said content.... ENDLESSLY).

I mention the above example because we have been witnessing a similar pathology/phenomenon here with TRUMP/RUSSIA.

[Elvis]

who "US investigators" are

In this case, it seems to boil down to the CrowdStrike report. The term "US investigators" is perhaps used there to lend authority to a private company.

[liminalOyster]

who "US investigators" are

In this case, it seems to boil down to the CrowdStrike report. The term "US investigators" is perhaps used there to lend authority to a private company.

Oh, you don't say - so we literally seem to be using a private [rogue] cyberintelligence [blackhat] organization [gang]'s US [Russian] nationality as an adjective in order to suggest greater affiliation with the US [Russian] government. Funny how this feels so familiar.... /s