Hello again, everyone!

You might be wondering where I have been the last half year, or maybe not, as long draughts have been par for the course on this stack.

As detailed in one of my previous posts, “Why I Started Learning Russian in 2024”, I started studying Russian last summer.

This decision spurred a lot of personal growth and has lead to a shift in what I would like to write about. Another issue has been the difficulty in gaining traction for my writing, with this blog only gaining ~5 subscribers in three years.

The latter due to, among other things, my inability to put out new essays consistently. I have realized that I will never be able to produce new content often enough to retain significant interest on my own.

Going forward, I will mainly be promoting my ideas through guest posts and opinion pieces in various newspaper.

In other words, this is the end of Disinfology.

I expect to be keeping the site up indefinitely in order to preserve my old writing, but this is the last new post that will ever be published here.

I have created a new Substack, though primarily as an online profile and fallback for stuff I can’t get published anywhere else this time. You can find it over at “Russlandvenn”, if interested.

Thank you. For everything.

What constitutes propaganda?

Some describe right-wing news outlets like Fox and GB News as purveyors of propaganda, while others point a finger at the mainstream media.

In “The Media Very Rarely Lies” by fellow Substack-writer Scott Alexander, he argues that when media misinforms people, they do so through their choice of stories or by omitting context, he also exonerates both alternative and establishment media of intentionally spreading disinformation.

The article left me wondering: What about Russian media? Do they cross clear lines of deception that Western media doesn’t?

In this essay, we will explore these questions by taking a closer look at the Russian state-owned television network RT. Together, we will be asking: “is RT propaganda?”

The Case Against RT

Interestingly, the page about RT on Wikipedia has a summary panel categorizing the network as propaganda, with a footnote citing a variety of sources.

One of the sources cited is the chapter “Tools of Russian Influence: Information and Propaganda” from the book “Ukraine and Beyond” (2016), edited by Janne Haaland Matlary and Tormod Heier. The chapter was written by Geir Hågen Karlsen, a former Norwegian Army lieutenant colonel.

To the question “what is propaganda?”, it answers:

There are many definitions of propaganda, and most of them involve some of these elements: lack of truthfulness, exaggeration, bias, manipulation of emotions and use of strong or loaded expressions, omission of essential elements of the truth used for persuasion or deception. One widely cited definition is “the deliberate, systematic attempt to shape perceptions, manipulate cognitions, and direct behavior to achieve a response that furthers the desired intent of the propagandist”.

The chapter also accuses Russian media of inflaming hostility among the Russian minority in order to “undermine Baltic integrity”, as well as dividing the EU and Western countries.

In response to Russia’s 2014 annexation of Crimea, Liz Wahl resigned as a correspondent for RT America by going “off script” in the middle of a broadcast, saying she could no longer stand behind the channel’s coverage.

Later, Wahl appeared for a “debriefing” with Brian Stelter on his CNN show “Reliable Sources”, where she went into more detail about her time at RT and reasons for quitting.

On the show, Wahl tells Stelter that in an interview with former US congressman Ron Paul, she asked him how he could condone Russia’s intervention in Ukraine, given his record of opposing interventionism by the USA, but the question was edited out before broadcast.

Wahl also objected to the vilification of the Euromaidan protesters, through claims the pro-EU movement in Ukraine was infiltrated by neo-Nazis.

Roman Abalin is a Progressive Russian YouTuber running the channel NFKRZ.

In the video “Why You Shouldn’t Trust RT”, Abalin talks about an incident were Ruptly, a subsidiary of RT, allegedly presented a fake video about a New York restaurant creating a special burger in honor of Vladimir Putin’s birthday.

In the video, a young woman, seemingly seated at an outdoor table at a restaurant, shows off a huge hamburger, explaining how it was specially prepared in honor of Vladimir Putin, but according to multiple media outlets the story was false.

The Defense

The chapter by Geir Hågen Karlsen is mainly concerned with the content and effects of Russian “propaganda”, not the mindset of the people behind it. It talks about Russia’s goals and the narratives used to pursue them, but if anyone lied is often unclear.

The definition given of propaganda also includes techniques that don’t require the speaker to make statements they know to be false, for example exaggeration, manipulation of emotions and omission of important details.

These are in line with the subtly deceptive methods suggested in Scott Alexander’s article.

In Karlsen’s defense, establishing RT as a propaganda outlet, in the sense used here, probably wasn’t a goal of his book contribution, but we can still conclude that an influential text on RT doesn’t support the thesis we are investigating.

Liz Wahl resigned from RT, because she couldn’t support their coverage of events in Ukraine, but from her testimony in subsequent interviews, the issue seems to be one of disagreement with the editorial staff.

Editing out a question highlighting a double standard or inconvenient facts is not the same as knowingly presenting false information. It’s analogues to a news outlet prioritizing certain stories over others, like we talked about earlier.

Finally, Wahl never said she was required to lie deliberately and explicitly during her time at the network.

The Burger “Hoax”, allegedly perpetrated by Ruptly, was reported on by The Guardian and The Moscow Times.

The video introducing the Putin burger was filmed in 2017 at Lucy’s Cantina Royale, a NYC Mexican restaurant, by Darya Pauto and Tamara Ilizarova, two Russian-Americans confirmed to have been real employees at the restaurant.

Controversy erupted when Alexei Kovalev, a disinformation researcher, called the restaurant only to have them deny any knowledge of the campaign. The story became that Ruptly had contacted the two employees and tricked them into letting them come stage the video.

However, it seems the two employees came up with the idea for the video themselves and were the only ones involved in its production. This is implied in the Moscow Times article about the incident, where it says:

Two employees have been fired from a New York City restaurant after they created and filmed a “Putin Burger” in celebration of the Russian president’s birthday.

Later in the same article, Pauto is quoted as saying she was the one to come up with the special burger, which contradicts the notion she was put up to it by Ruptly.

That sentiment is reiterated in an “apology” video on her YouTube channel, where she says “the idea was really all mine”, she also never mentions Ruptly or RT.

While not stated directly, it looks like Pauto and Ilizarova submitted the video to Ruptly, because they were interested in having their school project-style film featured on the channel.

Ruptly aired the video without having visited the restaurant and not knowing the full context behind the clip.

In short, the Birthday Burger was real, but it was made as an employee “prank”, rather than an official tribute to president Putin, misrepresentations by Russian media were unintentional.

Conclusion

Having reviewed all this material, it seems evidence of outrageous deception by RT is harder to come by than one might expect.

Most faults in the channel’s content seems explainable as simply bias, comparable to that found in Western media, or honest mistakes.

The closest we came to seeing Russian “fake news”, as most imagine it, was the “Birthday Burger” video, but as we discovered, it was neither initiated nor “staged” by Ruptly/RT themselves.

I am going to conclude that RT isn’t a propaganda network, at least not more so than a typical cable news channel, and that Russian media can also be said to “rarely lie” in the sense meant by Scott Alexander.

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It’s time I let you in on a little secret: last summer I started learning Russian. You are probably wondering why, so let me explain.

It all began when I was recommended a YouTube-video by a young French woman living in Moscow.

Her name was Gabrielle Duvoisin and at the time she had been living in Moscow for a year and a half. In the video, she reviews Moscow compared to other big European cities she has lived in, talking about the people, cleanliness, food, etc.

Not long after, I was reintroduced to German through political commentary videos, also on YouTube, and I became interested in brushing up on the language.

I had German for three years in High School and have maintained it since, making me a trilingual person who speaks Norwegian, English and German rather well.

Last time I was consistently improving my German, I imagined that if I was going to learn a fourth language, I would pick one using a different “alphabet”, or more accurately script. Russian was my first choice already back then, but I never got around to it.

After a couple of weeks of German, those thoughts returned and I decided to give it a try.

Now, an important part of learning a language is listening to it every day, so naturally I had to start listening to Russian daily.

I had listened to Russian music on YouTube before, and really enjoyed some of the songs, but I was amazed by the variety of Russian content available once I began looking.

Before long, I was watching a student’s vlog about their first day at university in Vladivostok or a Belarusian booktuber talking about their 24 hour reading marathon.

In addition to content by native Russian-speakers, I also discovered videos by Western travel/expat vloggers talking positively about their experiences in Russia, showcasing interesting places and interactions with locals, as well as giving advice to others planning to visit Russia.

While most of the content is in English, there are also creators speaking French, German, Spanish, etc. appealing to their unique audiences.

A third category, is content made by those I affectionately call “fellow Russian students”, i.e. other non-native speakers who either have learned or are still in the process of learning Russian.

One such person is Nastya, a polish woman who speaks Russian fluently. On her channel, she discusses Polish culture and Poland’s relationship to neighboring countries.

After my first evening devouring Russian content, I lay awake the whole night, bawling my eyes out, unable to sleep. The next morning I rose dazed and confused, needing a day off to walk around town and just think.

I initially studied Russian alongside German, but I soon found learning two languages at the same time meant making slower progress, so I dropped German in favor of Russian.

Before taking up Russian, Russia was entirely outside my frame of reference, “in Russia” was as good as “on Mars”. Learning Russian was like discovering a brand new world to explore.

However, what impressed me wasn’t how foreign, but rather how ordinary the people and places seemed.

Jan Böhmermann is a German journalist and TV host, in August 2024 he published an article in “Die Zeit” titled “Hier spricht Jan Böhmermann” (“Here speaks Jan Böhmermann”).

In the article, Böhmermann invents the term “Menschen von Gestern” (“People of Yesterday”), by which he means those who might more commonly be known as “conspiracy theorists” or “populists”.

Böhmermann describes them as simple-minded and callous people, helplessly misled by online “fake news”. He despises them for rejecting the enlightened ideas “fact-checked” by the Progressive intelligentsia.

I, on the other hand, wholeheartedly love the People of Yesterday and have been defending them for a long time. They are devoted and wholesome, and have often been unjustly silenced by pseudointellectual busybodies thinking they know best.

While exploring Russia, I concluded that Russians are the ultimate Yesterday People. The same can be said about the “Soviet-nostalgic” peoples across the former Eastern bloc.

They have been much abused by corrupt Western NGOs imposing “Liberal” values, but with what has been happening in Georgia for the past year, I think their time is up.

In any case, as their struggle is for Traditionalism and against Globalism, they have my support!

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Despite the many objections, on May 31 Norway passed legislation prohibiting participation in foreign influence operations, which went into effect on July 1st.

I will be taking a careful look at the new laws and discuss their implications. Below follows the new additions to Norway’s criminal code as retrieved from lovdata.no:

While Norwegian is my mother tongue and I also speak English well, I asked Grok (an AI by xAI) to provide a translation to ensure impartiality. Here is what he came back with:

Section 130. Influence from Foreign Intelligence

A person who, on behalf of or in agreement with a foreign intelligence actor, engages in activities intended to influence decisions or the general formation of public opinion, where such activities can harm significant societal interests, shall be punished with a fine or imprisonment for up to 3 years.

Section 130a. Severe Influence from Foreign Intelligence

A serious violation of Section 130 shall be punished with imprisonment for up to 10 years. In determining whether the violation is serious, particular emphasis shall be placed on:

a. the nature and extent of the violation,

b. whether the offender, by virtue of their position, enjoys particular trust,

c. whether the violation is particularly harmful to society for other reasons, and

d. whether the offender has obtained a significant gain for themselves or others.

The laws by themselves are quite vague, but the Department of Justice explains their intended interpretation in the report where they were proposed. Having read through this report I will give a summary in Q&A format:

Who’s a foreign intelligence actor?

Anyone who de facto directs covert influence operations for a foreign government, examples given are troll factories and seemingly independent media outlets that are secretly state-controlled.

What’s meant by “on behalf of”?

The amount of contact between the parties, whether they were paid, to what extent the material came “pre-packaged” and the degree of coordination will all be considered in determining if the accused acted “on behalf of or after an agreement with” a foreign intelligence actor as defined in the law.

What are significant societal interests?

Examples of significant societal interests mentioned in the report are:

• National Security

• “Enlightened discourse”

• Election integrity, i.e. affecting the outcome or confidence in the procedures.

• Trust in public institutions and certain private entities such as political parties and the media

• Public safety, threatened by for example riots and “polarization”

Must disinformation be involved?

No, dissemination of material obtained via hacking is specifically mentioned as a case where the content itself might be truthful, but still illegitimate. However, spreading hacked material is still legal, as long as it isn’t done “on behalf of or in agreement with” a foreign intelligence actor.

When can surveillance be used?

The new laws also gives Norway’s security service permission to utilize covert surveillance while investigating suspected violations of section 130. This includes methods such as monitoring a suspect’s online activity, secretly searching their home and placing a tracker on their car.

The service is further granted access to employ both preventive and preemptive surveillance, but only when they have reason to suspect a severe violation is imminent or is being planned.

So, how bad are the new foreign influence laws? They are fortunately a rather weak blend.

The report repeatedly reaffirms that the laws only criminalizes collusion with foreign intelligence, not a shared “narrative” or “theme”, but we’ll see how firmly that distinction is upheld.

The most dangerous part is the ability to use surveillance before a crime has been committed, the risk is that this will grow to encompass people who aren’t yet planning to participate in a foreign influence operation, but are viewed as potential recruits.

This could create a situation where, when a major controversy hits, all the large influencers on the Populist side are put under surveillance. Unlikely with things as they are, but something to watch out for.

Anyway, I don’t see the point of these laws. Our government influences its own citizens all the time, saying nobody else is allowed to is hypocritical, especially given the West easily out spends its competitors.

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As you may have noticed, I recently changed my X account and Substack profile to use my real name.

Well, my full name is Morten Aleksander Unneland Iversen, but I shortened it to Aleksander Iversen, because it’s more international. You can also call me “Alex”.

In addition, I am doing a face reveal, so here is what I look like:

As for why, it was becoming too cumbersome to interact through a company account. I felt stuck in an oversized mascot costume.

Since brands generally only post about their own content or products, it limited which discussions I could participate in.

I also hope to relate better to my audience, now that you know my face and not just the Disinfology logo.

If you still see the name “Leander Hansen” floating around anywhere, it was the pseudonym this newsletter was once kept under.

See you in the next update!

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Introducing Fact-Check Fails (FCF), a new series documenting misadventures in fact-checking and open-source intelligence.

In a 1. July article, “A ‘Russia Hoax’ or Russian Hopes? How Putin’s Troll Farms are Boosting Nigel Farage’s Campaigns — Again”, Byline co-founder and Bellingcat pioneer1 Peter Jukes accuses Reform party leder Nigel Farage of being supported by the Kremlin in the now bygone British general election.

The accusation is based on a report by American news network ABC, claiming to have uncovered five fake Facebook pages operated from Nigeria, a common location for trolls hired by Russia.

The five Facebook accounts were named “Patriotic UK”, “British Patriots”, “Common Sense Britain”, “BritBlend” and “BeyondBorders UK”.

The three first accounts posted anti-immigrant and right-wing content, along with support for Reform. While BritBlend presented itself as a left-wing, pro-refugee organization, and BeyondBorders UK sound like one as well, but its political leanings isn’t stated.

All the accounts also made negative comments about Ukraine and urged Britain to stop funding.

Evidence for the accounts’ fakeness include their administrators being Nigerian and Facebook advertisements paid for in Nigerian currency, despite professing to be based in Britain.

The accounts also made similar, if not identical posts, around the same time and shared AI generated images.

At the time of writing all five Facebook pages have been pulled down, possibly by the trolls themselves. They held a meager 190,000 followers between them.

In his article and corresponding X thread, Jukes talks at length about how two of the five accounts “bigs up” Nigel Farage and former Tory MP Lee Anderson, but neglects to mention that at least one, likely two, left-wing accounts were part of the same network.

In another post Jukes acts like they are letting the mask slip, when the Russian accounts “can’t help” mention Ukraine. Although, given they have both right- and left-wing accounts attacking Ukraine, that is likely their main objective.

How many views the cluster of fake Facebook pages accumulated isn’t stated in either the ABC or Byline article.

However, a different Byline Times article places the number of views received by “a small group of X accounts engaging in bot-like behavior” at 150 million, citing a report by British NGO Global Witness, but given The Independent reported Nigel Farage’s videos alone have attained 39 billion views during the election, this renders the previous figure ridiculously small.

Only amounting to approximately 0.38% and even less of Farage’s and Reform UK’s total election footprint.

Jukes has already defended himself against criticism from Reform supporters, stating he never said the party conspired with the Kremlin.

Nonetheless, he never mentioned fake accounts boosting the opposite of Reform’s messaging, nor the comparatively small impact of the false accounts either.

In conclusion, ABC created a nuanced report about inauthentic social media profiles, which Jukes selectively interpreted to attack people he doesn’t like, that is a fact-check fail.

Peter Jukes was approached for comment, but did not respond.

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“How to Win an Information War” (2024) is a non-fiction book written by Ukrainian born journalist Peter Pomerantsev.

During World War II, Denis Sefton Delmer operated a black propaganda radio station under the name “Gustav Siegfried Eins”. The station broadcast the voice of “Der Chef”, a disgruntled German officer.

Der Chef spoke with glowing fury about elevated Nazi party members and SS-men. He told the listeners in great detail about the decadent lifestyles enjoyed by corrupt bureaucrats in Nazi-Germany, even naming specific officials.

The station gained many intrigued German listeners who shared the frustrations Der Chef expressed, some believed he spoke on behalf of a simmering mutiny.

However, the speeches sent on Gustav Siegfried Eins where all composed by Sefton Delmer and Der Chef was merely a role played by a Jewish refugee.

The book follows the life of Sefton Delmer and how he became a master at both creating and countering propaganda.

It also explores Pomerantsev’s work documenting war crimes in Ukraine after the 2022 Russian invasion and how lessons from Delmer apply in today’s information war against Vladimir Putin.

The Book

Sefton Delmer’s parents where Australian, but he was born in Berlin and grew up in Germany. Back then being Australian was as good as being British, so when World War I broke out his family became “enemy nationals” in a hostile country.

Delmer was ostracized and struggled to make friends at school and his father was arrested on false charges of espionage.

Despite this, Delmer eagerly joined in the patriotic chants and marches at school, because he wanted to fit in. Pomerantsev connects this to the work of Jacques Ellul, which describes propaganda as “the remedy for loneliness”.

As Germany gradually lost the war, living conditions worsened. When Delmer’s father was finally released from prison he was able to obtain visas and relocate his family to London.

Before Sefton Delmer wrote scripts for Der Chef, he penned articles as a foreign correspondent in Germany for The Daily Express.

While there, he interviewed Adolf Hitler face-to-face in a Storm Division headquarters in Munich. He also followed Hitler during his presidential campaign against Hindenburg in 1932, even travelling with him on the plane flying him from city to city.

Delmer’s close ties with Hitler and other important German Fascists lead some to view him as a Nazi sympathizer and those suspicions would haunt him into World War II, but Pomerantsev explains that Delmer credits his time in Hitler’s inner circle with enabling his work countering Nazi propaganda.

Before the debut of “Der Chef”, the Germans were already using radio stations pretending to be something they weren’t against the British.

One such station, called “Worker’s Challenge”, spread rumors about a conspiracy among the bosses to make the air raid sirens go off too late in order to squeeze more profit out of their employees.

Britain also ran their own covert propaganda radio station, “Sender der europäischen Revolution”, which posed as a Marxist station calling for a Socialist revolution in Germany, but it failed to attract attention.

When Delmer was brought on his work was a lot more successful, especially with the show of Der Chef. Through prisoner of war interviews, intercepted letters and spies the British were able to establish that his station was quite popular.

Later, Delmer set up a different station, named “Radio Wehrmachtsender Nord”, purporting to be run by soldiers in occupied Norway.

He also operated “Soldatensender Calais” which broadcast more varied content, including soothing music, speeches by German leaders and news about submarine movements.

In the lead up to D-Day, Delmer created manuals for German soldiers on how to fake illness or injure themselves to avoid service and from there it got darker and darker, like a prankster not knowing when to quit, Delmer prolonged the joke until it was no longer funny.

After the war, Sefton Delmer envisioned himself rebuilding democratic media in occupied Germany to prevent the return of Nazism and for a time he had the opportunity.

The British government tasked him with establishing a newswire, but not long after details about his secret role during the war leaked to the press and due to the unsavory nature of his work he was sent back to England.

The Commentary

“How to Win an Information War” tells a well-researched and riveting story, but derives generic lessons and has weak takes on polarization in America.

The book retreads Freudian psychological musings on the appeal of Fascism and Hannah Arendt’s “Banality of Evil”, though this is obviously intentional given the sources and quotations prominently cited.

“It’s all about a sense of belonging” is hardly a novel insight on the topic of propaganda, cults or political extremism, but it helps that it’s supported with references to the places were the idea first appeared and the life of Sefton Delmer.

Pomerantsev mostly presents as a suave fellow, but at times descends into Trump derangement syndrome.

While describing the gloom of our current fake news world early in the book, one of the few examples brought up is a growing perception that “serious” journalists and the media are enemies of the people.

The last phrase being an allusion to the spray-tanned former US president.

Throughout the book, Pomerantsev mentions some variation of “media that claim to value truth and evidence” or “media that claim to defend democracy”, all of which are just reluctant ways of bringing to mind what is commonly called the mainstream media.

Adding the precautionary “claim” before these signifiers is likely a courtesy to Trump-voters, but it doesn’t accomplish much when Pomerantsev’s handling of American politics is so inconsistent.

The allegations made by Fox News about rigged electronic voting machines in the context of the 2020 presidential election are treated as very serious, but the myriad of claimed irregularities, including faulty voting machines, spread by mainstream journalists in relation to 2016 isn’t addressed.

Unlike other disinfologists baying for more censorship on social media, Pomerantsev seems to be presenting the tricks employed by Delmer as an alternative to that dark reality.

What the “secret recipe” behind Delmer’s success consists of is inconsistently characterized in the book.

One explanation goes that the audience was attracted by the swearing, sex and scandals, like with tabloid magazines. Another that Delmer’s broadcasts reawakened critical thinking in the listener by making them ponder the inconsistencies and riddles they included.

A third theory is the one given by Delmer himself during an official visit by the royal family, in a recording he explains the key behind his propaganda is to exaggerate Nazi ideology “into the ridiculous”.

Where the Nazis saw hidden Jews and Bolsheviks everywhere, Delmer took it one step further and made a station claiming the German government was crawling with traitors as well.

My take is that the other pro-democratic radio stations were unsuccessful for the same reason many Christian movies don’t appeal to those not already converted. They failed to tell a good story.

Sefton Delmer entertained the listener first and snuck the messaging in the back door. It is that simple.

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“The Brainwashing of My Dad” (2015) is a documentary directed by small-budget filmmaker Jen Senko.1 The film chronicles the journey of Senko’s father from Liberal to Conservative and hers to understand what she sees as the propagandistic right-wing media apparatus.

Jen Senko published a book by the same name in 2021.

The Film

“The Brainwashing of my Dad” opens with an abridged quote from “Propaganda” (1928) by Edward Bernays, reading:

In almost every act of our lives…We are dominated by the relatively small number of persons who understand the mental processes and social patterns of the masses. It is they who pull the wires that control the public mind.

The film establishes its premise by explaining that Jen Senko’s dad, Frank P. Senko, started as a “non-political” Kennedy Democrat, but dramatically changed after he began listening to Conservative talk radio on his long commute after the family moved.

Jen Senko describes her father as angry and obsessive after his political shift.

She recounts a story from when she came to visit from New York and was picked up by her dad at the bus station.

In the car on the way home they drove past a Hooters restaurant and Frank seized the opportunity to take a swipe at “feminazis” upset with the chain’s practice of employing scantily clad waitresses.

Jen Senko claims that when she defended the feminists, saying they had a point, her father raged at her and threatened to kick her out of the car so she would have to hitchhike the rest of the way.

She also tells us that Frank was so preoccupied with consuming right-wing content that when a buddy introduced him to portable radios, he began listening not just in the car, but also in bed every night.

Jen Senko says that despite Frank wearing earbuds his radio listening disturbed her mother, but instead of cutting out the radio he choose to sleep alone in another bedroom.

After spending its first ten minutes introducing Jen Senko’s family and her inspiration for this documentary, the film gives us the first taste of what will become a reoccurring feature throughout, namely short interviews with authors who have written about right-wing alternative media.

The number of books either explicitly mentioned or appearing in a byline is large and includes: “Wrapped in the Flag” (2013) by Claire Connor; “Blinded by the Right” (2003), “The Republican Noise Machine” (2004) and “The Fox Effect” (2012) by David Brock; “Nixonland” (2008) by Rick Perlstein; “The Loudest Voice in the Room” (2014) by Gabriel Sherman; “Manufacturing Consent” (1988) by Edward S. Herman and Noam Chomsky; “Don’t Think of an Elephant” (2004) by George Lakoff; “The Way Things Aren’t” (1995) by Steven Rendall, Jim Naureckas and Jeff Cohen; “State of Confusion” (2008) by Bryant Welch and “Echo Chamber” (2008) by Kathleen H. Jamieson and Joseph N. Cappella.

The next arc of the film centers around Roger Ailes, a PR-advisor for Richard Nixon who later became CEO of Fox News.

Ailes is credited with inventing a publicity strategy based on appeals to emotion and the art of the “sound bite”, snappy one-liners sticking in the mind of the audience. He is quoted as saying “America is dumb” and calling TV a medium where the viewer has their thinking done for them.

The documentary explores how blue-collar employees went from being the working class, aligned with the Left, to angry White men, aligned with the Right. It explains this as due to Republicans shifting the discourse from economic interests to religious and patriotic values.

The film doesn’t mention the role played by Liberals in abandoning the White working class, it’s all portrayed as a scheme concocted by Conservatives.

In a segment titled “Balance vs. Truth”, David Brock is brought on to criticize the notion journalism should be neutral and balanced for giving equal time to vastly unequal ideas, but soon after the film laments Reagan’s repeal of the “Fairness Doctrine”, a law requiring the news represent competing viewpoints, saying the move enabled more dishonesty from Conservative media.

Returning to her dad, Jen Senko appears to tell a story about the time Frank Senko mailed her a sticker from the controversial animal rights organization PETA that he had defaced with a black marker, which shocked her because Frank had always been such an animal lover.2

While sending the results to your daughter is creepy, PETA is a common object of scorn and ridicule. I could imagine that if a temperamental person received a PETA pamphlet or saw a PETA sticker their reaction would be to spoil them and brag about it.

Also, having “loves animals” as a personality trait doesn’t imply support for PETA.

Entering the final third of the film, Jen Senko interviews Dr. Kathleen Taylor, whom she introduces as a neuroscientist and expert on brainwashing.

Taylor states that there are two forms of brainwashing. The first is what she calls “brainwashing by force”, which is when someone is held captive and tortured until they express certain beliefs. The second is “brainwashing by stealth”, which is when a person is influenced by confirmation bias or something.

Dr. Kathleen E. Taylor is described on Wikipedia as a British neuroscientist. The article also details her career as a popular science author and references her book “Brainwashing: The Science of Thought Control” (2004) published by Oxford University Press.34

However, brainwashing is not a scientific term and the concept is contested. Not having read her book or blog it’s hard to judge the quality of her work, but it is a candidate for a future essay.

While the film gives a summary of propaganda techniques allegedly used by right-wing media, a quotation is shown on screen:

If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it.” - Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda.

According to an academic paper by Quentin J. Schultze and Randall L. Bytwerk the above is a widely used misquote not spoken by Goebbels, the quote is similar to other spurious quotations attributed to Abraham Lincoln or Albert Einstein.

Schultze and Bytwerk writes that the quotation is mostly found online and always unsourced, i.e. without reference to a specific speech or text by Goebbels, in addition they have reviewed a large selection of Goebbels’ works themselves without finding the quote.5

The paper further states that the quote is also sometimes falsely attributed to Adolf Hitler or used interchangeably with something he wrote in “Mein Kampf”.

In that book Hitler wrote that people “more easily fall victim to a big lie than to a little one” and this gave rise to the “Big Lie” as a rumored propaganda tool, however Hitler was describing what he believed the Jews and others he deemed enemies of Germany were doing, or in the words of Schultze and Bytwerk: “Hitler, in short, is accusing his enemies of the tactic, not recommending its use.”6

The denouement of “The Brainwashing of my Dad” chronicles Jen Senko’s parents moving to a retirement village.

Jen Senko tells us her father’s radio broke during the move and that he has neither repaired nor replaced it since, so hence he no longer listens to right-wing talk radio.

She also tells us that when her parents got a new TV, her mom programmed the remotes and her dad was too lazy to learn how they work so now he just watches what his wife watches.

While Frank was in the hospital, Jen Senko was asked by her mother to delete her father’s hoard of old emails from political newsletters he subscribed to to free up space on their computer, but she explains that when the emails just kept coming her mom unsubscribed her husband from what she saw as the more extreme content.

Later, her mom had the idea of subscribing him to a bunch of left-wing newsletters as well, which Frank started reading once he got home from the hospital.

The film then goes on to explain how all these changes in his media consumption also lead to changes in Frank’s political views and it all turns into a sort of “redemption arc” for him.

The rest of the film consists of photos and videos of happy family moments made possible by the fact Frank isn’t a “fanatic” anymore, intercut with interviews of both relatives and Frank himself about how he has changed.

When asked about his new politics, Frank describes himself as “halfway between Republican and Democrat”.

He is then told about the documentary about him that his daughter has been working on.

The film ends on a memorial dedicated to Frank Senko (1922-2016).

The Commentary

Is it childish to end a review of a political documentary you disagreed with by giving it a star rating?

Anyway, I can’t give it more than two and a half stars.

The film is an interesting watch and asks important questions, but suffers from omissions and contradictions.

What falls apart the most is the premise that Jen Senko’s dad was brainwashed into holding right-wing beliefs.

The story put forth in the film is that Frank Senko became Conservative entirely by accident and despite all his previous values and personality, because he got separated from his old carpool and started driving alone to work after the family moved.

He was a fun dad, kind to the poor, even a Democrat, but then he listened to right-wing radio and the hosts turned him into a hateful bigot. Him taking their words at face value like a child with no life experience.

It’s impossible for me to know Jen Senko’s life story or family situation, but I don’t buy it. Sorry.

For one, was there nothing to tune in to in the car on a morning commute other than right-wing talk shows in the 60’s? No music or non-political content? No left-wing radio? Nothing?

Senko had a Kickstarter campaign to obtain funding for her documentary and in the process she solicited testimonies from others who also “lost” someone or saw them change after consuming right-wing news and these are featured in the film, usually in the form of a Skype call.

Some detail disgraceful or outright abusive behavior from a belligerent relative, but others are unclear on what they did wrong, only giving vague descriptions like “he is impossible to talk to now”.

A few even manage to appear like the narrator is the one who is in the wrong.

For example “Barbara”, a woman from California, appears twice. The first time she is relaying a heated conversation with her brother, but his lines are too on the nose, calling into question if they have been embellished.

Later, she is brought on to tell a story about her granddaughter to illustrate how young people are sometimes misled by right-wing lies too.

Barbara says her granddaughter, possibly soon after starting her first job, once commented that “I don’t really like my taxes paying for lazy people who do nothing”, to which she responds by asking if she knows why the local library is no longer open on Fridays and saying it’s due to a lack of taxation.

The film is incredibly hyperbolic with its frequent juxtaposition between right-wing political content and propaganda by authoritarian regimes and cult indoctrination. It even uses a clip from a black-and-white adaptation of “The Manchurian Candidate” at one point.

In the worldview of the film, there are no innocent free market or small government Conservatives, because corporate investors invented “culture war” issues and hate in order to trick working class men into voting for their policies.

Dipping its toes into Barry Goldwater, The John Birch Society, Rush Limbaugh talk radio, Grover Norquist, the presidencies of Nixon and Reagan, ‘90s and ‘00s Fox News and the Tea Party the documentary covers a wide range of right-wing movements, if in a superficial and antagonistic way.

The film is also a trove of previous works of its kind. Senko has managed to interview a long list of authors who have written alarmist books about right-wing media and explained them as a conspiracy against their audience.

It was fascinating to see the notion of misinformation and tropes like “dividing the country” or “corrupts democracy” applied to alternative media, especially Fox News, prior to the election of Donald Trump and ensuing fears about Russian disinformation.

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Disinfology is the study of disinformation, a field that has exploded in popularity since the double whammy of the Brexit referendum and US presidential election in 2016.

Everyone is scrambling to explain the origins of “disinformation”, a term that has come to include all false assertions whether intentionally or unintentionally spread.

Russia is generally thought to be the source of the problem and to have a hand in most disturbances and divisions in the West.

Where is all this coming from and is this stuff new or have we seen it before?

While curiosity about Russian espionage and attempts to educate the public about subversive activities existed during the Cold War, what is new about disinfology is that it has become cool.

Being an anti-Communist was never cool. Maybe it should have been, but it definitely wasn’t.

Claims to research “fake news” is something every journalist or cybersecurity expert would like to have in their bio and to chronicle on their blog.

In contrast, “anti-Communist” is a badge few journalists would like to wear, even during the Cold War it was considered tacky and reserved for those irrationally imagining Communist or Soviet influence everywhere.

The label was mainly applied to “redneck” nationalist and church groups fearing a decline in Christian and patriotic values in the United States, the opposite of what progressive journalists and left-leaning academics would want to be associated with.

While some prominent anti-Communists had a background in intelligence or were even former Soviet spies having defected from the KGB, these were perceived as grifters preying upon gullible right-wingers and in the latter case as merely repeating what their audience expected to hear.

Whenever the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HUAC) or one of the other anti-Communist investigative entities would host a public meeting in a major American city the event would be strongly protested by Liberal university students and faculty members.

The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) even advocated the HUAC be abolished.1

Disuniting the People

In recent years, there have been growing complaints our society is no longer concerned with truth and that in the past political disagreements were rooted in differences of complicated values, while those today are over basic facts.

This development is often blamed on the Internet which, due to its massive increase of available information, is said to have split the population into separate groups without a common reference point.

In this environment our communities have allegedly become more vulnerable to disinformation, which main purpose is to disunite the people in the countries it targets.

However, this isn’t a new fear, “propaganda is for disuniting the people” is a sentiment dating back at least to World War II.

In 1942, Laura H. Ingalls, a famous aviator and peace activist, was found guilty of failing to register as an agent for Germany and spreading propaganda on its behalf, most notably by dropping pamphlets from her plane above the US congress building.2

In a New York Times piece, D. E. Balch, the prosecutor at her trial, is described as accusing Ingalls of being part of a Nazi fifth column in the United States and having used the Hitler technique “of disuniting the people”.3

“She used her prestige against the American people to disunite them at the paid direction of the German Government,” Balch is directly quoted as saying elsewhere in the same article.4

Understanding the Disinformation Panic

The “anti-war” Left usually presents the disinformation panic as something manufactured by the intelligence agencies in pursuit of national security interests.

While this perspective might hold some value, in actuality the majority of material on Disinfology is produced by journalists, academics and think-tank wonks without military experience.

What all three groups have in common is that they help form the informational foundation of society, and as the Gatekeepers of Truth they have an interest in portraying their opponents as deceitful Sowers of Discord.

The real journalist is of course the logical archnemesis of the “fake” journalist.

Disinformation is a convenient accusation, because it discredits the person or movement it is leveled against without addressing their arguments. It’s like calling on the referee during a soccer game to disqualify the other team, or give a red card to one of their players, for breaking the rules.

The warnings and suspensions handed out on social media makes this analogy particularly appropriate.

Humans are quick to dismiss those expressing conflicting viewpoints as spreaders of propaganda, because we have a poor ability to imagine how someone could reasonably arrive at beliefs different from our own. Believing that the other person is lying or has been lied to removes this tension.

Ultimately, the disinformation panic arose because it feeds off a variety of human needs and weaknesses.

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Last year, Disinfology (at the time known as “Mapping the Disinformation Age”) debuted with the essay “How to Win the Modern Information War”, this article is a revised edition of that piece.

This is a guide to hacking the most complex information system of all, the human mind. It is meant for one-on-one interactions where the target responds to you, not producing persuasive material for a broad audience.

Opposition Research

Before you start hacking, it is essential to familiarize yourself with the target. Your aim should be to know as much as possible about the particular individual and the group of interest they belong to.

What is their familiarity with the topic you want to change their mind about? Which arguments do they use? What do they perceive as the main benefit of holding the belief they do?

Make your media consumption as close to the target’s as possible: follow who they follow on social media, watch the YouTube videos they watch, read the books recommended in their sphere, etc..

When engaging with opposition media take note of all names, events and lingo repeatedly referenced. Look up everything to expand your knowledge and ensure you understand the material.

If the article, book or video cites sources read them and then their sources if possible.

Never Cite Your Sources

This point might seem counterintuitive, given we were constantly reminded to cite sources when writing papers in High School.

However, I am not saying you should rely on sources and dishonestly neglect citations, but rather avoid arguments that need them.

The key to persuasion is not adding new knowledge, but to show how the person’s prior knowledge already contradicts itself by exposing logical inconsistencies.

This is explained by the Greek philosopher Epictetus in his complete works where he quotes Socrates as saying:

“It is not my custom to cite any other witness for my assertions; but I am always contented with my opponent. I call and summon him for my witness; and his single evidence serves instead of all others.”1

Epictetus argued all humans shared a common faculty of reason, therefore the philosopher should enlighten others by teasing out the truth buried inside them.

When you tell someone you have seen so-and-so or that “X” said so-and-so they might not believe you. They would have to look it up later. However, if you point to something already part of their worldview they do not have to take your word for it.

Another perspective to consider is that by sending someone an article or video you are interrupting the conversation with a demand they put in work before it can continue, when what you should be doing is digest the material for them.

Mobilizing Vs. Persuasive Arguments

There are many ways to categories arguments and though it is not a comprehensive breakdown, my favorite is the distinction between mobilizing and persuasive arguments.

Mobilizing arguments are effective at getting people to take action in service of a principle they already accept. They usual work by stirring anger through highlighting a violation of said principle.

Persuasive arguments are aimed at people who do not already hold the position they advocate. They need to be calm, patient and didactic.

A long running problem in the discourse and a major reason cross aisle discussions are seldom fruitful is that people tend to talk to outsiders the same way they do insiders, i.e. relaying on mobilizing arguments when they should be using persuasive ones.

Another obstacle is that most arguments do not have the potential to persuade even if they are valid. It is not enough to give someone a reason, it needs to be enough of a reason.

What constitutes “enough” varies from person-to-person and is entirely up to the individual, what is a deal-breaker for some might not bother others and vice versa.

The things most likely to move your target are probably those that brought them where they are, therefore pay close attention to what they admire about their current worldview and dislike about yours.

If they bring up reasons why your point of view is irrational they might be more swayed by logical contradictions. If their concern is how people on your side are uncouth and deplorable they might be given pause by their side’s moral failings.

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“We are destroying the Press of the counter-revolution, just as we destroyed its fortified positions, its [supply] stores, its communication, and its intelligence system.”1

These words are written by Russian Communist Leon Trotsky in his book “Terrorism and Communism” (1920). The text is part of a polemic between Trotsky and the Austrian Social Democrat Karl Kautsky.

Their dispute centers on the Bolsheviks’ use of “terror” during the Russian Civil War. Terror, in this context, refers to repression employed by a state to protect itself from subversion.

Kautsky repudiates “the dictatorship of the proletariat” and armed insurrection as necessary for transitioning to Socialism. He further criticizes the Bolsheviks for excessive violence against political opponents and infringement of press freedom.

Trotsky on the other hand views a socialist revolution as a war between the bourgeoise and the proletariat and war, he writes, is founded upon intimidation.

Winning seldom involves killing the whole enemy army, generally only an insignificant part of it is destroyed. The rest are terrified - or rather terrorized - into submission.

According to Trotsky, war is won decisively or not at all. An early burst of force deters the enemy from fighting back, cutting short a protracted struggle. It is futile then to afterwards complain the violence was all on one side or to say the force used was excessive.

On the topic of the death penalty, Trotsky asks if Kautsky would prefer if the Bolsheviks imprisoned their enemies instead? He then dismisses the distinction as a matter of degree, not a question of terror or no terror.

It might seem fair that sentences for espionage and sabotage should be limited to time in prison and that trials for such crimes should be postponed until after the war, but Trotsky says threats of imprisonment for ten years, twenty years or even a lifetime are ineffective if the traitor believes their treachery can cause the city or nation to fall, because in that case their captivity can only last as long as it takes the enemy to free them.

The death penalty, however, is always hundred percent effective, even if the “cavalry” is mere hours away.

Russian “Propaganda”

You might be wondering why I put propaganda in quotation marks. Well, I did not. “Russian ‘Propaganda’” (1949) is an article published in the magazine “Soviet Russia Today” and written by Victor S. Yarros, an anarchist writer born and raised in the Soviet Union.2

In the article Yarros writes:

What ignorant and malicious Russophobes say about Russian “propaganda”—its volume, quality or forms—need not worry Americans who are friends of the Soviet Union. But when genuine, sincere and honored liberals indulge in false or highly exaggerated statements about that phenomenon, it is our duty and privilege to examine their charges critically, point out mistakes and correct misapprehensions.

Did you get déjà vu now? If you did there is more in store.

Yet there is this novelty in the Soviet system. A living religion is enforced by the massed large-scale propaganda of a scientific age, by machine guns and airplanes, telephone and telegraph, printing press and film, broadcasting and the regimentation of all the arts. A hundred and sixty million human souls are by a gigantic system of governmental pressure hermetically sealed against the invasion of unwelcome truth. All previous experiments in tyranny recorded in human annals pale beside this colossal achievement.

The above is an excerpt from the book “A History of Europe” by H. A. L. Fisher, first quoted in a New York Times editorial and subsequently by Yarros, critiquing this quote is the main focus of the rest of the text.

On the topic of “scientific propaganda”, Yarros writes that of course the Soviet Union uses scientific methods and instruments in its propaganda effort, for the same reason they used the most modern war machinery in World War II, and all governments do the same thing.

In response to the accusations of censorship of foreign newspapers, Yarros justifies it as necessary because of the brazen lies and distortions Western journalists often present. He further rejects the term “iron curtain”, alleging enough impartial writers have been allowed to visit the Soviet Union, asking the questions and going the places they wish, to prove the term inaccurate.

Yarros concludes by stating the repressive nature of the Soviet regime is caused by Western threats of war and would go away if it was reassured of peace and non-intervention.

Leaflets over Congress

Laura Houghtaling Ingalls (1893-1967) was an American pilot remembered for a range of aviation achievements made from the 1930’s onwards.

Ingalls set several acrobatic flying records and was the first female aviator to fly coast to coast across the United States. In 1934 she completed a 16,000 mile circuit above South America and the West Indies as the first American woman to fly over the Andes mountains.3

In addition to her aviation career Ingalls was a prominent member of the “Women’s National Committee to Keep the United States Out of War”, an activist organization founded by Catherine Curtis with a goal to keep the USA from entering the Second World War.

On September 26., 1939, a week after the founding of the committee, Laura Ingalls dropped “peace pamphlets” on its behalf from her plane above the Capitol Building in Washington D.C. The leaflets were addressed to “all members of congress”, but circumstances caused them to land closer to the White House.

After the incident, Ingalls got in trouble for illegally dropping objects from her plane and violating restricted airspace. The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) threatened to revoke her license, but the case was eventually dropped.456

Two years later, in December of 1941, Laura Ingalls was arrested on suspicion of being a secret agent and spreading propaganda for Nazi Germany.

The FBI claimed to posses evidence Miss Ingalls made several trips to Washington D.C. to meet deputies of “the Reich” and that she received payments from German officials starting August 1., 1941.7

At Ingalls’ trial Dr. I. Daniel Shorell, a plastic surgeon claiming to have operated on her the previous year, testified that she wore a Swastika pendant and called Hitler a “marvelous man” while staying at his hospital.

Another witness, an airport manager named Dudley Steele, corroborates the doctor’s testimony, saying Ingalls made similar remarks to him and her statements shocked him so profoundly he “made notes on” the conversation.8

On February 13., 1942, Ingalls was found guilty of failing to register as a foreign agent with the State Department by a Federal District Court, seven days later she was given a sentence of eight months to two years in prison.910

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“Secret Armies: The New Technique of Nazi Warfare” (1939) is a book by American journalist John L. Spivak.

The cover features an inconspicuous man casting the shadow of a German solider with rifle, helmet and infantry backpack on the wall. It is meant to illustrate the danger of foreign agents.

In the introduction, Spivak cites a quote falsely attributed to Nationalist general Emilio Mola about a “fifth column”, consisting of spies and propagandists, that would be most important in seizing Madrid during the Spanish Civil War.

Spivak uses the quote to prove that the Fascists have always mastered subterfuge and with this book he seeks to expose a secret war the Axis powers have been waging against democratic countries.

Czechoslovakia

Spivak opens the first chapter, “Czechoslovakia—Before The Carving”, by writing that infiltration by Gestapo agents played a key role in both Austria and Czechoslovakia before the incorporation of their territories into Nazi Germany.

The rest of the chapter is spent establishing the Gestapo as an insidious covert propaganda and sabotage agency, dwelling deeply into its methods and goals.

Spivak cites the Henlein party and Sudeten German organizations generally as recruitment sources for the Gestapo in Czechoslovakia. Their loyalty to Germany makes them natural spreaders of Nazi propaganda and a good foothold for German influence.

The highlight of the chapter is an anecdote about an inexperienced agent named Arno Oertel receiving a new assignment from Richter, his Gestapo overseer.

Oertel is instructed to make his way to Prague and presumably begin disrupting local anti-fascist groups. Richter reassures him the German Consul will get him extradited if caught. However, he also issues him a cyanide pill for dire situations.

Oertel’s first point of contact in Czechoslovakia is Anna Suchy, a Sudeten German Nazi and prominent member of the “Deutscher Volksbund”. Richter tells Oertel she will direct him to his second handler.

When reporting to “Frau” Suchy, Oertel is given a date and time he is to meet another Gestapo agent by the fountain at Karlsplatz in Prague who will give him further instructions.

At the designated time Oertel sits on a bench at Karlsplatz watching the fountain. A man in a gray suit with a blue handkerchief hanging out of the front pocket approaches. The handkerchief being a clue Oertel was to identify his contact by.

They exchange passphrases and then the other agent sits down. He tells Oertel his second intermediary is an English missionary named Robert Smith.

Spivak concludes by explaining that the missionary in question is a Church of Scotland minister and is known to arrange for German women to be employed as housekeepers for government officials and military officers in Britain.

The specificity of the Arno Oertel account is extraordinary, containing not only exact words, but also facial expressions and internal monologue. These details could impossibly have been obtained by Spivak and must be read as dramatic embellishments.

The Panama Canal

In chapter five, “Surrounding the Panama Canal”, Spivak writes about espionage conducted by the Fascist powers, especially Japan, in preparation of sabotaging or capturing the Panama Canal in the event of war with the US.

Spivak opens the chapter by narrating a visit he made to a local shirt shop in Colón, Panama. The black and red shingle on the roof spell out that it belongs to Lola Osawa, a Japanese immigrant.

The shop hardly carries any stock and the two young girls ostensibly employed there do not work and are disinterested in making a sale, even when Spivak walks in and tries to buy a shirt.

What is even more peculiar is that someone, described by Spivak as a West Indian boy, takes pictures from across the street of anyone nosing around the shop. The author himself was photographed when entering the shop.

Spivak is not clear on what role the boy plays in the operation inside the suspicious store. What he is described doing seems too conspicuous to serve any security or intelligence purpose.

However, at one point Spivak refers to the boy as a “lookout”, implying he is keeping an eye out to see if the authorities are catching on.

Spivak says the proprietor’s real name is Chiyo Morasawa and she has been a Japanese agent for more than 10 years. “Lola Osawa”, seamstress and shop owner, is nothing more than a false identity.

Her real task is to harbor photographs of military importance taken by her husband until they can be sent back to Japan.

Spivak says this is just one of many false businesses set up as cover for Japanese intelligence in the immediate surroundings of the Panama Canal.

They are characterized by not having enough business to make rent, but still managing to remain open even in the more expensive parts of town.

They are also usually staffed by Japanese immigrants who seem to be staying in Panama indefinitely, but for one reason or another did not bring family nor seek to establish one.

Multiple such businesses of the same type can be operating in one city, far exceeding local demand. According to Spivak there are eight Japanese barber shops in Colón and 47 in Panama City.

In Panama City there is even a labor union open only to Japanese barbers. What is strange about the union is when a new barber arrives from Japan it gives them money for rent and equipment, effectively setting up competition.

Spivak surmises the union was erected to hold meetings between Japanese spies, something confirmed by the secrecy surrounding its gatherings and the attendance of Japanese diplomats.

Friends of the New Germany

After chapter five subsequent chapters are more interwoven and tell a progressive narrative about Nazi subversion in the United States.

A reoccurring actor is “Friends of the New Germany”, an organization spreading German propaganda in the United States. It was founded by Edwin Emerson, a former American Colonel and war correspondent known for his “patriotism”.

The organization got off to a bad start because its early propaganda was too transparently pro-Hitler and repulsive to people not already persuaded by Fascism.

It made the mistake of having participants in “storm trooper” uniform present at rallies, which alienated ordinary Americans and stirred public backlash against its events.

Due to these initial blunders Emerson was recalled to Germany for further public relations training and a harsh reprimand from his superiors.

Spivak writes that while most propaganda material used by pro-Nazi groups in America arrives through mail, some is smuggled in by ship.

The chief redistributor of smuggled propaganda in the USA is Guenther Orgell, at the time replacing Emerson as head of Friends of the New Germany.

Spivak narrates one particular evening when Orgell visits a German ship named “Europa” and belonging to “North German Lloyd”:

It is twenty minutes to ten, March 16., 1934. The ship is scheduled to leave New York City for Europe at midnight. It is crowded not only with passengers, but also with friends and family seeing them off.

Orgell is dressed in a business suit and carries a folded newspaper. He makes his way to the library where there is a German post office and meets with the postmaster

Despite the presence of other visitors, Orgell casually hands over four unstamped letters, which the postmaster puts in his pocket. These letters contain reports about espionage and propaganda activities to be sent to Germany.

Orgell sits down at a desk and writes yet another letter. Spivak surmises it contains information so sensitive Orgell did not dare prepare it ahead of time least it be lost or stolen.

After finishing the letter Orgell hands it to the postmaster and receives a thin package in return, which he hides in his newspaper and leaves.

Journalist & NKVD-Agent

A surprising fact about Spivak is while he was uncovering Nazi subversion as a journalist and warning against propaganda from Fascist countries, he himself was secretly a Communist and agent for the Soviet Union.1

This is revealed in “Spies: The Rise and Fall of the KGB in America” (2009) by John Earl Haynes, Harvey Klehr and Alexander Vassiliev.

Spivak was known under the cover name “Grin” and was referred to by it in decrypted messages from the Venona project. He is also implicated as an agent in several NKVD documents. Spivak helped the NKVD by investigating German and Japanese intelligence in the US, as well as keeping an eye on the Trotskyists.2

These revelations might seem to put the credibility of Spivak’s exposés in doubt. However, it was Spivak who funneled information to the NKVD, not the other way around, and the caliber of his work is likely what attracted the agency to him in the first place.

There is no evidence Spivak was a disinformation agent hired to spread a series of cooked up Nazi plots to bolster far-left anti-fascism.

Despite Spivak’s public denial of being a Communist, he largely wrote for and was promoted by Socialist newspapers and magazines.

I first discovered “Secret Armies” in an issue of “Soviet Russia Today”, a magazine from the 1930’s, on a Soviet Archive website.3

It was listed on a mail order form among other Socialist and anti-fascist publications. The title intrigued me and I was inspired to write this essay.

Hybrid Warfare Today

The term “hybrid warfare” gained prominence after the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 and even more so after the 2016 US presidential election. The concept is often thought to be a product of the Information Age and invented by Russia.

However, Spivak expresses a similar concept in his book, where he writes about a “new type of warfare” based on infiltration and propaganda.

If Crimea was an act of hybrid aggression, what about “Anschluss” with Austria or the partition of Czechoslovakia? In the latter case the invasion was justified as a necessary intervention because of the dire situation in the country.

Spivak describes the relationship between the United States and Germany after the Spanish Civil War as a state of undeclared war, primarily waged by the latter against the former.

The civil war is seen as a result of a covert campaign by the Gestapo to flip the country from Democratic to Fascist.

Spivak fears the Fascists can repeat the trick elsewhere and his book mostly distinguishes areas where he thinks they are using General Mola’s supposed “fifth column” formula to either turn the country outright or render it incapable of resistance.

In this perspective maneuvering for an economic advantage by establishing trade routes for strategic resources becomes “economic warfare”, recruiting members to a military alliance becomes “diplomatic warfare” and disseminating propaganda to justify a casus belli or spread the state ideology becomes “information warfare”.

All of these elements are found throughout the menagerie of Fascists plots presented in “Secret Armies” and they are also key components of what is called hybrid war today.

Spivak grapples with a feeling of being at war with a hostile country before open battle has begun and his work should be seen as a primordial understanding of hybrid warfare.

The age of his book, written more than 84 years ago, should also challenge the idea of the concept as a modern phenomenon.

If you enjoyed this essay I recommend you read “Secret Armies” for yourself. It is available both at The Project Gutenberg and Internet Archive.

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The Oasis Theory is a political theory presupposing political groups center around power first and ideology second.

The power can be economic, military or informational. A node usually has one primary type of power which it uses to acquire one or more of the others, for example a business hiring a PR agency or a newspaper encouraging people to take up arms against the government.

The areas closest to power are the most populated and the further away the sparser the population gets. “Population” in this context means the presence of political parties, think tanks, etc.

Pursuing an idea too far away is like living in the desert where the soil is cracking and nothing will grow, which is why people flock to the fertile ground surrounding a source of power like an oasis.

This adds another layer on top of the classical political map, one might still use the left-right and authoritarian-libertarian spectrums like the cardinal points on a compass. However, one should not imagine the landscape evenly occupied or its ekistics as a lengthy conurbation with a smooth gradient of opinion.

The political landscape has always been largely empty. In days past the inhabitants lived in isolated settlements scattered across the sands, but since the arrival of mass communication the tendency has been convergence.

In the modern infoscape, just like in American politics, there are only two rival oases constantly at war. In recent years they have been at each other’s throat about Covid and the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

In Oasis Theory these two camps are named the Light and Dark Oasis. They each have their own information ecosystems known under several names. I call them the Sun and Moon media, but you are probably more familiar with the adjectives “mainstream” and “alternative”.

The Myth of the Political Center

There is no such thing as a Centrist. All that exists are tepid Leftists and Rightists, or in Oasis Theory terms: acolytes of the Light and Dark Oasis.

Those who try surviving in the no man’s land between the oases never last long. Not only do they have few friends, but are also bombarded by both sides. We are all forced to pick our faction, so that there is someone who will not attack us.

Some might want to settle in the periphery and they might also be indifferent to the enemy. These are the things people usually mean when they call themselves Centrists, but even though they do not feel at home in their oasis they still live there.

The rival oases are not evenly matched. The Light Oasis is more powerful than the Dark Oasis. The Light is also the most cohesive, while the Dark is relatively disorganized.

The Light Oasis is popular enough to be selective with applicants. They have plenty of staff for all of their institutions. They even have enough to let different niches have their own stuff and act like independent branches.

The Dark Oasis is born out of competing groups pooling resources because they are too small to thrive alone. Its adherents straddle the Left-Right axis and many other divides. They are more united by being against the Light than anything else.

This asymmetry is the origin of the coalescence into two camps, because in the Information Age everyone is within reach and enemies not taking refuge in the Dark Oasis are destroyed.

The Dark Oasis and Russia

Russia is correctly perceived as a member of the Dark Oasis, but their role within it is often misunderstood. Many hold them to be its leader and source of the narratives informing its actions, but in reality they are a minor participant.

The Dark Oasis, like the Light, is controlled by its collective unconscious, which is an aggregate of the biases, feelings and interests of its adherents. This unconsciousness helps its followers separate friend from foe and spurs them to propagate it without their knowledge.

Although all constituents contribute to the collective mind, some have more influence than others. The trunk of the Light Oasis is located in the United States, with roots extending primarily through the anglosphere and to a lesser degree the rest of the world.

Weirdly, the Dark Oasis’s center of gravity is not found in either Russia or China. It is located in the same place, the USA, with tendrils extending in similar directions. How does this make sense?

The United States is the world’s mightiest nation militarily, economically and informationally. The country is so strong that its opposition is more powerful than the ruling party in Moscow or Beijing.

The denizens of the anglosphere are also better acquainted with the Light Oasis’s ideology, which makes dissenters more qualified and motivated.

All in all, America is more at war with its own shadow than any foreign government.

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“Treason never prosper. What’s the reason? For if it prosper none dare call it treason.” - Sir John Harrington, 1561-1612.

“None Dare Call it Treason” (1964) is a Cold War anti-communist book written by American pastor John A. Stormer.

It reads like a “CliffsNotes” retelling of the Cold War, dipping into familiar events such as the Cuban Missile Crisis, 1960 U-2 incident and the John F. Kennedy assassination and interpreting them through the lense of Cold War anti-communism, derogatorily called “McCarthyism”.

Communist Infiltration in America

The first chapter, “Have We Gone Crazy?”, underlines the gravity of the Cold War, stating it has already cost more lives than any “hot” war in history.

The author claims the Communists are winning on all fronts, citing China, Korea and Cuba as examples, and is frustrated with the weakness of the United States.

While the Communists are gearing up for the next world war, US diplomats are wasting time with empty disarmament negotiations and the military is woefully underequipped.

Not only is the US government not doing enough to fight the Communists, but there are also people within it who, unwittingly or knowingly, do quite a bit to help them.

The most common form of collaboration, according to Stormer, is to funnel money or goods to the Soviet Union or Communist-aligned states via foreign aid programs.

Through such programs Czechoslovakia has received nuclear reactors, Bulgaria new railway lines and Poland a 2.5 million dollar “loan” to build Vladimir Lenin Steelworks.

While most contributions are of a “humanitarian” nature, meant to help civilians and build peaceful relations with Communist countries, some practices, such as the reselling of American military surplus at rock-bottom prices, directly strengthen hostile armies.

Stormer brings up an egregious example where a bunch of “obsolete” F-86 Jet Fighters were resold to Yugoslavia for a mere $10,000 a piece, which amounts to roughly $100,000 adjusted for inflation.

Another form of subversion is the manipulation of American foreign policy decision-making.

The author alleges that the State Department is plagued with such activity to the extent that it has effectively become a nest for enemy spies.

Stormer says Fidel Castro’s rise to power in Cuba would have been impossible were it not for the department’s failings, in particular he blames William Arthur Weiland.

Stormer says Weiland, as head of the State Department’s Office of Caribbean affairs, buried intelligence reports stating Castro was a Communist, something Castro himself, at the time, denied.

He laments that Weiland was later promoted, despite his views of Castro having been disproven, and nonetheless to a committee revising the department’s security practices.

Anti-Anti-Communism

We have all been told of the relentless purges of the Red Scare, with a lot of people, especially in the education system and entertainment industry, being fired on the wrongful accusation of being Communists.

However, Stormer portrays the US government as disinterested in removing anyone from office on the allegation of Communist-sympathies, no matter how well founded it may be.

On the contrary, he claims being too fiercely anti-communist is more likely to lead to your dismissial, especially in the military.

In chapter 4, “Words vs. Action”, Stormer cites multiple incidents where planned military anti-communist training programs were cancelled or went ahead, but the arranger was later punished.

In one instance an officer was removed for showing the film “Operation Abolition”, an anti-communist documentary by the House Committee on Un-American Activities (HCUA).

In another Don Caron, a forest ranger for the department of Agriculture, was forced to choose between his government job and position as a columnist for an anti-communist newspaper.

One could be forgiven for thinking that these examples are isolated incidents and that dismissal for anti-communism only happens to people of no significance or that the administration wanted to get rid of anyway, but one case contradicts this view.

In chapter 3, Stormer talks about World War II veteran and general Douglas MacArthur who was removed from command during the Korean War, ostensibly for violating a “gag order”, but Stormer claims there was more to it.

When North Korea invaded South Korea on June 25th, 1950 general MacArthur was put in charge of the American intervention. He managed to halt the Communist’s rapid advance and eventually cut off their supply lines at Inchon, forcing the invaders back to the Chinese border.

Yet, the war was far from over.

MacArthur was under strict orders not to conduct strikes inside Chinese territory to avoid provoking a “hot war” against China and possibly the Soviet Union.

This rendered the enemy’s bases and supplies off-limits and prevented the US military from advancing.

From that point on the US could no longer win, just not lose against wave after wave of Chinese “volunteers” who where allowed to resupply on the other side of the Yalu river, before crossing back into Korea.

According to Stormer, this angered MacArthur and while he kept quiet at first, in the end he got vocal about the ridiculous limitations imposed from Washington.

Stormer cites similar critiques raised by MacArthur’s successors, general James Van Fleet went as far as saying the “Rules of Engagement” forced on American troops must have been leaked to the enemy and points the finger at “high diplomatic authorities”.

Stormer concludes the real reason MacArthur was reassigned wasn’t violating a presidential gag order, but at best because he bruised the ego of “appeasement-happy” State Department desk jockeys and at worst because he was perceived as a threat by knowing traitors.

The Media And The JFK Assassination

In chapter 8, “The Press, Radio and TV”, Stormer adresses the media’s role in the Communist conspiracy, saying that while politicians and bureaucrats are the ones undermining the nation, they wouldn’t get away with it if the media had diligently cast light on their treason.

Stormer accuses the media of failing to expose security risks in the appointment of public officials, either by not covering the issue or outright sabotaging those who do.

For example, the media was silent when Secretary of Labor Arthur J. Goldberg was appointed supreme court justice, despite, according to Stormer, having served as chapter president for a Communist controlled lawyers guild and appointed another suspected Communist to a government position.

Stormer further says media coverage of anti-communist organizations, such as the John Birch Society or Christian Anti-Communism Crusade, is invariable negative, with JBS generally portrayed as an object of mockery and CACC-founder Fred Schwarz a con artist cashing-in on a gullible audience.

Having spoken at length about the omission of the Communist threat to American security, Stormer broadens the topic to left-wing media bias in general.

He says the rise of “interpretive reporting” has removed the objective point of view expected of journalists in the past, allowing them to insert their own opinion.

The justification is that it allows experienced journalists to add context the average reader doesn’t have, but Stormer explains this presents a problem when an ultra-liberal reporter covers the speech of a conservative speaker, or vice versa.

In that case they might perceive the speaker as dishonest and feel the need to substitute their “correction” instead, perhaps omitting the crux of the speakers argument in the process.

Stormer cites Willard Edwards, a journalist for the Chicago Tribune, as stating that 90% of the press corps where not only opposed to Richard Nixon, but actively supportive of John F. Kennedy when they faced off in the 1960 presidential election.

On the topic of Kennedy, John A. Stormer says the press coverage of the JFK assassination is the most glaring example of left-wing media bias, proclaiming it an issue about which “volumes could and should be written”.

He blames the media for distorting the case to hide the killer’s motive, making it appear unclear or that the act was purely a result of mental illness, when in reality Harvey Lee Oswald, a known Communist, assassinated the president as an act of left-wing terrorism.

Stormer writes that while the media reports extensively on right-wing violence, the story of a far-left assassin was too inconvenient, so the JFK assassination had to be left “unsolved” in the public mind.

Was The Conspiracy Real?

In this review I have strived to keep my own opinions out and present Stormer’s book as authentically as possible, the goal was to give a sympathetic look inside the “McCarthyite” worldview that has been so maligned.

Though, I think it’s worth weighting in on which claims I find reasonable and which can rightly be dismissed as conspiratorial.

On the topic of Communist infiltration I think the accusations of treason and espionage made by Stormer, Schwarz and others were more accurate than they have been given credit for.

It seems some prominent leftists, like Alger Hiss, had a credible case against them, but were given favorable treatment by the media and left-wing bureaucracies because of their status as champions in the Culture War.

But it also seems ridiculous to claim that whole branches of government, such as the public school system or State Department, where captured by Communists to the extent that it was the patriots who had to tread carefully.

In terms of the Red Scare I think Stormer is correct in saying it was never as one-sided as it has been made out to be.

Anti-communism was always a “redneck” issue in the eyes of the Press and Big City Liberals in general, limiting its cultural impact

There were official investigation committees, such as the HCUA or the Reece Committee, but these where widely derided as “crackpot” institutions and condemned by members of Congress.

It was usually Conservative business-owners who had accused Communists fired, their hand was seldom forced by public outrage. Additionally, left-wing politicians didn’t hesitate to sack public employees “witch-hunting” their allies.

In closing, I think the most significant takeaway is Stormer’s analysis of the JFK assassination.

Harvey Lee Oswald was indeed a Communist, and though Stormer doesn’t mention it he also tried to “defect” to Soviet Russia.

If you are crazy enough to (unsuccessfully) try moving behind the Iron Curtain, you are definitely crazy enough to kill the American president because he is a “dirty Capitalist”.

Oswald’s guilt isn’t all that surprising of a conclusion, he is the one who got arrested on the day of the crime after all.

What is more surprising is how clouded such a simple issue has become and I think Stormer is right to blame bias.

Prior to the assassination the media had painted anti-communism as a “hillbilly” issue and hostile to freedom of the press, so the headline “A Communist killed JFK” wasn’t exactly appetizing.

While I did hear about the JFK assassination growing up, however I never learned Oswald was confirmed to be a “left-wing extremist”, in fact it was not until reading this book I finally made the connection.

Stay in touch by following me on Twitter, @Disinfology.

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Concerns over Russian disinformation have grown in recent years and a sprawling counter-disinformation industry has popped up to combat it.

Where does this fear come from and how warranted is it?

The Enemy as Mirror

In any ideology, of equal importance to its own principles and raison d'être is its understanding of the opposition and what motivates them.

This understanding is largely informal, but there could be one or more books about it.

Sometimes there is even a professional class tasked with researching the opposition and making material about it available to other believers.

In whatever form, an ideology’s understanding of its enemies constitutes its “Enemyology”.

During the Cold War we had “Kremlinology”, which incidentally matches the “enemy + ology” composition, except it substitutes the name of the specific enemy it’s countering.

Today, there is an ascending “Disinfology” concerned with the propagation and characteristics of disinformation.

The fuel behind such academized Enemyologies is their indulgence of the human tendency to use the enemy as a mirror.

I am not referring to Freudian projection, I don’t mean that we call the enemy a liar because we ourself are liars and know it deep down.

No, I mean we imagine the enemy as an inversion of the values most important to us and our core skills as the most effective way to fight back.

This is why most disinfologists are caffè latte enjoying journalists and bloggers waging war from their laptops, instead of army reservists or intelligence officers.

The “fake news” panic has more to do with positioning one’s own side as truthful and organic than it has to do with defense policy.

How Effective is Propaganda?

You might think the reason I am not worried about Russian propaganda is that I don’t believe it exists, but that’s incorrect.

While there are a lot of false claims out there, I can see how Russia would want to influence public opinion about their foreign policy.

My argument is that Russia doesn’t have the prerequisites to manufacture convincing propaganda for Western audiences.

Their main obstacle is the “empathy gap”.

A term of my own invention, referring to the asymmetry between two points of view in their ability empathize with each other.

In any conflict only one side can have an accurate theory of mind for the opposition. If you are wrong about external reality, you must necessarily also be wrong about the internal reality of those who are right.

Imagine a patriarchal society indoctrinating women to believe in their own inferiority.

The man writing the anti-woman propaganda would be limited by his own beliefs about women. If he believes women are dumb, his writings for women will reflect this and be written to explain the realities of the world to a dumb person, not trick a smart person into thinking they’re dumb.

In any patriarchal society there would probably be a class of “expert” on the nature of women and their behavior, a sort of social and psychological “gynecologist”.

However, if the patriarchal ideology overall is wrong it’s a given that its gynecology is also incorrect, e.g. its explanation for why women refuse to conform can’t match reality.

This is the same problem a Russian “Occidentalist” tasked with developing propaganda aimed at Westerners would face.

In order to deceive someone you must be able to look both inside and around them, your perspective must transcend theirs.

The Russian point of view does not transcend what is generally called “democracy” in the West. This is because Russia isn’t post-liberal, they are stuck somewhere between traditionalism and modernity with “Russian characteristics”.

Throwing pre-liberal objections to Liberalism at modern liberals doesn’t work, because they will likely know the accusation is false or reject the premise entirely.

The Riddle of Pro-Russianism

The disinfo scare is not inexplicable considering Russia has a similar fear of the United States.

Russia is perpetually paranoid about American interference and has passed multiple laws prohibiting the spreading of “disinformation”.

Censorship has increased since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, not long after the start of the war Roskomsvoboda, an open internet advocacy group, published an article to the effect that the impending crackdown threatened to send Russia back to the Samizdat1 age.

There is even a class of disinfologists in Russia as well and their theories are very similar to those in the West, which naturally makes them easy to take out of context as evidence of what the Russians are planning, instead of what they are fearing.

One thing that is surprising however, is how quickly the tables have turned in Western discourse.

It used to be that accusations about false news and secret influence from intelligence agencies were only leveled by conspiracy websites and the rest of the heterodox media against the mainstream.

And while those still make those allegations, they are frequently thrown right back at them by journalists from the orthodox press.

I am sure they enjoy their revenge.

Stay in touch by following me on Twitter, @disinfology.

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This essay isn’t about how disinformation is black magic, it’s about how those who fear it treat it as if it was and why they’re wrong.

Why Black Magic?

Black magic might seem like a weird term, but the comparison is fitting.

It evokes the image of something sinister, bypassing the laws of discourse and putting those it touches under its spell.

This matches how the effects of “fake news” is often portrayed, the story goes something like this:

One moment your brother sits next to you by the campfire, the next they stray from its protecting light and venture into the dark forest.

Upon their return there is something off about them, while they wandered the narrow, leafy trails it got to them.

“It” not being a bewitched oak tree with fairy fire in its belly and three deer skulls for a head, but disinformation.

But how accurate is this narrative?

To describe the mechanics of the mind, I have invented something called the law of conservation of information, abbreviated “LCI”.

It resembles the law of conservation of energy, although unlike energy, information can be created or at least enter new minds, therefore the LCI simply reads: “Information can’t be destroyed”.

You laugh, but let me explain.

My worldview has changed a lot and I have learned that letting go of a cherished belief never feels like you thought it would when you still held it.

You feel shattered, but after taking inventory you see that the world still stands. Not only are its old fixtures there, but the horizon has expanded.

Conversion feels less like changing sides and more like realizing you have been on a different one all along.

Experiences like these makes me doubt that disinformation can take possession of someone or make them no longer themselves.

The Light of Truth

Nonetheless, this perceived menace has spawned an army of disinformation experts fighting back.

These are white witches and warlocks protecting the innocent villagers from the cursed oak tree and the malicious influence spreading through its gnarly roots.

What drives these brave souls?

Despite frequent, slanderous allegations from those who have partaken of the oak tree’s sinful sap, they aren’t in it for the money or narcissistic prestige.

In their war against the oak tree, the white magicians spend a lot of time studying its lore and battle tactics. Its dark becoming the foil to their light.

Disinformation experts are invigorated by their attacks on disinformation, because identifying what it is also defines what they are not.

Another reason the counter-disinformation field thrives is that humans are terrible at imagining how incorrect beliefs can form organically, shifting blame to an agent in the Kremlin who intentionally fabricated it removes this dissonance.

Fear that deviation from the established truths of the community stems not from rational disagreement, but “influence” directed by external forces has always been with us.

Its original form was demons sowing heretical thoughts to lead believers away from God, in the 60’s and 70’s it morphed into the counter-cult movement and “brainwashing” panic.

There were likely a couple of bewitched oak trees in there too, but I think it’s time to shelve that analogy.

It culminates in our time as “Russian disinformation” and attempts to censor it on social media.

What’s paradoxical about the latter, is that the counter-disinformation crowd themselves are regular consumers.

If a disinformation researcher can spend a working week looking at disinformation without succumbing to its corrupting influence, what danger is a glance from the rest of us?

The Price of Fear

It might seem odd to worry about a disinformation ban, but this new moral panic has its price.

We might lose the learning value found in wrong opinions.

Having studied a range of worldviews, I think I am richer from the journey, than if someone had laid the correct answer in front of me.

Even without governmental or corporate censorship popularizing accusations of “disinformation” or “propaganda” could hurt the discourse, because it encourages people to emphasis the origin of a claim rather than its veracity.

This is known as the “genetic fallacy” actually.

While vested interests matter and should be exposed, they do not disprove a statement and most assertions can be attributed to a dishonest motive if you try.

If someone successfully delegitimizes a claim by labelling it “disinformation”, that then becomes a win condition and everyone will want to use it against their opponents.

Over time the word “disinformation” will lose its meaning and become synonymous with information the speaker disapproves of. In fact, just a few years into the “disinformation age” we are a good stretch down this road.

Propaganda and OSINT are definitely “trendy” fields to claim expertise in and they are degraded by being such easy sources of authority and relevance.

Disinformation has also ceased to mean narratives planted by hostile state actors and the ragtag claims that occupy the label now don’t share a common origin or means of propagation setting them apart from other beliefs, at least not any that aren’t incredibly tenuous.

Stay in touch by following me on Twitter, @disinfology.

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It has already become harder to be a dissident in the West and as social unrest grows through the winter it will probably get even worse.

With censorship on the rise it’s necessary to review the rules of engagement so we stay safe in these difficult times.

Some Dare Call It Treason

The war in Ukraine is in its 7th month and is unlikely to end any time soon.

At the very least I am expecting it to see its first anniversary and at the opposite end I fear a five year ordeal with a massive loss of life and several cycles of polarization in the West.

Most people in the dissident sphere are convinced Russia will win, however I am not so sure. I think we have more war ahead of than behind us and it could go either way.

Besides, is Russian victory even a good thing?

The greater threat Russia poses the more important suppressing real or imagined Russian collaboration will be.

We are already at the point where all major dissenting narratives are assumed to be Kremlin-backed and this will likely apply in relation to the American midterms in November and general malaise during the winter.

You might say the worst they could do is close social media accounts and I believe that will be 90% of the response.

However, Britain freezing Graham Phillips’ assets and Germany confiscating Alina Lipp’s money in retaliation for covering Donbass gives cause for concern.

It’s about time we established some safety measures to protect ourselves against further crackdowns.

Media Discipline

I recommend all dissidents stop writing for or republishing articles with the following:

1. Genuinely Russia state-affiliated media, such as RT or Sputnik.

2. Eurasianist or Russian separatist websites such as Geopolitika or Donbass Insider.

3. Outlets that frequently quote Russian government agencies, politicians or military staff in an affirmative manner.

The negatives of having bylines in these places far exceed the positives at the moment. Unless you are looking to end up on a “Russian propagandists” list, stay away!

In regards to 3., I am not referring to everyone who ever cited a Russian source or criticized NATO’s role in Ukraine, I am talking about websites that are littered with Maria Zakharova quotes or primarily cover Russian foreign policy.

In addition to not writing for Russian media, it’s probably best not to cite them.

Backing up your argument with an article from Russia Today or Sputnik probably won’t get you very far, if it does the person you are speaking to is likely already a dissident.

If you need a link stick to Western dissident outlets, however it’s better to relay on yourself. You need to make your own case, not leave it to others to do it for you.

Look for internal contradictions or leaps of logic in your opponent’s argument, reason with them and let them decide for themselves if you make valid points.

Psychological Warfare

Angry or fearful speech is more likely to look ridiculous than add weight to your arguments in the eyes of opponents who aren’t convinced the issue is something to get upset about.

For this reason it’s important to manage your emotions when engaging in online debates or information warfare in general.

In this instance, managing your emotions means to stay as emotionally uninvolved as possible.

Emotional involvement can be divided into three levels:

1. Emotional Distance

2. Ironic Distance

3. Emotional involvement

Emotional distance means you are in a headspace that is neither angry, sad or fearful in relation to the positions and arguments put forth by your opponent.

It also means you are not invested in the outcome of the discussion, you present your case in a “take it or leave it” fashion and are content to walk away should the recipient refuse it.

This is the most effective frame of mind and should be maintained above the other two whenever possible.

Ironic distance sits somewhere between emotional distance and involvement. You are still in the safe zone, but are sliding towards the edge.

In ironic distance mode you are experiencing spells of anger, but are able to resist taking it out on your opponent by using jokes or sarcasm as a defense mechanism.

If you are getting progressively more sarcastic throughout the conversation, this is a sign to step back and possibly abandon the discussion.

Emotional involvement means your opponent inflicted an emotional wound and you are no longer able to present logical arguments.

This is a breakdown of emotion management and as good as defeat in psychological warfare, your only option is to cut your losses and retreat.

Geopolitics Won’t Save Us

The war in Ukraine is now the nr. 1 dividing line in the culture war, even though it didn’t exist eight months ago.

More and more dissidents are placing their faith in Russia, seeing the country as a savior that will cause the downfall of the West.

This sets them up for a massive disappointment should Russia lose, something we already had a taste of with the Kharkiv offensive.

The best decision we can make right now is to step away from this geopolitics thing.

We are all interconnected in terms of the economy and infrastructure. A winter deep freeze will hit dissidents just as hard as the establishment, if not more so.

In addition, neither Russia nor any foreign power can reengineer Western democracies from the outside, that falls to us.

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Do you want to speak freely on platforms like Twitter or YouTube?

If yes, read on.

You might be wondering if there is a way to subvert the algorithm. I wouldn’t know, this guide is on subverting people.

But, I am getting ahead of myself.

Before we can defeat censorship we need to understand what it is and why people do it, in other words we need to ask: why does the censor censor?

Two Theories of Censorship

The popular image of censorship is that of Georg Orwell’s “1984”, where The Ministry of Truth deliberately publishes propaganda it knows to be false and suppresses facts it knows to be true.

The loyalty of the ministry’s employees is ensured through “doublethink”, the act of holding two opposing beliefs at the same time.

E.g. The Party has the right to rewrite history, but also history has never been rewritten.

In short, “1984” claims censorship is about suppressing information that contradicts an officially sanctioned worldview.

We might call this the control theory of censorship.

But, is that it or is there another explanation?

A different way of looking at censorship is as a means of protecting revered individuals, institutions or objects from insult. In this view censorship is an act of outrage, similar to a believer seeing the defilement of an idol or tempel.

Let’s call this the taboo theory of censorship.

According to the taboo theory, information is not suppressed because it contradicts accepted truths, but because it implies disparagement of sacred persons or things.

On the surface the two theories seem about equal, most expressions predicted to be censored by the control theory would also be expected to be banned under the taboo theory.

In an authoritarian state, negative assertions about the dictator could be interpreted both as a factual challenge to the regime ideology proclaiming their infallibility and a social indiscretion violating their elevated status.

So, which is correct? The control theory or the taboo theory?

Comparing & Contrasting

The control theory requires that the censor is willing to suppress information they know to be true, but if they know it’s true, why suppress it?

If a loyalist admits evidence refuting the state ideology exist, they aren’t a loyalist anymore and would have no more desire to prevent the regime’s downfall than the dissident they would be censoring, correct?

For this reason, I don’t believe the control theory could apply outside the dictator and their inner circle, the rank and file would need to believe censorship serves a different function.

The taboo theory doesn’t require the censor to know the information refutes anything, only that it angers them or would anger their fellow believers.

There are many examples of believers in a particular religion or political ideology demanding the quelling of criticism because they find it offensive, even if they don’t hold an esteemed rank, therefore taboo theory can readily apply to the average follower.

But how does taboo theory fare in relation to the dictator and their inner circle?

It’s conceivable that the dictator and those close to them are true believers only in their right to rule and not in the official ideology explaining how said rule is fair, justified and “for your own good” to the commoners.

However, it’s also possible that they see their wealth as fair payment for their hard work and their acts of oppression as deserved punishment for ungrateful subjects.

In this view censorship can be explained as a result of anger over having these beliefs challenged, even though they are sincerely held.

It might seem most reasonable to assume control theory is the way high-ranking members of the regime understand censorship and taboo theory is how low-ranking ones understand it, but is it?

If we could, in the spirit of Occam’s razor, use one explanation instead of two, why shouldn’t we?

On top of this I have a personal reluctance to attributing malice, because I see it as such a cop out, hence I lean towards taboo theory in most, if not all, cases.

Fighting Back

Now that the theory is down, let’s discuss how to apply it.

If Twitter was a “control theory”-style censorship regime, then all information contradicting the truths it was designed to protect would be banned and it wouldn’t help persuading the censors they are in the wrong, because they already know.

The platform, and those like it, would be impregnable to dissent.

However, “taboo theory”-style censorship is less strict in that it allows contradicting facts, as long as they aren’t also insulting or offensive.

For the dissident, the key to evading the censor’s wrath lies in countering the ruling narrative without disparaging its believers or their idols.

In saying a doctrine is false, but not that one is foolish for believing it. In denying an authority figure, but not declare them incompetent. In making sacred objects out to be trivial, but not proclaim them repugnant.

Good dissenting speech aims to remove positive traits from what is under critique, not impose negative ones.

Aether & Water

To say two things are “like fire and water” means that they are polar opposites and often implies volatility. In short, they don’t mix.

But what about aether and water?

Luminiferous aether, or just aether, was a substance theorized to exist during the 19th century, it was understood as a medium carrying light through space.

Aether was thought to be everywhere at once, but at the same time undetectable by most methods.

If fire and water are elements reacting violently when they collide, aether and water (or any physical substance) are elements that can’t touch, but glide through one another like a ghost through a wall.

This intangibility is a property information rebels should imitate in relation to the narrative police. Instead of seeking confrontation, they should remain inconspicuous and creep up on the regime like a slow poison.

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Betting Against Myself

Your favorite war correspondent was ready for a chill weekend, when they learned Amnesty had criticized Ukraine for endangering civilians.

At first, I thought nothing of it, I had finished my IW rubble picking for the week and was already writing a different next newsletter.

Surprisingly, the issue was not only still trending the next day, but seemed even more significant.

Judging by my Twitter timeline, the response from the pro-Ukraine sphere had grown more accusatory as well, with reactions being limited to disappointment on day one, but including allegations that “Amnesty spreads Russian disinformation” on day two.

The fallout caught my attention and I came to regard it as something I had to cover.

Problem was the issue was TOO BIG, everyone were already on board and the fever pitch of Twitter resembled an unfolding catastrophe.

Personal feelings aside, I expected a retraction within hours, and that by the time I got around to reading Amnesty’s report, it would only be available through a web archive, if at all.

That changed the following day, when yet again I saw #Amnesty trending, now for a third day in a row. It appeared a retraction wasn’t coming and that the issue would linger for at least the following week.

As I was about to check a Norwegian online newspaper (or “nettavis”) I made a bet with myself: if I see an article about the Amnesty allegations on the “front page”, I will drop everything to write a timely essay about it.

And sure enough, there it was and here we are.

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Endangering Civilians

On August 4th, Amnesty published a report stating Ukraine had endangered civilians by setting up military bases in residential areas, including schools and hospitals.

This didn’t come as a surprise to me, and no, not because I hate Ukraine.

I don’t believe they are fighting any less honorably than my own country, Norway, would have, should we be invaded by Russia.

It is because I know that, despite international law, keeping civilian and military targets completely separate is impossible.

Building a totally independent military infrastructure would be prohibitively expensive, twice as expensive as running a civilian society alone, assuming same cost for the military and civilian equivalents and that the nation requires a pair of everything.

There is a reason why there aren’t separate military bridges, train tracks or tunnels (in most cases) after all.

On top of that, even if the military has its own buildings, vehicles and production facilities in the beginning, that might change once the war starts.

If the enemy blew up the “military personell only” bridge, I think everyone would put the civilian one to military use, if it was still standing.

Further more, in a situation of hostile air superiority, sleeping in a building or driving a vehicle clearly marked “military” is as good as suicide, so I understand why anyone would want to avoid that.

Did Amnesty Get it Right?

Despite everything written above, I expect humanitarian organizations to be maximalists in these matters.

In my eyes, even when a liberal democracy is under investigation, a human rights score of less than 100/100 should not be atypical.

While the title understandably sounds defamatory to some, the body of the report makes it clear that Amnesty’s assessment of Ukraine is a “you don’t get an A+”-critique, not a condemnation of the country.

It’s kind of like having a mechanic inspect your car, even if it only has minor flaws and everyone is driving around in slightly crooked vehicles, their job is still to make a list of problems and advice you on how to fix them.

For these reasons, I still think Amnesty should have said what they said and I am glad they have not issued a retraction so far.

Takeaways

Nonetheless, I think the opposite is likely the version of events that will be remembered and that this controversy will hurt Amnesty in the long run.

The rebuttals from Ukrainian government officials and media outlets have been measured, at least in relation to the seriousness of the allegations.

Most also stopped at claiming Amnesty’s report was being exploited by Russian propaganda, not that it was intended as such.

However, in Western media and among non-Ukrainian Ukraine supporters, especially on Twitter, I think the truth might become that Amnesty was and still is a subverted organization, and that they “collaborate” with Russia in the most deliberate sense.

I fear the backlash over this report will make Amnesty and others less likely to speak out, and that in the future we won’t hear about the five percent of war crimes committed by the defending side, because it is “false equivalence” or “hides the full picture”.

As always, you are welcome to leave a comment.