Note: As you know, Karl Marx invented communism, or Marxism, while writing in the library of the British Museum. These days the library door, across from the main entrance, is blocked off—I checked.
Does social media have a soul? I ask because when Doctor Frankenstein created a soulless creature he cried, “I have created a monster!” But (in the book) no one else realized the monster existed—How lonely.
Hello Reader,
Got Russian trolls?
Question: What do the evil of communism, the troll farms of Russia, and the devil from hell have in common?
Easily Answered: Their main strength, historically, has been people not believing they exist.
Vladimir Lenin (the first marxist-communist leader of Russia) referred to “useful idiots.” He meant individuals in the western democracies who, not knowing the evil of communism, would support it.
Did you know Russians (Soviets) caused the Six Day War?
Did you know Russians (Soviets) caused the Six Day War?
I was a boy during the horrible, un-glorious, Six Day War between the democracy of Israel and the the folks who believed in dictatorships, folks surrounding Israel in the Middle East. There’s a reason (besides it being their watershed) why Israel still refuses to give up the Golan Heights, formerly Syrian, along the Syrian border. Here are two paragraphs from when Canada had been a state for a hundred years, 1967.
(Incidentally, Arab belief in dictatorship made it hard during World War II to persuade them to ally against Hitler and the Axis)
QUOTE
A consulting Soviet delegation met with Egyptian leaders on May 13, revealing that Israel had concentrated eleven to thirteen brigades in preparation for an imminent assault along the Syrian border.
When the Soviet claims came to light, Israel denied any military buildup or aggressive intent. Middle East peacekeeping forces, the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization, stationed on the Syrian border to safeguard Israel from Arab terrorist attacks, also denied the Soviet claims.
Days later, Syrian troops lined the Golan Heights, ready to respond to Israel’s imminent attack. Battle-ready, Nasser announced, “The Jews threaten to make war. I reply: Welcome! We are ready for war.” Jordan’s King Hussein signed on May 30, joining… the Iraqi president… His army then joined…
No longer waiting for the Israeli invasion, later revealed to be Soviet disinformation meant to destabilize the region…(bolding mine)
UNQUOTE
In those days, back before social media, the Russians (Soviets) used work-of-mouth for their disinformation.
What happened next was: After the Soviets propagated their fake news, the army buildup went on to include almost everybody in the region:
QUOTE “Algerian, Saudi Arabian, Iraqi, and Kuwaiti armies set station on the Egyptian, Syrian, and Jordanian fronts. A combined air force of 810 planes, 2, 880 tanks, and nearly half a million troops prepared for the battle of all battles…” UNQUOTE
Israel still exists as a state. She survived (footnote) by having her armed forces focus on only one front at a time, in an operation code named Moked, in English, “focus.”
Such a hellish waste of lives, that need not have happened. But at least the Russians and everyone else learned a lesson—or did they?
Today I see the Russian leopard hasn’t changed its spots. I accidentally read a little obscure line the other day, in web article on some North Americans being against vaccination: The Russians are using social media to put out fake news to encourage the antivax movement here in the west.
When I read that little line I was shocked awake—wow!—while realizing others would read it too, but then stay sleepy, and surely have forgotten it by the next day. Forgive me, for I’m awfully skeptical about my neighbors. I would say to them: Forget “big pharma,” worry about “big troll farms.”
The Russians can put a man in space; their computer nerds surely know their science; therefore to me it’s obvious:
if computer nerds under Vladimir Putin put out stuff in English to give credence to the antivaxers,
then that is to help destabilize the democracies.
Why? Besides not liking our freedom? Probably for reasons of economic competition. After all, they destabilized the middle east in 1967 because they hoped to profit by selling arms.
Am I a conspiracy nut? About Russian efforts to destabilize? No, not unless you think the whole nation of Finland is nuts. They have a national effort, as reported on the BBC (British Broadcasting Corporation) website, to inform their people about the existence of big Russian troll farms. (footnote) Despite that BBC story, I suspect the average person over in Britain is still as unaware, and as trusting of social media, as we are over here.
In conclusion, I have—
Don’t touch that mouse!
After a pause for blog identification, I will tell more:
- a professor, and why people want him fired
- The Finns, and their national efforts against Russian troll farms
- The anti-vax study, the original one that kicked off the modern anti-vax belief
—I have Three Points, consisting of Two don’ts and One do:
First: Unless you are dealing with traditional media having journalism ethics, don’t believe “It must be true or they wouldn’t have printed it.”
Second: If you are reading social media, don’t believe “It must be true or my brother-in-law wouldn’t have forwarded it.”
(as they still believe in India, despite government efforts to get village mobs to stop killing complete strangers. Have you heard? Some troll started a post about child abduction by strangers, and it is now going viral, unstoppable by anyone with common sense—mobs even killed a young government man who went to a village to warn them to please stop killing, stop believing forwarded social media.)
Third: Do believe the Russians are using big troll farms to destabilize the rest of us. After all, “X million Finns can’t all be wrong.”
Pause for blog identification:
Your are reading
Sean Crawford
Edmonton
December
2019
Part Two, (but do feel free to get a Second Cup first)
On the importance of PAX and VAX
PRAY FOR PAX
(peace)
Some “useful idiots,’” as Lenin called them, still refuse to believe: In Canada there is now resistance to erecting a national memorial to victims of communism.
In my province last month, a Canadian professor, at the University of Alberta, who had recently run for election on the ideals of the Marxist-Leninist party ticket, which, by definition, means HE BELIEVES in the Russian party line,
(I remember the Soviet ambassador publishing a letter to my student newspaper to say the Ukraine famine was solely from bad weather)
denied on his social media (not in class) that there was any Ukrainian holocaust, or holodomor, (man-made famine) by Joseph Stalin. This made a lot of people upset, partly because, for the sake of having a jolly good outrage, the first social reactors (pun intended) did not mention that the prof was a Marxist.
I know for sure an idiot can achieve a Ph.D…. yet continue being a “useful idiot.” I wrote about Marxist professors, the “Regina 16,” back in April 2010, archived as Socialists Reject Soldiers. They didn’t want poor children of soldiers killed in action to be eligible for special financial help to attend university.
Forewarned is forearmed
Finland
Got useful idiots? From Russian-speaking areas of Europe, folks allegedly “believed” what they saw spread on social media, and then they viciously launched assaults on the mental health and reputation of a journalist, Jessikka Aro. She told her experience in a BBC interview. How bad are the Russian assaults? You would have to read it to believe it—because hey, those troll farms won’t defend themselves.
I realize that some people, proud to members of a ‘new improved’ digital generation, believe in “the joy of having outrage,” but as for me, I still like Jessika more than I do her attackers: She had journalism ethics, and she had won a prize for her reporting about Russia’s state sponsored social media.
This web story interviewing her is in prose.
Regarding Finland’s national effort, this web story is in video form,
with speaking parts by the Finnish prime minister, Jessikka and the communications minister.
VAX
~As an adult, during my military service, I was immunized against lockjaw, also called tetanus.
As a boy I saw a television commercial, a cartoon, advising vaccinations to protect against three characters: Dippy Diphtheria, who was foolish, Locky lockjaw, who couldn’t talk because his jaw was stiffened shut, and Rolly Polio, a mean guy in a wheelchair holding a crutch to smash people… characters who would not be politically correct to show today.
By the time I saw those commercials, I had already caught mumps, measles and chickenpox—but at least I had never caught smallpox or German measles, also called rubella.
Catching these “childhood diseases” gave me, just like my mother and brother before me, an immunization against ever getting those diseases again. Happily, no one in my family suffered complications. I wonder if anti-vaxxers would deny such immunity can happen?
Luckily, when I saw those cartoons, I was young enough, praise the Lord, to have already been vaccinated against poliomyelitis… Very, very lucky.
And hey, do you know about that notorious FAMOUS STUDY that set off the original panic storm, the one that linked vaccinations to autism? That study could NOT be replicated; there was a sample size of ONLY 12—count ‘em, 12—AND the researcher had not disclosed that he had a financial vested interest. (link) He has since been kicked out of the medical community.
A baby born when that discredited study was published would be 21 years old now. Time enough for straight citizens to check with reality and continue getting their blessed vaccinations.
Footnotes:
~How to Lose a Battle subtitled Foolish plans and great military blunders, edited by Bill Fawcett, Harper, 2006, specifically from the chapter The Six Day War by Edward E. Kramer, page 307.
~Here’s a very lengthy N.Y.Times think-piece interviewing experts on the future of social media.
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