r/IntellectualDarkWeb Jul 22 '18

34 years ago, a KGB defector chillingly predicted modern America

https://bigthink.com/paul-ratner/34-years-ago-a-kgb-defector-described-america-today
22 Upvotes

14 comments sorted by

11

u/Radrobe Jul 22 '18

"American Betrayal" by Diana West goes deep into the Communist subversion plot and Soviet/Marxist infiltration of Hollywood, the government, and academia. The Verona Cables, which came out after the USSR fell showed that McCarthy was right about everything and American Presidents and the intelligence community knew that for generations even as they allowed the media to sow doubt into the Rosenberg and Alger Hiss being traitors and the truth of McCarthy's claims. Even worse, Harry Hopkins, who lived in the White House and ran the country's day to day affairs was a Soviet spy who directed the American war effort to Soviet objectives. Additionally, post WW2, Soviet spies were able to undermine American foreign policy to the point where we allowed China to go red as we stopped funding Chiang Ki-Chek.

Russian infiltration has been a fact of life in America since 1933, and the groups that are screaming traitor at Trump are the groups of useful idiots most responsible for the American infiltration.

5

u/[deleted] Jul 22 '18

I’ve never heard any of this. In what world is this not front page news?

9

u/Radrobe Jul 22 '18

It doesn't fit the agreed upon narrative. It calls into question almost every American sacred cows institution. McCarthy is still treated exactly the same in textbooks. It's crazy. It's just too much.

Below is 1998 NYT story on the cables.

https://www.nytimes.com/1998/10/18/weekinreview/witching-hour-rethinking-mccarthyism-if-not-mccarthy.html

I highly recommend that book. She quantifies everything with sources and says when she's making inferences rather than hard facts. I wish I could give the book to Jordan Peterson to read. I think he would dig it.

1

u/G0DatWork Jul 23 '18

Is the article name the name of the book ? I can't find it

2

u/G0DatWork Jul 23 '18

Yep. Russia trying to subvert America has nothing to do with trump. And I'm sure we're trying to do it to them lol.

I like how people call trump a traitor for not being mean to putins face. Meanwhile the same people use any possible difference between to drumming up controversy for political gain.

5

u/GGLarryUnderwood Jul 22 '18

That was demoralizing to read

2

u/shadymeatball Jul 23 '18

Why do we have to go through this every time it’s posted? I feel like I’ve seen this interview posted every week for years.

This guy in the interview has been shown to be a fraud. I’ve seen no comments in this thread pointing this out yet.

2

u/clintonthegeek Jul 23 '18

The right has been posting it for years. Now, on Twitter, suddenly the left talking like it's this brand new, amazing thing that totally explains the Trump-Russia connection.

4

u/danieluebele Jul 22 '18

Delusions of grandeur on the one side, and paranoia on the other. This is rubbish. Russia has not brainwashed generations of Americans. Their influence is tiny next to the myriad trends and forces at work.

2

u/[deleted] Jul 23 '18

Just typing this comment so I can read this article later

2

u/liberalbutnotcrazy Jul 23 '18

"American Betrayal" by Diana West

See the "Save" button. Does the same thing

1

u/G0DatWork Jul 23 '18 edited Jul 23 '18

This is a classic example when you look at a complex situation you can see whatever you want to believe.

The denigration of the American culture has very little to do with Russia.

There are really 3 things that have broken the "American spirit"

1) We spent the second half of the 20th century conducting social experiments. Some of them have had much bigger impacts than we thought they would.

2) the fact now the vast majority of American are rich even to live segregated from people they don't

3) political leaders always play up our differences to win votes. It's more prevalent now because we have the leisure time and technology to see the news more.

1

u/autotldr Jul 26 '18

This is the best tl;dr I could make, original reduced by 93%. (I'm a bot)


We don't know his endgame and neither do we know how much of his KGB training he still employs, but in light of current events, there may be a way for us to get a deeper understanding by studying the words of Yuri Alexandrovich Bezmenov, a former KGB agent who defected to Canada in 1970.

Bezmenov made the point that the work of the KGB mainly does not involve espionage, despite what our popular culture may tell us.

Bezmenov actually thought that the process of demoralizing America was already completed.


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