Fake documents to foment fear of Russia: 1924 edition

From Human Smoke by Nicholson Baker:

The Daily Mail, a conservative London paper, published a forged letter. It was October 25, 1924.

The letter was purportedly signed by Grigori Zinoviev, a Russian communist leader, and addressed to the Communist Party in England. It appeared four days before the general election of 1924 – an important race for Winston Churchill, who had lost two previous campaigns.

The letter, marked “very secret,” talked of a “successful rising in any of the working districts of England.” Its prose had faintly Churchillian cadences in places – there were phrases such as “strain every nerve” and “pronounced its weighty word” – but with an admixture of bolshevistic pastiche. “It would be desirable to have cells (nuclei?) in all the units of troops, particularly among those quartered in large centres of the country, and among factories working on munitions and at military store depots,” the letter said. The headline in the Daily Mail was “Civil War Plot by Socialists’ Masters.”

Churchill’s devoted supporter Esmond Harmsworth wa the son of Lord Rothermere, publisher of the Daily Mail. Churchill’s close ally in Secret Intelligence, Desmond Morton, first forwarded the letter from an obscure Latvian source to the British Foreign Office, attesting to its authenticity.

Moscow called the letter a “clumsy forgery” and a “crude fabrication” and demanded an apology. ...

Churchill and other conservatives used the Zinoviev letter to unseat Prime Minister MacDonald. Churchill compared MacDonald to Alexander Kerensky, the weak Russian socialist leader who allowed the Bolsheviks to triumph.

“You all know the story of Kerensky,” Churchill said in a campaign speech, “how he stood there, like Mr. MacDonald, pretending that he meant to do the best he could for his country, and all the time apologizing behind the scenes to the wild, dark, deadly forces which had him in their grip.”

Churchill won his election. Still he couldn’t stop talking about the Zinoviev letter. Conspirators and revolutionaries “of every race under the sun” had assembled in Russia to plan world revolution, he asserted in the Weekly Dispatch. “Everywhere they have endeavoured to bring into being the ‘germ cells’ from which the cancer of Communism should grow,” he wrote. ...

Wayward Heroes by Halldór Laxness

‘[T]he fear that a land’s rulers have of foreign conquerors is slight compared to their fear of their own subjects.’

••••••
‘“And as for your murderous deeds, they are worthy of praise by none but the fools who sniff long after you, whom you call your skalds. … Off with you, then, to perform deeds befitting a warrior: setting fire to people’s houses and killing everything that draws breath for your sea-kings or sovereigns – all in order to rule the world.”’

••••••
‘The saltmaker replies: “We have had plenty of kings in Norway, but the only ones that proved of any use to us were those that we sacrificed for good harvests and peace.”’

••••••

Vermont Digger and Vermont politicians aid and abet anti-Russia hysteria

Erin Mansfield at Vt. Digger, while mostly furthering the dangerous, hysterical, and utterly unfounded ‘Russia is attacking’ narrative, nevertheless wrote:

An attempt to reach Neale Lunderville, the general manager of Burlington Electric, was unsuccessful. ...

Both Burlington Electric and state officials say the grid was not affected. ...

Green Mountain Power and Vermont Electric Co-op also participated in the Department of Homeland Security’s rigorous “risk vulnerability assessment” and found no threat to electric grid systems.

Gov. Peter Shumlin said his office has been in communication with the federal government and Vermont utilities about the incident.

Despite that reported communication, Shumlin stated:

Vermonters and all Americans should be both alarmed and outraged that one of the world’s leading thugs, Vladimir Putin, has been attempting to hack our electric grid, which we rely upon to support our quality-of-life, economy, health, and safety. This episode should highlight the urgent need for our federal government to vigorously pursue and put an end to this sort of Russian meddling. I call upon the federal government to conduct a full and complete investigation of this incident and undertake remedies to ensure that this never happens again.

Sen. Patrick Leahy stated that ‘he believes the Russian hackers were “trying to access utilities to potentially manipulate the grid and shut it down in the middle of winter. That is a direct threat to Vermont and we do not take it lightly.”’

Rep. Peter Welch stated that ‘the attack “shows how rampant Russian hacking is. It’s systemic, relentless, predatory. They will hack everywhere, even Vermont, in pursuit of opportunities to disrupt our country. We must remain vigilant, which is why I support President Obama’s sanctions against Russia and its attacks on our country and what it stands for.”’

The Editor of Vt. Digger, Anne Galloway, who ‘believe[s] the [Washington] Post to be a reputable source’, casuistically defended the article and lack of retraction even after the Post itself published a correction after days of ridicule:

VTDigger never reported that there was a hack of the grid, only that Russians had used malware to hack a computer at BED. ... We did not report that the Russian government was behind the attack. Vermont politicians appear [to have] jumped to that conclusion, as did the Obama administration. We have no way of knowing if the Russian government was involved. That’s the purview of security officials. We can only quote others on that score. Based on these facts, our story is correct. Other news outlets, including Bloomberg, NPR, AP and ABC News, among others have published stories nearly identical to ours. ... While BED was not hacked, one of the utility’s computers, which was not attached to the grid, or the company’s customer information system, was. A nuance that seems to have been missed by many astute readers. ... At this point, I don’t see the need for a correction.

In short, ‘Russians’ is just a friendly word for all hackers, just as all malicious code is ‘Russian’ and any random infection is ‘hacking’. Any suggestion that the Russian government is implied is the fault of the reader, who should pay more heed to the opinions of their own government and its media mouthpieces.

One commenter wrote in reply (edited for sense):

The article begins: ‘Russian hackers penetrated a computer at the Burlington Electric Department that is not connected to the electrical grid, officials say. Burlington Electric found out about the malware when the U.S. Department of Homeland Security notified the utility about a hacking campaign called Grizzly Steppe.’

Acceptance – and reinforcement – of both the DHS storyline and the anti-Russia hysteria of the Democratic Party and their Republican allies could not be more clear.

A more neutral report might read: ‘A virus scan of computers at BED, prompted by the DHS, recently found malware code on one laptop. The laptop was not connected to the electrical grid. The code matches samples provided by the DHS as evidence of an alleged Russian-government hacking campaign that the DHS calls “Grizzly Steppe.” Independent cybersecurity experts, however, have characterized the malware as “off-the-shelf” code that is years old.’

The threat to abortion and reproductive rights

The Guttmacher Institute documented 334 new state-level restrictions to abortion from 2011 to July 2016, accounting for 30% of all restrictions enacted since Roe v Wade in 1973.

Under Obama, fewer counties than ever have abortion providers (fewer than 13% in 2012, ~10% in 2014).

He tried, against the findings of the FDA, to block teens from access to the morning-after pill.

He issued such a perfunctory statement after the murder of George Tiller, one of the only physicians in the country who performed 2nd-trimester abortions, that, along with his continued inaction, it could only be interpreted as another kiss-off.

He appears to have issued a statement after three people were killed and several injured at a Planned Parenthood clinic only because a police officer was among those killed.

Although he rescinded application of the Helms Amendment (which prevents "promotion" of abortion by US-funded family planning programs around the world) to USAID funds, he was pressed to clarify that the Helms Amendment (which still applied to all other funds) allows an exception for rape, and he refused.

On "building the resistance to Trump"

Here is an exchange from Facebook:

Vote Sawant: Fight Trump & the billionaire class through solidarity. ‘Socialist Students: Local Flint news interviews Socialist Students about why we visited Flint and how we see the crisis there as being connected to an overall crisis in the capitalist system. Check it out! http://www.abc12.com/content/news/Students-deliver-bottled-water-to-Flint-apartment-complex-in-need-of-clean-water-408444525.html’

Olaf Errwigge: What does this have to do with Trump?

Vote Sawant: Part of this trip was Socialist Students making a connection with the grassroots organization Water You Fighting For?. Building networks that fight on all fronts is a crucial task in the era of attacks we are likely to see under a Trump administration. A great way to build that network is through actions of solidarity like this one.

Olaf Errwigge: I mean the water crisis/crime in Flint (and elsewhere) started long before Trump (who isn't even President yet). I don't remember reading "Fight Obama etc" (who is still President).

Vote Sawant: We certainly organized under Obama's administration that failed to meet the needs of working people as well. ‘https://www.socialistalternative.org/2016/04/16/lead-poisoning-crumbling-cities/’

Olaf Errwigge: That example does not name Obama.

Vote Sawant: As Socialists, we support neither Democrats nor Republicans. However, we also work hard to be in touch with the struggles working people are taking on. It is true that there is a lot more consciousness about the need to "fight Trump" than ever existed in a mass way to "fight Obama".

Olaf Errwigge: But you run the danger of alienating the many workers who voted for Trump by making it about him instead of actual issues. And you run the danger of undercutting your own sincerity by making it seem to be more about Trump than the actual issues. The excuses for making it personal with Trump but not with Obama are lame and opportunistic.

Vote Sawant: They're not excuses, they are the reasoned and tactical decisions that yielded the result you are criticizing. Our analysis is different, and that's fine. Opportunistic is a common epithet, but we hope rather than leveraging insults within the left, we can help build a culture of United Front solidarity.

Olaf Errwigge: United except for those who responded to Trump as a reasoned and tactical alternative to stopping the neolib/neocon juggernaut represented by Clinton and Obama. Cloaking the socialist struggle in "Resistance Against Trump" is demeaning and short-sighted.

One might also ask, had the Presidential election turned out differently, if the "socialist alternative" would have rallied under the banner of "Build the Resistance to Clinton" (Clinton being well to the right of Trump, after all)? Instead, Trump has already, even before becoming President, killed the TPP and TTIP, brought the war in Syria toward an end, and forced Obama to allow a historic vote against Israeli settlements in the UN Security Council. Since, "as socialists, we support neither Democrats nor Republicans", why this obvious partisanship or worse, prejudice? Trump is reviled by establishment Republicans as much as by establishment Democrats, that is, by the establishment. He represents change. And only in change can change happen. "Resistance to Trump" is counterproductive reaction. Not to mention, he will pass but the struggle will remain, that is, as Meneer Errwigge first implied, it has nothing to do with Trump, nor has it anything to do with the liberal demonization of Trump. As he also suggested, to cloak the struggle in the terms of the neolib/neocon reaction is to kill it.

The descent of evidence at the U.N.

Notes and comments from the recent campaign and election

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