Comment on Doge reportedly using AI tool to create ‘delete list’ of federal regulations
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 2 days agoIf it makes you feel any better, I’m pretty sure the God Father of the new right, who created the Heritage Foundation and is responsible for the existence of the project 2025 obsession with deregulation and dismantling of the current federal government, was inspired by your gang while believing he was actually saving them from communism and converting them into free market capitalists. (Except as you probably know, this idea of a free market was anything but)
PBS Documentary about Weyrich and Krieble involvement in Collapse of USSR Playing For Power (2012)
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 2 days ago
Soviet elites’ idea of power meant that.
USSR in late 1980s sort of “resurrected” the Soviet system as something kinda democratic (well, democratic centralism is not exactly that, but decisions were made, and many true words were said, and the resulting course of action those elites didn’t like), so those elites (Yeltsin was a Politburo member, a reminder) just decided to flip the board.
But yeah, I definitely think there’s a connection.
And while considering them all-powerful may be wrong, Soviet propaganda had more levels than people thought. The fact that the narrative of many of those dissidents then is now similar to the narrative of ex-Soviet elites and their allies speaks for itself.
The “visible” propaganda had different layers for kolkhozniks and for factory workers and for engineers and for artists. Everyone thought they could read between the lines, but that was too just a layer.
After USSR “collapsed”, plenty of sects and ideologies emerged, and mostly those too were defined by Soviet propaganda - from political (sincere, not like those participating in the election, but like Limonov people and Makashov people and anarchists and communists, all of them) to esoteric (I don’t even want to list all of that), and of course the church.
And now the Russian population is slowly transitioning from intoxication with that cocktail right to dissociation like with PTSD.
So why did they decide to flip the board?
Because only fools think that covert and conspiracy-minded and backstage and back alley actions are more true and sincere, or even stupider - advantageous for the weaker side. That’s exactly where smoke and mirrors work flourishes. The truest thing Soviet people had was the common public “official” set of institutions and rules, no matter how disgusting it was. By flipping the board they removed it, and the masses had no common point of reality anymore.
So, why did I write this - yes. I think that’s what these people are doing in the USA, except the many-layered genius-class propaganda system is not existent there, but a few companies have been working hard for 20 years to create some kind of replacement.
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
Paul Weyrich and Robert Kriegel of the Heritage Foundation and Free Congress Foundation held mock elections before the collapse to teach Soviet politicians about democracy. Another Heritage Foundation member who created the State Policy Network (SPN) is quoted as telling Kriegel “You capture the Soviet Union, I’ll capture the states.”
They started sneaking in fax machines and electronic equipment to dissidents in the USSR, and once the coup happened, they were already established and ready to set up the first of its kind go between business for Russia-US relations (Russia House) in 1991.
Weyrich later said in 1996 that allegedly they had been tailed and intimidated by KGB while they were in Moscow holding the fake elections and spreading “democracy.” Someone told him after the coup that Kryuchkov, the head of the KGB had gone to Gorbachev and asked him to crack down on Weyrich. Gorbachev just responded with silence, so Kryuchkov started organizing the coup the next day out of anger. That sounds like total BS, but I’m not sure if Weyrich made it up or if somebody else did and Weyrich believed it.
In 1999, Weyrich started writing about how he believed the moral majority had lost the “cultural war.” So rather than continue fighting to take back institutions, the movement would need to follow the model of homeschooling and create their own. Over 20 years later, the most recent version of the Heritage Foundation’s Mandate for Leadership (Project 2025) is ready to deregulate and dismantle all federal government. Once it collapses, similar to the power vacuum in post Soviet Russia, they will have already been ready and waiting to replace it with a new far right government.
Similar to Russia, I’m not sure how much control they actually retain once it collapses and is replaced, but they’ve used essentially the same strategy. Doing all of this out in the open, putting the pieces in place, training and recruiting people to be ready to betray their own country. Yet when you point all this out, people want to pretend it’s just a conspiracy theory.
rottingleaf@lemmy.world 1 day ago
Well, this reads … I dunno. Conspiracy-minded at best, I’ve read plenty of such and most was likely fake.
To make it clear, I don’t consider deregulation something bad, when done as part of a system where it makes sense.
Otherwise it’s like paying people for work - labor should be paid for, not paying is cheating, you need work done for you, all these are true, except when it’s a gypsy fortuneteller saying you have to pay lots and lots of money not previously agreed upon for lifting a curse, then you probably shouldn’t pay that person.
When deregulation is done only partially and without “releasing” any of the political power held by private parties, just removing obligations accompanying it - then something is wrong.
AcidiclyBasicGlitch@sh.itjust.works 1 day ago
No, I could see how archived Washington Post articles written at the time of the events in 1989 and 1991, plus an entire documentary about their involvement made by the Carnegie Institute in 2012 reads conspiracy minded.
I’m sure their system of deregulation via automated vibe coded AI that by EO must reflect a “non-woke” bias will make a lot of sense.