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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   33352 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of February 27, 2023

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I haven't read your links yet; this is some complex stuff with lots of plausible deniability. One of the reasons I'm grateful for my Russian background is precisely that everything is so much cruder than in the West, even though directionally similar, with comparable demographics, history and memes. Contrasting those two worlds, I think, lets one learn more about both.

In this case, I've been looking into «PMC Ryodan», an utterly bizarre… thing that has just happened. You can read the story on Bellingcat (actually a decent source) and whatever this outlet cited by Yahoo news is. Since the motto of the day is «believe women Ukraine», the story of security-minded Ukraininan boomers is cited without comment:

Tymoshko believes the youngsters were gathered in the city by Russian security services through “manipulation and deception, and they should have started a fight so the Russian TV could use it.”

Besides the violence, PMC Ryodan is also notorious for its intolerance of migrants and the Muslim population living in Russia’s Caucasus region.

PMC Ryodan, the acronym short for “Private Military Company,” reportedly took its name from a group of ruthless bandits in the popular anime and manga series “Hunter x Hunter,” created by Yoshihiro Togashi

As one could expect, Russian boomers accuse Ryodan of being a Ukrainian psyop, and zoomers on both sides are having the time of their lives (except those who have to fight the actual war).

But this isn't the point. The point is: it isn't really something that is happening for real. There is no PMC Ryodan, outside of the Hunter X Hunter universe at least – or rather, there wasn't. Just some weeb teens who bought HxH merch, and a couple online groups that used the PMC meme, and kids who were assaulted by gopniks in a food court. Everything else was spun out of this seed – including, unfortunately, the minor campaign by actual thugs to hunt weebs, in a mockery of a turf war.

…Actually, this isn't the point either, as you may expect. While checking out the Ryodan stuff on the Russian Reddit analog (Pikabu), I've seen this story as a comment (abridged):

I have wanted to tell this story for a long time, for it is damning and instructive in terms of the perception of information, the value of eyewitness accounts, the spread of rumours and the ability to find the essence based on media coverage. I just wanted at least 200-500 people to read it, and not the way I usually have 20-50 (apparently my rating is not enough), and then I might lose interest… or get sclerosis… or Pikabu may get canceled…

So... it was the distant year 2000, I was a young detective in one of the city's district offices, it was a warm September day, I'm busy with detection and prevention and stuff... and a message by pager: «Go to the District Police Department XXX, there's an attack, pogrom and a generally crazy mess, you will assist local operatives».

So here's the deal:

There's a school in their neighborhood, and not just any school, but a Jewish one. That day it got attacked by extremists/Nazis/Fascists and such. They broke down the doors, threw desks and chairs, beat everyone with sticks and chains, drew a Star of David on the forehead of an elderly teacher with a marker, and then spat on it. Children and Jews are terrified, demanding security, defense and retribution. And because the governor, the police chief and the prosecutor are on the chase, and soon the UN will fly in, Interpol will be involved… and if these scum aren't caught and punished, it will be an international scandal and the whole police department will get circumcised.

Of course I asked them if I could go with the riot police to the safe houses and places where the rabble gathers, so to speak... and procure the enemies of the Jewish people there?

You see, the answer was, in fact, that there was no need to look for anybody, because that's not exactly how it happened. Two local kids looked into the class where that Most Victimized Teacher was giving a lesson, and asked out Izya... let it be Сockpoonberg... to go have a beer around the corner together, or for a loan, it's not clear any more. The teacher, of course, was against such a breakdown of discipline (or the issuance of loans without guarantors) and kicked them out... They said «ew, Jewish snoot», spat (but it's not exactly clear where) and some shit happened while pulling the door at each other, resulting in the glass breaking (but it's also unclear, maybe it was slammed, maybe even kicked). So they ran away at once.
 The teacher could not tolerate the humiliation and immediately told the school principal, who called in all his connections, and then, as Harrison said: «…a bird dropping, falling on a snowy mountainside, rolls down, accretes snow...» And so now we have a high-profile case that will never be solved, despite the demands of all the controllers to solve it as soon as possible.
 Why? Well, how do we solve it now? Either everybody has to admit that they blatantly inflated the event and gave false evidence, or make terrorists out of those guys and put them in jail for 10 years (remember, that was 2000, now I think option B would be picked in a heartbeat).
 That's why we are sitting there writing/searching.

Then the highway patrolmen bring in a guy, early 20s, who got busted a couple of years ago in some shady companies for either fighting or petty hooliganism. Obviously no one was going to tie him to this case, but he could provide the most valuable information on what kind of Nazis our city has come to harbor and where to find them. After a long "tell me something about the wonderful world of extremism" conversation, the guy told me the following:

Back then he fell in with some skinheads… or Punks, among whom there were two-three really colourful characters, some «Awl, Bullet and Loaf», but that's not certain: one even had white laces on his combat boots [in 90s-00s Russia it used to be popular with Neo-Nazis/WNs, theoretically only allowed after you've killed a non-White or distinguished yourself in a fight; really there was no enforcement], the second had leather trousers, and the third had a skull earring (possibly even human-skull-shaped!!!). He hung out with them once after a concert, got wasted and started quarrelling with someone, after which they got nicked. Since then he''s no longer friends with any skulls and white shoelaces, doesn't go to concerts and only ever drinks kefir.

That's it, think how much paperwork you can put into it! All-points bulletins went around the region, such and such – Awl, Bullet and Loaf wanted for implication in an assault, all wearing white laces, leather trousers and skulls on all sides, identify, apprehend, orient… I spent like a whole another month on these orientations, wrote all kinds of papers about trying my best to find these scoundrels, and even one of the detainees told me that he saw a man wearing white shoes with black laces, but can't recall where, because was freaking out from withdrawal. What am I saying… all the police, Minors Affairs and district officers were writing volumes of reports, and the police department was supervising them… cases were not going to blow themselves up. 
 I honestly don't know how it ended, but judging by the fact that I don't know, it ended with nothing, as was the plan. The Jewish community (its individual representatives) waited in vain for their retribution; the high-profile case became lowercase, the journos guzzled away their fees, and now somewhere in the depths of the Department of Internal Affairs there rests a massive case about a terrible pogrom in a school.

But now, when I am told, «We have studied the declassified archives and, in fact, the truth is this, 100%» – I smile condescendingly.

Yes, that's where they usually ask for proofs... well, enjoy:

https://www.ng.ru/events/2000-10-07/1_pogrom.html

https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/17743

https://lenta.ru/news/2000/09/25/pogrom/

From the above:

…Pupils hid under their desks and ran to their teachers, who tried to talk sense into the young Nazis: «Guys, please go away, there are children here». One of the female teachers said:

– I lost my bearings. The scumbags should have been kicked out, but I was afraid that if I raised my voice at them or said something rude, they would disfigure the children.

The pogrom lasted about five minutes. Then the command sounded: «Stand up!» The rioters lined up, raised their hands in the Nazi salute and shouted, «Sieg Heil!», and then leisurely walked out of the destroyed school. One of them turned around and shouted: «We'll be back!»

– By happy coincidence, no one got physically hurt, but the psychological shock was very strong, – says Leonid Reznikov, head of the Jewish community. – Now parents are afraid to send their children to Sunday school, fearing for their lives. The way the rioters acted showed that they had been preparing for this operation beforehand. There are several distinctly anti-Semitic organizations in Ryazan. But the local authorities are inactive. Next time a pogrom could end in blood» […]

Investigator Irina Novikova refused to talk to Kommersant about anything to do with the pogrom at the Jewish Sunday school in the Soviet district of Ryazan.

The day after the pogrom, a leaflet appeared on the wall of the school with a swastika and the text: «Death to the Jews! We will be back».

One is free to choose what to believe.

This should've been a toplevel post tbh, imo more interesting than most of week's toplevels but it didn't get much visibility due to being a late reply. Honestly not a fan of the 'timely topic' focus of most toplevel posts vs the rarer 'non-timely interesting topic' ones

If you mean the Ryodan thing, it's developing rapidly, so maybe some other time. I'll plug this post for the second part.

If you just read one link I would read the Jewish Currents article by Ben Lorber, it sums things up nicely. Primarily I think it shows that the ADL doesn't really have a lot of plausible deniability here. Everyone in the DR knows that telegram channels are closely monitored by an army of Jewish NGOs with ung-dly amounts of funding (incidentally, the same NGO that keeps the archive of all Reddit comments there), and that apparently includes rapidly-growing funding from DHS.

Lorber is a good example of an "expert account" by someone monitoring that network who could quite clearly see that there was nothing resembling some national day of anti-semitic action actually being organized. Of course even the alt-right in its heyday could have never organized such a thing. But the ADL drummed up anxiety and law enforcement response across the country.

Nobody following DR telegram, experts or followers, thought that this was a thing. The ADL signal-boosted a narrative that nobody who follows these channels could have plausibly believed, and Lorber attests to that as a witness. Particularly as the day approached, i.e. Feb 23rd, the ADL narrative intensified when nobody acquainted with the DR could have plausibly believed that this was an actual thing that was going to happen.

They have too many experts for plausible deniability here- they knew better but they were being strategic in manipulating a national response to their canned narrative and to put pressure on Congress for their grants.

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