The Vulgar Eclectic

Vulgar: of the usual, typical, or ordinary kind
Eclectic: composed of elements drawn from various sources

definitions courtesy of Merriam-Webster

recent blog posts

• Love Letter to America by Yuri Bezmenov

  I recently read Love Letter to America, a small booklet written by Yuri Bezmenov (published in 1984 under the name Tomas D. Schuman, an alias given to him after he defected from the Soviet Union).

  Bezmenov worked for the Soviet government with the Novosti Press Agency and, according to him, was closely affiliated with the KGB as an informant and writer, especially during his time in India. He became disillusioned with the Soviet Union’s system of propaganda and subversion and carefully planned his defection to the West.

  Once in North America, he became a vocal critic of socialism and communism, writing and speaking about the Soviet Union’s use of active measures (aktivnye meropriyatiya) and ideological subversion in a long-term attempt to destabilize the democratic West.

  His Love Letter to America contains a short biography of his life and work in the Soviet Union, his growing disgust with the KGB and the Soviet system, and his eventual defection. He then, in detail, describes the process he says the Soviet government used to destabilize and transform societies. At times, his extreme antipathy to the duplicity and tyranny of the Soviet Union feels reactionary, but it’s important to note that much of what he claims is supported by other defectors (Anatoliy Golitsyn, Oleg Kalugin, Oleg Gordievsky, Stanislav Levchenko, and Vasili Mitrokhin being prime examples; Mitrokhin even copied and brought out of the country thousands of pages of KGB records that illustrate the use of active measures, disinformation, front organizations, and other tools of manipulation). While all of these defectors and documents corroborate Bezmenov’s essential claims, his detailed four-stage model of ideological subversion appears to be a unique and unverified contribution.

  I discovered an interesting article published by the CBC in 2022 about Bezmenov (he lived part of his post-defection life in Canada) that includes interviews with his ex-wife and daughter. This article paints a picture of a man who made warning the West about the dangers of ideological subversion at the hands of its enemies his life mission, a mission that he felt was in large-part a failure. This inability to reach his intended audience was not due to a lack of trying, but a refusal by mainstream media and society to listen.

  This seems to have taken a deep and destructive toll on Bezmenov, and the article ends on a note of despair and tragedy. However, the reader can’t help but notice the importance of Bezmenov’s warnings, as multiple enemies of open societies continue to use similar methods of subversion, now aided with the newer tools of the internet.

  “The real driving force of this war of aggression is ideology—something you cannot eat, wear or store for a “rainy day.” An integral part of this war of ideology is ideological subversion—the process of changing the perception of reality in the minds of millions of peoples all over the world.”

  Here is a link to the CBC article mentioned above: Chaos Agent

  

• House of Mystery (Bernie Wrightson!)

  

  I’ve been in the process of packing up all my comics in order to prepare for an upcoming renovation project in my bedroom. While sorting, I came across this coverless issue of House of Mystery (#211, February 1973). When my brother and I were kids, we had a gigantic box of coverless comics my parents bought us at a rummage sale and we had lots of issues of similar comics…all kinds of horror and weird war stories. This one makes me think of all of those. And the Bernie Wrightson art is just incredible!

• Pebble and Optimus Prime

  

• The Robbers by Friedrich Schiller

  I finished reading The Robbers (translated by F. J. Lamport), a play by Friedrich Schiller originally published in 1781. It is Schiller’s first published play and part of the romantic Sturm und Drang literary movement. Everything is pretty much turned up to an 11! The dialogue is vivid, dramatic, and often philosophical. The plot follows the conflict between two brothers, while exploring questions of morality, liberty, duty, and fate.

  It was very dramatic, even melodramatic, but not in a way that felt absurd. In contrast to the quietness of a play by Chekhov or the tight compactness of a Greek tragedy, The Robbers feels wild with bursts of stark violence amid a backdrop of forest, town, and castle.

  “–I have lost myself since I went in there–”

  ***

  This is a book jot from February 2021 that I hadn’t yet posted here. I’m almost all caught up now!

  

• The sun is sinking in the west…

  

…older blog posts