Кривая конспирологии

[tijd]

Заявление президента Байдена в День памяти Холокоста оказалось проникновенным.

"Today, we join together with people from nations around the world to commemorate International Holocaust Remembrance Day by remembering the 6 million Jews, as well as the Roma and Sinti, Slavs, disabled persons, LGBTQ+ individuals, and many others, who were murdered by the Nazis and their collaborators during the Shoah. We must never forget the truth of what happened across Europe or brush aside the horrors inflicted on our fellow humans because of the doctrines of hatred and division.
I first learned about the horrors of the Holocaust listening to my father at the dinner table. The passion he felt that we should have done more to prevent the Nazi campaign of systematic mass murder has stayed with me my entire life. It’s why I took my children to visit Dachau in Germany, and why I hope to do the same for each of my grandchildren - so they too would see for themselves the millions of futures stolen away by unchecked hatred and understand in their bones what can happen when people turn their heads and fail to act.
We must pass the history of the Holocaust on to our grandchildren and their grandchildren in order to keep real the promise of “never again.” That is how we prevent future genocides. Remembering the victims, heroes, and lessons of the Holocaust is particularly important today as Holocaust deniers and minimizers are growing louder in our public discourse. But the facts are not up for question, and each of us must remain vigilant and speak out against the resurgent tide of anti-Semitism, and other forms of bigotry and intolerance, here at home and around the world"
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2021/01/27/statement-by-president-joseph-r-biden-jr-on-international-holocaust-remembrance-day/

Особенно после скандала четырехлетней давности.

The White House has defended its omission of Jews and antisemitism from a statement remembering the Holocaust by saying that Donald Trump’s administration “took into account all of those who suffered”.
On International Holocaust Remembrance Day on Friday, the White House made no mention of Jews, Judaism or the antisemitism that fueled Nazi Germany’s mass murder of six million Jews in the 1940s.
The head of the Anti-Defamation League, Jonathan Greenblatt, wondered aloud about the “puzzling and troubling” statement, and its break with the precedent.
The executive director of the Anne Frank Center, Steven Goldstein, similarly scolded the president: “How can you forget, Mr President, that six million Jews were murdered because they were Jews? You chose the vague phrase ‘innocent people.’ They were Jews, Mr President.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/28/white-house-defends-trump-holocaust-statement-that-didnt-mention-jews



Для Байдена это не новая тема. К примеру, председательствуя в 1999 на слушаниях на тему антисемитизма в России, он говорил, что пришел в политику из-за движения борьбы за гражданские права и памяти о Холокосте.

"I was raised in a home where my father might have been referred to as a “righteous Christian.“ We would sit at the dinner table together. Our dinner table was a place where we gathered to talk and, incidentally, to eat, rather than gather to eat and, incidentally, to talk.
My father was one of those folks who brought us up in a certain way. Being Catholic, we were born with an almost equal sense of guilt that my Jewish friends seem to have. My father would always talk--and I mean this sincerely--about how the world stood silently by in the 1930's in the face of Hitler. He had a preoccupation with the Holocaust.
I might say, as a point of personal privilege--as we say in this body--the first time I took my sons, whom both of you have met, to Europe, some of my friends thought it was somewhat extreme that the first place I took them was to Dachau. <...>
I grew up in a State that was segregated by law. I got involved in politics for two reasons--civil rights and the Holocaust. They were the two things that drove me to think that politics is what I should do with my life."
https://www.govinfo.gov/content/pkg/CHRG-106shrg55215/html/CHRG-106shrg55215.htm



В 1999 проблема российского антисемитизма шла на спад из-за массового отъезда евреев. Но в период смены президентов вызывала беспокойство риторика генерала Макашова и других одиозных деятелей.

Напомним, что последний раз Макашов публично обрушился на евреев 20 февраля в Новочеркасске, на конференции Движения в поддержку армии. Для начала он предложил считать свое "движение Движением против жидов - ДПЖ". А затем развил свою мысль: "Слово 'антисемит' - это незаконно? Все, что делается во благо народа,- все законно. Народ всегда прав! Мы будем антисемитами и должны победить! - говорил генерал.- Евреи так нахальны потому - позвольте, я по-своему, по-солдатски скажу,- потому что из нас еще никто к ним в дверь не постучался, еще никто окошко не обоссал. Потому они так, гады, и смелы!"
После того как заявления были опубликованы большинством СМИ, руководители Генпрокуратуры поручили разобраться в сложившейся ситуации своим ростовским коллегам. И. о. прокурора Ростовской области Сергей Устинов так объяснил "Коммерсанту" это решение: "К примеру, Макашов употребил слово 'жиды', но есть мнение, что еще со времен Пушкина так называли стяжателей, расхитителей, проходимцев и воришек. Вот пускай лингвисты и решают, можно ли в контексте выступления Макашова рассматривать слово 'жиды' как попытку разжечь национальную вражду".
Победила "пушкинская" точка зрения. Как говорится в решении прокуратуры, "анализ собранных материалов свидетельствует, что выступление Макашова (призывы 'обоссать жидам окошки', 'мы будем антисемитами'.- Ъ) не было направлено на возбуждение национальной вражды". В связи с этим в возбуждении уголовного дела было отказано.
https://www.kommersant.ru/doc/214918



Самые страшные преступления истории растут из теорий заговора. Холокост стал возможным из-за теории  "еврейского заговора", развитой в " Протоколах сионских мудрецов" и оказавшейся необыкновенно живучей.

Фантазии о всемирном заговоре продолжают окрашивать политику разных стран. К примеру, история о том, как штат Юта превратился в самый консервативный в США, неразрывно связана с тем, что бывший глава мормонской церкви Эзра Тафт Бенсон, который работал министром сельского хозяйства в администрации Эйзенхауэра, подсел на конспирологию Клеона Скоусена.

The second significant point is that when Benson served as the secretary of agriculture, he solidified his relationship with Cleon Skousen. Skousen wrote a bestselling book called “The Naked Communist” when Benson was in the Cabinet, and this book about communist conspiracies had a profound influence on Benson. Benson also idolized J. Reuben Clark, an influential member of the LDS First Presidency, who was a conspiracist too.
Those two men, along with J. Edgar Hoover, prompted Benson to see the government as having been infiltrated by communist sympathizers. The context for this is McCarthyism, the Red Scare.
The third major influence is the John Birch Society, the most extreme anti-communist organization in the U.S. Robert Welch, the founder, wrote a controversial book called “The Politician,” in which he claimed Eisenhower’s inner circle were all communists, including Eisenhower himself, a five-star general.
Benson was absolutely riveted by the book. He bought copies for family and friends. He shared it with the First Presidency and the Quorum, and they were angry.
https://religionnews.com/2020/10/07/how-did-mormons-become-so-republican/



Ныне граничащий с религией безумный культ QAnon, также уходящий корнями в "Протоколы", представляет серьезную террористическую угрозу, частично осуществившуюся в нападении на Капитолий.

Assistant US attorney Virginia Bruner called an FBI agent to testify that Jensen, who has been seen widely in video coverage of the attack wearing a QAnon shirt in the front of a shouting mob taunting Capitol Police officer Eugene Goodman.
FBI Special Agent Tyler Johnson said Jensen in an interview two days after the incursion said he believed once inside the Capitol he and the others would witness the arrest of Vice President Mike Pence and members of Congress.
“He said he want to DC to receive big news from Donald Trump,” Johnson said adding that he specifically reference the storm which he believed was going to include the arrests of Pence and certain members of Congress.
“After they broke in thought the arrests were going to start,” Johnson said Jensen told him in the interview.
Jensen described himself to the FBI agent as a true believer in QAnon, the apocalyptic conspiracy theory that he follows. He said that for about four years he has spent hours on the computer after work reading the material from QAnon and similar websites.
Once Jensen returned to Des Moines from Washington and saw himself in the television coverage he told the agent he decided to walk six miles to the Des Moines police station and turn himself in.
He admitted he still believes that the FBI and the CIA are corrupt and that the QAnon conspiracies are real, however Johnson said at one point in the interview Jensen asked a question.
“Am I being duped?” he asked the agent. “Can you guys let me in on that if you know those arrests are real?” he asked in connection with Pence and the members of Congress.
Bruner said Jensen should not be released because he still believes the conspiracies and cannot be trusted to return to court when ordered.
His dangerous beliefs “make him a danger locally and on the national level,” she said.
https://apnews.com/article/capitol-siege-des-moines-trials-arrests-iowa-5a1491adff5cb8833e6cc450cb7ab90f



Вера в теории заговора происходит из того же места, что и другие суеверия. Находясь во власти сил, над которыми он не имеет контроля, человек находит утешение, представляя себя обладателем сокровенного знания о тайных заговорах. Найденное объяснение представляется намного более логичным, чем неприятные альтернативы, и зацепляется за мозг.

Но вирусный характер конспирологии сложнее, чем может показаться на первый взгляд. Если погромщики начала XX века верили во всемирный еврейский заговор, то их жертвы поддавались своей конспирологии и верили в заговор российского правительства, которое тайно устраивает погромы и стремится их уничтожить. Российские монархические власти были не чужда антисемитизму, но не до такой степени. Между тем те, кто поддался страхам и успел свалить в Америку, оказались правы, но с поправками. В Германии появилось правительство, которое действительно вдохновляло погромы, имело государственную программу уничтожения евреев и частично ее осуществило, в том числе оккупировав бывшую Черту оседлости. Зло, которое ранее существовало в воспаленном воображении, внезапно воплотилось в жизнь.



Есть ли смещенное зерно правды и в другой конспирологии? Всемирного еврейского заговора не существует, к тайным заговорам и секретным протоколам по принципу проекции оказались больше расположены нацисты. Но ХХ век запустил существенную перетряску мировых элит. Наследственная аристократия (в том числе российское дворянство), на протяжении веков обладавшая непререкаемым доступом к богатству и власти, оказывалась смещена новыми элитами, богатеющими за счет собственных мозгов и изобретений. В этой ситуации у евреев, долгим временем культивирующих путем своеобразного искусственного отбора грамотность и начитанность, обнаружилось определенное конкурентное преимущество. Пересмотр традиционной статусной иерархии вызывал подсознательное беспокойство, поскольку воспринимался, как потеря контроля. Это в свою очередь создавало благодатную почву для теорий заговора.

Верования культа QAnon абсолютно бредовы. Но это не означает, что с элитами, которых они подозревают в тайных сатанинских педофильских ритуалах, все в порядке. Легкость, с которой в эти элиты проникали персонажи вроде Джеффри Эпштейна, дает повод для реального беспокойство о состоянии дел с современным неравенством.

Here is scumbag billionaire, Leon D. Black, at the US Open in Sept '16 when the campaign was in full swing w/Jared, Ivanka, Wendy Deng Murdoch, David Geffen & Prince Andrew's daughter.... pic.twitter.com/fBxhhguQHj
- mrs panstreppon (@mrspanstreppon) April 5, 2020

На днях стало известно о больших суммах, которые выплачивал Эпштейну мутный миллиардер Леон Блэк.

According to Bloomberg, Black has a net worth of nearly $10 billion. Of course, he has a private jet and a luxury yacht and lots of fancy homes. In 2012, he paid nearly $120 million for one artwork-one of the four versions of Edvard Munch’s 1895 pastel, The Scream. He has a world-class art collection. He is also the chairman of the board of trustees at the Museum of Modern Art; his wife, Debra, is on the board of the Metropolitan Museum of Art. He is rich and powerful. That means he can hire what appear to be reputable law firms to put their stamp of approval on a version of the truth that is not likely to be independently verified by anyone not getting paid by Black, or by Apollo. That’s not the same as transparency.
In October, the conflicts committee of the Apollo board of directors hired Dechert to “conduct a thorough investigation” into the relationship between Black and Epstein, after The New York Times reported that Black had paid Epstein “at least” $50 million for Epstein’s services. <...>
According to the Dechert report, which was dated January 22 and then filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission, Black and Epstein had a “social relationship” from the mid-1990s to 2018. They were introduced by an unnamed “mutual friend.” Black “viewed Epstein as someone who was very intelligent and knowledgeable regarding issues relating to estate planning and taxation,” the report allowed. In 1997, Black appointed Epstein to be one of the initial directors of the Black Family Foundation, established to facilitate his charitable giving. Black, apparently, was impressed that David Rockefeller had appointed Epstein to the board of Rockefeller University, a scientific research university on the East Side of Manhattan. According to the Dechert report, Black’s “understanding” was “that Epstein was extremely knowledgeable about science and technology, as well as a strong proponent of scientific research and development.” Epstein had somehow convinced Black, one of our most gifted financial engineers, that he was the ultimate autodidact, exceptionally skilled in both the arcane rules of tax structuring and estate planning and also of scientific research. According to the Dechert report, Epstein introduced Black to “well-regarded” researchers at MIT and Harvard. <...>
Turns out, according to Dechert, the Times was off by more than $100 million in its estimates of payments from Black to Epstein. In the years between 2012 and 2017-that is after his “second chance” started and after a 2011 report in the Daily Mail about Epstein’s continued atrocious behavior-Black paid Epstein $158 million for advice on issues including tax, estate planning, and structuring that, Dechert wrote, saved Black between $1 billion and $2 billion. Somehow, we are supposed to believe that Jeffrey Epstein, a college dropout who taught math for about two years at the Dalton School, on the Upper East Side, and then worked at Bear Stearns before being fired, is responsible for between 10% and 20% of Black’s net worth.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/wall-street-isnt-buying-leon-blacks-epstein-story



Помимо прочих приключений Блэк завязан с Россией. На фотографии из Москвы далекого 1996 он запечатлен с напитком в руке рядом с Трампом в компании Дэвида Джеованиса.

В более недавние годы Блэк лично встречался с Путиным и помогал Кириллу Дмитриеву с российским фондом прямых инвестиций (РФПИ), где работал советником. В после-крымском 2014 его имя убрали с сайта, но оставили там видео с ним https://rdif.ru/Eng_fullNews/170/

The names of three billionaire U.S. private-equity tycoons have disappeared from the website of a $10 billion Russian state investment fund, although they continue to serve on its international advisory board.
Blackstone Group LP founder Stephen Schwarzman, TPG founder David Bonderman and Apollo Global Management LLC founder Leon Black became advisers to the Russian Direct Investment Fund in 2011.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/names-of-u-s-billionaires-vanish-from-russian-funds-website-1409747234

Вся подноготная его истории с Эпштейном нескоро всплывет на поверхность, но запах от этой истории идет дурной.



В новой книжке "American Kompromat: How the KGB Cultivated Donald Trump, and Related Tales of Sex, Greed, Power, and Treachery" Крэйг Унгер идет несколько дальше предыдущих умозаключений и, на основе разговоров с Юрием Швецом и другими косвенными источниками, заключает, кто КГБ СССР начал культивировать Трампа в начале 1980ых.

По версии Унгера Трамп обратил на себя внимание КГБ в 1980 покупкой партии телевизоров для своего отеля в магазинчике Семена Кислина и Тамира Сапира. Остальное - дело истории.

Unger describes how Trump first appeared on the Russians’ radar in 1977 when he married his first wife, Ivana Zelnickova, a Czech model. Trump became the target of a spying operation overseen by Czechoslovakia’s intelligence service in cooperation with the KGB.
Three years later Trump opened his first big property development, the Grand Hyatt New York hotel near Grand Central station. Trump bought 200 television sets for the hotel from Semyon Kislin, a Soviet émigré who co-owned Joy-Lud electronics on Fifth Avenue.
According to Shvets, Joy-Lud was controlled by the KGB and Kislin worked as a so-called “spotter agent” who identified Trump, a young businessman on the rise, as a potential asset. Kislin denies that he had a relationship with the KGB.
Then, in 1987, Trump and Ivana visited Moscow and St Petersburg for the first time. Shvets said he was fed KGB talking points and flattered by KGB operatives who floated the idea that he should go into politics.
The ex-major recalled: “For the KGB, it was a charm offensive. They had collected a lot of information on his personality so they knew who he was personally. The feeling was that he was extremely vulnerable intellectually, and psychologically, and he was prone to flattery.
“This is what they exploited. They played the game as if they were immensely impressed by his personality and believed this is the guy who should be the president of the United States one day: it is people like him who could change the world. They fed him these so-called active measures soundbites and it happened. So it was a big achievement for the KGB active measures at the time.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2021/jan/29/trump-russia-asset-claims-former-kgb-spy-new-book



Эпштейн в книжке тоже фигурирует. Утверждается, что они с Трампом по-соседски посорились из-за дома, который Трамп продал Дмитрию Рыболовлеву.

In February 2000, Trump staged a pro-am tennis tournament at Mar-a-Lago and appeared with Epstein, Maxwell, and his latest girlfriend, Melania Knauss, whom Epstein claimed to have introduced to Trump. Epstein’s claim was reported in The New York Times, which noted that “while Mr. Trump has dismissed the relationship, Mr. Epstein, since the election, has played it up, claiming to people that he was the one who introduced Mr. Trump to his third wife, Melania Trump, though neither of the Trumps has ever mentioned Mr. Epstein playing a role in their meeting.”
But in 2004, after a friendship of roughly 17 years, Trump and Epstein had a serious falling-out when Epstein sought to buy a spectacular oceanfront mansion in Palm Beach called Maison de l’Amitié (“House of Friendship”) that was being sold out of a bankruptcy auction. The property, a nearly 62,000-square-foot neoclassical palace, had once been owned by Leslie Wexner, the billionaire retailer who was so close to Epstein.
Epstein had his heart set on the house, but he planned to make at least one major renovation project once he bought it: He wanted to relocate the swimming pool, and he brought Trump to the property to give him advice on how to do it.
But before the sale was finalized, Epstein was horrified to see that Trump, who was still underwater financially from his Atlantic City bankruptcies, outbid him with an offer of more than $41 million for the property. The purchase was financed by Deutsche Bank, which was already holding dubious loans for Trump.
Epstein was apoplectic and became even more enraged when Trump soon thereafter put the house up for sale for $125 million. Finally, Trump sold the house to Russian oligarch Dmitry Rybolovlev for a reported $96 million in 2008-never having lived there-and Epstein threatened to sue him. The two men never spoke again.
From then on, whenever Epstein’s name was mentioned to Trump, the whole tenor of the conversation instantly changed. And that wasn’t the end of it. In 2005, the Palm Beach Police Department began investigating Epstein’s relationship to the young women around him. According to someone who knew him, Epstein believed Trump got the police to investigate him in retaliation for threatening to sue.
Their friendship frayed beyond repair, Epstein became less discreet as the keeper of Trump’s secrets and was not averse to showing off potentially compromising photos of him and Trump. An associate of Epstein’s who asked not to be identified told me that Epstein showed him one photo of Trump with a topless young girl. In another, the source said, Trump is with two young girls who are said to be laughing as they point out what appears to be a wet spot in an unfortunate location on his pants. The description of the photo suggested that it was a semen stain-but the photos have never been released.
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2021/01/jeffrey-epstein-and-donald-trump-epic-bromance



В книжке Майкла Коэна рассказывается, что Трамп считал, что продает этот дом Путину.

Rybolovlev paid $95 million for the estate that Trump bought three years earlier for $41.3 million. That’s quite a mark-up, and more than $30 million higher than the property’s appraised value.
It was the same year that Donald Trump Jr. told investors “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” And the year that Trump was facing another bankruptcy.
Trump Entertainment Resorts, which operated three Atlantic City casinos, had amassed $1.74 billion in debts when it failed to make a $53.1 million bond interest payment in December 2008. Two months later it sought Chapter 11 protection.
The $53.7 million markup of the Palm Beach property was strange, but maybe for billionaires like Rybolovlev, it was chump change for a piece of property he fell in love with.
Except for this: Rybolovlev never moved into his Palm Beach estate, and nobody can say for sure that he even visited the property during the time he owned it.
After eight years of vacancy, the mansion and its out-buildings were leveled and the property was subdivided into three smaller lots and sold by the company Rybolovlev controlled.
There is no more “Maison de l'Amitié.”
But there is some new context to this strange sale. It comes from Trump’s former fixer, lawyer and confidante, Michael Cohen, who had turned against his former boss after being the fall guy for Trump’s illegal $130,000 hush-money payment to porn star Stormy Daniels a month before the 2016 election.
Cohen wrote in his newly released book, “Disloyal: A Memoir”, that Rybolovlev wasn’t the real buyer of the Palm Beach estate.
“The Russians bought the house from Trump for $95 million in 2008, an inflated price paid on the eve of the real estate collapse and global financial crisis, at the time the largest price ever paid for a private residence in the United States,” Cohen wrote in Chapter 12 of his book.
“Trump told me that the price hadn’t really been an issue. He explained that the Russians weren’t really spending their own money when they made their excessive purchases of European soccer teams and super yachts and Central Park South penthouses,” Cohen wrote. “The oligarchs could enjoy the assets, but always and forever at the pleasure of Vladimir Putin, the new tsar, and displeasing him meant risking their fortunes but also their lives.”
Cohen wrote: “‘The oligarchs are just fronts for Putin,’ Trump told me. ‘He puts them into wealth to invest his money. That’s all they are doing - investing Putin’s money.’”
“Trump was convinced the real buyer of Maison de l’Amitie was Vladimir Putin,” Cohen wrote.
https://www.palmbeachpost.com/story/news/columns/2020/09/11/michael-cohens-take-trumps-sale-palm-beach-estate-russian/3468953001/



На днях в длинной путанной речи на элитном форуме в Давосе обладатель домов и дворцов сетовал и на дуновение 1930ых годов, и на проблему имущественного неравенства.

"Конечно же, в истории нет прямых параллелей. Но некоторые эксперты - я с уважением отношусь к их мнению - сравнивают текущую ситуацию с 30-ми годами прошлого века. С такой ситуацией можно соглашаться, можно не соглашаться. Но по многим параметрам, по масштабу и комплексному, системному характеру вызовов, потенциальных угроз определённые аналогии всё-таки напрашиваются.
Мы видим кризис прежних моделей и инструментов экономического развития. Усиление социального расслоения: как на глобальном уровне, так и в отдельных странах. Об этом мы и раньше говорили. Но это, в свою очередь, сегодня вызывает резкую поляризацию общественных взглядов, провоцирует рост популизма, правого и левого радикализма, других крайностей, обострение и ожесточение внутриполитических процессов, в том числе в ведущих странах."
http://kremlin.ru/events/president/news/64938