You’re a target.

I don’t care who you are, or where you are in the United States, but if you have a smartphone and internet access… you’re a target.

It used to be, back in the halcyon days of MySpace and AskJeeves, that you were merely a product. As in: internet firms provide a service to you and in turn they sell advertisers… you. The product was you – your eyeballs, your clicks, your attention – sold to those who in turn wanted to sell you something themselves. This seemed, to many people a fair enough trade. In fact, it seemed so fair that practically nobody used the for-pay services which sprang up in the dense ecosystem of the early internet and they all died off, steamrolled into extinction by Google and FaceBook.

But what admen know, spies, intelligence operatives and political consultants also know. Your attention can not just be turned towards buying a fancier car or a better dishwasher, it can be turned to action for specific purposes. Purposes, like, say, electing a certain person to the presidency and keeping him there. There have been lots of little nudges and targetings as the internet’s evolved, but we’re now seeing a truly large-scale example unfold before our eyes. It’s an old story, but it uses new tech.

But first, some history.

Back at the very beginning of the 20th century a tract came out called “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. It was supposedly a Jewish manifesto that spelled out how Jews would take over and enslave the world, starting with the Christian nations of Europe and North America. It was actually written by anti-semites in Russia and they and others like them in different countries help spread it rapidly through the world. There are still people today who refer to it, mainly to recruit people to various neo-nazi groups. The evidence that it was written by Russian anti-semites and not, in fact, by Jews, is overwhelming to the point it’d be silly for me to try and prove it here. The interesting point isn’t that this tract exists or was falsely created, the interesting point is why it was created, why it had an impact, and why elements of it persist to this day.

The Protocols was written at a time when the Tsar, Nicholas II, was under threat from revolutionaries and anarchists of all stripes. His grandfather, Alexander II, had been killed by a bomb-throwing anarchist, ironically while in the process of liberalizing and reforming Russia. Since Jews were over-represented in the ranks of revolutionaries (Why not, when revolution promised them freedom and equality instead of pogroms and subjugation), they made a perfect scapegoat for those who wanted to stop reform, let alone revolution, in its tracks. Besides, “Blood Libel”, wherein Jews supposedly use christian kids for sex and human sacrifice, had been well-established for centuries as a way of deflecting attention from the failings of the Russian state.

So picture yourself as a Russian peasant or factory worker around 1905. You have access to a newspaper or two, probably not at home, but at work. You might not read too well, but there are those at the local pub who can translate some of the tougher passages. You’re proud to be Russian. After all everyone is proud of where they’re from, or at least proud of their region, their family or clan. You’re a good Orthodox Christian, because of course you are! You know the government may be bad, tax collectors may be cruel, police may be corrupt, but you believe, because you have to believe it, that the Tsar himself is looking after you and your family. It’s hammered home, in church and at work when the boss has a meeting of the workers – the Tsar’s looking after you. He’s the father and you’re his children, all of you. Some of his other children may be bad (The tax collectors, judges, etc.), and you may be suffering because of it, but it’s just because he, the great Father, doesn’t know about you specifically!

Well, what happens when you start thinking about things a bit more and those explanations somehow don’t cut it? What if you start suspecting that maybe the Tsar himself isn’t actually really looking out for you? Well…

Guess what? You! There, yes you! Sergei! Ivan! Alexie! You’ve stumbled onto something! You’re a smart fellow, I can tell! You don’t accept the simple explanations they spread in church, or what the boss says out in public. Very wise, very wise. You’re right, you know, the Tsar isn’t actually giving his whole attention to your problems and the problems of those like yourself. You’re correct as it turns out, and there’s a secret that I’ll let you in on – it’s not because the Tsar doesn’t care who you are. It’s because he’s actually engaged in a secret life-or-death struggle against the shadowy evil cabal that actually want to enslave you! Yes, Sergei! Yes, Ivan! You figured it out! He’s fighting the Jews! For you! Look here, look at this pamphlet! It was brought at great personal danger from the evil circles of the Jews themselves so that we true Russians could see for ourselves what they plan. This is why the Tsar can’t hear your cries! This is why you must suffer! It’s because of them! Read the Protocols! It’s because of this battle that is going on far above your head! Yes, you were smart to see past the simple platitudes, and here’s your reward – this secret knowledge. So support the Tsar, no matter what! Accept your suffering, it’s for Russia! And whatever you do, don’t question – the real truth – now that you know it.

Does that seem over the top? Well…

Where before this kind of manipulation had to spread slowly and ineffectively through individual gatekeepers whispering over a mug of beer, or through distributing pamphlets, we can now see how exactly that kind of psychological operation works when turbocharged by individualized newsfeeds and targeted advertising. Did you click on a link in FaceBook about Russia? Congrats, FaceBook has sold you as a target to Russian troll farm operators. Did you click on a link about Ukraine? Congratulations, FaceBook has sold you as a target to Russian troll farm operators. Have you liked anything having to do with the Republican Party, ever? Congratulations, your FaceBook identity has been sold to Russian troll farm operators. And if you’ve ever shown any interest in firearms and/or distrust of the federal government, well, whoo-whee boy, those Russians just loooove your profile. Might even have a human target you instead of a bot. Have you received any kind of personalized message purporting to let you in on secret knowledge? Well, hello psy ops warrior! You’re in on the ground floor of the pyramid scheme!

Etc, Etc, Etc.

This brings me to QAnon. By now, most of us have heard of this online phenomenon. It’s a conspiracy that claims the Democratic Party is composed of pedophiles and satan worshippers. Furthermore, Donald Trump is onto these villains and is secretly fighting them far, far above everyone’s head. The fate of the United States thus rests on his success.

The resemblance to the Protocols of the Elders of Zion and to the Blood Libel trope is uncanny (They didn’t even change the stuff about pedophilia and child sacrifice!). But why does a psychological manipulation scheme designed to work on illiterate Russian peasants find success with presumably educated modern-day Americans? Let’s unpack this.

Pedophilia is disgusting, reviled and… secret. It is notoriously difficult to bring to light specifically because of the perceived shame it brings not just on the perpetrators, but on the victims themselves and their families. This facet of human psychology causes enormous problems for prosecution. When people refuse to talk about a crime, it’s hard to identify, much less stop it. That makes it absolutely perfect for conspiracies. After all, if someone suspects something might be going on, how do you disprove it? If I say you, dear reader, are a pedophile, how are you going to disprove it? What if I say it anonymously? What if I make sure that it’s not even a human of any kind who says it, but a spambot? Remember, you and everybody else, is a target and tracked not just virtually but geographically too. So what if I buy data from FaceBook on everyone in your neighborhood and specifically send official-looking “reports” into your newsfeed that name a certain individual (YOU!) as being wanted in connection with suspected pedophilia?

Kind of problematic, isn’t it?

But this kind of attack isn’t perfect. That’s because your neighbors might very well know you. They might know your family. They might know your friends. They might know, because of your behavior, because of your actions, because of past history, that whatever the spam machine is telling them is simply not true. And so in real life, in a community where people actually meet and go to church, have a beer at the bar, talk over lunch at work… in real life, this kind of personal attack isn’t always effective. You might be a loner, or maybe stand-offish, and thus a better target, but still… When people can see you for themselves they have the ability to make their own in-person decisions, in real life. Which is exactly what the conspiracy-monger doesn’t want.

So maybe instead you get an article that appears on your newsfeed about something that happened far away, in which no source is identified in the quotes, which does not come from any recognized news agency, but man, it just tugs at your heartstrings and fires you up with righteous anger at… them! That story is probably a plant. By clicking on the plant, you’ve now emphasized the big fat target on your head – a target for operatives, human and automated, who think you might be open to manipulation. So your newsfeed is going to get more of those type of stories, until you fall completely in the rabbit hole and click onto the websites, the chat rooms, the places where the true conspiracy-mongering comes out. Only instead of the Jews, it’s… well, it’s still the Jews, sort of (Actually George Soros as a stand-in for the rest of them), but also Democrats and black people. It’s QAnon.

QAnon is a sequel. It’s the Protocols of the elders of Zion and Blood Libel in new packaging, tailored for an American audience with more emphasis on Black people as the dupes instead of anarchists, a bit less on Jews, and a bunch on Democrats. Let’s take it in order.

The symmetry with 1903 Russia is pretty amazing, and kind of amusing in a train-wreck kind of way. There were actual real-life anarchists in 1903, so some of the conspiracy mongers today call BLM protesters literal anarchists too. I doubt any BLM protester carries a copy of Bukharin around, but White America has traditionally had at least a little bit of fear of angry black folks running amok, so for the purposes of the conspiracy this works just as well. Almost nobody these days knows what anarchism was or why it was bad, but the word still has the ability to frighten, which is good enough for conspiracy purposes. But for the sake of sanity let’s just quickly discuss the difference between actual, real-life anarchy and BLM.

Wanting to not get shot by the police is a different goal than wanting to destroy the entirety of capitalism. There.

Even if you, the conspiracy-maker, are able to slightly scare a White person with thoughts of angry Black people they might still see there’s a difference between actual anarchy and BLM. But there’s a way around that – looting and burning stores! That’s anarchy, right?

This plays into the hands of the conspiracists nicely, whether the people doing it are genuine BLM (No), thugs (Eh, maybe?), or provocateurs (Probably maybe?). Here’s where reality and the conspiracy meet in real life. The effect of burning and looting is to take away the core message of BLM (Don’t shoot and/or kill black people without real cause. Reform PDs that do so), and place it back in the conspiracy sphere, where burning and looting is symptomatic of the Jew/Soros/Democrats using black people to destroy good, honest, (White) America. And if you want to know how political operatives/spies use thugs for their own ends, just do some research and read about Kermit Roosevelt and Iran in 1953. Paying street thugs to go on a rampage and scare people has a long, dishonorable history.

So that’s the Blacks. What about the Jews?

George Soros made his real, tycoon-level, money betting against, and breaking, the Bank of England. It’s an interesting story if you want to know about how sovereign states try to maintain their currency, but rather boring if you can’t be bothered about high finance. In any case, he tweaked some noses out of joint in the British establishment. Now a lot of British Lords and Earls are Arabophiles, and don’t particularly like Jews as a group to begin with. Maybe a legacy of the Lawrence of Arabia mythos, and the fact that both Arabs and Upper-Class Englishmen have a thing for horses. So Soros started off his career as a tycoon with some influential types in England against him. He also has been outspoken about the dangers of the modern Putin-style Russian expansion, so he really, truly, absolutely, is detested by the Kremlin. Not coincidentally, Russians have invested huge amounts in the City of London financial centers and in London Real Estate, so there’s been a lot of self-interest on the part of the British elite to play nice with Putin and his guys. For the reasons I just mentioned they fortunately all hate Soros, so pushing everything dirty onto him is a win-win. Best of all, he’s literally a Jewish financier, so you don’t even have to rewrite the section in the Protocols about Jews and money at all! In a twisted way it’s almost funny how the hatred of Soros from the UK and Russia has pushed into the American sphere, where he hasn’t done anything except give money to a couple PACs like lots of other liberals. If you’re interested by real conspiracies and need an individual to focus on, learn about how the Kremlin and UK elites have consistently tried to mess him and every one of his projects up. If you look at the mirror slightly sideways you can start to see what’s behind you.

Finally, the Democrats. Hillary Clinton was a pedophile. Of course, everyone knows that. What, you didn’t know that? it’s right here, on this link…

Where and how did this story begin? Again, everyone hates pedophiles. Do you want someone to hate your enemy? Call them a pedophile! It doesn’t matter if it’s true. In fact, it’s better if it’s not true! As long as you can create suspicion, you’ve won. And if people are already primed to think something bad about the other side all it takes is a nudge and a wink. This part of the Russian operation is melding The Protocols with Blood Libel. In fact, for anyone whose studied even a little Russian history this entire QAnon thing screams so much Russian style thinking it’s astonishing. A fantastical bunch of BS that had its origins in Russian state control of peasants is reformatted and incorporated into the American political frame and it works?! I mean, I remember as a college student reading the stories of Jews kidnapping Christian children and raping them and sacrificing them to the dark un-Christian God and thinking “How could those morons possibly, I mean, ever, possibly have believed that?”

Well, here we are. That exact old Russian folk tale is now spread by QAnon, except it’s not just Jews but Democrats also who are – yeah, you got it – kidnapping, raping, and sacrificing good Christian children. It is EXACTLY the same story from a couple centuries back. Somehow there are modern-day Americans, who are not time-transported Russian peasants, who actually believe that an entire political party, composed of millions of people – everyone from movers and shakers in Washington DC to local volunteers in rural counties of a few thousand – are in on a giant child sex trafficking-and-sacrificing scheme.

Fine, say the conspiracists. Disprove it.

And you can’t. Because you can’t disprove the existence of something that never existed. That’s the beauty of this conspiracy. That’s the beauty of the Protocols of the Elders, both the original and this new script. In 1903 Russia it was the Jews. In 2020 America it’s the Jew Soros/BLM/Democrats. Are you, Ivan – I mean, John… Are you a patriotic Russian? I mean American? Then support the Tsar! I mean Trump! He’s fighting this shadowy battle, far above your heads. Aren’t you a patriot? Don’t you understand that he’s your father, looking out for his children? The enemy are shadowy and hidden, but you, yes you! You have been given the secret knowledge to what’s really going on!

Just click on this link…

Now what if you haven’t drunk all the kool aid? You’ve read my screed this far. You say to yourself, I don’t know if I believe all this stuff about Protocols and a new conspiracy but let me just see. Now you click on a link about BLM. And hey, all of a sudden your feed changes, and you start to get stories that tug you another direction. This poor black kid on the other side of the country got murdered by some white racists. It’s unaccredited and far from you, and from a news organization you’ve never heard of, but the stories just heart-breaking. So you click on another link below and suddenly there’s another rabbit hole. Only this time it’s chat rooms and websites that say the only solution is violence! Got to show these fascists what time it is! Burn, baby, burn!

Congratulations, the conspiracy got you too, only looking at the mirror from a different direction. Whatever your fears are, whatever your weaknesses, the digital mirror wants to reflect them back at you, and then start changing the picture you see, slightly at first, then a little more, then a lot, until you’re inside looking out.

This, all this, isn’t about anything real except manipulation. It’s a psychological operation. You. Are. The. Target. Whatever you click on, you’re targeted. FaceBook doesn’t care. This American company absolutely does not give one single solitary damn about what happens in American society. It started off and has always, always, always been about one single thing: making money off of YOU, the user. The fact that Russians, Chinese, whoever, can buy all the most intimate data about you and everyone you know, fuse it with their own database of psychological profiles and target you with items designed to manipulate you one way or the other… FaceBook. Doesn’t. Care. And while the Protocols and the myth of Blood Libel are old-style scare-mongering, these are some reasonably sophisticated databases. Are you a warrior? The database says you get items and links from this silo specializing in combative outrage. Are you a worrier? The database says you get items from this silo specializing in helpless victims. Etc. Etc. Etc. Everyone fits a profile, at least to some degree. Once you can see what people have clicked in the past, you can have a pretty good idea of what their psychological profile is like. Fit them to the correct silo and start pouring into their brain all the items and stories you have that push them in the direction you want.

THAT’S the conspiracy.

If you don’t want to be part of the conspiracy the solution is simple. Delete FaceBook and other social sites. Don’t use them. Communicate with your friends by email. Yeah, it’s a step back maybe, but humans survived for millenia without that stupid blue logo. If you feel that you absolutely have to be on FaceBook or other similar social sites, at least turn off the “news” feed. Get your news from real sources, local, national, international. Learn a language and try to read foreign news sites in the original if you like a challenge. And if the article or news item is about something far away, and it doesn’t appear in other accredited sites or it otherwise seems off, just don’t click it. And don’t believe that crap about “mainstream media” being all lies. Real journalists actually interview people, cite sources, go places, and tell you about it. Sometimes real newspapers use anonymous sources, but they will say so. Actually fake news pretends that the information they tell you is supposedly secret, isn’t verifiable, and the sources can never be actually found.

The conspiracy is real, but it isn’t the one you think it is. Don’t be fooled. Don’t let some long-dead Russian Tsarist and his modern descendant turn you into a chump.