I was triggered (haha) by a story all over the mainstream media today:
RUSSIA: Alexey Navalny, Putin’s Chief Opponent, Speaks Out After Prison Transfer – HE’S HELD IN A SOVIET GULAG (TGP 12/26/2023)
The point of this post is not to out Navalny as an Intelligence asset, which we will do only briefly, but to take a look at how thin the deception can be and still fool the consciousness of billions of people. Present company excepted, of course.
The zero-th item to note is that these types of analyses are very unpopular in conspiracy circles. That is, there are very few theorists left, where you have to at least string together a couple of facts with some analysis. They have been completely diluted (and I'm not disparaging) by people (God bless them) who are driven more by, "Yeah, that guy does suck! Upvote!" That's great and all, but if you're looking for more, read on.
Before we look at the general phenomenon, we'll only examine one conclusive detail to his phony story. You'll only be reading about it here, so note how easily an obvious contradiction flies by the rest of the world.
In the story linked above, you'll find a tweet dated the 26th from Navalny's blue-check account. Who cares what it says, because it's mere existence is directly contradicted here by Kira Yarmysh, Navalny's spokesperson:
Alexei Navalny ‘doing well’ after transfer to remote Arctic prison (The Independent 12/26/2023)
There's no way of reaching inmates, nor by mail nor by Internet, so it is practically impossible to contact someone directly.
I hope no troll is going to give us, "Ackshually, you can't email them, they can only tweet out." Although we'd all like to see that, it would still be pretty shameful.
The point is, one sheer lie serves one audience, and another sheer lie serves a different one. The two people making up these lies do not care whatsoever about coordinating them. Nor, as I have pointed out, do they need to.
As I referenced in the title, Navalny is a "Simulant". I don't know of any existing term for this type of "person". It's what I've come up with for the range of such people who go from absolutely authentic with a few phony aspects to outright "virtual persons" constructed from scratch.
Navalny seems to be a living, breathing human being. After that it gets very murky, which is what I'm trying to highlight. And what I'm really trying to highlight is how very thin it all is yet still yields successful, long-running psyop.
For example, this whole dumb, bullshit narrative about "disappearing" and "no one knew where he was for three weeks" until be was found "exiled to Sibera"? Did you know he was (supposedly) sent to the exact same place not quite three years ago?
What we know about the prison hospital where Alexei Navalny has been sent (Reuters 4/19/2021)
You can see the narrative at the time was that he was "recovering from Novichok poisoning (from Putin!)", and not "disappeared to Siberia". Yes, it's all just narrative, but everyone laps it right up.
But I want to stress how thin it all is, and always was. So this guy is supposed to be "Putin's opposition", right? I used Qwant to search on "putin navalny" and got--get this--27 hits. The nexus between the two is virtually non-existent.
Does Putin even know he exists, fake or real? It turns out the answer is probably not. The closest I can come is this video:
Putin says palace in Navalny report 'doesn't belong to me' | AFP (YouTube 1/25/2021)
If you watch the video, Putin never mentions Navalny. In fact, he says he never watched the video, only a summary made by his aides. My guess is that Putin is aware of the deception and chooses never to acknowledge it.
Finally, recall that Navalny is supposedly a politician seeking to challenge the highest-profile leader in the world, correct? He's got to get out there and kiss hands and shake babies, right? Apparently, no, he never does that.
Search for images with "navalny meets". It's him alone, in court, with his "family", and sometimes with some people floating around in the background. He never goes out and poses for photos with people he meets. Try the same search with something like "lauren boebert meets" and she's right there with all kinds of people. Maybe just a slut, huh?
Recall that "media" means "middle", and that's the shim that's created between people and reality. It may be razor-thin, but it's there and makes all the difference in the world.
This made me think of Waynel Sexton. George Floyd's "teacher".
On a lark I did a quick search of her. She actually has a Facebook page, and has one public pic of her and I would assume her husband in a field of flowers.
She has the same pic for her profile pic, but with a weird "#TogetherAgainstAntisemitism" logo with a star of David made out of different colored interlocking arms....here's her page
Not even a BLM tag...nope, antisemitism. Cause you know how bad antisemitism is in Houston...LOL.
But everything about that publicity stunt was wrong. She said that Floyd at eight years old was so impressed with Thurgood Marshall that he wrote the essay about becoming a judge. I've taught thousands of children, and shit like that just doesn't happen. The essay also has zero connection to anything about Thurgood Marshall.
And this woman is supposed to be an English teacher, but doesn't grade or correct their essays (or even write any comments), slaps a cheesy sticker on them, and throws them in a binder?
On that note, it's deluded, not diluted, that you meant in the third paragraph. :)
Haha, turns out I actually did mean "diluted"!
What I was trying to convey was that there was a time, not too long ago, when there were very few conspiracy theorists. If you were into it at all, you were really into it. You'll most commonly find that classical type among JFK researchers, where they'll write up a two page-long post on what LHO did at the embassy in Mexico City or whatever.
Fast-forward to the present and the typical "theorist" just links to a story about Bill Gates or posts an insulting meme about Klaus Schwab. Hey, great to get the word out, to be sure, but can that in any way said to be "theory"?
So over on r/conspiracy, the influx has diluted theorists and theories down to about 98-2. I use it for what it has become: a news feed filtering out mainstream propaganda. And even that comes with a hard rain of paid trolls and angry, basement-dwelling dipshits, further washing out theories.
But yeah, most of them are also deluded too, except it's about a set of things different from those about which the normies are deluded. Sadly, that deludes them that they're superior in some way.
Thanks for the Saint Floyd info! Another good example of how prevalent you see this phenomenon to be once you start looking for it.
Sorry I never got back to ya...The real dilution occurred when ATS was at the top...and then changed formats and started pushing garbage, especially long-winded videos about nothing.
I don't disagree with what you said, but I'm actually glad that I waited to reply.
While there has been dilution of the conspiracy theory realm, it's far too late.
What I mean is this...a Jewish politician recently had a promoted Facebook post on my feed. There was not a single positive comment about him...it also looks like he deleted a solid 30-50 comments!
And the comments were much more intelligent and conspiracy-minded than you would think. My immediately local Facebook group had a bunch of great threads when COVID first came out...I was quite happy to see how bright people were about it.
I had a long discussion about Ukraine with someone recently, and even the most normie of normies poked all kinds of holes in media coverage of the situation.
Attempts to dilute information really don't work...it only creates most conspiracy theorists. And now that seems to be a good chunk of the general populace.
Do your searches in Russian. :) Western media covered only tiny part of Navalny adventures that was suitable for the Western narratives.
Navalny was a murky businessman of kind, participated in money laundering with government owned businesses, like in that Kirovles case. It was regular practice at the time, when product of some state owned company (woddland plots and sawmill in that case) bought for the very low price and then reselled with market price. From the external point of view, there was nothing criminal - buy low, sell high, unless you know how that really work here. This state company sell wood only to Navalny company, because state bureaucrat who was in charge of that state company received huge part of Navalny company profits. Plain and simple corruption and state money laundering. When such schemes began to be criminalized, Navalny jump off and moved to some other less risky businesses. Nobody come after him, just because much larger fish was hunted at the time. But, probably, this ability to run away at the correct time attracted attention of some liberal politicians.
There was few other business adventures, also murky, when Navalny company again did absolutely nothing just being a money proxy.
Eventually, Navalny ended with owning some tiny business of making some wicker-work like chairs or something IIRC. Of course he didn't participate in any work, just was co-owner getting some small profit. And at that stage he decided to move into politics with agenda of fighting against corruption.
Pretty strange for the man who personally make all his weath on corruption.
Initially Navalny played liberal politician, but at the time it was already pretty obvious that liberal ideology is heavily anticipated by Russia population after the years of liberal reforms. You could easily find numerous Navalny meetings with all top liberal politicians of Russia. He often participated in round tables and whatever liberal meetings.
As I understand, Navalny turn to nationalism (fake turn, of course) happened after a group of nationalists disrupted one of liberal meetings where Navalny presented. He got that he will not acheve anything playing liberal, and even single nationalist have much more public support than all liberals together.
He began to participate in Russian marches and other nationalist events. and I suppose that was the moment when he was taken into hand by Western agencies.
West often used nationalism for intervention, but in case of real Russian nationalism that didn't work, really. Either Russian nationalist leaders deny any contacts with Western agencies agents, either such contacts ended with punched faces of western negotiators. One MI6 agent even ended in ICU, with accident filmed and shared over social media at the time, with few nationalist ended in jail for severe harm to health of victim.
But Navalny, being filthy liberal was completely another story. And what's most important, unlike any other nationalist leaders he had murky corrupt past that gives his curators good lever over him.
So, Navalny got financing and press and started his political campaign on the terms of nationalism, antiimmigration and anticorruption - highly popular things among people. But there was one thing people remembered well - he was the one who filed the case against nationalists who once disrupted his liberal meeting and that ended in jail time for one of nationalists for the "spreading of ethnic hatred". Such things are not welcomed in Russia.
Under the guise of that attractive slogans Navalny and his team pushed purely liberal narratives. Navalny once had some peak of popularity, but as more liberal crap like LGBTXYZ+ support began to appear in his agenda, his popularity significantly dropped. But Navalny and team had that finance flow from their Western partners and they started different election companies aiming at some not very high positions like majors of small towns and regional councils.
Nobody really would have been bothered with that attempts, if not the ties of Navalny organisation with Western agencies. Dropped popularity of Navalny do not allow him to achieve anything, but that "Western hand" always make Russian authorities angry. Many different small candidates without chances for win participate in elections, from radical communists to open nationalists and nobody gives a fuck.
As soon as Navalny sensed attention of Russian three-letter services he immidiately began to play a victim. Familiar behaviour, isn't it? This reduced his popularity even more. People still was interested in some dirty underwear Navalny with help of his Beliingcat(MI6) friends dug out on some Russian bureaucrats and oligarchs, but his game was already finished.
The rest of story was more or less represented in Western media from the necessary for the Western narrative angle.
Interesting that in the end, Navalny western masters just throw him under the bus, and then with their stupid sanctions helped Putin to do nearly everything that was in the most popular Navalny points. Seized Russia oligarchs foreing property, rised Russian nationalism to state ideology, clearly show horrors of uncontrolled migration and along with that made any western influence over Russia's wanna-be-politicians highly improbable.
Does Putin heard about Navalny at all? Of course he did. At the level somewhere between that black basketball junky caught with the stuff on the border and some governor from middle of nowhere who tried to swallow too much.
Can you link us to a video where Putin mentions him by name?
I don't think such video exists. Just like no video exists where he names that black basketball junky. But that does not mean he didn't know about them.
Okay, thanks! I just wanted to make sure it was okay to be certain about stuff we just make up about the world and post here.
There's a lot of made up profiles on linked in too. It's funny that it's obtained such s credible reputation given such. I've never thought about this specific case but have been following a lot of instances if this in the "alt right media" where folks come out of nowhere and have suspicious back stories / allegiances
There was a huge pulse of alt-right "pay-triot" types that came in right as Trump was leaving office in January 2021. I suppose that constituted part of the strategy to put the final nails in Trump's coffin.
On the one hand there were the high-profile ones like Sidney Powell and Mike Flynn, and on the other there was a flood of "insiders" (or whatever they're supposed to be) constantly on podcasts. That would include guys like Juan O' Savin, Michael Jaco and Mike Gill.
Because I'm really lazy, I almost never get around to researching their backgrounds. I just do what evidently almost no one else does: I listen to them talk while thinking, "Does this sound like a normal person who happens to have more information and expertise than I do and wishes to pass it on, or might this person just be another disinformation agent giving out nothing that will lead me further?"
That sounds like it would take some sort of special training or innate talent to discriminate, but not at all. It's like telling the difference between overhearing two people talking at the next table in a restaurant and hearing two people talking in a restaurant in a movie. No one needs to tell you which is which. Anyone can tell in 30 seconds (or less) because the two actors just do not talk like ordinary people.
But, again, the frightening thing is how everyone thinks that movie dialogue is real.