Episode Details

It’s exactly a year since I detected the system-wide effects of the aggregatation of MAGA and Russian Disinfolklore artifacts invading our minds, information space and reality. In February in Munich at the Pirate Party security conference I declared what by then I had archætyped as a “Disinfolklore Universe” to be operating inside all of our minds and cultures.

Today I want to begin a series of several parts of the “Battling Archetypes” paper I conceived for the first time exactly a year ago and which I spoke about in embryonic form at the Munich meeting in February.

I wanted to go through the four — or five parts rather — over the next week or two, to remind us of the system so that we can apply it to this idea of a peace process of which Ukraine isn’t a voluntary part. It’s obviously sticking in there as long as it can to maintain intelligence support.

As I understand it, Ukraine last year spent 5 billion euros on drones, and 70 or 80 percent of Russian casualties were caused by those drones. So the amounts of money and the technical needs of Ukraine — they have everything they need, basically, at a minimum. It would be very nice if they can maintain intelligence support and other particular munitions. But even the Patriots — we see these things, the SAMP/T, the anti-aircraft system that the Italians make, I think with the French — seem to be doing very well. The United States is no longer the indispensable ally.

I totally admire the patience of the Ukrainian side. They want to keep America on board, mainly because the deep state, if there is one, and the people who will succeed Donald — God willing — will expect Ukraine to maintain its politeness. It’s an investment in Ukraine’s future, but I don’t see it as an existential need for them.

So what are the Americans and the Russians doing? They are altering our culture, changing our approach to international law, trying to return us to the social conditions of the 1930s. This has always been the plan of the people behind MAGA and Donald: that municipal law should trump international law.

If you were to say to me, “What is Russia’s game? What is the project by invading and occupying Crimea?” — that’s what I would say. It’s to replace the international law which constrains individual sovereigns from certain activities. It proscribes a certain set of activities: contravening human rights, contravening various laws — laws of the sea, laws of armed conflict, the Genocide Convention. These are all constraints on the sovereign. Both MAGA and Russia and many oligarchs around the world don’t want any constraint on sovereigns.

When we hear them trying to talk about recognising Crimea, recognising the taking of a territory — on the one hand, it will be America doing what Russia did when it brought Zaporizhzhia into its constitution. It just ruins the entire constitution of America, as it would with Russia. It will have no effect on other countries like the European Union, or powerful countries like Japan, in terms of recognition. They’re not going to suddenly recognise it. But Taiwan and everyone will accelerate their nuclear weapons programmes, and it will have real-world effects.

Apart from all of that, what I see happening, almost imperceptibly, is it changes our realities and normalises what was previously impossible. This is what I talk about as the Disinfolklore universe. This is why, Wendy, when I see articles particularly like this one about recognising Crimea, it just jumps out: they are going to do this, and these are the implications. In my own small way, I try to lay those out. But I hope people who have power are trying to lay this out too. And I hope there’s a plan. Maybe the plan involves leaks. Maybe that’s why Witkoff looked so terrible in Miami — because he was spending nights going through all his conversations for the last six months, which someone perhaps has, and they’re all going to leak.

I declared our Disi