KGB Psyops from the horse's mouth

Glenn Reynolds links to this at PJ Media.

"Former KGB agent and Soviet defector Yuri Bezmenov explains how the KGB worked from within American universities to demoralize our society in a generation."

The manufacturing of "useful idiots:" a first-hand explanation of how and why they did it, which helps to explain why so many otherwise fine, nice, pleasant, even smart people seem so resistant to logic and even to facts, should those things contradict their negative views of "the power structure" or "bourgeois Amerika." Willi Münzenberg's old weapons of the Cold War are still working.

Here's a blogpost about Bezmenov and the documentary this clip is excerpted from, with links to other clips:

In 1984 G. Edward Griffin released a documentary titled Soviet subversion of the free press, a conversation with Yuri Bezmenov and through the magic of YouTube, snippets of that documentary are available on the web today. Now, as far as I can tell, G. Edward Griffin is a little bit odd. He's championed some questionable cancer cures and written books about monetary conspiracies and all sorts of odd stuff (there's a page about him here: G. Edward Griffin Totally Explained, but really, it doesn't do all that much explaining). Still, you can't deny the video and he lets Bezmenov rant in his own words.

Do read the rest, it's worth the click. The blogger, Rob Hafernik, talks about the documentary and also about an issue of Look magazine from 1967 that was a glowing account of the USSR and its glorious potential. That sounds a lot like those articles by Walter Duranty that the NY Times ran in the early 1930's, described in the Weekly Standard and Wikipedia, which brought the Times a Pulitzer, but which historians have concluded were pure propaganda. There is also a book about Duranty, Stalin's Apologist. (Those three are just from the first page of Google results.)

The YouTube user who uploaded these Bezmenov clips seems to be a Nazi sympathizer. I didn't like looking at his other clips, so didn't look at many, but that was the impression I got, from their content and from his descriptions. But the Devil can quote Scripture, as they say, and after the abrogation of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, even a real Nazi would have little love for Russians. Which make it a bit less likely that these are some sort of double-fake.

Click the label "psyops" for more on Münzenberg and meme-war.

Update: Youtube has, as far as I can tell, removed everything from the user mentioned above. I have changed the link to one that still works; the better audio, and Portuguese subtitles! are just gravy.

Another update: Yaakov Ben Moshe has posted a couple more Bezmenov clips. Ted Kennedy appears at 6:26 in the second one.