FAQ of Crankery on soc.culture.soviet.

The existential part.

What is crankery?

In soc.culture.soviet, crankery is not a fuzzy warm plant-talking Kirlian idiocy of John_-_Winston and Robert McElwaine. It is not, either, the harmless megalomania of Archimedes Plutonium, or the silly paranoia of Bar Code 666 fundies. Here, crankery is a vile, hard-hitting, hateful garbage that most readers find highly offensive. Outside of the Soviet newsgroups, this kind of crankery does not survive at all (witness Dan Gannon demise). Immediately upon reading this type of messages, most of the ``normal Americans'' file a heavyweight, lawyerspeak-filled complaint to the offender's sysadmin. Russkies do not know how to write complaint. In fact, most complain-writers of the Soviet newsgroups are cranks themselves (writing complaints to system administration of the moderate posters, who often gulp down the complaint and close the account, with unpleasant consequences for the job of the account-holder). Soviet newsgroups are breeding grounds of crankery. The only crank of such order, outside of the Soviet group, was Hassan B-) Mutlu.

Contents of these archives are highly offensive. Why do you archive this stuff?

My aim is twofold. I am deeply moved and amused by the crankery. I find much in common with the hateful, vile garbage that the cranks post. After reading the articles by Alexplore, I found that no peaceful coexistence is possible. I am enlightned by the cranks. After massive ingestion of the cranks' articles, the ``normal'' writers look like boring, purposeless, stupid insectoid creatures without individuality or passion.

The cranks (of their variety found on soc.culture.soviet) feel the same all-consuming hatred to the world of well-adjusted people. Often, they start hateful campaigns of destruction against this or that (well-adjusted) poster. Even sharing the crank's hate to the world of Normals, I am disgusted with their methods. So I keep this archive to defend the Normals (even if I hate their guts) against the dangerous critters roaming the Soviet chapter of Usenet.

Do you consider yourself a crank?

No crank considers hir$elf a crank.

The technical part.

What happened with Dmitry Pruss.

See also a shorter documentary written by Dmitry.

Pruss was the most tragic victim of @bwalk.dm.com muscle. Pruss is a mild-mannered Jewish scientist in 30-ies, with 3 kids. He is a chemist by education, a biologist by the work, but has history as a hobby and also pursues antropology for the job and as a hobby. The Renaissance man, by the wideness of his intellectual pursuit (he is also an avid backpacker). He used to post in the relevant scientific newsgroups, and sometimes entered conversations on soc.culture.* hierarchy. Pruss avoided soc.culture.soviet, believing it is overloaded by hatred and garbage emitting from cranks. He was (very friendly) arguing on soc.culture.baltics with his schoolmate (from Moscow State University) when the shit (in the person of Alex Thurston) hit the fan. Thurston, a. k. a Alexplore, is an Ukrainian nationalist (*) perpetuating the worst stereotypes of anti-Semite Ukrainians. He's alive with inbred hate of all things Jewish (most of his articles are filled with anti-Semitic slurs, and he usually ranted against the ``minipulative'' Sovoks with their ``short, circumsized'' dicks). The chief target of Thurston was Dr. Boris Veitsman, a Jewish physicist from Ukraine, working at Penn State University (also an extremely moderate and mild-mannered person, much unlike myself). Pruss (though from Moscow) filled a similar profile, and once upon a time, Alexplore dreamed a vengeance.

As I just said, Pruss was talking with his schoolmate Gustav Akk, about the elderly Jewish WWII veterans of Estonia. Latter were outraged that a monument built allegedly to honour their valiance in WWII does not bear their names in Russia, but in Estonian and Hebrew (I have to note that elderly Jews in backward regions of Russia are often anti-Zionist and pro-Soviet). Gustav said that Jews are too capricious: they don't like when they are massacred, and don't like when monument are built in their honor. I found this remark offensive, but Pruss took it as a joke and answered that

>Well you know if you ask 3 Jews a question, you'll end up with 4 opinions,
>at least 3 of them being diametrally opposite. If that makes you
>uncomfortable, then there's a patented way to make them feel the same: to
>get rid of them. Monument-building is optional.

Immediately, Vulis created the account of ``Shlomo Ruthenberg'' (who never existed, as Vulis admitted himself) for Alexplore. ``Shlomo'' posted in ~200 (**) Usenet newsgroups the article denouncing Pruss as an anti-Semite genocidal apologist.

From: shlomo@bwalk.dm.com (Shlomo Ruthenberg)
Newsgroups: soc.culture.ukrainian,soc.culture.baltics,talk.politics.mideast,soc.culture.soviet,soc.culture.african.american,soc.culture.romanian,sci.psychology
Subject: Soviet-Nazi anti-Semite in Nat.Inst.of Health paid for with your tax $$$
Date: Tue, 4 Oct 1994 17:28:31 GMT
Organization: Young Israel of Forest Hills
Lines: 58

As a religious Jew I am OUTRAGED that my tax money is used to pay for Internet
access for the notorious Jew-hating Russian punk - one Mr. Dimitri Pruss. This
Soviet-Nazi genocide apologist may have the right to post his "kill the kikes"
messages from AmeriKKKa Online or Delphi, but not from a computer that *I* and
other American taxpayers have paid for with our tax money. I ask every Jew who
reads this to contact Dr. Steven Bailey by e-mail: postmaster@helix.nih.gov or
Steve_Bailey@nih.gov, tel: (301) 496-4823, fax: (301) 402-2190, USPS: National
Institutes of Health, Bldg. 12B, Rm. 2N-207, Bethesda, MD 20892, and demand as
taxpayers that anti-Jewish propaganda like this NEVER AGAIN appears on Usenet:

>From: pruss@helix.nih.gov (dmitry pruss)
       ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^  ^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Subject: Re: Could Russia learn from Germany? (was: Ivangorod/Jaanilinn and
              ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>Petseri/Petshory)
>Message-ID: <1994Sep24.193032.3421@alw.nih.gov>
>Sender: postman@alw.nih.gov (AMDS Postmaster)
>Organization: National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD, 20892
>References: <1994Sep21.140611.1@ualr.edu>
><1994Sep22.002042.26759@alw.nih.gov> 
>Date: Sat, 24 Sep 1994 19:30:32 GMT
>
>In article  akk@acsu.buffalo.edu (Gustav Akk)
>writes:
>>  Or in other words: if one massacres Jews he is not right, and
>>  if one builds them a monument - he is not right either.
>>  Makes you wonder what do they want....
>
>Well you know if you ask 3 Jews a question, you'll end up with 4 opinions,
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>at least 3 of them being diametrally opposite. If that makes you
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>uncomfortable, then there's a patented way to make them feel the same: to
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
>get rid of them. Monument-building is optional.
 ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
Is 6,000,000 dead not enough? Time to add Dimitri Pruss to the list of hateful
prominent anti-Semites in this country, like Jesse Jackson and Louis Farrakhan.
You may want to send a carbon copy to your senators and congressperson as well.

Please note that the Jew-hater Pruss is but one of several such Russian racists
who openly post their attacks on Jews, Ukrainians, Turks, Romanians, and other
ethnic groups in the soc.culture.* hierarchy. Their recent soc.culture.soviet
traffic has only recently included paranoid rantings about some anti-Soviet
Jewish-Ukrainian conspiracy on Usenet, lists of Jewish victims they claim to
have "spanked" off the Net through forgeries and false denunciations, and even
forged calls for a creation of a "Jew-free" moderated "soc.culture.russian"
newsgroup. The proposed moderator of the latter (who has himself been publicly
identified by Georgi Orlov and Ivan Dementiev on America Online as a well-known
Pamyat' activist who used to "beat up" Jews in Moscow) has been heard shrilly
defending Pruss's alleged right to post anti-Semitic messages on Usenet from a
taxpayer-funded account. While there are many loud anti-Semitic voices on the
net, in this particular case, support from Pamyat' racists seals Pruss's fate.

NEVER AGAIN.

Have a good Shabbos,
Shlomo          

Americans, with their love of snitching, (*) immediately fell for this provocation and wrote to NIH demanding Pruss's immediate removal. Aleplore called a few times to Pruss' superiors with the same (he also wrote e-mail letters as Alex Thurston). No letters from the Soviet newsgroup folks were accepted, because, from the viewpoint of NIH, the Sovoks (even American citizens) were not real Americans, and un-biased American taxpayer like Alexplore must have a say in who NIH employs.

Pruss's visa status in US was quite uncertain: he received J1 visa from his job in the National Institute of Health, and as many of foreign nationals with such status, was mercilessly exploited by the employer. Hence NIH decided not to fire Pruss, but prohibited his posting forever (from any account, even non-related to NIH) and put him through psychiatric councelling. The official argument was that Pruss is a priceless scientist, but his psyche is disturbed by the fall of SU (which Pruss (actually a dissident) presumably loved) so he cannot be held accountable for the damages he caused to Alexplore. Seriously, folks, this was the official point of view.

Pruss still exists on NIH, though his account is still mail-only. I don't think he is wise to continue living in this degenerate fascist country.

What is bwalk.dm.com?

This is a home computer of Dmitry Vulis, registered as a domain for Dmitry and Marina Consulting, feeding from psi.com.

Who posted from bwalk.dm.com?

• Dmitry Vulis, as simvlad@bwalk.dm.com (AI Simulation Daemon), dlv@bwalk.dm.com (Dr. Dimitri Vulis) fermat@bwalk.dm.com (Ludwig Fermat)
• Marina Vulis (administrator), probably as root (not a crank.)
• Gregory Steshenko, as hryysha@bwalk.dm.com
• Alex Thurston, as shlomo@bwalk.dm.com (Shlomo Ruthenberg), alexplore@bwalk.dm.com (A.T.)
• Andrey Dmitriev (not a crank).
• A list of 20-40 accounts created to participate in Usenet Opinion Pull, regarding the name of soc.culture.russian. All voted for soc.culture.russia. The votes from @bwalk.dm.com were invalidated by Usenet Votetaker Group. Among these ``33 bogatyrya'' were Vulis, all Soviet ChK/GPU/NKVD/KGB chiefs, NKVD murderer A. A. Vyshinsky, and a score of best-known Russian writers.

Why simvlad@bwalk.dm.com?

bwalk.dm.com serves as a BBS provided freely to Soviet emigres in need of Usenet access. simvlad@bwalk.dm.com is account with no password created to satirize Vlad Rutenburg, Vulis' chief enemy of old. Vulis, allegedly, complained to sri.com, Rutenburg's employer, in retaliation to Rutenburg's alleged complaints against Vulis. This complaint war was a part of a fierce year-old flamewar of Soviet Jewish refugees against (allegedly anti-Semites) Vulis and Volodin in 1989-90, which resulted in creation of soc.culture.soviet. Unlike Pruss, Vulis and Rutenberg are Soviet refugees with US citizenship, so neither ot them quite succeeded in silencing the other.

Simvlad account could be used (presumably) by everybody with modem, so Vulis can't be held accountable for its misuse. This is the main reason why Vulis posts as simvlad@bwalk.dm.com. His style is unmistakable, so one can't doubt who is posting.

Who is Peter Vorobieff?

Peter is not crank. In this inferior category, he is among the most entertaining. He was active trying to silence the most outrageous cranks, hence the hatred they feel to Peter. Vulis is a pathological liar who hates Vorobieff's guts, so no word about Vorobieff can be trusted. Vorobieff, emphatically, was never a member of Pamyat', and Vulis knows this well. In fact, most folks who witnessed Vulis' polemics on talk.politics.soviet in 89-90 (or his vurulently anti-Semitic attacks on Boris Veytsman, in 1994-95) believe that Vulis is more an anti-Semite than members of Soviet nationalist establishment. The chief accuser of Vorobieff (and chief supporter of Vulis) is (besides of Vulis) the admirable Alex Iodkovsky, self-admitted self-made millionaire, former treasurer and security chief of Pamyat'.

Another friend of Dr. Vulis, Stephen Boursy, claims to have filled a lawsuit against Peter.

(**) This must be an exagerration. At least 29 newsgroups received an article from ``Shlomo'', see the attached documentation, with a comment by Pruss.

Return to my home page.