Trump and Russia

[Doc Brown]

 

Respectfully I disagree with the bolded. Senator Mark Warner has been calling for censorship and described Russian fake news bots as a grave threat to America. It started with his first press conference and he's referenced it repeatedly throughout this year. He does it directly and indirectly, calling for mechanisms to suss out fake news before it gets distributed to the public. Schiff has said the same, many times over the past year - twice to me personally in interviews.

 

Twitter censored almost 50% of tweets which referenced the DNC leaks. Almost 50%! Mind you, the DNC leaks aren't fake news, they're real documents (even if illegally acquired they are real) and to date WikiLeaks has a 100% authenticity record of its releases. Censoring real information from the people is not being patriotic - it's playing politics and picking sides. Now, Twitter is a private company, free to do what they please within the law, but let's not pretend that censorship is patriotic.

 

Denying information to the public is about as anit-American and anti-Liberal (as in true liberalism not the political movement) as it gets. Falling back on censorship as a solution, in any way, is not protecting American values. It's undercutting them. Just like we did in 2001 with the Patriot Act, 702, et al.

 

Censorship has always been the end game of some on this issue. They do not hide it. Just have to listen to what they're actually saying.

 

And to recap how this narrative actually started:

 

2012: NDAA makes it legal for the State Department and Intelligence Agencies to disseminate propaganda domestically.

2012: (After Romney loses) There's a dramatic uptick in neo-McCarthyism on the left that's tied directly to the western backed coup in the Ukraine and in Syria.

2013: Russia takes Crimea - doesn't move any farther into the Ukraine.

2013-2015: 45 massively ups the amount of arms flowing into Syria and into AQ/ISIS fighters' hands to fight Assad and Russians, trying to avoid the same outcome they had in Ukraine. A massive propaganda campaign is unleashed in western media about the necessity to act in Syria (White Helmets being the most obvious example of this - they won a friggin' Oscar)

2015: The neocon establishment begins to flock to HRC's campaign and shaped her foreign policy platform, making it dramatically anti-Putin - this from the same woman who offered him a "reset" only a few years prior. I'm talking Frum, Kyrstol, and others.

2016: Brexit / Trump's anti establishment platform takes off and shows it has real legs - which is a direct threat to the groundwork the USIC had been laying in the public mind since 2012, sweeping him into office.

2017: Two weeks before Trump is sworn in, the DNI releases the ICA which has more holes in it than Tibs' head in an attempt to thwart the new administration from being able to dictate their own foreign policy agenda with regards to Russia.

 

Notice Trump doesn't show up in this timeline until the end. It's never been about Trump. Trump is a tool used to manipulate those who hate/fear him into blindly accepting the new status quo with regards to Russia: they're no longer a foe, they're - to use your words - a hostile nation.

 

That's a HUGE swing in terminology in just 4 years from the left. The left ridiculed Romney when he called Russia a threat. What changed? Could it be the neocon establishment behind Romney jumped ship to HRC's campaign in 2015? Russia is an adversary, unquestionably. But are they a hostile one? A hostile adversary doesn't stop at Crimea, they take all of the Ukraine. A hostile nation doesn't rely on propaganda alone, but follows it up with actual cyber operations on electoral systems (like the US did in France and Israel in 2012 for example).

 

There's no question Russia used propaganda in an attempt to cause unrest and division in the country. That's what they do. There's also no question the USIC has used propaganda on its own citizens in an attempt to garner public support for a second cold war.

 

Of the two of those, one is much more of a threat than the other, and it ain't coming from Moscow.

Had to point that out because I found it funny after the great way you laid out this post. I would of called this somewhat crazy 20 years ago, but after the WMD debacle in Iraq and Clapper lying about mass surveillance I'd say what you just wrote is definitely plausible.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Doc Brown

[Deranged Rhino]

Had to point that out because I found it funny after the great way you laid out this post. I would of called this somewhat crazy 20 years ago, but after the WMD debacle in Iraq and Clapper lying about mass surveillance I'd say what you just wrote is definitely plausible.

 

 

There's a definitive paper trail that shows at least the arms programs are/were real, with both State and 44 being aware of exactly who they were funding. If you remember, there was a great deal written about Al Nusra Front and a push to make them appear like "moderates" who had disassociated from AQ. This was a lie, as everyone in the field and in the know at both Langley and Foggy Bottom realized AQ has always retained control of operations in Syria and especially within ANF.

 

They knew they couldn't sell the public on the idea of a battle field alliance with AQ directly, so they launched a massive propaganda campaign designed to condition the public into thinking 1) AQ was less of a threat than ISIS and 2) The rebels in Syria were Syrians fighting for their homeland, not foreign jihadists working under AQ.

 

There's also an extensive paper trail (complete with audio tapes of Victoria Nuland (http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957) showing how deeply involved the USIC and HRC's State Department were with orchestrating a coup - complete with civilian casualties designed to inflame the protests - in the Ukraine, forming an alliance with neo Nazis in order to do so.

 

The propaganda machine trying to turn Russia from an adversary into a hostile enemy in the minds of the American people has been churning long before Trump announced his run in 2016. This is because, in my opinion, the war on terror was fading in 2012, along with its budgets. A new, more dangerous (and expensive) foe was needed - enter the neo-McCarthyism push.

 

But don't take my word for it (you or anyone), do your own digging. It's all there, most of it isn't even hidden.

Edited November 3, 2017 by Deranged Rhino

[K-9]

 

... The propaganda machine trying to turn Russia from an adversary into a hostile enemy in the minds of the American people has been churning long before Trump announced his run in 2016. This is because, in my opinion, the war on terror was fading in 2012, along with its budgets. A new, more dangerous (and expensive) foe was needed - enter the neo-McCarthyism push.

Propaganda machine aside, has Russia been a bad actor internationally since Putin's rise or not? Are his policies opposed to our democratic ideals or not; his idea of due process, for instance? There is no doubt that politicians in the USA will always seek to make hay out of the Russian menace meme but that doesn't mean that what Putin is and what he stands for or the criminal aspects of his regime aren't real. They are. And I don't need any politician or intelligence agency to tell me that. Press reports out of Russia, some at grave risk to the reporters and their families, over the last decade, have made that painfully obvious.

[Deranged Rhino]

Propaganda machine aside, has Russia been a bad actor internationally since Putin's rise or not? Are his policies opposed to our democratic ideals or not; his idea of due process, for instance? There is no doubt that politicians in the USA will always seek to make hay out of the Russian menace meme but that doesn't mean that what Putin is and what he stands for or the criminal aspects of his regime aren't real. They are. And I don't need any politician or intelligence agency to tell me that. Press reports out of Russia, some at grave risk to the reporters and their families, over the last decade, have made that painfully obvious.

 

For me, that element of this discussion is the squirrel. No one denies what you're saying, least of all me. You're correct. I'm not trying to defend Putin by making the argument I'm making, nor am in any way denying that Russia does things that aren't in our interests - ideologically and geopolitically.

 

Where I differ is in the nature of the threat Russia poses. They do not pose an imminent threat to the United States nor our democracy no matter how monstrous Putin is to his own people. That statement, now probably considered fringe, used to be a pretty uncontroversial one 4 years ago. But now you're first reaction to it will probably be to try to argue against it.

 

That's the result of the propaganda machine I'm talking about. The one that became legal in 2012 and has been used with malicious intent by our own IC and State Department against us to convince us extreme actions must be taken to combat the hostile nation that is Russia. Extreme actions like supporting jihadists from the very same group that took down the towers on 9/11 in order to shoot Russians in Syria or instituting a no fly zone in Syria which undoubtedly would lead to a shooting war between US and Russian pilots.

 

The truth is there are plenty of ways to confront Russia and Putin - diplomatically and strategically - that don't involve proxy wars or regime change. Plenty of ways that won't require the citizens of this country to give up certain civil liberties in order to keep the country safe. But by ramping up the hysteria, those options become more difficult to enact or even discuss politically.

 

The men and women and agencies pushing this hysteria (and I do believe it's hysteria, the product of a now 4+ year propaganda blitz to make us fear Russia and Putin and see Russia as an imminent threat) are the ones who see regime change as a central tenant of their strategy. We've seen how dangerous nation building is if you're not willing to commit to a multi-decade occupation - yet these same people have pushed/are pushing regime change in Iraq (oops), Libya (oops), Syria, Ukraine, and Moscow.

 

They want Putin out - as do most people. But no one ever stops to ask what if the guy behind him is worse? Putin is surrounded by hardliners. Putin is a lot of things, but despite the hysteria and narrative, the United States has done far more to destabilize the world than Russia has over the past decade and a half. We can quibble about the nobility of our intentions, but the chaos and carnage caused by our nation building and regime change addiction continue to be a bigger threat to the world at large than Russia's usurpation of Crimea or Putin's abuse of his own people.

 

Russia, unlike Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Ukraine, is the world's largest thermonuclear power. Pushing the hysteria - equating propaganda with acts of war for example - of the Russian threat when it's largely unfounded is dangerous. As dangerous, if not more, than pretending as if Russia and Putin are downy innocents.

 

The goal should be cooperation and diplomacy, not proxy wars and inflated defense budgets. By amping up this rhetoric over the past 12 months, they are trying to box us into accepting fewer solutions to the problem Russia poses.

 

[grinreaper]

 

For me, that element of this discussion is the squirrel. No one denies what you're saying, least of all me. You're correct. I'm not trying to defend Putin by making the argument I'm making, nor am in any way denying that Russia does things that aren't in our interests - ideologically and geopolitically.

 

Where I differ is in the nature of the threat Russia poses. They do not pose an imminent threat to the United States nor our democracy no matter how monstrous Putin is to his own people. That statement, now probably considered fringe, used to be a pretty uncontroversial one 4 years ago. But now you're first reaction to it will probably be to try to argue against it.

 

That's the result of the propaganda machine I'm talking about. The one that became legal in 2012 and has been used with malicious intent by our own IC and State Department against us to convince us extreme actions must be taken to combat the hostile nation that is Russia. Extreme actions like supporting jihadists from the very same group that took down the towers on 9/11 in order to shoot Russians in Syria or instituting a no fly zone in Syria which undoubtedly would lead to a shooting war between US and Russian pilots.

 

The truth is there are plenty of ways to confront Russia and Putin - diplomatically and strategically - that don't involve proxy wars or regime change. Plenty of ways that won't require the citizens of this country to give up certain civil liberties in order to keep the country safe. But by ramping up the hysteria, those options become more difficult to enact or even discuss politically.

 

The men and women and agencies pushing this hysteria (and I do believe it's hysteria, the product of a now 4+ year propaganda blitz to make us fear Russia and Putin and see Russia as an imminent threat) are the ones who see regime change as a central tenant of their strategy. We've seen how dangerous nation building is if you're not willing to commit to a multi-decade occupation - yet these same people have pushed/are pushing regime change in Iraq (oops), Libya (oops), Syria, Ukraine, and Moscow.

 

They want Putin out - as do most people. But no one ever stops to ask what if the guy behind him is worse? Putin is surrounded by hardliners. Putin is a lot of things, but despite the hysteria and narrative, the United States has done far more to destabilize the world than Russia has over the past decade and a half. We can quibble about the nobility of our intentions, but the chaos and carnage caused by our nation building and regime change addiction continue to be a bigger threat to the world at large than Russia's usurpation of Crimea or Putin's abuse of his own people.

 

Russia, unlike Iraq, Libya, Syria and the Ukraine, is the world's largest thermonuclear power. Pushing the hysteria - equating propaganda with acts of war for example - of the Russian threat when it's largely unfounded is dangerous. As dangerous, if not more, than pretending as if Russia and Putin are downy innocents.

 

The goal should be cooperation and diplomacy, not proxy wars and inflated defense budgets. By amping up this rhetoric over the past 12 months, they are trying to box us into accepting fewer solutions to the problem Russia poses.

 

As I have been saying for years, we need to use our vast abundance of energy resources to coerce and cajole the rest of the world. For example, if we had the ability to supply Europe with natural gas Russia would have no choice but to respect our wishes.

[Deranged Rhino]

His name was Seth Rich... but he was just a poor kid who got robbed and shot. 

At least that's the story... Which makes this segment of Brazile's book at least interesting to those who wish to continue to deny there isn't something more to Rich's murder:

"Brazile writes that she was haunted by the still-unsolved murder of DNC data staffer Seth Rich and feared for her own life, shutting the blinds to her office window so snipers could not see her and installing surveillance cameras at her home. She wonders whether Russians had placed a listening device in plants in the DNC executive suite."

http://archive.is/DxZNR#selection-1871.0-1871.339

[Koko78]

1 hour ago, Deranged Rhino said:

His name was Seth Rich... but he was just a poor kid who got robbed and shot. 

At least that's the story... Which makes this segment of Brazile's book at least interesting to those who wish to continue to deny there isn't something more to Rich's murder:

"Brazile writes that she was haunted by the still-unsolved murder of DNC data staffer Seth Rich and feared for her own life, shutting the blinds to her office window so snipers could not see her and installing surveillance cameras at her home. She wonders whether Russians had placed a listening device in plants in the DNC executive suite."

http://archive.is/DxZNR#selection-1871.0-1871.339

She was safe until she crossed the Clintons with her book. Her upcoming suicide will be tragic, I'm sure.

I can't imagine how desperate someone must be to escape their life to consider shooting themselves twice in the back of the head.

[/dev/null]

1 hour ago, Koko78 said:

She was safe until she crossed the Clintons with her book. Her upcoming suicide will be tragic, I'm sure.

I can't imagine how desperate someone must be to escape their life to consider shooting themselves twice in the back of the head.

Nah, she's too high profile to Vince Foster

More likely in a year or two somebody will leak a story about financial or ethical irregularites involving Brazille's stint as Gore's campaign manager or other political consultancy.  Kind of as a parting from the Clintons

[Deranged Rhino]

Even Huffpo is starting to see the forest through the trees:

 

The two sources that originated the allegations claiming that Russia meddled in the 2016 election — without providing convincing evidence — were both paid for by the Democratic National Committee, and in one instance also by the Clinton campaign: the Steele dossier and the CrowdStrike analysis of the DNC servers. Think about that for a minute.

 

We have long known that the DNC did not allow the FBI to examine its computer server for clues about who may have hacked it – or even if it was hacked – and instead turned to CrowdStrike, a private company co-founded by a virulently anti-Putin Russian. Within a day, CrowdStrike blamed Russia on dubious evidence.

 

Now we know that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid for opposition research memos written by former British MI6 intelligence agent Christopher Steele using hearsay accusations from anonymous Russian sources to claim that the Russian government was blackmailing and bribing Donald Trump in a scheme that presupposed that Russian President Vladimir Putin foresaw Trump’s presidency years ago when no one else did.

 

Since then, the U.S. intelligence community has struggled to corroborate Steele’s allegations, but those suspicions may have still been the basis of the thinking of President Obama’s intelligence chiefs who, according to Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, “hand-picked” the analysts who produced the Jan. 6 “assessment” claiming that Russia interfered in the U.S. election.

 

In other words, possibly all of the Russia-gate allegations, which have been taken on faith by Democratic partisans and members of the anti-Trump Resistance, trace back to claims paid for or generated by Democrats. If for a moment one could remove the often justified hatred many people feel toward Trump, it would be impossible to avoid the impression that the scandal may have been devised by the DNC and the Clinton camp in league with Obama’s intelligence chiefs to serve political and geopolitical aims.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/the-origins-of-russia-gate_us_59fde8a1e4b05e3e1f0a0189

[B-Man]

 Don't tell the Left what Dem Sen. Feinstein just said about evidence against Trump campaign

 

 

 

Also, It's getting pretty leaky in Mueller's office...............some illegal things are okay I guess. 

Edited November 5, 2017 by B-Man

[K-9]

On 11/3/2017 at 5:03 PM, TakeYouToTasker said:

No, you're missing the point if you think there's any meaningful difference between setting up a facebook group to market an idea to individuals or taking out an ad.

 

Both are advertising mediums, and neither are coercive or use force.

So the measure of the negative effects of propaganda is weather or not it's coercive? So long as nobody is threatened, then its harmful impacts are OK? Russian trolls acting out various roles in order to sow discord is perfectly OK as long as nobody was forced to believe or act upon their directives and everything goes?

 

It's not whether or not one is coerced. The far bigger issue is whether or not one is influenced by targeted, false propaganda and the desired behavior is achieved as a result of that influence. In the case of the false groups in Texas, it certainly was. 

 

So yeah, if it's a question of coercion vs. influence, then I believe you did miss the point. 

[Tiberius]

It is as if Putin ok'd the officials Trump picked for his administration. Wilber Ross and Rex Tillerson, Flynn and Flynn Jr., Kushner and Papadopolous and on and on! 

 

Something is really rotten in Denmark 

[Deranged Rhino]

The playbook is clear: go against the pre-approved narrative and you get labeled as falling for Russian propaganda. There's no room for free thinking allowed, not on this issue. 

 

Clinton Campaign Staffers Accuse Brazile Of Buying Into ‘Russian Propaganda’

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/open-letter-attack-onbrazile_us_59fe9cd1e4b0c9652fffc493?section=us_politics

 

What was it Voltaire said again? Something about, "To learn who rules over you, simply find out who you're not allowed to criticize."

[TakeYouToTasker]

53 minutes ago, K-9 said:

So the measure of the negative effects of propaganda is weather or not it's coercive? So long as nobody is threatened, then its harmful impacts are OK? Russian trolls acting out various roles in order to sow discord is perfectly OK as long as nobody was forced to believe or act upon their directives and everything goes?

 

It's not whether or not one is coerced. The far bigger issue is whether or not one is influenced by targeted, false propaganda and the desired behavior is achieved as a result of that influence. In the case of the false groups in Texas, it certainly was. 

 

So yeah, if it's a question of coercion vs. influence, then I believe you did miss the point. 

Your "solution" in which government actors, and their lackys with large tech firms, are the arbiter of what American citizens are permitted to read is far more problematic than American citizens being influenced by foreign actors.

 

It's not that it's "OK", it's that the remedy is worse than the disease. 

[Koko78]

16 minutes ago, Tiberius said:

 

Something is really rotten in Denmark

 

That would be the Danes.

[K-9]

6 minutes ago, TakeYouToTasker said:

Your "solution" in which government actors, and their lackys with large tech firms, are the arbiter of what American citizens are permitted to read is far more problematic than American citizens being influenced by foreign actors.

 

It's not that it's "OK", it's that the remedy is worse than the disease. 

I'm not talking about American citizens. I'm talking about foreign actors, under direct orders from their government, who create fake "groups" with fake "followers" for the sole purpose of undermining our free democratic principles. A foreign government that does NOT hold any semblance of our 1st Amendment protections of a free press. 

 

And I'm not putting the onus on our government to correct the problem, let alone making them the arbiter. I place it squarely on the corporate citizens who have a very real patriotic duty to our country to enact measures that better vet who is creating what kinds of accounts and from what countries. And to further notify an American public that it's been duped by foreign actors when that's discovered to be the case. 

 

We are permitted to read whatever we like. We are entitled to know the ENTIRETY of the material, however. And whether it's true or not. Responsible media outlets (key word: responsible) that publish false stories are compelled to issue retractions and to set the record straight or face libel or slander charges. The social media providers need to be held to the same standard if they are in the business of disseminating vast amounts of material to vast amounts of consumers. This idea that they're simply neutral platforms is bullschit given what's been exposed in recent months. 

[Tiberius]

16 minutes ago, Koko78 said:

 

That would be the Danes.

And with us its this rotten administration

[Deranged Rhino]

20 minutes ago, K-9 said:

I'm not talking about American citizens. I'm talking about foreign actors, under direct orders from their government, who create fake "groups" with fake "followers" for the sole purpose of undermining our free democratic principles. A foreign government that does NOT hold any semblance of our 1st Amendment protections of a free press. 

 

And I'm not putting the onus on our government to correct the problem, let alone making them the arbiter. I place it squarely on the corporate citizens who have a very real patriotic duty to our country to enact measures that better vet who is creating what kinds of accounts and from what countries. And to further notify an American public that it's been duped by foreign actors when that's discovered to be the case. 

 

We are permitted to read whatever we like. We are entitled to know the ENTIRETY of the material, however. And whether it's true or not. Responsible media outlets (key word: responsible) that publish false stories are compelled to issue retractions and to set the record straight or face libel or slander charges. The social media providers need to be held to the same standard if they are in the business of disseminating vast amounts of material to vast amounts of consumers. This idea that they're simply neutral platforms is bullschit given what's been exposed in recent months. 

 

Respectfully (conversationally, not trying to argue) it's the bolded that alarms me. If I'm reading you right, and I may not be, your solution to the problem (which I agree with you is a problem) still outsources individual responsibility to some other group, either governmental or corporate. Determining whether or not a piece of information is ultimately true should be up to the individual, not some group that curates the information beforehand and pre-labels it true or false. Going down that road we end up in an echo chamber where we are discussing and debating only the ideas which have been pre-verified by silicon valley or whomever is in charge of determining the veracity of the information before it's released wide.

 

The real villain in this Russian propaganda problem is not Russian - not really - it's American. Specifically, the weaknesses in our own education system. We have done a bang up job of dumbing down our population over the past few generations, insulating them, and feeding their bad intellectual habits because that makes us better consumers and easier to control and easier to accept things like mass surveillance and the forfeiture of civil liberties like the 4th and 5th amendments. This is very much a self inflicted wound.

 

That a rival nation tries to expose a self inflicted weakness isn't surprising, and the solution shouldn't be to focus on how to get Russia back either through sanctions or military options - but how to better educate our own population. That solution, however noble, is not one that lends itself to inducing fear in the population and certainly does not serve the foreign policy agenda that's ultimately behind this neo-mccarthyist hysteria.

 

You said it earlier in this thread, we all need to put down the partisan glasses on this issue because ultimately this isn't about left or right, dem or rep, HRC or Trump. This is about what sort of government we really wish to live under. Do we wish to live under a democratic republic where the people actually have a voice in the process? Or do we wish to live in an authoritarian oligarchy where the people do not have a voice in any meaningful way and instead we outsource those decisions to unelected IC officers and the corporations which comprise the MiC. 

[Deranged Rhino]

*************************

From over a year ago now... a NYU professor discussing CIA propaganda in relation to the Russian narrative:

 

Trigger warning

 

 

[Taro T]

1 hour ago, K-9 said:

I'm not talk sng about American citizens. I'm talking about foreign actors, under direct orders from their government, who create fake "groups" with fake "followers" for the sole purpose of undermining our free democratic principles. A foreign government that does NOT hold any semblance of our 1st Amendment protections of a free press. 

 

And I'm not putting the onus on our government to correct the problem, let alone making them the arbiter. I place it squarely on the corporate citizens who have a very real patriotic duty to our country to enact measures that better vet who is creating what kinds of accounts and from what countries. And to further notify an American public that it's been duped by foreign actors when that's discovered to be the case. 

 

We are permitted to read whatever we like. We are entitled to know the ENTIRETY of the material, however. And whether it's true or not. Responsible media outlets (key word: responsible) that publish false stories are compelled to issue retractions and to set the record straight or face libel or slander charges. The social media providers need to be held to the same standard if they are in the business of disseminating vast amounts of material to vast amounts of consumers. This idea that they're simply neutral platforms is bullschit given what's been exposed in recent months. 

In an era where proxy servers are rampant, how does one go about fully vetting who's on the level & who's not?  

 

As DR stated, unless we're willing to give the power to decide what's true & what's not to the government or some corporate actors, really not certain how we reconcile OUR 1st amendment rights w/ cleaning up all fake news (or even just that put out by Russians, Chinese, etc.).  Caveot emptor still seems to be our best protection.