President Biden

[Kevin Carr's Gloves 3900]

I find it quite odd that so many on the left seem blind to Russia's imperialist ambitions yet so keen to slam the west.

Russia has more in common with the American alt right than anything on the left of politics.

[Rayvin 5223]

Who on the left is blind to Russian imperialism? I've not noticed anyone supporting/ignoring it but then I maybe I don't read as much alternative news as some of you guys.

Edited December 12, 2016 by Rayvin

[Dr Gloom 21954]

Who on the left is blind to Russian imperialism? I've not noticed anyone supporting/ignoring it but then I maybe I don't read as much alternative news as some of you guys.

Stop the war and its supporters are much fiercer critics of western imperialism. It's almost as if Putin is the good guy at times. Amazing really

[Rayvin 5223]

Stop the war and its supporters are much fiercer critics of western imperialism. It's almost as if Putin is the good guy at times. Amazing really

 

Hang on though, we've been over this one. Stop the War have a specific focus and that is on Western 'imperialism'. They've made statements, which I've linked to, which set out that they do not support Russian violence - but that this isn't what their focus is on. I further made the point that they don't need to focus on that because actually, our entire media establishment is very vocal about Russian atrocities anyway. Our media are not vocal about our own, hence the need for Stop the War.

 

I genuinely don't understand why they are criticised for this.

[Dr Gloom 21954]

stop the war! unless it was started by someone else

[Rayvin 5223]

stop the war! unless it was started by someone else

 

 

So your problem with them is actually that they should have called themselves something that specifically references Western aggression. Tbh, that does seem to be the issue most people have with them, that their name implies a wider reach than their actual focus.

[ewerk 30642]

 

Donald Trump has narrowed his search for energy secretary to four people, with former Texas Governor Rick Perry the leading candidate.

 

Despite Perry stating that he wanted to abolish the department of energy. Well he would have done had he not forgotten the name of it on stage. Trump really is assembling a clown car of cunts.

[Gemmill 44950]

What about Stop That War.

[Happy Face 29]

 

The things that narks me is that all of this is set against a carefully spun narrative from Russia on US aggression in Ukraine and Syria. A message that has incidentally massive support amongst people who follow David Icke and the like, the alternative thinkers, the conspiracists, who have been targeted by Russia in the only part of their war which is truly 'soft'. The rest of it is hard as nails and they have used the split in the West's thinking on the West's own policy to undermine support and have ruthlessly and deliberately exploited the lack of trust in the US and the West since Iraq.

Ukraine was a CIA plot, Crimea just a democratic eventuality, in the story of soft Russian power in the face of US aggression? Same story holds in Syria, for everyone. They have identified the lack of trust and doing everything they can to exploit. English written Facebook memes decrying US aggression come from Russia via RT and multiple other affiliate websites.

The truth? Well if the US started the fight in the Maidan, if the US caused the bloodshed in Syria, they are in the work and Russia was right, right? So Trump is on the side of good, doing what's right for the world, fucking over the CIA? Yeah!!!

Wrong and if you don't see the importance of Tillerson you are missing the victory that Putin is now celebrating. It should also tell you that everything you read on Syria is full of shit too, as a bunch of Russian (and now US!) Oilmen, leading the politics strategy in the Middle East aren't somehow miraculously going to be doing things for peace.

That would be taking the naivety of the counter narrative suckers to extremes.

 

 

Good post.

 

I think what's naive is reducing it to good and bad.  There's not right and wrong, there's competing national (and business) interests.  Manoeuvres played and responses,  that's what I thought the Dan Carlin Podcast on "poking the Bear" was excellent at presaging.

 

You can pick a side and argue why that is the one you want to prevail.  Why ignorance would be bliss on one side and why knowing actual true facts destabilises our democracy.  Most of us in the west would obviously want western interests to defeat Eastern, but IF the Ruskies have played the game so well as to get a stooge into power in the US, then western intelligence agencies are failing badly and need to get their arse in gear and either start hitting Russia back hard with their own information backed with evidence (not disinformation, because, as you say, there's no trust anyway) or at least diplomatically going to them with such information that could impact their interests and convince them to reign things in and retreat, lest it be made public.

 

That's all entirely hypothetical for us uninformed proles though.

 

The only evidence we see is the likes of the DNC mails, the Podesta mails and the Weiner mails cited as impacting the election.  Prior to that, the Nuland Pyatt call, the Iraq tapes, the Afghan leak, the drone papers, Snowden, The diplomatic cables, The Syria Files, Stratfor and others all undermine western confidence in their leadership as you described.  

 

Many of those also implicated Russia in instances but have harmed the Western governments to a far greater extent.

 

Are Russia engaging in less naughty behaviour or are they just better at doing it covertly?  Do leakers in the US (despite the efforts of Obama) just not fear punishment as much as in Russia?  Have the Russians kept their eye on the cold war fight while the west lost those skills worrying itself with a small group of terrorist bandits with so little artillary they have to use themmselves as weapons?  Are Russia better at targeting useful information while the west have built such a large haystack they can't find any needles?  Without comparable Financial, technological or military might, is information the only weapon Russia has and so they have become far better at hacking (others) and securing (their own) IT?

 

Whatever the answers, IF this is going to be the story of the next few decades, then we best start improving our strategy.

 

All of that said, there has been nothing whatsoever but baseless, anonymous claims that pre-election leaks (let's not call them hacks until they are shown to be hacks) were the work of Russia.  Sabre rattlers on both sides would be delighted to have the public believe they were though.  Russia being a powerful clear and present danger helps many powerful Americans and Russians.  Democratic apparatchiks as well, they would love to have an excuse for somehow contriving to hand an election to TV's most famous twat, whose own party largely opposed him.

 

If we blindly go along with these claims then it ramps up the danger. The danger has been escalating for years anyway with proxy wars expanding, but from my perspective, it's much better to err on the side of caution and have evidence before returning to cold war levels of mistrust and opposition.  Given the reported disagreements between US intelligence agencies, there seems a reasonable chance that the evidence is overstated.  

 

Any claims of certainty that the Russians are responsible for Trump should be treated as sceptically as Saddam's WMD.

 

/waffle

[ChezGiven 0]

Who  is blind to Russian imperialism? 

 

Everyone who thinks they should criticise the west based on propaganda from Russia. 

 

I'd estimate half of Facebook, so roughly 500 million people. 

[PaddockLad 17285]

stop the war! unless it was started by someone else

"If you're not with us, you're against us" is the sort of ridiculously simplistic retoric we can read daily in the UKs propagandist msm. What do you do for graft again?

[Dr Gloom 21954]

"If you're not with us, you're against us" is the sort of ridiculously simplistic retoric we can read daily in the UKs propagandist msm. What do you do for graft again?

 

I didn't have you down as a Daily Mail reader. 

[Rayvin 5223]

Everyone who thinks they should criticise the west based on propaganda from Russia.

 

I'd estimate half of Facebook, so roughly 500 million people.

I'd imagine that's not far off.

[Dr Gloom 21954]

Just, wow

 

"At this point in a transition, a president-elect is usually delving into intelligence he has never before seen, and learning about C.I.A. and National Security Agency abilities. But Mr. Trump, who has taken intelligence briefings only sporadically, is questioning not only analytic conclusions, but also their underlying facts."

 

 

Trump, Mocking Claim That Russia Hacked Election, at Odds with G.O.P.

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/12/10/us/politics/trump-mocking-claim-that-russia-hacked-election-at-odds-with-gop.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone&smid=nytcore-iphone-share&_r=0

[PaddockLad 17285]

I didn't have you down as a Daily Mail reader.

You make the mistake of judging others by your own low standards. Bless.

[ChezGiven 0]

 

 

 

 

Good post.

 

I think what's naive is reducing it to good and bad.  There's not right and wrong, there's competing national (and business) interests.  Manoeuvres played and responses,  that's what I thought the Dan Carlin Podcast on "poking the Bear" was excellent at presaging.

 

You can pick a side and argue why that is the one you want to prevail.  Why ignorance would be bliss on one side and why knowing actual true facts destabilises our democracy.  Most of us in the west would obviously want western interests to defeat Eastern, but IF the Ruskies have played the game so well as to get a stooge into power in the US, then western intelligence agencies are failing badly and need to get their arse in gear and either start hitting Russia back hard with their own information backed with evidence (not disinformation, because, as you say, there's no trust anyway) or at least diplomatically going to them with such information that could impact their interests and convince them to reign things in and retreat, lest it be made public.

 

That's all entirely hypothetical for us uninformed proles though.

 

The only evidence we see is the likes of the DNC mails, the Podesta mails and the Weiner mails cited as impacting the election.  Prior to that, the Nuland Pyatt call, the Iraq tapes, the Afghan leak, the drone papers, Snowden, The diplomatic cables, The Syria Files, Stratfor and others all undermine western confidence in their leadership as you described.  

 

Many of those also implicated Russia in instances but have harmed the Western governments to a far greater extent.

 

Are Russia engaging in less naughty behaviour or are they just better at doing it covertly?  Do leakers in the US (despite the efforts of Obama) just not fear punishment as much as in Russia?  Have the Russians kept their eye on the cold war fight while the west lost those skills worrying itself with a small group of terrorist bandits with so little artillary they have to use themmselves as weapons?  Are Russia better at targeting useful information while the west have built such a large haystack they can't find any needles?  Without comparable Financial, technological or military might, is information the only weapon Russia has and so they have become far better at hacking (others) and securing (their own) IT?

 

Whatever the answers, IF this is going to be the story of the next few decades, then we best start improving our strategy.

 

All of that said, there has been nothing whatsoever but baseless, anonymous claims that pre-election leaks (let's not call them hacks until they are shown to be hacks) were the work of Russia.  Sabre rattlers on both sides would be delighted to have the public believe they were though.  Russia being a powerful clear and present danger helps many powerful Americans and Russians.  Democratic apparatchiks as well, they would love to have an excuse for somehow contriving to hand an election to TV's most famous twat, whose own party largely opposed him.

 

If we blindly go along with these claims then it ramps up the danger. The danger has been escalating for years anyway with proxy wars expanding, but from my perspective, it's much better to err on the side of caution and have evidence before returning to cold war levels of mistrust and opposition.  Given the reported disagreements between US intelligence agencies, there seems a reasonable chance that the evidence is overstated.  

 

Any claims of certainty that the Russians are responsible for Trump should be treated as sceptically as Saddam's WMD.

 

/waffle

 

 

Good reply and sums it up well. I think where we diverge is on this last point. Taken independently with no context, just based on the evidence i would agree we should be sceptical. However, we live in reality and in the throes of Russian imperialistic policy in the middle east, eastern Europe and China. We know they hack for political purposes, both sides do that. Lots of people are saying they did the DNC hacks, as i said, first principles, common sense whatever you want to call it points to Guccifer 2.0 being a Russian government hacker. 

[Dr Gloom 21954]

You make the mistake of judging others by your own low standards. Bless.

 

excuse me? you just implied that the MSM is propagandist. i could only deduce from that you read some ghastly rag like the Mail, as the parts of the legacy media that I consume don't favour 'riculously simplistic retoric"

[PaddockLad 17285]

excuse me? you just implied that the MSM is propagandist. i could only deduce from that you read some ghastly rag like the Mail, as the parts of the legacy media that I consume don't favour 'riculously simplistic retoric"

Oh dear, nickers in a twist. I'll spell it out for you mate, just because someone isn't saying they're against something it doesn't mean they're in favour of its opposite. You've seemed to imply that because some criticise US and UK middle eastern policy over the years then the implication is they support Russian imperialistic aims in that area, hence "if you're not with us your against us", which is a direct quote from Richard Littlejohn the day after 9-11. This is how your spiel reads to me, and it's the sort of shit we could read in the manipulative msm.

 

For the record, my opinion is Russia are playing the yanks at their own game to an extent that is frankly unbelveable, from where I'm stood the soviets gave up after Afghanistan and never really recoverd their mojo, until now. No one knows the extent to which their tactics influenced the trump vote, but for the CIA to say that they did play a part then I'm not surprised Trump is questioning what the fuck they've been up to for the last decade or so.

Edited December 12, 2016 by PaddockLad

[Dr Gloom 21954]

Oh dear, nickers in a twist. I'll spell it out for you mate, just because someone isn't saying they're against something it doesn't mean they're in favour of its opposite. You've seemed to imply that because some criticise US and UK middle eastern policy over the years then the implication is they support Russian imperialistic aims in that area, hence "if you're not with us your against us", which is a direct quote from Richard Littlejohn the day after 9-11. This is how your spiel reads to me, and it's the sort of shit we could read in the manipulative msm.

 

For the record, my opinion is Russia are playing the yanks at their own game to an extent that is frankly unbelveable, from where I'm stood the soviets gave up after Afghanistan and never really recoverd their mojo, until now. No one knows the extent to which their tactics influenced the trump vote, but for the CIA to say that they did play a part then I'm not surprised Trump is questioning what the fuck they've been up to for the last decade or so.

 

that's not what i'm saying at all. i haven't accused anyone of supporting russia. i just find it highly ironic that the left in this country is so obsessed with navel gazing when there are other, pretty fucking despicable actors on the same stage who deserve as much, if not more stick. 

 

EDIT -  and i'm sorry but "manipulative msm"??? who are you talking about here exactly? daily mail/sun etc? fair enough.  every single legacy media publication? do me a favour.  

Edited December 12, 2016 by Dr Gloom

[ChezGiven 0]

 

FOR much of post-Soviet history Russia was seen as an outlier whose politics would inevitably move towards those of the West. After the Brexit vote and the election of Donald Trump in America, it appears the opposite is taking place: the style of politics practised by Vladimir Putin’s regime is working its way westward.

 

From the Mediterranean to the Pacific, Mr Putin is hailed as an example by nationalists, populists and dictators. “My favourite hero is Putin,” said Rodrigo Duterte, the brutal president of the Philippines. Mr Trump called Mr Putin “a leader far more than our president.” In Italy Beppe Grillo’s Five Star Movement took Mr Putin’s side against the West, and the anti-immigrant Northern League, led by Matteo Salvini, has enthused about his Russia. “No clandestine immigrants, no squeegee merchants and no Roma encampments [in Moscow],” tweeted Mr Salvini during a visit in 2014.

 

In France Marine Le Pen, whose National Front received a loan from a Russian bank, attacks the European Union and America for being too aggressive towards Russia. In the words of Dimitar Bechev, the author of a forthcoming book on Russia in the Balkans, “Putin enjoys a cult status with all holding a grudge against the West.” Nowhere is that status greater than with the nationalists of America’s “alt-right”. Matthew Heimbach, the founder of the Traditionalist Worker Party and a crusader against “anti-Christian degeneracy”, told the New York Times he sees Mr Putin as “the leader of the free world.” He called for the creation of a “Traditionalist International”—a reference to the Communist International founded in 1919.

 

The last time Russia had such a role in crystallising anti-establishment ideas was in the 1920s and 1930s, after the Bolshevik revolution. When Stalin wrote that the Soviet Union had become an “open centre of the world revolutionary movement”, it was not just propaganda. In her book, “Moscow, the Fourth Rome”, Katerina Clark, a historian, writes that Moscow aspired to form the centre of a new civilisation, attracting Western intellectuals and claiming to be the only legitimate heir to the world’s greatest artists. “Moscow as a concept is the concentration of the socialist future of the entire world,” wrote the Soviet film-maker Sergei Eisenstein in 1933.

 

Today, 25 years after the Soviet collapse, Russia is again seen as an emblem—this time of a nationalist imperial order. And just as in the 1930s, its isolationism does not prevent it from being involved in the global populist, anti-establishment trend. The Kremlin’s bet on marginal right-wing parties has paid off as they have moved into the mainstream. It has pumped out disinformation and propaganda both through its official media channels, such as the RT and Sputnik news networks, and through thousands of paid internet trolls. Its cyber-attacks against Western countries produced troves of emails and documents which it dumped into the hands of foreign media, disrupting America’s presidential elections to the benefit of Mr Trump.

 

According to Bruno Kahl, the boss of Germany’s internal intelligence agency, the BND, “Europe is the focus” of Russia’s cyberattacks and disinformation—especially Germany, which will hold a federal election next autumn. France’s spooks say Russian backers may interfere in its presidential elections, too. Such activity recalls the Soviet Union’s so-called “active measures”, which aimed to disrupt and discredit Western democracies. In West Germany, says Anton Shekhovtsov, an expert on European far-right movements, the KGB propped up not only Communist parties and militants such as the Red Brigades, but also extreme right-wing groups.

 

Unlike the Socialists of the 1930s, the Kremlin and its friends today are driven not so much by ideology as by opportunism (and, in Russia’s case, corruption). Mr Putin’s primary goal is not to present an alternative political model but to undermine Western democracies whose models present an existential threat to his rule at home. Having lived through the Soviet collapse, he is well aware that the attraction of the prosperous, value-based West helped defeat communism. The retreat of that liberal democratic idea allows Russian propagandists to claim a victory.

 

Mr Putin has been careful not to endorse his admirers, whether Ms Le Pen, Mr Trump or radical nationalist activists. The president proclaims himself “the biggest nationalist in Russia,” but the nationalism he propounds is imperial rather than ethnically-based. Russia has nearly 20m ethnic Muslims, which makes official expressions of religious or racial chauvinism dangerous. Alexander Verkhovsky, an expert on Russian nationalism, observes that while the Kremlin fans and manipulates anti-Western nationalism, it has put grass-roots ultra-nationalist groups within Russia under unprecedented pressure. In August a Russian court sentenced Alexander Belov, a leader of the banned Movement Against Illegal Immigrants (DPNI), to seven and a half years in jail. The DPNI’s slogan is “Russia for [ethnic] Russians”. Last month, a nationalist demonstration was confined to the far outskirts of Moscow. A dozen marchers were arrested.

 

The Kremlin “counters ethnic nationalism with its own version of state nationalism,” Mr Verkhovsky writes—one based on wars and other state achievements, not on ethnic identity. In Mr Putin’s view the nation must consolidate around events, figures and ideas provided by the Kremlin. The regime was spooked by the violent, spontaneous rally staged by radicals and football hooligans in Moscow in 2010, and by long-running anti-Putin protests in 2011-2012 that brought liberals and nationalists together. In response, it came up with an imperial state nationalism that manifested itself in the annexation of Crimea and the war in Ukraine.

 

By doing so it successfully split the nationalists. Many nationalist protesters rallied to the imperialist cause. Liberal protesters were demoralised. Some of the radicals went to fight in Donbass, and later resurfaced in Syria. Russia’s actions abroad allowed Mr Putin to channel nationalist protest of any kind away from his own corrupt elite. And yet, while Mr Putin recognises the potential of nationalist populism in America and Europe to discredit democracies, he knows that it is a dangerous substance. After all, Mr Trump’s victory could serve as an inspiration to Mr Putin’s opponents, who see him as the epitome of the corrupt establishment.

 

[ChezGiven 0]

from here 

 

http://www.economist.com/news/europe/21711538-1930s-moscow-beacon-international-movement-russian-propaganda?fsrc=scn/fb/te/bl/ed/russianpropagandaisstateoftheartagain

[Happy Face 29]

that's not what i'm saying at all. i haven't accused anyone of supporting russia. i just find it highly ironic that the left in this country is so obsessed with navel gazing when there are other, pretty fucking despicable actors on the same stage who deserve as much, if not more stick. 

 

The UK public have no influence over those other despicable actors whatsoever though.

 

Electing a government having been informed on their actions isn't naval gazing is it?

 

When you miss a mortgage payment do you send the Halifax to talk to the bloke over the road that missed 2 payments or do you get your own house in order?

[Rayvin 5223]

The UK public have no influence over those other despicable actors whatsoever though.

 

Electing a government having been informed on their actions isn't naval gazing is it?

 

When you miss a mortgage payment do you send the Halifax to talk to the bloke over the road that missed 2 payments or do you get your own house in order?

 

Exactly this tbf. We aren't responsible for what other people are doing, but we are responsible for ourselves.

[Alex 35096]

The UK public have no influence over those other despicable actors whatsoever though.

 

Electing a government having been informed on their actions isn't naval gazing is it?

 

When you miss a mortgage payment do you send the Halifax to talk to the bloke over the road that missed 2 payments or do you get your own house in order?

And the one thing worse than being preached to is being preached to a hypocrite.

[ChezGiven 0]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/russian-interference-could-give-courts-legal-authority_us_584be136e4b0151082221b9c

 

Clinton's lead in the popular vote now 2.8 million.