Posted by wumeow 2 days ago
This looks like damage control trying to shift blame and make legit criticism looks like Russian interference
and sticking that into google gives a link to it: https://www.isdglobal.org/digital_dispatches/russian-propaga...
The word interference doesn't make it into the abc article and the "russia amplified hurricane disinformation" seems pretty provenn from links in the ISD articles to posts from RT, Sputnik and Dmitry Medvedev doing just that.
Not to say there weren't legit criticisms, just that the Russians were trying to stir things.
Both articles are quoting prominent US politicians and goes on to detail Fema's response.
> and Dmitry Medvedev doing just that.
How does a vague statement from Russian politician "amplify disinformation"?
Is the bar for "amplifying disinformation" as low as quoting US politicians/presidential candidate?
It's so cheap and so effective, I'm sure everyone does it.
Of course totalitarian regimes exist to keep the totalitarian regime in power, at the expense if necessary of everything else. But the Russian state is comprised of the core ethnic Russian territory, which we think of as Russia, but then also have a VERY large population and land exposure of the -Stans as vassal states to be exploited.
None of those stans want to be with Russia. Of course for Russia, losing control of those provinces will mean exposure on all sides from continental invasion, a massive loss of resources and wealth, and worst of all would motivate the regime to be toppled as weak.
It would be foolish to think the Russians aren't doing it. There was demonstrable evidence of them interfering in the Clinton-Trump election.
There is hints of substantial dark money sloshing around Washington from China and Russia. Why would there not, when Saudi (notice how almost every President goes to Saudi Arabia to kiss ass at the end of their terms?) and Israeli already is, although those are more clear geopolitical interests.
Because the quiet agreement on both sides of the aisle is "don't stop any money trains", there isn't the proper attention on this influence, but the Ukraine funding holdup, which was really funny money accounting of valuing old stockpiles being pulled from warehouses that was going to just be scrapped in the near future anyway, was a bizarre political event.
To me that really felt like Russian dark money, because the Ukrainians were basically kept without ammo for months and months and the Russians made substantial gains. Why would they not?
Regardless, the current administration is still showing weakness and taking it. The Russians are constantly escalating the war, and are now shipping in foreign North Korean troops, and NATO should respond in kind with its own direct troop assistance.
The Russians have for decades bragged about fomenting discontent in foreign powers, ironically as their country has economically and demographically faded.
We supposedly have invested in state of the art information warfare, but the weakness is that we SUPPOSEDLY can't turn those weapons on our population, while our main opponents can use their capabilities at will domestically or internationally.
The CIA spikes the Kool-Aid, Americans engrossed in false neo liberal culture drink it readily.
Dis/Misinformation on the web has to be the #1 education subject for the world. Not scams from Nigerian princes, but the bullshit that is now being amplified by tools like AI.
Take, for example, when we were told that crime is down in San Francisco. Really? Do they think we don’t actually live here and see what’s happening.
No it's not. Systemic and characteristic are words that you can only apply to one side here.
Surely there must be similar evidence for western activities.
Given this, “e pluribus unum” feels rebellious.
Jackson's "Our Federal Union! It Must Be Preserved!" vs Calhoun's "Our Federal Union — next to our liberties the most dear!" was 1830.
Ah, must be the Russian fairies in my head giving me these doubts...
Remember the "Russian disinformation" about Hunter's laptop? And then people are surprised by the falling trust in government and mainstream media.
Russia/China/Iran/North Korea/etc. certainly try to play on potential weaknesses of the US, but, let's be honest, they are amateurs compared to the US actions across the globe. But the root issue is with existence and expansion of various weakness points, not with hostile actors pressing on them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mueller_report
"The Mueller report found that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law".[11][12][75] The report relayed two methods by which Russia attempted to influence the election."
"Social media campaign The first method of Russian interference was done through the Internet Research Agency (IRA), waging "a social media campaign that favored presidential candidate Donald J. Trump and disparaged presidential candidate Hillary Clinton".[26] The IRA also sought to "provoke and amplify political and social discord in the United States"."
"The second method of Russian interference saw the Russian military intelligence agency GRU hacking into email accounts owned by volunteers and employees of the Clinton presidential campaign, including that of campaign chairman John Podesta, and also hacking into "the computer networks of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC) and the Democratic National Committee (DNC)". As a result, the GRU obtained hundreds of thousands of hacked documents, and the GRU proceeded by arranging releases of damaging hacked material via the WikiLeaks organization and also GRU's false personas "DCLeaks" and "Guccifer 2.0"."
"The investigation found there were at least 140 contacts between Trump or 18 of his associates with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, though the contacts were insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy.["
"Ryan Goodman has examined the Mueller report's findings on collusion. He described the findings as "a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities." "
>"The Mueller report found that the Russian government "interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion" and "violated U.S. criminal law".[11][12][75] The report relayed two methods by which Russia attempted to influence the election."
Yes, Russia bought some Facebook ads. No doubt that is against the law. Is it Trump's fault? Absolutely not, any more than it is Harris's fault that she got Putin's endorsement in 2024. Any so-called Russian influence campaign was certainly never linked to him, despite the fact that the government wiretapped his campaign. Yes you read that right. They wiretapped his campaign. Can you imagine what Democrats would say if their candidate was wiretapped based on a hoax originating from the other party?
>"The investigation found there were at least 140 contacts between Trump or 18 of his associates with Russian nationals and WikiLeaks, or their intermediaries, though the contacts were insufficient to show an illegal conspiracy."
So what? A billionaire politician with global interests knows some foreigners. This is neither surprising nor incriminating.
>"Ryan Goodman has examined the Mueller report's findings on collusion. He described the findings as "a series of activities that show strong evidence of collusion. Or, more precisely, it provides significant evidence that Trump Campaign associates coordinated with, cooperated with, encouraged, or gave support to the Russia/WikiLeaks election interference activities."
I don't care if some scholar says there is "strong evidence of collusion" because frankly, if the Mueller report contained strong evidence of collusion then it would have reached a different conclusion, and Trump would have been prosecuted for actual crimes related to foreign interference. He wasn't prosecuted for that, precisely because the government had no case at all.
You *need* to read this: https://www.cnn.com/2022/03/30/politics/clinton-dnc-steele-d... Hillary Clinton cooked up the Russiagate scheme and her media connections hyped it up for several years. They even reference it today despite the fact that the investigation was entirely fruitless and she was proven to have been the originator of the theory.
Speaking of foreign influence, when are we going to see Hillary prosecuted for Uranium One, or Hunter Biden prosecuted for Burisma influence peddling? Just some food for thought...
Problem is, the opposition quickly learns your tactics & turns it on you. And, because the US is a democratic state that can't just make people disappear, you'll have a harder time coping.
Roughly half of all Americans believe the last election was stolen and are gearing up for unrest if this one doesn't go their way.
But, everyone conveniently forgets that US agents deliberately spread anti-China propaganda, encouraging countries not to accept China's vaccines. Who knows how many died as a result? So, instead of blaming this on the Russians (& Chinese), maybe America should do some soul-searching?
It's just like how NATO's Libya & Syria intervention caused a migrant explosion. It's okay to dislike illegal migrants, but you need to address why they suddenly became a pressing problem after living in their countries all this while.
Russian propaganda has found a home in America's Right that believes it is persecuted. It won't leave, but will keep festering until something gives.