Because it’s not just people in the US, and this stuff is not limited to America. Kremlin has been financially backing all sorts of anti-EU far-right parties across Europe for years, and both Russia Today and Sputnik regularly push pro-Russian, anti-EU fake news. This is a real thing that Russians are actually doing, and it’s foolish to think only Americans are singled out for it.
Occam suggests to me that they may be just a vector for spam or malware. If so, the memes themselves are just clickbait.
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Well played, sirrah, well played!
The only thing we’ve got evidence for in the UK is Israel offering £1,000,000 on camera to bring down Labour MPs who criticise Israel, using smear campaigns. LOL. Have you seen Corbyn on the news? (Currently, the never ending antisemitism campaign, which conflates criticism of Israel with anti-semitism.) It is the most outrageous, continuing interference, yet the muted gov response is, ‘We’re all geopolitical allies and weapons suppliers, aren’t we?’ You’ll never guess: it was a lone wolf attack. ‘He was pursuing his own interests which only happen to be shared by the state of Israel.’ Forgive, forget.
(This is something the US routinely does in countries like Venezuela and Nicaragua ($2 per person). Victoria Nuland bragged they spent $5,000,000,000 on Ukraine’s opposition (ultimately bringing nazis to power, resulting in ethnic cleansing in Europe, largely ignored)
There is the suggestion that one of our 1% Brexit funders was paid via insider investments in Russian metals as a way of cheating funding restrictions. So Brexit may have been illegally funded by Russians. And of course, they were also were suspected of illegal data sharing between a large insurance group owned by 1% Brexiteer and Brexit campaign including Cambridge Analytica/AIQ; and they appear to have set up front groups which could apply for more even more money. And there’s the complex web of relationships between Cambridge Analytica, Brexiteers, Steve Bannon, Mercer, Farage and the far right in US and EU. As far as I know, we’re waiting on further developments, ie. we’ll slowly forget about why we cared so much and it will evaporate like a puddle on a warm summers day.
This is an important article by Jonathan Cook discussing the post-war adoption of ‘civic nationalism’ as an alternative to the ‘ethnic nationalisms’ which ultimately led to fascism. The article effectively explains why alt-nazis like Israel so much and why ethnic nationalism is a danger. I mention it because of the themes that emerged above and because the distinction is so clarifying
I think it is in order to interject that your post is not clarifying things, but rather is confusing and confused.
Just a friendly suggestions: If you want to question if the focus on Russian influence on public opinion in the US is reasonable, you are very welcome. If you, however, try to distract from the subject by blaming Israel for a lot of different and/or related things, you are dangerously close to driving trollies and should probably start a thread elsewhere.
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Biological warfare on the cheap
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I was responding to this. We get some anti-Russian media hype in UK without evidence. We do not get anti-Israel hype, despite overwhelming evidence. Whether it is an issue or not wherever it happens is a political choice, and a political strategy.
I’m not going to discuss details with you, see below, but the Russia/UK tensions are pretty real, and there is quite some reason to be wary of Russian politics.
You are heading off to a different thread there.
And you make it sound like a conspiracy. Not the best idea. You know, the accusation of a political conspiracy is an anti-Semitic topos. I’m not at all interested in further discussion about this.
The influence of Russia on European and US politics, of course, is also a topos. And media likes topoi. They make things seem so simple.
However, the current political debates are already oversimplified, so it’s our task to change that and discuss nuances, also in relation to Russian influence in the US and UK.
Changing subject or whataboutism is not helping. That’s my point. I hope I made myself clear.
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I take your point — sorry to tangent. I plan to avoid the topic re:US in future. However, criticising Israel is not an anti-semetic trope when there is video evidence of embassy staff literally offering cash for smear campaigns. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jan/08/israeli-diplomat-shai-masot-plotted-against-mps-set-up-political-groups-labour Weaponising anti-semitism for political gain IS anti-semitic, essentially crying wolf (despite the presence of nazis on the horizon). “Whataboutism” is a claim to avoid context; “conspiracy” to ignore ideology, policy, planning; and discussing nuances means accepting the basic framing. I’m out too
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Came here to mention this exact resource. The KGB ran dozens of active misinformation operations against the US, and has been doing so since before most of us were born. These campaigns include cruel hoaxes such as AIDS was created by the US Army at Ft. Dietrich. The Mitrokhin Archives are copies of the KGBs official records that document many others that you will probably recognize. Their goal has long been to make America appear stupid, confused, incompetent, and ultimately untrustworthy of being the world leader; Russia will of course appear to be the competent alternative that the rest of the world will demand.
Trump’s election was the culmination of decades of hard work; he’s like the Kwisatz Haderach of stupidity to the KGBs Bene Gesserits.
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