I guess that “[shrug] everyone does it” is a response to this that works for some. For myself, I’ve been as critical of the bumbling neoCon PNAC fantasists as anyone on the left, going back to the Cheney Regency (including the neoCon debacle during the Russo-Georgian War, which would hold as much if not more weight than Yeltsin in a simplistic revenge scenario) and am also as big a proponent of American imperialism as I am of Russian imperialism (which is to say, not at all). None-the-less I find alarming the pushing of right-wing authoritarianism into countries that (unlike Russia) don’t have a recent history of autocracy.
By the way, speaking historically the Russophobe “usual suspects” in America would be paleocons, not neoCons, and the allegations about Russia’s meddling in Western elections have come from across the political spectrum – there’s concern not only from neoCons and paleocons and establishment Republicans but also from establishment Dems, liberals and progressives. Different motivations for the alarm, of course, but the behaviour being described is consistent.
(remembering the burbclaves in Snow Crash … noticing how much Texas politicians talk up sacrosanct local control and how Austin gets absolutely crushed, repeatedly, when it tries to to exercise that local control at the city level… ok I’m cringing now…)
In Stephenson’s Seveneves (which I liked a lot, btw), the author includes a permutation of Facebook (“Spacebook”). There was a reddit-like aspect of Spacebook probably close enough to be relevant to the argument you make here. Stephenson writes about factionalization in human societies in a lot of his books, come to think of it. Anathem springs to mind.
Real biological viruses are a single disruptive factor: the Black Plague in medieval Europe, the 1918 flu pandemic…
… these had a tendency to flatten social inequalities, at least for a while.
This exploitation you speak of is but one of many ways 45 ended up in the White House. Tampering with voter rolls and electronic voting machines is another. TrumpCo and his Russian banksters (et al.) shove wedges in every obvious division of U.S. society as opportunities present themselves, such as the ongoing gleeful gerrymandering of voting districts and other minority voter suppression measures at all levels of government including the local level. Exploitation still needs its local operators.
Maybe small political units are easier to organize, but when they suck as bad as this 2017 story about an American school in The South still needing to be told to desegregate per U.S. law:
… I am thinking big national governments (including the judicial branches) still have their uses, especially wrt the social justice BLM pursues.* Perhaps this is [one reason] why Bannon and 45 and his crew are so interested in wrecking national government. “Balance of power? Screw that.”
Hugs to Australia.
A deeply amazing and beautiful place.
I see that
(and more Oz groups, surely) are working a/the problem. I note that y’all are farther along that the U.S. in actually using words like reconciliation. There’s been only one short-lived truth and reconciliation commission in U.S. history
… and its work was rendered mostly worthless, thanks to an entrenched white power structure benefiting from its complete local control.
Local control and small political units, metastasized? Some version of a balkanized America. I see a version of that with every Confederate flag I come across, except for this brilliant guy doing some seriously lateral political thinking and working:
RTFA. He’s targeting Trump’s base. Wow.
I can see how the smaller political units argument can be made coherently using available data. It’s not like the Ottoman Empire is still in one piece. The amazingly long-lived Roman Empire looks balkanized nowadays. Imperial Roman government in conquered territories had effective tactics re: resource extraction and not killing off so many locals that production in the region falls precipitously. Perhaps this is TrumpCo’s vision for the U.S. (I remember the scene from Monty Python’s Life of Brian , the one where Graham Chapman scrawls “Romans go home” ungrammatically in Latin, where various benefits are enumerated; occupation, slaughter and cultural genocide being but a few glaring omissions. Ye gods such trade-offs. /s)
I’m not ready to give up completely on national government. It’s just exceeded its critical mass of foreign hackery, corporate money, zottas, cynical Bannonites, Koch-heads, Christian Dominionists and brainwashed FoxNews devotees, and now we have an uncontrolled chain reaction to deal with in real time. It sucks and it’s messy but there’s work to be done.
*
I mean, big national governments not 100% subverted by white supremacists.
I take heart knowing that South Africa has, as a nation, removed its apartheid government. Crazy hard work, imperfect, but not impossible.
ETA: I remembered later I was borrowing from Molly Ivins, so I added a link to the source.
In terms of intimidation on a global scale you’re correct, but in terms of actual force projection they’re less important than conventional forces (now including “little green men”) in the regions where Putin has expansionist aspirations.
On the battlefield of international perception where Surkov and co. are also fighting it does matter to a degree as a talking point, although not as much as Russia and its apologists pretend it does. The answer to wellclosed’s question changes in a number of ways when it’s asked to someone in Europe and on the periphery of the “Russkiy Mir.” People in Ukraine, the Baltic states, Poland, and other places that Dugin and his ilk believe belong in part to Russia might likely come back quickly with an exact figure of bases along with the estimated troop counts in each.
Cuban-American diplomacy, which has been fraught with problems since 1960, was finally defrosting.
Then suddenly US diplomats in Cuba started coming down with mysterious health problems, hearing loss, and it’s suspected to be some kind of “sonic weapon.”
As far as I can see there isn’t any benefit for Cuba to do this, but Russia was losing a long time ally, so it’s perfectly beneficial for Putin to monkey-wrench the deal.
[shake] Not everyone does it. But of the few colonial states that do, we are by far the most effective.
Russophobes span the entire political spectrum here, all the way from Wall St. to Madison Ave. They do include neocons&libs, as well as Hollywood and TV personalities. And the The Usual Suspects are the ones providing the info/intel - things suffixed “Times” and “Post”. It’s almost like they are owned and run by some nefarious spy agency.
“Baaa - Breitbart, Infowars, BBoing, Vox, Daily Beast, Vice, Atlantic …” - Shaun
“Sheeple” are not afraid of the Russians - yet.
Despite the best alternative efforts, there is still a lingering dread of Waffentwerps.
No-one here is saying that Russian trollies are responsible for BLM. But what’s clear (unless one thinks that Putin has suddenly become woke on institutional racism in America) is that they’re exploiting the current toxic atmosphere of bigotry in the U.S. (and other Western countries) as part of a campaign to further weaken morale and confidence.
It’s interesting how you make no distinction between domestic political trollies and dirty tricksters (from both parties) and the foreign versions. With that kind of logic I assume you also support the abolition of the Foreign Agents Registration Act. Potato-pahtahto, amirite?
Now, now, as with BLM ads Putin has suddenly become sensitive to environmental concerns and global warming. Look at how he’s demanding the world convert to renewables, starting with his own country. Certainly there’s no other agenda at work here.
I believe that the Black left would disagree with you on that. Many see it as white liberals once again coopting and erasing black protest, partly in order to deflect attention from their own responsibility for racism.
Civil rights in the USA were well past boiling point before the Russians spent a cent. And their contribution had minimal, if any, effect. They spent very little, and what they did spend appears to have been crudely targeted at people who were already throroughly on board for Team Fash.
I agree. Historically, racism in the U.S. was a major (and valid) Soviet talking point when they wanted to demonstrate that the U.S. was not living up to its ideals. I’m also not even denying that this ad campaign had a minimal effect, commensurate with the money and effort spent.
What I’m not denying, and what wellclosed is, is that what the Kremlin is doing is harmless (especially since Americans do so much harm to themselves in this regard).
…so? Let’s be extremely generous here and say Russia did in fact directly buy ads for Trump. In the free marketplace of ideas, who cares? Put in didn’t hold a gun to voters heads, unfortunately they were gullible enough to get there on their own.
Its almost as though when the only requirement for voting is to not die before you turn 18, then the citizenry will make an occasional bad decision.
