Debatable.
I’d argue that it is not just “sow chaos”, but it is specifically “promote the extreme right into power, convert into a Russia-friendly fascist state”. The chaos is not ideologically neutral.
They did it in Poland, tried it in France, and probably got away with it in a few other places beforehand. Global fascism is on the rise.
Is funny because truth.
It’s inevitably no more than an informed hunch, but I think that they’re deliberately keeping the Russia story in the headlines.
The intention seems to be keeping centrist hopes of impeachment alive, in order to discourage them from actually doing anything to resist the Trumpist takeover while there is still a chance.
They do support some far-left movements in the West as well, but it’s in the service of promoting the chaos and uncertainty that’s historically needed in the West as a precursor to authoritarian regimes supplanting democratic ones. Ultimately I agree that they’d prefer far-right regimes that are either isolationist or aren’t interested in poking their nose into the Russkiy Mir (the geopolitical concept, not the foundation), and that’s where they’re putting most of their money and resources.
Did you know that tRump was actually born in Russia? True story.
Well, in our defense, US Intelligence agencies have been pretty busy spying on US citizens.
/s
Oh, I saw it. A lot of people did.
But could we do?
In Soviet Russia jokes are sad, but truth is funny!
That could be a contributing factor, signal to noise ratio and all that.
The BC was there to try to keep the Commonwealth together and British influence alive in the upper strata of their societies. It may not be expansionist, but once we’ve left the EU I suspect that it won’t be long before the expansion of British influence (guns, bombs and offshore bank accounts) is back on the table.
As for the US, it doesn’t expand; it invades and installs puppet governments where it can.
In my opinion what is happening now in Poland is much more complex. While current government is extremely conservative, many of it’s more important policies can be considered left wing. “500 plus” program is quite close to universal basic income proposed by progressive left, and so is lowering the retirement age. The current government is also intensely hostile to Russia (I’m not saying it’s a good thing).
Why bother with all that pesky direct rule when you can get what you want through influence instead?
We used to use a mixture of soft power and gunboat diplomacy and when we reluctantly realised we couldn’t rule the waves anymore, we tried to go in for soft power in a big way.
Cool Britannia and all that.
Now that we’re apparently going to put the Great back into Great Britain again, who knows?
I must confess that I have a very shallow knowledge of modern Poland.
Mostly just vague recollections of stories of Russian interference in Polish elections and alarmingly authoritarian/antidemocratic actions by the current Polish government.
Social welfare programs and the authoritarian right have coexisted in the past, however.
Could you tell us more about current Polish/Russian tensions? What are they about, and is it universal or related to a particular political party?
You’re exactly right! Bet it was spoken in a Jimmy Cagney voice:
“We stole the president, see?”
Pigs. I often find myself looking from pig to man, and man to pig, and find it hard to tell the difference.
To be more precise, I think a lot of the current Russia-blaming in the US is deflection away from asking hard questions about the US electoral system, Citizens United, electronic voting, gerrymandering and the like. Because you don’t want citizens saying “Maybe we should look again at the power of the party machines and lobbyists”.
In Brecht’s Galileo, someone remarks “Happy is the land that has such heroes” and gets the reply “Unhappy is the land that needs heroes.” It’s a very profound comment. To it I would add, unhappy is the land where the political class needs enemies - whether it’s Russia in the US, the EU for the right in the UK, and the Palestinians for Israel.
Fine, they stole the president. But did they have to bring him back?
Be fair - the left too.
The EU has always made such a handy figleaf/scapegoat for UK politicians on both sides.
Isn’t that just an argument of equivocated whataboutism? OK, let’s say you are right and the British Council and the United States Information Agency are involved in espionage, disinformation, and the cultivation of assets in foreign lands. Let’s say that’s the case. Where are the reports about members of those organizations attempting to change the election outcome in Russia? Where are the recordings of them joking about the results of their efforts to do so?
If calling out Russia for these actions is the pot calling the kettle black, then your equivocation amounts to the kettle calling the pot a tub.
My dear old thing, don’t you know that our dastardly spies are far too clever to be caught out in that sort of stuff? Just ask Mugabe. /s
You’re right of course that one country doing something is pretty irrelevant to whether another country is doing something similar or not.
Bottom line is it’s all part of the Great Game. Everyone’s playing (which I think is part of the point Enkita was trying to make).
Russia may have played a blinder in the election.
They may have overplayed their hand (if they did interfere, being found out in a way that the US has to acknowledge could backfire massively).
Russia may have played a blinder by keeping up the idea that it played a blinder in the election even though it didn’t.
We don’t know.
Obviously the US should be deeply keen to find out whether their elections were interfered with by a foreign power or whether someone a foreign power has significant leverage over was elected to the supreme office.
Unfortunately, whatever happens is going to damage the US. Either nothing is found in which case the US government and intelligence agencies look like idiots (best case scenario really) or something is found which will mean either extreme diplomatic embarrassment and possibly war (cold or hot, take your pick) and possibly the public removal of a president.
Allowing accusations of interference in the election to be become public (and worse having actual intelligence officials confirm that suspicions are being investigated) was a very weird move. Same for confirming official investigations into the Trump election campaign.
Exactly so. “Whataboutery” is a convenient way of dismissing the very different attitudes people have to the same thing when it’s “my government legitimately keeping up its influence” versus “how dare they try to manipulate us?”
It’s the hypocrisy I object to.
