Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2020/09/22/was-portland-a-russian-op-organized-on-facebook-sure-looks-that-way.html
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I have a few acquaintances who emigrated to Canada from the old Eastern Bloc.
Russia, Belarus, Latvia, other places. It bewilders me that some of these people retain pro Putin attitudes . So why come to Canada then?
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Dang!
I would have commented more, but the link direct from the Boing Boing post to this bbs (the “comments” link) was busted (Firefox on a jalopy of regressed-kernel linux) and I forget what else I had to say.
This has been somewhat frequent lately. If I come into the bbs main page, I can access the comments, but the quick link from articles just reloads the article instead of directing my browser to the comments.
Considering how interesting this post is, and the scarcity of comments, perhaps it’s happening on more reliable systems as well?
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Ya, it’s not you 
I got here through the menu at the top right of another comment page
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Oh thank god. I am shy to comment on the best of days and then to be saying weird stuff nobody else experiences … well for that there are dinner parties, right?
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In case anyone doesn’t actually read the article – it doesn’t once state that this was or may have been a Russian operation. It doesn’t say it wasn’t, but it doesn’t even really go in that direction. It’s very focused on this one family of mostly Ukrainian immigrants. Did I miss something?
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It’s a pretty sizable number in the Ukraine anyway. It’s not unlike areas that Germany lost in WWI, not everyone was happy to see independence.
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Facebook? Russia?
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I think it is leaning on the sudden shift from a non-political presence to organizer. I don’t see much there, either, really. There’s nothing fishy about people from that part of the world supporting Trump. It’s way more fishy to me that people from the USA support Trump.
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So, is collaboration with Russia treason, yet? Just want to check in on that.
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Well, I took this to be a ripost to the “many people are saying” rhetoric . “Sure looks that way” The article does use nebulous statements marveling at the level of sophistication of the campaign and alluding to the cost, inviting speculation that there may be hidden resources at play.
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just good business Comrade …er competitor
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Hahah well put.
the difference here being that many of these people chose to leave the Russian sphere of influence, and yet harbour positive impressions about the current state of affairs there (and maybe even the attempts to extend Russian influence globally). Certainly not all…I know two or three Jewish people from the old CCCP, no longing there and several from the the old Yugoslavia region, same result .
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The article also talks about how they used these rallies to sell swag at highly inflated prices. Seemed to be revenue-oriented from the get-go is how I read it. Doesn’t make it a good thing, and yes, maybe is some influence operation? But then why no basic reporting on the family, how long they’ve been in the USA, do they seem to have any obvious signs of being associated with an influence operation. There was zero of that in the article.
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Oh ya, I didn’t mean to imply I was happy with the article…I think it replaces journalism with innuendo in a way that’s too common now…but what to do? This was an important incident, they clearly ran into impermeable obstacles, money is tight in that business even when you’re owned by Jeff Bezos. Might as well go with what you have
Eh, I dunno. They don’t associate Putin with the Soviet system, rather they see it as a strong, conservative state that backs their right-wing opinions and is pro-capitalism, and promotes their religion. If Putin is anything, it isn’t Leftist.
In an interview outside her blue farmhouse in Nampa, Idaho, Lyubov Kuzmenko and her son, Dennis, traced their embrace of Trump to the family’s difficulties living under the Soviet system. They said the family suffered religious persecution because of their evangelical Christian beliefs and that relatives who stayed in Belarus have had little opportunity to prosper.
“Communism. That’s what we got away from,” said Dennis, 24, who owns a local heating and cooling company. “Trump is all about religious freedom and letting people serve their own God. And we’re behind that.” -Link
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I wasn’t too clear, I was referring to my acquaintances with those remarks…the people in the article are another matter. That they have a compelling story might not be too surprising, though…
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The funny thing about fascism/totalitarianism/authoritarianism/dictatorship is that it’s just about an even 180-degrees from both the idealized forms of “right” and “left” thinking.
You’d think after so many years people would realize you could combine the two perspectives into something entirely more useful for most people, than tyranny.
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This is the view I get from a couple of former colleagues, who see a strong Putin as a sort of balm for their Russian souls. It’s like a feel-good proxy for coming from a land where things are measurably shoddier than in Germany. It’s a balm that soothes the itch of an inferiority complex.
I, er, did not tell my former colleagues this. I didn’t want to offend them with my hypothesis. But it was pretty evident in the way they talked about their home towns, how they expressed embarrassment at how shitty things were, how they seemed to resent the German colleagues under all the friendship and camaraderie. But I did get the feel that their pro-Putin stance over beers was more clannish and visceral than based on any reason.
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