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‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

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Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

My default position is misinformation because I think people being dumb is more likely then them attempting to gaslight others. They get the benefit of the doubt until proven otherwise, but it definitely raises suspicion. The same goes for dog whistling. It is easy to see dog whistling everywhere because that's its entire purpose: to hide within normalized speech. Covert speech is not covert if the only ones using th…

Whatever happened to "wrong"? As in, "that's wrong". Ideally followed by some reasoning. All of these fancier words like whataboutism or misinformation are just attempts to assert authority via the word. They don't convey additional meaning.

"Misinformation" might (sometimes) be a synonym for "wrong".... but "whataboutism", "disinformation", "malinformation" are not. They mean different things.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#232
post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

On the contrary - for succinct day-by-day, "play-by-play" commentary on the conflict, they are quite professional (and extremely guarded in their statements). OTOH, I'm old & well-read enough to know that they are working from limited information sources, within a narrow analysis framework, and even the best-resourced and -intentioned military-style war reporting has a pretty iffy record.

I think as long as people wishing to know more about the situation with the fox in the hen house don't mind reading the latest updates from the actual fox itself, then sure. These aren't just war cheerleaders, the ISW is literally the architects of war. Sure they know a lot about it, look at their Board of Directors. It's filled with warmongers.

If "fox" == "Russian military" and "hen house" == "Ukraine"...well, the ISW folks strike me as far too sympathetic to the hen side to be shills for the fox side, as you seem to believe.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> According to Verified Voting ( https://verifiedvoting.org/verifier/#mode/navigate/map/ppEqu ...), ~5% of votes are made with un-auditable "direct recording electronic" voting machines, where the votes are held in memory rather than printed to paper. When you actually do pentests, it turns out that these machines are sometimes connected to the internet (even though best-practices are to not do so), and they have bee…

> This is quite contrary to the ~~propaganda~~ trustworthy journalism take on the matter: I would note that it's possible for both to be true: A) this was the most secure election in US history, B) there are still some meaningful security issues to iron out. For example between 2016 and 2020, DRE machines were being phased out (28.9 -> 11.4%), so in that regard we do seem to be more secure than in the past. And I wan…

> I would note that it's possible for both to be true: A) this was the most secure election in US history, B) there are still some meaningful security issues to iron out. For example between 2016 and 2020, DRE machines were being phased out (28.9 -> 11.4%), so in that regard we do seem to be more secure than in the past.

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> And I want to be clear -- I think the detailed content of that Guardian article is broadly fair, even if they do engage in some sloganeering.

Perhaps, but these articles are misinformation (Misinformation is incorrect or misleading information. It is differentiated from disinformation, which is deliberately deceptive.)

I think it is very interesting how when our geopolitical rivals engage in misinformation, it's a super big deal (regardless of whether there is actual evidence supporting the claim), but when our politicians and media do it it's "fair".

> I think this is an honest evaluation of the evidence RE: specific claims of voting fraud in 2020. (Though I'm always interested to hear folks' best evidence to the contrary.)

It may be, but this does not erase the coordinated deception that took place - and this is just one instance of deceit.

And, there was a time not so long ago where the burden of proof lied with the one making the assertion, only recently has the convention changed to the burden of proof being on anyone who questions the official narrative.

> If there was vote tampering, it should have been detected by a recount somewhere. But we don't see that.

Similarly, I "should" quit smoking and join the gym, but I ain't seeing much of that either.

If "seems about right" is the standard election officials think is applicable to their role, I'd like for them to make an explicit announcement so everyone is on the same page about what kind of a show we're running here.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#234

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> after Putin retires He ain't retiring. The only way he is leaving the Kremlin is in a casket.

I'm not sure why everyone assumes this. It seems like he'd have much more ability to shape the future of Russia and protect those close to him if he chooses a successor and oversees the succession. He could also ensure better conditions for himself (i.e. not being executed) in case he ends up being unable to continue ruling due to sickness/old age.

> I'm not sure why everyone assumes...

Most folks "know" far more about succession in authoritarian regimes from heroic fiction, TVTropes, and the Evil Overlord list than they do from actual history.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#237

> Russian companies were charged in the U.S. with operating a covert social media campaign aimed at fomenting discord and dividing American public opinion This is key here and I think we should all take note because I see comments here that feed into their tactics. Their goal isn't to have a specific election winner, but to divide us as a nation (not just US but all Westerners and even countries like Japan) and creat…

I wonder how much of this is "divide and conquer" and how much of this is just the Putin administration trying to export its own flavor of governance, which doesn't really directly translate to Western democracies. What comes out are ultimately sentiments of anti-liberalism / anti-rule-of-law / anti-individuality and the political factions who tend to embrace that live on the fringes.

It's both. I think it is easy to get caught up in which and that can add to the distraction. In my opinion it is still essential to teach our citizens to become aware of this practice and to be able to defend against it. We don't even need anywhere near 50% of citizens for this to be effective. I'd assume that between 10% and 20% could be more than sufficient, as long as we learn how to make our voices powerful. This number comes from the fact that a small minority of people have demonstrated the ability to capture the narrative and use it to dive and confuse us. So how do we instead harness this power to create good in our society? That's the real question here.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The situation in Venezuela is much more complicated than "US bad, Maduro good, Guaidó = USA".

Was it? I don't think it was.

In the mid 2000s I thought Chavez was OK (democratically elected after all) and the criticism was mostly Bush Administration bullshit.

I don't want to presume too much of you. Do you speak Spanish?

Because what changed my mind about that wave of leaders was listening to them speak unfiltered in Spanish. They came across to me as not having any idea what they're doing. The ideas sound good on the surface (power to the people!) but they are corrupt, incompetent, narcissistic bullshitters. Like your sibling comment says, their inadequate leadership was for some time covered up by the high price of oil. When oil prices fluctuate, they have problems. They blame all their internal problems on the United States.

Many Americans (right wingers on the right, tankies on the left) mix up US politics with all this, or in the case of the left, believe this last point about how every internal problem is somehow caused by the devilish US, glorifying chavismo as some kind of "enemy of my enemy" thing; I myself was guilty of this last point in the past. But Chavistas don't need any help from the US in achieving poor outcomes. They do it themselves.

They do have popular support in their country. So does Vladimir Putin. So did Hitler. It just goes to show that it's OK to personally disagree with the will of voters in other countries. That is quite a bit different from a coup.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#239
post #8
post #3

Is there any major power not trying to influence other countries' elections? The US CIA has done this, much more directly and brazenly, in South America for decades. Kind of funny when Americans act like buff shirtless Bernie memes are worse than organizing and funding coups

Salvador Allende was nearly 50 years ago. I think the US does a lot less of this now. IMO The Iraq War was the last colossal bullshit thing to date. Many Americans (self included) were against it and we're a few presidents removed from that shitty decision. Around the time of the invasion, Putin cited it as something that excuses his current behavior. But saying the US did something years ago does not justify one's o…

The reason why you think it happens less often is because the US declassifies its foreign activities after a long delay, at which point we have government admissions of what was done. Until then, we have only media reports that are labelled as conspiracy theories, etc.

But US was certainly behind a wave of color revolutions that just happened to occur in many of the former Soviet Republics and just happened to install pro-US governments that adopted anti-Russian policies (when successful). There is a whole book written about it:

https://www.routledge.com/The-Colour-Revolutions-in-the-Form...

The US was also behind the "Arab Spring" revolts that spread chaos to the Arab world (but not much democracy), as well as periodically stoking revolts in Iran. For some reason, there are a huge number of well armed foreign men murdering police in Iran in the name of women's rights, when Saudi Arabia or the other gulf states aren't exactly known for women's rights, but strangely have had no similar movements. I wonder why that is.

In Southeast Asia, the US is funding violent groups in Myanmar that have been killing school teachers, hospital employees, emergency workers, police, etc in an attempt to overthrow the junta and replace it with a government in exile that is headquartered in Virginia.

In Pakistan, the US is funding Baluchi rebels that have been attacking Chinese engineers working on belt and road projects, and recently tried to assassinate the Chinese Ambassador.

We overthrew the government of Ukraine twice, in 2004 and 2014, installing a repressive anti-Russian government in its place. We tried to overthrow the government of Kazakhstan and Byelorussia earlier.

Etc.

Re: ‘Putin’s chef’ admits to interfering in U.S. elections

#240
post #239
post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Salvador Allende was nearly 50 years ago. I think the US does a lot less of this now. IMO The Iraq War was the last colossal bullshit thing to date. Many Americans (self included) were against it and we're a few presidents removed from that shitty decision. Around the time of the invasion, Putin cited it as something that excuses his current behavior. But saying the US did something years ago does not justify one's o…

The reason why you think it happens less often is because the US declassifies its foreign activities after a long delay, at which point we have government admissions of what was done. Until then, we have only media reports that are labelled as conspiracy theories, etc. But US was certainly behind a wave of color revolutions that just happened to occur in many of the former Soviet Republics and just happened to instal…

My father's family came from what is now a post-soviet republic, which you probably do not understand was previously, before unpopular annexation, a pre-soviet republic. You are not going to convince me with pro Putin horse shit. There are plenty of post-soviet republics, Ukraine included, who are favorable to NATO and not due to a US conspiracy. Many of these were brutally oppressed not just by the Soviet Union but the Russian Empire, and a lot of those conflicts predate the existence of the United States.
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