Just 100? There are thousands on Facebook at any one time. 10s of thousands on twitter.
After watching the dignified marches in Ferguson and the very sudden turn to vandalism by a few people my first thought was âAgents provocateurs at workâ! This tells us how these things happen.
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The donât need the Russians, they are self trolling.
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You knocked that one out of the park Steve.
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Oops. Did I reply to the wrong comment again? I hate it when I do that. But since you engaged, here we go.
Itâs not convenient. Itâs about two things. Well, three, actually.
The first is this: if weâre supposed to accept the idea that it was okay for Russia to fuck the entire goddamn world and attack liberal democracy itself because we somehow set the norms during the Cold War, those norms changed. They began to change with Jimmy Carter. There was, of course, some regression under Reagan, but there was a realignment and redefinition of what was acceptable. And thatâs how things get better in the world. During the Cold War, the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. alike played the subversion and coup game. Even then there were identifiable, if amoral rules. The main one being, âdonât use covert action to fuck around with the vital interests of the other superpower because you might blow up the world.â
And this is a regression, worse, indeed, than a regression. Just like his invasion and annexation of territory from neighboring states is a regression to darker days.
Second, if this is about cosmic justice juju rather than norms, my response is fuck that and fuck anyone who suggests it. Weâre suppose to swallow Putinâs foisting Trump upon us as penance for the sins of our fathers and grandfathers? Really? How does that work? How far back does Putin get to goâslavery? The slaughter of the native population and the theft of their land? The Mexican-American War? Segregation?
And if thatâs the case, does that mean we get to take Putin out because of the blood-drenched history of Russiaâof Stalinâs mass murder, serfdom and pograms under the Czars, the conquest and oppression of the the conquest of Siberia? Or is this only a thing America has to accept because it is uniquely horrible among the nations of the earth? Yeah, fuck the whole cosmic juju chickens coming home to roost justice thing because itâs pure bullshit.
And then, finally, yeah, for all our faults and sins and imperfections, there is no moral equivalence between liberal democracy and the vile regressive ideology Putin is trying to foist upon us. Make no mistake, we are, in fact, in another of the ideological struggles by which weâve defined ourselves throughout history. But the opposing ideology this time isnât comminism, or fascism or aristocracy or monarchy. It is the perverted twin of liberal democracy that began taking shape during the Balkan wars of the '90âs. Itâs an ideology without a name, authoritarianism allied with corrupt, kleptocratic oligarchs all deriving a sham legitimacy by exploiting the subverted institutions and hollowed out civil rituals of a murdered democracy.
Thatâs the struggle and, it just so happens itâs one we are fucking losing, beset by foreign enemies and powerful domestic collaborators alike. And, that being the case, I have no goddamn time or patience for people who want to somehow paint a moral equivalence between the two right now.
*Update: I would be remiss if I failed to note the constant, usually gentle, sometimes annoying but indispensable role that Europe and several other countriesâallies of ours and neutrals, the U.N. and its role as a forum and incubator for norm-shifting treaties and NGOâs played in the post-Cold War shift in norms. We often came along kicking and screaming, but more often than not we did. And now, Putin is doing his best to push the world back into the 19th Century. I think we should be against that, not apologizing for it.
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Now itâs a two homer inning.
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Really, you think so? They just sabotaged our Presidential election. So theyâre just a ârogue stateâ with enough nuclear weapons to destroy the world. Are they out of Crimea now? How about Syria?
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I think weâre in a pretty hot cyber war already with Russia. And weâre losing.
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Well, we invade countries in wars of aggression. It that okay? And you do know about the proxy war we fought against the Soviets in Afghanistan, right? Got the Taliban up and running, yes we did. And letâs not forget the Iran-Iraq war - who did we support there? And Vietnam. And Salvador Allende. And El Salvador.
And on and on and onâŚ
But weâre shocked - shocked I tell you - when someone turns our tactics back on us.
Not saying itâs right - none of it is.
Yes, and I fear for their safety. This does not make Putin look good and Putin likes only to look good (and scary and threatening behind his perpetual little Mona Lisa smirk, but yâall know what I mean).
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I can give you a bracket: it ended sometime between 1987, when Gorbachev and Reagan signed the Intermediate Range Nuclear Forces Treaty and the summer of 1991 when the coup attempt happened.
Sometime between those two bookends, the constant fear, the dread of an escalation of tension resulting in global extinction lifted. I canât quite tell you when, but I realized it had, overnight, when the coup attempt in Russia interfered with my post-bar exam beach drunk in the summer of 1991 brought it all back down. I hadnât noticed the burden lifting, but I sure noticed itâs return.
If you want a more specific date, Iâd say it was in 1989 when Gorbachev began withdrawing Soviet troops from Czechoslovakia. But in that time frame, the world changed. And, more specifically, it was the loss of the existential threat of the other that excused all sins by both sides because survival was the ultimate imperative that changed it.
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So you acknowledge that Russia sabotaged the election? Thatâs progress. Keep working on it.
I agree with Joshâs analysis that I linked to. Russia is no equal to us. Iâm not saying they arenât dangerous or that they canât do damage, but the situation is fundamentally different now than it was during the Cold War. Itâs possible for a smaller actor to âpunch upâ on a larger one, particularly if the larger isnât paying attention to the what the smaller is doing. We got stung by Russia, thereâs no denying that, but that isnât the same thing as the âequalâ threat posed by them during the 20th Century.
Saudi Arabiaâs in Yemen. Are we in a Cold War with SA? Just because Russia has the capability to interfere militarily in another country or occupy territory in another country doesnât mean weâre still in the Cold War with them.
And regarding the nukes, itâs been the US leading the effort to secure the âlooseâ ones that Russia lost track of after the Soviet Union fell. The US has been negotiating the START treaties from a position of strength, while Russia has been in a position of weakness. They are a great power that has been hollowed out, which makes them dangerous and something to be treated appropriately, but it is an entirely different beast than when they were at the height of their power.
Hell, Russiaâs a klepto-capitalist country now. The war of ideology between âEastâ and âWestâ is done.
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Slashes, shmashesâyouâve given us an intoxicating cocktail of metaphors, not just some mix.
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Yeah, I see.
Not a source worth trusting.
That said, we Americans â left and right â have no idea yet⌠yet⌠how bad this conspiracy is. Itâs tantamount to war, a concerted attack on our core institutions by an enemy thatâs paling around the Oval Office.
And powerful Americans were are directly and knowingly involved.
No way Trump didnât know. No way, conservatives.
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How long are we going to let Russia elect our Presidents? This is truly insane.
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Theyâre following in the repug party footsteps.
Typical repug/russian reply: "Other people have done it too, so its A-OK when I do. Even laudable! "
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And publicly funded elections. No more legalized bribery.
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Iâm not sure there is a solution to this type of attack, but one method of dealing with it would be for FB to examine every post that went âVIRALâ, to track down the persons who started the avalanche. Because avalanches, wildfires and VIRUSâ are not good, and there should be plenty of fire-walls and vaccines.
Oh, and GET RID of Fox News.
Reinstate the Fairness Doctrine.
Publicly financed elections
paper ballots counted by hand
term limits on the House and on the Senate.
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Trump: Russians must be allowed to vote in US elections. They are so very smart(not as smart as me though).
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