5 ms·

I think this opinion is very narrow minded. Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas,

by nscalf 9y ago

I think this opinion is very narrow minded. Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas, that doesn't make it any less concerning that it is happening here. It is a weapon that doesn't result in war, I hope my government, the United States Government, uses this more as an early option instead of going to war. If anything, I'm upset they are not more effective at this. When a foreign government disrupts my free elections though, I'm going to be troubled by it. What you're saying is effectively belittling the importance of hardening our own systems from this foreign influence.

milcron 9y ago
> No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas The 2nd highest comment is "honestly curious" whether the US participates in propaganda campaigns.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  The US established an entire Twitter clone in Cuba with the aim of fomenting a revolution.
  - nl 9y ago
    Reference for that?
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitter-clone-spark-unrest-ap-reports-156742/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitte...
  - deusofnull 9y ago
    That brings the count for number of times the US has attempted to foment a revolution in Cuba to at least 2.
    - emodendroket 9y ago
      Uh, yeah, I'd say definitely more than that
pavel_lishin 9y ago
> Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? Anyone who reads the article, and thinks "this is outrageous!" instead of treating it as a chess move by an opponent.
- altcognito 9y ago
  Chess moves that have implications, and the OP might have a vested interest in an outcome that is favorable to his human rights and the economic stability of his country.
- jbooth 9y ago
  It's outrageous to the extent we're completely unprepared and maybe unwilling to deal with it. Radio Free Europe was at least just using the airwaves. These efforts are using US corporations against the US.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    European airwaves, on European radios.
    - jbooth 9y ago
      So, is that confirmation on 'unwilling'?
  - pavel_lishin 9y ago
    Don't put a knight on the board if you don't know how it moves.
    - jbooth 9y ago
      I'm not sure what that even means, knights have moved the same way for thousands of years and we're just discovering how internet society works in real time. Having the hyper-free-speech internet that we created turned against us in ways that more authoritarian countries are immune to is a huge slap in the face. We need to figure out a way to handle this.
guaka 9y ago
Ha! I'm pretty sure deusofnull was being sarcastic here.
deusofnull 9y ago
I definitely dont want to belittle the importance of this kind of activity. But I very much want to shift the dialog about such machinations on the part of foreign powers towards a conversation where we acknowledge or own systemic failures in democracy at home and our rampant interventionism abroad. I really only see the outcome of this outrage over foreign interference in our democracy resulting in a spectrum of terrible to shameful. In the terrible case, we are hyping up defensive nationalism and disregarding our own actions and history, which may very well lead to all kinds of barbaric, jingoistic policies moving forward. In the shameful case, we are taking advantage of these stories on foreign manipulation as a means to ignore what is wrong with our society, passing the blame solely onto a non american third party. In neither case are we reviewing our history as a nation. I fear we will ignore all the possible lessons we might learn from honestly reviewing the times where we have disenfranchised our own people, overthrew foreign governments for adhering to a different socio-economic ideology, or were so blinded by our own propaganda and fear that we were convinced of conveniently simple narratives about who was bad and who was good and who we had to kill and who had to do the killing. I feel like there is a common aphorism about how you need to fail 10 times to have a decent chance to succeed once. It seems like we have an opportunity to review our history at this moment. We didn't do any such examination after the fall of the USSR in the 90s. Nope, we were vindicated and there was no longer a reason to pen-test neoliberal-capitalism as either an economic system or a larger ideology. It took 2 inane wars, a massive recession, and the election of idiot-nationalist reality tv show star / shitty condo developer to provide us with an opportunity to introspect, and I'll be damned if I dont make the strongest appeal my young perspective can muster for us to do that introspection.

by nscalf 9y ago

milcron 9y ago

> No one is doubting that we are doing this overseas The 2nd highest comment is "honestly curious" whether the US participates in propaganda campaigns.

emodendroket 9y ago
The US established an entire Twitter clone in Cuba with the aim of fomenting a revolution.
- nl 9y ago
  Reference for that?
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitter-clone-spark-unrest-ap-reports-156742/ http://www.adweek.com/digital/us-secretly-built-cubas-twitte...
- deusofnull 9y ago
  That brings the count for number of times the US has attempted to foment a revolution in Cuba to at least 2.
  - emodendroket 9y ago
    Uh, yeah, I'd say definitely more than that

pavel_lishin 9y ago

> Who is the person you're trying to convince with this thought? Anyone who reads the article, and thinks "this is outrageous!" instead of treating it as a chess move by an opponent.

altcognito 9y ago
Chess moves that have implications, and the OP might have a vested interest in an outcome that is favorable to his human rights and the economic stability of his country.
jbooth 9y ago
It's outrageous to the extent we're completely unprepared and maybe unwilling to deal with it. Radio Free Europe was at least just using the airwaves. These efforts are using US corporations against the US.
- emodendroket 9y ago
  European airwaves, on European radios.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    So, is that confirmation on 'unwilling'?
- pavel_lishin 9y ago
  Don't put a knight on the board if you don't know how it moves.
  - jbooth 9y ago
    I'm not sure what that even means, knights have moved the same way for thousands of years and we're just discovering how internet society works in real time. Having the hyper-free-speech internet that we created turned against us in ways that more authoritarian countries are immune to is a huge slap in the face. We need to figure out a way to handle this.

guaka 9y ago

Ha! I'm pretty sure deusofnull was being sarcastic here.

deusofnull 9y ago

I definitely dont want to belittle the importance of this kind of activity. But I very much want to shift the dialog about such machinations on the part of foreign powers towards a conversation where we acknowledge or own systemic failures in democracy at home and our rampant interventionism abroad. I really only see the outcome of this outrage over foreign interference in our democracy resulting in a spectrum of terrible to shameful. In the terrible case, we are hyping up defensive nationalism and disregarding our own actions and history, which may very well lead to all kinds of barbaric, jingoistic policies moving forward. In the shameful case, we are taking advantage of these stories on foreign manipulation as a means to ignore what is wrong with our society, passing the blame solely onto a non american third party. In neither case are we reviewing our history as a nation. I fear we will ignore all the possible lessons we might learn from honestly reviewing the times where we have disenfranchised our own people, overthrew foreign governments for adhering to a different socio-economic ideology, or were so blinded by our own propaganda and fear that we were convinced of conveniently simple narratives about who was bad and who was good and who we had to kill and who had to do the killing. I feel like there is a common aphorism about how you need to fail 10 times to have a decent chance to succeed once. It seems like we have an opportunity to review our history at this moment. We didn't do any such examination after the fall of the USSR in the 90s. Nope, we were vindicated and there was no longer a reason to pen-test neoliberal-capitalism as either an economic system or a larger ideology. It took 2 inane wars, a massive recession, and the election of idiot-nationalist reality tv show star / shitty condo developer to provide us with an opportunity to introspect, and I'll be damned if I dont make the strongest appeal my young perspective can muster for us to do that introspection.