5 ms·

So Israel does the exact thing all the politicians try to scare us into believing Russia does every election in the US. I guess the difference is AIPAC.

chipdart 2y ago
What do you mean "try to scare us into believing Russia does"? Do you have any doubt that Russia has been interfering in US politics for well over a decade?
- StanislavPetrov 2y ago
  The total amount of direct evidence (evidence, not assertions of secret evidence by the US government, unproven and unsubstantiated allegations of hacking or superman Bernie memes by click farms based somewhere in Russia) that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to less than the evidence in this article on Israel alone. Evidence aside, I personally think it is extremely likely that Russia, China and most other countries active on the world stage have tried to "interfere" in US politics to some degree, but nowhere near the amount that we interfere in the politics of other countries or that Israel interferes in ours.
  - chipdart 2y ago
    > that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to (...) So you acknowledge that it's quite clear that Russia indeed is systematically interfering, and your only claim is to call "what about" some other country?
    - StanislavPetrov 2y ago
      No, I acknowledge that some interference by Russia and other countries is likely but not clear, since no clear evidence has ever been publicly offered. The only public evidence of clear, systemic, long-standing and ongoing interference we have is that of Israel.
      - heroprotagonist 2y ago
        Well, there are the indictments against 13 Russian nationals by the DOJ, and all the materials necessary for that. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-russian-individuals-and-three-russian-companies-scheme-interfere https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-r... And there are reports from the intelligence services which are very clear as well, for example: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf A brief search will come up with much more. The only question is why you haven't found any of this evidence, haven't believed any of it, or why you would argue such an easily disproven position without ever taking a few minutes to find out if the position you argue is still true many years after you've formed it. It's almost as if you heard an opinion once or multiple times, perhaps from people or political figures you trusted. Then you internalized that opinion and it took on the attributes of 'belief' and haven't ever questioned it since it was formed. This belief became bound up with other things you believe, and now the defense mechanisms your brain uses to support 'belief' are also supporting this opinion in contradiction to facts that have been proven over the past years. These defense mechanisms exist in your brain for good reasons, but they are also a way that propaganda exploits your brain's natural tendency to behave. It's difficult for victims of this to see it for what it is, confront their 'belief' system and admit they've been tricked. They have to overcome the feeling that it's their own fault they were tricked and their brain was exploited, which many never do, even though it's really not their fault that the human brain works the way it does. Propaganda is insidious, and particularly treacherous in the way that it convinces people to argue on its behalf, and that the act of doing so reinforces the hold the propaganda has on the person.
        andrei_says_ 2y ago
        (Not the original poster) Thank you for providing civil, factual, compassionate responses in this thread - it’s an inspiring example of discourse. I’d like to add an informative and entertaining essay on the mechanics of belief and the reasons some beliefs are harder to change than others: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
        yesco 2y ago
    - lenkite 2y ago
      The nation that systematically interferes to the maximum possible extent in other nation's internal affairs, including elections is the United States of America. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, paid-coups of elected leaders whose elections were EU observer verified, etc. The U.S. has grandmastery level of expertise in this space. No other nation comes remotely close. ex CIA directors have even admitted this openly on TV - "election interference" for the "greater good" - to thunderous applause! Russian efforts to interfere were small, laughable peanuts that the American experts pitied. Read the assessments written in 2023, when Anti Trump hysteria had lowered. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/20/23559214/russia-2016-election-trolls-study-email-hack https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/20/23559214/r... Other nations just grit their teeth and put up with the extraordinary American interference in their internal affairs - because what can they even do ? The U.S. is the Divine Icon of Sanctimonious Hypocrisy. Complain too hard and you will be openly threatened with sanctions. (Look at what is happening with Georgia nowadays)
      - lostmsu 2y ago
        > Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, etc. Only one item here really is explicitly illegal/immoral. Can you guess which one? How much evidence is there for US doing it?
        lenkite 2y ago
        I thought they were all bad - according to the U.S itself when it is the target of such activities at the minutest level. There is a lot of evidence, including open statements made by ex-CIA directors, published books by former military/intelligence agents, de-classified documents, news articles, interviews of EU ministers, etc. But most Americans hold your position - that direct or covert U.S. interference in other nation's affairs is completely fine. The only thing I complain about is the sanctimonious hypocrisy when actions reflect back.
- heroprotagonist 2y ago
  This seems like a remnant opinion resultant from old propaganda campaigns promoted by politicians Russia was supporting with its interference in US politics. These campaigns were multifaceted and included calling proven basic facts into question, going so far as to suggest Russia wasn't interfering at all. Convincing people to disbelieve this basic fact precluded them from any possible consideration of whether Russia was supporting specific candidates, how Russia might benefit from such a candidate taking power, and why Russia might consider interference to be worth the effort, money, and risk. This disbelief would also preclude any consideration about why the politician might: - support such Russian meddling by pretending it did not exist - make unsupported claims implicating their political opponents which completely ignored known facts - play dumb whenever the subject came up It was a playbook, followed to incredible success in conjunction with other propaganda efforts. This all served to enable the politician to completely avoid addressing core questions about why Russia would support the candidate to the point of interfering with US elections to begin with.
  - baybal2 2y ago
    [dead]
  - EasyMark 2y ago
    Get on X.com for more than 20 minutes and tell me it isn’t swimming in Chinese/Russian state actors trying to inflict damage to US societal structure, politics, and way of life. Just go to any political news article for a bit and go down the rabbit hole of all the “patriot” accounts on there that are blatantly not American with bad English and a laser focus on propaganda against the USA and promoting far right (or left) garbage. Facebook has improved quite a bit over the past few years but it was much worse in the 2020 cycle, so much worse.
    - eric_cc 2y ago
      Even worse, Reddit /politics and /news. Extremely far left anti-American energy.
- gklitz 2y ago
  > Do you have any doubt that Russia has been interfering in US politics for well over a decade? You mean through completely accepted and legal campaign donations to pretty much every major politician? Oh no wait that’s AIPAC and Israel and “just fine”. You mean through bots that post shit on FB right? I don’t care for conspiracies, but I do wonder why American politicians don’t try to stop donations from foreign government institutions to politicians in general. JFK was on track to do just that before he was murdered.
  - beretguy 2y ago
    Or by using deepfakes. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/us/politics/deepfake-us-official-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/us/politics/deepfake-us-o... > Deepfake of U.S. Official Appears After Shift on Ukraine Attacks in Russia > U.S. officials said they had no information about the origins of the video. But they are particularly concerned about how Russia might employ such techniques to manipulate opinion around the war in Ukraine or even American political discourse. Most likely this is meant to target trump supporters to encourage them to go vote for him because it highlights increased US support for Ukraine.
- elphinstone 2y ago
  Sure, the Russian lobby is waaay more powerful than AIPAC. /s
- eric_cc 2y ago
  All major nations interfere with each other’s elections and/or politics and political stability. That said, the narratives around election interference are political rather than objective. > last decade well over a century.. The thing is that it’s a Constant. It’s not a new or surprising thing like fake news presents it as.
HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago
Russian interference is not in doubt.
GoblinSlayer 2y ago
vetted people
barfingclouds 2y ago
Yeah just to second this, there has been credible proof that Russia has interfered in our elections, let’s not diminish that reality.
fsagx 2y ago
I'm waiting to see if the NY Times tells me I should be outraged by this.
EasyMark 2y ago
So does all other countries, especially Russia and China; only our closest allies aren’t this blatant.

chipdart 2y ago

What do you mean "try to scare us into believing Russia does"? Do you have any doubt that Russia has been interfering in US politics for well over a decade?

StanislavPetrov 2y ago
The total amount of direct evidence (evidence, not assertions of secret evidence by the US government, unproven and unsubstantiated allegations of hacking or superman Bernie memes by click farms based somewhere in Russia) that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to less than the evidence in this article on Israel alone. Evidence aside, I personally think it is extremely likely that Russia, China and most other countries active on the world stage have tried to "interfere" in US politics to some degree, but nowhere near the amount that we interfere in the politics of other countries or that Israel interferes in ours.
- chipdart 2y ago
  > that Russia has "interfered" with US politics that has been released by the US government in the last 10 years adds up to (...) So you acknowledge that it's quite clear that Russia indeed is systematically interfering, and your only claim is to call "what about" some other country?
  - StanislavPetrov 2y ago
    No, I acknowledge that some interference by Russia and other countries is likely but not clear, since no clear evidence has ever been publicly offered. The only public evidence of clear, systemic, long-standing and ongoing interference we have is that of Israel.
    - heroprotagonist 2y ago
      Well, there are the indictments against 13 Russian nationals by the DOJ, and all the materials necessary for that. https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-russian-individuals-and-three-russian-companies-scheme-interfere https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/grand-jury-indicts-thirteen-r... And there are reports from the intelligence services which are very clear as well, for example: https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/ICA_2017_01.pdf A brief search will come up with much more. The only question is why you haven't found any of this evidence, haven't believed any of it, or why you would argue such an easily disproven position without ever taking a few minutes to find out if the position you argue is still true many years after you've formed it. It's almost as if you heard an opinion once or multiple times, perhaps from people or political figures you trusted. Then you internalized that opinion and it took on the attributes of 'belief' and haven't ever questioned it since it was formed. This belief became bound up with other things you believe, and now the defense mechanisms your brain uses to support 'belief' are also supporting this opinion in contradiction to facts that have been proven over the past years. These defense mechanisms exist in your brain for good reasons, but they are also a way that propaganda exploits your brain's natural tendency to behave. It's difficult for victims of this to see it for what it is, confront their 'belief' system and admit they've been tricked. They have to overcome the feeling that it's their own fault they were tricked and their brain was exploited, which many never do, even though it's really not their fault that the human brain works the way it does. Propaganda is insidious, and particularly treacherous in the way that it convinces people to argue on its behalf, and that the act of doing so reinforces the hold the propaganda has on the person.
      - andrei_says_ 2y ago
        (Not the original poster) Thank you for providing civil, factual, compassionate responses in this thread - it’s an inspiring example of discourse. I’d like to add an informative and entertaining essay on the mechanics of belief and the reasons some beliefs are harder to change than others: https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe https://theoatmeal.com/comics/believe
      - yesco 2y ago
  - lenkite 2y ago
    The nation that systematically interferes to the maximum possible extent in other nation's internal affairs, including elections is the United States of America. Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, paid-coups of elected leaders whose elections were EU observer verified, etc. The U.S. has grandmastery level of expertise in this space. No other nation comes remotely close. ex CIA directors have even admitted this openly on TV - "election interference" for the "greater good" - to thunderous applause! Russian efforts to interfere were small, laughable peanuts that the American experts pitied. Read the assessments written in 2023, when Anti Trump hysteria had lowered. https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/20/23559214/russia-2016-election-trolls-study-email-hack https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2023/1/20/23559214/r... Other nations just grit their teeth and put up with the extraordinary American interference in their internal affairs - because what can they even do ? The U.S. is the Divine Icon of Sanctimonious Hypocrisy. Complain too hard and you will be openly threatened with sanctions. (Look at what is happening with Georgia nowadays)
    - lostmsu 2y ago
      > Tens of billions of dollars are spent on propaganda, misinformation, sponsorship of civil disturbances, activist NGO's, etc. Only one item here really is explicitly illegal/immoral. Can you guess which one? How much evidence is there for US doing it?
      - lenkite 2y ago
        I thought they were all bad - according to the U.S itself when it is the target of such activities at the minutest level. There is a lot of evidence, including open statements made by ex-CIA directors, published books by former military/intelligence agents, de-classified documents, news articles, interviews of EU ministers, etc. But most Americans hold your position - that direct or covert U.S. interference in other nation's affairs is completely fine. The only thing I complain about is the sanctimonious hypocrisy when actions reflect back.
heroprotagonist 2y ago
This seems like a remnant opinion resultant from old propaganda campaigns promoted by politicians Russia was supporting with its interference in US politics. These campaigns were multifaceted and included calling proven basic facts into question, going so far as to suggest Russia wasn't interfering at all. Convincing people to disbelieve this basic fact precluded them from any possible consideration of whether Russia was supporting specific candidates, how Russia might benefit from such a candidate taking power, and why Russia might consider interference to be worth the effort, money, and risk. This disbelief would also preclude any consideration about why the politician might: - support such Russian meddling by pretending it did not exist - make unsupported claims implicating their political opponents which completely ignored known facts - play dumb whenever the subject came up It was a playbook, followed to incredible success in conjunction with other propaganda efforts. This all served to enable the politician to completely avoid addressing core questions about why Russia would support the candidate to the point of interfering with US elections to begin with.
- baybal2 2y ago
  [dead]
- EasyMark 2y ago
  Get on X.com for more than 20 minutes and tell me it isn’t swimming in Chinese/Russian state actors trying to inflict damage to US societal structure, politics, and way of life. Just go to any political news article for a bit and go down the rabbit hole of all the “patriot” accounts on there that are blatantly not American with bad English and a laser focus on propaganda against the USA and promoting far right (or left) garbage. Facebook has improved quite a bit over the past few years but it was much worse in the 2020 cycle, so much worse.
  - eric_cc 2y ago
    Even worse, Reddit /politics and /news. Extremely far left anti-American energy.
gklitz 2y ago
> Do you have any doubt that Russia has been interfering in US politics for well over a decade? You mean through completely accepted and legal campaign donations to pretty much every major politician? Oh no wait that’s AIPAC and Israel and “just fine”. You mean through bots that post shit on FB right? I don’t care for conspiracies, but I do wonder why American politicians don’t try to stop donations from foreign government institutions to politicians in general. JFK was on track to do just that before he was murdered.
- beretguy 2y ago
  Or by using deepfakes. https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/us/politics/deepfake-us-official-russia.html https://www.nytimes.com/2024/05/31/us/politics/deepfake-us-o... > Deepfake of U.S. Official Appears After Shift on Ukraine Attacks in Russia > U.S. officials said they had no information about the origins of the video. But they are particularly concerned about how Russia might employ such techniques to manipulate opinion around the war in Ukraine or even American political discourse. Most likely this is meant to target trump supporters to encourage them to go vote for him because it highlights increased US support for Ukraine.
elphinstone 2y ago
Sure, the Russian lobby is waaay more powerful than AIPAC. /s
eric_cc 2y ago
All major nations interfere with each other’s elections and/or politics and political stability. That said, the narratives around election interference are political rather than objective. > last decade well over a century.. The thing is that it’s a Constant. It’s not a new or surprising thing like fake news presents it as.

HeatrayEnjoyer 2y ago

Russian interference is not in doubt.

GoblinSlayer 2y ago

vetted people

barfingclouds 2y ago

Yeah just to second this, there has been credible proof that Russia has interfered in our elections, let’s not diminish that reality.

fsagx 2y ago

I'm waiting to see if the NY Times tells me I should be outraged by this.

EasyMark 2y ago

So does all other countries, especially Russia and China; only our closest allies aren’t this blatant.