‘The perfect target’: Russia cultivated Trump as asset for 40 years – ex-KGB spy

[ZiprHead]

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

Trump had no part in destabalising American democracy. Facebook did that. Russia figured out how to use Facebook to the benefit first. But they can only do that once. Very quickly culture will adapt and become resilient. Russia won't be able to do it again.

It brings to mind the rise of Nazism and their clever use of radio. The other political parties saw radio as something uncultured for the riff raff and it was beneath them to use it for campaigning. The Nazis saw things differently and exploited it to their best ability. That only worked once. In the rest of the world all political parties copied Hitler's use of radio and it became the standard and accepted way of doing campaigning. The shame disappeared. The same will of course happen to political Facebook campaigning.

It also brings to mind how Obama was an early adopter of begging for money on-line in Kickstarter-like campaigns. Which gave him an edge in the 2008 election. But everybody does that now. So the Dems lost this edge in the next election.

And USA doesn't face uniquely serious problems for democracy, that any other country doesn't face. The real threat to democracy is the fact that production is increasingly robotocised and high-tech. The uneducated are increasingly become un-employable. They're increasingly fighting over fewer and fewer jobs. The poor are feeling the squeeze and becoming angry, desperate and are losing hope for the future. Which makes them vote for people like Trump. But this is an international problem. USA isn't in any way unique. In Sweden the second bigger political party is today the Sweden Democrats, who are just straight up racists. It is a party founded by Swedish Nazi SS volunteers returning after WW2. It's the same everywhere. Putin isn't guilty of creating this situation.

And it doesn't help that the urban well educated middle-class is ignoring these poor people and don't see the problem. Since the wheels of the economy is spinning faster than ever before they think everything is fine, and care more about gender pronouns and racist statues than the exploding opioid abuse in ghettos. Putin is innocent of even this.

This belongs in the political conspiracy theory thread.

 

[barbos]

DrZoidberg is not wrong, Facebook&Co did create an environment suitable for rapid propagation of conspiracy theories among idiots. And idiots are predominantly Trump voters.

 

[DrZoidberg]

They have seriously destablized American democracy and now can hold it up to the world as a "failed" system. They avoided pushback from Hillary Clinton from all sorts of things, including bounties on heads of American military. Oh, and Rump tried hard to rehab Russia's position in the world and to withdraw American military presence in the Middle East.

Trump had no part in destabalising American democracy. Facebook did that. Russia figured out how to use Facebook to the benefit first. But they can only do that once. Very quickly culture will adapt and become resilient. Russia won't be able to do it again.

It brings to mind the rise of Nazism and their clever use of radio. The other political parties saw radio as something uncultured for the riff raff and it was beneath them to use it for campaigning. The Nazis saw things differently and exploited it to their best ability. That only worked once. In the rest of the world all political parties copied Hitler's use of radio and it became the standard and accepted way of doing campaigning. The shame disappeared. The same will of course happen to political Facebook campaigning.

It also brings to mind how Obama was an early adopter of begging for money on-line in Kickstarter-like campaigns. Which gave him an edge in the 2008 election. But everybody does that now. So the Dems lost this edge in the next election.

And USA doesn't face uniquely serious problems for democracy, that any other country doesn't face. The real threat to democracy is the fact that production is increasingly robotocised and high-tech. The uneducated are increasingly become un-employable. They're increasingly fighting over fewer and fewer jobs. The poor are feeling the squeeze and becoming angry, desperate and are losing hope for the future. Which makes them vote for people like Trump. But this is an international problem. USA isn't in any way unique. In Sweden the second bigger political party is today the Sweden Democrats, who are just straight up racists. It is a party founded by Swedish Nazi SS volunteers returning after WW2. It's the same everywhere. Putin isn't guilty of creating this situation.

And it doesn't help that the urban well educated middle-class is ignoring these poor people and don't see the problem. Since the wheels of the economy is spinning faster than ever before they think everything is fine, and care more about gender pronouns and racist statues than the exploding opioid abuse in ghettos. Putin is innocent of even this.

This belongs in the political conspiracy theory thread.

Calling something a conspiracy theory is passing it off as crazy. Do you really think it's crazy?

 

[barbos]

This belongs in the political conspiracy theory thread.

He did not say Facebook intended to destabilize democracy. It was unintended consequence of their business model.

 

[DrZoidberg]

This belongs in the political conspiracy theory thread.

He did not say Facebook intended to destabilize democracy. It was unintended consequence of their business model.

More precisely, what's destabilizing the old establishment and system of doing things is IT and the Internet. That have radically changed how we do business today, and it's impacting the jobs market. Leading to social stress. While the change is good overall for the world and economy, it's hard for poor people to adapt to this new world. The career paths of our parents is most often no longer viable career paths. That's the real reason for the instability. If we didn't have this situation in the economy then introducing the algorithms of Facebook wouldn't have had much of an impact on democracy. But because a large proportion of voters are desperately looking for explanations to why they are worse off and under more pressure than their parents, they are finding crazy theories in groups on Facebook giving them simple answers. They become vulnerable to Russian trolls.

We like to make fun of the Millennials as mollycoddled snowflakes, but the truth is that they are in a pretty shit situation. They need to a university degree in order to have a hope of getting a decent job. But salaries are not keeping up with the cost of getting the education. So it's increasingly a bad deal. Add to that, there's no guarantee their degree will get them a job. While the IT sector is moving so fast that even after an education, it's not sure your education was relevant once you are out. So they're under a demand to pay for an expensive education, that might not even be worth it once they're out. We who grew up in a simpler world fail to put ourselves in their shoes when we make fun of them. It's these people who fall prey to the QAnnon and other conspiracy theories. It's not so strange. If the beliefs of your parents aren't working for you, you are going to go out and find a new truth. This can lead to weird places. It's a similar situation humanity was in in the 1930'ies and again in the 1960'ies. There was dramatic shift in technology and how that impacted social norms and behaviours. Democracy was under threat then to.

Alan Moore said it best on conspiracy theories "conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world is that it is chaotic. The truth is, that it is not the Jewish banking conspiracy or the grey aliens or the 12 foot reptiloids from another dimension that are in control. The truth is more frightening, nobody is in control. The world is rudderless."

Or as a friend of mine put it, "if you think it's bad now, just wait until self driving lorries hits the roads". That's about 5% of the total workforce out of a job. That's not an insignificant number. And it's all unqualified work. Replaced by high tech programmers. Add to that all the rest of the jobs gone to automation. It's not a development that will reverse.

edit: Another important factor, but this is more speculative, is the woke culture of the mainstream media. The mainstream public platforms are under increased scrutiny by the viewers. Any little soundbite uttered at any point in your life can ruin your career. So ambitious and smart people aren't going to be honest in the media. They will only be honest on anonymous boards like this or in private little chat groups. Mainstream media today has been reduced to nothing but virtue signaling. People saying what everybody already believes. Media and the talking head is all just theatre and bullshit now, and we're all aware of it. That's of course how somebody like Trump could become president.

Everybody I know, from smart to stupid aren't watching mainstream media for information anymore. They're all turning to informal channels. Stuff like podcasts, Youtube, streamed lectures, Facebook and forums. Well... these aren't moderated in any way by any educated authority. Dunning-Kruger is in effect. Stupid people will listen to and believe stupid things. That's not the fault of Facebook. Nobody did this on purpose. It's no conspiracy. It's not necessarily all bad. Our world is just different now then what it was 30 years ago and it's having a destabilizing effect.

 

[barbos]

DrZoidberg, you are digging too deep and offtopic for this thread. I was merely commenting on people calling your facebook theory a conspiracy.
Conspiracies are supposed to be intentional. What Facebook did was not intentional. They tried to make money, attack on democracy was just a side effect of that.
But I agree, economic system needs major modification. But that's a different topic and we have a lot of them already.

 

[DrZoidberg]

DrZoidberg, you are digging too deep and offtopic for this thread. I was merely commenting on people calling your facebook theory a conspiracy.
Conspiracies are supposed to be intentional. What Facebook did was not intentional. They tried to make money, attack on democracy was just a side effect of that.
But I agree, economic system needs major modification. But that's a different topic and we have a lot of them already.

I don't think the economic system needs much modification. Over time this system is self correcting. It's a tried and tested system that works. At least better than any other we've tried. It just sucks extra hard for poor people right now which impacts the stability for our political systems. I'm not arguing to change anything. I'm just offering the reasons I think Facebook conspiracies are getting so much traction right now. Whether democracy survives, nobody knows, but the economy will correct itself. But sure, it's not the topic of this thread.

Trump as a Russian agent is of course a more entertaining theory.

 

[ZiprHead]

DrZoidberg, you are digging too deep and offtopic for this thread. I was merely commenting on people calling your facebook theory a conspiracy.
Conspiracies are supposed to be intentional. What Facebook did was not intentional. They tried to make money, attack on democracy was just a side effect of that.
But I agree, economic system needs major modification. But that's a different topic and we have a lot of them already.

I don't think the economic system needs much modification. Over time this system is self correcting. It's a tried and tested system that works. At least better than any other we've tried. It just sucks extra hard for poor people right now which impacts the stability for our political systems. I'm not arguing to change anything. I'm just offering the reasons I think Facebook conspiracies are getting so much traction right now. Whether democracy survives, nobody knows, but the economy will correct itself. But sure, it's not the topic of this thread.

Trump as a Russian agent is of course a more entertaining theory.

No one said agent. The word used was asset.

Trump’s election win in 2016 was again welcomed by Moscow. Special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. But the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found the Trump campaign and transition team had at least 272 known contacts and at least 38 known meetings with Russia-linked operatives.

Shvets, who has carried out his own investigation, said: “For me, the Mueller report was a big disappointment because people expected that it will be a thorough investigation of all ties between Trump and Moscow, when in fact what we got was an investigation of just crime-related issues. There were no counterintelligence aspects of the relationship between Trump and Moscow.”

He added: “This is what basically we decided to correct. So I did my investigation and then got together with Craig. So we believe that his book will pick up where Mueller left off.”

How many Russia-linked operatives do you interact with?

 

[DrZoidberg]

No one said agent. The word used was asset.

Trump’s election win in 2016 was again welcomed by Moscow. Special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. But the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found the Trump campaign and transition team had at least 272 known contacts and at least 38 known meetings with Russia-linked operatives.

Shvets, who has carried out his own investigation, said: “For me, the Mueller report was a big disappointment because people expected that it will be a thorough investigation of all ties between Trump and Moscow, when in fact what we got was an investigation of just crime-related issues. There were no counterintelligence aspects of the relationship between Trump and Moscow.”

He added: “This is what basically we decided to correct. So I did my investigation and then got together with Craig. So we believe that his book will pick up where Mueller left off.”

How many Russia-linked operatives do you interact with?

The word "asset" in this context means nothing. It just means a person Russia can potentially use. Which is anybody on the planet. Given the right circumstances.

When Obama let Russia walk all over Ukraine and snatch Crimea, was Obama at that point a Russian asset? He was, in practice. Not that he was trying to be. He just played into Putin's hands. It happens in politics.

I think you're trying to make too much of this. Trump is a narcisstic idiot scumbag who slid in on a banana peal to the American presidency, thanks to a number of factors, Russian meddling being one. But I highly doubt Russia could control him. Even if they had an inordinate number of meetings. By the looks of it, he was his own agent. Wildly thrashing in every direction, who wanted nothing more than to make the American people love him, but unable to do so, and who continually fucked up everything he touched. When Russia's Facebook meddling became public knowledge it may have hurt both Trump and Russian - American relations. In the long run. China does it to of course, but for whatever reason is a bit more subtle about it, so it hasn't become big news yet.

Russia continually puts markers all over the roulette table and hopes that some will cash in. That's what all countries do all the time. It's called diplomacy. I don't think there's anything to see here.

 

[barbos]

The word "asset" in this context means nothing. It just means a person Russia can potentially use. Which is anybody on the planet. Given the right circumstances.

And Yuri Swets is an American asset.
So why do you trust judgement of a guy who had worked against you until USSR was no more?

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

What doesn't fit is Trump championing domestic US oil and gas production. If he was really Russian puppet, you'd think he'd shut down pipelines and ban fracking. You know, what Democrats are trying to do.

That is because you don't understand Putin's or Russia's goals very well (at all). Putin is a lot more interested in weakening Western alliances that US oil production. And he got that out of Trump and the other Fascist wannabes.

 

[barbos]

What doesn't fit is Trump championing domestic US oil and gas production. If he was really Russian puppet, you'd think he'd shut down pipelines and ban fracking. You know, what Democrats are trying to do.

That is because you don't understand Putin's or Russia's goals very well (at all). Putin is a lot more interested in weakening Western alliances that US oil production. And he got that out of Trump and the other Fascist wannabes.

Temporary weakening. Everything is back to normal now. By the way, Biden is about to stop these gas pipeline sanctions, it seems. Who is Russian puppet now?

 

[repoman]

Trump and Putin are both connected to Russian organized crime. Finding the exact mechanism of control and influence is important.

 

[ZiprHead]

No one said agent. The word used was asset.

Trump’s election win in 2016 was again welcomed by Moscow. Special counsel Robert Mueller did not establish a conspiracy between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. But the Moscow Project, an initiative of the Center for American Progress Action Fund, found the Trump campaign and transition team had at least 272 known contacts and at least 38 known meetings with Russia-linked operatives.

Shvets, who has carried out his own investigation, said: “For me, the Mueller report was a big disappointment because people expected that it will be a thorough investigation of all ties between Trump and Moscow, when in fact what we got was an investigation of just crime-related issues. There were no counterintelligence aspects of the relationship between Trump and Moscow.”

He added: “This is what basically we decided to correct. So I did my investigation and then got together with Craig. So we believe that his book will pick up where Mueller left off.”

How many Russia-linked operatives do you interact with?

The word "asset" in this context means nothing. It just means a person Russia can potentially use. Which is anybody on the planet. Given the right circumstances.

When Obama let Russia walk all over Ukraine and snatch Crimea, was Obama at that point a Russian asset? He was, in practice. Not that he was trying to be. He just played into Putin's hands. It happens in politics.

I think you're trying to make too much of this. Trump is a narcisstic idiot scumbag who slid in on a banana peal to the American presidency, thanks to a number of factors, Russian meddling being one. But I highly doubt Russia could control him. Even if they had an inordinate number of meetings. By the looks of it, he was his own agent. Wildly thrashing in every direction, who wanted nothing more than to make the American people love him, but unable to do so, and who continually fucked up everything he touched. When Russia's Facebook meddling became public knowledge it may have hurt both Trump and Russian - American relations. In the long run. China does it to of course, but for whatever reason is a bit more subtle about it, so it hasn't become big news yet.

Russia continually puts markers all over the roulette table and hopes that some will cash in. That's what all countries do all the time. It's called diplomacy. I don't think there's anything to see here.

On 19 December 2014, US President Obama imposed sanctions on Russian-occupied Crimea by executive order prohibiting exports of US goods and services to the region.

As Trump's National Security Advisor, Michael T. Flynn was an important link in the connections between Putin and Trump in the "Ukraine peace plan", an unofficial plan "organized outside regular diplomatic channels....at the behest of top aides to President Putin". This plan, aimed at easing the sanctions imposed on Russia, progressed from Putin and his advisors to Ukrainian politician Andrey Artemenko, Felix Sater, Michael Cohen, and Flynn, where he would have then presented it to Trump. The New York Times reported that Sater delivered the plan "in a sealed envelope" to Cohen, who then passed it on to Flynn in February 2017, just before his resignation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis#:~:text=On%2019%20December%202014%2C%20US,151%20individuals%20and%2037%20entities.

You want to try explaining again how Obama was an asset to the Russians but Trump isn't?

 

[Testy Calibrate]

Clearly Trump was a better asset

 

[barbos]

You want to try explaining again how Obama was an asset to the Russians but Trump isn't?

Obama should have started nuclear war with Russia over Crimea or at least make Ukraine 51st state. Since he has not, it makes him a Russian asset

This "Who hates Russia more" Olympics is stupid and dangerous.

 

[DrZoidberg]

The word "asset" in this context means nothing. It just means a person Russia can potentially use. Which is anybody on the planet. Given the right circumstances.

When Obama let Russia walk all over Ukraine and snatch Crimea, was Obama at that point a Russian asset? He was, in practice. Not that he was trying to be. He just played into Putin's hands. It happens in politics.

I think you're trying to make too much of this. Trump is a narcisstic idiot scumbag who slid in on a banana peal to the American presidency, thanks to a number of factors, Russian meddling being one. But I highly doubt Russia could control him. Even if they had an inordinate number of meetings. By the looks of it, he was his own agent. Wildly thrashing in every direction, who wanted nothing more than to make the American people love him, but unable to do so, and who continually fucked up everything he touched. When Russia's Facebook meddling became public knowledge it may have hurt both Trump and Russian - American relations. In the long run. China does it to of course, but for whatever reason is a bit more subtle about it, so it hasn't become big news yet.

Russia continually puts markers all over the roulette table and hopes that some will cash in. That's what all countries do all the time. It's called diplomacy. I don't think there's anything to see here.

On 19 December 2014, US President Obama imposed sanctions on Russian-occupied Crimea by executive order prohibiting exports of US goods and services to the region.

As Trump's National Security Advisor, Michael T. Flynn was an important link in the connections between Putin and Trump in the "Ukraine peace plan", an unofficial plan "organized outside regular diplomatic channels....at the behest of top aides to President Putin". This plan, aimed at easing the sanctions imposed on Russia, progressed from Putin and his advisors to Ukrainian politician Andrey Artemenko, Felix Sater, Michael Cohen, and Flynn, where he would have then presented it to Trump. The New York Times reported that Sater delivered the plan "in a sealed envelope" to Cohen, who then passed it on to Flynn in February 2017, just before his resignation.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_sanctions_during_the_Ukrainian_crisis#:~:text=On%2019%20December%202014%2C%20US,151%20individuals%20and%2037%20entities.

You want to try explaining again how Obama was an asset to the Russians but Trump isn't?

Did it work? Did Russia pull out of the Cromea. Unless you succeed in politics it's just talk.

I don't want to sound like I am bashing Obama. He's pretty much the perfect leader. But he still failed the Ukraine on his watch. I think it's as simple as Putin was willing to fight for it, and war weary USA with allies wasn't. They still failed Ukraine, and made the world a more dangerous place by showing weakness to an aggressive expansionistic dictator.

 

[barbos]

I don't want to sound like I am bashing Obama. He's pretty much the perfect leader. But he still failed the Ukraine on his watch. I think it's as simple as Putin was willing to fight for it, and war weary USA with allies wasn't. They still failed Ukraine, and made the world a more dangerous place by showing weakness to an aggressive expansionistic dictator.

How do you imagine fighting Russia? Yes, Obama and EU failed Ukraine. They supported illegal coup in Ukraine which by the way was pretty much the same type of people who stormed the Capitol. Same idiots, fascists and opportunists. Ukraine was/is nothing but a tool to harass Russia. You don't care about people there at all.

 

[DrZoidberg]

I don't want to sound like I am bashing Obama. He's pretty much the perfect leader. But he still failed the Ukraine on his watch. I think it's as simple as Putin was willing to fight for it, and war weary USA with allies wasn't. They still failed Ukraine, and made the world a more dangerous place by showing weakness to an aggressive expansionistic dictator.

How do you imagine fighting Russia? Yes, Obama and EU failed Ukraine. They supported illegal coup in Ukraine which by the way was pretty much the same type of people who stormed the Capitol. Same idiots, fascists and opportunists. Ukraine was/is nothing but a tool to harass Russia. You don't care about people there at all.

All I need to care about to protect Ukraine is myself. The world basically has two settings, increasingly unstable or increasingly stable. If we allow big countries to annex small countries we will have an increasingly unstable world. Whenever one country attacks another it's always better, for world peace, to immediately show full force and attack the aggressor. That's the whole point of the UN. It's primary function is to prevent wars of aggression.

Peace and stability is better for everybody. It's better for the world economy. And also my economy. So it would have been better for me if the rest of the world would have used troops and invaded the Crimea. And showed such a force that Russia would have to give up it's claims to it.

Whether or not, for historical reasons, Russia had a claim to it, is neither here nor there. It's better if the borders are solid and permanent, and any attempt to redraw maps is immediately prevented.

Both China and Russia are very aggressive and playing the long game. They're both waiting for the enemy (ie the west) to show any weakness and then they'll immediately grab stuff on the long list of things they are laying claims to.

So you are correct that this war to protect the Crimea wouldn't be a war for the benefit of the Crimeans (who I've heard are mostly positive to the Russian takeover, because Ukraine is a horrendous corrupt mess) but for the benefit of the world at large.

 

[barbos]

I don't want to sound like I am bashing Obama. He's pretty much the perfect leader. But he still failed the Ukraine on his watch. I think it's as simple as Putin was willing to fight for it, and war weary USA with allies wasn't. They still failed Ukraine, and made the world a more dangerous place by showing weakness to an aggressive expansionistic dictator.

How do you imagine fighting Russia? Yes, Obama and EU failed Ukraine. They supported illegal coup in Ukraine which by the way was pretty much the same type of people who stormed the Capitol. Same idiots, fascists and opportunists. Ukraine was/is nothing but a tool to harass Russia. You don't care about people there at all.

All I need to care about to protect Ukraine is myself. The world basically has two settings, increasingly unstable or increasingly stable. If we allow big countries to annex small countries we will have an increasingly unstable world. Whenever one country attacks another it's always better, for world peace, to immediately show full force and attack the aggressor. That's the whole point of the UN. It's primary function is to prevent wars of aggression.

Peace and stability is better for everybody. It's better for the world economy. And also my economy. So it would have been better for me if the rest of the world would have used troops and invaded the Crimea. And showed such a force that Russia would have to give up it's claims to it.

Whether or not, for historical reasons, Russia had a claim to it, is neither here nor there. It's better if the borders are solid and permanent, and any attempt to redraw maps is immediately prevented.

Both China and Russia are very aggressive and playing the long game. They're both waiting for the enemy (ie the west) to show any weakness and then they'll immediately grab stuff on the long list of things they are laying claims to.

So you are correct that this war to protect the Crimea wouldn't be a war for the benefit of the Crimeans (who I've heard are mostly positive to the Russian takeover, because Ukraine is a horrendous corrupt mess) but for the benefit of the world at large.

Puh-leeze! you are smarter than that. US neocons tried to annex Ukraine first, and for the most part succeeded. Except most valuable part - Crimea. So, they effectively failed.
And may I remind you about Kosovo and Yugoslavia before that. So give me a break from your "principles"
You don't even care about your own safety because ukrainian Nazi are so full of themselves that they would rather risk another Chernobyl than to have nuclear fuel from Russia.