03-22-2017, 09:42 AM
(03-21-2017, 09:23 AM)oncemoreuntothejimbreech Wrote: Look at Secretary of State Rex Tillerson's background and his past relationships and statements regarding Russia. Can you see how that would be advantageous to Russian interests vs. someone less friendly to Russia?
Plus the topics of cyber security and cyber crime, espionage.
When you say "Russian interests" what exactly are we talking about here and how exactly does "swaying the election" help in these "interests"? What specifically is it that everyone is afraid of?
(03-21-2017, 10:14 AM)hollodero Wrote: You might start by asking yourself what Russia's goals probably might be.
I give you my take:
Russia tries to distort the political discourse all over Europe. They aren't even too secretive about that and why they are doing it. It's destabilization, of the political systems (like EU) and of the societies. That's also what they now aim for in the US. By the same means, which means supporting the destructive forces, loosely labeled as "alt-right".
In the end, technically it probably is about Ukraine (parts of that souvereign country are annexed by Russia), about lifting sanctions against Russia that followed (by weakening the rejection by weakening the rejecting global society, weakening their conviction) - and apart from that, about global influence and power, and probably also about the games of Putin himself he just knows how to play. KGB at its finest, this man.
The Russian game is simple. Facts get questioned, distorted and disputed, so opinions count just as much. Bad deeds (deeds Putin does, like annexing other countries, murdering opponents etc.) get compared and legitimized by alleged other bad deeds (Trump fell hard for that line of argueing, see Bill O Reilly interview), it's about relativization of core democratic values, of say our western values, about increased mistrust and destabilization, a descending into authoritarian structures, this is what Putin's Russia aims for. The western world is under Russian propaganda attack, that starts with hacks/releases of Emails and ends with forged news stories flooding social media. Always to help the destructive forces.
- Apart from that and more directly, Putin might have leverage against Trump people in his hands and hence could directly influence policies (see: Ukraine, sanctions; think also crazy tweets, if you want). There could have been laws broken. If that's the case is yet unclear and up to investigation.
So the argument summed up is that the Russians are basically trying to destabilize the US and hurt its global influence by tearing apart its democracy. I guess what I'm getting at here is I don't see how telling the American public the truth about the DNC rigging of their own party is somehow going to cause this massive uprooting of American democracy and sow a huge distrust amongst the American public. As far as I can tell, most people see politicians as a bunch of no good lying, cheaters anyway. People are acting like Russia's hacking of the DNC suddenly made millions of voters have this epiphany that Clinton can't be trusted as if we were Adam and Eve taking our first bite out of the fruit from the tree of knowledge. But the thing is, people have felt this way about politicians for years.
I find it a bit shocking that people want to sit there and say that Russians are destroying our democracy by sowing distrust. Does America not do that every day with it's own media? Do politicians not do this in every election?
There's 3 main goals in every election that is void of any Russian interference and those goals are.....
1. To show that my policies are better than the other candidates.
2. To show that I'm more trustworthy than the other candidates.
3. To show that I have better moral character than the other candidates.
All three of these things take place in every election. But we want to act like the Russians are introducing us to distrust for the first time and destroying the very fabric of our democracy by telling the American public the truth about how the DNC was acting inappropriately.
Does that not sound a bit odd to you? It's honestly like a bunch of Americans are sitting there going, "How dare the Russians reveal REAL evidence of wrong doing to us instead of allowing us to blindly believe that everything's perfectly fine"........It's the old overused saying that ignorance is bliss, and in this instance it couldn't be any truer.
My opinion? People in this country aren't mad and divided because the Russians leaked information about the DNC. That to me is absolutely ludicrous. People are mad because a billionaire TV reality star with no political experience whatsoever, that made offensive comments about women, hispanics, muslims etc... got elected. Who was it that released the video of Trump talking about grabbing women's private parts again? Who continually pushed this narrative that Trump was just some racist rich guy? Who was it that pushed this narrative that Trump just hates Muslims? Wants to take away women's rights? Is going to somehow bring back Jim Crow laws and revert our entire country back to the slave days?
And people want to say Hillary Clinton lost because the Russians hacked the DNC and released FACTUAL information that showed unfairness within their own campaign. Donald Trump did absolutely everything any man could ever do to lose the election except kill somebody and somehow people believe she lost because "Russia".
As I've already stated, sounds like a bunch of fear mongering to me. People like to use "phobia's' when describing things these days, so I guess you could say this is a huge case of Russia-phobia poking it's head out again. Americans should fear those big bad Russian guys because "KGB.....Vladimir Putin....and stuff".
I find it ironic that people who hate Trump accused him of fear mongering about ISIS as a way to get his travel ban pushed, yet here they are fear mongering about the big bad Russian guys that will infiltrate our democracy and destroy it by releasing information about the DNC scandal. Now, I'm not saying that the Russians don't have any ill will toward us whatsoever. I'm not even saying that the Russians don't want to increase their influence around the world considering we want the same thing. What I'm saying, is that all this Russian fear mongering of them destroying our democracy through the release of hacked emails is a bunch of over-exaggerated hooey when we are doing far more to destroy our own democracy through our own media and political attacks against one another. It's not like Russia conjured up and meticulously planned out and initiated some story about the DNC cheating its way to the elections. THIS ACTUALLY HAPPENED. Not because the Russians made it up, but because we, the Americans did it ourselves. But lets not talk about our self inflicting nature as Americans which is far more damaging than anything Russia has done. Lets just talk about how Vladmir Putin is possibly the antichrist ushering in the end of days. To me it's fear mongering to avoid our own faults.
Quote:If it's a "bad thing" - well, I'd think foreign meddling in domestic affairs always is "bad" from a mere patriotic standpoint (when you forget everything I said before). But if you think it is or not is up to you. I might be right or get it dead wrong, for all you know. I'm being completely serious when saying stop using your ignorance as excuse to not know things. Inform yourself, reach an opinion and don't ask others for one to take over.
I am informing myself. I made this thread to get other peoples perspectives, not because I'm completely ignorant of everything. I wanted to see if anyone could tell me something I'm missing, because as it stands, it sounds like 99% fear mongeriing to me. Maybe I'll give a little breathing room and say 98%.
(03-21-2017, 10:23 AM)NATI BENGALS Wrote: An unfriendly foreign government who is actively undermining our efforts in Afghanistan unleashed a wave of psychological warfare on American citizens in an effort to sway an election for our highest office.
The end result is they got their puppet elected. Now our president owes favors to his Russian pals. That is why his cabinet is made of Russian sympathizers.
It is quite possible the guy who said we will use American steel then we didnt, said everybody would have insurance then supported efforts that would see millions lose it, said he would look out for the forgotten people then slashed the budget for the elderly, is really just a con man who looks up to Putin and cares about money more than American people.
I dont know why i even posted in here. If you dont know why Russia tampering with our election process is bad I question your intelligence and love for America.
It's also quite possible that Vladimir Putin and "Russia's interests" are to install new toilets in every Russian home. There's a lot of "possibilities" that I hear and see people talking about but rarely are there ever any facts. I don't see the tampering with our election as a bad thing just because people want to say it serves "Russian interests". What does that even mean? "Russian interests" is an enormously large blanket statement that could mean absolutely anything. American minds have been trained to deny and refuse any outcome that can affect the Russians in any positive way because *insert conspiracy theory*.
I don't think it's okay for Russia to invade American privacy, but I also don't believe it's this really big bad "attack" on American democracy.
(03-21-2017, 12:42 PM)Benton Wrote: The hacking is not that much different than allowing corporations to have giant tax breaks and deferments while spending large pots of money on political advertisement. It just happens to be that it's a foreign power who may not have the best interest of the U.S. people in mind. The same can be said for some of those companies swaying voters, too.
As far as the collusion, that is a serious problem.
Ever watch Star Wars? The originals, not the crappy 1-3, or the new one.
Luke, Han, Leia and a couple others band together to fight the Sith and the bad guys. How different would the movie have been if instead of Luke, Han and Leia, you chose Vader, Han and that fish face guy who is too incompetent to help out Han when Vader eventually turns on the rebels and profits from their catastrophic destruction?
That was the last election. We elected Vader (Trump) to lead the country (rebellion). He's countered by Han, who is (in this example) people who want the country (rebellion) to improve, and by Admiral Akbar, who also want the country to improve but are just really, really dumb and ineffective. And Han (Congress) won't be able to stop Vader (Trump) from acting against the country's (rebel alliance's) best interest because he's busy arguing with Akbar (more Congress) about how to stop the Empire (Russia/corporate interests).
Unfortunately I haven't seen Star Wars. And I understand what you're saying Benton but does that not sound like a lot of fear mongering to you? It's not completely impossible that Trump actually doesn't care about America but it's also not impossible that he does. I feel like the theory behind this whole "Trump-Russia-Collusion-Destroy Democracy" thing requires so many moving chess pieces and bouts of extreme strategy and luck that there's a very small chance that any of this could actually happen, assuming there's a real huge danger and lack of care for America to begin with.
