@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator Ellen, I appreciate your comments and your support and your perspective, and I just wanted to say -- well, I've been way down this rabbithole since 2011, when I was working in Georgia and we started seeing a shift in how Russia was trying to turn/influence the system ... /1
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator ... This was part of the learning/experimentation process after Russia invaded Georgia in 2008. Anyway, everything we see the Kremlin doing now in W Europe + Canada + United States kind of evolved out of that pivot. For years we watched and tried to warn people ... /2
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator ... And were called alarmists etc. And then, Crimea, and suddenly everyone was like, "oh." But since the "oh", there's been another stall. A return to this comfortable, "wise" position of assuming if only we can find some way to talk to the Kremlin or incentive to woo them .../3
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator ... Then Putin will wake up one day & say "oh cool, we were wrong, the rules-based international order that is fundamentally needed to supported the spread of democracy is absolutely fine, carry on" -- and that attitude, the belief in Putin's potential to be wooed ... /4
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator ... Is why the Kremlin has found a nice open battlespace to walk across while everyone else is churning around, trying to decide if it's actually a war. Which, you know, fair question when the terrain has already need ceded to one party. /5
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator But my long rambling under-caffeinated Sunday morning point is -- I've been living in this space where we have to fight because no one else is for too long. And seeing others realize this over the past year+ saddens me, but also renews whatever will I have to do this. /6
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator That people from way outside this universe -- like you, like others -- have understood the corrosive, intertwined impact of all these new tools of influence and subversion must be exposed and countered or we're all going to lose without the bang, just the whimper --- /7
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator -- well, it matters. It matters that individuals are willing to bear some of the cost. More than they should. More than they should ever have been asked to -- not even asked, volunteered to, because no one in charge is even asking. It matters. /8
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator It matters because whatever corrosive force you are most focused on -- the Kremlin, POTUS, others -- the target of this assault is us, as individuals. And this isn't even the real battle. It's the scouting mission. Probing to see how we respond... /9
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator So it matters deeply that everyone who does, has. Because it shows the space isn't open, and can't yet be taken. And I'm glad to see more people out here, oriented in the right direction, against the right enemy, trying to defend everyone else even when they can't see it. /10
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator You may say you're just "regular people" -- but that's the truth in all of this. We --the big we -- win or lose when regular people remind themselves that their actions at the right moment are what actually win this. Do you remain silent, or speak up? Not being silent matters /11
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator When I say "there's nobody coming, there's only us" -- I don't mean it in a fatalistic, defeatist way. I mean that we already have what we need to win -- we just need to see it, and act, as we can. /12
@EllenHopkinsLit @mtylr23 @ninaandtito @guitarviator Anyway -- welcome to the war. It sucks. But I'm glad to have you out here, and everyone else who has come along behind you. The cost is high. But it matters. /13
