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Bette Dangerous Profile picture
@Heidi_Cuda
Jun 6, 2019 • 34 tweets • 10 min read • Read on X
If we want to save our country and be a beacon for global democracies, we’ve got to neutralize Putin.

We have to stop Russia’s infiltration or we’ve stopped nothing at all. If we don’t beat ‘em back now, they may not topple us this time but they’ll get us the next time.

Thread
1/ We’ve been so focused on the Circus of Trump, like moths drawn to a horror flame, but there’s a bigger picture. For context, let’s go back a decade to Estonia, when it tried to relocate a statue.
@ForeignPolicyforeignpolicy.com/2017/04/27/10-…
2/ ”Since 2014, Russia has also focused cyber attacks on Poland, Germany, France, Hungary, Belgium, Denmark, Romania, Switzerland, Austria and Spain. In addition to information warfare, Russia is using economic and foreign direct investment.”-@dvgsecurity
thehill.com/opinion/cybers…
3/ Con. “..plus funding and support for conservative and alt-right European political parties, to minimize the influence of Western-style democracy and convert the European powers to an authoritarian implementation of democratic principles.”-@dvgsecurity
thehill.com/opinion/cybers…
4/ “We know they can use information warfare easily without having to put in too many resources because Russia is starting from a position of great economic weakness. Its economy is a tenth of the size of the economy of the United States”-@MishaGlenny
@NPRnpr.org/2018/07/15/629…
5/ “Putin has been likened to a mafia don running his homeland like a protection racket..allies are rewarded for loyalty. Enemies & rivals are ruthlessly extirpated..corruption, much of it officially facilitated and approved, sucks up 48% of GDP”
@guardianamp.theguardian.com/commentisfree/…
6/ “Russia takes advantage of the divisions within the West—and within the U.S.—by driving wedges between its opponents, using psychological warfare, propaganda, and cyberwar..Hacking the Democratic Party’s emails in 2016 hit that sweet spot.”

@TheAtlanticamp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/56…
7/ I’m old enough to still be offended by Trump’s bootlicking in Helsinki.
8/ With corruption half the state budget (see #5), it’s easy to allocate funds to disrupt global democracies. The cost of cyberwar is cheap.
9/ Ground wars are expensive. Cyberwars, not so much: think, the price of one Trump penthouse.
10/ A brief history of “dezinformatsiya”:

“Cyber warfare is no longer just about the technical details of computer ports and protocols. Rather, disinformation and social media are rapidly becoming the best hacking tools.”-@HowHackersThink
@FastCompanyfastcompany.com/90209667/what-…
11/ Con. “With social media, anyone–even Russian intelligence officers and professional trolls–can widely publish misleading content. As legendary hacker @kevinmitnick put it, ‘it’s easier to manipulate people rather than technology.’”-@HowHackersThink
fastcompany.com/90209667/what-…
12/ “Russian interference undermined democracy in the West by destabilizing institutions and polarizing societies. Western democratic governments must strengthen their domestic institutions to protect against adversaries eager to exploit weaknesses.”
@FPRIfpri.org/article/2019/0…
13/ Contained in the Mueller Report is hard evidence of an illegitimate president* who benefited from dezinformatsiya, encouraged Russia’s criminal attacks and is doing nothing to prevent future attacks. Makes sense.
14/ For those just catching up on dezinformatsiya and its impacts on global democracies, start here:
15/ Watch @ActMeasuresDoc to get the full backstory on Russia’s long game. If you don’t have access, here’s my review of the film. Even Trump’s catchphrases were recycled dezinformatsiya.
16/ As MSM gives us headlines about a multi-generational crime family in hock to Russia, trying to sell them as “American royalty”, please ignore ‘em.

Here’s what we need to stay centered on: Trump is a Russian frontman, and he is not in charge.
17/ What America is struggling to come to terms with can be succinctly summarized by those who’ve been the targets of cyber aggression.
18/ Our illegitimate president* is doing a fantastic job for a marionette, a vulgarian against the world doing the bidding of his handler (see #14). Ergo, a global pariah’s emboldened.
19/ But even in his own country, the jig is up.
20/ The center cannot hold.
21/ So here’s where it gets komprocated.

“The troubling reality is that we lack a full picture of what is really happening in the social media (disinformation) sphere because the main platforms are not fully transparent."-@FabricePothier
22/ When the scope of the Russian cyber aggression was revealed in February 2018, it became very clear our democratic systems are fragile.
@TheJusticeDeptjustice.gov/file/1035477/d…
23/ Like a proper marionette, Trump has spent much as his presidency* obstructing justice.
24/ Mueller broke his silence to deliver a very important message.
25/ With Mueller’s stark warning on Russian cyber aggression still fresh in our minds, a Helsinki refresher is in order:
@BBCNewsbbc.com/news/world-eur…
26/ When the jig is up on massive corruption, puppets run.
@guardiantheguardian.com/world/2014/feb…
27/ Treason puppet, the worst kind.
@guardiantheguardian.com/world/2019/jan…
28/ For a refresher course on what the Yanukovych story has to do with our stateside woes, pretty much everything.
29/ To understand recent Ukraine history, is to understand what we are dealing with in real time.
@politicopolitico.eu/article/ukrain…
30/ We need to create new words for a new war: “trolls” “hacks” and “meddling” must be thrown in the dustbin of history. These are benign words. They sound mischievous, rather than toxic, criminal. Nothing benign about losing your democracy to cyberwar.
31/ It will end badly for Trump, as it does for puppets. Maybe he’ll be impeached, indicted, and convicted. Or maybe he’ll grab the silver and run off to Russia. However it goes, we must stop Putin. We must thwart cyberwar. Or it’ll happen again. And again
news.yahoo.com/nato-seeks-way…
ADDENDUM: A chilling reminder that all is not well, and all is not what it seems. h/t @Verba_et_Vertus

cc @IlvesToomas
CODA: Vendetta Obscura, the New Cold War.

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More from @Heidi_Cuda

Bette Dangerous Profile picture
Nov 11
HOT TYPE: Welcome to West Russia

In my latest column in @BylineTimes I report on the alarming parallels between Russia in the ‘90s and the grim US post-election forecast.

“Nothing good is going to happen here in a long time.”

1/
“Nothing good is going to happen here in a long time.”—filmmaker Ernst Lubitsch, at his going away party in Berlin, December 14, 1932

2/
People ask me how I’m doing, and I tell them, “I’m tired”. Like Madeline Kahn as Lili Von Shtupp in Blazing Saddles, “I’m exhausted.”

3/
Read 20 tweets
Bette Dangerous Profile picture
Nov 7
@BylineTimes “There are men everywhere who would sell out humanity for their own personal profit. There are stupid and emotional masses everywhere who can be found to follow them, given a few slogans and some nice uniforms.”—Bella Fromm, Blood & Banquets, A Berlin Social Diary, 1943

2/
@BylineTimes I have spent the last eight years investigating the Trumpocene and Russian information warfare, and the last six months, deeply immersed in research on Weimar Germany.

3/
@BylineTimes The gravediggers didn’t have to triumph. In 1932, Hitler’s National Socialist party was fracturing, haemorrhaging members, and many in his orbit were showing him only a “performance of solidarity, imposed devotion.”—The Gravediggers: The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic.

4/
Read 39 tweets
Bette Dangerous Profile picture
Oct 27
American Redemption is Our Last Best Hope

In my latest “Hot Type” column for ⁦@BylineTimes, I urge Americans of faith to challenge Trump's Christian Supremacy and redeem the soul of America

1/🧵 bylinesupplement.com/p/american-red…
It never made any sense, how the most religious people I knew in 2016 became the most virulently anti-Hillary Clinton. More shocking was how they became ardent Trumpists. Church on Sunday, and MAGA-hatted all week.

2/
We’ve told the story of how the Christian right embraced an amoral man many times on these pages, but we’ve never told the story of redemption.

3/
Read 36 tweets
Bette Dangerous Profile picture
Oct 25
‘The Gravediggers Didn’t Have To Triumph’

Genocidal dictatorships comprised of ‘sorcerer’s apprentices and windbags’ are not inevitable.

Excerpts from “The Gravediggers: The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic” bettedangerous.com/p/the-gravedig…
“The gravediggers didn’t have to triumph.”—Rüdiger Barth and Hauke Friederichs, The Making of, The Gravediggers

2/ Image
I woke up Tuesday morning to a crime scene. My highlighter had bled all over my duvet cover, as I tried to work through the night to finish the final pages of The Gravediggers: The Last Winter of the Weimar Republic. I’ve been reading the book for a couple of months, but repeatedly pressing pause to read the reference books used to lay the foundation for The Gravediggers.

3/Image
Read 36 tweets
Bette Dangerous Profile picture
Oct 21
IF WE CALLED IT TERRORISM—Lithuanian Minister of Foreign Affairs @GLandsbergis annihilates the weak words we’ve been using to refer to Russia’s terrorism on the West

We are in a war — it has always been a war, because it has always been terrorism.

1/🧵
Lives have been lost — hundreds of thousands in the United States alone — and we have done nothing, because we’ve used weak words.

2/
We have let billionaires who act as arms of Russian intelligence tell us that if we were to do something, we would be censoring free speech. That is a lie.

3/
Read 22 tweets
Bette Dangerous Profile picture
Oct 18
‘DESTABILIZING DEMOCRACIES’—Canadian PM Names Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson as Paid By Russia

In a hearing on foreign interference, Justin Trudeau named names

1/ bettedangerous.com/p/destabilizin…
“We’ve recently seen that RT is currently funding bloggers and other YouTube personalities of the right, such as Jordan Peterson, other names that are well known, Tucker Carlson as well, to amplify messages that are destabilizing democracies.”—Justin Trudeau, October 16, 2024

2/
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau accused pro-Kremlin Canadian psychologist and author, Dr. Jordan Peterson, and pro-Kremlin propagandist, Tucker Carlson, of being funded by RT, which the US State Department said is an arm of Russian military intelligence.

3/
Read 15 tweets

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