It was a months-long strongarming campaign in full view of television cameras
Remember? 
September 2019? Remember? (It wasn't a transcript, though) vox.com/2019/9/25/2088…
That call took place just days after his party had won a parliamentary majority. They were promising to fight corruption and reform the country brookings.edu/blog/up-front/…
So a reform-minded very popular politician in a post-Soviet country strategically placed at the nexus of Russia and Europe nurtured by democracy wonks won majority support just before all this fuckery began and we're not supposed to discuss the geopolitical ramifications?
Next you're gonna tell me that all this disinformation firehosing beginning in 2015 was just a coincidence and that heads of state known for creepy and scary disinfo campaigns that weaken public unity love us, actually, and aren't pissed off about Democratic-passed sanctions
And why were those sanctions passed, anyway? It was over aggression and a landgrab in... oh well this is awkward
theguardian.com/world/2014/mar…
theguardian.com/world/2014/mar…
And which countries have been hit the hardest by disinformation campaigns until they tore themselves apart internally? NATO allies and their major trading partners? You don't say. npr.org/2019/12/07/785…
And of course social media doesn't give a shit about its role in these campaigns. They're making bank in eNgAgEmEnt, so they just go along with whatever hostile countries want and shit up the discourse with noble sounding claims about "free speech"
while bought-and-paid-for politicians in countries all over the world block any meaningful research into disinformation campaigns and pare governments down to husks as they push us closer to surveillance dystopias and climate disasters. With the blessing of Silicon Valley,
because those tech ding-dongs made the mistake of believing their own PR campaigns and now are utterly convinced that they're the Chosen Ones, not like the teeming, stupid, filthy masses (that's us, guys) and they're all spouting off Malthusian bullshit too,
so what if "those people" (again, that's us) kill each other off? Tech is morally neutral! Free speech! And so those bonds fray more, the infighting intensifies, surveillance culture hardens, the rot deepens, the rest of us suffer.
And this is what I tried to prevent. I failed
And this is what I tried to prevent. I failed
This sham trial, which has been rotten with histrionics, conspiracy theories, disinformation, propaganda, and moronic stunting from the get-go, is exactly the type of scenario all this disinfo was leading up to. Confuse and distract the public long enough and you can do anything.
In conclusion, that's what I saw coming back in late 2015 in one form or another (for the record, it's clearly not just the Kremlin but a warfare model embraced by corrupt countries and corporations all over the world now) and have been working to try to prevent ever since.
That's why I speak out so sharply. That's why I have been so confrontational. That's why I have been so loud on here and so in-your-face. That's why I came forward, again and again, to take on huge and scary corporations like Facebook and why I needle politicians for their lies.
The alternative is... well, it's this. Forever.
