Thread by @MessengerOfRage

The thing about Russia that most people seem to miss is that the nation's power is consolidated firmly behind Putin. He's made sure of it. He's a gangster who has ruthlessly crushed rivals to his power.

This is important, because he's trying to run the entire world.

https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/1227552465672982528

Back in the Cold War days, Putin was a higher level agent in the Russian version of our CIA, essentially. When the wall fell and the Soviet Union collapsed around '90, the country fell into a state of chaos for a short time, then re-established itself with Putin in charge.

We in the West thought we'd won, the Cold War was over, and the threat neutralized.

But amazingly, Putin managed to cobble together enough of the old ways of doing things and infuse it with capitalist ideas to recover, and Russia recovered FAST.

Using literal mob boss tactics, he grabbed any type of power he could and funneled it into stabilizing the nation, getting the economy functional (with our help), and solidifying Russian society again, free from the bureaucratic nightmare the USSR had become.

Russia is a strong, proud, old nation. Something like the collapse of its government isn't going to kill it.

Of course, in the chaos after the end of the Cold War, organized crime flourished. Putin got them under control by controlling organized crime.

This was one of the power bases he gathered under his umbrella, and explains why corruption is such a big part of Russian life still today. Remember the Olympics in Moscow? BILLIONS OF DOLLARS went into the pockets of the gangsters during the prep for the Olympic extravaganza.

So while we have corruption issues here in America (and we really, really do) Russia's corruption is embedded in it's new leadership. When we look at how to do a thing, America pays lip service to being the good guys, at least.

Russia don't give a fuck.

Russia isn't trying to win hearts and minds of people in overt ways. Neither is America, honestly...but we pretend we are still trying.

But the Russian government's gloves-off approach to world affairs is combined well with its gangster power base. The two are intertwined.

On the surface, Russia is a world economic power with lots of commodities to offer in many arenas. It is also a huge nation that buys a lot of stuff. It's certainly a big player on the world stage.

It also has a very large military and nuclear arsenal.

So while it's obvious Russia is here to stay, what people often miss is the behind-the-scenes nature of what Russia does.

It's influencing political power across the globe to align with its own interests, much like America does. Look at Iran, Syria, etc. for examples.

But at the same time, Russia has developed cyber warfare because they correctly saw where future power would lie. And make no mistake, the online world is POWER.

Everything is run on the internet now. Our offices, our governments, our social lives, our politics. Everything.

So while we've built our military into a frightening behemoth, dwarfing the rest of the world in physical presence and firepower, we (and much of the world) have neglected the defense of the future battlefield: the internet.

Our massive military runs on the internet, too.

So while we've basked in the glow of our victory over the "damn commies" (and make no mistake, our "victory" was due as much to the nature of corruption in the USSR as it was our efforts, maybe even far more so), Putin was quietly gathering strength and gathering intelligence.

Putin rebuilt that massive nation in just a few years, with a strong government, strong military, strong economy, and a strong sense of national pride in how they'd manage to survive being killed off.

He straightened up the mess, dusted off Russia's knees and started working.

In America, we turned our eyes to money. How we could make it, how we could spend it, how we could monetize the internet as it blossomed into a porn distribution machine.

The Dot-com booms were the wild west of finance, and often misinterpreted, resulting in several busts.

While America was getting rich off the internet gold mine, Putin was watching. He developed cyber warfare teams into an army capable of taking on any foe. Russia's hackers are miles beyond anything any other major power has. The US is woefully under-powered in cyberstrength.

So the entire time we thought we'd won the Cold War and let down our guard, Putin has kept fighting.

We stopped.

He did not.

And in the last decade, Putin's fingerprints are all over the world's governments. Every authoritarian dictator around the world has been aided by Putin, because controlled nations are easier to control from the outside.

Look at all of the Russian influence in our 2016 election.

Russian funding behind the scenes to many Republican politicians, the meetings in back rooms with Russian officials leading up to 2016, the NRA/Maria Butina stuff, Cambridge Analytica and its repercussions...you're fooling yourselves if you don't think Putin had a part to play.

Add in many credible reports of hacking into our election infrastructure (run on the internet, remember?) and then Trump's subsequent odd behavior regarding Putin: closed-door meetings, praising Putin often, and doing many odd things that will benefit Russia.

One does not have to find proof for every last detail to conclude that something is wrong. If you smell smoke and hear the smoke detector but don't see fire, it doesn't mean your house isn't already burning.

Make no mistake. Our house of cards is ablaze.

So look at Congress's resistance to any measure of election security with that eye for a minute. The Republican power base in DC is not working to secure our voting systems.

WHY?

I'm not saying Dems are blameless, either. There is no outcry against it in DC.

Again...WHY?

For all the bluster put out on social media and through stunts like Pelosi ripping up 45's speech, nothing of substance is even being discussed in DC on ANY of this.

I'm no expert on international anything. I'm no political guru. I'm no cyberpunk hacker extraordinaire.

But even I can see this pattern. Clearly.

If I can see it with no special skills, how obvious must it be to the political machine? Do they really not see it, or is it just accepted and not talked about?

I get why the Repubs aren't crying foul. They're riding the wave.

But if Dems are riding along with them in silence...just how much of America is left in Washington?

At a minimum, we need to secure our electoral process for the new age. It must be above reproach, solid and dependable, unable to be tampered with. This is job #1, before any other repairs to our broken system can be made.

Because without our voices being heard, our votes being counted, then all of America's vast resources are up for grabs, to whoever has the best handle on how to cheat the system. Right now, Republicans are much better at it than Democrats.

Gerrymandering, election insecurity, being willing to outright lie about every aspect of everything political (saying one thing and doing the exact opposite repeatedly)...those things and many others are staples in the corrupt Republican governmental wheelhouse.

The Overton Window has been screeching and careening to the right for 40 years. Democrats, for all their faults and moral failures in government, aren't playing the same game as Republicans. They're not even competing with the level of insincerity and callous disregard for good.

While on the one hand, this is good...it also means that we're getting our asses handed to us by a bunch of MORE dishonest politicians than our own corrupt DNC establishment.

I'm not advocating for playing dirtier. I'm saying we need to fix the broken game.

One way we can do this as a nation is to get out there and fucking VOTE.

Vote like our lives depend on it.

Because let me tell you plainly: the fate of the entire world depends on us getting our shit together, like yesterday.

WE. ARE. OUT. OF. TIME.

It's harder to screw with an election when turnout is massive. Republicans do very well when turnout is low. It's easier to cheat a little bit and not get caught.

And far too many people in this nation don't even bother to vote.

This has got to stop.

Getting Americans concerned about political matters is a must. You all need to step up how you go about this in your day-to-day lives. Conservatives have many tools to get people to ignore the real issues: moral fallacies like gay marriage opposition, for instance.

If Adam and Steve love each other and spend their lives together like Adam and Eve could, MARRIAGE AIN'T GONNA DIE.

Get a fucking grip, people.

Yet we as a nation have let one side of our political leanings dictate this conversation for decades. Now we have a power base of authoritarian religious zealots ready to vote in every election, every time, every position, and install right wing cranks who say they're Christian.

I've read the Bible repeatedly. In my old life, I was even a Baptist preacher for a while.

Christ wasn't about locking kids in cages, starving poor people, leaving diseases and injuries untreated. Fuck, he healed the ear of a soldier sent to kill him, For fuck's sake.

Anyone with any ounce of discerning ability can see that the "Christian Right" is neither Christian, nor Right.

And yet we're all too polite to discuss politics in public. Except they aren't. They're bringing politics into the pulpit.

And I'm not here to discuss religion. I'm agnostic now, and that's a different conversation for a different time.

But anyone who believes the majority of churches out there are carrying on the good teachings of Jesus, whether he was real or not, is a blind-ass fucking fool.

If they were, there'd be no kids in cages. There'd be no hunger. There'd be no homelessness, no poverty, and no hatred spewing out of half the nation's mouths.

Jesus's teaching was against all of that. That dude was awesome.

And completely ignored in christianity today.

But this power base, the neo-fascist religious right, is a massive beast. They're angry, they're armed, and they consider themselves righteous crusaders against Evil.

And Republicans are tapping into that. Stoking anger. Building resentment. Spreading lies. Promoting ignorance.

You've all seen it, you know it's happening.

But Putin knows, too.

It's obvious to anyone who looks. And Putin's always watching.

Hell, someone from Russia's intelligence is probably reading this tweet. Hello, Comrades! *wave*

Putin's got fingers in everyone's pies. He's built a cyber army that can listen AND interact. Russian online troll/bot farms are a real thing, no matter how you feel about our current troubles.

There's a schism on the left right now about Russian meddling.

But our intelligence agencies have noted the presence of Russian trolls hopping into already tense conversations all over the internet in recent years. They're fanning flames, getting small arguments to turn into raging fights.

There's no need for Russia to roll in with tanks.

Why invade America on foot when you can just do it via the internet? So much cheaper and easier, and you get to go home to your own vodka every night.

And it's not just America. It's every nation with power, oil, or other valuables.

If you think Trump, Brexit, Bolsonaro, Syria, Iran, Ukraine and several other huge issues in the world are unconnected events, I've got some bad news for you Sunshine.

Putin's army is working hard, and it has a decade's head start on the rest of the world, essentially.

We might have just lost the Cold War after all.

Only time will tell.

@threadreaderapp

#unroll, please. <3