This reminds me of something
Who remembers this one time that a hostile foreign power used years of weapons-grade disinformation and propaganda to weaken a sovereign nation as a prelude to installing their own puppet leader and annexing part of the country?
That pic is from Ukraine and that's the country I was referring to, in case you're wondering why Ukraine has been so important to all of this shit. Anyway here's more about Ukraine from 2017 time.com/5003623/paul-m…
Anyway I'm sure it's just a coincidence
It's weird because back when this went down I watched it unfold on LiveJournal and I'm pretty sure that's where all our personality modeling started
Who remembers? I remember! 2018:
"...Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.
"...Paul Manafort authorised a secret media operation on behalf of Ukraine’s former president featuring “black ops”, “placed” articles in the Wall Street Journal and US websites and anonymous briefings against Hillary Clinton.
"The project was designed to boost the reputation of Ukraine’s then leader, Viktor Yanukovych. It was part of a multimillion-dollar lobbying effort carried out by Manafort on behalf of Yanukovych’s embattled government, emails and documents reveal."
theguardian.com/us-news/2018/a…
theguardian.com/us-news/2018/a…
White supremacy is an extreme threat to American national security for multiple reasons, and this is one of them. Another is that it left a massive opening for disinformation to take hold and create chaos. We've been in a war since at least early 2016 but probably longer
Nazis and fascists should be opposed by everyone anyway because fuck them, but if you need it explained in terms of national security, well, they're all finding and training one another via social media memes and algorithms so you should probably understand what they're planning
Anyway, my American friends, this is what it feels like to live through an attempted power grab by the far right. As Tweety Bird would say (since we're on Twitter and all), I tawt I taw a coup d'etat a-sneaking up on me
I have sat on that pun for like thirty years and now I can use it with abandon #silverlinings
Oh by the way, I suspect that these grotesque scenes of ultraviolence complete with false claims getting circulated are being broadcast deliberately to keep the populace scared and cowed and exhausted. Be safe out there, my friends.
One more thing, in case this sounds ludicrous to you, it's an ages-old way to topple a country: encourage, connect, and fund opposition while empowering extremists to intimidate populations and cause chaos during a coordinated power grab.
I have almost-a-master's (coursework done but thesis pending, so I'll probably never get the full degree now) in recent Latin American history with emphasis on the U.S.-Mexico border so you sorta learn a lot about far right power grab patterns. Plus reporting in the region
My thesis was going to be about music and identity corresponding to migration patterns but I threw that out like three years ago. It's absolutely going to be about disinformation around the border now if I do get a chance to finish it
