Russian Troll Talks
Editor's note: Given the distractions and confusion caused by social media trolls we cannot confirm the authorship of this opinion piece, but we find its analysis interesting and at times insightful.
Zdravstvuj, I am one of those people you read about. We are phantoms to some who think knowledge is stable and real, we know better. First a little history. When the online comment and communications boards began most people had no idea of the power and influence they would eventually create. AOL chat was an early participant as was Yahoo, it was often childish and its format not open to propaganda and idea dissemination. Anyone remember Yahoo answers, it too was occasionally interesting, but the audience wasn't wide enough and we needed better directing and focusing, we needed to target an audience that would believe or even just doubt.
But something else was going on and had been going for a long time. Think Tanks (TT) formed a model for the control of information. RAND and Hudson began after WWII as bases of knowledge and policy, who could have predicated what they would eventually become? How thought itself could be transformed. Propaganda now had a platform, no longer just opinion, no longer on the sidelines, now the Think Tank confirmed whatever it was they were paid to confirm. Agnotology had a sponsor. Smoking bad? Global warming real? Doubt everything. Well not everything only those issues that challenged power.
Today think tanks are tools for the political, economic, and corporate interests - the interests of the monied classes. One could say mind control or people control. The writings and ideas of these TT are used for and by public relations and lobbying groups. Ask yourself, who has time today to read serious journalism when the mediasphere is everywhere and always on? Few do in the wider society. The next step was and is a marriage between Think Tanks and educational programs, breeding ground for idea control and the scholars and students who attended them. The Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and the Federalist Society stand out. These institutions gave birth to ideologies, free market libertarianism, lower tax policy, big government as the problem. Nationalism ironically became a positive reversing its history. Betsey DeVos for instance is a perfect education secretary, an impotent head of a once important institution.
We can't take credit for creating the Trump partisan, but because they were already primed with an unclear resentment, we were able to exploit that characteristic in many Americans especially white Americans and oddly even religious Americans and Evangelicals. The ground work was done and while it was supported and financed several other developments were required for idea deployment. Ideology adherents were developed and ideas promulgated to colleges. University Chairs were established and programs developed. These are the idea people today who spread the news. Quite obviously there is a historic background for our country too. At first there was the belief that Communism worked a kind of Marxist magic. Some Americans and even scholars believed the propaganda, but it was just that. Statistics made lies real. Some progress was made. After all we launched Sputnik. Media control in our country can be quite harsh but let's not get too complicated after all America and other nations that can be influenced are our work place today. Russian history can be a footnote. Power wants its people compliant and confused and it pays well and keeps us working. The Bible was right concerning money.
We arrive at today and our role in creating beliefs, your reality in other words was a small step, the ideas had fertile soil. Some of course think they are actually preaching truths, everyone imagines they know things, but few know where the things they believe come from. Why believe this and not that. But let's not get too complicated. When you are a child adults tell you lots of imaginary things and you believe. Fantasies comfort. What's to keep the powerful from doing that to adults. Enter Social media, Facebook began in 2004, slowly at first but some deep thinkers in espionage saw its potential. Twitter in 2006. Combined with numerous radio programs and online internet sites, information travels everywhere and is repeated and repeated. Truth comes through repetition, advertisers know that, anything that makes our opponents look bad, be it only a phrase or an aside, is soon propagated throughout the social media sphere.
We have had lots of help from America and its media. Red State, Breitbart, Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, Newsmax, OAN, and Fox media are only a part of the machine. If you can play on people's resentment, biases, and hatred you have a person who can be led. As political sites grew our work was focused on election periods. We created identities and supported people and platforms who sow distrust in the very words you read. We didn't need to create the idea of fake media, you elected a president who did it for us. Dark money and Citizens United gave us power too and face it Americans you vote. Your investigative journalists provided info on Trump, but social media and an obsession over H's email clouded the dialogue. Even your Republican elected officials defend our work in a manner of speaking. We targeted Red States and rural areas.
Remember too the Trump family is banal and crooked, they do not operate in a world of ethics, they hardly puzzle over their behaviors, they consider dishonesty just the way it is. We Russians love American words like crooked. They colluded and conspired but the Trumps are clever enough to hide behind American law and American 'Freedoms'. Add the 'The Federalist Society' which picks tools for the powerful and you have the ingredients for the eventual breakdown of democracy. Remember Hillary did win but America is not a democracy, it is a Republic and it is ruled and managed by an elite, both moral and immoral, always been that way and so long as we can distract people and money pays the bills we will play our part. If the senate can be managed and manipulated with republicans, the courts and judges can be too. Look at all the judges they selected what a win that is for the privileged classes.
We did not create Trump or Kushner or Miller or Kavanaugh or Parscale or Dobbs or Barr or Hannity, you did, your system did, and so while we use them they represent the amorality of your world. Winning at all cost is American as apple pie. Love your idioms. Some claim we are amoral. Listen people, many are amoral, Trump is amoral, do you really think he believes or thinks deeply about anything? Twitter is so much fun. Look at Steve Bannon, he too is part of the gaming of the American people, and folks should democrats ever get their message heard, we will twist that too and soon republicans will be looked on as really caring for America and Americans. You know, the values issue, wins every time. Notice we are already doing that with the ACA, aka Obamacare. We know where to focus, Democrats don't. Cultural location and religious belief - rural remote - are areas of dissemination, focus areas in other words. Just a matter of time and soon your nation will be like ours, controlled by the few. In many ways it already is, but one must not see that for the leader must promise the promised land and always strive to pull the wool over your eyes. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Allow a moment of commiseration, your poor working class will remain poor, your West Virginia coal miners will remain poor, your Southern States will remain poor, your rural areas will remain poor, but they will cheer and wear their MAGA hats praising a man who cares less about them than we do. Funny huh. Tribes stick together and republican policies are words not deeds. When single issues control your vote you are an easy target. It took time to make your government and MSM the problem but we had inside help. You see them on TV daily. Your middle class is now more similar to your working class poor. Of course most of your GDP is spent on defense and guess who gains from defense spending. You made your bed and while we may have helped, you vote we don't. 'Freedom' spoke. No job training in America today but lots of finger pointing. Of course USAReally and RT will help your media sources too. Information today is so flexible, it can be made up and changed in a moment. Take care.
Footnote: We must be careful should republicans and Trump destroy too many of the values and policies that have made America great. Americans could then return to realpolitik, a place where commonsense rules over ideology and created reality. Another FDR could again make America great as Reagan promoted even though he was created by the words of corporate propagandists. 2020 here we come. Good luck America.
Editor Note: The Russian troll's confession may be a spoof, we do not know. If 'they' return to comment we'll be open to their opinion. America is in a state of divided incredulity, but so long as the economy isn't crashing, anything goes. Trump rallies appear to be more useful tools for control than many had thought. Lies are truths, promises never kept, but the show goes on and on.
Russian trolls: https://www.recode.net/2017/11/2/16598312/russia-twitter-trump-twitter-deactivated-handle-list
The show goes on: https://popular.info/p/trump-ad-contagion-spreads-on-facebook
Or not: https://www.zdnet.com/article/putin-signs-runet-law-to-cut-russias-internet-off-from-rest-of-world/
"The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning." Robert Anton Wilson
Zdravstvuj, I am one of those people you read about. We are phantoms to some who think knowledge is stable and real, we know better. First a little history. When the online comment and communications boards began most people had no idea of the power and influence they would eventually create. AOL chat was an early participant as was Yahoo, it was often childish and its format not open to propaganda and idea dissemination. Anyone remember Yahoo answers, it too was occasionally interesting, but the audience wasn't wide enough and we needed better directing and focusing, we needed to target an audience that would believe or even just doubt.
But something else was going on and had been going for a long time. Think Tanks (TT) formed a model for the control of information. RAND and Hudson began after WWII as bases of knowledge and policy, who could have predicated what they would eventually become? How thought itself could be transformed. Propaganda now had a platform, no longer just opinion, no longer on the sidelines, now the Think Tank confirmed whatever it was they were paid to confirm. Agnotology had a sponsor. Smoking bad? Global warming real? Doubt everything. Well not everything only those issues that challenged power.
Today think tanks are tools for the political, economic, and corporate interests - the interests of the monied classes. One could say mind control or people control. The writings and ideas of these TT are used for and by public relations and lobbying groups. Ask yourself, who has time today to read serious journalism when the mediasphere is everywhere and always on? Few do in the wider society. The next step was and is a marriage between Think Tanks and educational programs, breeding ground for idea control and the scholars and students who attended them. The Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and the Federalist Society stand out. These institutions gave birth to ideologies, free market libertarianism, lower tax policy, big government as the problem. Nationalism ironically became a positive reversing its history. Betsey DeVos for instance is a perfect education secretary, an impotent head of a once important institution.
We can't take credit for creating the Trump partisan, but because they were already primed with an unclear resentment, we were able to exploit that characteristic in many Americans especially white Americans and oddly even religious Americans and Evangelicals. The ground work was done and while it was supported and financed several other developments were required for idea deployment. Ideology adherents were developed and ideas promulgated to colleges. University Chairs were established and programs developed. These are the idea people today who spread the news. Quite obviously there is a historic background for our country too. At first there was the belief that Communism worked a kind of Marxist magic. Some Americans and even scholars believed the propaganda, but it was just that. Statistics made lies real. Some progress was made. After all we launched Sputnik. Media control in our country can be quite harsh but let's not get too complicated after all America and other nations that can be influenced are our work place today. Russian history can be a footnote. Power wants its people compliant and confused and it pays well and keeps us working. The Bible was right concerning money.
We arrive at today and our role in creating beliefs, your reality in other words was a small step, the ideas had fertile soil. Some of course think they are actually preaching truths, everyone imagines they know things, but few know where the things they believe come from. Why believe this and not that. But let's not get too complicated. When you are a child adults tell you lots of imaginary things and you believe. Fantasies comfort. What's to keep the powerful from doing that to adults. Enter Social media, Facebook began in 2004, slowly at first but some deep thinkers in espionage saw its potential. Twitter in 2006. Combined with numerous radio programs and online internet sites, information travels everywhere and is repeated and repeated. Truth comes through repetition, advertisers know that, anything that makes our opponents look bad, be it only a phrase or an aside, is soon propagated throughout the social media sphere.
We have had lots of help from America and its media. Red State, Breitbart, Limbaugh, Savage, Coulter, Newsmax, OAN, and Fox media are only a part of the machine. If you can play on people's resentment, biases, and hatred you have a person who can be led. As political sites grew our work was focused on election periods. We created identities and supported people and platforms who sow distrust in the very words you read. We didn't need to create the idea of fake media, you elected a president who did it for us. Dark money and Citizens United gave us power too and face it Americans you vote. Your investigative journalists provided info on Trump, but social media and an obsession over H's email clouded the dialogue. Even your Republican elected officials defend our work in a manner of speaking. We targeted Red States and rural areas.
Remember too the Trump family is banal and crooked, they do not operate in a world of ethics, they hardly puzzle over their behaviors, they consider dishonesty just the way it is. We Russians love American words like crooked. They colluded and conspired but the Trumps are clever enough to hide behind American law and American 'Freedoms'. Add the 'The Federalist Society' which picks tools for the powerful and you have the ingredients for the eventual breakdown of democracy. Remember Hillary did win but America is not a democracy, it is a Republic and it is ruled and managed by an elite, both moral and immoral, always been that way and so long as we can distract people and money pays the bills we will play our part. If the senate can be managed and manipulated with republicans, the courts and judges can be too. Look at all the judges they selected what a win that is for the privileged classes.
We did not create Trump or Kushner or Miller or Kavanaugh or Parscale or Dobbs or Barr or Hannity, you did, your system did, and so while we use them they represent the amorality of your world. Winning at all cost is American as apple pie. Love your idioms. Some claim we are amoral. Listen people, many are amoral, Trump is amoral, do you really think he believes or thinks deeply about anything? Twitter is so much fun. Look at Steve Bannon, he too is part of the gaming of the American people, and folks should democrats ever get their message heard, we will twist that too and soon republicans will be looked on as really caring for America and Americans. You know, the values issue, wins every time. Notice we are already doing that with the ACA, aka Obamacare. We know where to focus, Democrats don't. Cultural location and religious belief - rural remote - are areas of dissemination, focus areas in other words. Just a matter of time and soon your nation will be like ours, controlled by the few. In many ways it already is, but one must not see that for the leader must promise the promised land and always strive to pull the wool over your eyes. Sorry, couldn't resist.
Allow a moment of commiseration, your poor working class will remain poor, your West Virginia coal miners will remain poor, your Southern States will remain poor, your rural areas will remain poor, but they will cheer and wear their MAGA hats praising a man who cares less about them than we do. Funny huh. Tribes stick together and republican policies are words not deeds. When single issues control your vote you are an easy target. It took time to make your government and MSM the problem but we had inside help. You see them on TV daily. Your middle class is now more similar to your working class poor. Of course most of your GDP is spent on defense and guess who gains from defense spending. You made your bed and while we may have helped, you vote we don't. 'Freedom' spoke. No job training in America today but lots of finger pointing. Of course USAReally and RT will help your media sources too. Information today is so flexible, it can be made up and changed in a moment. Take care.
Footnote: We must be careful should republicans and Trump destroy too many of the values and policies that have made America great. Americans could then return to realpolitik, a place where commonsense rules over ideology and created reality. Another FDR could again make America great as Reagan promoted even though he was created by the words of corporate propagandists. 2020 here we come. Good luck America.
Editor Note: The Russian troll's confession may be a spoof, we do not know. If 'they' return to comment we'll be open to their opinion. America is in a state of divided incredulity, but so long as the economy isn't crashing, anything goes. Trump rallies appear to be more useful tools for control than many had thought. Lies are truths, promises never kept, but the show goes on and on.
Russian trolls: https://www.recode.net/2017/11/2/16598312/russia-twitter-trump-twitter-deactivated-handle-list
The show goes on: https://popular.info/p/trump-ad-contagion-spreads-on-facebook
Or not: https://www.zdnet.com/article/putin-signs-runet-law-to-cut-russias-internet-off-from-rest-of-world/
"The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning." Robert Anton Wilson
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