Sunday, July 01, 2018
Bring On the Trolls!! Historian Timothy Snyder Explains How Collusion Works And Why Trump Is Not Really Colluding with Moscow.
Perhaps you've read professor Snyder's recent book, "On Tyranny, Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century."
Here he explains what underlies Russia's manipulation of Trump, how the process works and what it holds in store for America. It's not a matter of collusion but something much, much worse.
Here's the next chapter, Snyder discusses the Mueller investigation.
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19 comments:
.. whew ! !
This gets it.. chapter and verse
ist video link brilliant..
2nd more subtle..
still hammer meeting nail
Merci Beaucoup !
I guess that I have to give this topic more weight. Because I gave each video five minutes before stopping them to keep from falling asleep.
So this pompous ass thinks Trump invented the term "collusion" to distract us? Um, no. Hillary Clinton made the accusation as soon as the Wikileaks documentation of her corruption of the primaries and her self-serving (but deluded) speeches to Wall Street were announced.
Does this moron really think that nobody's talking about conspiracy and perjury amongst Trump associates? People are. It's just that if you talk about it too long you realize that the "conspiracy" and "perjury" have nothing to do with Russia helping Trump to "hack" the DNC and the electoral process.
So the Mueller Investigation is about maintaining the "Rule of Law"? Someone should tell this nit-wit about Obama's kill-lists. Someone should tell this childish simpleton about Obama's pursuing war with Libya despite Congress telling him that he couldn't. Someone should inform this pea-brain about the total lack of prosecution of Wall Street banksters. Someone should notify this dick-head about how the bush II regime got away with torture.
Thanks to the gigantic amount of resources that have been dedicated to the subject, I am forced to admit that, yes, there was Russian influence in the 2016 election. Mueller's entire year of research showed without a shadow of a doubt that "Russians" (though not necessarily Putin) paid for a few hundred-thousand $ of social media ads. And some embarrassing anti-Clinton street theatre. And a few more crimes against humanity, the details of which escape me at the moment.
None of these have any connection to mass-murdering, Wall Street-shill Hillary Clinton's charges of Kremlin/Wikileaks collusion with the Trump campaign.
I don't know though. It just seems massively hypocritical to wail and gnash one's teeth over Russia's possible meddling in the US election when the USA does it all the fucking time. (I've been told that pointing out this hypocrisy is called "whataboutism" by the sorts of hypocrites who hate being called-out on their hypocrisy.)
Also, as mad as i can make myself about Putin's possible meddling, i can't make myself think it worthy of nuclear war or even thinking it as nefarious as the documented influence of Israeli chauvinists like Sheldon Adelson or Wall Street of the pharmaceutical industry or the fossil fuels industry or the pay-day loans industry or the health insurance industry or big-agra, or the military-industrial complex or any other wealthy scum-bags who control the elections and the entire political process.
"Moron" "pompous ass" "Nitwit"? Thwap, back on your meds and then - fuck off.
Funny Thwap should mention Sheldon Adelson. Harper is on his payroll and is now on his way to lobby Trump.
So this Socrates for our times thinks Trump invented the term "collusion" to distract us? Um, no. Hillary Clinton made the accusation as soon as the Wikileaks documentation of her corruption of the primaries and her self-serving (but deluded) speeches to Wall Street were announced.
Does this sterling individual really think that nobody's talking about conspiracy and perjury amongst Trump associates? People are. It's just that if you talk about it too long you realize that the "conspiracy" and "perjury" have nothing to do with Russia helping Trump to "hack" the DNC and the electoral process.
So the Mueller Investigation is about maintaining the "Rule of Law"? Someone should tell this demi-god about Obama's kill-lists. Someone should tell this titan among men about Obama's pursuing war with Libya despite Congress telling him that he couldn't. Someone should inform this Second Newton about the total lack of prosecution of Wall Street banksters. Someone should notify this paragon of virtue about how the bush II regime got away with torture.
There. Fixed.
Now are you sanely capable of confronting the glaring errors and hypocrisies I've identified in the first five minutes of each of the two videos?
Is this nonsense really one of the things you want to fixate on?
Thwap, I don't want you to think I'm ignoring you but I'm ignoring you.
What is said in the first clip sounds plausible but has no proof, links,backup, dare I say nada nada!
The bots said!!! kinda like 'they" said.
Who the fuck are they?
I think Trump has financial connections to Russia and perhaps others which mould his decisions but have seen little evidence that would, hopefully, bring him down.
The attacks upon Trump are justified but without substance.
FWIW Trumps backers!!
https://independenttrader.org/deutsche-bank-on-the-brink-of-bankruptcy.html
The world walks a fine line between reality and fiction commonly called growth!!.
TB
TB
If Vladimir Putin had any influence over Donald Trump, Donald Trump would be pursuing a much more coherent foreign policy.
.. I maintain the 1st vid laid out a very astute observation.. 'collusion' does dominate the Trump smoke screen of denials. Its important to see Trump for what has always been - a serial daily liar, a fraud who stiffs then threatens suppliers via lawyers, is probably propped up by Russian oligarch $, and is a serial ad man for bankrupty (wrote the book on that) cheats on every wife, and only Stormy weather and her brilliant lawyer have threatened to depose him publicly, and the capper is the current 21 or so indictments by Robert Mueller that most everyone pretwnds did not happen (there are guilty pleas in there folks !)
The list is astonishing.. How many deferrments for bone spurs? Was it 5 or 6 ? Yes the pus sack President goes golfing at least every 10 days, for two days.. he has Secret Service for life, scattered across country for wifey # 3 - for 'Javenka' as senior White House Advisors & advantage takers.. and for his two brain addled sons and their families.. del Trumphi is a one man employment agency.. not to mention propping up the legal beagle community re various lawsuites. was it 25 or 50 million to tidy up Just one of the Trump University farces ? The rot is endless.. and how is 'all that winning' coming along anyway ? The figure in $$$.$$ that he has paid to law firms daily (not weekly) either in retainers or fees must be astonishing.. but now one presumes its the American taxpayer who picks up the tab.. and yet he gets saluted by US Marines .. for being a saluteable buffoon we must assume.
Yes yes.. many 'allegations' n all that.. but the guy is so dirty he probably affects or offends the orbit of the moon. Old 'grab em by the pussy' Trumpo.. who Mueller probably has by the gonads now.. I can't wait to see that entire 'administration f the hell off to Florida.. as New York will simply prosecute them all..
"The coastal elites* of USA" - to use Steve Bannon's term - pose a much graver threat to the Republic than the Russia under Putin. Trump knows that.
*which include Hillary & associated mafia
.. oh dear..
Did I forget to mention
- purgery (Trump self incriminates, as do his sons)
- obstruction of justice (a biggie)
- money laundering (biggie)
- mail fraud ? (across state lines?)
'Collusion' is the Trump smokescreen !
And thus the waters become too clouded to motivate decisive action allowing the incremental subversion of institutions, traditions and even thought itself to perpetuate. The goodbyes begin...
Trailblazer - "What is said in the first clip sounds plausible but has no proof, links,backup, dare I say nada nada!"
As an Oxford educated historian and Yale professor, Snyder is familiar with links, backup and everything else you curiously expect to find in a brief YouTube video. I'm sure you would be very relieved to find all that in his latest book. See if you can get it from your library.
In the meantime you can read Frum's review of the book here:
https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/07/the-great-russian-disinformation-campaign/564032/
PLG - "If Vladimir Putin had any influence over Donald Trump, Donald Trump would be pursuing a much more coherent foreign policy."
What more do you imagine Trump could do to please Putin, PLG? He's sabotaging American democracy and leaving the US even more divided. He's promoting authoritarians in Poland, Hungary, Turkey, the Philippines and elsewhere. He has launched trade wars with America's historic allies and relentlessly sought to undermine the EU. He's even undermining America's relationships in Asia Pacific.
C'mon, PLG, you're way brighter than that.
Sal, Trump had five deferments, same as Cheney. I've not heard of anyone who could match those two for deferments.
Deacon Jester - I fear you're right.
Mound, YOU'RE brighter than that. Putin doesn't want most of that stuff. He doesn't care if countries are democratic or dictatorships, he doesn't want trade wars, he doesn't want the EU to be unstable. Vladimir Putin has been very clear and consistent about what he wants: He wants NATO slightly farther from his borders, he wants more stability in the Middle East, he wants to sell the EU oil, natural gas, and ideally other products from a more diversified Russian economy, and overall he wants a stable multipolar world based on a return to the Westphalian / official UN doctrine that what happens inside a country is that country's business, rather than the unipolar "Americans get to invade whoever they want and say it's R2P" model the US prefers. Heck, it seems fairly clear Putin doesn't even want the United States to be unstable--what he wants is for the US to be less dangerous, which is a very different thing. Putin is a pragmatist who wants stable trade and fewer wars and terrorists which might threaten to destabilize Russia. When it comes to who governs a country, he doesn't ask, "Are they democratically elected or a dictator?" he asks "Will they mess with Russia? Will they trade with Russia?"
Canada is much the same--or am I mistaken and we didn't cut a free trade deal with China, and didn't sell mucho $$$ worth of arms to Saudi Arabia, probably the worst regime in the world, while it's creating the worst humanitarian disaster in the world?
The US is kind of the same except it asks "Will they obey?" The whole US beef with Russia is that their answer is "no". For the foreign policy establishment, there is an overarching problem with Trump beyond his arbitrariness, his stupidity, his random changes of position, his belief that he's a great negotiator when he's actually a lousy one, his boorish outbursts and petty fits of temper--beyond all that, their problem with Trump is precisely that he thinks the "art of the deal" applies to US relations with other countries. So in the case of Russia, Trump's instincts say "I'm playing hardball, this guy's playing hardball, then we make some kind of deal", where the foreign policy establishment's position is that anyone not toeing the line must be made an example of. The likes of Putin are not there to have deals made with, they are to be put outside the pale until they can be eliminated.
(As a side note the US has never needed either Trump or Putin to prefer dictatorship over democracy. Count up the number of democracies the US has put down and replaced with dictatorships and the number of dictatorships they have replaced with democracies; there are some of each, but there are a LOT more of the former. The bizarre thing about Trump is that he sometimes says nice things about authoritarians who aren't on the client list)
Actually, it should be said: Putin does want an exception to the Westphalian thing--he wants a "backyard" buffer zone which is broadly internationally conceded to be Russia's business. That is, he wants Russia to be what used to be called a "regional power" and for nobody to consider this strange or especially wrong. Just how reasonable or unreasonable one should consider that I'm not sure, but Americans of all people are hardly in a position to raise moral objections to the notion.
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