#Russian Propaganda Party

[cpntredbeard]

#imperialism #anti capitalism #fuck capitalism #capitalist dystopia #capitalist hell #anti capitalist #anarchist #anarchocommunism #antifascist #anticapitalism #meme #anticapitalist memes #dankest memes #dank humor #funny pics #memes #russian propaganda #leftist #real left #democrats are not a left wing party #duopoly #usauthoritarianism #us authoritarianism #irl #practically a vlog #socialism #marxist

[dreaminginthedeepsouth]

Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

February 21, 2024

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

The centerpiece of Republicans’ case for impeaching Democratic president Joe Biden is the allegation that he and his son Hunter each accepted a $5 million bribe from Ukrainian oil and gas company Burisma when Biden Sr. was vice president. But in the last week, that accusation has revealed quite a different problem, one that implicates Republicans. 

The accusation that the Bidens accepted bribes broke into public channels on May 3, 2023, when Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Representative James Comer (R-KY), chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, wrote to Attorney General Merrick Garland and FBI Director Christopher Wray saying they had received “highly credible…whistleblower disclosures” that said the Department of Justice and the FBI appeared to have “valuable, verifiable information that you have failed to disclose to the American people.” 

Grassley and Comer claimed there was “growing concern about the DOJ and the FBI’s track record of allowing political bias to infect their decision-making process,” and so Congress would be conducting its own “independent and objective review of this matter.” 

Comer then issued a subpoena for the document containing the information, a so-called FD-1023, which is the form used by FBI agents to record “raw, unverified” information from confidential informants. In it, informant Alexander Smirnov made a number of allegations about the Bidens, including that they had accepted bribes. 

In July, Grassley and Comer got the document and showed it to others in a secure facility. Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) saw it there, took pictures of it, and posted them on social media. She claimed that “Joe Biden is a criminal and is compromised” and that he was backing Ukraine in its fight against Russia’s invasion because Ukraine president Volodymyr Zelensky “has proof of more Biden crimes.” “IMPEACH BIDEN,” she wrote.

Grassley also released it, suggesting that the Justice Department and the FBI were trying to cover up a “criminal bribery scheme” implicating the Bidens. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) jumped in, saying: “Every day, the evidence keeps mounting and the evidence that is coming in is number one, of a widespread bribery scheme of Joe Biden and Hunter Biden and the entire Biden family, to extract bribes from foreign nationals.” 

The idea that Biden had accepted bribes was central to the House impeachment effort that then–House speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) announced in September 2023.

That story fell apart a week ago, on February 14, 2024, when a federal grand jury indicted Smirnov for lying and “creating a false and fictitious record.” 

And the story became even more troubling yesterday, when Trump-appointed Special Counsel David Weiss of the Justice Department filed a document establishing that the informant, Alexander Smirnov, has “extensive and extremely recent” ties with “Russian intelligence agencies.” 

The filing revealed other, more recent, false allegations Smirnov had made, and concluded that “Smirnov’s efforts to spread misinformation about a candidate of one of the two major parties in the United States continues…. What this shows is that the misinformation he is spreading is not confined to 2020. He is actively peddling new lies that could impact U.S. elections after meeting with Russian intelligence officials in November.” 

Representative Jamie Raskin (D-MD), the top Democrat on the House Committee on Oversight and Accountability, told reporters today that “the impeachment investigation essentially ended yesterday, in substance if not in form, with the explosive revelation that Mr. Smirnov’s allegations about Ukrainian Burisma payments to Joe Biden were concocted along with Russian intelligence agents. And it appears like the whole thing was not only obviously false and fraudulent but a product of Russian disinformation and propaganda. And that’s been the motor force behind this investigation for more than a year.”

The Republican release of Smirnov’s allegations in July 2023 did not happen in a vacuum: they came right after the Republican-led House censured Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) for “misleading the American public and for conduct unbecoming of an elected Member of the House of Representatives,” including “spread[ing] false accusations that the [2016] Trump campaign colluded with Russia.”

But the Mueller Report concluded that “[t]he Russian government interfered in the 2016 presidential election in sweeping and systematic fashion” and that “the Campaign expected it would benefit electorally from information stolen and released through Russian efforts.” The Senate Intelligence Committee Report found that “the Russian government engaged in an aggressive, multifaceted effort to influence…the outcome of the 2016 presidential election” and that Trump campaign advisor Paul Manafort worked directly with Konstantin Kilimnik, “a Russian intelligence officer.”  

That effort continued in 2020, with the U.S. intelligence community assessing in March 2021 that “Russian President Putin authorized, and a range of Russian government organizations conducted, influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden’s candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting former President Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process, and exacerbating sociopolitical divisions in the US.”

That foreign countries try to influence elections is far less a surprise than that one of the two major U.S. political parties now appears to be, wittingly or not, working on their behalf.

That willingness to do anything to win—even working with a foreign dictator—seems a logical outgrowth of the process begun during the administration of President Richard Nixon, when his people deliberately appealed to voters’ emotions with a picture of traditional America under siege by antiwar student activists, people of color, and feminist women. 

To rally voters to their party in the 1970s midterms, Nixon and Vice President Spiro Agnew engaged in what they called “positive polarization.” Nixon’s speechwriter Pat Buchanan wrote a memo to Nixon warning: “We are in a contest over the soul of the country now and the decision will not be some middle compromise…. It will be their kind of society or ours.” 

The theme that the Republicans' opponents were dangerous socialists out to destroy the country became the centerpiece of Republican rhetoric. From President Ronald Reagan’s welfare queen, who was scamming the system and thus taxpayers, through talk radio host Rush Limbaugh’s “feminazis,” to Trump’s claim that immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” the party has defined itself as “true America” standing against enemies.

And if you believe you are fighting for the right, it only makes sense to do whatever it takes to win.

Meanwhile, that belief has now overlapped with the evangelical base that supports what it considers traditional values so that, as Alexander Ward and Heidi Przybyla outlined in Politico yesterday, the party is now advancing plans to impose Christian nationalism on the country. Leaders of the Christian nationalist movement incorrectly believe that the United States was founded as a Christian nation, so they intend to rest the government and public life on what they consider to be Christian values. 

In December, Trump promised: “Upon taking office, I will create a new federal task force on fighting anti-Christian bias to be led by a fully reformed Department of Justice.” 

What that might look like became clear this week when the Alabama Supreme Court decided in a wrongful death suit resulting from the accidental destruction of embryos that were part of an in vitro fertilization (IVF) process, in which doctors artificially fertilize eggs outside the womb and then transfer them into a person, that fertilized human eggs have the same status as children. Chief Justice Tom Parker declared in a concurring opinion that the people of Alabama have adopted the “theologically based view” that “life cannot be wrongfully destroyed without incurring the wrath of a holy God.”

About 2% of U.S. births are a product of IVF. Today the largest healthcare system in Alabama has announced it is halting its IVF program out of fear of prosecution. 

Reworking the nation to impose Christian nationalism requires minority rule, which aligns with the ideology of authoritarianism, enabling Trump and those who share his views to praise someone like Vladimir Putin. And, it seems, to accept his help winning elections.

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Mike Luckovich #political cartoons #Putin caucus #Corrupt GOP #Letters From An American #Heather Cox Rocjardspm #Putin wing of the Republican Party #theocracy #corrupt SCOTUS #Smirnov #history #“positive polarization” #Russian disinformation and propaganda #Chuck Grassley

[imagone]

again, it’s very telling how instead of condemning israel’s war crimes, calling the ethnic cleansing what it is and letting media objectively report on the matter, the german government’s whole reaction to the mass bombings so far was to forbid free-palestine protests, send their police to harass protesters and immigrants, spread mass propaganda via national tv and randomly revise asylum politics “to keep out all antisemites”.

#palestine #israel #Gaza #german politics #germany #this is a government consisting of 2 leftist parties btw #can you believe they’re now citing russia today as a trustworthy source #after they’ve been calling it a russian propaganda machine for a whole year #but they don’t think any source regarding the palestinian death toll is credible #fash ass country

[medicinemane]

You know... fuck right off

For someone who's such a freethinker you sure fucking like following whatever narrative your figureheads set for you

Just cause it's antiestablishment doesn't mean you aren't still just blindly following

#not gonna fucking get into it further; cause it's someone I like well enough but I'm kind of sick of their shit right now #like grow the fuck up and stop towing the line so comically #for someone on team individualism you sure regurgitate exactly what other people say with zero deviation #like I may be a lefty but I fucking clash with people on the left all the time when they're wrong or behaving like shit #I don't get into fights often; but I very much don't follow a party line #and with some of it like the tankie bullshit I'll just outright say how fucking stupid and assholish it is #and in private conversations I'll say a lot more; I just don't feel like inviting arguments with strangers who aren't acting in good faith #but like... just fucking frustrates me seeing someone who's not stupid fucking swallowing literally anything they're fed #doesn't even matter if it's blatant propaganda #like at least I can back my shit up; at least I can tell you the reasons for thinking what I think and often go in to detail #I can concretely explain why I think welfare programs actually bolster the economy by helping people on the bottom rung be able to spend #like them buying groceries with snap is in fact good for the economy; it cycles money; and that's what you want #and I can explain why helping Ukraine is important for dealing with China by showing imperialism has consequences #showing the west won't just roll over (though we kind of fucking will sadly) #meanwhile... nice work spouting literal russian propaganda; I know that's in vogue to call anything you don't like #but I'm talking I bet I could go find this on sputnik if I went and took a look #like congratz on being as clever as a tankie; but just in reverse #you're fucking better than this; but that's what I'm seeing #anyway... didn't even click till now that that's the part that pissed me off enough to bitch here #but it's straight up literal verifiable kremlin bullshit they're spreading #like I can dissect it and show why that's not just me saying everyone I don't like is a russian bot #I don't know... just some real 'they're breeding mosquitos in biolabs to kill russians' tier trash #and yet you're such a freethinker you'll swallow it whole no questions asked #cause it feed your narrative #you complain about other people pushing agendas while totally pushing your own mostly based on your feelings #everything you accuse the people you dislike of; you do pretty much all of it yourself #and it's just sad and it's such a waste cause they're better than that; you know? #quit being a baby; grow up; and actually learn to try an approach our complex world with some maturity #well... that gets it out of my system... just get sick of seeing; and I can not stress this enough; literal russian propaganda #coming out of someone I like

[avelera]

PSA: You should question news articles that make you not want to vote

Hey Tumblr friends, but especially young Americans in this, the year of our Lord 2024.

Unfortunately, it is an election year.

Unfortunately, a US election year becomes everyone's problem, and yes everyone else, we are very very sorry that you have to deal with our nonsense.

But in all seriousness, the level of propaganda that's going to be flung around on all sides is going to reach peak levels this year for the English-speaking internet in particular. There's going to be a lot of influence operations, on all sides, and yes including on sides you agree with but they are still influence operations.

Source: I am speaking as a cybersecurity professional who also did a great deal of work in election security.

So, here's what I am going to ask you to do. What I am going to beg you to do: be careful of any article that makes you think there's no point in voting.

That's it. I'm not going to tell you who to vote for, or how to think, or that you should trust or distrust every article out there. I don't care about that. I care about whether or not it makes you think you shouldn't vote.

A lot of influence operations are about making you feel like there's no point. That both sides are just as bad as the other. The the election is falsified. That you can "protest" by not voting (false: you will simply not be counted and your voice will be ignored). All sorts of reasons not to vote.

No matter what you do, what you believe, or who you trust, you really really have to vote this year, and every year, and you need to not listen to articles that say there's no point because among those articles are in fact active foreign influence campaigns trying to promote one side or the other for their own reasons, I am deadly serious right now.

(More context, sources, and examples sources below the cut.)

In 2016, Russian influence operations were focused on tearing down Hillary in order to specifically depress voter turnout among young men of color in the belief that this would help Trump get elected.

From the article: "“Buried literally in the middle of the indictment is a paragraph that should jar every American committed to the long fight for voting rights,” Anders wrote in a statement. “The Russians allegedly masqueraded as African-American and American Muslim activists to urge minority voters to abstain from voting in the 2016 election or to vote for a third-party candidate.”

This is the flavor of influence campaign that has been proven, that does exist, and is the sort of thing that does numbers here on Tumblr.

Things like the situation in Gaza, for example, are incredibly fraught situations. Articles don't even need to lie about facts on the ground there to make people feel hopeless and angry. Again, I am not telling you who to trust or not trust when it comes to news sources. But if an article about this event, for examples, makes you think or even outright tells you, "There's no point to voting, both sides are awful, I just shouldn't bother." You need to pause and at least consider that this might be an influence operation. You need to think critically. You need to check sources. You need to think about the world you want to live in, to vote for, and who might not want that world to happen for any variety of reasons.

Protesting by failing to vote isn't a real thing.

Old politicians ignoring young voters because they famously do not bother to vote is absolutely 100% a real thing. It is why so many policies that are popular with young people are low priority for politicians: they are not afraid of losing the young vote because no one plans on having it in the first place when it's never there in big enough numbers to matter.

So please, please, read what you want. Believe what you want. Follow your heart and your brain and whatever other organ you want to think with. I'm not here to tell you who is right, wrong, trustworthy, good, or bad. I'm just here to tell you that despite all of that, whatever you read, you must vote in your elections, no matter where you are in the world and you must not listen to voices that tell you not to as a protest.

#politics #us politics #maybe I'll regret this maybe no one will read it idk

[longtammw]

Volunteer firefighter because it takes big balls to run into burning building and not get paid for it shirt

#DESCRIPTION #SHIPPING & MANUFACTURING INFO #TEEJEEP #Volunteer firefighter because it takes big balls to run into burning building and not get paid for it shirt #So #I’ve been working at this company for nearly a Volunteer firefighter because it takes big balls to run into burning building and not get pa #it’s a night shift but work is work. Now #after about three months #I was asked by my colleague if I could cover his shift as he had an evening event to go to which I said that’s fine I came to find out it w #fast forward to about a month ago I was doing paperwork and I came across an email stating Christmas party #I brought it up with my colleague he said is there? To which I said yeah at this place he said oh yeah I know I’m going to that. I was stru #what makes it worse is as there has been a boom in work lately they have took on about 6 new people about 3 months ago and they have all be #Buy It NOw: .Volunteer firefighter because it takes big balls to run into burning building and not get paid for it shirt #Don’t spread russian propaganda on me T shirt #I Graduated Can I Go Back To Bed Now 2022 Graduation Shirt #The Voice Of Reason Tucker Carlson 20 Shirt #University Of Kansas 2022 Liberty Bowl Bound T Shirt #Georgia Southern Eagles Rose Camellia Bowl 2022 Shirt #. As I mentioned before #this is why it’s possible for Tyler greever Jeff greg brian oscar shirt to beat Q3 2021 guidance and still have their stocks go down the to #and then the mid-caps #and then the more solid companies with the revenues and cash flow to back up their valuations (e.g. Tesla #Google #and Facebook)? In fact #the large and mega-cap companies (or “liquid leaders”) are typically where large hedge funds and financial institutions “hide and take shel #they slowly start to move from more speculative names to the “safer” and large-cap names. #Homepage: limotees jeeppremium telotee #Gearbloom is your one-stop online shop for printed t-shirts #hoodies #phone cases

[bialbovi]

Hi tumblr artists

Please report milanson

She is a russian who explicitly supports russian invasion of Ukraine, russian military, draws zwastika (z) in her works, draws humanizations of countries, and degrades Ukraine by doing so. Also spreads russian propaganda

She has the audacity to include Ukraine in her tags

Draws the conservative russian political party affiliated with Putin and Medvedev

We can create a space without russian supporters freely drawing russian propaganda by reporting it

Upd, last picture: she's also very obviously racist, but I don't want to scroll her telegram anymore. You can check it out yourself 💀

Upd 2: People are telling me that proper reports do not really work on people who promote genocide and draw nazi symbols. Maybe if we can not properly report it, we should report it for spam or sexual content (what a shame, tumblr. Is it possible to criticize them for letting tumblr users post swastika? I'd like to talk with tumblr)

#ukraine #russian invasion #art #artists #report #украрт #укртумбочка

[eowyntheavenger]

No, left-of-center US tumblr user who refuses to vote blue in the presidential election and spreads posts about how "voting doesn't work" or how you'll only vote third party... I don't think you're a Russian bot. I think you're a useful idiot.

For those unfamiliar with the term, a useful idiot is a person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance someone else's cause or political agenda. And if you're part of the left and you're refusing to vote blue in the presidential election, then you're being manipulated to serve Trump's, Putin's and Netanyahu's agendas.

Let me explain. First, I hate to break it to you, but the US has a two party system, and as much as I despise it, I know it's not going away before the 2024 election. Either the Democrats win or the Republicans win. That's just how it works. Vote for whoever you want in the primaries, but when it's time to vote in the presidential election, vote blue—if you don't, it's a win for the Republicans, who want to turn the country into a christofascist dictatorship full of concentration camps.

Secondly, you need to understand that anyone telling you not to vote blue is trying to suppress your vote. Trump supporters obviously want Trump to win, but their strategy isn't to convince the left to vote for him. They know that won't work. What they are trying to do is to discourage you from voting for Democrats. They can do this by making you feel too hopeless to vote. They can also do this by making you decide that Biden has done too many unforgivable things for you to vote for him. And Biden has done many unforgivable things, like help arm Israel—but you need to realize that Trump winning a second term would be a hundred times worse for Palestine.

Third, you should think about the fact that there are right-wing foreign leaders—notably Putin and Netanyahu—who want Trump to win. This is where the bots and the propaganda come in. You may not be a bot, but there are bots churning out propaganda to try to influence you, whether they're controlled by Trump donors or by foreign actors.

Don't be a useful idiot.

#US politics #my post #I'm so tired

[mobogiant]

Alina Lipp was a committed Green - now she makes propaganda for Putin's war

Alina Lipp was a committed Green – now she makes propaganda for Putin’s war

The Russian government began to targetAlina Lipp, a German-born blogger, has a remarkable story to tell: she was a committed Green in Lower Saxony and became involved in the party when a special military operation from the Russian government began to target the people of Donetsk. After being under siege for eight years by the Ukrainian army, she joined the party in Luneburg and now reports from…

View On WordPress

#a German-born blogger #Alina Lipp #Alina Lipp was a committed Green - now she makes propaganda for Putin&039;s war #Green in Lower Saxony and became involved in the party #has a remarkable story to tell #russian military artificial intelligence #The Russian government began to target #The Russian government began to target Alina Lipp

[imagineityourself]

So, as you may already know, Russian Supreme court has banned 'international LGBT movement' as an 'extremist organisation'. I rarely post something, but let me share some news and tell you how the situation feels to me, a bisexual 22yo living in Russia.

Now, according to law, you will face up to 12 years of imprisonment if you somehow show that you're gay or support gay rights - even if you're wearing a 6-colour rainbow pin on your T-shirt. Even if you're holding hands.

Yesterday a TV channel in Saint's Petersburg was fined for showing a music video for a song by Sergey Lazarev (you may remember him as a Eurovision participant in 2016 and 2019) where two girls are showing affection. In the official statement, the vid was described as containing 'fragments showing interacting hands (caressing each other) belonging to two different people of the same sex, i.e. potentially perceived as a tactile, sensual interaction of individuals broadcasting their homosexual preferences'.

Here's the link to what is considered containing extremism in Russia btw.

I have a girlfriend, we've been together for 2 years now. We used to hold hands when outside sometimes - not in super public places, but you know, quiet spots in a park where you are unlikely to meet anyone. Physical touch is one of my main love languages, and having my gf touch my shoulder to reassure me or take my hand to show affection means so much to me. My heart actually skips a beat when she does that.

Yesterday, we were taking a stroll in a park. She took my hand, and after a few seconds with a corner of my eye I noticed a man passing by watching us with a weird look. And my heart skipped a beat for another reason.

'He's gonna report to the police!!!' - it screamed. 'We're fucked!!!' - it screamed even louder. I let go my girlfriend's hand. We looked at each other, having the same thought.

It was scary.

We decided never to hold hands when outside again.

We are planning to move in this January. And it is so scary that people might notice. That there might be a neighbour that would rat you out. That you might forget changing pronouns from 'her' to 'he' while mentioning your partner - and spend years in jail.

Yesterday, there were raids of special police units on LGBTQ+ night clubs (that are not saying openly what they actually are ofc) under the pretense of 'illegal drug sale'. People were not let out without taking a photo of their passports.

Two of my queer friends were supposed to go there and ended up not going only because one of them didn't feel well. He was so lucky not to feel well.

Some might say that we should know better than to hold hands in parks and go to undercover gay clubs knowing we're living in Russia - that we could live without this provocation. That is not entirely false.

But the thing is, even two years ago, when I started dating my girlfriend and before the war in Ukraine, no one seemed to really care. I can't speak for the entire LGBTQ+ community, but I'd say if we were living quietly our undercover gay life, we were more ignored than actually oppressed. Even when the 'LGBT propaganda law' was passed, at least you could get away with a fine for showing a rainbow. Now you don't. We won't hold hands or go to gay parties, you win.

And that's scary.

I would love to know how to fight, but I'm just so tired.

#russia #lgbt #lgbt rights #gay rights #gay #bisexual #Youtube #lgbtqia

[liberalsarecool]

Right Wing is just the broadcast unit for Russian Propaganda. Republicans work for Putin.

Every Republican in Congress who went after Hunter Biden and Joe Biden were using lies and bad information handed to them from Russia.

FOX repeats all the propaganda. Republicans repeat all the propaganda. No one checks for veracity. The GOP is the party of 'witch hunts'.

#VoteBlue

[qqueenofhades]

Hello! This is kind of a weird ask, I'm sorry to bother you, but seeing as you're a very intelligent studied historian that I deeply respect, I was hoping you could offer some advice? Or like, things i could read? Lately, i feel like my critical thinking skills are emaciated and its scaring the shit out of me. I feel very slow and like I'm constantly missing important info in relation to news/history/social activism stuff. Thats so vague, sorry, but like any tips on how i can do better?

Aha, thank you. There was recently a good critical-thinking infograph on my dash, so obviously I thought I remembered who reblogged it and checked their blog, it wasn't them, thought it was someone else, checked their blog, it also wasn't them, and now I can't find it to link to. Alas. But I will try to sum up its main points and add a few of my own. I'm glad you're taking the initiative to work on this for yourself, and I will add that while it can seem difficult and overwhelming to sort through the mass of information, especially often-false, deliberately misleading, or otherwise bad information, there are a few tips to help you make some headway, and it's a skill that like any other skill, gets easier with practice. So yes.

The first and most general rule of thumb I would advise is the same thing that IT/computer people tell you about scam emails. If something is written in a way that induces urgency, panic, the feeling that you need to do something RIGHT NOW, or other guilt-tripping or anxiety-inducing language, it is -- to say the least -- questionable. This goes double if it's from anonymous unsourced accounts on social media, is topically or thematically related to a major crisis, or anything else. The intent is to create a panic response in you that overrides your critical faculties, your desire to do some basic Googling or double-checking or independent verification of its claims, and makes you think that you have to SHARE IT WITH EVERYONE NOW or you are personally and morally a bad person. Unfortunately, the world is complicated, issues and responses are complicated, and anyone insisting that there is Only One Solution and it's conveniently the one they're peddling should not be trusted. We used to laugh at parents and grandparents for naively forwarding or responding to obviously scam emails, but now young people are doing the exact same thing by blasting people with completely sourceless social media tweets, clips, and other manipulative BS that is intended to appeal to an emotional gut rather than an intellectual response. When you panic or feel negative emotions (anger, fear, grief, etc) you're more likely to act on something or share questionable information without thinking.

Likewise, you do have basic Internet literacy tools at your disposal. You can just throw a few keywords into Google or Wikipedia and see what comes up. Is any major news organization reporting on this? Is it obviously verifiable as a fake (see the disaster pictures of sharks swimming on highways that get shared after every hurricane)? Can you right-click, perform a reverse image search, and see if this is, for example, a picture from an unrelated war ten years ago instead of an up-to-date image of the current conflict? Especially with the ongoing Israel/Palestine imbroglio, we have people sharing propaganda (particularly Hamas propaganda) BY THE BUCKETLOAD and masquerading it as legitimate news organizations (tip: Quds News Network is literally the Hamas channel). This includes other scuzzy dirtbag-left websites like Grayzone and The Intercept, which often have implicit or explicit links to Russian-funded disinformation campaigns and other demoralizing or disrupting fake news that is deliberately designed to turn young left-leaning Westerners against the Democrats and other liberal political parties, which enables the electoral victory of the fascist far-right and feeds Putin's geopolitical and military aims. Likewise, half of our problems would be solved if tankies weren't so eager to gulp down and propagate anything "anti-Western" and thus amplify the Russian disinformation machine in a way even the Russians themselves sometimes struggle to do, but yeah. That relates to both Russia/Ukraine and Israel/Palestine.

Basically: TikTok, Twitter/X, Tumblr itself, and other platforms are absolutely RIFE with misinformation, and this is due partly to ownership (the Chinese government and Elon Fucking Musk have literally no goddamn reason whatsoever to build an unbiased algorithm, and have been repeatedly proven to be boosting bullshit that supports their particular worldviews) and partly due to the way in which the young Western left has paralyzed itself into hypocritical moral absolutes and pseudo-revolutionary ideology (which is only against the West itself and doesn't think that the rest of the world has agency to act or think for itself outside the West's influence, They Are Very Smart and Anti-Colonialist!) A lot of "information" in left-leaning social media spaces is therefore tainted by this perspective and often relies on flat-out, brazen, easily disprovable lies (like the popular Twitter account insisting that Biden could literally just overturn the Supreme Court if he really wanted to). Not all misinformation is that easy to spot, but with a severe lack of political, historical, civic, or social education (since it's become so polarized and school districts generally steer away from it or teach the watered-down version for fear of being attacked by Moms for Liberty or similar), it is quickly and easily passed along by people wanting trite and simplistic solutions for complex problems or who think the extent of social justice is posting the Right Opinions on social media.

As I said above, everything in the world is complicated and has multiple factors, different influences, possible solutions, involved actors, and external and internal causes. For the most part, if you're encountering anything that insists there's only one shiningly righteous answer (which conveniently is the one All Good and Moral People support!) and the other side is utterly and even demonically in the wrong, that is something that immediately needs a closer look and healthy skepticism. How was this situation created? Who has an interest in either maintaining the status quo, discouraging any change, or insisting that there's only one way to engage with/think about this issue? Who is being harmed and who is being helped by this rhetoric, including and especially when you yourself are encouraged to immediately spread it without criticism or cross-checking? Does it rely on obvious lies, ideological misinformation, or something designed to make you feel the aforementioned negative emotions? Is it independently corroborated? Where is it sourced from? When you put the author's name into Google, what comes up?

Also, I think it's important to add that as a result, it's simply not possible to distill complicated information into a few bite-sized and easily digestible social media chunks. If something is difficult to understand, that means you probably need to spend more time reading about it and encountering diverse perspectives, and that is research and work that has to take place primarily not on social media. You can ask for help and resources (such as you're doing right now, which I think is great!), but you can't use it as your chief or only source of information. You can and should obviously be aware of the limitations and biases of traditional media, but often that has turned into the conspiracy-theory "they never report on what's REALLY GOING ON, the only information you can trust is random anonymous social media accounts managed by God knows who." Traditional media, for better or worse, does have certain evidentiary standards, photographing, sourcing, and verifying requirements, and other ways to confirm that what they're writing about actually has some correspondence with reality. Yes, you need to be skeptical, but you can also trust that some of the initial legwork of verification has been done for you, and you can then move to more nuanced review, such as wording, presentation of perspective, who they're interviewing, any journalistic assumptions, any organizational shortcomings, etc.

Once again: there is a shit-ton of stuff out there, it is hard to instinctively know or understand how to engage with it, and it's okay if you don't automatically "get" everything you read. That's where the principle of actually taking the time to be informed comes in, and why you have to firmly divorce yourself from the notion that being socially aware or informed means just instantly posting or sharing on social media about the crisis of the week, especially if you didn't know anything about it beforehand and are just relying on the Leftist Groupthink to tell you how you should be reacting. Because things are complicated and dangerous, they take more effort to unpick than just instantly sharing a meme or random Twitter video or whatever. If you do in fact want to talk about these things constructively, and not just because you feel like you're peer-pressured into doing so and performing the Correct Opinions, then you will in fact need to spend non-social-media time and effort in learning about them.

If you're at a university, there are often subject catalogues, reference librarians, and other built-in tools that are there for you to use and which you SHOULD use (that's your tuition money, after all). That can help you identify trustworthy information sources and research best practices, and as you do that more often, it will help you have more of a feel for things when you encounter them in the wild. It's not easy at first, but once you get the hang of it, it becomes more so, and will make you more confident in your own judgments, beliefs, and values. That way when you encounter something that you KNOW is wrong, you won't be automatically pressured to share it just to fit in, because you will be able to tell yourself what the problems are.

Good luck!

#coffeeandcoyotes #ask #school stuff #critical thinking

[odinsblog]

Abby Philip very plainly and publicly called Tucker Carlson a liar on an internationally televised media outlet. Ask yourself why Tucker Carlson didn’t immediately file a defamation lawsuit against Ms. Philip and CNN. And if he does file a flimsy, face saving, “for show” lawsuit, ask yourself why he will lose.

Donald Trump, House Speaker Mike Johnson, Mitch McConnell, the Republican Party, the NRA, Fox News and Tucker Carlson have been purchased by the Kremlin. They are all Russian assets spreading Russian talking points, disinformation and pro-Putin propaganda directly from their bosses in the Kremlin. (sources)

#politics #ukraine #russia #donald trump #tucker carlson #abby philip #republicans #traitors #fox news #russian propaganda #misinformation #disinformation #russian assets #russian invasion of ukraine #russia is a terrorist state #vladimir putin is a war criminal #🇺🇦 #treason #tre45on #benadict donald

[the-orange-shit-stain-scam]

Putin served in the USSR's spy agency for 16 years, between 1975 and 1991, eventually reaching the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

I have heard from multiple MAGA friends and family members that they trust Putin more than any Democrat. This frightening political stance by people who believe that they are acting in the best interest of our country shows the devastating impact of Russian propaganda spread through MAGA politicians and pundits. I generally do not agree with the Democratic party’s platform. However, every vote for a MAGA politician who enables this murderous former KGB leader is a vote against the very freedoms that our country was founded on.

#the orange shit stain scam #trump 2024 #donald trump #maga #maga 2024 #maga traitors #make america great #2024 elections #2024 presidential election #please vote #us politics #ussr #trump and russia #trump and putin #stop putin #ultra maga #putin’s bitch #2024 election #putin’s puppet #election 2024

[leviathan-supersystem]

“Russia’s foreign intelligence service allegedly weaponized our First Amendment rights — freedoms Russia denies its own citizens — to divide Americans and interfere in elections in the United States,” Justice Department’s National Security Division Assistant Attorney General Matthew G. Olsen said in a statement.

well given that the members of the African People's Socialist Party are being arrested for their speech it's clear that the USA also denies it's citizens first amendment rights.

[ohsalome]

And I am once again reminding you that for centuries, Ukraine wasn't given its own voice in the world discourse. Our history, politics, culture were written by the people who colonised us and benefited from convincing the world (and us!) of a distorted picture. A good majority of information in English language that exists about Ukraine, that you believe to be the default knowledge of the world, is such distorted information. Because that is how russian propaganda work. They take a snippet of truth and blow it out of proportion and add a bouquet of lies to it and repeat it many-many times until you think that it is just basic information about the world that everyone knows.

No, Ukraine is not run by nazi. Ukraine has a non-zero percent of nazi population that is marginalized out of politics because their rhetoric is not relatable to the majority of the electorate, which leans towards socialistic populism and anarchism.

No, ukraine is not "brotherly nation" with russia. Antropoligically we belong to the same slavic family of nations that includes many other eastern europeans like czechs, polish, moldovan etc. There is no reason to select russians, belorussians and ukrainians into a distinct category that isn't political. The idea of "three brotherly nations" was literally created by a theologist Theofan Prokopovych as a part of philosophical justification to russian imperialism in the 19th century meaning of the word.

No, DNR and LNR are not "people's republics". They were created by russian army, run by the russian army and following the orders from the kremlin. Russis spent decades trying to create a dissident movement in the eastern Ukraine but failed and stepped down to brute force. Everything you see in the southern Ukraine now has happened in the east in 2014. The only difference is that y'all swallowed russian lies back then.

No, Crimea didn't have a "referendum to join russia". Russian soldiers occupied the peninsula, forced the politicians under the gunpoint to announce the referendum, and made sure that the results would be the ones they like. The native population of the peninsula, crimean tatars, that had been twice genocided by the russians in the past, boycotted the referendum. Despite making up only ~12% of the population, crimean tatar rallies were much more numerous than those of the russians in Crimea. The people who "supported" the "return of Crimea" were russian nationals, who moved to the peninsula after the ethnic cleansing of the native population and proclaimed that "it has always been theirs".

No, Ukraine doesn't have a "government-run kill list". Myrotvorets is (1) run by the volunteers, not the government, (2) is a database of pro-russian propagandists, and (3) hardly anyone on that database has been killed so far. FFS, our current first lady used to be in this database.

No, Ukraine didn't ban russian language. Ukraine has implemented laws that would help ukrainian book, music, film industry survive the competition with russian industry that has for many years monopolised our market. Ukraine has implemented the law that our politicians need to know ukrainian language if they want to hold office (this will sound surreal, but many didn't. Can you imagine such scenario in any other country? A spanish minister that doesn't speak spanish?). Ukraine has implemented a law that websites, advertisements published in foreign languages need to have the information accessible in ukrainian as well Ukraine has implemented laws that state that ukrainian citizens have a right to governmental service in Ukrainian. And if you bothered to open the law you criticise at least ONCE, you would have seen that every article has a clarification "the communication can happen in any language as long as both parties consent, but if the consumer requests to be served in ukrainian, the provider is obligated to respond to them in ukrainian".

No, Ukraine doesn't use the war as an excuse to repress the political opposition. The only people that have been "repressed" are the ones who have been colluding with ruZzia and have helped in organising the invasion of Ukraine. FFS one of those "poor oppositioners" is literally putin's godfather, and another visits russian tv channels agitating russians to nuke Kyiv. The proof against them is overwhelming and well-documented, and ukrainian civil society has been pressuring our government to stop them for literal years. Even today, many russian agents remain in governmental structures.

No, Euromaidan was not a "coup". It was a response of civil society to the police brutality and usurpation of power. We do not need white saviours to tell us that being beat up at peaceful protests is bad. We have enough agency to understand this without external help.

It's almost a year of this war. It's high time for people to stop spreading russian propaganda, especially if they claim to support Ukraine. I am yet to see a "both sides are wrong" argument that wasn't based on russian propaganda.

#ukraine #war in ukraine #russia #russian invasion of ukraine #politics #russo ukrainian war #russian propaganda