By Matt Taibbi - March 06, 2018 at 08:47AM
Putin loves you; therefore, you love Putin. The enemy re-tweets you, therefore, you're in league with the enemy. We're at war with them, therefore we're at war with you.
One of the first rules of a shunning campaign is that it doesn't have to make sense. It just has to be what everyone's saying. Since most Americans went to high school, we tend to be instinctively familiar with the concept.
The crazy inverse logic of the new national blacklist was on full display after special prosecutor Robert Mueller indicted 13 Russian "troll farm" operatives in February. In the wake of this foreign meddling charge, CNN reporter Drew Griffin banged on the door of an elderly female Trump supporter named Florine Goldfarb and accused her of being a Russia-collaborator.
Goldfarb had attended a pro-Trump rally allegedly promoted on Facebook by Russian trolls. There were no Russians at the rally. The group didn't meet to discuss the subjugation of Abkhazia. They were plain, ordinary, Floridian Trump supporters – idiots, maybe, but not traitors.
Not according to CNN.
"That group was Russians," Griffin said accusingly.
"I had nothing to do with Russians," the old lady said.
"Maybe you didn't know it," Griffin countered, "but you did."
Nearly two years into the #Russiagate scandal, accusing people of being in league with Putin has become an almost daily feature of news coverage.
"Is it possible that we actually have a Russian agent running the House Intel Committee on the Republican side?" MSNBC anchor John Heilmann posited not long ago, referring to California congressman Devin Nunes.
The main source of the questions about Nunes was Hamilton 68, a website purporting to track the work of Russian social media bots in real time. An offshoot of the German Marshall Fund, the site represents an unpleasantly unsurprising union of neoconservative Iraq war cheerleaders like Bill Kristol and Beltway Democrats like would-be Clinton CIA chief Michael Morell.
Their Hamilton 68 "dashboard," easily accessible online to civilians and journalists alike, supposedly tells us what the enemy wants us to think at any given moment. Citing a secret methodology, it claims to track 600 Twitter accounts for their "relationship to Russia-sponsored influence," and regularly spits out mysterious conclusions about Putin's preferences in the American political scene. More and more often now, the site's pronouncements turn into front-page headlines.
When the dashboard declared that Nunes' #Releasethememo campaign had become the "top-trending hashtag" among Russian twitter accounts, a gaggle of press outlets and politicians rushed to point out that Nunes was doing the work of the enemy. (Even Rolling Stone got into the act, accusing Nunes of working "in concert with Russian propagandists").
Of course, in keeping with a growing pattern of Russiagate stories being quietly walked back sometime after the sensational headline, reports later broke that most of the Twitter furor driving #Releasethememo came from domestic Republicans – from "inside the house," as the Daily Beast put it. Even one of Hamilton 68's own was later quoted downplaying the story.
It didn't matter, because Hamilton 68 had by then moved on to its next set of headlines. The group that has seen Russians behind both left and right political causes, behind the Roy Moore Alabama Senate campaign and the decision of California Democrats to deny their endorsement to Dianne Feinstein, was soon a main source for stories about Russians playing havoc with the Parkland shooting in Florida.
The Russians, Hamilton 68 now said, were sowing discord on both sides of the gun control debate by pushing contradictory hashtags like #guncontrolnow and #NRA.
Fair use excerpt. Read the rest here.
from Ron Paul Institute Featured Articles
via IFTTT
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
Merchandise
Ron Paul America Cloud
Site Credits
Ron Paul America
is voluntarily affiliated with
______________________________
Site created, maintained and hosted by
Tags
#TurnOnTheTruth
2008
2012
4th amendment
911
ACTION
Afghanistan war
Agency
Aggression Principle
al-Qaeda
Alan Colmes
Alert
America
America's Fault
Americans
antigun
AR 15
assault weapon
Audit
Authoritarian
bailouts
Believe
Big Brother
big government
bill of rights
Blame
blowback
bubbles
Bush
Campaign for Liberty
Career Politician Eric Cantor
Central Bank
Charity
China
churches
collapse
Collectivism
Commission
committee
Compassion
Congress
Conservative
constitution
Crash
dangerous person
Democrat
Democrats
Donald Trump
Donald Trump. Planned Parenthood
drones
economic
Economy
Edward Snowden
End the Fed
European Union
Federal Reserve
Floyd Bayne
floyd bayne for congress
force
foreign interventionism
free market
free markets
GOP Nominee
GOP Presidential Debates
Government
Great Depression
gun control
House of Representatives
housing bubble
HR 1745
I like Ron Paul except on foreign policy
If ye love wealth better than liberty
IFTTT
Individual
Individualism
Institute
Irag
Iran
Iraq war
ISIL
ISIS
Judge Andrew Napalitano
libertarian
Liberty
Liberty Letters
Liberty Report
Lost
mass
Media
meltdown
metadata
Micheal Moore
Middle East
Mitt Romney
nap
National
Neocons
New Ron Paul Ad
New York Times
Newsletters
Newt Gingrich
No
Non
non-interventionism
NSA
NSA Snooping
Obama
Overreach
overthrow
Patriot Act
peace
Peace and Prosperity
politicians
Pope Francis
President
Presidential
Presidential Race
programs
prosperity
Race
Racist
Racist Newsletters
Rand Paul
Read the Bills Act
recessions
redistribution of wealth
refugee crisis
Repeal Obamacare
Report
Republican
Republican Nomination
Republican Nominee
Republicans
Revolution
Rick Santorum
Rick Santorum Exposed
Ron
Ron Paul
Ron Paul Institute
Ron Paul Institute Featured Articles
Ron Paul Institute for Peace And Prosperity
Ron Paul Institute Peace and Prosperity Articles
Ron Paul Next Chapter Media Channel
Ron Paul Racist Newsletters
ron paul's foreign policy
Ronald Reagan
ronpaulchannel.com
ronpaulinstitute.org
Rosa DeLauro
russia
Samuel Adams
Saudi Arabia
Second Amendment
Security
Senate
Senator
September 11th attacks
Show
Soviet
Spying
stimulate
Stock Market
surveillance
Syria
tech bubble
terrorist
The
the Fed
the poor
US
US foreign policy
Us troops
USA Freedom Act
Virginia
Virginia Republican Primary
voluntarism. Liberty
Voluntary
Warner
Warning
warrantless
wiretaps
YouTube
No comments:
Post a Comment