Has the Republican party lost its collective mind?

[DrP]

3 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

we see people like Assad and Jong-un being accepted as leaders globally when just a couple years ago it was the united opinion of the U.S. & EU that both had to go. 

Although I agree with the sentiment of nearly everything you said- I though the whole Assad thing was debatable....  he was the best of a bad lot and was fighting ISIS. A few years back I thought it was though that he could still be the best of a bad lot, rather than toppling him and putting the rebels in...   Even this latest chemical thing is now suspected to have not happened by some and they claim it was an excuse to oust him.

Whatever - you are right about the acceptance of Jong-un though...  what did talking to him really achieve? He agreed to stop with the nuke - he was supposed to anyway. Any mention of human rights abuses?  no.    It still all reminds me of that 'Hypernormalisation' video.   

[Phi for All]

2 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

The issue is bigger than the Republican party. Russia is using pro conservatives pro nationalism propaganda to shift right leaning people toward authoritarianism in the western world.  We saw it with Brexit, see it with Trump, and we see people like Assad and Jong-un being accepted as leaders globally when just a couple years ago it was the united opinion of the U.S. & EU that both had to go. 

The authoritarians are extremely wealthy, using the Republicans to achieve control over free markets. The more they get, the richer they make themselves at the expense of everyone else. It's rumored Putin is worth four Bill Gates.

The fear these monsters are injecting into the world is helping them gain access to even more power and money, and eroding all the protections we have against 100% capitalism, where they own the streets and sidewalks and all the land attached, and 99% of humanity will just rent their whole lives. First they stirred up the Middle East, and now they scream in fear about all the refugees fleeing the region. It reminds me of a business model I saw where the principals of an architectural firm also owned a pest control business. These folks knew where construction would likely cause infestations in the surrounding neighborhoods, and had their exterminators go door to door scaring people about bug problems.

[CharonY]

6 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

The fear these monsters are injecting into the world [...]

To be fair, folks are making it far too easy. Remember the war in former Yugoslavia? Folks were losing their minds about refugees back then, too. Politicians were quick to ride that wave of animosity, as they do today. 

[Phi for All]

1 minute ago, CharonY said:

To be fair, folks are making it far too easy. Remember the war in former Yugoslavia? Folks were losing their minds about refugees back then, too. Politicians were quick to ride that wave of animosity, as they do today. 

To be fairer, in the US we have little access to news without an entertainment/political profit/private investment agenda. The folks who make it easy for the authoritarians struggle for information that doesn't lead them right back to where they are. 

And yes, it's a known tactic, but it's everywhere now, and it's being exploited like never before in modern times. It's pretty biblical for invaders to drive out the undesirables and force their neighbors to deal with them, further stressing the resources of the next target of invasion.

[StringJunky]

1 hour ago, Ten oz said:

The issue is bigger than the Republican party. Russia is using pro conservatives pro nationalism propaganda to shift right leaning people toward authoritarianism in the western world.  We saw it with Brexit, see it with Trump, and we see people like Assad and Jong-un being accepted as leaders globally when just a couple years ago it was the united opinion of the U.S. & EU that both had to go. 

Russia has nothing to do with the Brexit result. That's been gradually happening for decades. As far as regime change goes,  I think that it is current wisdom is that it's not a good idea; change must occur from within. Iraq and Libya are sobering lessons

[Phi for All]

15 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Russia has nothing to do with the Brexit result.

I thought it was pretty well known that Russia used similar tactics in the UK and the US.

http://www.newsweek.com/brexit-russia-presidential-election-donald-trump-hacker-legitimate-527260

Quote

The Brexit leave vote fits with Russia’s goal of weakening the EU, which it has eyed warily as former Eastern Bloc countries have flocked to join.

 

[Ten oz]

16 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Russia has nothing to do with the Brexit result. That's been gradually happening for decades. As far as regime change goes,  I think that it is current wisdom is that it's not a good idea; change must occur from within. Iraq and Libya are sobering lessons

From what I have read Russia is believed to have help bankrolled the push for the referendum. 

Quote

 

(CNN)As the largest backer of the campaign for the UK to leave the European Union, Arron Banks rejoiced in being called one of the "Bad Boys of Brexit." Now the UK's National Crime Agency is investigating his financial support for the campaign and his contacts with Russian officials, according to three sources familiar with the probe.

The agency recently received an extensive archive of Banks' emails and other documents, the sources say, which include descriptions of meetings with Russian diplomats and possible business opportunities in Russia.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/07/04/uk/uk-brexit-russia-links-arron-banks-intl/index.html

 

Quote

 

LONDON — Arron Banks, a British financier who bankrolled the campaign for Britain to leave the European Union, has long bragged about his “boozy six-hour lunch” with the Russian ambassador eight months before the vote.

While Mr. Banks was spending more than eight million British pounds to promote a break with the European Union — an outcome the Russians eagerly hoped for — his contacts at the Russian Embassy in London were opening the door to at least three potentially lucrative investment opportunities in Russian-owned gold or diamond mines.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/29/world/europe/russia-britain-brexit-arron-banks.html

 

 

[StringJunky]

15 minutes ago, Ten oz said:

From what I have read Russia is believed to have help bankrolled the push for the referendum. 

 

Whether it was bankrolled or not, the desire was there for a referendum and that's the point I'm trying to make.... Russia didn't change anything. It was going to happen and PM David Cameron made it happen. Cameron was Conservative.

19 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I thought it was pretty well known that Russia used similar tactics in the UK and the US.

http://www.newsweek.com/brexit-russia-presidential-election-donald-trump-hacker-legitimate-527260

 

See my response above.

Edited July 10, 2018 by StringJunky

[John Cuthber]

3 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

It was going to happen

With a vote of 52:48 Brexit very nearly didn't happen.

Russia interference may have made those few percent difference.

[Ten oz]

3 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Whether it was bankrolled or not, the desire was there for a referendum and that's the point I'm trying to make.... Russia didn't change anything. It was going to happen and PM David Cameron made it happen. Cameron was Conservative.

If money and messaging in politics didn't have an impact campaigns wouldn't spend billions. Of course it had an impact. We will never empirically know how big but I don;t see any successful campaigns forgoing money because they don't think it helps.

[Phi for All]

56 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

Whether it was bankrolled or not, the desire was there for a referendum and that's the point I'm trying to make.... Russia didn't change anything. It was going to happen and PM David Cameron made it happen. Cameron was Conservative.

See my response above.

I have to disagree here. I think Russian influence made the difference in both the Brexit vote and the US presidential election. Both were just that close, and whether or not the feelings were present is immaterial. Those feelings were exploited by Putin's troll farms and pro-authoritarian/anti-immigrant media campaigns with the intent to disrupt and skew.

I don't think the UK would have voted to leave the EU, and the US wouldn't have elected Trump, without the Russian involvement. When a bad actor knows just the right buttons to push to goad someone into a fight, and they do it and a riot ensues, we hold them responsible for incitement, right?

[StringJunky]

39 minutes ago, Phi for All said:

I have to disagree here....

As is your prerogative.

[Phi for All]

9 minutes ago, StringJunky said:

As is your prerogative.

I want you to know my opinion is based on the thousands of fake accounts created by the Russians claiming to be UK or US citizens, spreading fake stories that made hundreds of thousands of people feel like their fellow citizens were rallying behind a cause. It's one thing to spread rumors that Hillary eats babies spread on toast, or that the EU will be kicking back millions for healthcare, and quite another to pose as a fellow citizen with supposed first-hand stories of foreigner rapists and rabid packs of immigrants gypsying off with our children. 

[CharonY]

3 hours ago, Phi for All said:

To be fairer, in the US we have little access to news without an entertainment/political profit/private investment agenda. The folks who make it easy for the authoritarians struggle for information that doesn't lead them right back to where they are. 

And yes, it's a known tactic, but it's everywhere now, and it's being exploited like never before in modern times.

I don't think that the US media system is such as huge exception as you might think. In Germany in the 90s and now some of the biggest drivers of public resentments were /are tabloids. What we see in modern times is a bit more of fragmentation. I.e. in the 90s the view of refugees was universally worse in Germany with mainstream media being far more critical than now. However, there is a strong push not only from traditional conservative media, as you might expect, but also from other sources, predominantly social media. And I think that part is different to before and it is not endemic to the US.

[Ten oz]

1 hour ago, Phi for All said:

have to disagree here. I think Russian influence made the difference in both the Brexit vote and the US presidential election. Both were just that close, and whether or not the feelings were present is immaterial. Those feelings were exploited by Putin's troll farms and pro-authoritarian/anti-immigrant media campaigns with the intent to disrupt and skew

I don't think the vote even needs to have been close for it to matter. 19 members of Trump's campaign have been already been indicted, 5 pled already guilty, Facebook's CEO already testified that 70 million users were impacted, Cambridge Analytica employee already testified that discouraging people from voting was part of their statedgy, voting machines were hacked, and Trump got 3 million less votes. Clearly there was illegality. Incredible amounts of money was illegally. In my opinion there is just no way so many risk and pay so much for something that doesn't demonstrably have an impact. 

People who can win fair and square don'tcheat and conversely those who cheat don't win fair and square. 

1 hour ago, StringJunky said:

As is your prerogative.

When cheaters win and it is discovered they cheated they should be disqualified. In the Olympics when an athlete tests positive for drugs they are disqualifed. Who cares how they could have done without the drugs? Arguing that they would have won without drugs is totally superfluous. If they could have won clean they should have been clean. In lieu of cheating they won cheating. It is a simple concept.

 

[John Cuthber]

As far as I can tell, they are still at it.
https://news.sky.com/story/bette-midler-west-virginia-governor-jim-justice-raises-dogs-backside-in-the-air-and-tells-actress-to-kiss-her-hiney-12527782

[MigL]

That's nothing; you should see some of the other sh*t they get up to.
Doesn't say much for the idiots that keep re-electing these boorish morons.

[TheVat]

Yes, you really saw that: a Senate candidate shoots at the President, the Speaker of the House, and (ulp!) Gabby Giffords husband.  

Not sure you can go much lower than this without hitting magma.

[iNow]

1 hour ago, TheVat said:

Not sure you can go much lower than this without hitting magma.

Think bigger. We’ve been saying this for 5+ years and have been wrong each time.