Opinion – How a Putin Fan Overseas Pushed Pro-Trump Propaganda to America – Mike McIntire – NYT

The NYT leads with an alarming story about the UK’s Patriot News Agency, run by James Dowson, a far-right political activist. The article reports that ‘With the explicit aim of getting Donald J. Trump elected, a website run by a far-right activist pumped out anti-Hillary Clinton hoaxes and drew tens of thousands of views’.

With more and more young people turning to social media as their primary source of news and false news on Facebook now at critical levels, the NYT’s story is deeply worrying.

Whilst propaganda and disinformation is not new, the weakness and biased positions of the mainstream media plus the growth of social media is a strategic threat to mature democracies. Just like the far-left, the far-right suppress the truth and underlying evidence, claiming that ‘the end justifies the means‘. But history reminds us that populism is ultimately a tool of corrupt dictators, who prefer totalitarian regimes depriving widely accepted democratic freedoms.

Thoughts?

Opinion – U.S. Officials: Putin Personally Involved in U.S. Election Hack – NBC News

English: Vladimir Putin

English: Vladimir Putin (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

I tend to agree with Dr Alf, Vladimir Putin is indeed more fleet of foot than most world leaders and he had cause not to like the Neocons and those in America who want to see Russia and China encircled and then dismembered in a 3rd World War.

Not liking someone or certain Western politicians is one thing but sitting in a darkened room and discrediting their electoral process to get the candidate you desire into office is to credit Vladimir Putin with powers that he does not possess.

The CFR chose Hillary Clinton as their favoured candidate three years ago and those who run it did everything in their power to create the outcome they wanted. Because in 2008, these same people caused the banking crisis and the mortgage foreclosure crisis that followed and were the same people who enthusiastically embraced the rise of China and of offshoring jobs, there were too many people left behind economically versus a few who doubled their money beyond the dreams of avarice.

Donald Trump mobilised about two million of these people, some of whom had never voted or voted in the past 20 years and by so doing created the margin for popular victory.

There was no need for Obama to have taken the supine position that he did with regard to Muslims but this vain and capricious man did so all of his own volition and all without any help from the man the West likes to demonise, Vladimir Putin.

We all remember the fairy stories of our childhood, particularly the one called Peter and the Wolf, the CIA and its spokespeople plus those who want us to believe that the moon is made of cream cheese have been crying “wolf” too often and are attributing powers to Vladimir Putin that he does not possess. They wish to demonise him to the point where people clamour for his destruction and for a major war so we should look dispassionately for evidence of culpability by Vladimir Putin before believing anything they say or write.

Even then we need to be wary because of all the previous lies “Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction”, the “Gulf of Tonkin ” incident which led to the Vietnam War and which later we discovered never happened representing just two in a very long list of falsehoods peddled in my lifetime.

John Gelmini