Gryzemuis on 13/12/2019 at 20:39
Quote Posted by Starker
Do you really think this isn't a huge win for Putin?
No. Brexit and the UK elections have very little to do with Russia or Putin.
FYI, we're not at war with Russia.
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The dissolution of NATO and the EU are very high on his priority list.
Says who ? What he probably wants most, is that all his neighboring countries do not join Nato and the EU. Can't blame him for that.
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It doesn't make a lick of difference whether IRA is run by "a russian guy" who just happens to be one of the wealthy oligarchs in Putin's inner circle
That's true. But at the same time, it means IRA doesn't have the full support of the Russian state. Let's compare this to the NSA. The NSA is there to spy. But not spy on US citizens. Then who are they spying on ? How are they trying to use technology to the US's advantage ? What are they doing regarding corporate espionage ? How are they influencing foreign countries ?
I know this sounds like WhatAboutIsm. But you can't blame the Russian for spying, when the NSA has 40.000 employees and a budget of 10-20 BILLION dollars to spy on everybody else.
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As for US election hacking, just read the Mueller Report -- the GRU absolutely did hack state databases and got access to voter rolls. While there was no evidence of any votes being changed,
That is what I said.
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there's a lot of other things you can do with such information. Such as highly targeted messaging and voter suppression for the opponent and whatnot. Guess what Lord Dampnut's campaign did the last month of the election? They focused on voter suppression in some very select swing states.
Maybe you are confused about Cambridge Analytics ? A US/UK endeavour that did exactly what you are talking about now. With support from Trump and the Republicans. Something that is proven to have happened. But nobody talks anymore about how Trump, the Republicans, Facebook and the British tried to impact the US elections. And succeeded. No, let's mention the Russians again. They're probably the reason Brits voted for Brexit and Johnson too.
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Furthermore, I would wager that DNC cloud servers being hacked and their e-mails strategically being released to maximise the impact (the first batch just hours after the Hollywood Access tape became public) had at least some effect on the election.
It was Trump who asked for it. It were the Americans (right-wing media) that published about it. But most of all, it were the Democrat politicians that did the things they did, and said the things they said (like fucking over Bernie), that gave the Democrats a very negative image. So yeah, Russians were involved. But all the players in this story were Americans.
Again, the Russians are not my friends. And they are not my enemy. I'm sure they spy on other countries, like every other country does. I doubt they do it at the same scale as the US or China. Because the US and China have much bigger budgets. Again, I doubt their efforts at impacting public opinion had much success. They didn't need that anyway, because Americans are fully capable of fucking over themselves and their own country. I'm the last person on the planet to vote for Trump or the Republicans. But the whole situation in the US is to be blamed on Americans. Not Russians.
It's not like Americans are these friendly lovely-dovely good-doing fine-christian hippies. Who got tricked by those evil Russians to vote for the bad Russian puppet. If they'd knew, they would never have done that ! Oh no. They wish peace and prosperity on everybody, inside or outside the US.
In reality, the majority of Americans are selfish, materialistic, shallow, ignorant, xenophobe, belligerent, gun-loving, scared, conservative hypocrites. Not all of them, just the majority. That's the reason why the US has a selfish, materialistic, shallow, ignorant, xenophobe, belligerent, gun-loving, scared, conservative President in office.
heywood on 13/12/2019 at 23:17
Quote Posted by caffeinatedzombeh
Who though? They'd have to have a significant enough portion of the population wanting to leave to ask them a question that could have that sort of long term consequence, have enough people who when asked would actually do it and be in a position where leaving is actually possible.
I've no idea whether anyone is in a position of wanting to but relatively few are in a position of being capable.
Denmark, Sweden, Hungary, Poland, Czech republic, Bulgaria, Romania, Croatia certainly all could by not being in the Euro
Which Eurozone members could I'm not sure as I'm too lazy to look up actual target2 balances and compare them against something meaningful to make a semi educated guess (I'm unlazy enough to dig out a graph though but with a scale graduated in €100bn it's hard to judge the actual positions of those near 0), Italy for example owes everyone else (Germany) ~€0.5tn if they decide to leave so even if they wanted to they couldn't.
Various people have compared the way the euro works to a ticking time bomb. I'd liken it more to a landmine that they're all stood on, it's fine as long as nobody tries to get off.
I think there's two different exit circumstances to consider. The first is a member state with a right populist government, who are not in the Euro zone, and leave for reasons of nationalism, immigration, etc. The Czech Republic is a potential case. The second circumstance to consider is a Euro zone member who suffers badly in the next recession and leaves for fiscal reasons. If this does happen, whoever exits the Euro is almost certainly going default on their Euro debt, so I don't think the TARGET2 balances are going to stop anyone. Sovereign defaults are very common. The prospect of defaulting on their Euro debt might even be a carrot for some.
The Greeks came awfully close in 2015, but they were in a very dire situation and desperately needed credit that would not have been available if they left the Euro. Italy has an important economy and they are a major net exporter, so they could probably reintroduce the lira without getting into a death spiral of hyperinflation. It just comes down to whether a country feels like the pain of leaving the Euro is worse than the pain of living under fiscal limits i.e. austerity in a recession.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
It's not just the Americans. Media in my own country have also been publishing bullshit stories trying to paint the Russians as the new enemies. It's almost as if someone would like to start a new Cold War.
What do you mean, start? We are in a Cold War right now. Putin restarted it back in 2007/2008 and it's been on ever since.
Starker on 13/12/2019 at 23:36
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
No. Brexit and the UK elections have very little to do with Russia or Putin.
FYI, we're not at war with Russia.
FYI, you might not be, but Russia certainly is. Assassinations, information warfare, channeling money to causes that undermine Western democracy... the cold war is on again, whether you like it or not.
Anything that damages the West is a win for Putin. Brexit and US elections are undoubtedly some of the biggest ones and it looks like Ukraine is going to be as well.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
Says who ? What he probably wants most, is that all his neighboring countries do not join Nato and the EU. Can't blame him for that.
Yeah, neighbouring countries like Montenegro. Right next to Russia. That is, where Putin would like the border to be. And I wonder why there has been such a rush by the former friendly Soviet republics to all get as far away from Russia as possible. Couldn't have anything to do with history, could it?
Also, appeasement has proven to work out so well in history. If only we gave Putin what he wanted we could secure peace for our time, is it?
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
That's true. But at the same time, it means IRA doesn't have the full support of the Russian state. Let's compare this to the NSA. The NSA is there to spy. But not spy on US citizens. Then who are they spying on ? How are they trying to use technology to the US's advantage ? What are they doing regarding corporate espionage ? How are they influencing foreign countries ?
I know this sounds like WhatAboutIsm. But you can't blame the Russian for spying, when the NSA has 40.000 employees and a budget of 10-20 BILLION dollars to spy on everybody else.
On second thought, let's not compare two completely different things, shall we? Russia has plenty of intelligence agencies to throw full state support behind.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
That is what I said.
You said no such thing has happened. The hacking part definitely happened and was widespread. And I don't remember anyone seriously claiming that they changed the results of the vote. Not here on the forum nor in any mainstream reporting.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
Maybe you are confused about Cambridge Analytics ? A US/UK endeavour that did exactly what you are talking about now. With support from Trump and the Republicans. Something that is proven to have happened. But nobody talks anymore about how Trump, the Republicans, Facebook and the British tried to impact the US elections. And succeeded. No, let's mention the Russians again. They're probably the reason Brits voted for Brexit and Johnson too.
No, I'm not confused about Cambridge Analytica, the pet project of Steve Bannon and the Mercers that used Russian researchers and shared their data with companies and people linked to the FSB.
But you can bet Russia got plenty more information by hacking into the DNC and various other targets, including election offices and voting machine manufacturers, not to mention things like Lord Dampnut's campaign chairman sharing polling data with a former GRU guy. And given Russia's active interference in the US election, it would be naive to think that they then just sat on it.
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
Again, the Russians are not my friends. And they are not my enemy. I'm sure they spy on other countries, like every other country does. I doubt they do it at the same scale as the US or China. Because the US and China have much bigger budgets. Again, I doubt their efforts at impacting public opinion had much success. They didn't need that anyway, because Americans are fully capable of fucking over themselves and their own country. I'm the last person on the planet to vote for Trump or the Republicans. But the whole situation in the US is to be blamed on Americans. Not Russians.
No, Russians are not your enemy, but the Russian state is doing everything it can to undermine the West by funneling dirty money whereever they can to corrupt people, by funding far-right parties, by spreading misinformation and propaganda, by using every dirty trick in the book and plenty outside it.
Nicker on 14/12/2019 at 02:28
Quote Posted by Vae
Given that Nicker is a staunch believer of Russia conspiracy theories, sadly, he is not joking.
Decentralization, is not the work of Putin...it is the inevitable progression of humanity, due to the nature of technological advancement.
Still pretending that Trump is not Putin's pawn?
Putin didn't need to do anything this time around in the UK. He just reaped the fruit of his previous work in the referendum. The more monkey wrenches he throws into western democracies, the better his short term prospects. It's not a subtle plan, though it is apparently too subtle for some folks around here.
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No. Brexit and the UK elections have very little to do with Russia or Putin. FYI, we're not at war with Russia.
The UK is presently not in a hot war with Russia. Too soon for that. Fracturing NATO and splitting the EU is enough for now. Divide and conquer. It's pretty obvious.
Gray on 14/12/2019 at 02:48
Quote Posted by heywood
this is a sad day for the European Union
AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Nonononononononononononono....!
:whimpers:
...no....
Damn it, we got the fat lying cheating bastard incompetent asshole posh buffoon twat. Dammit! DAMMIT!
On one hand, I would say a country gets the government it deserves. If the voters are morons, they deserve to be punished by a horrible government. But on the other, this general election was about so much more than that. Now we might get a horrible Brexit, one so bad I may actually have to up sticks and restart my life YET AGAIN in another country, which is NOT an easy thing to do with a chronic illness. I am too bloody tired to restart everything yet again from zero, and I'd be separated from my new family. Fuck you, Boris, and all the clueless morons who you tricked into voting for you directly against their own interest. This is not a case of just simply shooting yourself in the foot, this is taking your time to aim properly to make sure that you absolutely can't miss shooting your balls off.
I am so angry now I'm very likely to punch myself in the face, but then again, I'm SO angry the sheer frustration itself would probably make me miss. Good job there.
As I predicted months ago, any progress by Boris would feed exactly into the hands of the SNP, and might eventually lead to the breakup of the united kingdoms. Scotland is so pissed off with Boris and Brexit that it's almost boiling over already. And if Scotland leaves, it doesn't take that much imagination to think that Northern Ireland might be next. Wales? Also getting increasingly plausible. And then what's left? The United Kingdom of England?
Gryzemuis on 14/12/2019 at 12:12
I think you are all exaggerating about the threat of Russia. Yes, they spy and they hack. So does everyone else. But the impact they have on western societies is minimal. That's what I'm trying to say here. Even the impact on the US is minimal. It's basically negligible, compared to what Americans are doing themselves.
When you keep complaining about the "foreign threat" you are just using old fascist tactics. Diverge attention from the real issues, and try to make everyone focus on an imaginary enemy. If the US people have an enemy, it is individuals who are Americans themselves (the Republican politicians, the 0.1%, the military-industrial complex, etc). Not foreigners. If you keep yelling "Russians" at every corner, you are basically nothing more than just another troll trying to influence political discussion, by creating confusion. You are doing yourselves what you accuse the Russians of doing. Probably without even realizing. We are discussing the UK elections in this thread. Bringing up "ze russians" in this thread is a prime example of such clueless trolling.
I was already in my twenties when the Soviet Union fell. I remember the Cold War. I remember the propaganda and the fear-mongering. I remember the madness of Mutual Assured Destruction. I remember how the constant threat of a (nuclear) war was always present. I don't want that back. I don't think we need to be scared of Russia. If there is something to be scared about, it's China. How China is a ran by a repressive dictatorship. How they get better and better at repression. And how their economical power is a threat to our wellfare. And how nobody in the West dares to say something about that, because someone might makes less profit if they do.
The Russians have nothing, besides oil.
So back to the UK elections.
It's sad that when the majority of the Brits wanted Brexit, all political parties (besides the Tories) decided to ignore that fact. They all insisted that their voters must follow them in their no-Brexit opinion. The result is that if British voters wanted to emphasize that they really wanted Brexit, they had no other choice than to vote for the Tories. So now we have a situation when Brexit will happen (I think that's fine), but as a side-effect, the Tories have a large majority in parliament for the next 4 years (and I think that's really terrible). Labour, the LibDems and the others have all brought this upon themselves, by ignoring the wishes of the majority of Brits. Even the majority of their own voters.
If the UK will do worse economically in the next 4-10 years, it might be because of Brexit. But it could also be that Brexit has nothing to do with it, and the worse economy will be caused just by 4 years of extreme Tory-politics.
Nameless Voice on 14/12/2019 at 12:28
Quote Posted by Gray
As I predicted months ago, any progress by Boris would feed exactly into the hands of the SNP, and might eventually lead to the breakup of the united kingdoms. Scotland is so pissed off with Boris and Brexit that it's almost boiling over already. And if Scotland leaves, it doesn't take that much imagination to think that Northern Ireland might be next. Wales? Also getting increasingly plausible. And then what's left? The United Kingdom of England?
Well, what would be so bad about that?
The political system in England is clearly so far different from that in Scotland that the differences seem irreconcilable.
I'm generally not a fan of nationalism, but when it's a choice between that or being ruled by what is basically a foreign government in Westminster that doesn't share any of your values? Seems like independence is the lesser evil for Scotland.
Though I wonder if Northern Ireland might have their border poll first? Mainly because they can actually do it if Stormont votes for it, whereas the Scottish can't leave without the approval of Westminster, which they will do anything to avoid giving.
No idea if that border poll would pass. I'd imagine that the equivalent in the Republic almost certainly would.
Gryzemuis on 14/12/2019 at 12:40
Quote Posted by Gray
Now we might get a horrible Brexit, one so bad I may actually have to up sticks and restart my life YET AGAIN in another country, which is NOT an easy thing to do with a chronic illness.
What makes you think the UK will throw you out of the country ? I don't think that will happen. Ever. Just like EU-countries have already stated that they won't kick Brits out of their country after Brexit.
I've lived and worked in another EU country, before the EU really opened their borders. That was no issue at all. And even more extreme, my dad worked in that same country somewhere in the mid-sixties. And my mother and me (as a baby) lived there to. That was decades before the EU opened the borders. People act as if there was no migration before 2002 or before 1994. There was. You might need to get a visa. And get a stamp on it every year. But no way the UK or EU are gonna throw people out. (Heck we have thousands and thousands of refugees in NL, per year, who turn out to not be refugees, and need to leave the country. Almost none of them do leave. And our police and immigration services are unable to evict most of them. I don't think the UK will spend any effort trying to get you out of the country).
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Fuck you, Boris, and all the clueless morons who you tricked into voting for you directly against their own interest. This is not a case of just simply shooting yourself in the foot, this is taking your time to aim properly to make sure that you absolutely can't miss shooting your balls off.
The other parties are just as much to blame. By refusing to accept Brexit, they gave voters no choice but to vote for Boris, if they thought Brexit was the number 1 priority.
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As I predicted months ago, any progress by Boris would feed exactly into the hands of the SNP, and might eventually lead to the breakup of the united kingdoms. Scotland is so pissed off with Boris and Brexit that it's almost boiling over already. And if Scotland leaves, it doesn't take that much imagination to think that Northern Ireland might be next. Wales? Also getting increasingly plausible. And then what's left? The United Kingdom of England?
I don't know much about the situation in Scotland. But you had a referendum just 5 years ago. They can't do another one soon, can they ? Just like the UK couldn't do another referendum on Brexit during the last few years. (People in the know probably knew that another Brexit-referendum would only confirm the first one). Scotland has a population of 5.4 million people. Isn't that a bit small to be independent ? Flanders has more people (6.4m). Catalunia has more people (7.5m). Is Scotland going to survive on oil-income alone ? That's not gonna last long (if renewable energy really takes off). I'm always in favor of small-scale everything. Small companies, small organizations, small countries. Bring the power closer to the people. So that's why I am opposed to a EU with 500 million people, and all economical, military, financial and other power concentrated in one city, and a handful of people. But on the other extreme, 5.4m people is maybe not enough reason to split off from the UK.
I kinda understand why Catalunia wants to separate from the fascists in Madrid. But why does Scotland want to separate from the UK ? Are they really oppressed ? Are they held back by London ? Do they think the oil-income will make them (much) richer if they keep it for themselves ? Scots speak the same language as Londoners (unlike people in Flanders/Wallonia, or Catalunia/Spain). Or do they want to leave, just because they think they can ?
Starker on 14/12/2019 at 12:50
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
I think you are all exaggerating about the threat of Russia. Yes, they spy and they hack. So does everyone else. But the impact they have on western societies is minimal. That's what I'm trying to say here. Even the impact on the US is minimal. It's basically negligible, compared to what Americans are doing themselves.
Yes, they spy and they hack and they interfere in elections and they fund extremists and assassinate people all over Europe and they send their mercenaries into conflict zones and they invade sovereign countries and they ally themselves with countries hostile to the West. No big deal, right? Just ignore it, because they are not the sole cause of US problems, right?
Quote Posted by Gryzemuis
When you keep complaining about the "foreign threat" you are just using old fascist tactics. Diverge attention from the real issues, and try to make everyone focus on an imaginary enemy. If the US people have an enemy, it is individuals who are Americans themselves (the Republican politicians, the 0.1%, the military-industrial complex, etc). Not foreigners. If you keep yelling "Russians" at every corner, you are basically nothing more than just another troll trying to influence political discussion, by creating confusion. You are doing yourselves what you accuse the Russians of doing. Probably without even realizing. We are discussing the UK elections in this thread. Bringing up "ze russians" in this thread is a prime example of such clueless trolling.
And when you keep downplaying the seriousness of Russian interference in the West, it's a prime example of being a Russia apologist. There nothing imaginary about Russia trying to undermine Western democracies and nothing fascist about pointing it out. And it was you who went on a lengthy tirade on a very brief comment someone made.
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I was already in my twenties when the Soviet Union fell. I remember the Cold War. I remember the propaganda and the fear-mongering. I remember the madness of Mutual Assured Destruction. I remember how the constant threat of a (nuclear) war was always present. I don't want that back. I don't think we need to be scared of Russia. If there is something to be scared about, it's China. How China is a ran by a repressive dictatorship. How they get better and better at repression. And how their economical power is a threat to our wellfare. And how nobody in the West dares to say something about that, because someone might makes less profit if they do.
The Russians have nothing, besides oil.
I was living in the Soviet Union when the Soviet Union fell. I remember the Soviet regime. I remember the propaganda and the fear-mongering and the constant surveillance and the persecution of dissidents. And I see every day that very little has changed.
Also, it's not happenstance that Russia is putting all their eggs in the richest, most destructive industry on Earth instead of liberalising their economy. And a not an insignificant part of that is because they can use it as a weapon.
Also, yes, China is not a country anyone should turn a blind eye to either and neither should people ignore the human rights abuses going on there just to make a quick buck.
