The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Dec 11, 2018 6:36 pm

The Russians being everywhere, they also have their tentacles all over this board's many threads.

Russians in France!!!
viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41450&start=15#p667255
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Tue Dec 11, 2018 7:09 pm

Oh, oh, oh, this is GOOD!

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/20 ... ted-corbyn

Foreign Office investigates reports that state-funded body targeted Corbyn

Leaked documents suggest Fife-based company promoted anti-Labour tweets


Peter Walker
Political correspondent

@peterwalker99
Mon 10 Dec 2018 03.22 EST

The Foreign Office minister, Alan Duncan, has ordered an investigation into reports the government provided funding to a Scottish-based company meant to counter online Russian propaganda, which also spread unfavourable views about Jeremy Corbyn.

The Institute for Statecraft, based in Fife, received hundreds of thousands of pounds in Foreign Office money.

According to the Sunday Mail, leaked documents show it tried to promote tweets calling the Labour leader a “useful idiot” who helped the Kremlin cause, and attacked members of his staff.

Speaking on BBC Radio 4’s Today programme, Duncan said he had learned about the allegations at the weekend and ordered an immediate investigation.

“I don’t know the facts but if there is any kind of organisation for which we are paying which is involved in domestic politics in that way, I would totally condemn it, and I have already over the weekend asked for a report to be on my desk by 10 o’clock this morning to say if there is any such activity,” he said.

Asked if this meant anti-Labour attacks by Statecraft must stop, Duncan said: “Not only must it stop, I want to know why on earth it happened in the first place.”

Duncan has previously responded to a parliamentary written question on the subject. His answer showed that in the 2017-18 financial year the Foreign Office funded the Institute for Statecraft’s Integrity Initiative with £296,500. This financial year, the sum was due rise to £1,961,000, the answer said.

According to the report, the body’s programme is supposed to counter Russian disinformation by using “clusters” of journalists and others throughout Europe – with a unit reportedly proposed in Lithuania - using social media to respond.

But its official Twitter feed retweeted anti-Corbyn messages such as the one calling the Labour leader a “useful idiot”. It added: “His open visceral anti-westernism helped the Kremlin cause, as surely as if he had been secretly peddling Westminster tittle-tattle for money.”

Other messages targeted Corbyn’s chief aide, Seumas Milne. The Institute for Statecraft retweeted a newspaper report that said: “Milne is not a spy – that would be beneath him. But what he has done, wittingly or unwittingly, is work with the Kremlin agenda.”

A spokesman for the organisation told the Sunday Mail that he was not aware of the tweets criticising Corbyn. “I’m not the one who controls the Twitter account,” Stephen Dalziel said. “If it was criticism of one of our politicians, then that shouldn’t be on there.”

'Propaganda of privilege': how Labour went to war with the media
Anti-Corbyn rightwing press attacks 'boost Momentum support'


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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:32 am

"Operation Infektion" three part NYT series: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/12/opin ... tions.html

Very interesting Reddit AMA with the "journalists": https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/ ... f_for_the/
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:31 am

Oh, god, for now I can only scan that Reddit AMA without having a seizure. It's so gross. The authors are "John Sipher, a former station chief for the C.I.A., [27 year as covert operations agent in Europe!] and Adam Ellick, director of a NY Times Opinion film 'Operation InfeKtion'..." See, we have resolved the old Mockingbird problem. No more secret CIA agents posing as journalists. Now being CIA is something you put forward proudly as a positive credential for the job of New York Times author.

Check out this question and the 27-year CIA man's answer. I'm serious when I say I get a violent physical reaction to having to read something like the following without being able to respond or literally hit a game show buzzer (as the host) to tell this guy has lost for being such a stupid lying cheater and must leave. It's like it's designed to induce utter helplessness if you happen to know the extremely well-known truth and cannot put it aside. It's feels as if undeniable historical truth were a cherished pet, a kitten, and you are tied down and forced to watch a thug put it into a blender and force you to drink the puree:

[QUESTION] The US government seems to have completely abdicated cyber war, at least in relation to combating disinformation & propaganda, to its citizens! If that previous statement is wrong, what is the government doing to combat this threat; what can we as a citizens do to fight this?
22 days ago

John: It took the U.S. several years to figure out how to deal with the new world of nuclear weapons in the 1950s. We need to come to terms with cyber warfare, cyber defense and cyber deterrence. For example, when can we respond with non-cyber means to a cyber attack?


Why did those Russians invent the bomb?! Why did they drop it on Hiroshima and Nagasaki? Why did they threaten to use it again against us during the Iran crisis of 1946, when they still had a monopoly? Why did they react with such fits of madness once we were able to develop our own bomb, threaten mutual destruction, and stabilize the situation? Those were dark days, before we learned how to deal with the world of nuclear weapons that had been thrust upon us!

Similarly, now: Why did Iran hit itself with Stuxnet, and make the US and Israel brag about having done this themselves? Those devious bastards! Etc. etc. etc.

Why did the Andromedan Galaxy interfere in the Russian shock therapy and privatization of the early 1990s, and then literally run the Russian president's campaign while rigging the election for him in 1996?

So I need to sit here and write all this mainly to calm the agita it gives me. Not good.

The unasked question: When can "WE" engage in first use of cyber or non-cyber attack, unprovoked or not, as "WE" (that's not YOU, by the way) might judge expedient?

Always, man! Always!

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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby American Dream » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:59 am

Irony of ironies, Putin's role as spook is minimized in some sectors of Conspiracylandia. Same principle holds true for the mass torture- and killing- of those interned under Jamil Hassan, head of Syrian Air Force Intelligence.
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Wed Dec 12, 2018 12:15 pm

American Dream » Wed Dec 12, 2018 10:59 am wrote:Irony of ironies, Putin's role as spy chief is minimized in some sectors of Conspiracylandia. Same principle holds true for the mass torture- and killing- of those interned under the regime of Assad and Jamil Hassan, head of Syrian Air Force Intelligence.


Empirically, one observes: Non-sequitur, generic response. Use of broad slur aimed at no one but with implication it might fit someone or anyone here other than the speaker. Repetition of at least one fact that everyone knows (Putin was a spy chief?! Really?) as if someone has denied or "minimized" it by anything said here. No hint of specific relevance to the discussion so far or to the topic being discussed. No move to suggest to whom or what this is being addressed.

Analytically, one concludes: Contempt for all other participants. Implication that discussion of Western intelligence operations or propaganda or sociocultural panics must always include some disclaimer about Putin. Desiring pretty much the situation of the 1950s Red Scare, when one could not say "I favor puppies" unless it was prefaced it with, "I hate Communists, but..." Just another disruption by a known bad actor.

Sorry, mods, it is unfortunate that we were at least given a one-month vacation from this guy but it was then cut short. Why raise and disappoint everyone's expectations like that?

(It is also unfortunate, given how much interesting material this guy actually does archive here, that he is such an insufferable user, apparently determined to make any board activity other than his own posts extremely unpleasant, until only his own posts are left.)

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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby American Dream » Wed Dec 12, 2018 12:25 pm

Difference of opinion is still allowed around here.

I'll let your own sketchy thinking speak for itself- and let it go at that.

JackRiddler » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:15 am wrote:
Analytically, one concludes: Contempt for all other participants. Implication that discussion of Western intelligence operations or propaganda or sociocultural panics must always include some disclaimer about Putin. Desiring pretty much the situation of the 1950s Red Scare, when one could not say "I favor puppies" unless it was prefaced it with, "I hate Communists, but..." Just another disruption by a known bad actor.

Sorry, mods, it is unfortunate that we were at least given a one-month vacation from this guy but it was then cut short. Why raise and disappoint everyone's expectations like that?
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Wed Dec 12, 2018 12:40 pm

American Dream » Wed Dec 12, 2018 11:25 am wrote:Difference of opinion is still allowed around here.

I'll let your own sketchy thinking speak for itself- and let it go at that.




Actually, not every opinion is allowed. Your tiresome schtick of insinuating everyone who posts anything other than your own shit is a fascist, or a Russian sock-puppet, or a Sputnik fellow traveler, or a duped useful idiot, relies on the fact that not every opinion is allowed on RI. You often quote the RI rules to that effect.

What wasn't allowed, and what led to the gift of your recent banishment, was not an opinion but a form of harrassment that you practice. A perpetual, low-level harrassment, punctuated by occasional naked outbreaks. Sadly, the banishment was commuted for some incomprehensible reason, so that you are back to disrupt this thread.

.
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Fri Dec 14, 2018 8:19 pm

Aaron Maté again ties the latest (Cohen, Butina, Manafort) together into an increasingly compelling picture: plenty of Trump Org crimes, very little #Russiagate, a lot of xenophobia and Cold War propaganda. (Little focus on the great ongoing crimes of the present government, but of course that would be unprecedented and probably un-American.)

Meanwhile, a new non-Russian front opens with the investigation of Trump Org's plunder of the Trump inauguration fund, run by Ivanka. The reality manages to be both pedestrian and beyond-crazy at the same time. The family and their circles engaged in the business model they've always pursued, through several generations, scamming their way into cash so as to make it disappear into their own pockets, often ripping off or betraying even their business partners. Lying preferred, a kind of sport or zen. Until 2016 it was done always with impunity and chutzpah. I understand that those who win a rigged game get stupid, but going into the White House did not cause them to adjust at all. It's like it didn't even occur to them. They just kept doing it.

As the threads are converging I will cross-post this also in "Real Manafort" where it is equally relevant. (I'll leave it out of "Maria Butina," though I did a response there much in the same vein as AM, except that his is better.)

https://www.thenation.com/article/russi ... ler-trump/

www.thenation.com

Don’t Let Russophobia Warp the Facts on Russiagate
By Aaron Maté

14 December 2018 5:12 pm

Despite the media hoopla, Mueller’s latest filings do not bring us any closer to proving the long-sought Trump-Russia conspiracy.

Over the course of the Russia investigation, the procession of key associates “flipping” on Donald Trump has raised expectations that special counsel Robert Mueller would turn up proof of collusion. In just a few weeks, a flurry of activity by Mueller has brought these cases to their final act, and the prevailing media reaction leaves the impression that they lived up to the hype. Mueller’s latest court filings include “potentially devastating new information about Trump’s ties to Moscow,” writes James Risen of The Intercept. This makes it “reasonable to conclude that Mueller does, indeed, believe he can prove that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russian government,” Adam Davidson reckons in The New Yorker.

But Mueller has not issued any charges, provided any evidence, or made any collusion allegations. If there does exist a case, Mueller hasn’t revealed it yet. For all of the excitement, what has been disclosed in the cases of Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort, and Michael Flynn does not bring us any closer to the long-sought Trump-Russia conspiracy.

The sentencing of Cohen to three years in prison has made the most waves. All but two months of Cohen’s prison term are for corruption crimes unrelated to the Russia probe: tax fraud on his personal income, and campaign-finance violations on Trump’s behalf. Federal prosecutors in New York appear to be building a strong case that Trump helped coordinate illegal hush payments to two women in order to benefit his 2016 campaign. Andrew McCarthy, a former US attorney who frequently backs Trump, says that the president “is very likely to be indicted.” With American Media Inc., the publisher of the National Enquirer, also reaching a cooperation deal, prosecutors have locked up additional witnesses to implicate Trump in the scheme.

Compare that to what Mueller has extracted from Cohen in the Russia probe. Mueller’s filing on Cohen details a 2015 contact with an Olympic weightlifter who promised “political synergy,” with the Russian government, but whose overture Cohen ultimately “did not follow up on.” We also learn of a 2015 discussion inside the Trump Organization for a proposed Trump-Putin meeting that “ultimately did not take place.”

The only Russia-related criminal activity comes in Cohen’s lies to Congress about the effort to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, a failure that never got beyond a letter of intent. This is why Mueller portrays the development as entirely prospective, and in the conditional tense. The tower, he states:

was a lucrative business opportunity that sought, and likely required, the assistance of the Russian government. If the project was completed, the Company could have received hundreds of millions of dollars from Russian sources in licensing fees and other revenues [emphasis added].

The only Kremlin “assistance” that we know of comes in a January 2016 phone call between Cohen and a Kremlin assistant. According to Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov, his aide informed Cohen that the “Presidential Administration doesn’t build houses, and if [the Trump Organization] want[s] to invest in Russia that we will be happy to see them at St Petersburg Economic Forum,” an annual gathering held months later.

What is also noteworthy about Cohen’s perjury conviction is the congressional testimony that Mueller does not allege to be false. Mueller does not claim that Cohen lied to Congress when he told them in September 2017: “I never saw anything—not a hint of anything—that demonstrated [Trump’s] involvement in Russian interference in our election or any form of Russian collusion.” Nor is Cohen accused of lying in claiming that he has never even visited Prague. That undercuts a core assertion of the Steele dossier, a set of largely unverified intelligence reports from former British spy Christopher Steele.

That Cohen was indicted for lying about a failed deal, but not for testifying that he never witnessed “any form of Russian collusion,” should raise doubts that he has given Mueller anything on collusion. Mueller’s statement that Cohen gave “useful information concerning certain discrete Russia-related matters core” to the Russia probe does not change that. The ambiguous wording could be interpreted either way—that information is deemed “useful” does not tell us whether it is incriminating, exonerating, or neither.

Mueller’s Manafort filing identifies the former Trump campaign manager’s alleged “crimes and lies” since agreeing to a plea deal in September. The document is heavily redacted, so a full picture is incomplete. Everything that Mueller does make public is devoid of collusion, in keeping with Manafort’s case to date. None of Manafort’s charges—those he was convicted of in his first trial, and those he pled guilty to in order to avoid a second trial—concern the Trump campaign or collusion with Russia. Manafort’s legal woes instead pertain to bank and tax fraud, as well as unregistered foreign lobbying, stemming from his political work in Ukraine, and to subsequent obstruction charges after Mueller’s initial indictment.

The only mention of a Russian in Mueller’s new filing comes in the accusation that Manafort lied about his contacts with business associate Konstantin Kilimnik. Mueller has previously asserted, without publicly offering evidence or specificity, that Kilimnik has “ties to Russian intelligence” that were “active” during the 2016 campaign. But to date, Mueller has only identified Kilimnik as material to cases related to Manafort’s Ukraine lobbying work, and accused him of witness tampering in those cases.

It is has been suggested that Mueller and Kilimnik’s dealings in Ukraine could somehow link them to a plot with the Kremlin. That theory is undermined by a glaring irony: When it comes to his work in Ukraine, Manafort, as former Fusion GPS researcher Graham Stack writes, was convicted for “doing the opposite of colluding with Russia.” In Ukraine, Manafort pushed a pro-Western agenda. I have noted this overlooked aspect of Manafort’s record in The Nation, and Mueller has provided substantial corroboration. Internal documents released by Mueller make clear that Manafort tried to steer his client, then–Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, to align with the European Union and away from Russia, or, in Manafort’s own words, promote “the key geopolitical messaging of how ‘Europe and the U.S. should not risk losing Ukraine to Russia.’”

As with Mueller’s filing on Manafort, the sentencing memo in Flynn’s case redacts key details. Mueller hails Flynn’s “substantial assistance” in a criminal investigation unrelated to the Russia probe, quite likely lobbying activities related to Turkey. When it comes to Russia, Mueller only specifically mentions Flynn’s provision of “firsthand information” about the transition period in late 2016 and early 2017. Not only does that period come after the campaign, the story of Flynn’s offenses is well known. Flynn pleaded guilty to lying to FBI agents about his contacts with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak. Flynn misled investigators by denying details of his efforts to convince Kislyak to not respond harshly to US sanctions and to vote against a UN Security Council measure critical of Israel.

In a new filing, Flynn’s attorneys suggest that overzealous FBI investigators entrapped him by encouraging him to speak to them without a lawyer and failing to warn him about making misstatements. Regardless, nothing incriminating has emerged from the recorded calls he was questioned about. As The Washington Post reported at the time, FBI agents who “reviewed” the Kislyak wiretaps had “not found any evidence of wrongdoing or illicit ties to the Russian government.” Had Flynn engaged in any type of “quid pro quo” or even treason with the Russian government, as has widely been suspected, Mueller surely would have indicted him for it, rather than charging him with a process crime and recommending no time behind bars.

Flynn, Cohen, and Manafort are among the 14 Trump associates tallied up by The Washington Post who “interacted” with Russian nationals “over the course of Donald Trump’s 18-month campaign for the presidency.” To the former US ambassador to Russia, Michael McFaul, the contacts are “extremely unusual.” But as the Post itself acknowledges, Mueller “has not yet shown that any of the dozens of interactions between people in Trump’s orbit and Russians resulted in any specific coordination between his presidential campaign and Russia.”

It is perhaps unusual then that merely having contact with a Russian passport holder is deemed suspect. A stark illustration of that xenophobic mentality has come with the newly resolved prosecution of Russian pro-gun activist and graduate student Maria Butina.

Since her arrest in July, Butina has been portrayed as a Russian spy, and possibly even a covert Kremlin link to Trump, the Republican Party, and the NRA. It turns out that none of this is the case. After spending most of the past five months in solitary confinement, Butina agreed to plead guilty to one count of conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent. As her plea document details, she openly tried to make political connections to members of the GOP and NRA at public events and private dinners in the hopes of establishing backdoor channels of communication. She did so at the behest of Alexander Torshin, who until recently served as deputy of the Central Bank of Russia. Butina was also aware that Torshin “sometimes acted in consultation with” his Central Bank superiors and officials at the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. That is the extent of her Russian government ties.

Retracting an earlier claim, prosecutors now acknowledge that Butina had a genuine “interest in a graduate school education” in the United States. They have also abandoned contentions that she worked with Russian intelligence agencies, and that she was only using her boyfriend, Paul Erickson, to meet other influential Americans. Most critically, prosecutors have withdrawn a claim that led to misogynist media portrayals of Butina as a Russian “honeypot” who offered “sex for power.” The falsehood was based on their misinterpretation of Butina’s joking text messages—humor that the judge in the case said was obvious within “five minutes” of scrutiny.

Prosecutors, The New York Times reports, now “[face] questions about their initial portrayal of Ms. Butina as something like a character out of ‘Red Sparrow,’ the spy thriller about a Russian femme fatale.” The plea deal, the Times adds, “was likely to provide her defenders with new fodder to argue that her activities look sinister only to those who see the world through the outdated lens of the Cold War.” Comparing the actual facts in the Trump-Russia investigation to how they are being recklessly portrayed, it seems Butina’s is not the only case where a Cold War lens is warping our view.
Last edited by JackRiddler on Sat Dec 15, 2018 8:49 am, edited 2 times in total.
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Sat Dec 15, 2018 1:06 am

So here's a koan: how should we relate to Sputnik's coverage of newly FOIA-ed MK Ultra docs? Some very bizarro stuff about electric fish and remote controlled dogs at the link.

New Docs Reveal Extent of CIA's Grotesque Mind Control Experiments

Earlier this year, the CIA marked the 65th anniversary of the launch of Project MKULTRA, a secret program which engaged in mind control experiments on people. Now, thanks to new documents released under the Freedom of Information Act, the public has a chance to learn just how far those carrying out the gruesome experiments were willing to go.

For many decades, the CIA tried to prevent documents related to Project MKULTRA from being released. However, late last week, John Greenewald Jr., founder of The Black Vault, a website specializing in declassified government records, released new documents said to detail the bizarre extent of the project's experimentation on both people and animals.

The files, added to a trove of materials meticulously collected by Greenewald over the course of over two decades, detail experimentation on controlling the minds of human beings and dogs using psychotropic drugs, hypnosis, surgically-implanted electrical shock devices and radio waves.

The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) logo is displayed in the lobby of CIA Headquarters in Langley, Virginia, on August 14, 2008
© AFP 2018 / SAUL LOEB
A Legacy of Drugs, Torture and Mind Control: Project MKULTRA's 65th Anniversary
Earlier this year, Canadian family members of Project MKULTRA survivors said they were planning to file a class-action lawsuit against the Canadian government and possibly McGill University over their role in the program, which was known to have used paralytic drugs, shock therapy, LSD, medically-induced comas, and exposure to repetitive messages for days on end in research aimed at reprogramming the psyche and, possibly, 'cracking' enemy spies through forced confessions.
However, according to 800 pages-worth of never-before-seen documents published by The Black Vault late last week, Project MKULTRA's 'research' went much further. The documents show, for example, that the project included elaborate experimentation on 'remote-controlled dogs', who were surgically implanted with devices which sent electrical signals to their brains to control their movement at distances for up to 200 yards. "The specific aim of the research program was to examine the possibility of controlling the behavior of a dog, in an open field, by means of remotely triggering electrical stimulation of the brain," one document explains.

Excerpt from document on MKUltra experimentation on dogs.
© CIA / http://WWW.THEBLACKVAULT.COM/
Excerpt from document on MKUltra experimentation on dogs.
The research on dogs was said to have followed up similar experimentation on rats. Discussions were also held on using cats for spy mission field work, as well as elaborate research on the possibility of using "electric fishes" for the "underwater detection, location and identification of objects."

CIA research on using 'electric fishes'.
© CIA / http://WWW.THEBLACKVAULT.COM/
CIA research on using 'electric fishes'.
Another of the documents revealed new details on the use of experimental mind control drugs on unwilling human beings, suggesting experimenting with the use of such drugs on inmates in prison hospitals and drugging suspected criminals awaiting trial.

Excerpt from letter on the use of induced amnesia.
© CIA / http://WWW.THEBLACKVAULT.COM/
Excerpt from letter on the use of induced amnesia.
Yet another document details experimentation with hypnotic speaking techniques to enable mind control over "large audiences."

Excerpt from letter on the use of hypnosis.
© CIA / http://WWW.THEBLACKVAULT.COM/
Excerpt from letter on the use of hypnosis.
Human brain
CC0
July 20, 1977: CIA Mind Control Project MKUltra Docs Released for First Time
The MKULTRA program, which engaged in experiments on unwitting US and Canadian test subjects, was started in the early 1950s, gradually curtailed starting in the mid-1960s, and reported to have been shut down entirely in 1973.
If the new documents presented by The Black Vault are verified, they will serve historians in helping to understand some of the even more grotesque aspects of a CIA project which already has a very dark history.

https://sputniknews.com/us/201812091070 ... -new-docs/
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby MacCruiskeen » Sat Dec 15, 2018 4:22 pm

liminalOyster » Sat Dec 15, 2018 12:06 am wrote:So here's a koan: how should we relate to Sputnik's coverage of newly FOIA-ed MK Ultra docs? ...


By judging it on its merits, i.e, in the exact same way we should relate to any other coverage of any issue by any writer or speaker in any medium. Is the story well-documented, soundly argued, not reliant on appeals to authority/ guilt by association / strawmanning / rumourmongering/ gish galloping / or any other rhetorical ruses and errors of basic logic? Is it well-sourced, so that readers can check out for themselves the veracity of the claims made? Or are the authors mere stenographers to power, entirely reliant on Mr Sources-Say?

So it ain't no koan. Reason won't lead us astray here. On the contrary, it's the only thing that'll help us.

Also essential to acknowledge is that the truth or falsehood of a claim is independent of its possible usefulness to any govt, foreign or domestic. MKULTRA and countless other CIA crimes are already proven and well documented. If new evidence of that organisation's terrible destructiveness has arrived and been conscientiously reported in Sputnik or Granma or The Lockerbie Gazette or anywhere else, let's welcome it after exercising due diligence. Especially when the Western mass media very likely either won't report it at all or won't report it conscientiously.


New Docs Reveal Extent of CIA's Grotesque Mind Control Experiments

...

https://sputniknews.com/us/201812091070 ... -new-docs/
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby liminalOyster » Sat Dec 15, 2018 5:19 pm

MacCruiskeen » Sat Dec 15, 2018 4:22 pm wrote:
liminalOyster » Sat Dec 15, 2018 12:06 am wrote:So here's a koan: how should we relate to Sputnik's coverage of newly FOIA-ed MK Ultra docs? ...


By judging it on its merits, i.e, in the exact same way we should relate to any other coverage of any issue by any writer or speaker in any medium. Is the story well-documented, soundly argued, not reliant on appeals to authority/ guilt by association / strawmanning / rumourmongering/ gish galloping / or any other rhetorical ruses and errors of basic logic? Is it well-sourced, so that readers can check out for themselves the veracity of the claims made? Or are the authors mere stenographers to power, entirely reliant on Mr Sources-Say?

So it ain't no koan. Reason won't lead us astray here. On the contrary, it's the only thing that'll help us.

Also essential to acknowledge is that the truth or falsehood of a claim is independent of its possible usefulness to any govt, foreign or domestic. MKULTRA and countless other CIA crimes are already proven and well documented. If new evidence of that organisation's terrible destructiveness has arrived and been conscientiously reported in Sputnik or Granma or The Lockerbie Gazette or anywhere else, let's welcome it after exercising due diligence. Especially when the Western mass media very likely either won't report it at all or won't report it conscientiously.




Well yes of course. It's not *actually* a koan; I meant to predict the neg ramifications of the current paradigm which some are gleefully willing to embrace or endure. ie Mueller's a hero and the entire history of the CIA becomes, ala Jack's comments re the Reddit AMA, plausibly deniable ne plausibly re-attributable. Indeed, why did the KGB use academic fronts to conduct abominable experiments on unwitting human subject for all those years?
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Sun Dec 16, 2018 7:57 pm

Impressive work investigating the British intel services disinfo op targeting Russia, Corbyn and others, the "Integrity Initiative."

viewtopic.php?f=8&t=41459
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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Dec 17, 2018 12:43 pm

.

Has Russia Infiltrated Rigorous Intuition?

:shock2: :shock2: :shock2: :ohwh :ohwh :ohwh :starz: :starz: :starz: :shock: :shock: :shock:

(why don't we have a :brrrrrrrrr: emoji?)

Sorry, I meant to say, HOW BADLY Has Russia Infiltrated Rigorous Intuition?

I didn't mean to question the premise that it HAS, or to imply that there is any answer other than YES, which only a Conspiracy Theorist and Trump supporter would do.

So it's time we asked!

I was reminded to do so just now, after reading about how making fun of #Russiagate is exactly what...

RUSSIANS DO!!!

How comes it that some people here DENY RussiaRussiaRussia?!

Maybe I'm one of THEM!

It's time for me to come clean!

Full disclosure: In my life, I have MET SEVERAL RUSSIANS.

In fact, one of my greatest failed love affairs began at an old Berlin venue known as the... Russian Disco! A known hang-out for RUSSIANS. Including Russian women who might be called hot, like Maria Butina, who may have seduced all of America into voting Trump.

Now the woman I'm talking about wasn't Russian, but she could have been!!!

I remember on that night the venue was projecting footage from 1950s American newsreels as part of an ambient show that, in its implications, among other things, made U.S. politicians look really dumb! Why were those Russians in the Russian Disco playing OUR newsreels?

And do you know who the Russian president was, that very night already? I don't have to tell you!11!!1!

:brrrrrrrrrrrrrrr:

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

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Re: The Russian Conspiracy as RI subject

Postby JackRiddler » Mon Dec 17, 2018 8:26 pm

.

There's a new think-tank in town!

They wrote a whole new report that just rips open the awesome size of that Russian meddling! It's probably even BIGGER than the Facebook ads! It must be, because it was on NPR all day today, any time you tuned in.

Watch out, everyone!

NEW KNOWLEDGE
"a reliable disinformation solution"

https://www.newknowledge.com/our-company

By 2016 we'd developed the disinformation protection tools to track disinformation operations in real time, and were the first organization outside the US intelligence community to identify Russia's campaign to influence the US presidential election. As the information war escalated, we believed it was our responsibility to provide a reliable disinformation solution to national security agencies and corporations.

We formed New Knowledge to defend public discourse.



Hey, they were the first! The very, very first, right after the US intelligence community spoke, they were there. And they're on the OUTSIDE of that, see?

And it's such a cool name. So much less boring than "Internet Research Agency" or "Integrity Initiative." Yawn, you Old Empires!

Leadership Team

Jonathon Morgan
CEO, CO-FOUNDER
Jonathon has spent the past 12 years building new technologies and digital products. He's also published research with the Brookings Institution, served as a Special Advisor to the State Department, and leads Data for Democracy, a volunteer collective of 3,700 data scientists and technologists.


Ryan Fox
COO, CO-FOUNDER
Ryan spent 15 years at the NSA championing next-generation SIGINT solutions, driven to support national security interests. Prior to his civilian roles as a Counter Terrorism Fellow and NSA Representative European SIGINT partners, he served under U.S. Joint Special Operation Command (JSOC), as a CNO Analyst for the U.S. Army.


Renee DiResta
DIRECTOR OF RESEARCH
Renee has a decade of experience in technological, marketing, and business capacities in a variety of industries including supply chain logistics, venture capital, and derivatives trading. She has served as an advisor to the State Department, Congress, and other state and federal government institutions concerned with the spread of disinformation and propaganda. She is the Head of Policy at Data for Democracy.


Okay, see? They're all just ADVISORS to the State Department. I mean, except for the guy who's been in the NSA and the military all his life. The rest of these people are ADVISORS, okay?!

What else?

What's this "Data for Democracy"?

Jeez, this is like those proverbial Chinese boxes, or dare I say it... Babuschka dolls!

https://www.datafordemocracy.org/

(Follow the links to see the shared web design.)

With good data, we can do great things
Data for Democracy is a worldwide community of passionate volunteers working together to promote trust and understanding in data and technology.

JOIN US


This thing is totally the anarcho disruptive liberation, man, they don't have leaders, they have "Featured volunteers."

Wait, if you keep scrolling, under those profiles they do add some corporate officers, sorry, "Our team."

And here's Jonathan, again!

https://www.datafordemocracy.org/about-us

Our team

JONATHON MORGAN
Executive Director

Jonathon is the founder of Data for Democracy, the nonprofit arm of New Knowledge, a technology company that provides disinformation defense to brands and national security customers, where he’s also the founder and CEO. Prior to founding New Knowledge, Jonathon published research about extremist groups manipulating social media with the Brookings Institution, The Atlantic, and the Washington Post, presented at NATO's Center of Excellence for Defense Against Terrorism, the United States Institute for Peace, and the African Union.

Jonathon also served as an adviser to the US State Department, developing strategies for digital counter-terrorism. He regularly provides expert commentary about online disinformation for publications such as NYT, NBC, NPR, and Wired, and has published op-eds about information warfare and computational propaganda for CNN, The Guardian, and VICE.

Location: Austin, TX, USA
Find Jonathon @jonathonmorgan


RENÉE DIRESTA
Head of Policy

Renée has a decade of experience in technological, marketing, and business capacities in a variety of industries including supply chain logistics, venture capital, and derivatives trading. She has served as an advisor to the State Department, Congress, and other state and federal government institutions concerned with the spread of disinformation and propaganda.


Location: Bay Area, CA, USA
Find Renée @noupside


MAUREEN "MO" JOHNSON
Project Lead, Global Data Ethics Project

Mo is a passionate roadtripper, an exuberant mountain biker and an accidental interdisciplinarian. She graduated with with a master’s degree in archaeology, and then found a job ordering biochemistry research supplies at a hospital in her hometown in Texas. One day, she read a book on malaria and became fascinated by modern day culture and disease. This led her to work in infectious disease research where she credits her research mentor with cultivating her global perspective on ethics and social justice. With his encouragement, she moved from her public-health policy and community work in Texas to Lima, Peru, where she worked as in-field coordinator for a pilot research project that sought to understand neurological development of children living in extreme poverty.

If you are interested in disrupting unquestioned cultural norms in lighthearted and fun ways, ask her about her Unpredict project.

Location: El Cerrito, California, USA
Find Mo @moridesamoped


DAVID MORAR
Policy Manager

David is originally from Romania and recently received his PhD from George Mason University Schar School of Policy and Government. He is excited to work on issues at the confluence of democracy, ethics, data science, information policy, trust, law, and tech policy. Before coming to D4D, David was a two-time Google Policy Fellow (once with Global Network Initiative and before that with the Internet Education Foundation), and a Research Fellow with the Future of Privacy Forum. Dr. Morar is a (Non-Resident) Research Fellow with the Center for Law Science and Innovation at ASU Law, a member of the Executive Committee of the American Political Science Association’s Information Technology and Politics Section, and a stand-up comedian. David Morar was also a member of the Policy Council of the Association for Public Policy Analysis and Management, and a child star in Romania.

Location: Washington, D.C., USA
Find David @morar


Gosh, David does stand up comedy, and @moridesamoped when she isn't curing poverty and malaria, okay, but otherwise they are all so HEAVY.

Can't we add a hippie beard, please?


ASTRID COUNTEE
Head of Community

Astrid is an anthropologist by training, and technologist by choice with a background in research, data analysis, and web development. Astrid likes reading real books, playing with her four dogs, wandering around museums, and making noise with her keyboard and guitar.

Location: Houston, TX, USA
Find Astrid @ianthro


Yay! Community!

By the way, I love the honest prose:

Renée "has served as an advisor to the State Department, Congress, and other state and federal government institutions concerned with the spread of disinformation and propaganda."

That they are. That they are.

By the way, for the moment, "unpredict project" leads back to that page as the sole hit on Google. So you WILL have to ask her, for now.

.
We meet at the borders of our being, we dream something of each others reality. - Harvey of R.I.

To Justice my maker from on high did incline:
I am by virtue of its might divine,
The highest Wisdom and the first Love.

TopSecret WallSt. Iraq & more
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