Russian Troll Talks
Editor's note: Given the distractions and confusion caused by social media trolls we cannot confirm the authorship of this opinion piece, but we find its analysis interesting and at times insightful.
Zdravstvuj, I am one of those people you read about. We are phantoms to some who think knowledge is stable and real, we know better. First a little history. When the online comment and communications boards began most people had no idea of the power and influence they would eventually create. AOL chat was an early participant as was Yahoo, it was often childish and its format not open to propaganda and idea dissemination. Anyone remember Yahoo answers, it too was occasionally interesting, but the audience wasn't wide enough and we needed better directing and focusing, we needed to target an audience that would believe or even just doubt.
But something else was going on and had been going for a long time. Think Tanks (TT) formed a model for the control of information. RAND and Hudson began after WWII as bases of knowledge and policy, who could have predicated what they would eventually become? How thought itself could be transformed. Propaganda now had a platform, no longer just opinion, no longer on the sidelines, now the Think Tank confirmed whatever it was they were paid to confirm. Agnotology had a sponsor. Smoking bad? Global warming real? Doubt everything. Well not everything only those issues that challenged power.
Today think tanks are tools for the political, economic, and corporate interests - the interests of the monied classes. One could say mind control or people control. The writings and ideas of these TT are used for and by public relations and lobbying groups. Ask yourself, who has time today to read serious journalism when the mediasphere is everywhere and always on? Few do in the wider society. The next step was and is a marriage between Think Tanks and educational programs, breeding ground for idea control and the scholars and students who attended them. The Heritage Foundation, American Enterprise Institute, Heartland Institute, and the Federalist Society stand out. These institutions gave birth to ideologies, free market libertarianism, lower tax policy, big government as the problem. Nationalism ironically became a positive reversing its history. Betsey DeVos for instance is a perfect education secretary, an impotent head of a once important institution.
We can't take credit for creating the Trump partisan, but because they were already primed with an unclear resentment, we were able to exploit that characteristic in many Americans especially white Americans and oddly even religious Americans and Evangelicals. The ground work was done and while it was supported and financed several other developments were required for idea deployment. Ideology adherents were developed and ideas promulgated to colleges. University Chairs were established and programs developed. These are the idea people today who spread the news. Quite obviously there is a historic background for our country too. At first there was the belief that Communism worked a kind of Marxist magic. Some Americans and even scholars believed the propaganda, but it was just that. Statistics made lies real. Some progress was made. After all we launched Sputnik. Media control in our country can be quite harsh but let's not get too complicated after all America and other nations that can be influenced are our work place today. Russian history can be a footnote. Power wants its people compliant and confused and it pays well and keeps us working. The Bible was right concerning money.
Russian trolls: https://www.recode.net/2017/11/2/165...ed-handle-list
The show goes on: https://popular.info/p/trump-ad-cont...ds-on-facebook
Or not: https://www.zdnet.com/article/putin-...rest-of-world/
"The function of law and theology are the same: to keep the poor from taking back by violence what the rich have stolen by cunning." Robert Anton Wilson
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