Also, just fyi

[Joseph Tracy]

First of all. You wildly exaggerate the influence of Russians. These "rallies" were on the order of dozens from what I have read. The memes that have been published are pathetic. Meanwhile there were the facebook facilitated memes personally tailored to the user by Cambridge Analytica on a massive scale. They spread many lies and far more effectively than the Russians.  The emails are Hilary’s own fault and are not lies but the truth exposed of her hypocrisy and condescending snobbery. Meanwhile the US spends billions to influence elections and prop up dictators. We boasted openly of bringing the drunkard shithead Yeltsin to power. We help the Saudis bomb and starve Yemenis who clearly have a legitimate grievance and wide popular support for their attempted revolution against the Saudi approved ruler. The NY Times helped foster a murderous war in Iraq based on CIA propaganda.This was far more deastating to human lives than Russian memes on Facebook. Obama/Hillary approved of an outrageous coup against an elected reformer in Honduras( the poorest and most US compliant state in Central America); a coup opposed by the OAS. The results were a wave of crime by police and Criminal gangs which Hondurans are now fleeing to be met by an ultra militarized America.
 Then we are just shocked and morally outraged that someone else might play this nasty  game.  I fully agree that trying to fuck with somebody else’s democratic processes is an outrage. It is an outrage most exemplified in recent history by the United States. So let’s lead first and foremost by example. Let’s truly stand for free and fair democratic process and a free, diverse press. Let’s stop defending the murderously hypocritical policies of both parties and admit theat the problem is far deeper than Trump. Let’s rein in the deep state and insist on greater trasparency cositet with the Constitution. As Glenn Greenwald said, ‘Trump is America’s Id’. He is the personification of a Greedy Conceited Bully with too much Power.
  The Trump problem is not located in Russia. The Trump problem is right here in America.

> On Jan 6, 2019, at 4:10 AM, Mark Kohut <mark.kohut at gmail.com> wrote:
> 
> The US President is far worse than "a clown", I suggest, to a man who
> believes in the right words used in the right way. (But it may be just a
> Plist throwaway word although I remember when I was judged for the same
> tossed-off verbiage).
> 
> I will send more on Russian interference in the US election of 2016, the
> best work done on it, when I get it together but perhaps the case can
> be made with simple logic.
> 
> Tens of millions, maybe a hundred million Americans were reached, many
> 'influenced' by actions that the Russian hackers did on Facebook, on
> twitter in 2016.
> One hacker trick was to go onto Facebook and schedule a Trump rally, place
> and time, and others would 'join' and build and spread the enthusiasm and
> PRESTO, there would be that rally, with the bot that started it now even
> known about. Who can measure the effect in solidifying minds and bringing
> out the vote?
> 
> (In my state, a group movement to drive a polluting multinational out of
> the County
> rose to thousands faster than I can read and at meetings and rallies,
> almost no one knows who started the group. Natural leaders emerge and
> continue)
> 
> Couple the above with the fact that Trump won with fewer than 100,000 votes
> out of three states, three bot-targeted states. Donald Trump will be
> president thanks to 80,000 people in three states---Wa Po.
> 
> We won't ever know what the Russians made happen at the US polls---and I
> did not even go into anti-Hillary efforts by the Russians, which might have
> kept the low turnout even lower.
> 
> To be so dismissive of the possible Russian effects on these United States,
> leads me to distrust many "political" judgments about the US of those who
> are.
> 
> As TRP said of the guy who argued in that NYC rag that he was J.D.
> Salinger, "I didn't know of this newspaper but we need all the news we can
> get. [Fed his jab at
> the NYT's "All the news that's fit to print" [see *Anniversaries *as
> counter-exemplum] ..."Keep Trying", he urged.
> --
> Pynchon-L: https://waste.org/mailman/listinfo/pynchon-l