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Stop trying to blame Russia, blame capitalism. I hate putin as much as you (probably more because I can't live in my own house, or visit my parents, all because of him), but it is your ruling class at fault and not some russian influence. Whatever putin could do is inconsequential compared to the wealth and influence the 20 richest people of your empire.
Your billionaires have decided that trump and fascism is the most beneficial choice for them at present, it is truly that simple. What you are witnessing right now is a natural outcome of a capitalist system, as intended by your racist proto-nazi founding fathers.
- Whatever putin could do is inconsequential compared to the wealth and influence the 20 richest people of your empire.
  Are you suggesting that $20k in Facebook ads didn't decide the result of a $4B election season?
  Sounds like Russian propaganda to me
  
  It can be two things. Read this or anything else about Cambridge Analytica to get a sense of the difference between what they were doing and the same hack political radio ad hour after hour.
  Trump's ties to russia are many and varied, going back forty-plus years. It’s all been documented in Proof of Conspiracy, Mueller found collusion; these are not hypotheticals. It’s a known part of the current befuckdedness.
  Is it the ONLY part? No. But it starts there and it stays there.
  
  Trump’s ties to russia are many and varied
  Trump's ties to the Italian Mafia are stronger. He's a second generation fence and money launderer who made a fortune helping to move money out of Eastern Europe back in the 90s.
  But he's an American creation who worked on behalf of American institutions. That's why he's tied up with Guliani, Bloomberg, Clinton, and Epstein.
  The tunnel vision liberals have with Russia ignores a rich vein of corruption for one of its more salacious and partisan tributaries.
  
  Trump's ties to the Italian Mafia are stronger.
  We're probably splitting hairs, but - what? I haven't heard that before but I've heard a LOT about the russian angle. (we seem to converge on Eastern Europe though)
  
  what? I haven’t heard that before
  It was bigger news back in 2016
  The picture shows that Trump’s career has benefited from a decades-long and largely successful effort to limit and deflect law enforcement investigations into his dealings with top mobsters, organized crime associates, labor fixers, corrupt union leaders, con artists and even a one-time drug trafficker whom Trump retained as the head of his personal helicopter service.
  The Russia connection was minor by comparison, and largely a result of Trump's status as a lynchpin in NY crime.
  
  I think that DCJ piece is good, and clearly ‘mob’ connections are rife, but outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys, there’s not a lot more specific to Italian mafia.
  I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.
  Felix Sater, Michael Cohen, Rybolovlev and others who consistently and repeatedly appear in any honest accounting of his blatantly illegal dealings.
  Unger’s account of infiltration also exposes how Trump’s financial entanglements laid the groundwork for this betrayal. In the 1980s, as Trump struggled with debt from failing casinos and overextended real estate ventures, Soviet-linked financiers appeared, flush with cash.
  Deals involving Trump Tower properties drew in shadowy buyers connected to Russian organized crime and intelligence fronts. Even when Western banks deemed him too risky, new Russian-linked money never seemed to dry up. Each transaction pulled him closer into Moscow’s orbit.
  By the time the Soviet Union collapsed, Russian oligarchs kept the pipeline open, ensuring that Trump’s business empire would survive—and remain beholden to foreign backers whose first loyalty was to the Kremlin. (via)
  So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties. Given that russia is run by mafias-within-mafias that’s not so surprising, is it.
  
  outside of that early-80’s wash of Roy Cohn and the ready-mix concrete guys
  The article goes significantly farther than ready-mix concrete. Trump was in tight with the Gambino family, among other mob affiliates and organizations.
  I read that Giuliani’s ‘cleanup’ of Italian mobsters allowed in the russians which was duly appreciated. Early 80s is the same time the Kremlin started to keep tabs on Trump, giving him a tour and business opportunities then.
  It ties out with a shift in policy from Cold Era Italy being a major bridge between NATO agencies in the West and their informants/operators in the East. Post-collapse, Sicily was old news since you could march your goons directly into St. Petersburg and Moscow to commence the looting.
  But Trump's roll as a money launderer and fixer remains consistent during the transition.
  So while there certainly were ties to Italian mafia, his later business and almost all of his political life is awash in russian mob ties.
  His primary ties were to US and German lenders, with black market business interests using his properties to clean their ill-gotten gains. The flood of money and refugees coming out of Eastern Europe following the post-Soviet crash changed the composition of his criminal clients. His roll in legitimizing the looting through financialization did not.
  
  Cambridge Analytica
  UK group and Facebook profit maximization is not Russia. Blaming the pure establishment corruption of democracy on Russia is just partisan whining for more establishment warmongering.
  
  It could be two things! But it isn't lol
  
  Cambridge Analytica is a good place to start. Previously:
  IT Pro: Cambridge Analytica models were exaggerated and ineffective, [UK Information Commissioner’s Office] claims
  Wall Street Journal: Mueller Doesn’t Find Trump Campaign Conspired With Russia
  Jacobin: Democrats and Mainstream Media Were the Real Kremlin Assets
  Washington Post: FEC fines DNC, Clinton for violating rules in funding Steele dossier
  Washington Post: Russian trolls on Twitter had little influence on 2016 voters
  Jacobin: It Turns Out Hillary Clinton, Not Russian Bots, Lost the 2016 Election
  Matt Taibbi: Move Over, Jayson Blair: Meet Hamilton 68, the New King of Media Fraud The Twitter Files reveal that one of the most common news sources of the Trump era was a scam, making ordinary American political conversations look like Russian spywork
  Jacobin: Why the Twitter Files Are in Fact a Big Deal On the Left, there’s been a temptation to dismiss the revelations about Twitter’s internal censorship system that have emerged from the so-called Twitter Files project. But that would be a mistake: the news is important and the details are alarming.
  MSNBC Repeats Hamilton 68 Lies 279 Times in 11 Minutes
  Matt Taibbi: CIA "Cooked The Intelligence" To Hide That Russia Favored Clinton, Not Trump In 2016
  Aaron Maté: Under Trump, the CIA is still covering up its Russiagate fraud
  Matt Taibbi: Note on New Trump-Russia Disclosures Thanks to explosive new document releases, the Russiagate hoax is now exposed, commencing a new era that will be about accountability for the guilty
  Matt Taibbi: No Doubt Left: Russiagate Was a Cover-Up
  Chris Hedges: Why Russiagate Won’t Go Away The cynical con the Democratic Party and the F.B.I. carried out to falsely portray Donald Trump as a puppet of the Kremlin worked, and continues to work, because it is what those who detest Trump want to believe.
- You are describing an oligarchy, or maybe plutocracy.
  
  Yes, that is correct. And it is also an accurate description of that shithole between Canada and Mexico.
  
  Sorry to say, but the whole world is pretty much fascist. Even the most progressive countries have ever widening income inequality along with the majority of their policies written by corporations.
  
  Both can be true?
  
  I can agree to that.
- Capitalism is a form of authoritarianism. Its anti free market and anti personal freedoms. It uses power to gain more power and control.
- I was with you until last half of the last sentence.
  Racist, sure. “proto-nazi”? Who and why? One example would be great, I don’t understand the connection.
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_exceptionalism + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/White_nationalism_in_the_United_States
  ↓
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_American_genocide_in_the_United_States + https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny
  ↓
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lebensraum
  ↓
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Holocaust
  
  Without having to click links it's basically this; Hitler had a Hardon for American Exceptionalism and shit, Nazis are based on American ideas just taken to the extreme.
  So hence proto as in precursor to the Nazis.
  
  Thanks for the description! When I think ‘founding fathers’ I’m thinking of the literal dudes who wrote and signed the US constitution and the Bill of Rights.
  I didn’t see any connections for the term to that time period in American history.
  
  You mean the guys that literally genocided native peoples? That wrote into the constitution that black people were worth less? That only rich land-owning people should be allowed representation?..
  
  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Washington_and_slavery
  Do you even care to do a bit of research?
- Stop trying to blame Russia
  No.
  blame capitalism.
  We can do both, but one of them has a more defined paper trail.
  
  The notion that your "Trump and the GOP are Russian assets" conspiracy theory has a "more defined paper trail" than the countless volumes of work done by thousands of historians, philosophers, economists, and scientists, going back hundreds of years regarding the depravity of American capitalism is just downright laughable.
  What are you even trying to say here? Are you seriously saying the Russia/Trump connection is more well understood than the pitfalls of American Capitalism?
  If Trump is a Russian asset, why didnt the US pull out of NATO months ago? Why was Trump shipping Jevlins by the truckload to Ukraine at the beginning of the war? Why is Trump's entire schtick that NATO (Russia's primary adversary) needs to increase spending (which it has, in record amounts)?
  If Russia is blamed for Trump’s election, we avoid the unpleasant reality of our failed democratic institutions and decaying empire. We avoid facing the inevitable rise of a Christianised fascism borne out of widespread impoverishment, rage, despair and abandonment. We avoid acknowledging the complicity of the Democratic Party in the orchestration of the largest social inequality in our nation’s history, the evisceration of our basic civil liberties, endless wars and an electoral system bankrolled by the billionaire class, which is legalised bribery. The myth allows us to believe that Democratic politicians, like the establishment Republicans who have joined them, are the guarantors of a democracy they destroyed.
  All the investigations into Trump’s ties with Russia are unequivocal. There was no collusion. The Steele dossier, financed at first by Republican opponents of Trump and later by Hillary Clinton’s campaign, and compiled by former MI6 British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, was a fake. The charges in the dossier — which included reports of Trump receiving a ‘golden shower’ from prostituted women in a Moscow hotel room and claims that Trump and the Kremlin had ties going back five years — were discredited by the FBI. Sources, including the one that claimed Trump had long-held ties to the Kremlin, turned out to be fabricated. Special Counsel Robert S Mueller concluded that his investigation ‘did not establish that members of the Trump Campaign conspired or coordinated with the Russian government in its election interference activities.’ Mueller did not indict or accuse anyone of criminally conspiring with Russia.
  Chris Hedges
  
  We can do both, but one of them has a more defined paper trail.
  Capitalism's trail of blood in your country goes back to its founding. It is incredibly well-defined and has been studied a lot (except they won't tell you about it in school or many universities).
  And if you want a more concrete link between capitalism and trump, look at inauguration footage again, or look at campaign contributions.
  Russia's entire state budget was less than revenue of just Apple in 2024. If your ruling class didn't want trump, he wouldn't be a president right now.
  
  Uh yeah, okay
  
  Exhibit A: USian prompted to interrogate their internalized racism
  
  So, y’all just say whatever comes to mind and pretend it’s a real thing, huh? Cool.
  
  At this point, I can't see any other reason you'd stick to blaming "the russians" for the state of your country. Even if putin has kompromat on trump, putin is not the reason republicans hold all three branches of your government.
  
  Again, it's not just "the russians" but so many of you are jumping out of your seats about it.
  So many of you from .ml that is.
  Curious.
  
  Ah, I see, this is a "just post" community, and you carefully follow the rules by just posting and not actually reading the content you post at any point. Hats off to you.
  
  "You're from the bad instance" lol pathetic
  
  It's because you called out russia. Now the tankies are here to defend them and blame capitalism for everything.
  
  Delusional
  
  Ah there they are.
  
  Americans doing the same fucked up shit americans have always done but at home instead of abroad, or to you instead of the usual minority targets? Call them russians! People correcting you? Call them tankies! You don't need to have a coherent response, you can just hurl pejoratives and thought-terminating cliches at anyone who questions you and feel great about yourself even if you're completely wrong and fantastically fucking stupid!
  
  .ml user defending russia and slinging but USA..lol fuck off tankie.
  
  The NYT found no clear evidence of that though.
  😆
  
  Log off and go read a book kiddo
  
  If your ruling class didn't want trump, he wouldn't be a president right now.
  You're projecting. Maybe YOU can't be nudged towards an ideology by propaganda, but millions of people can. They can be tricked.
  Until you realize that, it's not going to get any better.
  
  The propaganda is coming from inside the imperialist house. Fox isn't owned by some Russian billionaire.

258 comments