Albeit with dread, I try to check breaking news stories every day. Today: Wham Wham Wham! Three different stories, any one of which would frighten and fill us with dread and gloom.
[ol]
[li] Russia may have the most extensive programs of cyber-warfare on the planet. Their systems of Advanced Persistent Threats are robust because they have multiple teams developing independent attacks. [/li][li] Alexander Solzhenitsyn lived in Vermont for 18 years. The 18 years included Sanders’ entire terms as Mayor of Vermont’s largest city, and several years of Sanders’ terms as Congressman-at-large. Yet Sanders never once met with the Nobel Prize-winning dissident. Sanders wasn’t a Russiaphobe during this period: He honeymooned in the Soviet Union.[/li][li] We’re on the verge of a major extinction of insects.[/li][/ol]
My comments:
(1) Google “apt-ecosystem” to see why this is in the headlines again. This comes at a time when Moscow Mitch is deliberately shutting down U.S. anti-cyberwarfare efforts. With Putin’s puppet poised to win another 4-year term, Russia will be “punching far above its weight” on the world stage. Unlike the U.S., Estonia is concerned about Russia and has placed a (pdf) report on-line. Given Russia’s cyber attacks and American media and GOP politicians play right into their hands, we may predict that Russia will be the dominant influence on U.S. electoral outcomes for the near future.
(2) I care not a whit about Sanders nor his honeymoon. Of course I’ll strongly support him if he’s the only chance to defeat Trump. But the facts emerging make it almost impossible that he can win. His only chance, in fact, is if Putin decides Bernie Paralysis would lead to a U.S. even weaker than under Trump; but I think Putin will prefer to keep his puppet in charge. The GOP and Putin will be cooperating closely to win this election; most Americans won’t care.
(3) I’ve warned of this in many of the Climate Change threads and been ignored or laughed at. Loss of biodiversity, including insect extinctions, is a bigger problem than climate change. Climate change is one cause of the on-going ecological catastrophe, but habitat destruction and use of chemicals like pesticides may be even bigger problems. Here’s an article about why you should care and what you can do to help.
#3 isn’t news. Everyone and their grandma knows we gotta “Save The Honeybees !!!1!” thanks to endless Facebook memes and shit. Humans have been killing off species since forever; remember the passenger pigeon? Yeah, me neither. Cuz they’re gone. Finally, insects are at the wide base of the pyramid-shaped food web.
Put all that together, and it stands to reason that eliminating vast swaths of habitat -> extinction of food chain foundations -> less or no food going up that chain. I’m not saying this one isn’t bad news … I’m just saying it’s not really “news” in the sense of being a breaking story.
#2 I can’t even parse this one, let alone figure out why it’s a dire prediction of calamity. Some dude never met the mayor of his town. Okay. Who the fuck is whats-his-name and why should I give half of a rat’s ass? I never met my mayor, either; do I get a Nobel prize for that?
#1 The Russkies have been a dire threat to us all (!!!1!) since back when old fart Boomers were little kids. I’m not saying this one isn’t bad news, but it’s not describing a direct threat to my existence, or even an indirect threat to my existence. Just a chain of potential events that could lead to eventual global political … um, bad stuff. Kinda like every other Tuesday. Not a dire prediction of calamity, just everyday geopolitical pissing contests while everyone else continues going about their lives.
Look, OP, haters gotta hate, and Chickens gotta Little. But you’re clucking in alarm and not even because you believe the sky is falling. It’s like crying “wolf!” except in alarmed tones you’re crying “medium sized stone!” and expecting me to react with similar alarm.
2, We’re supposed to be stunned that one of the Soviet Union’s greatest dissidents didn’t want to meet with a politician who has publicly admired much of the old Soviet Union, so much so that he chose to honeymoon there? Are you also surprised that Moon Landing conspiracy theorists don’t like talking to Buzz Aldrin after Buzz publicly struck one of them in the face? No shit the guy who wrote The Gulag Archipelago might not want to talk to one of Communism’s bigger American cheerleaders.
The insect death is troublesome. Albeit is it due to anthropogenic climate change, or due to habitat loss through rain forest deforestation?
Russians do malware fairly well. They may not be able to build computers or integrated circuits, but they aren’t slouches at programming them.
You’re supposed to be concerned that “Bernie Sanders” and “Soviet Union” keep getting mentioned in the same breath by the media. The context doesn’t matter: with repetition, the eventual subconscious association will drive some voters away from Sanders - meaning that if he becomes the democratic candidate, he’ll have a harder time beating Trump.
You don’t get it - Putin has incentive to support BOTH Trump and Sanders. If Trump winds Putin wins (again). If Sanders wins the resulting exploding heads among the far right and the resulting dissension in government will more or less paralyze the US… again, win for Putin.
The last thing Putin wants is an effective US president who can get things done and improve/strengthen/secure the US for real… whether he can put Trump back in or an ineffective Democrat doesn’t matter, just so long as the US can be kept bumbling along like a blinded, hobbled mule.
You write “You don’t get it” and then repeat almost word-for-word the points I was making. :rolleyes: (With the difference being that Putin WILL support Trump — he’s going to win anyway, and they want him in debt.)
Again, that’s exactly the point I was making.
Undecided voters have never heard of Solzhenitsyn; the factoid was just the “straw on camel’s back” that made me finally realize that Sanders’ chance of victory in November is about zero.
(BTW, do we know whether Sanders ever sought a meeting with Solzhenitsyn, or vice versa?)
He’s a Communist, Machine. He was a Communist sympathizer when he visited the Soviet Union, and little from him since has caused me to change that assessment. Just read what he’s said previously, leading up to his recent comments on Cuba in that CNN town hall. https://www.politico.com/news/2020/02/24/bernie-sanders-cuban-revolution-117279
I’m not concerned about the media’s depiction of Sanders at all. If anything, they’re throwing him softballs. Jeez, can you imagine how the media would have treated him if he ran for President in the 80s? Not even that severe; can you imagine if they covered him with the same vitriol with which they cover Trump?
So given that Sanders is an admitted Socialist, and probably a Marxist, the idea that one could be surprised that of the ex-Soviet Union’s most conservative dissidents and intellectuals (As this 2001 New Yorker piece shows: Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn Takes Issue with Putin’s Russia | The New Yorker) didn’t go out of his way to meet Bernie Sanders, isn’t just strange. It’s hilarious.