Oct. 7, 2016 - The Day We Learned and Forgot Russia Was Attacking Us

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

James Clapper of the CIA and U.S. intelligence agencies announce that Russia is taking active measures to interfere with our Presidential elections.

https://www.yahoo.com/news/64-hours-october-one-weekend-blew-rules-american-politics-2-162827162.html

It was Friday, October 7, 2016. There was a rapid series of news dumps that day that changed the course of our Presidential Election, and our country.

If corporate (for profit) news outlets based reporting on the gravity of events rather than a story's public appeal, the top story that day would have been that US intelligence agencies announced that Russia was actively messing with our election. Media manipulations by powerful people behind the scenes took place in the hours that followed the announcement, burying the biggest news story in a decade. Who was behind the release of that shocking Access Hollywood tape that stole our attention?

The video was located by an Access Hollywood producer and turned over to NBC, who held onto it for a period of time. Somehow it was subsequently leaked to the Washington Post who published it. NBC published it minutes later. But how it got released isn't important, other to say that it wasn't released to NBC by the Hillary campaign. The public reaction to Donald Trumps debasing comments about woman was loud and immediate.*

Then, an hour after it was published, the first of the Podesta emails were released These emails that had been stolen by Russian based hackers and the content was used to strategically selected emails for release that maximize damage to the Hillary campaign. The Podesta email release blunted the impact of the Access Hollywood tapes. Both stories dominated the news for days. The two stories combined completely eclipsed the Russia story. And so the biggest story in a decade, That our democracy was currently under attack by Russia, got buried and erased from our collective conscious until after the election.

(Editors Note: Paragraph three above was re-written. It originally implied that no one knows who released the tape. The edited version above clarifies that the unidentified leak was to the Washington Post. Access Hollywood did give the information to  NBC prior to the Washington Post getting a confidential or anonymous copy. 1:35pm 10/10/17) 

It Has A Name: FASCISM

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

Fascism: A political philosophy, movement, or regime that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition. - Merriam-Webster

[NOTE: This was written well before the January 6h insurrection to overturn the 2020 election. Donald Trump lost that election and is out of office, but not out of power with his party. The governor of Florida, Ron Desantis, is an alternative candidate for the Presidency in the event Trump doesn't or can't run again for office. It is uncanny how the descriptions below fit both men equally. The fascist movement in this country is advancing. - Brian T. Lynch, 8/29/22]


It's time to call a duck a duck. Putin's Russia is a fascist state.

While scholars may debate what fascism is, we all know it when we see it, or so we think. We have been slow to see it in Russia. Perhaps the shadow of communism in the former Soviet Union is blinding us to what Russia has become, a totalitarian fascist regime.

Correctly applying that label to Russia is important to understanding our own national politics and the growing swirl of suspicious connections between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin. The most direct links, so far, appear to be a network of contacts between a shady collection of Trump's operatives and shadowy Russian oligarchs. Whether or not Russia influenced our elections as alleged, this web of contacts by crony capitalists and intermediaries is just what one would expect between two fascist authoritarian leaders. Yes! Trump's political movement in America has a name. Fascism!

Growing income inequality, the insurgence of the political right here and abroad, rising nationalism, the vilification of differences (racial, religious, ethnic, etc.), the ascension of an authoritarian leader in the U.S., and the confluence of billionaire capitalists bent on undermining democratic institutions for self-gain are unmistakable signs that fascism is reemerging in the 21st century.

A few words about fascism may be necessary since the term has been muddled, perhaps intentionally so. In general, it is an authoritarian form of government empowered by a multi-class nationalistic populism and a power-sharing alliance with the wealthy elite. Fascism may take different forms as it metastasizes, but it is always built on three legs: A ruthless authoritarian leader, an extremely nationalistic base and a loyal cadre of uber-wealthy crony capitalists. The goal of fascism is always the same, to optimize power and prosperity for the fittest members of society, as defined by those aligned with their leader. [For more information on fascism, see My Guide to Recognize Fascism ]

Without this understanding, it is difficult to grasp the transnational collaborations we see surfacing, not just between some conservative billionaires in the West and Russia but also between them and other rich oligarchs the world over. Without understanding fascism, it is impossible to grasp the national transition undermining our own democracy. It is impossible to grasp the extent to which fascism has already infected our democracy.

With or without Russia's help, Donald Trump won the election without the popular vote through every available method used to rig elections. These included voter suppression measures in all their forms, traditional precinct dirty tricks, exploitation of electronic and mail-in voting, publication of hacked DNC emails, an FBI email investigation dust-up days before the election, and the latest in mass marketing methods funded by billionaire campaign supporters. But it also included something new, the latest in "cognitive warfare" technology. These are essentially internet mind control techniques unleashed on us by Cambridge Analytica, a political propaganda company employed by Donald Trump during the 2016 campaign. (See Propaganda in the Digital Age - Mind Control on a Massive Scale)

All of this activity requires coordination among highly loyal followers, the kind of coordination that the Alt-right's alternative media machines and crony capitalists' connections can accomplish. And it requires the kind of loyal followers who know what Donald Trump will do for them when in power regardless of what he says to get there.

Does all this seem too incredible to believe?

Good! We should all be skeptical about what we read on the internet and what messages are issued from the halls of power. So in keeping with my Data-Driven Viewpoints theme, let's conduct a rigorous, scientific-style thought experiment to test my hypothesis.
The hypothesis is that: Donald Trump is the leader of an American fascist movement.

Experimental methods aim to disprove the hypothesis by proving the opposite to be true. This thought experiment must therefore prove the opposite by showing that Trump does not do what fascist dictators do. Here there is space for readers to pick their most important markers of fascist dictators. There are many such lists to help you choose fascist characteristics.  Select the characteristics most convincing to you and state them as their opposite. Wikipedia offers helpful lists under their definition of fascism page. So, for example, characteristic on one of the lists, entry #4 reads:

#4. Anti-equality: Fascism loathes the principles of economic equality and disdains equality between immigrant and citizen. Some forms of fascism extend the fight against equality into other areas: Gender, sexual, minority or religious rights, for example.

To state this in its opposite form, the null hypothesis is that: Donald Trump and his administration will:

·         Assure all immigrants are afforded the same rights and due process as U.S. citizens

·         Respect and enforce the civil rights of members of the LGBT community

·         Respect  and enforce the civil rights of ethnic and racial minorities

·         Guarantee freedom of religion and civil liberty for all religious groups, including Jews, Muslims, and other religious minorities in America.

We can now count up all the qualifying future incidences where this proves true or false. Let's try one more example from a different list of fascist characteristics. This list contains the following point:

"Disagreement Is Treason" – Fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action, as well as out of fear that such analysis will expose the contradictions embodied in a syncretistic faith.

[Note: The word syncretistic used here means the merging of different ideological strains to assert an underlying unity that may or may not exist.]

The null hypothesis to prove might read:

Donald Trump and his administration will: Encourage intellectual discourse from diverse stakeholders to critically examine and analyze legislative and policy options best suited for the common good. 

Or this: 

Donald Trump and his supporters will: Express appreciation for those who may disagree with him).

The point here is to keep looking for signs that President Trump, his administration, and his supporters are not acting like fascists. Be as objective as possible and take a fairly large sample over the next several months. Once you have your own results, you can decide for yourself if my hypothesis is true. If you accept the description of fascism but reject the null hypothesis, then the conclusion is that Trump's MAGA movement is a fascist movement. 

Propaganda in the Digital Age - Mind Control on a Massive Scale

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

"World War III will be a guerrilla information war with no division between military and civilian participation." - Marshall McLahun

 I noticed it during the 2016 election. My Twitter and Facebook accounts were awash in anti-Hillary comments. Many comments seemed to piggy-back on my own reservations about her. Other comments were wildly inaccurate and mean-spirited.

I was a Bernie supporter and not happy with the way the DNC and Democratic leadership conducted the primaries. Still, Hillary Clinton seemed the better choice in my view.

When anti-Hillary tweets and messages mirrored my concerns I sometimes "liked" the comments or added my own to support of my views. But then there were many outrageously false anti-Hillary claims. I mostly ignored these, but sometimes took issue. This often lead to debate with some implacable troll on social media. I engaged them not to change their minds (impossible), but to make sure others would be exposed to a reasonable set of facts.

During these internet encounters I noticed a lot of respondents chiming in with "likes" or retweets  supporting the opposition side. The longer the debate, the greater the number of these silent opposition supporters. sometimes as many as 20 or 30 different accounts, Some mute retweeters even continued to piled on days after the conversation ended, and they latched on to randomly stupid or statements made by the original Hillary hater.

That's when I realized something unusual was happening. I assumed these respondents were part of a coordinated system of trolls. I didn't know I was experiencing a technically advanced propaganda attack.  I managed to resist the feeling that the consensus was against me, but did start to wonder if I was talking to myself.

After the election, all these feverish Twitter and Facebook respondents suddenly disappeared. Did anyone else notice that?

Only now am I beginning to learn the full horror of this new cyber based propaganda.

Many of us think of propaganda we think of what spies call "active measures" like dropping fliers from airplanes, broadcasting news on Radio Free Europe, writing op-ed pieces under pseudonyms or stealing and releasing classified documents to publically embarrass adversaries. The Russian connection to the DNC email hacks and subsequent Wikileaks publication appears to be of this sort. It seems a little high tech because the theft was by hacking, but at its root it old style propaganda.  And media attention to it only serves to distraction us to the whole new world of electronic propaganda unleashed during the election.  New, covertly developed, military grade propaganda techniques were used by private corporations, and perhaps foreign actors, to tip our election results on a scale never seen before. The internet was weaponized against us.

COGNITIVE WARFARE:  Cognitive warfare is a toolbox of cyber propaganda techniques that both models mass populations and profiles individuals to change their beliefs or attitudes. It has many aspects and methods that utilize super-computers, massive databases and sophisticated computer algorithms to weaponize information gathered from our digital footprints to use against us.  Some techniques model and manipulate whole societies to bring about social change while other techniques profile and manipulate individuals or groups to alter a person's attitudes and behavior.  These methods go by names such as  Bio-psycho-social profiling, Recoding (of mass consciousness), Strategic drowning (of mainstream media content, for example), micro-targeted propaganda, etc. These propaganda techniques can be highly effective and operate on an emotional level without our specific awareness.

So where to begin? The amount of information needed to fully explain the new propaganda is way beyond the scope of this blog post. It is honestly beyond the scope of my own understanding at this point as well. This article can only serve as an introduction to the topic. At the conclusion I will point you to several lengthy articles that go into more detail.

ALGORITHMS: To understand the basics of cognitive warfare methods we must start with computer algorithms. These are sets of computer code instructions that allow a computer to analyze huge amounts of data and automatically make complex decisions for further action based on their continuous analysis. Algorithms can be simple or mind-bendingly complex, as their use in modern day financial trading illustrates. In the area of financial investments algorithms monitor the markets and social media sites (like Twitter, to see what's trending) and then make split-second decisions on buying and selling stocks. It is estimated that over 70% of all stock trades are computer generated transactions.

But algorithms are ubiquitous in social media as well. From Google's search engine to Twitter's suggestions as to who to follow, algorithms have become our window on the world. As such they have an enormous impact on our outlook. Each of us who searches a term on Google may receive different information in a different order, depending on our digital footprint on the internet. This impacts our thinking. Robert Epstein, of the American Institute for Behavioral Research and Technology says,".. these personalized results impact our opinions and behavioral patterns without our awareness." Of Google he writes, "We are talking about the most powerful mind-control machine ever invented in the history of the human race. And people don't even notice it."

There is much more we need to know about these algorithms running in the background of the cyber world, but for our purposes here it is sufficient to know that a knowledge of them and how to manipulate and exploit them is the basis on which cognitive warfare operates.

BIO-PSYCHO-SOCIAL PROFILING:  When I type "Daily Record" into my iPhone search, my local newspaper site come up. Years ago this wasn't the case. I would get a newspaper with that name in Scotland. We don't think much about the convenience built into our media systems that allows computers to make assumptions about us. These assumptions are based on our digital profile, where we live, where we are presently located, what we have looked up in the past and other such personal information kept in a database about us somewhere. This is the friendly face of social profiling.

Advances in data storage and retrieval systems, sophisticated algorithms, and methods to analyze and manage massive amounts of data allow media platforms to develop comprehensive profiles on us. This allows them to deliver the content we most want to see. Formerly, the level of detail was based on some grouping we fit into, but increasingly it is based on who we are as individuals. This has been  a boon to commercial marketing but it has a very powerful dark side as well.

In the case of Facebook profiles, for example, scientists found that profiles can be correlated across millions of people to produce remarkably accurate individual profiles. When results are combined with data generated by the "like" button people click on approve certain content, the individual profile gets ever more perfect. With just 150 "likes"  our profile can predict personality better than our own spouses can, and with 300 likes it knows a person better they know themselves.

Of this profiling data, Paul-Olivier Dehaye, a Swiss mathematician, said, "People just don't understand the power of this data and how it can be used against them." This level of understand our personality allows those in control of our profiles to send micro-targeted messages to us that subtlety manipulate our feelings and the association with which our emotions are evoked.  For example, if a person is on the fence over how to vote in an election, the people behind the propaganda machines know this about you and can custom tailor messages to that will influence you to vote one way or the other. This technique is called micro-targeted propaganda. There is evidence that this type of propaganda was used in the 2016 election to help elect Donald Trump.

STRATEGIC DROWNING:  This is another tool in the Cognitive Warfare arsenal used to influence public discourse and alter our mass consciousness. While bio-psycho-social profiling targets individuals, this technique targets certain segments of the population or even the whole population at once. The idea behind this technique it to flood the cyber-media network with specific alternative messages that drown out conventional news and information. It exploits the algorithms used by media platforms that bring desired content to us. So, for example, if you type "Jews are" into Google search, it will return answers like, "Why do people hate Jews" I just did the experiment as I write this and the picture below shows the top results.

[EDITORS NOTE 7/15/2017: Following the election the example below no longer holds true if you try it today. The alternative medial narrative emphasis has shifted to other areas of focus, such as Islamic jihadists and sharia law as an alternative to Russia's election tampering and Trump Administration investigations. For a more contemporary example google: "Sarsour is" and then "Linda Sarsour" to see how strategic drowning has altered the search results.]

  Clearly these are unexpected results for most people who might enter the search terms. (Try it yourself, and don't be surprised if your results differ from mine based on your profile.) The result over-represent hate groups and the proliferation of these results are the work of nefarious operators who flood the "media ecosystem." 

Cyber media would normally be dominated by conventional information sources such as The New York Times, Fox News, MSNBC etc., but these sources are swamped with hundreds of thousands of links from much smaller alternative information sites. These links to alternative information are intended to exploit the structure of Google secret algorithms to bring these articles to the top of the search results. This has a psychological impact on us personally and gives a false impression about public consensus in America. It blurs the question as to what is really true.

The operational structure for strategic drowning includes a coordinated network of alternative information websites, referred to as micro-propaganda machines, or MPM's. Each MPM controls a vast warehouse of "bots" which are bogus Facebook and Twitter accounts, etc. These fake accounts exist by the hundreds of thousands. Some are always active to drive public dialogue while some are "sleeper bots." These are held in reserve and triggered en mass by propagandists to overwhelm news cycles or cover up information unfavorable to their goals. It is also used to create trends and alter public discourse, or change public attitudes.  

A picture is worth a thousand words. Jonathan Albright is an assistant professor of communications at Elon University in North Carolina. He analyzed the activity of these MPM's during the 2016 election and was able to create "spatial map" of that activity. The picture created shows the relative dominance of traditional information sources in the media ecosystem, as he calls it, and the impact on that system by MPM's during the election.  The red nodes are alternative information (propaganda) websites and the red lines radiating from them are links or activity of these sites.  

In effect, what you see here is the cognitive warfare battlefield during the last election. This new propaganda arms race is between pro-democracy advocates and their adversaries. It is a war still being waged here and in other Western democracies. It is being waged by both foreign attackers and billionaire Western oligarchs who share converging interests. It is being waged by Russia, who just announced the creation of a new branch of their military calling them "information warfare troops".

 "... Russians have moved into an offensive posture that threatens the very international order." said Ben Rhodes of the Obama Administration last year.

The propaganda war is also being waged by billionaire controlled corporations specializing in this field, companies like Cambridge Analytica. This is essentially a propaganda company featuring Steve Bannon on its board of directors.

This outline of Cognitive Warfare attacks we were subjected to, and are still experiencing as an attack on our journalism institutions, helps make sense of my social media experiences during the election. I see now how I was being stroked, on one hand (micro-targeted), to fan my discontent with Hillary while being made to feel my views were in the minority (strategic drowning) on the other hand. I know now that many of the trolls I encountered were really computer generated cyberbots. All this has caused be to completely rethink my own on-line presence.

I have presented a great deal of information here and a number of quotes and facts without specific attribution. That is because virtually all of the quotes and many of the fact are from the remarkable work of Carole Cadwalladr, published by The Guardian in London. I have vetted her information by going to her original source and found them to be accurate. If you have stayed with me to this point, I urge you to read Ms. Cadwalladr's two article for even more background information. She also outlines the connections between the companies providing propaganda services for the wealthy ideologues funding them and the Trump administration. 

Bibliography

Robert Mercer: the big data billionaire waging war on mainstream

https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/26/robert-mercer-breitbart-war-on-media-steve-bannon-donald-trump-nigel-farage

Carole Cadwalladr, 26 February, 2017

Google, democracy and the truth about internet search

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2016/dec/04/google-democracy-truth-internet-search-facebook

Carole Cadwalladr, 4 December, 2016

The #Election2016 Micro-Propaganda Machine

https://medium.com/@d1gi/the-election2016-micro-propaganda-machine-383449cc1fba#.gl16j8e9c

Jonathan Albright, 18 November, 2016

And for further reading from my blog on algorithms,

Algorithms Hidden Impact on How We Think 

http://aseyeseesit.blogspot.com/2017/02/algorithms-hidden-impact-on-how-we-think.html?spref=tw …

Brian T. Lynch, 9 February, 2016


UPDATE: For the sake of fairness, I returned to Jonathan Albright's website and found an updated analysis of the propaganda machine analysis including left-leaning websites as well, and the full picture of the activity is seen in the following picture. Obviously, there were left-leaning websites competing for a share of the media attention as well. I don't know the nature of the information from these left-leaning sites, or if they were part of a propaganda campaign. I'll share more when I know more.

Trump, the Marketer-in-Chief

by Brian T. Lynch, MSW

If anyone seriously thought that Donald Trump was running for President out of high mindedness, you can give it up now. He was running to elevate his brand and market the Presidency for personal gain.

How so? 

Well, he just spent months on the campaign trail wearing a red cap with his campaign slogan, "Make America Great Again" on it. It became part of his campaign swag.

Every president in history, and any future president, would retire that cap and donate it to the Smithsonian Museum or feature it in their future presidential library. Not this guy. He fully intends to market the image and make a killing off of it. Expect to see some version of it for retail next Christmas while Donald Trump is sipping brandy in one of his Presidential palaces. Billionaires!

How much does this true-spirit-of-Christmas ornament go for this year?

It's yours for just $149 dollars and no "sense"! This is the sort of change I never expected, the selling of the Presidency by the President-elect himself. 

More than 45 million people, or 14.5% of all Americans, lived below the poverty line last year. I'm certain none of them can afford this overpriced campaign schlock. Perhaps the proceeds for this sale are going to fund food pantries or house the homeless over the holiday season?  Well, there is nothing mentioned in the advertising to suggest that.

Maybe this isn't really being marketed by President-elect Donald Trump. Maybe his business isn't really financially benefiting. Could it be that some other enterprising fool is cleaning up on his political success?

I thought of that, so I checked. According to the internet advertisement, the link to buy the "classic red MAGA hat" is DonaldTrump.com. It's his Trump store. To be sure there wasn't a mistake, I went to the Whois.com website and confirmed that the domain name is registered to THE TRUMP ORGANIZATION (see below). 

So there it is! "Get Yours" America! (If you can afford it.) Is this supposed to be our new normal? Do we really have a President who is a businessman for himself first and President for the people last? 

This Christmas you should grab a bottle of Trump wine and drown your sorrows, because no one at the highest reaches of government will be marketing your cares away.