German politician ‘filmed taking Russian money’
German politician ‘filmed taking Russian money’
Petr Bystron, of far-Right AfD party, allegedly given €20,000 by pro-Kremlin broadcaster
A German politician has been filmed taking large sums of cash from a Kremlin-supporting broadcaster, Czech intelligence has claimed.
Petr Bystron, who is standing for Alternative for Germany (AfD) at European parliamentary elections in June, allegedly received €20,000 (£17,000) in cash from the manager of a Russian propaganda network while sitting in a parked car, recordings indicate.
Mr Bystron, who also sits on the Bundestag’s foreign affairs committee, has previously denied allegations of taking Russian money as a “defamation campaign”.
The Security Information Service (BIS), the Czech Republic’s domestic intelligence agency, now says Mr Bystron met with Artem Marchevsky, who allegedly managed a Kremlin-backed propaganda front called Voice of Europe, at least three times in the past six months.
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Some user at a .ml community the other day was mocking the idea that Russia was trying to destabilize Europe, comparing someone else's depiction of Russia as if it was an EU4 country. This is another piece of evidence that Russia has been financing far right politicians, parties and think tanks in several countries, including Germany, France, Italy and Spain.
Despite being on .ml, there's a real issue with Tankies here. They hate the USA which...like fair enough, not exactly a paragon of virtue them. But then they go waaaay the other way and think China and Russia are utopian meritocracies, it's fucking bizarre.
There's a very common mental trapping in humans where, once you've identified a serious problem or antagonist, you immediately become more sympathetic to its opposites or declared rivals. A lot of them had a genuine, valid concern with a capitalist society that was screwing them over, turned that into an identity, and ended up in echo chambers where that fallacy wouldn't be called out. It's difficult to get them out of there because they feel like they have to defend their identity and their social group, so in the rare cases where they meet someone who does understand and share their valid anti-capitalist positions but is capable of reasonably calling out their campist bullshit, they immediately jump to think it's just "another lib" and refuse to engage.
There’s a very common mental trapping in humans where, once you’ve identified a serious problem or antagonist, you immediately become more sympathetic to its opposites or declared rivals.
Which is why I'm very proud of the World News community not to let the justifiable Israel hate go overboard into Hamas support. Most, if not all, of us appear to be smarter than that and know that the Palestinian people are who need to be supported.
Yeah, the Hamas support is weird. Hamas isn’t a popular front or anything, they’re also fucking over the Palestinian people. They took power and stopped holding elections many years ago.
The people I want to succeed are the Israeli and Palestinian people seeking to build a positive peace and a constructive cohabitation. That’s the anti Zionism I was sold on. And yes the first step is for Israel to stop massacring civilians.
And yes the first step is for Israel to stop massacring civilians.
That sounds like the second step to me. As long as conservatives hold power in Israel, the horror will never stop.
Yet people still uncritically believe in casualty numbers provided by Hamas - and you get shouted at for pointing this out.
I'm not sure what you mean. I usually see casualty numbers provided by third parties. The UN OHCA does a lot of it.
He was spouting propaganda, trying to blur the arguments.
They are relying entirely on numbers provided by Hamas. There is no independent third party counting casualties in the strip.
Conflating the Gaza Ministry of Health with Hamas is a very common propaganda tactic. The truth is that they operate under the de-facto government of Gaza, which is Hamas, but they don't work for them as in pushing their agenda. Your statement of the numbers being "provided by Hamas" is entirely false tho.
The numbers they provided in the past passed verification by third party investigations (Examples: 2014 war comparison with B'Tselem and analysis of the current war's numbers by The Lancet) and are considered to be reliable. During an active war, independent verification is pretty much impossible tho.
Okay, so where should casualty figures come from?
That tracks. Though I'd say it's often less "refuse to engage" and more "refuse to engage in good faith". They definitely engage enough to yell things with fingers in their ears.
From their basements in Utah.
Turns out Russia sucks pretty bad at real war but they've been excelling at these shadow ops for quite some time. The fact that they've bought so many plants in the US government is a sign of the success they've had.
There is a strong argument that Brexit was the result of Russian influence.
If this could be proven, I would hope the punishments would be extreme. Brexit (and the conservatism that caused it) has practically ruined Britain.
It basically "was" proven through exposes through Cambridge Analytica, Arron Banks, and their ties to Russian benefactors. There are also strong ties of Russian influence to notable political influencers like Nigel Farage, alongside those that provided funds to the Conservative party.
I don't think it's really possible to get more proof outside of Vladimir Putin literally stating on the record that he was involved.
What can be done to bring criminal charges?
They had a serious investigation going, but that was during Boris Johnson's time as prime minister (BoJo = the Trump-impersonator with the silly hair), so it was pretty handicapped and when the investigation stopped, well:
Johnson's government refused to release the report to the public before the general election in December 2019.
By June 2020, the report had still not been released, and the Intelligence and Security Committee had not been convened, the longest gap since the committee's creation in 1994.
(from Wikipedia)
- The Guardian: Russia report reveals UK government failed to investigate Kremlin interference
- Wikipedia: Intelligence and Security Committee Russia report
- The report itself: https://web.archive.org/web/20210114193823/https://docs.google.com/a/independent.gov.uk/viewer?a=v&pid=sites&srcid=aW5kZXBlbmRlbnQuZ292LnVrfGlzY3xneDo1Y2RhMGEyN2Y3NjM0OWFl
Britain returning on legal grounds wasn't on my bingo card xD
Putin is not Russia
He is their dictator. When people say the name of a country they generally refer to their government. For example: Iran is violently misogynistic. The Iranian women who riot against the government’s misogyny are not, I’ve met multiple militantly feminist Iranians in fact. But people understand what I mean when I say that Iran is misogynistic.
I think it's easy to read between lines that I mean the Russian government, currently led by Putin, rather than personally accusing all Russians of being assholes.
Putin would disagree with ypu
Yes, he would. Kinda the whole point of 2020 carnaval on tree stumps.
And Hitler was not Nazi Germany? Believe it or not, but Putin is not the sole doer of all of Russia. There are a lot of people directly and indirectly involved in all of this shit and even more so are complicit by inaction. Many Germans knew what the Nazis did to the Jews and "traitors", but they still kept their mouth shut, ratted out their friends and neighbors, or had positions directly involved with the Nazis, so that they themselves could continue living a comfy life while others suffered and died by their own country. No, Putin is not Russia. But Russia still has a collective responsibility, and with that guilt, painting all of their hands in blood. And this type of debt will not be forgotten until a certain price has been paid.