Here's a true statement:
"Imperialist governments are waging an information war against our government to destabilise our population. They're spreading misinformation to stoke feelings of fear and eroding trust in the government, institutions, media and science. To that end, they're using online bots, fake news and covertly financing opposition parties."
That's demonstrably true.
But please don't react to this by just turning heel and pulling in the opposite direction.
Not everyone who criticises the government is a "Russian bot". Not everyone who thinks a major third party is needed in the USA and the US Democrat Party should be abandoned is a "Russian troll".
European governments are not the progressive underdogs fighting against fascism many people think they are. The EU is commonly not a force for good, much less NATO. Even publicly funded independent media isn't a stalwart resistance against misinformation. Just because the Russian government is evil it doesn't mean that the Ukrainian government is automatically acting in the common people's interest, or that all of Russia's enemies are morally good. That's propaganda too.
Also, we need to understand that imperialist governments might push true, good, leftist and progressive viewpoints in their quest to destabilise their enemies.
Their goal is destabilisation and sowing dissent.
If or when it's revealed that actors like Russia or the CIA have been covertly funding antifa groups, leftist parties, trans rights movements and such things, it is paramount that we know how to deal with such a situation. The resulting confusion, distrust and infighting is their actual goal.
We need to understand and accept that in the context of hybrid warfare, states like Russia or the USA might be covertly financing, pushing our own movements as well. Why wouldn't they? A "culture war" is in their favour, and they expect us to succumb to infighting.
Imagine what the fallout would be in the US domestically if it came out that some Black Lives Matter-related riots were secretly staged by Russian intelligence. The resulting civil outrage, splintering and confusion is their goal. Not supporting BLM and its values itself, that's just their exchangeable pawn in this example.
I don't think it's far-fetched. There's been a strange series of sabotage actions against public transport and rail infrastructure here in Germany, which have been committed by left wing extremists, antifa groups and climate activists, according to manifestos published on Indymedia.
I've been in such circles and I know nobody who would even consider such a course of action to be activism - everyone's a fan of supporting public transport, and sabotage is usually aimed at defense companies, airports, the fossil industry and such.
But I can honestly say that I have known a few young eager antifa-ish kids back in my activist days who would totally have been able to fall prey to some foreign agent grooming or even paying them to sabotage public infrastructure for a great cause or as a fuck-you to society.
The kind of people who think that destroying playground garbage bins, streetlights or firebombing a school is anarchist activism "against the system" already exists. But with the funding, tools, encouragement and support by something like the KGB, egging them on to do something "greater", this sounds like a plausible way they seek to divide the left and society as a whole.
But that doesn't mean sabotage is inherently evil. It doesn't mean that antifa groups are Russian plants. It doesn't mean that the German government is defending itself from foreign bad actors if they throw leftists into prison.
It is often said that the best propaganda is the truth. That doesn't mean the truth should be abandoned.
#politics #war #hybridWarfare #russia #geopolitics #deutschland #politik #antifa #socialism #resistance #germany #activism #misinformation #fakeNews #democracy