Okay but the notion that we should just write their interference off as nonsense because they probably aren't working for their own interest is still monumentally insane.
I never said they weren't working for their interests, but even that can be rather murky. Does Putin work for Putin's interests or for Russian interests? Does Trump work for Trump's interests or American interests? (These are questions which should be asked about every leader, actually.)
Perhaps, but that doesn't change reality. We weren't prepared because most Americans didn't see this as a problem. Like it or not. Agree with them or not. It's a democracy. Our government doesn't tend to work on anything until either someone with a lot of cash cares, or a lot of voters care. In this case, neither happened.
That's all well and good, but that also does not change the reality that, if most Americans didn't see this as a problem, then shame on those Americans. I see nothing wrong with pointing this out. I realize it may be politically incorrect to "blame the victim," but in this case, I think it's warranted. Democracy or not, if our leadership and electorate are too stupid to recognize difficulties and challenges which face them, then we deserve what we get. No use crying about it or trying to find a scapegoat to blame.
Well, it depends on what we're talking about when we say "foreign influence." Are we talking about
any foreign influence, including that of countries like Canada or Britain? Or are deciding to pick and choose which foreign countries are okay and which ones are not?
Russia may not be our sworn enemy. But they do have interest contrary to our own. You have given us a few of your own when you talk about NATO.
Yes, although it doesn't have to be this way. I think that we wasted a golden opportunity to build a closer, lasting friendship with Russia just at the end of the Cold War. Historically, Russia's security interests have always been defensive in nature. Other than that, their main objectives have been access to the sea (preferably with year-round ice-free seaports) and retaking Constantinople for Orthodoxy (although that's kind of a latent, "inactive" objective which hasn't really come up since Tsarist times).
Their relationship with Ukraine is complicated because the history of Russia actually
begins in the region now known as "Ukraine." I don't want to bore you with a long history lesson, but suffice it to say, it would be far better to let
them resolve this issue between themselves. It's not up to us to go over there and tell Russians or Ukrainians who they are or whose land belongs to whom.
America's interests, historically, have revolved around continued enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine, as well as Freedom of the Seas (mainly for commerce). These interests were somewhat modified and altered as US interests became more intricately tied with the interests of Western Europe. US "interests" also became even more complicated as we aligned our interests with the interests of any government deemed part of the "free" (aka "non-communist") world. Our interests then became more ideological than practical.
So, I think we, as a country, need to give far better clarity and reason as to what our "interests" actually are in this day and age. That might be an interesting topic for a new thread.
Hacking has always been an issue, yes. But if you know anything about the subject, in most cases with enough resources, security goes out the window. So when talking about security with a foreign power, it is a supreme challenge for anyone without massive resources to throw at security.
I suppose so. I remember it was a thing back when the movie
Wargames came out over three decades ago. The senior programmer kept saying "There's no way some kid can break into our system" and naturally assumed he was working with someone else. But then there have been real life cases of mere teenagers hacking into some system.
Even Russian hackers aren't all that new to the scene either; they've been in the news for quite some time, long before any of this.
As far as what it takes to make sure some of the more critical systems be kept secure, I don't doubt that it takes massive resources and that it's a supreme challenge. But if the Russians are beating us at that game, then it's something we should take a closer look at. Maybe if we had been working to shore up our own security rather than doing things like hacking into Angela Merkel's cellphone, maybe it wouldn't have happened at all.
There are other examples as well but yes, that is part of it. As for Los Angeles, of course you could get by with a car if the infrastructure was in place. It just isn't there. There are plenty of massive cities around the globe where people do not depend on cars nearly as exclusively as we do when in Los Angeles. It was a choice we made to live that way.
Exactly, and now we're living with the consequences of that choice.
But it's not just L.A. More and more people have been moving out of the cities, and even out of established suburbs to housing developments further away from major city centers ("exurbs," I think they're called), to which residents from those areas have to commute by car. People don't really want to live in cities or even suburbs if they can afford not to. But they still want to live close enough to the city, within reasonable driving distance. This is how more and more sprawl takes place.
This is where good government gets involved (as they did in Europe). If Carter has been successful with his federal fuel tax, I suspect that alone would have been the catalyst needed for massive change.
Probably so. The energy crisis of the 70s should have served as a wake-up call, which it did briefly, but somehow we went back to sleep.
Americans could change, but it would require the mentality of WW2 where the politicians got together and asked the country for support as a whole, and didn't spend their time fighting like spoiled children in support of corporate donors.
And this points up the other major problem with the political system - money rules over all. We speak of wanting to guard against foreign interference in our election process, but foreigners have money too. And they're certainly willing to spend it to try to influence our politics. Sometimes it's difficult to tell just where the money is coming from, since there's so much of it going into these political campaigns. We all hope it's from legitimate and legal sources, but trying to sift all that out is even more difficult than finding computer hackers.
Americans have known about this as well, at least in theory. Money buys influence. Money buys elections. Most people seem to tacitly accept this, as they have done for many decades at least. Money buys advertising and TV time (aka "propaganda"), and it's viewed as a legitimate expression of free speech. This means that the more money you have, the more freedom of speech you get. This is what we have accepted, and as such, we are now faced with the consequences of what we have accepted.
You're right. The politicians are squabbling like spoiled children, and what's worse is that they're doing so on a sinking ship.
As for the general public, we made our own bed. We made all these choices, whether as consumers or voters. Either we start making smarter choices, or we might face even worse consequences in the future.
