Skip links

Phil Butler

Just for serious thinkers

Main navigation

Russia Today

Kiev’s social trolls better watch out, I’m telling you why

by 2 Comments

Santa Claus is coming to town, you know? Somehow I think the Kiev junta does not believe in Santa though, because their leadership has been very, very bad. I know for sure Santa NEVER visits the profoundly mean, or the criminally stupid. Here’s a Christmas story

A story I wrote the other day about the “botched” investigation into the MH17 disaster, it somehow attracted one of Kiev’s pissy little paid trolls. This is normal, as anyone who “tweets” about Ukraine or NATO knows. What’s unique in this case though, is these little pawns never suspected I’d baited Kiev to “troll” me in the first place. That matters less than showing my own “circumstantial evidence” that the Washington backed regime that’s bombing its own people, they’ve deployed some nasty tactics to convince the world of a lie.

Democracy and human rights have no part in Kiev’s propaganda, and willing or unwittingly, these pawns are multitude. The casual social media user out there simply has no idea about the resources being applied to this game.

Note: I want the reader to read, but also to observe the intermittent messages from NATO. If you please.

Guns, Money, Stupidity and Worse

@MJoyce2244 is a troll. His (or it’s) 69 followers (not sure if the number means what I think it means) are indicative of the intentions of those in Kiev, and their intentions. Neither this Twitter profile’s operator, nor any of the Kiev faction’s associates take heed, however, of digital communications underlying value. The underlying symbolism,  and the context of their messages can show evidence of association, if not downright proof of collusion. Let me show you, free of charge, the weakest links of Kiev, Brussels, and NATO. 

First off, if we can assume for a moment MJoyces is not a Joyce at all, then whoever picked the name for trolling, their probably a literature fan. More specifically, Michael Joyce is to electronic literature what Moses is to the Old Testament. Whether trolls like MJoyce are merely the weakest links of association, or “missing links” in humanity’s decent into the sound byte. But this is secondary to what we condone, side with, and evangelize as citizens of the social sphere.

I’m sure not many think this way though. 

One easy way to determined who, what, and where is going on for any Twitter is to look at the first people any user follows. If you think about it, this is really fundamental to intent. Now  our first trolling subject here, they did not really take much time to cover up the fact President Obama and the American editor of the Kyiv Post were in the first six followed. Miller of Kyiv Post, this is the writer who volunteers, or was selected, to evangelize the Maidan regime’s to the most influential young American demographic, the throng at Mashable. Miller unwittingly became the focus here, because his tweets, following, and lists reflect overzealousness, if nothing else. But the connectives in between Kiev, Washington, and extraneous global players, hint at more.

Moving on,  Washington dictates, NATO plans, and the Chocolate King (Poroshenko) enacts on the ground their strategies.

Examine retweets, and the faves of this tweet, we find our troll MJoyce there supporting the tweet with ad nauseum. More importantly thought, that user’s “faves” list reveals two people who had rather remain secret, who’ve “asked” not to be included in the conversation.   

Mikhail Khorkovsky
Mikhail Khorkovsky – what’s he to do with all this Ukraine business? – Wikipedia

A Propaganda Glee Club

Social media trails, as I call them, allow us a view into who is doing what, and for what reason. I am not talking about Big Data here, but rather a contextual sense of manipulation. You see, since Barack Obama first engaged voters and people on the net, his backers and his PR people have gotten pretty good at moving the people who read Mashable, the Google Plus crowd that used to like to “hang out,” YouTube, and the other channels. You’ll notice I said “pretty good.” I know most of the PR people behind Obama, they’re smart, but in the end arrogant and divisive. Back on point, let’s look at one random user who “faved” this Anti-Russia tweet, Critical News @PressSecret is as interesting a “tweep” I quickly found. Following this breadcrumb to other Kiev/NATO trolls, is just a matter of time and effort really.  Having joined back in 2009, Press Secret leads to financial and investor media, Al Arabiya English, EuromaidenPR, Mashable’s Miller, sellout financial outlet Forbes, and a flurry of other Washington neo-sellouts.  More interesting than all these though, is another 2009 alumni who is aligned with our troll and Kiev, @molodyko leads us further to connect with author Peter Pomerantsev, who’s a British researcher and author vital to the efforts of  the Institute of a Modern Russia (IMR logo below right), which is a New York based think tank run by the son of Putin enemy, oligarch Mikhail Borisovich Khodorkovsky (above). (When I snap my fingers you’ll know NATO is attacking Russia)

I am twenty minutes in and already Kiev’s Twitter throng smell like rotting sea bass in a barrel. You’ve heard the old saying, “money can’t buy me love,” but oligarch billions in America or Kamchatka, they sure can buy non-profit credibility and media outlets. The Interpreter, a bean sprout of London based Herzen Foundation and IMR grants, it’s an influential propaganda tool you probably never heard of. Make no mistake though, the Russia Today and Sputnik mainstream media try and diminish, they’re outnumbered 20,000 to 1 by western sellout journalism.

Digging deeper using a social media monitoring suite called Brandwatch, we find Kiev, Miller, even vehement small fry like Olga Klymenko (see her tweet dream above), they represent a networked “tweetmare” of amplified death and destructon. Kiev Post’s collaborators, and interested parties, are interesting themselves. In more recent tweet mentions, people like Austrian Pirate Party of spokesman Lukas Daniel Klausner could be anywhere on the scale of east-west political upheaval. The point in mentioning this young political lion is the impact Kiev (Washington) is having propaganda wise. The Pirate Party has some noble goals, the following is idealistic, and the Kiev-Mashable matrix influences the throng.  I also stumbled across what I’ve labeled as “the Sweden Connection” – a small cadre of interest Swedish movers and shakers associated with that country’s biggest entrepreneurial community. Another retweet champion of Miller’s, Stefan Laurell, is on the board of Sweden’s biggest Entrepreneur’s community Foretagarna. Another Swede living in Ukraine, Anders Östlund is a startup guru and entrepreneur who’s interests are purely business. He’s also founder of the Fryday, the business-social startup. Mashable, it makes sense from a “media” standpoint, but I’ll prove that out in another post.  This entrepreneur, and other interested parties, they’re subjects who’s lists and interests bear more in depth scrutiny as well.  And everywhere you look, there somewhere is the Billionaire backed The Interpreter. 

The issues drive many, exact allegiances and connections can be coincidence at times.
The issues drive many, exact allegiances and connections can be coincidence.

Then there are the logical “context” specific “tag-along” types that adjoin any conversation. The mashup below may be one of those, @ukrainianevents followed Stepan Pasicznyk, an Irish-Ukrainian songwriter-activist from the get go. These vehement activists are “ideal motivated,” but are clearly useful pawns to the overall control of the medium. Now take Dr. Krnr. below. I am not sure what to say about this profile following Wikileaks first, and then Kyiv Post, followed by Miller, @Yatsenyuk_AP and a slew of Ukraine Nazi-like profiles, but it’s interesting to me the good Dr. joined right before the Ukraine 2012 Parliamentary elections?

The curious follows of hollow accounts by Olexiy Haran - somebody probably bought some followers?
The curious follows of hollow accounts by Olexiy Haran – somebody probably bought some followers?

  Academics like Oleksiy Haran turn up when trailing and backtracking Kiev’s throng, he’s a product of the The Kennan Kyiv Project (KKP 1998), a Woodrow Wilson Center (funded by the US government, accused of funding spies many times), turned Guardian Op-Ed/expert on Kiev’s intentions. This Kiev professor’s profile on Twitter is curious in the extreme. For some reason the good professor has chosen to follow hundreds of fake or inactive accounts? (image above). Also interesting, one of the fist people he followed was an APCO Worldwide executive Thomas Eymond-Laritaz, a senior director at Margery Kraus’ powerful firm. He is a former adviser to the Georgian president and the head of that country’s security council. Strange bedfellows all these social media “experts” have. 

Watching the Doctor's tweets is like watching a three stooges gag reel of Putin hater.
Watching the Doctor’s tweets is like watching a three stooges gag reel of Putin haters

  IMR logo An hour into this Twitter discovery session, I found socia<l media pinch hitters like former Now Lebanon editor @michaeldweiss, who loosely ties the Kiev propaganda to Syria propaganda. Weiss’ work on behalf of Khodorkovsky’s outfit? Is that Putin enemy willing to userp Assad or anybody who is on the Russian president’s side? Peace brother. Standing back for a moment, looking at all this, hell, by comparison RT is a virtual-virtual  “David” of news, versus a clumsy, mean and shitty, sellout western propaganda machine. And Mashable, “for instance,” istailored made, (unintentionally by my friend Pete Cashmore), as “mean little shit central.” If you think I’m crazy, compare editorial from The Interpreter to Mashable or other western media (especially and Tribune Media outlet, since a Tribune arm funded Mashable). Why Khodorkovsky’s brethren come right out and implicate a career diplomat in Brussels (now) as a Russian spy! The mag’s John R. Schindler frames the a story about NATO’s Deputy Secretary General Sandy Vershbow (guess he disagreed on something) as a sort of 007 embed. Schindler lets himself off the hook with a waggling head in the piece, but any writer can identify the implication and impact of the writer’s intent. The Interpreter calls to memory old legends like Armand Hammer, and the birth of energy revenue supported control, worldwide. But I digress into the deep pool of world calamity. Schindler takes us out of “pissy troll” territory into serious and smart NSA-counter-intel-spook world.

A cross reference of the metrics. This user has over 4,000 tweets. Interestingly Hillary Clinton is the first of a few follows.
This user has over 4,000 tweets and follows  Hillary Clinton first? A query for #MH17 shows this as 2nd most prevalent Tweeter of stories. Our MJoyce is third.

The problem all propagandists have resides in the “weakest link” idiom that arises out of the Theory of Constraints (TOC). Organizations are ALL vulnerable via the weakest person can damage the greater goal, or reduce the ultimate outcome. While Schindler and Putin hating Russian billionaires, fearful British bankers and the like make for formidable Russia foes, twitter pawns playing with fire afford us another outcome. They’re ultimately vulnerable to people just like me, the idealist that no one thus far has paid a penny or a favor. Sure, I’ve been accused of taking rubles and favors from Vladimir Putin himself, but I can show this is not the case. God take pity on these wannabe social experts if the I ask the Kremlin to fun the Twitter Armageddon.  Look at the graphic below. When the Ukraine junta has no further need of Mashable or these other outlets, what are “conflict” dependent reporters to do? And what if MH17, the whole Ukraine affair, what if it end up a horribly embarrassing media mess? Herein resides the rub for those out there operating outside idealism. You see the true idealist has nothing to lose in your game. Ah, but you cannot understand this rationale. If your career is hitched to a “bad wagon” (as my Mom used to say), you’re not going so far.

Back to them old grain fields back home, once NATO or Russia takes over Ukraine once and for all.
Back to them old grain fields back home, once NATO or Russia takes over Ukraine once and for all. – graph courtesy Brandwatch

Do you know what? I may just ask the Kremlin to pay me too decimate the Kiev social media onslaught. Why with my house paid off I could afford 80 hours a week tuned in to my network! Why if NATO has their way, trillions will be lost. I might save the world from a cataclysm. 

In my Christmas letter to Santa, I’ll mention how worried Santa Kiev is, over RT, Sputnik, and us unpaid dissenters over NATO expansion. Kiev just announced through Khodorkovsky’s The Interpreter, their own satellite media war on Crimea and Russia now!

Santa Knows You’ve Been Bad

What do all these associations prove for now? Certainly not blatant collusion and payoffs. But give me time, and a budget. Half normal work day and already Twitter seems like the social media Orwellian fantasy. The problem for all these people though, is that everyone from Rear Adm. John Kirby (the Pentagon Press Secretary) to Geoffrey Pyatt (US Ambassador to Ukraine) anybody and everybody in between, their an open book – amateurs really, playing in a fish bowl . If you look for two minutes into Pyatt’s he’s on lists with Petro Poroshenko (who followed himself and then Pyatt from the start) and The Interpreter. And this is just Twitter folks.

Showing the cohesive campaign, the inner workings (which I expect do exist), this will obviously take some time.  Go here and track every US Ambassador in Europe preaching the NATO sermon, or here to find so-called National Security All Stars (Oh boy).

Next up – dissecting so-called “non-partisan academics,” or possibly Rudolph the Red Nose Social Media Deer cuts through the nasty NATO fog for Santa. 😉

Breaking! Russia’s Yellow October Trapped in Sweden bay!

by 1 Comment

Breaking NEWS! The Swedish Visby class corvette HSwMS Helsingborg has cornered and forced to the surface a top secrete Russian submarine classified Yellow October, inside the Stockholm archipelago. 

The Sochi Olympics were a huge failure largely because of stray wolves attacking bobsledders. Okay, maybe not. But Vladimir Putin did fly a Mig in behind MH17 to shoot the airliner down with 30mm cannot fire! Well, maybe that didn’t happen either. We do know, however, that Sweden’s world class navy has identified and trapped a big, yellow, super secret Russian sub inside their territorial waters! We know so because most of the mainstream media says so!

If you can believe anything TIME, ABC News, The Telegraph, or even the Guardian reports these days, you’ve an expanded sense of trust, this is all I have to say. If Russia’s Putin is not in some sex orgy with former Italian prime ministers, or stealing some NFL owner’s super bowl ring, he’s wringing his judo chopping hands orchestrating his next world domination scheme. Are you sick of it? I have been for months.

On the lighter side of all this high stakes blame game though, there’s RT’s Anissa Naouai with a tongue in cheek revelation you have to catch. Watch below for irrefutable proof everything they say about Putin is true, true, true. 



Photo credit: Bridge of a Visby Class Corvette – by Wikipedia

Pay The New York Times to Lie? Never!

by 3 Comments

I can’t get the straight scoop on Gaza from The New York Times. I can’t read an embedded report from Ukraine on The New York Times either. But I can get an email from The New York Times trying desperately to sell me their one sided news. As an American who grew up believing in freedom of the press and the constitution, watching the press writh and wriggle over money, it’s painful. Being American is about the hope, the trust in a system that not only works, but one that’s right. Now I doubt.

When Barack Obama took office 6 and a half years ago, my best friend chastised me when I questioned that campaign. He and his wife were headed to a North Carolina campaign gig starring Obama and Oprah Winfrey. To be honest, my non-political childhood pal was gleeful over a candidate. “Have you heard him speak Phil?,” he asked. “He’s so charismatic man.” I though back then, “how can he possibly lose now, with my best friend and every housewife in America behind him. I prayed.

Fast forward to today. The stock market crashed, the world was cast into a hidden poverty, no one was held responsible. BP oil polluted the Gulf of Mexico out of gross negligence. The Obama administration lied about it, then BP (see spilled oil image below) got off the hook with a slap on the wrist. Obama won the Nobel Peace prize, but spent more on foreign wars and corporate programs than even George Bush before him. Iraq and Afghanistan go on. Our war on terror is not only ongoing, but lost if we equate the Middle East situation now. Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, all North Africa is unstable. Palestinians are being exterminated. America is leading an all out media and corporate attack on Russia. And it’s all Vladimir Putin’s fault. We are on the brink of World War III.

And I’m mad as hell.

BP oil still stored in 2010 on a Pensacola beach - courtesy Keoni Cabral
BP oil still stored in 2010 on a Pensacola beach – courtesy Keoni Cabral

Ukraine, Israel, and corporate trolls accuse me of taking rubles from Putin’s Russia. Big time PR experts who loved using me and my companies for their good PR, they “unfriend” me because they work with Obama. Once friendly media editors who needed quality news and content a year ago, they ignore Gaza and Ukraine news from me now. Either they’re scared, or they’re desperate, like the mighty New York Times. They need to survive, and the people behind the American president, they know it.

The world is burning. The EU is preparing to leverage more sanctions onto Russia over the Donbass batallions’ recent victories. NATO and Washington lie about a Russian invasion, when I know most Americans could care less if Putin crushed Kiev. The fact of the matter of American diplomacy today is, Obama and Washington pay no attention whatever to the people. Americans have NOTHING to do with American detentes. I’m made as hell because I don’t understand why we permit this.

Palestinian children indicating "peace" after an Israeli shelling - and friends in the west press did not want these stories - courtes Bahaa Salman in Gaza
“Peace” after an Israeli shelling – friends in the west press didn’t want the story – courtesy Bahaa Salman in Gaza

People ask me, “what do you like Putin so much?” My answer is pretty simple actually. Most Americans admire Putin for his strength, calm, and human features. But “liking” Vladimir Putin has nothing to do with standing up for American values. Sure, Putin is a symbol of the Russian story of all this. He’s clearly a better leader than any in the west. But I know he thinks to himself, “that’s not saying much.” The reason I talk to or write for Russia Today. One reason for my editorial over bad west policies is simple. The New York Times and the BBC do want to hear the other side of these stories. They just want to Washington politician side. the other reason is, the RT people are just more accessible, more professional, and as it happens, on the right side of the story this time.

Hillary Clinton
Hillary playing the stocks – Huff Po doesn’t want that – courtesy Brett Weinstein

I’ve been in this “news” business a while now. All told, I guess I’ve typed 20,000 articles these last 8 years. I’ve done stories for Mashable, which now promotes Kyiv Post editors. I’ve contributed to the Huffington Post, which ignored a submission last week revealing a side to Hillary Clinton (above). I’ve sent editorial and news to The Epoch Times many times, and they’ve refused to answer even my emails over Gaza or Ukraine news. Maybe all that is bad timing? I’m sure it is. It’s not the right time for dissenting views in America. It’s time for one message.

So there it is America. The New York Times cannot have a man or woman in Donetsk, no correspondent rising a tank with the Novorossiya freedom fighters today. Where is CNN to tell us the real stories behind the battle lines? Maybe there’s no budget for that these days?

I hope you think about all this my friends. You know why? Because you nor Vladimir Putin can’t pay me to tell the big lie, that’s why. The reason he can’t is simple too. I’m not doing any of this for money.

Oh, by the way, this is my opinion. The New York Times may still be the most free and meaningful press on the planet. But you have to pay for it.