“Men go crazy in congregations,

They only get better one by one.“

All this Time, Sting

And so goes. In the struggle for a more perfect union, it turns out that we the body politic, have gone crazy in congregations.

I have been skeptical that the Mueller investigation into Russian interference and collusion would turn up any prosecutable malfeasance. Well, I was wrong.

This is old news. February 16, 2018. Nearing a month. But, in Mueller v. Russians and their BOTS, thirteen Russian nationals and three (3) companies were indicted.  A link to the 37-page, full indictment is here until it gets yanked …

I was, and am gobsmacked at how ably the Russians used our own systems to manipulate the electorate, enlist US citizens to act as boots on the ground, and quickly adapt to exploit existing divisions using our own systems when their tactics weren’t working.

Again, it must have pissed Putin off mightily back in the 1980’s when Gorbachev cried ‘uncle!’ to the Star Wars dished up at Reagan’s table. But the lathe of heaven turns and Putin’s dreams have come true! He groomed a trump card. And here we are. All the worse for it.

In Twitter, I tripped across Baratunde, a futurist comedian, writer, and activist who read Mueller’s whole indictment, highlighted specific texts and summarized with lively observations and conclusions. I’ll skip his summary of Russian intrigue and jump right to the conclusions.

From Baratunde:

“We build a giant deception machine called marketing and advertising, and an adversary used it against us.

“We build a giant influence machine called social media, and an adversary used it against us.

“We left open, unreconciled divisions in our society, and an adversary used it against us.

“We weakened our press such that all the phony conflict inspired by this information warfare campaign was reported in real-time with little to no vetting, and an adversary used it against us.

“We allowed our democracy to become so corrupted by money and self-serving, power-hungry folks that we already didn’t trust it, and an adversary used it against us.

“If the election had turned out differently, would we even know half of what we do? We only got Robert Mueller because Trump is president but also bad at wielding his power.

“And even though the Russians amplified divisions to be greater than they are, those divisions are real now. There is a basic level of trust we have to have in our environment to act appropriately, and that’s severely broken.

“On top of that, one-half of the political establishment (the republican half) is completely uninterested in acknowledging, investigating, or responding to this sophisticated act of information warfare.  They’ve done NOTHING to prepare us for the next campaign.

“The president still hasn’t imposed the Russia sanctions that Congress passed overwhelmingly. And everybody’s just acting like, “Meh. TRUMP WILL BE TRUMP! Undermining national security is just his THING ya know?”

“And Facebook. Oh Facebook. So happy to monetize the destruction of our civil fabric. They made $7B in the 3rd quarter of 2016. Zuckerberg smugly said 99% of posts are “authentic.” We cannot trust this company to do what’s best for us. Not just FB btw.

“This indictment isn’t just about Trump. It’s about us needing a better vision for how we do this whole “society” thing. What forms of power get held accountable. What voices we listen to. This is ultimately about reality and our collective agreement on what THAT is. /END”

16 Feb 2018 01:10 PM. Tweet.

We, the US electorate-body-politic, went crazy in congregation.

And at lunch with a friend, as I expressed frustration and big feels of estrangement and distance from friends and family members who were congregants, I was reminded that we only get better one by one.

And to get better one by one requires work.  Engage in hard conversations. Be the alternative voice. Speak truth to crazy. Practice kindness, patience, presence.

Persist.

We only get better one by one.

Read the entire Twitter thread by Baratunde! Until it gets pulled, here’s a link:

Baratunde: unrolled Twitter thread – re:Mueller indictment of Russians