Anyone up for a conspiracy theory that makes me go hmmmmm

[Peacetrain]

This has to do with the Russians and the GOP. I for years have wondered about the rise of right wing talk radio. I am of that age that used to listen to AM radio all the time because that is where my music of my age was played. FM was classical music. It seemed like the AM stations went Conservative talk overnight.. It was not a long extended period of time. It was also the time of the rise of MTV...but in your car, at the beach etc.. it was non stop AM. Here is the rumor

This would have been the time Putin was active in KGB psych ops . The money that was used to turn AM rock into AM conservative talk was Russian. They were in for the long haul, and the easiest group to manipulate was the Republicans. No one would guess that they were the ones being manipulated because of their non stop hatred of anything socialist.

So if you stop and think about it, could the Russians have been at this that long. We know they are manipulating social media . Could they also be the money behind so many squirrely people coming out in the Republican party? They were the money behind the NRA and think about the damage they have done there. Has the attack on our Democracy and the pulling at the very foundations a Russian ploy

[Cracklin Charlie]

1. Yes.

[Blecht]

2. I'd be up for a conspiracy theory that is actually a theory

You have an interesting hypothesis here.

If somebody can come up some evidence to support or negate this hypothesis, I'd listen.

[Buckeye_Democrat]

3. It has crossed my mind.

Just like I've wondered if Rupert Murdoch HATES this country. His father had a bust of Lenin displayed in their household and Murdoch has supported various liberal agendas in Australia, his home country.

Yet he's given the USA, through Fox News, very damaging right-wing lies for years.

[Silent3]

4. How big a responsibility the Russians have is debatable, but at the very least...

...they took advantage of and helped promote divides in American culture with the aim of damaging this country.

I think we've always been totally capable of creating this mess all by ourselves, however, regardless of how much Russian assistance we actually got.

[Irish_Dem]

5. I think we will find out that Putin has been funding a large swath of America.

All three branches of government?
Media, print, radio, TV?
Hate groups?
NRA?

[Kid Berwyn]

8. One of the things that strikes spy chasers...

...is how little money is required to get someone to betray their country.

[Irish_Dem]

10. Exactly, for not much money, Putin was able to buy off the American power and media structure.

Putin is said to be the richest man in the world, it was just pocket change to him.

The trillions of dollars we spend on the military didn't help us in the least.

[Kid Berwyn]

15. The Panama Papers revealed his wealth and methods.

Sergei Roldugin, the cellist who holds the key to tracing Putin’s hidden fortune

The Russian president’s best friend portrays himself as a modest musician, but leaked documents reveal his role in a secret money-go-round

by Luke Harding
The Guardian, April 6, 2016

Excerpt...

The Panama Papers show at least five secretly owned offshore entities in the Mossack Fonseca files linked to the Roldugin operation. They have largely meaningless names – Sonnette Overseas, International Media Overseas, Sunbarn, Raytar, Sandalwood Continental Ltd.

But one connection brings them all together. The firms are all linked to a company of Swiss lawyers. And they in turn act for a single organisation: Bank Rossiya, which is no ordinary bank.

Snip...

Founded in 1990 in what was then Leningrad, Bank Rossiya has long been associated with Putin.

It was set up with Communist party funds amid the collapse of the USSR. Putin helped the fledgling bank, from his position as boss of the city’s new foreign liaison committee. In 1992, the bank funded a flattering TV documentary about him. The first allegations of personal corruption against Putin date from this period.

Leading members of Putin’s own Ozero cooperative – a lakeside community 60 miles north of St Petersburg where Putin had a dacha – are shareholders. So, at least in the past, was a gangster, Gennady Petrov, who was later arrested in Spain.

The group struck an unusual arrangement. They would keep their money in common, in a shared bank account – a deal some suggest continues. Putin’s friend Yuri Kovalchuk is Bank Rossiya’s biggest shareholder. And chairman of its board. Now worth many millions each, the Ozero group control most of the country’s assets: oil, gas, railways as well as construction, TV and the media.

Source:

https://www.theguardian.com/news/2016/apr/03/sergei-roldugin-the-cellist-who-holds-the-key-to-tracing-putins-hidden-fortune

Putin and his gangsters have used state power to loot Russia. At the least, they inspired Trump to do the same in the US. Who can blame the myriad sundry greed head traitors, besides the citizens with integrity? That would be democracy.

[AntiFascist]

17. +1 n/t

[Irish_Dem]

19. Russia is not really a country, just some land held together by mob bosses who have sucked all of

money out of Russia.

[bdamomma]

23. I found this article

pertaining to this very thing.

I hope you can get into this article.


https://www.alternet.org/2021/01/capitol-riot-2649960031/?utm_source=&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=6372

[Irish_Dem]

24. Yes thanks, we can see the Russia talking points are the same as the GOP's.

What a coincidence. Not.

[Cirque du So-What]

6. I lived through the transition from AM rock to FM rock

I figured it had more to do with audio quality than anything else. It’s worthwhile to question who financed AM conservative talk radio, however. We know some of the culprits are American plutocrats like the Kochs and the Mellons.

[Silver1]

13. Koch recently said he regrets having bankrolled the tea party.

What we have today grew out of the tea party and is entwined with the Christian right. What could have been a relatively insignificant group ended up having a huge impact on the direction of our country and the undermining of our democracy. All because of the "mega donors" as they're euphemistically called. These people have had a huge and destructive influence on our country they're not some nefarious foreign player, they're our own.

Change has to be made right here.

[ProfessorGAC]

21. Agreed

Also, they weren't personality based radio, so talent costs were lower. Lower expenses means fewer commercials.
You probably remember hearing 4 or 5 songs in a row, taking up 20 or 21 minutes before the next commercial.
So, it sounded better, was in stereo, and more music per hour.
That's why everybody I knew fled to FM.
That also was picked up quickly by the car makers who started making AM/FM radios standard, BTW. Within a few years, all but the cheapest economy cars came with AM/FM radios.
I know because I had one of the cheap ones that didn't. I installed one in the glove box.

[Towlie]

7. Rachel Maddow and Al Franken had AM radio shows.

 
←

[Towlie]

14. I suggest you follow this link and scroll down to "Don't bash Democratic public figures":

 
←

Democratic Underground Terms of Service

Consider editing your post while you still have time.

[State the Obvious]

11. Anyone remember Nikita Khrushchev?

"We will take America without firing a shot. We do not have to invade the US. We will destroy you from within."

Nikita Khrushchev, Premier USSR
11/18/1956

[bdamomma]

25. oh yes

Putin brought this to fruition, now what we see in DC our nation like a third world country.

They will be hunted down for the TERRORISTS they are, and to those accomplices you will be hunted for lies that you spread.

The wrath that you put on the heads of innocent Americans during a pandemic you will be judged harshly.

[Rhiannon12866]

26. Of course. And I've even visited his burial site, it's in Moscow in a place of "disgrace"

Buried among nuns. At least that's where it was when I visited the USSR in the late '80s with my grandmother's peace group.

[JCMach1]

12. Clear Channel and now Bain Capital are as American as a bad

Apple Pie

[Firestorm49]

16. I suppose anything is possible. We've been doing the same things to Russia for decades too.

[wishstar]

18. AM and FM radio in my area abruptly changed around time of Bush vs. Gore in 2000

I recall because I always set my clock radio on a local AM station to wake me up for work each day and all at once my favorite station with local news and pleasant music changed to feature lineup of Republican right wing politics as well as a couple of our FM's that began carrying the rightwing talk radio.

Putin first became President of Russia in 1999.

[FakeNoose]

20. Rush Limbaugh actually got his start in Pittsburgh

An extremely wealthy man named Richard Mellon Scaife - who inherited money from the Mellon Bank fortune - hired Limbaugh before 1990 to work on KQV, a local news radio station. They changed the format from news to all-talk ultra-conservative political diatribes that eventually morphed into "hate" radio. It took them a few years to get there but not long, considering all the other changes that were happening in the US media. The only listeners to AM radio were working-class poor who couldn't afford cable, lesser-educated and already leaning conservative.

Scaife got Limbaugh's show to go nationally syndicated which increased advertising revenue and Limbaugh's income exponentially. Pretty soon he became a household word, and Limbaugh was a national media figure regardless of his actual skill or understanding of American politics. His message was all-hate on the Clintons, especially Hillary but Bill too.

As far as I know this rise to fame and fortune had nothing to do with Russian backers. It's possible that Russians saw the quick rise in Rush Limbaugh's career, and they decided they could do the same on another radio station. But they had nothing to do with Limbaugh, Scaife, or KQV in Pittsburgh.

[Midnight Writer]

22. Somebody is definitely paying stations to air this content. Our local station doesn't even run ads.

During show breaks, they play music or run PSAs or promos for their other shows.