Hey fellas,

Some of you may be familiar with mine and some of the other NAFO reddit mod's ethical psyop we have over at r/gato. It's NOT NAFO, but it is ours and due to the nature of how it's set up, we end up getting a LOT of traffic - largely from vatniks, tankies, wumaos, and "useful idiots" whom (for reasons as I will get to shortly) we don't necessarily ban.

It's a different kind of mission entirely where we can use that space (with any luck) to undermine the Kremlin's disinformation and influence they have on well meaning idiots individuals who don't know any better. By being smart about what we say and how we deliver it, the hope is we can help genuine victims of disinformation out of that mindset, which in turn undermines the Kremlin's ability to use them as megaphones and amplifiers for their genocide enabling bullshit.

Because we don't ban-on-site there as we would here, we naturally get a lot of engagement from russians/tankies/useful-idiots who see the content on our sub and get ragebaited into commenting - they'll sometimes start flame wars with our guys who aren't always clued up on the point and the mission of what we're trying to achieve.

Anyway, we're looking for folks who might be able to help us moderate over there because it's a lot more to handle than what we have here, and we're still trying to figure out how to manage this particular beast. To us, GATO represents our attempt to try and push and experiment with the boundaries of the memetics front and find new ways to push back against the authoritarian axis of power in the information domain.

Let us know in the comments, or message us (the NAFO mods) directly if you are interested in taking part. Please note, that we will have very high levels of scrutiny as to whom we allow to help us with this mission - candidates will have to have a long provable Pro-UA history to be considered, so please don't be offended if you don't make the cut, we're just being careful because we know what vatniks are like (they've taken over other communities before).

Hey guys, as most of you know the information war is very much alive and kicking. How it is manifest varies by a number of factors, principally by platform and area of interest.

Most disinformation is typically about issues unrelated to geopolitics due to the interest in dividing/polarising/radicalising the everyday person. But disinformation is also very often about geopolitical issues itself. Although a minority, there are still very vocal groups spouting russian narratives about the war in Ukraine or CCP narratives about Taiwan and the West... These are the types of people I've typically had to engage with in my capacity as a NAFO based redditor and as a moderator of the r/NAFO community.

Most of the time, (or at least so far as I have seen), the people who post drivel in support of authoritarianism are actually just "useful idiots" who spout out Kremlin originating nonsense and what have you. Shills, bots, and actors with a determined motif to push the narratives absolutely exist, but are a lot less common than most of what "our side" seems to imagine them to be - but then, they really don't have to be, all they need to do is swell the growth of people into their cult like belief system so the useful idiots can eventually become self-sustaining with enough shill-sourced resources to act as justification for their beliefs - i.e: the shills/kremlin only need to provide bogus peer reviewed papers and videos to act as "proof" and the "idiots" can latch onto these as justification for the beliefs they've been suckered into.

Unlike many, for more than obvious reasons frankly, I've been one of seemingly few to have a certain level of sympathy for the useful idiots out there. It is not so much I would willingly allow the hurt of innocent persons by way of their ignorance - after all, it doesn't matter how unwell an individual is with mental health issues, you still wouldn't allow them to kill your family would you? Rather, when I look at the "useful idiot", I see another one of the authoritarian's victims. I see someone who's circumstances and, perhaps even in many cases, vulnerable state of mind, has been exploited into becoming a tool and a vessel to perpetuate false narratives and further the interests of the ones who seeded the disinformation and propaganda.

Mark Twain once said:

"It's easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled."

The uphill struggle against a persons belief systems is a tough one, and perhaps is a testament to the human condition and propensity to believe in something - a byproduct of our evolutionary tendency toward tribalism as a survival mechanism...

The only way I've personally been ever to make any kind of break through to individuals on a false belief track is by demonstrating by my words, my behaviour, my tone, and my actions, that despite our vast differences of belief, they can be a part of my tribe, and that I am their friend - and why shouldn't I be? It is not they who have chosen to be a part of a system that enables the genocide and suffering of innocents. They have little to no idea that their actions are conducive to serving the interests of billionaires, power hungry dictators, authoritarians, and murderers. If they knew these things, most of them would be horrified.

The very reason they fight against us is because they really really believe that what they are doing is in some way helpful to the greater good, even if it is painfully obvious to literally everyone else on the entire planet that it is not - they don't know that, and if we are honest with ourselves, it's not their fault.

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I always find it ironic when I think of MAGA christians - arguably some of the least "christian" group out there. To the rest of us it is obvious that they have been duped and drunk the proverbial coolaid - but most of us seem hellbent on the idea of providing the emotional animus to enable them to hold further onto their misguided beliefs because it feels cathartic to take out our anger and frustration on them rather than taking an approach that could seriously undermine the stranglehold of Trumpian cultism. Instead of helping them see things differently, we fall right into Trump's trap and do his bidding for him by keeping ourselves divided. "Divede et Impere" indeed...

The irony, is that should we ever wish to truly undermine the illness that has taken over our MAGA cousins and neighbours, it is not like romans whom we should behave like, but rather like christians. "Love thy enemy", "Turn the other cheek", "Forgive them for they know not what they do".

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Despite all the hostility that gets directed our way because of it - it is a lot more work than simply "gunning" swathes of people down in a rage. I still hold onto the belief myself that it is worth it to try. Whether they are a MAGA or a Tankie, if the reason they perpetuate authoritarian disinformation and malinfluence is because they have been duped into believing that in doing so they are somehow helping justice in this world, then we have to recognise that we are dealing with someone who ultimately at their core is a good person. They've been abused by the real monsters of this world, the ones we find ourselves fighting and screaming about.

They are still worth saving. In their minds, they are fighting for justice, and it's up to us to choose whether to stamp them out to prevent further harm being spread, or to give them the means, tools, understanding, and capability to come over to the side where they can actually act in accordance to the values they themself believe they have.

Even if it's just for pragmatic sakes - one person who has been saved from the cult, is one less voice being used to amplify rhetoric that has the effect of enabling the genociders from continuing their perverse conquest for power.

This is what I've tried to do with r/gato. At first, it was an extension of NAFO alligned philosophy but in a non-rus/non-ua domain so NAFO could remain focused on Ukraine and in GATO we could express our support more generally for values of liberal democracy more generally. By not being tied down to any one country or nation, we didn't declare specific support for anyone and allowed folks to have their own idea as to who should or shouldn't be in the "Global Alliance Treaty Organisation" - It was a way for us to "have our cake and eat it". Because of this, we didn't ban people for simply believing in pro-rus narratives for example.

It became a grounds where we could talk to people on the other side, the first victims of disinformation. Not all of our interactions went smoothly - a lot of the Axis side would often come in hostile which would trigger the Allies to respond in kind, thus negating a lot of the point of the sub to try and reach across the aisle and extend an olive branch to the people we're trying to reach.

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I don't hate the "useful idiots", I also don't truly believe they are all "idiots" - just horrendously misguided. The way I look at it, you hate the sickness, not the one who is sick. Hate the sin, not the sinner. You wouldn't berate a schizophrenic, so why would berate anyone else who sees things that aren't real?

That's about all I really have to say on the subject. I apologise to anyone who does support "the other side" of things. I don't mean to patronise or belittle you or your experiences. I just want to be open about the way I think about it and I don't feel any need to hide how I go about it. I am not hiding that I am unapologetically using this community to proselytize.

We may disagree with each other, and that's okay. A human experience is something that belongs to all of us, and yours belongs to you. I hope you don't mind that in the pursuit of what I believe to be a fairer and more just world for myself and those I care about, that I would take it upon myself to do what I can to ensure that your experience really does belong to you, and not to those who would use it to further their own interests and conquest for power.

We are not your enemies.

Bricks and Minifigs is just one symptom of a greater sickness that affects American society.

If you're not born into money, if you're not famous, if you're not bumping soldiers with the elites, then you're a nobody and you don't matter. That is what they want you to know. You are not free, you do not live in a free country where nobody is above the law... YOU are not above THEIR law, and that law doesn't apply to them.

You're ability to secure you're own safety, to get what you want, or to get further in life, is directly proportional to how greedy you are, and how willing you are to screw over other people - even if they are innocent.

You live in a plutocratic kleptocracy that serves a class of oligarchs that abuse the capitalist model so that all your efforts, your labor, and everything you do to strive for the betterment of your family, is aggressively siphoned so that some parasitic "socialite", that contributes nothing to society, can have strawberries delivered to his super yacht on a helicopter.

And it's not enough. It's never enough for them. Even after everything else, they'll still try and steal what little else they have from you, because they know, there isn't anything you can do about it. The system isn't there to protect you, it's there to serve them - and they'll just silence you if you try and speak out about it. Their attitude can be summarized like this:

"What are you gonna do?"

And you know what? They have a point.

What are you gonna do? They can't keep getting away with this. It's Bricks and Minifigs today, tomorrow it's just gonna be some other corporation squeezing everything out of you and giving the bare minimum needed to keep you pacified.

Don't be pacified. Don't be silent.

When you're working 3 jobs and 98% of what you get for that work is going towards rent, bills, and the bare essentials you need to survive - tell me how that isn't slavery with extra steps?

The planet is dying and we're being held back by the greed of a few who care nothing for this world - that abuse us, that divide us, that steal from us and get away with it every single day.

Their system is not our system. It needs to be dismantled and rebuilt, so that criminals are held accountable, so that nobody is above the law. So that the values of life, liberty, democracy, and the pursuit of happiness, are more than just empty platitudes.

Brick by brick.

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I just found out they took the gofundme money. That's who you're up against. That's what they think of your "people power".