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Topple Putin and Trump
VirtualReality2 Marc Keyser host and author My guest today is Bill Palmer. We are discussing his article “Vladimir Putin is losing control” in the September 9, 2019 Palmer Report. Bill wanted to be here, but he couldn’t make it. Palmer: In hindsight, Vladimir Putin overreached badly when he invaded Crimea; it set off a round of crushing sanctions, costing him and his oligarchs billions of dollars. Putin then tried to turn things around by installing his puppet Donald Trump into office. But it turns out that was even more of an overreach, as Trump is an unstable disaster who hasn’t been able to remove the Obama-era sanctions, which was Trump’s only real job. Now it’s gotten worse for Putin. Keyser: The problem is ordinary people didn’t have the power to get rid of these corrupt dictators like Putin and Trump until now. Palmer: Protesters in Russia now seem to sense blood in the water. You’d have to ask them why they’ve concluded that Vladimir Putin has become vulnerable enough that they can safely make moves against him. But they appear to have guessed correctly. Last week there were reports that Putin was no longer even arresting all of the protesters. This is a guy who used to murder protesters. Now he’s going soft – and it’s not because he’s suddenly grown a conscience. Keyser: People can protest in Russia, but it’s still dangerous, and it doesn’t really change things. Protesters are not likely to remove Putin. Palmer: Now Putin’s political party has lost badly in the new local elections in Moscow, according to the BBC. Again, this is a guy who used to shamelessly rig elections in his favor. Now he’s either too afraid to take the risk of continuing to rig them in the face of increasing protests, or he no longer has the muscle to pull off rigging them… Keyser: …that’s encouraging, but Putin is still very much in control. Palmer: Vladimir Putin could still be a long way away from taking a fall. But we’re now seeing a definite pattern in which he’s either incrementally pulling his punches when it comes to protests and elections for fear of backlash, or he’s incrementally losing influence over the officials in position to arrest protesters and rig vote totals. Keyser: The Internet plays a role in that. Protesters can use the social media to activate people on a scale never imagined. The real shift in power will come when protesters take to their smartphones to shut down big banks. People around the globe can join in protesting against Putin by calling a target bank in Russia: #CallVTB. VTB (VTBR) was founded as Vneshtorgbank in 1990. The Russian government (Vladimir Putin) owns nearly 61% of VTB, with the rest listed on the Moscow exchange. Protesters in Russia can demonstrate out in front of each branch of VTB bank and call that branch office to jam the phones and focus media attention on the bank. On their phones, protesters can call from anywhere police free. No tear gas, no rubber bullets, no police dogs, no police beatings, no arrests. And activists can use their smartphones to spread the word and activate people everywhere to join in calling. We can Invade the phones with a massive Phone Campaign. Call VTB to overload the phones, disrupt business globally, start a run on the bank, crash the Moscow Exchange, and make Russia ungovernable. People will want their money out of VTB; and as the protest builds and the panic spreads people will want their money out of all the big banks in Russia. The run on the banks will crash the stock market. Palmer: I never thought about using smartphones as a weapon of protest to block the phones and deny service to banks. That would be one way to actually force Putin to resign. Keyser: The Resistance Phone Campaign includes but is not limited to Russia.
Keyser: It not only spreads like wildfire on social media against that one bank, it will jump the firewall and spread to other banks over other issues impacting not just these big banks, but international stock exchanges. Palmer: But won’t this bankrupt Bank of America? Keyser: We want to break up Bank of America and stop them from corrupting our political process. It’s up to Congress to decide if Trump is worth keeping at the cost of Bank of America going belly up and the stock market crashing. It’s their choice. Palmer: This could be very disruptive… Keyser: … that is like accusing a brain surgeon who is removing a brain tumor of being “disruptive” to a diseased brain before the patient becomes terminal.
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