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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsRussian Calexit guy -returning to California. Putin, Rohrabacher, Assange & Wikileaks approve
Last edited Sun Oct 22, 2017, 08:40 AM - Edit history (1)
Link to tweet
Link to tweet
BTW Marinelli is not even from California. He worked there for a few years before moving to Russia.
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Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028380818
From His Home in Russia, #Calexit Leader Plots California Secession:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/10028380999
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)Russia’s blueprint for political chaos: Alleged hacking may just be part of Vladimir Putin’s grand game
It wasn’t just Trump: Vladimir Putin’s government has also supported Brexit, Texas secession and #Calexit
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD
12.29.2016•8:00 AM
Louis Marinelli, president of the most prominent Calexit group, Yes California, takes a more open attitude toward seeking assistance from the Russian government, even as he insists that he disagrees with some of its policies. The group has done more than just attend the Dialogue of Nations conference. It has also partnered with AGM to create an “Embassy of the Independent Republic of California” inside Russia. A conference unveiling the initiative featured posters of foreign leaders representing a spectrum of anti-American opposition, including late Cuban leader Fidel Castro; former Venezuelan president Hugo Chávez and his successor, Nicolás Maduro; Syrian president Bashar al-Assad and, of course, Vladimir Putin.
Yes California intends to open facilities in five other countries as well. In an interview, Marinelli said that his group will be opening one in Germany next.
Marinelli has lived off and on in Russia since 2006 and resides there now, thanks in part to assistance from AGM. In a Skype interview, he defended Yes California’s relationship with Russia and likened it to the collaboration that American revolutionaries received from France via the Marquis de Lafayette. He also said separation from the United States was the best way for progressive Californians to preserve and expand the policies that they prefer.
https://www.salon.com/2016/12/29/russia-calexit-texit-dissent/
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)How to Make California Great: Secede, With a Little Help From Putin
A leader of ‘Calexit,’ the Golden State’s independence movement, sees Trump—and the Kremlin—as a boon.
By Leonid Ragozin
Marinelli, 30, moved to California from New York in 2006, the year he first visited Russia, on a summer student exchange program with St. Petersburg State University, President Vladimir Putin’s alma mater. Over the next five years he alternated between California and Russia, where he taught English in the cities of Samara and Kazan before settling down in San Diego in 2011 with Anastasia.
In the U.S., he campaigned against same-sex marriage, working as a social media strategist for the National Organization of Marriage, a conservative group. Mingling with counter-protesters, he said, he eventually took their side. There were also personal reasons for his fallout with the American right. He got sucked into a bureaucratic quagmire over his Russian wife’s residence in the U.S. and grew exasperated with anti-immigrant rhetoric, which he thought bordered on outright racism. He grew fond of his adopted state’s views.
Despite his newfound liberalism, Marinelli voted for Trump.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2016-12-07/how-to-make-california-great-secede-with-a-little-help-from-putin
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)Why Russia Loves the Idea of California Seceding
Once again, Moscow is winking at a long-shot breakaway movement in the U.S.
Marinelli, 30, was an unlikely messenger for the “Calexit” cause. He doesn’t live in California. He lives in Yekaterinburg—about 1,000 miles from Moscow—with his Russian wife. But it was not surprising that he had found a platform for his YesCalifornia movement in Moscow. Secession is a popular topic here—as long as it’s from someone else’s country. The Dialogue of Nations Conference, which attracted separatist-minded contingents from Ireland, Spain and Italy, was hosted by a man named Alexander Ionov, whose group had used money from the Kremlin to pay the travel expenses of one of Marinelli’s pals from Red Square: Nate Smith. Smith is one of the leaders of Texas Nationalist Movement that’s pushing to—you guessed it—break away from the United States.
The strategic advantage of making an argument for the secession of an American state to an audience in central Moscow is hard to gauge; after all, it’s voters in the States who would decide this matter. But the value to Russian interests seems more obvious, at least in the estimation of the leader of a separate and competing California secession movement, who actually lives in the state.
“YesCalifornia isn’t a Californian movement,” said Jed Wheeler, the general secretary of the California National Party. “YesCalifornia is a movement whose optics are all designed for a Russian audience to reinforce [Vladimir] Putin, by talking about…how terrible America is, and reinforcing [the idea that] Putin is this great guy who is admired all over the world.”
While the conference was going on, of course, the Kremlin-led hacking campaign against the Democratic National Committee was having its effect on the American presidential election, a provocation that has unwound relations between Moscow and Washington (with the exception of the president-elect) to their lowest levels since the pre-Gorbachev days. Since the election, while Washington (again with the exception of the president-elect) debates what the response should be for Russia’s meddling in the American political process, Marinelli and his handful of supporters are flaunting their ties with Russia, or at least the ones they hope to build. To that end, in mid-December, Marinelli held a news conference, helpfully covered by the state-run RT television station, declaring the opening of a “California Embassy” in Moscow.
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/01/why-russia-loves-the-idea-of-california-seceding-214632
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)SNIP/
But for the 30-year-old Yes California president, there remains one annoying problem: People keep asking him why he lives in Russia.
In the wake of Yes California's recently acquired momentum, a lot of people have taken note of Marinelli's unusual home base. Numerous articles have appeared in the Californian media noting Marinelli's choice of residence. On social media, discussions about Marinelli often take on a deeply conspiratorial tone.
“Hands off California, Putin,” a rival secessionist movement, the California National Party, tweeted in January. “We won't take orders from your puppet Moscow Marinelli.”
Marinelli has perhaps compounded the issue by making numerous appearances on Russian state media (approximately once a week, by his own estimation), at times offering a political viewpoint that seems to line up neatly with the Kremlin's. In late December, the Russian media gave widespread coverage to Marinelli as his group opened a “Californian Embassy” in Moscow.
Speaking via video chat from his home in Yekaterinburg earlier this month, Marinelli seemed exasperated when quizzed about his decision to live in Russia.
SNIP/
Marinelli's ties to Alexander Ionov are perhaps bigger conspiracy fodder. Ionov is the founder of the Anti-Globalization Movement of Russia, a group that supports various secessionist movements around the world. Last September, he put on a Kremlin-sponsored event in Moscow for Western secessionists that Marinelli and other representatives of Yes California attended.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/19/hes-the-founder-of-a-californian-independence-movement-just-dont-ask-him-why-he-lives-in-russia/
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)YEKATERINBURG, Russia — This provincial Russian city, about 1,000 miles east of Moscow, is about as unlikely a place as any to find the leader of one of the more unlikely political causes to arise in opposition to President Trump. But Louis J. Marinelli, the 30-year-old English teacher who is the president of the Yes California movement, which seeks independence for the state, has decided to call it home.
Word of “Calexit,” a quixotic idea that has floated around California for years, spread on social media after the election of Mr. Trump in November. Even though it has virtually no chance of succeeding — it would require an amendment to the Constitution — it has gained some traction in the state. Several technology industry leaders have voiced their support, and a ballot measure is in the works for the 2018 election.
Now with renewed attention on the movement, Mr. Marinelli is under scrutiny for living in a country that many in the United States see as an adversarial power.
Russians who meet Mr. Marinelli sometimes mistake him for a political refugee from the United States, assuming he would be repressed for his antigovernment positions at home.
And back in California, he is on the defensive for accepting travel expenses and office space from a Kremlin-linked nationalist group. That acceptance has raised the prospect that Russia, after meddling in the election to try to tip the vote to Mr. Trump, as United States intelligence agencies have said, is now gleefully stoking divisions in America by backing a radical liberal movement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/us/yes-california-calexit-marinelli-russia.html
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts).
I mean, as Russia was literally seizing territory from a neighboring
country within the last few years, they became one of the only modern
industrialized nations in a generation to have invaded a neighboring
country and taken over part of its territory, Russia also simultaneously
took to the information space to shut down activists from that country.
They`ve also been all over the globe promoting secession movements and
breakaway independence movements in all sorts of countries. They`ve been
looking – in other words, they`ve been looking to get bigger while they`ve
been busy working to make sure that everybody else gets smaller. They`re
literally taking over neighboring countries` territory to make Russia a
larger country, while promoting in the online space movements that would
break apart their rivals and competitors on the global stage.
We saw that this week in Iraq, where Russia was one of the only nations on
earth that supported the northern Iraq referendum in which the Kurds voted
this week that they should break off northern Iraq from the rest of Iraq
and become their own independent nation, the United States government is
radically opposed to that and has in fact been fighting more than a decade
in Iraq to try to keep Iraq together as a single nation with a single
government.
Russia, on the other hand, is all for blowing it apart. So, they supported
that referendum, as did incidentally Donald Trump`s campaign manager Paul
Manafort whose latest paying consulting jobs since being warned by
prosecutors that he`s about to be indicted has been advising supporters of
the breakup Iraq referendum which happened this week.
There`s also going to be another independence referendum this weekend in
Spain where the Catalon region is voting on whether or not they`d like to
break off and form an independent state apart from Spain. Turns out
Russia`s supporting that one too. What`s the Russian interest in
Catalonia? I don`t know, but it is part of a theme.
And we`ve talked about this on the show in the past a little bit. Russia
for years in this country has actively promoted the secession of Texas.
They`ve promoted the quirky Texas secessionist movement to the point of
inviting Texas secessionists to Russia. It pained their way to come to
meetings and conferences in Russia so the Russian government could help
them promote the independent republic of Texastan or whatever.
In the immediate wake of President Trump`s victory in last year`s
presidential election, you might remember a new flurry of enthusiasm and
attention to the various efforts that – to have California secede from the
United States. That was until one of the best funded slickest California
secession outfits last year turned out to have its headquarters in Russia.
Literally they – one of the California secessionist movements had a
government-funded free office in Moscow, and their leader – the leader of
the movement who was applying to get it you know on the ballot in
California and everything was living in Siberia while running that
movement.
Russia also famously supported secession within the European Union. They
were a major supporter of the U.K. Independence Party which drove the U.K.
to its Brexit vote, to break the United Kingdom out of the E.U. Russia was
also a massive financial supporter of the National Front in France which
among other things promised to break France out of the European Union,
along the same lines as the U.K. leaving in Brexit.
So, on the one hand, if you follow each of these things individually, it
looks complicated. You see Russia involved in one way or another in all of
these different countries` elections and all of the subtle internal
politics of all these different places all over the world, sometimes it`s -
- they seem left-wing, sometimes they seem right wing, sometimes they just
seem strangely interested. But there they are in the U.K. and in France
and in Spain and in the Middle East and in the United States, and in all of
these other disparate places.
So, it looks complicated on the one hand if you just follow those as
individual stories. But on the other hand, just step back and it`s as
simple as it could possibly be. Russia is busy making itself as big as
possible, including taking over parts of neighboring countries while it`s
simultaneously supporting movements all over the globe that make every
other place in the world as little and as divided as possible.
All right, we`re getting big and stretching out. Why don`t you guys fight
amongst yourselves and split into a million pieces? Here let me help.
Right?
I have reason to believe that Russia does not watch this TV show. So,
here`s an experiment. Let`s create a fake secessionist movement in the
United States on the theory that Russia will support secession of anyone in
the West for any reason just because they`d really love for the West to
break apart. The smaller the piece is the better, right?
We know they`ve already supported Texas seceding and California seceding,
and you know there is at the kernel of those little movements there is some
legit organic interest in those places and maybe breaking off, even if it
is kind of tongue-in-cheek.
But Russia will take that. They`ll build from that. They`ll fund it.
They`ll give you three offices. They`ll do whatever they can to hook you
up, they`ll staff it from Moscow.
Let`s make up a new one and see if we can get Russian support. First idea
I had for this today is that we`d set up a movement called Nohio. See if
they can buy on that.
And then somebody else on the staff came up with no, no, no, we should be
Tennesseeya because maybe they`d like a Southern one. We also entertained
the idea of Indiana becoming Outdiana. Or Illannoyed, we are out of here.
We`re so annoyed.
We tried on a few different ideas. And we now come down to four finalists,
and you can vote at MaddowBlog.com, or on Twitter. Vote for which fake
secession movement we should create online to see if it attracts Russians
support.
The choices are – ready? – A, we will create a new independent republic
of Manhattanistan, in Manhattan, or B, we will create a new independent
region called AriZONE. Option C lends itself I think to the best possible
bumper sticker, ConnectiCUT. For the one that might actually be familiar
to them, they wouldn`t even have to change too many of their online memes,
option D, New Mexit.
Again, the theory here is that if you build it, they will come. Any little
inkling of anybody wanting to break off any part of the United States,
anybody wanting to break off any part of anything that exists in the West
from anything that constitutes the existing international order where
Russia isn`t a superpower, any centripetal force to blow things apart will
attract Russian trolls like flies to Brexit.
So, we will see. Kind of excited about this. Anyway, MaddowBlog.com.
Alongside Russia`s efforts to promote outright secession though, as we
learn more about what Russia did in our own election last year,
particularly online and on Facebook, you can see the same concerted Russian
effort underway not to literally break our country apart as a geopolitical
unit, but to break our population apart, to get the American people at each
other`s throats.
TRANSCRIPT HERE: http://www.msnbc.com/transcripts/rachel-maddow-show/2017-09-27
VIDEO HERE: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/expansionist-russia-promotes-division-everywhere-else-1056627268001
Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)THE RACHEL MADDOW SHOW 9/27/17
Expansionist Russia promotes division everywhere else
Rachel Maddow reports on the latest revelations about how Russia used social media to disrupt the 2016 U.S. election and in actively encouraging secessionist movements around the world to promote division as it tries to grow itself. Duration: 22:19
VIDEO: http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow/watch/expansionist-russia-promotes-division-everywhere-else-1056627268001
grossproffit
(5,591 posts)Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)
DonCoquixote
(13,616 posts)I could imagine him being well received in San Francisco (sarcasm)
https://www.thedailybeast.com/anti-gay-marriage-crusader-louis-marinelli-on-his-conversion
https://www.queerty.com/five-months-later-nom-defector-louis-marinelli-quits-fighting-for-marriage-equality-20110830
seriously, only people in thrall of Moscow woudl think that the person CA would use to lead them is someone who is hateful of the reasons why CA is separate from america.
winstars
(4,220 posts)Madam45for2923
(7,178 posts)