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I guess some congratulations are in order for one Vladimir Putin, the Russian kleptocrat who used strategic leaks of hacked information to win the election (or at least the electoral college) for Donald Trump, a thin-skinned narcissist and easily manipulable geopolitical naif.
I mean, we knew that before. But now it’s pretty much official.
The Washington Post reports:
The CIA has concluded in a secret assessment that Russia intervened in the 2016 election to help Donald Trump win the presidency, rather than just to undermine confidence in the U.S. electoral system, according to officials briefed on the matter.
Intelligence agencies have identified individuals with connections to the Russian government who provided WikiLeaks with thousands of hacked emails from the Democratic National Committee and others, including Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman, according to U.S. officials. Those officials described the individuals as actors known to the intelligence community and part of a wider Russian operation to boost Trump and hurt Clinton’s chances.
“It is the assessment of the intelligence community that Russia’s goal here was to favor one candidate over the other, to help Trump get elected,” said a senior U.S. official briefed on an intelligence presentation made to U.S. senators. “That’s the consensus view.”
Yep, that’s right. The outcome of our election was essentially determined by a hostile foreign power — with the active encouragement of Donald Trump, the candidate who benefited from Russia’s interference.
It’s also now clear just how selective Russia’s use of hacked information was. The New York Times reports that the Russians also successfully hacked the Republican National Committee’s email servers, but chose not to release any of these emails.
No wonder Trump is skipping most of his intelligence briefings.
Some people are comparing these revelations to Watergate. I don’t think that’s fair. This is ten times more significant than Watergate. It calls the whole election into question.
Trump is not our President. And he should not be sworn into office unless and until we have a full public reckoning of how exactly he “won” this election.
The Mrriage of Figaro is a tour-de-force of antifeminist Russian propaganda as well.
And lo! He spelt a saint’s name wrong.
Book of B.S.- 1:1
For Yor hath changeth names!
Book of B.S.- 1:2
@Ouroboros:
ED is utter garbage. It’s only satire in the way that bigots and edgelords try to use satire as an excuse for their shitty behaviour.
@Podkayne
Sounds like you’re from the Bay Area. Me too.
@mish
You made it much clearer than i could! Yeah basically that’s what i was trying to say that it’s kind of tipping the balance in the extreme direction without so much good reason to. I was just concerned because ‘its the sneaky russians!’ Is such a cliché i don’t want people to jump to conclusions to much.
I’m glad you liked the article:)))) here is one more. https://www.emptywheel.net/2016/12/10/evidence-prove-russian-hack/
I’ll second that ED is utter trash.
The tragedy is that ED wasn’t always evil. It was set up as a place to document Livejournal drama and snark at it, and it did this until the shitlords took over.
I believe the original team behind ED moved on to set up Oh Internet, and then Know Your Meme.
@Valentine,
Yay, another link! Early Xmas 🙂
Hey, that Empty Wheel is a great site. Serious thanks – I wasn’t aware of it until now.
I’m also glad to know that I understood your original comment correctly – and I agree with your concerns. Many moons ago I was involved with the local chapter of the International Socialists, where the opposite problem would arise: extreme reluctance to criticise Russia (or USSR).
It can be difficult to step out of these ideological parameters when thinking about Russia, perhaps especially for outsiders?
Yea, I remember ED being slightly amusing back in the day. Although, they were never shy about calling women sluts, bitches, or attention wh*res even way back then. Whoever runs things now is definitely in edgelord territory. I think they were team GG when Gamergate kicked off.
@EJ (The Orphic Lizard)
I’ve also heard these mythical accounts that 4chan used to be a much better place. Where trolls were genuinely just trolls. People having a laugh. And where heinous people used to be brought to justice by some of those same kind-hearted scamps. It all seems a bit far-fetched to me, given the sewer that it currently is and the worse sewers it spawned. But then again, my early memories of 4chan are a bit hazy. Never lurked there much. I wonder if banned@4chan could verify any of this?
Somewhat interesting news story here today.
Swedish Prime Minister Stefan Löfven was the target of an alt-right style fake news campaign earlier this year, centered around the claim that Löfven had been wearing a wrist watch worth 275 000 SEK ($30 000). It turned out to be a gift Löfven received from a US workers union (I think?), in actuality worth around 700 SEK ($75).
Since the fake news sites continued spreading the lie that the PM was wearing an extremely expensive watch, Löfven has now decided to auction it out. He said:
The money will go to charity, specifically to a project dedicated to building schools in war-torn countries.
Props for Stefan Löfven.
I’ve banned “Thomas Beckett” here; he’s a returning troll who’s been banned and banned and banned before.
On that ED thing:
He’s black, so that’s very unlikely; 88% of black voters went for Hillary.
The nearest barber shop is run by Mexican Americans and caters to Mexican Americans; according to exit polls, 65% of Latinos voted for Hillary, and that might be understating the percentage as exit polls don’t take early voting into account.
Possible; the plumbers who recently fixed a leak were white dudes. Not sure why the job required two plumbers.
Not a lot of coal miners in Chicago. Coal mining isn’t a cushy job. But the idea that coal miners are the epitome of worker oppression is a little silly. Coal miners don’t work 20 hours a day to get by. They typically earn more than the median salary here in the US, and they get considerably more than this in overtime pay.
Well, the “man driving me on the bus” is often a woman, and the overwhelming majority of bus drivers here are people of color. So again, unlikely.
Well, a majority of white voters wanted it. People of color, not so much.
Where do these ED people live where all working-class people are white?
I’m genuinely confused as to why Chaucer troll keeps coming back. He doesn’t even really interact with us in any real way. His brand of lulz trolling could be done anywhere. Why is b it so important to come here that he changes IP addresses to do it? Seems like a waste of time.
They think white, male and ”normal” people are the only ones that matter.
And now Trump is expected to nominate ExxonMobil CEO and Putin buddy Rex Tillerson for Secretary of State. Does anyone else feel like we’re living in the Manchurian Candidate? Only Raymond Shaw didn’t stop it this time.
The Trump Administration, brought to you by Goldman Sachs.
Those ED guys are all “everyone was on our side!” when it was actually 18%. They’ve swallowed the “economic anxiety” line about the election and are basically saying “you guys in your ivory towers need to respect the common workin’ mans!” with that. A.K.A. every Republican / Conservative argument ever, basically.
(How’s that workin-mans argument going for you now that Trump’s bringing in every corporate bigwig in town into his administration, guys?~)
They keep on saying that we Liberals live in ivory towers, and they keep defeating themselves by doing it. They keep forgetting that average people in America are more progressive and liberal than the government line. Despite this election, that hasn’t changed. We aren’t the ones in ivory towers, disconnected from the common person. Poor and working-class people are more progressive. The poor know hardship better than any, and we don’t want others to live through it as well. That’s what being a Progressive is.
(@Karalora, you previously worried that love wouldn’t eventually win, because of how rampant hate seems. I can’t tell you what you’re seeing, and wouldn’t want to, but I’ll just say this – hate is loud and angry. Love is quiet and gentle. Hate demands your attention, love’s willing to wait. Only 18% voted for Trump, and I’m willing to bet a large number of them weren’t enthusiastic about it. Don’t immerse yourself in that hate too long. Take breaks when you can!)
I also remember a time when 4chan and ED seemed just… silly. Not dangerous at all, clearly just teasing/ venting/ experimenting/ trying to get a rise out of people. I also remember when Anonymous fought for justice (Steubenville) and WikiLeaks for truth.
Increasingly, I wonder if I was ever right. Maybe it was always like this.
@Bill
It was always like this. At the same time anonymous was fighting for justice with Stubenville it was doing mean-spirited ops. My source on this is Our Weirdness is Free by Gabriella Coleman, but it’s been a couple of years since I read it and I’m at work now, so I’ll try to get to it tonight to get a more specific example for you.
Coal is big business in Illinois: http://isgs.illinois.edu/ilmines
Even in Chicagoland according to that map, though I’m not aware of any active mines.
@Bill Stickers
For as far back as I can remember, 4chan (/b/ specifically) has always been something of the internet’s refuse trough – the lowest common denominator – and they revel in it. I don’t think it’s always been quite so virulent and hyper-focused about it (/pol/ has only been around since 2011), but they’ve pretty much always featured a lot of slurs and bigotry and casual mentions that people should kill themselves. My gut instinct is to think “Yeah it wasn’t always so bad” because I wasn’t as socially aware a decade ago, so I didn’t think it was so bad at the time (I mostly just saw them as rejects from SA). But stopping to think of what I actually witnessed at the time, yeah, it was always super awful.
There’s also the issue with Anonymous that it’s an amorphous mass rather than a cohesive group. It’s difficult to pin down their aims and disposition, because completely different people may be working towards completely different goals under the same moniker.
As for how 4chan used to be… I suspect that some of the nastiness has always been there, except perhaps not quite as prominent and widespread as it is now. I also wouldn’t be surprised if the shitlords drove out most of the halfway decent people over time.
Also, can someone please explain how trolling “just to get a rise out of people” is harmless? Not trying to call you out specifically, Bill Stickers; it’s a sentiment I see expressed a lot and I fail to see how antagonizing people “for the lulz” is somehow harmless. It’s like calling bullying harmless, IMHO.
@kupo
I guess it’s along the lines of deliberately saying dumb, nonsensical, or exasperating things to annoy people, versus openly attacking them. Possible examples:
Trolling as harmless, if dumb joke: going onto a Star Trek forum and praising Star Wars to the high heavens instead.
Trolling as vile bullshit: doxxing or SWATting people.
@Gipsz Jakab
When the result is to actually upset people, it’s never harmless. If you go into a Star Trek site and praise Star Wars I’d agree that it’s harmless but I also don’t see it as trolling. Trolling, in my experience, has the intention of making people angry, hurt, or upset, which is a form of violence (emotional harm is a violence).