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We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now, and it's been this way for quite a while. It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails

We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now, and it's been this way for quite a while. It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Ever since the DNC leaks and the subsequent accusations against Russia, it became clear to me that, at some point, the attempts to tarnish Wikileaks's name was to prime the listening audience in a way such that when information so irreparably damaging would get released, the voters would have to choose between continuing a corrupt government and choosing an apparently mad authoritarian, and to soften the landing on the former. Since the RNC, Trump's campaign has been entirely pushing "Don't believe their lies", and the gaslighting from both sides seems to be hitting a nadir at this moment. It's becoming far more difficult to find reality in the fog. These are indeed interesting times.

alistproducer2 10y ago
>We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now Agreed. It's like some people somewhere woke up and realized hiring some script kiddies to hack old people that use the same password for all their accounts is a lot cheaper and easier than old-fashioned espionage. The frenzied pace at which all of this is happening reminds me a child with a new toy. >gaslighting from both sides I disagree that Clinton is trying to distort reality. She is more old school - she just stright up lies from time to time. Trump, on the other hand, is quite literally trying to create an alternate reality.
- gragas 10y ago
  If hundreds of pieces of direct evidence don't suffice, then I'm not sure what does. The Clinton Foundation has done countless extremely illegal and unethical things. Between CTR, the Bernie fiasco, the fake Craigslist ads, the "public and private" positions, I'm not sure how you can say that HRC isn't trying to create an alternate reality.
  - jsutton 10y ago
    What are the countless and extremely illegal and unethical things?
    - deleted 10y ago
      [deleted]
    - gragas 10y ago
      - Hillary and her team deliberately trying to trick the FBI by giving them a "slightly broader" set of emails [1]: "What that means specifically is that they are going to turn over all the Blumenthal emails to the Committee that they hav along with some other HRC emails that include a slightly broader set of search terms than the original batch. That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over." - Purposefully witholding all emails that were between HRC and POTUS [2]: "Think we should hold emails to and from potus? That's the heart of his exec privilege. We could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I seems like they will." - Evidence that the DNC purchased craigslist ads in attempt to frame Trump [3] "We’re proud to maintain a “fun” and “friendly work environment, where the boss is always available to meet with his employees. Like it or not, he may greet you with a kiss on the lips or grope you under the meeting table. Interested applicants should send resume, cover letter, and headshot to jobs@trump.com<mailto:jobs@trump.com>" - Clinton Foundation accepting $1 million from Qatar for Bill's birthday. [4] 1. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272 2. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9545 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9545 3. https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803 4. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396
      - tonecluster 10y ago
        Can anyone provide any evidence of confirmed illegal activity from a source other than wikileaks? E.g., results of any official investigation, etc.
- jayess 10y ago
  > I disagree that Clinton is trying to distort reality. She is more old school - she just stright up lies from time to time. Trump, on the other hand, is quite literally trying to create an alternate reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY
AvenueIngres 10y ago
Directly related to what you are saying, DNC consultants and execs caught on tape explaining how they plant fake Trump supporters at rallies to disrupt them or get negative media coverage. It is pretty interesting from: 1/ a partisan PoV, 2/ a methodological PoV; you are right there is a war for information that is being waged. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY
- postcarnival 10y ago
  wow this is crazy...
  - rtx 10y ago
    Or scary
- Pigo 10y ago
  There doesn't seem to be enough room in everyone's brain to appreciate a new story in the news every day. I'm amazed at the exposing of the game and how it's played. The proliferation of all this information is making it impossible to hide how the narrative is constructed by government and media. The back-scratching is deafening.
- danielnaab 10y ago
  The first question to ask with any James O'Keefe video is "where is the raw video." He has a long and sordid history of fabricating these kinds of storylines.
  - xname2 10y ago
    Yes. Only the raw video matters. They should publish all the raw video. Otherwise, everything in the video is just fake.
    - anigbrowl 10y ago
      I worked for years as a film professional, including screenwriting and editing. It is very easy to lie with footage. The craft of editing is to make the edits disappear so that changes in camera angles and content appear natural and seamless. We employ misdirection to exploit a phenomenon in the brain known as suture, which creates the illusion of continuity. As a simple example, in a narrative film I'll cut from angle to another when actor A takes a drink from a glass of water. The reason I want to cut is that I have begun to feel bored by shot #1 already for whatever reason - actor A may not be that good looking, or not a great actor, or the scripted dialog may be dull, whatever. It's boring, and that means you the viewer will be bored with it soon too. But I can't just cut away or you'll know what I'm up to. I'll wait until actor A engages in a physical movement and your visual cortex will quietly paper over the transition for me. Hmm, Actor A drank from the glass at different times during different takes, and the action of drinking doesn't line up with the dialog? No problem, I'll just cut briefly to a shot of actor B reacting to actor A (and by exploiting the Kuliekov effect, I can significantly change the meaning of the scene depending on what facial expression I choose to show on actor B) and then I'll cut back to actor A talking again from the new angle. You would be surprised how many movie scenes depicting two people in a room were shot across 2 different days with the actors never actually meeting in person. Likewise you would be astonished at the number of ways the same footage could be combined to tell radically different stories. I have made edits where I have run pieces of footage backwards and not even the director noticed until I pointed it out. Don't think you can't be fooled by even a semi-skillful editor, your brain has been trained in how to watch TV and movies probably from infancy, and while it is not too hard to break free of that training, nor is it hard for others to manipulate your pre-existing mental reflexes.
dleslie 10y ago
> It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Wikileaks notified of an incoming set of documents dangerous to the DNC well before those Trump videos arose.
- mejari 10y ago
  They did that repeatedly with nothing delivered, previously. All of a sudden they feel the need to actually release something.
  - dleslie 10y ago
    They released on-schedule; they filter through the data they receive to avoid releasing information that can endanger individuals. This takes time, and they made it clear that it would be completed close to the election.
    - mejari 10y ago
      That is incorrect on both counts. They promised releases several weeks in a row before they actually released anything. And they also released social security numbers, names and addresses for hundreds/thousands of people, so they're obviously not that concerned with protecting people. Hell, the put out the information on almost all women voters in Turkey, putting them in danger: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdog...
      - dleslie 10y ago
        > They promised releases several weeks in a row before they actually released anything. So they promised releases well in advance and then released them. > And they also released social security numbers, names and addresses for hundreds/thousands of people, so they're obviously not that concerned with protecting people. That wasn't Wikileaks, it was Michael Best. Did you read the update at the top of the article you linked? From Michael Best himself: > @WikiLeaks didn't upload the #AKP files with the private info on Turkish women - I did (and they've been removed) https://twitter.com/natsecgeek/status/758059030527021056 https://twitter.com/natsecgeek/status/758059030527021056 Stop reading the Huffington Post; it's a rag.
cryoshon 10y ago
> it became clear to me that, at some point, the attempts to tarnish Wikileaks's name was to prime the listening audience in a way such that when information so irreparably damaging would get released, the voters would have to choose between continuing a corrupt government and choosing an apparently mad authoritarian, and to soften the landing on the former. correct. you saw the exact same defamation routine a few years ago with the iraq leaks, and again (not as strongly) with the diplomatic cable leaks. the only twist this time is the attempt to conflate russia-us geopolitical tensions with wikileaks involvement. does the source of the information matter, if the information is legitimate? no. the dems live in fear of wikileaks and the endless dirt on hillary. it's clear that russia does view assange as an asset, however-- the whole RT show a few years ago spelled that out for me. what is also clear is that unhappy facts are more effective propaganda than mere rhetoric. assange seems content to be a participant in russia's propaganda schemes, so long as he is actually releasing documents whose beef was agnostic to the context of geopolitical rivalry. in other words: i want the dirt, too. i don't care if russia helps assange, we need all the help we can get against our own government at this point.
- admax88q 10y ago
  > in other words: i want the dirt, too. 100% agree. I'm constantly amazed at how some ordinary citizens can be mad at Snowden or Assange for releasing information. Wouldn't you want to know? Even just for interest sake I like to know what government and politicians around the world are up to.
  - meddlepal 10y ago
    I think many (most?) people are OK with the mantra "ignorance is bliss". HN readership doesn't really represent the average citizen. So while you may want the info that likely doesn't hold for a lot of folks who really only care about a very minor set of immediate concerns (food, shelter, children).
    - admax88q 10y ago
      I guess so, I just can't relate to that mentality.
JohnStrange 10y ago
I completely agree with your analysis. To add to this, I've been watching US media closely over the past few months and have never seen them so biased in any matter before, including past elections. It appears to me that there is not a single news source in the US that does not entirely follow some political agenda. There seem to be no dissenters or cautious writers left. Most of them are biased against Trump, of course, and follow a fairly obvious strategy: "Hillary is extremely unpopular, we cannot make her more popular, so let's make Trump even less popular." It works very well. Just to make this clear, I'm a European left-wing liberal democratic socialist, not a Trump or Hillary supporter of any kind. But I've seen many US elections and it was never like that before. It's as if all US media and news organizations have sold out to the highest bidder at once. (To be fair, I don't follow that many of them, just a few newspaper sites like L.A. times, NY times, TV channels like CNN, Fox, nbc and a few social media sites.)
- grey-area 10y ago
  I think the answer is simpler than some grand conspiracy of the global media elite (insert your preferred shadowy cabal here), the sort of people who work in news agencies simply are not alienated enough from the current system to see trump as anything other than a danger to the current system of representative gov. and they also don't like being demonised and slandered by Trump, this requires no conspiracy, just that media people value the status quo (which trump threatens in so many ways to destroy and disrupt from within). There is no conspiracy.
  - Kadin 10y ago
    Agreed. I also think this is generally quite often true: what people perceive to be conspiracies are often as not instead emergent behaviors, rooted in the independent self-interested actions of a large number of individuals, acting with very loose or no coordination at all. Conspiracies, when they happen, seem to rather often fail; those requiring secrecy are in particular prone to failure. But people act according to their own interests all the time, and when their interests are even slightly aligned the outcome can certainly resemble or even be indistinguishable from an actively-managed conspiracy.
SixSigma 10y ago
Never mind the info war how about DNC co-ordinating with paid agitators to start violence at Trump rallies 6m50s > "The thing that we have to watch is making sure there is a double blind between the campaign and the actual DNC and what we're doing. There's a double blind there. So they can plausibly deny that they knew anything about it." 9m35s > Aaron Black, DNC Rapid Response Coordinator, boasts about coordinating a Chicago protest at a Trump event. Two Chicago police reporters were injured and this event got a lot of news coverage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY
pdx 10y ago
To further what you're saying. Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. This level of premeditated collusion with the media is not even up for debate at this point, since the very emails they are trying to distract us from, detail instance after instance after instance of such collusion. I share your concern that we'll ever get honest reporting from the media again, and I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring.
- droopybuns 10y ago
  I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their face are actually stupid with conclusions that are unsupported by verifiable facts? (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cy...) Between the Sponsored Content, Native Ads and all of the investigative journalists who (according to DNC emails) are labeled as "friends," I have no choice but to say "I quit." They are pretty lies that don't nourish!
  - skylan_q 10y ago
    I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence. For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.
    - novalis78 10y ago
      One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.
tptacek 10y ago
The magnitude of the falseness of this equivalence tells you everything you need to know about Wikileaks role in this election. Implied in it is the idea that the Clinton campaign had an obligation to release their opposition research on Trump as soon as they had it. But of course, they have no such obligation: they're not journalists! On the other hand, Wikileaks clearly is structuring their releases to draw out the impact on the Clinton campaign and (vainly) to blunt the impact of Trump's own behavior (mostly, Clinton has won the news cycles despite these attempts). But Wikileaks is not supposed to be an organ of the Trump campaign. Unlike the HRC campaign, Wikileaks ostensibly does have an obligation to serve the public interest. It clearly does not honor that obligation; instead, it's transparently servicing the Trump campaign.
- gaius 10y ago
  I think Wikileaks is definitely anti-Clinton but it's a stretch to say they're pro-Trump.
  - tptacek 10y ago
    People keep saying that. It is the single most common rebuttal given to this argument. But I can't understand how it makes any sense at all. It's a two-person race. It's zero-sum. To materially oppose one candidate is to materially support the other. That is, i assume, why Trump's campaign keeps claiming they coordinate directly with Assange through an intermediary. Can someone (calmly) explain why anyone should take seriously the idea that Assange can singlehandedly run virtually the entire opposition research campaign against Hillary Clinton and not be supporting Trump?
    - zzleeper 10y ago
      I think Assange doesn't care that much who is elected, as long as it's not Hillary (because of the things she did against him and the things she promised to do). In this case his only choice is Trump, but it could have been others.
      - 10y ago
sytelus 10y ago
Is there something really damaging in Wikileak emails? Even on Fox News they are not able to mention anything that is at the level of Trump tapes. Sure, there is some amusing stuff and quipes by aggressive campaign staff about opponents but nothing that can points to big corruption directly on Clinton's part. The media coverage is unexpectedly very low but I can see why media will want to put these rather boring emails front and center while juicy Trump stuff keeps coming out. If anyone has studied these emails, please feel free to comment. PS: As far as voting is concerned, I'm still in information collection mode and don't support any candidate at this point.
- gotchange 10y ago
  > Is there something really damaging in Wikileak emails? That's my main problem with all these arguments «false equivalency» in their pursuit of seeming and sounding fair, balanced and impartial, they resort to equate all the horrendous things that Trump said or did with these harmless details that Hillary or her chief of staff said behind closed doors or in private emails. It's just not right and unfair for Hillary and her campaign.
  - skylan_q 10y ago
    These are completely different things. What's in those emails is FAR more damming than some foul-mouthed quips. Gross FCC violations, for one.
    - brainfire 10y ago
      You're literally proving the grandparent comment's point- the best you can come up with is a baseless accusation.
    - slg 10y ago
      You say that without linking to any real source. Every time I have seen someone link "evidence", it is just a Rorschach test of an email that depending on where you fall on the political spectrum you might view as signs of criminal activity or view as politics as usual.
darawk 10y ago
To be fair, this is just a reasonable strategy on the part of the Clinton campaign. To my knowledge there hasn't yet been anything particularly damaging found in these emails. If I were them, i'd have done the same thing with respect to timing though, it just makes sense when you have a pre-commitment from an adversary to release on a particular date. I mean, I guess it's a little bit underhanded, but only just barely. If there were something significant in the emails then it still would have been reported on, but as far as I can tell, there wasn't.
tlb 10y ago
Wikileaks's foundational theory was there were bad organizations and good organizations, and random leaks would impose a 'secrecy tax' on the bad ones, forcing them to take extreme opsec measures which would make them less effective, and this would gradually bend the moral arc of the universe towards goodness. But be may be seeing another outcome: the greatest tax is on the organizations where its supporters care about what's right and wrong and true and false, while organizations that spew empty invective and bullshit have no tax. Perhaps what we ended up with is an 'intellectual honesty' tax.
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
matt_wulfeck 10y ago
And I'm feeling sad that the best place to read about these leaks is on... rt.com.
- ManlyBread 10y ago
  In a pure coincidence, this is what happened yesterday: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37677020 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37677020
daveheq 10y ago
Releasing what people said and wrote is not propaganda, it's leaking. Choosing to release only things that make one candidate look bad is propaganda-ish, but to label leaks propaganda is to say it's bad to leak bad things the candidates have said or written, which I completely disagree with. I want to know the dirt on our candidates because they will LIE LIE LIE as Trump put it.
xenadu02 10y ago
I've read many of the emails. There just isn't much to them. It's almost all boring day-to-day crap. Even the release of Clinton's speech transcripts is about as mild and inoffensive as you can get. The other thing is we have no idea if they are all authentic. It would be trivial to slip a few extra sentences in here or there. Everyone just seems to take it as given that they're legit but Assange didn't hack anyone to get them. We know nothing about who actually did, so we don't even have a flimsy "reputation" pretense to rely on.
- new_hackers 10y ago
  Seth Rich?
- acomjean 10y ago
  >The other thing is we have no idea if they are all authentic. It would be trivial to slip a few extra sentences in here or there. This. There has been no verification that these are completely real emails (the checksum matches so to speak).
  - ZoF 10y ago
    Yes, the DNC wouldn't have called them out as fake immediately if they were... Come on. Podesta himself admitted he got hacked and the password he emailed himself in plaintext worked for his other social media accounts.
    - acdha 10y ago
      Think about that a little more in depth: For any one email, it's easy to check and dispute a discrepancy. Checking thousands of emails takes time but you have to take that time to avoid the chance of validating a forgery. During that time, they're in the news a lot and someone may confirm a legitimate email in the dump, which will be taken by many as proof that the entire thing is valid. Many people will never change their memory of that. If you do find anything tampered with, it may be hard or impossible to prove to a level which will satisfy critics. It doesn't need to be provable to the level needed for a court case to be damaging politically – just look at how much mileage the GOP got from birtherism based on repetition and incredibly clumsy forgeries even with contradictory evidence available. So if you compromise a political target's account, you could get the most damage from real dirt but you can get almost as much from a clever forgery among all of the normal office chatter as long as you don't do something like adding a Russian name to the Office metadata or claim something happened when it was unquestionably impossible (e.g. claiming a secret meeting when someone was giving a speech nowhere near the purported location).
dimino 10y ago
Regardless of what you believe about Wikileaks, it doesn't follow to think they're in league with the provider of the leaks. If you know anything about how Wikileaks solicits material, you'd know such isn't the case... It does suck that they're timing their release with political motives, and Assange appears to be a gaping asshole (though not a rapist), but none of this is even remotely novel for Wikileaks.
dingbat 10y ago
its also abundantly transparent now that "fact checking" services have lost all credibility, ie. "DT claimed HRC server was acid-washed: FALSE", "DT claimed HRC laughed at an 11-year-old rape victim: FALSE".
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]
api 10y ago
If this is the case (and I think it is), then what is the underlying motive? It seems to me that if things are coming to a head like this it's because there is an underlying Issue (capital-I) that is also coming to a head or will be soon. I get a sense of near desperation from some of this. My totally off the cuff hypothesis: We are approaching a tipping point where new energy technologies (solar+batteries, etc.) will get cheap enough to "go exponential" vs. fossil fuels. This has huge geopolitical implications. A more or less permanent crash in fossil fuel prices could completely realign the world. The biggest winners would probably be the USA, EU, and China since these are net energy importers and have economies based on high tech, manufacturing, finance, and services. The biggest losers would be Russia and the Middle Eastern petro-states, but certain regions within the USA and Canada would also lose substantially vs. others. More importantly you'd have a major crash in the value of certain corporations vs. others. Apple being briefly worth more than Exxon Mobil is perhaps a preview. I've heard the view before that WWI and WWII were really about dominance of the emerging petroleum age. If that age is now ending, what happens next? WWIII? Edit: Second hypothesis: The world economy is about to crash again hard, and when that happens there will be a great window to enact all kinds of changes. Various parties are struggling to make sure they are in power for that window.
calsy 10y ago
Might sound silly, but I think more adjectives equals less trustworthy. So when I see words like 'powerful, emotional, hateful' I tend to dismiss the article as rubbish. Try it sometime.
bsder 10y ago
> It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Personally, I don't understand the brouhaha about all the Trump tapes. If you had even a remote inkling of fact about the man NONE OF THIS IS A SURPRISE. While I'm definitely in the opposing camp, I have zero respect for those who are now abandoning Trump. You stuck with him on superficial grounds and now you are leaving on superficial grounds. Nothing about the man has changed.
- kbenson 10y ago
  > Personally, I don't understand the brouhaha about all the Trump tapes. If you had even a remote inkling of fact about the man NONE OF THIS IS A SURPRISE. I think it points towards people fooling themselves as to his character so they could continue to support him in good conscience. Once presented with hard evidence, that's harder to do. If something definitive came out tomorrow about Clinton accepting cash for favors (not donations to a charitable foundation for meetings, which is what is poorly alleged now), then I think a lot of Clinton supporters would have a similar crisis of conscience.
shard972 10y ago
> We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now, and it's been this way for quite a while. It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Huh? I remember the leaks coming out first then the video? I remember because I had fox news live on in the background, they started talking about the email dump and when they came back from break it was pussygate.

alistproducer2 10y ago

>We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now Agreed. It's like some people somewhere woke up and realized hiring some script kiddies to hack old people that use the same password for all their accounts is a lot cheaper and easier than old-fashioned espionage. The frenzied pace at which all of this is happening reminds me a child with a new toy. >gaslighting from both sides I disagree that Clinton is trying to distort reality. She is more old school - she just stright up lies from time to time. Trump, on the other hand, is quite literally trying to create an alternate reality.

gragas 10y ago
If hundreds of pieces of direct evidence don't suffice, then I'm not sure what does. The Clinton Foundation has done countless extremely illegal and unethical things. Between CTR, the Bernie fiasco, the fake Craigslist ads, the "public and private" positions, I'm not sure how you can say that HRC isn't trying to create an alternate reality.
- jsutton 10y ago
  What are the countless and extremely illegal and unethical things?
  - deleted 10y ago
    [deleted]
  - gragas 10y ago
    - Hillary and her team deliberately trying to trick the FBI by giving them a "slightly broader" set of emails [1]: "What that means specifically is that they are going to turn over all the Blumenthal emails to the Committee that they hav along with some other HRC emails that include a slightly broader set of search terms than the original batch. That of course includes the emails Sid turned over that HRC didn't, which will make clear to them that she didn't have them in the first place, deleted them, or didn't turn them over." - Purposefully witholding all emails that were between HRC and POTUS [2]: "Think we should hold emails to and from potus? That's the heart of his exec privilege. We could get them to ask for that. They may not care, but I seems like they will." - Evidence that the DNC purchased craigslist ads in attempt to frame Trump [3] "We’re proud to maintain a “fun” and “friendly work environment, where the boss is always available to meet with his employees. Like it or not, he may greet you with a kiss on the lips or grope you under the meeting table. Interested applicants should send resume, cover letter, and headshot to jobs@trump.com<mailto:jobs@trump.com>" - Clinton Foundation accepting $1 million from Qatar for Bill's birthday. [4] 1. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9272 2. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9545 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/9545 3. https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803 https://wikileaks.org/dnc-emails/emailid/12803 4. https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396 https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/8396
    - tonecluster 10y ago
      Can anyone provide any evidence of confirmed illegal activity from a source other than wikileaks? E.g., results of any official investigation, etc.
jayess 10y ago
> I disagree that Clinton is trying to distort reality. She is more old school - she just stright up lies from time to time. Trump, on the other hand, is quite literally trying to create an alternate reality. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

AvenueIngres 10y ago

Directly related to what you are saying, DNC consultants and execs caught on tape explaining how they plant fake Trump supporters at rallies to disrupt them or get negative media coverage. It is pretty interesting from: 1/ a partisan PoV, 2/ a methodological PoV; you are right there is a war for information that is being waged. [1] - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

postcarnival 10y ago
wow this is crazy...
- rtx 10y ago
  Or scary
Pigo 10y ago
There doesn't seem to be enough room in everyone's brain to appreciate a new story in the news every day. I'm amazed at the exposing of the game and how it's played. The proliferation of all this information is making it impossible to hide how the narrative is constructed by government and media. The back-scratching is deafening.
danielnaab 10y ago
The first question to ask with any James O'Keefe video is "where is the raw video." He has a long and sordid history of fabricating these kinds of storylines.
- xname2 10y ago
  Yes. Only the raw video matters. They should publish all the raw video. Otherwise, everything in the video is just fake.
  - anigbrowl 10y ago
    I worked for years as a film professional, including screenwriting and editing. It is very easy to lie with footage. The craft of editing is to make the edits disappear so that changes in camera angles and content appear natural and seamless. We employ misdirection to exploit a phenomenon in the brain known as suture, which creates the illusion of continuity. As a simple example, in a narrative film I'll cut from angle to another when actor A takes a drink from a glass of water. The reason I want to cut is that I have begun to feel bored by shot #1 already for whatever reason - actor A may not be that good looking, or not a great actor, or the scripted dialog may be dull, whatever. It's boring, and that means you the viewer will be bored with it soon too. But I can't just cut away or you'll know what I'm up to. I'll wait until actor A engages in a physical movement and your visual cortex will quietly paper over the transition for me. Hmm, Actor A drank from the glass at different times during different takes, and the action of drinking doesn't line up with the dialog? No problem, I'll just cut briefly to a shot of actor B reacting to actor A (and by exploiting the Kuliekov effect, I can significantly change the meaning of the scene depending on what facial expression I choose to show on actor B) and then I'll cut back to actor A talking again from the new angle. You would be surprised how many movie scenes depicting two people in a room were shot across 2 different days with the actors never actually meeting in person. Likewise you would be astonished at the number of ways the same footage could be combined to tell radically different stories. I have made edits where I have run pieces of footage backwards and not even the director noticed until I pointed it out. Don't think you can't be fooled by even a semi-skillful editor, your brain has been trained in how to watch TV and movies probably from infancy, and while it is not too hard to break free of that training, nor is it hard for others to manipulate your pre-existing mental reflexes.

dleslie 10y ago

> It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Wikileaks notified of an incoming set of documents dangerous to the DNC well before those Trump videos arose.

mejari 10y ago
They did that repeatedly with nothing delivered, previously. All of a sudden they feel the need to actually release something.
- dleslie 10y ago
  They released on-schedule; they filter through the data they receive to avoid releasing information that can endanger individuals. This takes time, and they made it clear that it would be completed close to the election.
  - mejari 10y ago
    That is incorrect on both counts. They promised releases several weeks in a row before they actually released anything. And they also released social security numbers, names and addresses for hundreds/thousands of people, so they're obviously not that concerned with protecting people. Hell, the put out the information on almost all women voters in Turkey, putting them in danger: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdogan-emails_b_11158792.html http://www.huffingtonpost.com/zeynep-tufekci/wikileaks-erdog...
    - dleslie 10y ago
      > They promised releases several weeks in a row before they actually released anything. So they promised releases well in advance and then released them. > And they also released social security numbers, names and addresses for hundreds/thousands of people, so they're obviously not that concerned with protecting people. That wasn't Wikileaks, it was Michael Best. Did you read the update at the top of the article you linked? From Michael Best himself: > @WikiLeaks didn't upload the #AKP files with the private info on Turkish women - I did (and they've been removed) https://twitter.com/natsecgeek/status/758059030527021056 https://twitter.com/natsecgeek/status/758059030527021056 Stop reading the Huffington Post; it's a rag.

cryoshon 10y ago

> it became clear to me that, at some point, the attempts to tarnish Wikileaks's name was to prime the listening audience in a way such that when information so irreparably damaging would get released, the voters would have to choose between continuing a corrupt government and choosing an apparently mad authoritarian, and to soften the landing on the former. correct. you saw the exact same defamation routine a few years ago with the iraq leaks, and again (not as strongly) with the diplomatic cable leaks. the only twist this time is the attempt to conflate russia-us geopolitical tensions with wikileaks involvement. does the source of the information matter, if the information is legitimate? no. the dems live in fear of wikileaks and the endless dirt on hillary. it's clear that russia does view assange as an asset, however-- the whole RT show a few years ago spelled that out for me. what is also clear is that unhappy facts are more effective propaganda than mere rhetoric. assange seems content to be a participant in russia's propaganda schemes, so long as he is actually releasing documents whose beef was agnostic to the context of geopolitical rivalry. in other words: i want the dirt, too. i don't care if russia helps assange, we need all the help we can get against our own government at this point.

admax88q 10y ago
> in other words: i want the dirt, too. 100% agree. I'm constantly amazed at how some ordinary citizens can be mad at Snowden or Assange for releasing information. Wouldn't you want to know? Even just for interest sake I like to know what government and politicians around the world are up to.
- meddlepal 10y ago
  I think many (most?) people are OK with the mantra "ignorance is bliss". HN readership doesn't really represent the average citizen. So while you may want the info that likely doesn't hold for a lot of folks who really only care about a very minor set of immediate concerns (food, shelter, children).
  - admax88q 10y ago
    I guess so, I just can't relate to that mentality.

JohnStrange 10y ago

I completely agree with your analysis. To add to this, I've been watching US media closely over the past few months and have never seen them so biased in any matter before, including past elections. It appears to me that there is not a single news source in the US that does not entirely follow some political agenda. There seem to be no dissenters or cautious writers left. Most of them are biased against Trump, of course, and follow a fairly obvious strategy: "Hillary is extremely unpopular, we cannot make her more popular, so let's make Trump even less popular." It works very well. Just to make this clear, I'm a European left-wing liberal democratic socialist, not a Trump or Hillary supporter of any kind. But I've seen many US elections and it was never like that before. It's as if all US media and news organizations have sold out to the highest bidder at once. (To be fair, I don't follow that many of them, just a few newspaper sites like L.A. times, NY times, TV channels like CNN, Fox, nbc and a few social media sites.)

grey-area 10y ago
I think the answer is simpler than some grand conspiracy of the global media elite (insert your preferred shadowy cabal here), the sort of people who work in news agencies simply are not alienated enough from the current system to see trump as anything other than a danger to the current system of representative gov. and they also don't like being demonised and slandered by Trump, this requires no conspiracy, just that media people value the status quo (which trump threatens in so many ways to destroy and disrupt from within). There is no conspiracy.
- Kadin 10y ago
  Agreed. I also think this is generally quite often true: what people perceive to be conspiracies are often as not instead emergent behaviors, rooted in the independent self-interested actions of a large number of individuals, acting with very loose or no coordination at all. Conspiracies, when they happen, seem to rather often fail; those requiring secrecy are in particular prone to failure. But people act according to their own interests all the time, and when their interests are even slightly aligned the outcome can certainly resemble or even be indistinguishable from an actively-managed conspiracy.

SixSigma 10y ago

Never mind the info war how about DNC co-ordinating with paid agitators to start violence at Trump rallies 6m50s > "The thing that we have to watch is making sure there is a double blind between the campaign and the actual DNC and what we're doing. There's a double blind there. So they can plausibly deny that they knew anything about it." 9m35s > Aaron Black, DNC Rapid Response Coordinator, boasts about coordinating a Chicago protest at a Trump event. Two Chicago police reporters were injured and this event got a lot of news coverage. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5IuJGHuIkzY

pdx 10y ago

To further what you're saying. Wikileaks announced for weeks when they were releasing the emails. It was a pre-planned event that the entire world was waiting for. The Trump tape, which had obviously been saved for a rainy day, was trotted out to distract from the pre-announced Wikileaks release. This level of premeditated collusion with the media is not even up for debate at this point, since the very emails they are trying to distract us from, detail instance after instance after instance of such collusion. I share your concern that we'll ever get honest reporting from the media again, and I have to wonder how many years (decades?) this has been occurring.

droopybuns 10y ago
I'd like to suggest a more significant conclusion. The trust I have had in the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, ABC/NBC/CBS, Democratic and Republican parties has been irreparably damaged. I've been a cord cutter for over a decade. This year I graduated to pitying people who repeat the latest front page story as naive fear-junkies. Everything is suspect. Why burn processing cycles reading stories that on their face are actually stupid with conclusions that are unsupported by verifiable facts? (http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cyber-strike-against-russia-n666636 http://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/cia-prepping-possible-cy...) Between the Sponsored Content, Native Ads and all of the investigative journalists who (according to DNC emails) are labeled as "friends," I have no choice but to say "I quit." They are pretty lies that don't nourish!
- skylan_q 10y ago
  I've been there for a while. I only trust a few people who thanklessly go through materials and study issues in detail. If I want to verify further I can only then trust primary sources and direct evidence. For a long time now, all forms of traditional media have had a bent. It's just gotten very monied and politicized as of late.
  - novalis78 10y ago
    One option of course, which as a European who had to live with media-government collusion his whole life, is to triangulate: Read foreign media, read political opponents views on the same topic as the mainstream media, read (if available) conflicting mainstream media stories. Take it all in, and triangulate. Very often the BS from one side cancels out the BS from the other side and you are not closer to reality. But very often it's the scrutiny from either side on an opposing paradigm, that gets you closer to what actually happened. Finally, draw your own conclusions based on history/education/philosophy.

tptacek 10y ago

The magnitude of the falseness of this equivalence tells you everything you need to know about Wikileaks role in this election. Implied in it is the idea that the Clinton campaign had an obligation to release their opposition research on Trump as soon as they had it. But of course, they have no such obligation: they're not journalists! On the other hand, Wikileaks clearly is structuring their releases to draw out the impact on the Clinton campaign and (vainly) to blunt the impact of Trump's own behavior (mostly, Clinton has won the news cycles despite these attempts). But Wikileaks is not supposed to be an organ of the Trump campaign. Unlike the HRC campaign, Wikileaks ostensibly does have an obligation to serve the public interest. It clearly does not honor that obligation; instead, it's transparently servicing the Trump campaign.

gaius 10y ago
I think Wikileaks is definitely anti-Clinton but it's a stretch to say they're pro-Trump.
- tptacek 10y ago
  People keep saying that. It is the single most common rebuttal given to this argument. But I can't understand how it makes any sense at all. It's a two-person race. It's zero-sum. To materially oppose one candidate is to materially support the other. That is, i assume, why Trump's campaign keeps claiming they coordinate directly with Assange through an intermediary. Can someone (calmly) explain why anyone should take seriously the idea that Assange can singlehandedly run virtually the entire opposition research campaign against Hillary Clinton and not be supporting Trump?
  - zzleeper 10y ago
    I think Assange doesn't care that much who is elected, as long as it's not Hillary (because of the things she did against him and the things she promised to do). In this case his only choice is Trump, but it could have been others.
    - 10y ago

sytelus 10y ago

Is there something really damaging in Wikileak emails? Even on Fox News they are not able to mention anything that is at the level of Trump tapes. Sure, there is some amusing stuff and quipes by aggressive campaign staff about opponents but nothing that can points to big corruption directly on Clinton's part. The media coverage is unexpectedly very low but I can see why media will want to put these rather boring emails front and center while juicy Trump stuff keeps coming out. If anyone has studied these emails, please feel free to comment. PS: As far as voting is concerned, I'm still in information collection mode and don't support any candidate at this point.

gotchange 10y ago
> Is there something really damaging in Wikileak emails? That's my main problem with all these arguments «false equivalency» in their pursuit of seeming and sounding fair, balanced and impartial, they resort to equate all the horrendous things that Trump said or did with these harmless details that Hillary or her chief of staff said behind closed doors or in private emails. It's just not right and unfair for Hillary and her campaign.
- skylan_q 10y ago
  These are completely different things. What's in those emails is FAR more damming than some foul-mouthed quips. Gross FCC violations, for one.
  - brainfire 10y ago
    You're literally proving the grandparent comment's point- the best you can come up with is a baseless accusation.
  - slg 10y ago
    You say that without linking to any real source. Every time I have seen someone link "evidence", it is just a Rorschach test of an email that depending on where you fall on the political spectrum you might view as signs of criminal activity or view as politics as usual.

darawk 10y ago

To be fair, this is just a reasonable strategy on the part of the Clinton campaign. To my knowledge there hasn't yet been anything particularly damaging found in these emails. If I were them, i'd have done the same thing with respect to timing though, it just makes sense when you have a pre-commitment from an adversary to release on a particular date. I mean, I guess it's a little bit underhanded, but only just barely. If there were something significant in the emails then it still would have been reported on, but as far as I can tell, there wasn't.

tlb 10y ago

Wikileaks's foundational theory was there were bad organizations and good organizations, and random leaks would impose a 'secrecy tax' on the bad ones, forcing them to take extreme opsec measures which would make them less effective, and this would gradually bend the moral arc of the universe towards goodness. But be may be seeing another outcome: the greatest tax is on the organizations where its supporters care about what's right and wrong and true and false, while organizations that spew empty invective and bullshit have no tax. Perhaps what we ended up with is an 'intellectual honesty' tax.

deleted 10y ago
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matt_wulfeck 10y ago

And I'm feeling sad that the best place to read about these leaks is on... rt.com.

ManlyBread 10y ago
In a pure coincidence, this is what happened yesterday: http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37677020 http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-37677020

daveheq 10y ago

Releasing what people said and wrote is not propaganda, it's leaking. Choosing to release only things that make one candidate look bad is propaganda-ish, but to label leaks propaganda is to say it's bad to leak bad things the candidates have said or written, which I completely disagree with. I want to know the dirt on our candidates because they will LIE LIE LIE as Trump put it.

xenadu02 10y ago

I've read many of the emails. There just isn't much to them. It's almost all boring day-to-day crap. Even the release of Clinton's speech transcripts is about as mild and inoffensive as you can get. The other thing is we have no idea if they are all authentic. It would be trivial to slip a few extra sentences in here or there. Everyone just seems to take it as given that they're legit but Assange didn't hack anyone to get them. We know nothing about who actually did, so we don't even have a flimsy "reputation" pretense to rely on.

new_hackers 10y ago
Seth Rich?
acomjean 10y ago
>The other thing is we have no idea if they are all authentic. It would be trivial to slip a few extra sentences in here or there. This. There has been no verification that these are completely real emails (the checksum matches so to speak).
- ZoF 10y ago
  Yes, the DNC wouldn't have called them out as fake immediately if they were... Come on. Podesta himself admitted he got hacked and the password he emailed himself in plaintext worked for his other social media accounts.
  - acdha 10y ago
    Think about that a little more in depth: For any one email, it's easy to check and dispute a discrepancy. Checking thousands of emails takes time but you have to take that time to avoid the chance of validating a forgery. During that time, they're in the news a lot and someone may confirm a legitimate email in the dump, which will be taken by many as proof that the entire thing is valid. Many people will never change their memory of that. If you do find anything tampered with, it may be hard or impossible to prove to a level which will satisfy critics. It doesn't need to be provable to the level needed for a court case to be damaging politically – just look at how much mileage the GOP got from birtherism based on repetition and incredibly clumsy forgeries even with contradictory evidence available. So if you compromise a political target's account, you could get the most damage from real dirt but you can get almost as much from a clever forgery among all of the normal office chatter as long as you don't do something like adding a Russian name to the Office metadata or claim something happened when it was unquestionably impossible (e.g. claiming a secret meeting when someone was giving a speech nowhere near the purported location).

dimino 10y ago

Regardless of what you believe about Wikileaks, it doesn't follow to think they're in league with the provider of the leaks. If you know anything about how Wikileaks solicits material, you'd know such isn't the case... It does suck that they're timing their release with political motives, and Assange appears to be a gaping asshole (though not a rapist), but none of this is even remotely novel for Wikileaks.

dingbat 10y ago

its also abundantly transparent now that "fact checking" services have lost all credibility, ie. "DT claimed HRC server was acid-washed: FALSE", "DT claimed HRC laughed at an 11-year-old rape victim: FALSE".

deleted 10y ago

[deleted]

api 10y ago

If this is the case (and I think it is), then what is the underlying motive? It seems to me that if things are coming to a head like this it's because there is an underlying Issue (capital-I) that is also coming to a head or will be soon. I get a sense of near desperation from some of this. My totally off the cuff hypothesis: We are approaching a tipping point where new energy technologies (solar+batteries, etc.) will get cheap enough to "go exponential" vs. fossil fuels. This has huge geopolitical implications. A more or less permanent crash in fossil fuel prices could completely realign the world. The biggest winners would probably be the USA, EU, and China since these are net energy importers and have economies based on high tech, manufacturing, finance, and services. The biggest losers would be Russia and the Middle Eastern petro-states, but certain regions within the USA and Canada would also lose substantially vs. others. More importantly you'd have a major crash in the value of certain corporations vs. others. Apple being briefly worth more than Exxon Mobil is perhaps a preview. I've heard the view before that WWI and WWII were really about dominance of the emerging petroleum age. If that age is now ending, what happens next? WWIII? Edit: Second hypothesis: The world economy is about to crash again hard, and when that happens there will be a great window to enact all kinds of changes. Various parties are struggling to make sure they are in power for that window.

calsy 10y ago

Might sound silly, but I think more adjectives equals less trustworthy. So when I see words like 'powerful, emotional, hateful' I tend to dismiss the article as rubbish. Try it sometime.

bsder 10y ago

> It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Personally, I don't understand the brouhaha about all the Trump tapes. If you had even a remote inkling of fact about the man NONE OF THIS IS A SURPRISE. While I'm definitely in the opposing camp, I have zero respect for those who are now abandoning Trump. You stuck with him on superficial grounds and now you are leaving on superficial grounds. Nothing about the man has changed.

kbenson 10y ago
> Personally, I don't understand the brouhaha about all the Trump tapes. If you had even a remote inkling of fact about the man NONE OF THIS IS A SURPRISE. I think it points towards people fooling themselves as to his character so they could continue to support him in good conscience. Once presented with hard evidence, that's harder to do. If something definitive came out tomorrow about Clinton accepting cash for favors (not donations to a charitable foundation for meetings, which is what is poorly alleged now), then I think a lot of Clinton supporters would have a similar crisis of conscience.

shard972 10y ago

> We're in the middle of some crazy propaganda war right now, and it's been this way for quite a while. It became completely transparent when the Podesta e-mails were released mere minutes after Trump's videos regarding possible sexual assault were released. Huh? I remember the leaks coming out first then the video? I remember because I had fox news live on in the background, they started talking about the email dump and when they came back from break it was pussygate.