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I’m probably not expressing myself here well, but wanted to put it in another way:
History used to be taught using a kind of “great man” theory. But in recent decades, that’s been rejected for a much more inclusive approach. More and more histories are being written as the story told from dozens, or hundreds, or thousands of points of view. This history of WWI is an excellent example:
Along with this change, we went from thinking it could only be about kings and queens, to an acceptance of the impact of people once called “the peasants.”
The arts changed along these lines too, paintings started to depict “the common man,” and then the “common people,” as did poetry and literature and so on. No longer did we only witness to the lives of the Aristocracy. Anyone and everyone became a subject.
Brueghel’s Peasant Wedding. 1567To make a long story short, I have a feeling that our focus on single politicians is a remnant from those olden days and the “Great Man” theory. While it’s always essential to trace things back to “leaders” and hold them accountable, it’s also incredibly important to remember it often takes large numbers of people to do horrible things or good to great things . . . . and if we “sack” just one among the many, more often than not, the problem doesn’t go away.
Add to all of that territorial disputes, and the outright Anschluss of Crimea. Putin had a huge motive to get Trump elected when it comes to those. Trump has given every indication that he doesn’t care about Russia attempts to expand its empire — and, yes, America has expanded its empire for two centuries. But two wrongs don’t make a right, etc. Trump also showed opposition to NATO during the campaign. It’s as if Putin were speaking through him at times.
From my perspective, the only way to get from A to B along the path you’ve chosen is to assume Clinton is Caligula, without one whit of intelligence or common sense. If people want to think of her as evil, that’s up them. But it stretches all the bounds of credulity to believe she would risk life in prison to do what you and others suggest, when there were so many much safer options.
And yes, when a former British diplomat goes PUBLIC that he received the data and personally handed the information to the folks at Wikileaks… that’s the kind of proof one needs. Everything he said fits the facts perfectly.
So… it’s clear that either Seth Rich did it or had to be party to it due to the level of access required to access all of those emails… And not long after the emails come out?
I don;t buy this narrative. A brit diplomat says he received data from an american. And yet he does not himself say that the DNC guy who delivered this info to HIM (cause that’s what a staffer type would do, seek out a british diplomat, right?) was in fact murdered.
Meanwhile Trump himself says that the evidence indicates there was Russian involvement in the election. Including hacking. And if saying that’s a conspiracy then all 17 USA intel agencies are in on it…because? (?)
Yep.
The general agreement between those agencies is, to me, a big tell. Historically, they can’t stand each other. The infighting between the various agencies has been ongoing for decades, and it got worse after 9/11. In the rare times they come together for at least a rough consensus, I think it’s a pretty safe bet there’s fire behind the smoke. And that has nothing to do with an acceptance of their overall mission, or withholding condemnation for past wrongs, etc. etc. One can remain opposed to all of that and still see they can get data collection right.
I also don’t buy the narrative that they’re all in cahoots with the Clintons. The evidence just doesn’t support this. They’re not liked enough for that, except by their own team and supporters. In general, the military, police and intel communities have always viewed Dems with great suspicion, if not outright contempt . . . all too often seeing them as “far left” or “radical,” even though the reality is quite different. They don’t see them as we leftists do. They don’t see the Clintons, the Obamas, the Dems as centrists or center-right on most issues.
Beyond all of that, sometimes a soup can is just a soup can.
Andy Warhol’s Campbell Soup Cans. 1962. MOMA.I think the blogger is projecting and jumping to confusions. Obama didn’t say what he thinks he said:
Here’s the full transcript of his press conference:
Obama’s Last News Conference: Full Transcript and Video JAN. 18, 2017
(From the NYT)
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______And here’s the blogger’s main assertion:
Three U.S. Intelligence Agencies (CIA, NSA and FBI) claim that IT-Systems of the Democratic National Committee were “hacked” in an operation related to the Russian government. They assert that emails copied during the “hack” were transferred by Russian government related hackers to Wikileaks which then published them.
President Obama disagrees. He says those emails were “leaked”.
Wikileaks had insisted that the emails it published came from an insider source not from any government. The DNC emails proved that the supposedly neutral Democratic Party committee had manipulated the primary presidential elections in favor of the later candidate Hillary Clinton. This made it impossible for the alternative candidate Bernie Sanders to win the nomination. Hillory Clinton, who had extremely high unfavorable ratings, lost the final elections.
The President of the United States disagrees with those Intelligence Services. He says that the DNC emails were “leaked”, i.e. copied by an insider, and then transferred to Wikileaks. (At the time around the leaking the DNC IT-administrator Seth Rich was found murdered for no apparent reason in the streets of Washington DC. The murder case was never solved.)
Here is President Obama in his final press conference yesterday:
First of all, I haven’t commented on WikiLeaks, generally. The conclusions of the intelligence community with respect to the Russian hacking were not conclusive as to whether Wikileaks was witting or not in being the conduit through which we heard about the DNC emails that were leaked.
The DNC emails “that were leaked” – not “hacked” or “stolen” but “leaked”.
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Obama is talking about the leaks AFTER the hack. The disagreement here isn’t between those who believe it was leaked by the DNC, and those who believe it was hacked, then given to Wikileaks, who THEN leaked it. The latter is accepted by Obama and the intelligence community. They don’t question that this is what happened. Obama is just saying it’s not absolutely confirmed yet who did the hacking, or how the info got from the hackers to Wikileaks.
Here’s what they learned:
Zooey,
I think you’re correct. After staying away from a particular forum for nearly four months, I recently went back. Most of the regulars are diehard Democrats. And most of them continue to blame Clinton’s loss on everyone but Clinton and the Dems. From Comey, to Russia, to Assange and back again. But their biggest object of criticism is “the left.” They heap most of their scorn on us, and it’s relentless. I’m pretty much the only leftist who posts there, and I tilt lances with them all the time (and conservatives too), and they really don’t want to listen.
To me, yes, Comey, Russia and Assange were factors. But the real reason Clinton lost was Clinton. And I tell them this. I tell them their own analysis, ironically, points to that. Because they keep saying if not for Stein voters and disaffected Sanders voters, Clinton would have won.
So, I tell ’em, reverse engineer that. If you (the Dems) had voted for Sanders in the primaries, he would have retained those disaffected voters, plus the young people he added to the roles, and far fewer people would have stayed home or voted for Stein. And he gets the Clinton voters to. Sanders wins against Trump.
I also pointed out that, unlike Sanders, Clinton had 25 years of Oppo research against her, plus ongoing GOP hearings, and years of those. With Sanders, the GOP dirty tricks machine would have been forced to start fresh, as of 2016, instead of having it all ready-made for them. No hearings against Sanders. No ongoing attempts to crush him.
Clinton’s window closed years ago, and her fans just don’t want to hear that. Not to mention the fact that she pushed Republican-Lite policies while Sanders pushed FDR, New Deal-like policies, which are much more popular . . . . More irony: the non-Democrat was really the only Democrat in the race.
