“Qanon” is Propaganda, and we know who’s responsible | Hacker News Reader

“Qanon” is Propaganda, and we know who’s responsible

blog.usejournal.com

43 pointsalxmng16 comments

Interesting.

This borders on a bit of a conspiracy theory if not looked at intelligently.

It’s best summarized that as of late US politics especially on the right but on the left too (see: gerrymandering) has been reduced to a zero sum game where winning and power is more important than service and truth.

I don't want to start a whole thing, but...

What about gerrymandering?

It’s poorly worded but I believe the OP was using an example where both the right and the left abuse a system for control and not necessarily the greater good. While it’s true that both the left and the right both abuse gerrymandering, I don’t believe that the latter part of the assertion that they do so purely in the pursuit of power/control is accurate or a fair representation of everyone’s motives. There are people involved in politics that truly believe in what their party stands and moreover, that the opposing party will induce some sort of harm (regardless if they’re well intentioned or not) if their policies are implemented. There is no law against Gerrymandering and this objectionable tactic will invariably be used by the opposing party. By not Gerrymandering, you are giving the opposing party a distinct advantage and the opportunity to enact policies that you are fighting against. The cynic would say that everyone involved cares only about power and while that is almost certainly true for certain individuals, it’s not true for many. It concerns me how some bad apples, opportunists, and some folks with an agenda in politics, the media, etc. have turned so many into cynics. There are many good people in politics and the media — people who care deeply about their work and their impact on society. We should find ways to discuss specifics and not in generalities.

It will never cease to amuse me that "bad apples" is thrown around like that, downplaying the problem. And then people nod and are like, "yeah, that vaguely reminds me of a folksy saying, it must be credible."

The saying is "one bad apple spoils the barrel", and is stressing how much of a problem it is for there to be individual deviance, and how we must be super vigilant for it and throw it the heck out. If we're to believe that, and we're to believe there have been "a few bad apples" for some time, we should expect that the whole barrel is spoiled and would be quite right to be cynics.

I don't necessarily agree, and I certainly don't think that folk wisdom is the best way of making decisions... but it's probably better than the uncritical opposite!

Interesting, but.. why throw Assange in the mix? Was he a "useful idiot" in this? I expect so, his aspy tendencies may have blinded him to how he was being used maybe (I'm not an Assange fan, in case it isn't obvious, but tagging him and brietbart in the same web of intrigue is... well bizarre)

To me the image of the table with Putin, Flynn, and (?!) Jill Stein was the strangest bit.

Is it real?

Putin looking at Flynn like "Hmm. I'll ask the boys what the other side of your call were saying later". It certainly is one strange table arrangement. (assuming that Flynn is listening to a phone. I can't exactly tell from the photo and I don't want to dive down some rabbithole of what he really is holding to his ear. Broccoli.)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/russians-...

Thank you.

Green Party taken over by Russian operatives: plausible. I gather they were quite helpful to Kanye West's campaign, too.

No, I don't find that plausible, personally. All that item does is confirm Stein was there. The accusation is long standing, was repeated in rolling Stone (from the Clinton camp) and other headlines suggest the GOP have been actively exploiting green votes to siphon otherwise democratic votes away.

There's enough shenanigans inside US domestic politics without invoking Russia.

(Stein strenuously denies receiving Russian funding btw, but she would say that anyway)

If Assange was a mere useful idiot in all this, would he not have taken the leaked info to the press - as happened with Snowden and every other leak - rather than directly to the Trump campaign team?

Went down a bit of a rabbit hole trying to fact-check myself on this, and I'm still unclear. What does seem clear though is that the releases were timed to cause as much damage Trump's enemies as possible, which would still leave open the useful idiot theory, as well as the actively complicit one. I guess neither is a good look.

I think for a certain kind of techno-anarchist-libertarian, "both sides are evil" leads to it being at worst morally neutral to help one fuck over the other. I suspect Assange fell into this hole: he hates either party, he decided to subvert a process because he could.

Does he "back" Trump? no.

Earlier today was a write up on Chris Crawford's Dragon Speech[1], a speech which is one of the highest paeans to interactivity (& computing's potency at interactivity) that the world has been blessed to receive. If Chris doesn't convince you, sell you, well, something is wrong with you, probably, or i'd like to hear how you managed to roll your crit success against his rhetoric.

So, interactivity leaps out very strongly here too, as a central technique of this produced synthesized propogganda, the key element that kept folks forever on the hook. Two very strong interactivity stories, from very different ish at-first-glance places in one day.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25845535