Comment by aksss | Hacker News Reader

Comment by aksss | Hacker News Reader

The more that comes to light about “Russiagate”, the more convinced I am that it was substantially more complex and coordinated relative to anything in the Watergate scandal. That the media and “former” members of the intelligence agencies spent so much time hyping it up with statements they disavowed when under oath is a whole different level. None of the substantial beneficiaries will face any penalties, nor will any of the institutional players involved express any contrition. Still.

What’s truly astonishing is the shameless coordination and alignment of political will, intelligence agencies, conventional media institutions, and big tech.

How many useful idiots went along with the narrative out of very simple self-interest?

How many out of political means/ends and self-righteousness?

And how often has this same machine been used to manufacture consent?

How do these people still demand/expect a benefit of the doubt rather than an assumption of insulting stupidity?

Regardless of how one feels about Trump, “Russiagate” should be seen for what it was, and anticipated to be in the playbook to be used again in some flavor. Either for your next anti-establishment candidate or the next war.

What is fascinating here that looks like there were multiple highly accomplished researchers and decorated experts in multiple fields, that played the game without anybody questioning whether manufacturing a Russiagate story on behest on one political candidate against another, and putting all their expert weight and reputation behind it, is a right thing to do. And looks like now, still nobody is questioning their role in this, at least nothing is seen about it in public.

Usually, we say to a conspiracy theorist "it's not possible, too many people would have been involved, somebody would have talked or blew the whistle". Here, nobody blew any whistles, as far as I can see. Is it time to adjust this estimate?

>And how often has this same machine been used to manufacture consent?

I mean, the people up in arms about this had no problem whatsoever with the Trump campaign collaborating with Wikileaks to find as much dirt on Hillary Clinton as possible. Obviously this is standard political protocol, as is defending such tactics as necessary attempts at truth discovery when it's your side doing the digging, but denouncing them as a blatant conspiracy of misinformation and lies when its the other side.

Meh. The partisan faux outrage is getting tiring.

You don’t see any difference between talking to Wikileaks and breadth, depth, and duration of institutional corruption required for Russiagate? The FBI lied on FISA warrants to justify spying on a presidential candidate in 2016. That’s just the tip of the iceberg, but should illustrate a severe difference in kind.

IMO, the only thing Trump deserves any credit for is refusing to invade any new countries. I would prefer ending existing conflicts, but the simple act of not invading any new countries is the best any president has done in my lifetime.

With the war drums now beating louder than ever, I have to wonder if this was a two-birds-one-stone trick. The war hawks could remove the man in office preventing more war while simultaneously laying the groundwork for voters to support conflict with Russia. Half the country now views Putin as the boogeyman.

The First Step Act is a major step forward to rectify some of the atrocities the US Govt has committed against the black community during their War on Drugs campaign. This was pushed by Trump. He also lowered taxes for the middle class, negotiated peace with dictators, and went after child sex trafficking.

Current siting president has a lot of blood on his hands for his legislation (while in the Senate) targeting black and minority communities with so-called anti drug, anti violence ambitions.

Doubling the standard tax deduction for families was good.

Abraham Accords were downright historic.

Changing the tone of Chinese trade was/is long term positive (IMO).

Getting NATO members to increase spending was good (remember the German military unit training with brooms because they didn’t have guns??[1]), though momentum of this pressure perhaps squandered as they are apparently letting US take lead on Ukraine.

There was some dumb stuff his admin did too, which could have been legitimately and helpfully criticized by the media if they hadn’t worked so hard to beclown themselves and their credibility.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2015/02/19...

Communities weren't targeted Individual criminals were. And crime dropped precipitously since that law's passage to their lowest levels ever-until we decided to elect DAs who refuse to prosecute.

After listening to the Chief of Police of Chicago I have begun to understand an overlooked component of crime in their city. That is the justice/court system. As the Chief puts it, they repeatedly arrest the same people over and over. Not for minor offenses, no we're talking about weapons charges and other violent crime. The courts and DA continue to release these people back into the community. It's not the police, he proclaimed, that are failing the community, it's the courts for not putting these people behind bars.

Treason?

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