09.01.16

Democratic Party McCarthy-ism

Posted in Culture of Lickspittle, Cyberterrorism, Shoeshine at 1:15 pm by George Smith

For the past six months the press and Democratic Party have been trying to fit Julian Assange as a Putin/Russian intelligence service sock puppet. Not buying it.

Assange has always been quixotic, sometimes erratic, but no one manipulates him. Animosity on his part toward the US government is understandable. It’s always been my impression he was and is inimically opposed to the American empire.

Assange wound up seemingly forever stuck in the Ecuador embassy in London when HRC was Sec’y of State after it was her department that was hashed by Chelsea Manning’s Wikileaks Cablegate release. By definition, Clinton’s position at the virtual apex of our empire has made her a natural target for Wikileks spills. Why this would be considered shocking or unusual is a mystery to me.

Paradoxically, at one time the NYT and others were all too happy to work with Julian Assange. In truth, his relationship with the domestic and western press has always been fraught.

A long long time ago and before Wikileaks, Assange was a hacker and he subscribed to my old electronic newsletter.

Suelette Dreyfus, an Australian journalist whose book, Underground, I reviewed for it featured Assange as one of that country’s notable hackers. On Assange and Wikileaks, Dreyfus had this to say to the New York Times this week:

“This is not an East-West fight …[though] it is being presented as such by people with an agenda.”

The Clinton campaign is behind a great part of the effort to paint Assange as a tool of Russia. Not really a surprise, considering how Wikileaks has fed into the perpetual aggravation of Hillary Clinton and her private server e-mails. However, thinking that Assange and Wikileaks might tilt the election with an “October surprise” of some kind is a bridge way too far.

In sort of related news from the left, the idea that journalist Michael Isikoff would know how hackers might/could sway the election in a swing state is just laughable.

1 Comment

  1. Christoph Hechl said,

    September 3, 2016 at 10:24 pm

    Having a simple task, like an election, run by computers for no apparent reason is plain stupid. All the whining about potential threats only sounds like “If anyone manipulates our election, it better be me”.
    I see three reasons for election computers:
    – Someone was cut in on the profits of the company selling those machines
    – Someone wants to be able to manipulate the results with less effort
    – A scapegoat is needed without pointing specifically at someone (and ofc without having to show real evidence) in case election results are undesireable.
    Or a combination of the above.