Summary: The last debate was mostly chaff, like the campaign mostly entertaining demonstrations of the obvious. But there were moments revealing deep truths about our government and us. They were, of course, ignored. Here is the story of one such moment, a statement by Hillary Clinton that is rich with useful insights — if we dig into it.
“Fire destroys all sophistry, that is deceit; and maintains truth alone, that is gold.”
— Leonardo da Vinci, from his Notebooks. A bad solution for political structures built on lies.
More essential insights from Glenn Greenwald at The Intercept: “In the Democratic Echo Chamber, Inconvenient Truths Are Recast as Putin Plots”…
“Donald Trump, for reasons I’ve repeatedly pointed out, is an extremist, despicable, and dangerous candidate, and his almost-certain humiliating defeat is less than a month away. So I realize there is little appetite in certain circles for critiques of any of the tawdry and sometimes fraudulent journalistic claims and tactics being deployed to further that goal. In the face of an abusive, misogynistic, bigoted, scary, lawless authoritarian, what’s a little journalistic fraud or constant fearmongering about subversive Kremlin agents between friends if it helps to stop him?
“But come January, Democrats will continue to be the dominant political faction in the U.S. — more so than ever — and the tactics they are now embracing will endure past the election, making them worthy of scrutiny. Those tactics now most prominently include dismissing away any facts or documents that reflect negatively on their leaders as fake, and strongly insinuating that anyone who questions or opposes those leaders is a stooge or agent of the Kremlin, tasked with a subversive and dangerously un-American mission on behalf of hostile actors in Moscow.
“To see how extreme and damaging this behavior has become, let’s just quickly examine two utterly false claims that Democrats over the past four days — led by party-loyal journalists — have disseminated and induced thousands of people, if not more, to believe. …”
Both are straightforward lies by Team Hillary about the Wikileak emails of John Podesta, propagated by good liberals and her loyal journalists — allowing them to ignore the emails’ damaging content. His conclusion is spot-on.
“The problem is that none of this is going to vanish after the election. This election-year machine that has been constructed based on elite unity in support of Clinton — casually dismissing inconvenient facts as fraudulent to make them disappear, branding critics and adversaries as tools or agents of an Enemy Power bent on destroying America — is a powerful one. As is seen here, it is capable of implanting any narrative, no matter how false; demonizing any critic, no matter how baseless; and riling up people to believe they’re under attack.
“For a long time, liberals heralded themselves as part of the “reality-based community” and derided conservatives as faith-based victims of “epistemic closure.” The dynamics seen here are anything but byproducts of reason.”
Amidst this barrage of lies — supporting the Big Lie that these revelations result from Russian perfidy — one small statement in the debate by Hillary Clinton shows the weakness at the heart of our problems.
“{The Russians} have given that information to WikiLeaks for the purpose of putting it on the Internet. This has come from the highest levels of the Russian government, clearly, from Putin himself, in an effort, as 17 of our intelligence agencies have confirmed, to influence our election.”
The source for Clinton’s statement is a joint statement by James Clapper (Director of National Intelligence) and Homeland Security (Secretary Jeh Johnson).
“The U.S. Intelligence Community (USIC) is confident that the Russian Government directed the recent compromises of e-mails from US persons and institutions, including from US political organizations.”
There are three key things to remember when reading this. First, it is unlikely that all 17 US intelligence agencies confirmed the origin of the hacked emails. Did the Coast Guard, Department of Energy, Drug Enforcement Agency, and the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (mapping) all confirm that the emails were hacked by Russia?
Second, since WWII US government officials have lied to us with increasing frequency about matters of the highest importance. Clapper famously lied to Congress about NSA’s illegal surveillance of US citizens (but of course remains unindicted). See this partial but still astonishing list of lies, all of which we believed at the time (and never any retaliation when we learned the truth).
In keeping with this sad history, press “fact-checkers” dutifully approved Clinton’s statement as “fact” based on the gospel according to our intelligence agencies (e.g., NPR, ABC).
Providing another layer of evidence, journalists credulously report conclusions of private cybersecurity agencies — as Thomas Rid does in Esquire: “How Russia Pulled Off the Biggest Election Hack in U.S. History.” The intelligence community is the mother lode of funding for a vast constellation of individuals and firms, whose many sources consume approximately half of the $54 billion intelligence budget. (also see The Nation and the Congressional Research Service). No surprise that these firms align with the view of their government paymasters. Expecting otherwise is naive.
Third, attribution of cyberactivity is difficult — especially that done by pros. The government and its orbiters quickly identify attackers, blaming the standard foes. But experts have written about attribution often and at length, recommending skepticism about such claims. See Marcus Ranum’s works: About Attribution (identifying your attacker), How do we identify our attackers in cyberspace?, and The horror of cyberspace: we can’t easily identify our attackers. Emilio Iasiello wrote Identifying the guilty: tying nation states to cyber espionage and We Must Stop The Race to Attribution After Each Cyberattack.
Conclusions
Campaign 2016 has been a campaign of lies. Trump lies constantly, probably from a mixture of ignorance and sociopathy. Hillary lies often, tactically and strategically — differing only in degree from our past leaders. We’re stuck with her for four years. But on November 9 we can begin to work for a better choice in 2020.
For More Information
An NSA whistle-blower contradicts the “Russia did the DNC hacks” story. But the press will ignore him and just repeat govenment’s story — “NSA Whistleblower: US Intelligence Worker Likely Behind DNC Leaks, Not Russia.”
If you liked this post, like us on Facebook and follow us on Twitter. See all posts about Cyber-espionage and Cyber-war, about ways to reform America, and especially these…
- Learning skepticism, an essential skill for citizenship in 21st century America.
- Our minds are addled, the result of skillful and expensive propaganda.
- Remembering is the first step to learning. Living in the now is ignorance.