• Rottcodd@lemmy.world
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    6 months ago

    I’ve never bought this spin.

    Certainly Russia had a hand in getting the leaks to Wikileaks, and certainly because they had an obvious vested interest in the US electing Putin’s sycophant Trump.

    But I’ve never seen or heard of any specific evidence that any of it was “disinformation” - just the repeated unsubstantiated claim that it was. It appears to be exactly what it looks like - a detailed record of the DNC’s overtly fraudulent maneuvering to torpedo the Sanders campaign in order to ensure the nomination of Clinton, or more precisely, to torpedo the campaign of a sincere progressive who would likely threaten the ongoing flow of big donor soft money in order to ensure the nomination of a transparently corrupt neo-lib who could be counted upon to serve establishment interests and keep the soft money flowing. And notably, early on that was how the DNC treated it themselves, even going so far as to issue a public apology to the Sanders campaign “for the inexcusable remarks made over email” that did not reflect the DNC’s “steadfast commitment to neutrality during the nominating process.”

    So what it actually all boils down to was that the DNC really was acting in a manner contrary to the public good, driven by their own greed and corruption, and the fact that Russia had a hand in exposing that in order to serve their own interests doesn’t alter that fact.

    No matter how one slices it, the bulk of the blame for the whole thing rests squarely on the DNC. Yes - it served Russian interests to reveal the information, but had the DNC simply been operating in a legitimate, honest and neutral way, instead of self-servingly and dishonestly, there would’ve been nothing to reveal.

    • nekandro@lemmy.ml
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      6 months ago

      It’s Russia’s fault that the DNC was caught. Clearly Russia is to blame for the DNC’s corruption.

    • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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      6 months ago

      “had the DNC simply been operating in a legitimate…”

      Sorry, are you under the impression that the DNC has to choose a particular candidate? They don’t. That stuff is internal party politics. There’s no US law governing who they choose. That’s how party politics works.

      • Rottcodd@lemmy.world
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        6 months ago

        I’m fully aware that the DNC is under no legal mandate to operate legitimately or honestly.

        And that’s rather obviously entirely irrelevant.

        In point of fact, if the legal standing of their actions is the only thing that matters, as you imply, then the entire notion that Russia willfully acted to harm them collapses. How could Russia harm them by leaking details of things that are not illegal and therefore (purportedly) entirely acceptable?

        If, on the other hand, we stick with the way that things have been presented by the DNC itself - that Russia willfully acted to bring them harm - then rather obviously even they are taking the position that the legal status of their actions is irrelevant.

        Go ahead and pick either one - I don’t care. Either there was nothing wrong with their actions, in which case they could not be harmed by having the details of their actions leaked, or they were harmed by the the leak of the details of their actions, in which case their actions were self-evidently judged to be wrong, and the legal standing of them is irrelevant.

        • DarkCloud@lemmy.world
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          6 months ago

          So you’re arguing that misinformation is fair if a campaign has done anything that can be remotely described as damaging (and you refuse to say what they did that was so damaging).

          How could Russia harm them by leaking details of things that are not illegal and therefore (purportedly) entirely acceptable?

          By including disinformation? It’s a pretty basic concepts, by lying.

          From the Guccifer 2.0 Wikipedia page:

          Some of the documents “Guccifer 2.0” released to the media appear to be forgeries cobbled together from public information and previous hacks, which had been mixed with disinformation.[9][10][11]

          https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guccifer_2.0

          I’m not sure why so many people are reacting like this to my comments. The Republican Senate Committee was able to accept there was a Russian disinfo campaign, not sure why Lemmy thinks that’s all fine and dandy.

          https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Senate_Intelligence_Committee_report_on_Russian_interference_in_the_2016_United_States_presidential_election.