Activist and former white supremacist Christian Picciolini claims that "globalist" was an intentional renaming of "Jewish" in order to make their message more palatable to mainstream conservatives.
If one is anti-globalist, one is inherently anti-semitic?
What then does it mean to be a globalist?
And further, if defending being a 'globalist' automatically implies 'defending jews' what does this implicitly imply 'all jews' actually believe geopolitically?
the faulty logic runs deep in this line of thinking; the allegedly racist term then becomes 'the reality', which should then be protected..
You can be against neoliberalism, unfair trade, or international political entities overriding national sovereignty without being antisemitic.
Picking a dog whistle term that happens to sound like a reasonable position is a standard political tactic. Another example: "family values" which is a euphemism for theocracy. Who would actually oppose "the family"?
How do you describe "international political entities overriding national sovereignty" without using the word "globalist" or "internationalist"? (Both of which are antisemitic apparently)
Im asking you what term you think is appropriate. It seems like you dont think ANY word is appropriate, and that is 1984 newspeak. If your opponent isnt allowed to have a word to describe your position, they cant effectively argue against it.
People seldom look up the etymology of words, symbols, etc... instead they typically deduce meaning from either A) usage or B) fitting with domain knowledge.
For an example of A) most people think the word "perverse" means something like "sexually sick" i.e. they think a "perverse depiction" literally means a "sexually sick depiction". This is because we learn the word at a young age, and that is how most people use it, and we didn't bother to use dictionaries the first time you started using the word on the playground. In fact perverse comes from per- (away) and vertere (to turn), i.e. to turn away, or to turn a blind eye. For example a policeman approving of a crowd attacking a minority without intervening would be a true act of perversion as he "turns away" from the matter, similar with "perverse incentives" etc
This however is a clear example of B) in my view: notice how the tweet is NOT some triple parentheses, if you count carefully you will see 7 parentheses in total. The author of the tweet probably encountered the symbol before in the context of Judaism and thought through his prior domain knowledge that it signified a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_(Temple) which is a Jewish candelabra holding 7 candles. So while the triple parenteses meme could perfectly have an alt-right origin, the author obviously associated no racist or discriminatory connotation (btw religion is not a race). IMHO he simply refers to some unspecified "jewish issue"
> The author of the tweet probably encountered the symbol before in the context of Judaism and thought through his prior domain knowledge that it signified a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_(Temple) which is a Jewish candelabra holding 7 candles.
That is an absolutely massive stretch. Come on.
We may all use the word "perverse" incorrectly, but it's a word we all hear. Not everyone hears/sees the ((())) denotation for Jewish people - in fact, it's almost exclusively used in alt-right circles. So if you're aware of it at all it is highly suggestive of the kind of company you keep.
I never frequent alt-right nonsense, and I don't have a twitter facebook snapchat-roulette account.
I had never seen before neither the triple parentheses nor the 7 parentheses. Its the first time I see empty nested parentheses. As I read the tweet, the first thing that entered my mind was the Menorah, (actually I thought it was called a candelabra, but after looking that up, I saw a 3-pronged candelabra on wikipedia, then somewhere in the page the Menorah was mentioned and I realized I was visualizing a Menorah...).
Then I clicked the link to see how the triple parentheses could offend anyone, and I am now up to date to avoid using them (I never did, never even saw them anywhere else than the mentioned wikipedia page). Since my experience was one of recognizing the Menorah, I considered it entirely plausible that the author made the same association whenever he first encountered triple parentheses.
So if my first reaction was seeing an ASCII Menorah, then to me no that is not "an absolute massive stretch" at all!!
Once I saw the confusion I checked back on the number of parentheses and behold, unbalanced, exactly 7...
> I had never seen before neither the triple parentheses nor the 7 parentheses
So it's safe to say you wouldn't have used them, surely? Especially when you're talking about a Jewish person - it would be an incredible coincidence to have done so.
Which of these two scenarios seems more likely:
- When referring to a Jewish person, the WikiLeaks account just spontaneously decided to surround text in parentheses, as opposed to literally any other way of communicating (why not just say "the Menorah issue"?)
- The WikiLeaks account knew of, and used, terminology common in alt-right circles?
Not to mention that the menorah that most Jews are used too is the one from Hanukkah which holds 9 candles ;)
The only modern use of the 7 candle menorah today is the state symbol of Israel which if we takes the GP tin foil hat theory to heart makes it even more racist.
>The only modern use of the 7 candle menorah today is the state symbol of Israel which if we takes the GP tin foil hat theory to heart makes it even more racist.
I'm afraid I am unable to understand what you are saying? until today I was unaware of the 9-candle version. Do I understand correctly this would mean the WL tweet might instead refer to "Israel issue"?
"The Hanukkah menorah, also chanukiah or hanukkiah is a nine-branched candelabrum lit during the eight-day holiday of Hanukkah, as opposed to the seven-branched menorah used in the ancient Temple or as a symbol."
And no, the WL tweet does not refer to anything other than to WL using anti-semitic symbolism to attack a Jewish reporter, stop grasping at straws.
Find the following sentence, the only one that references "menorah":
"In Judaism and the Philippine church Iglesia ni Cristo, the menorah is a special kind of candelabrum. "
this links directly to the menorah temple version... if you think this should be changed go BE BOLD!
I perused the wikipedia page on Menorah (Temple) some more, and learned that the 7-candle one is considered more sacred, and should only be used in the temple (or perhaps synagogues?)
If it was intended anti-semitically I consider it possible to be chosen over the 9-candle version which Judaism allows to be used outside of temples, since depicting a 7-candle version might "violate" this self-imposed rule.
When the personality cult president of turkmenistan quit smoking, he banned it nationwide.
Similarily an ex-alcoholic doesn't like to see people drink in his vicinity.
Similarily some muslims might not appreciate people around them showing off how they are eating during daytime during the ramadan.
While I can empathize with their feeling of annoyance, a self-imposed rule is a self-imposed rule.
That said I now can interpret depicting a 7-candled Menorah outside of their holy places, can sometimes be done to piss off jews...
But I don't believe others should be held to self-imposed rules of one group. Even if it is bad taste of outsiders to shove it in their face.
We are not all required by law to be friendly to each other.
I would never use it now because right after reading (and seeing a Menorah) I saw how others were interpreting it.
If I had seen someone use an ASCII Menorah to depict something jewish, in a way that I thought it innocuously depicted a Menorah, I still probably wouldn't use it, not because it would be bad form (as I would be still under the impression it simply depicts a jewish object), but because I don't think ASCII art beyond smileys is a clear form of art, even smileys are routinely misinterpreted as sarcasm smiles when intended as honest smiles etc...
Which of these seem more likely?
I don't do non-intrinsic polarization. I usually don't mind selecting between 2 statements if they are each others mathematical negation (intrinsic or benign polarization, I believe a statement is either true or false). But being forced to choose between 2 options that are not mathematical negations of each other is extrinsic polarization AKA a false dilemma...
> The author of the tweet probably encountered the symbol before in the context of Judaism and thought through his prior domain knowledge that it signified a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_(Temple) which is a Jewish candelabra holding 7 candles.
So, you are saying that instead of saying he was a rat that was of particular concern because he was both Jewish and involved in anti-anti-Semitism action, the pair of closely-timed tweets from the WL account were intended to say he was a rat that was of concern because he was Jewish and involved in...some kind of “Menorah issue”?
Even accepting (for the sake of argument) that that explanation is somehow plausible, how does it make the message any less anti-Semitic?
>So, you are saying that I stead of saying he was a rat that was of particular concern because he was both Jewish and involved in anti-anti-Semitism action,
No, I am saying that since he uses 7 parentheses, the authors intended message probably has nothing to do with the anti-semitic triple parentheses.
"Not intended as anti-semitism" is not the same as "intended as anti-anti-semitism."
Intention and negation do not commute...
He simply always incorrectly interpreted the anti-semitic banter of others (the triple parentheses) as simply referring to Judaism, without any anti-semitic connotation...
That 7 parenthesis mean nothing but adding an extra one by mistake or even some stupid anti-xss script doing that for you is a much more likely explanation.
Honestly a fresh account with low karma trying to push some conspiracy theory on this is also suspect as hell.
please look at my other comments on other threads, you probably won't agree with my unpopular viewpoints (i.e. I am for mass surveillance, but only a decentralized one)
I can assure you I am not some anti-semitic sockpuppet ok?
The problem is that you are jumping to conclusions that make absolutely no sense, define common sense, and require taking the gold in mental gymnastics and you are repeating the same argument in multiple posts on this thread.
No one is using ((()))) to describe an ASCI Menorah, and even if they did it makes no sense, there are no Menorah issues.
On the other hand ((())) Is a symbol used by the alt-right and white-supremacist to define any subject as "Jewish" this can be a place, a person, an event a cause or w/e.
Adding an extra ) is easy by simply fat fingering it
So yes you do look like an anti-semitic sockpuppet to me, or at least someone that has a clear agenda in gaslighting this issue simply because of the tenacity that you push this "theory" with and the fact that you clearly ignore Ockham's razor.
I never said I interpreted ((()))) as "Menorah issue", you keep repeating this twisting of my words, you might as well claim I keep insisting it means "ASCII-art Menorah issue"...
I sincerely interpreted it as ASCII art conveying simply "Jewish" and hence "Jewish issue". I do NOT claim my interpretation is representative of how the majority interprets it. I simply faithfully report my sample size 1 experience of honestly interpreting it as a Menorah signifying "Jewish"... I just had an instant flashback to highschool class -more than 15 years ago- on different world religions, where symbols of different religionns were discussed... as I said I even incorrectly thought the Jewish name was candelabra...
> No, I am saying that since he uses 7 parentheses, the authors intended message probably has nothing to do with the anti-semitic triple parentheses.
My point is thst even if you accept that implausible interpretation of the cluster of parentheses—that the “((()))) issue” phrase refers to some Menorah-related issue and not the controversy over a particular brand of online anti-Semitism—the pair of tweets is still clearly anti-Semitic (but also considerably more bizarre.)
Heck, it's still anti-Semitic if you remove the reference to an issue involving whatever it is that the parens signify so that the pair of tweets becomes just “He’s always ben a rat. But he’s jewish.”
It's not the parens that are the issue, though they do confirm the message of the rest of the text.
The full sentence is "But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue." -- without further context, this says nothing, and those brackets weren't "used" anymore than you or I just did.
That is, unless you're referring to something else, but with accusations as serious as this, and antisemitism being as sadly pervasive and serious as it is, I would like to see a source. If you actually are referring to the DM's on that page, just no, and wtf, since it's only time "(((" appears in all of it, the only other time Jewishness is mentioned seems not to be by Wikileaks.
It's pretty much a hashtag, but instead of meaning, "this phrase is searchable on social media," it means, "this person is Jewish."
It's not necessary racist in and of itself. But the only reason to use it is to trigger anti-Semites. Normally people don't general care about a person's religion unless it's contextually relevant.
How does using the brackets to communicate someone engaging with it suddenly become racist? That’s like saying a news reporter is antisemetic if he says: “And now a report on Tom who is a veteran who fought Nazies during ww2”. Omg, he said Nazi?! That makes him a Hitler sympathizer.
It's fine to be ignorant of the ((())) denotation used by the alt-right to describe Jewish people - it's not something everyone is going to have seen. But your reaction shouldn't be to dismiss it just because you've never heard of it yourself.
I never knew about them, I thought they were using it as a placeholder for something they didn’t want in text for CYA reasons until I saw the link to the Wikipedia article on the echo. Disgusting stuff.
Hang on! I thought "engaged with the ((())) issue" meant "engaged with some issue related to people using triple parentheses to point out Jews". Are you saying that it meant "engaged with the Jewish cause"?
I think the context there is "But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue" which isn't looking to criticize him for being Jewish or his work - but rather some other aspect we can't make a decision about.
Or..... Just jump to pitchforks!
More of that exchange if you do want context instead of pitchforks...
[2016-08-23 01:21:32] <WISE Up Action> Satter is desperately trying to make smoke.
[2016-08-23 03:01:11] <M> Interesting to look through his past tweets re WL. He covered Saudi Cables when they came out, but I didn’t see any mention of personal info concerns (however, I only skimmed his tweets). He seemed to turn against WL after AKP, DNC and has attacked them since.
[2016-08-23 03:11:41] <M> Also note that he is trying to make this a new, recent story (“in the past year”) but Saudi Cables where 95% of claims stem from are over a year old.
[2016-08-23 04:46:09] <WikiLeaks> He’s always ben a rat.
[2016-08-23 04:46:27] <WikiLeaks> But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue.
[2016-08-23 09:15:15] <WISE Up Action> Satter is keeping going in general and wide-ranging attacks on WL /JA
[2016-08-23 12:58:54] <WikiLeaks> Bog him down. Get him to show statements of his bias.
[2016-08-23 13:03:28] <WikiLeaks> He’s the son of David Satter, who is mentioned in our cables. DS is a senior member of the Hudson institute and a well known Russia basher and NSA apologist. He was expelled from Russia in 2008 and 2014. Rafael grew up in Washington DC
So... is WL being racist? No, it doesn't seem it. Is WL using ((())) in any sort of racist way? No, not at all. What is wrong with some of you? Please leave your nonsense at Reddit.
1) Where is this magical context you keep pointing towards? 2) How is his ethnicity related to the article he wrote? 3) How is this not judging this reporter solely on the basis of his ethnicity?
I understand you may have a preference for not calling anyone or anything racist regardless of the circumstances, but I work differently. I’m more than willing to reevaluate the context if given more information, but you seem to be telling me that it’s fine to judge reporters work by their ethnicity, irregardless of whether that ethnicity is related to the subject matter at hand.
To be perfectly clear and avoid the attempted reframing - he didn’t ‘refer to such slang’ at all. He used it directly, to convey the meaning it was created to convey. There was no sarcasm or levels of indirection. It was used exactly as its creators intended.
Attempted reframing? What are you trying to insinuate on my behalf? That slang is putting someone's name inside ((( and ))), not saying "the ((())) issue". It doesn't really work without anything in the brackets. I can't believe this even needs to be said, and if you are talking about something other than
> [2016-08-23 04:46:27] <WikiLeaks> But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue.
then please provide a source to that other thing, who you are referring to with "he", and maybe a reason for not making what you are referring to more clear as well.
It's also very nice that because of the barrage of downvotes, or maybe moderator action, I can't respond 13 minutes after you posted your comment when I actually had finished this reply, but have to keep the tab open and submit later... so I'll respond to another comment here as well:
> Do you consider referring to racism to be the same as being racist?
No I don't, which was my point. Saying "$someone is Jewish and engaged with the ((())) issue" isn't using that dog whistle, but referring to it. Without context it's really hard to judge why the Jewishness is mentioned; I don't know what the ((())) issue refers to in that specific context, what "engaged with" means, nothing. Could easily be bad, could be benign, but the claim was they "used" ((())), and that's false. Even if they're actually antisemites, they did not use the brackets in that tweet from 2016-08-23 04:46:27. Fact.
I mean, calling him also a "rat" kind of makes it moot in a way, that's not good, antisemitism or not. But if they are antisemitic, I want more than hearsay and being sloppy about something like "referring to X" and "using X". This is not acceptable. For one because it would be important in light of WL, but even more importantly because of antisemitism.
Generally, that some antisemites might like WL would never surprise me. With almost anything that criticizes society and the powerful in it, you often can find antisemites who are superficially interested in the subject so they can re-route it to Jews being the root of all problems. So in a vacuum, tweets "at" WL that seem antisemitic are to be expected -- the question is how WL deals with them, and what they themselves put out. I do not consider that question settled, mind you, but those who raise it, and those who approach it, have no right to be this sloppy.
Remember when that Google guy was fired and people said he "posted a memo to the internet"? He posted a memo in an internal discussion group devoted to the issue he posted about, and others leaked it on the net. Yet the lie is still out there in people's heads. And that wouldn't be acceptable even if he was a total red pill chauvinist. When it was cool to be dishonest about Jews, to exclude them inevitably leading to violence against them, some people did that. Now it's cool to be dishonest about and violent to Jews in some milieus, sexists, racists or antisemites in others -- as if the methods don't matter at all, just who wins, as if using certain methods doesn't make you something, too. Or to put a very sharp point on it, as if putting racists into concentration camps would actually end once you killed all racists, as if it could.
> I think the context there is "But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue" which isn't looking to criticize him for being Jewish or his work
The “He’s always ben a rat. But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue” bit is clearly intended to both impugn his character and suggest that he is influential because he is Jewish and actively engaged in anti-anti-semitism.
So, yeah, I'm going to say that sending a message that amounts to “He’s a rat, but particularly dangerous because he’s a Jew rat engaged against anti-Semitism” is pretty starkly anti-Semitic.
"Anti-anti-senitism" is not a fair characterization of the recent accusations in British politics. ((())) is clearly refering to the attempt by Zionists in th UK press to smear those in the Labour party who oppose Israeli human rights abuses and support boycotting Israel until they stop indiscriminate violence against peaceful Palestinian protesters.
Not everyone agrees with that characterization of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but to smear anyone even mentioning the conflict as anti-semitic is dishonest and partisan.
well, according to the ADL itself anyone who is not zionist is anti-semitic (which also includes non-zionist jews), so I suppose context is important when speaking about global geopolitical issues and this isn't always a black-and-white thing.. unless one is trying to conflate the issues to avoid debate..
It doesn't, but 'white' isn't a race - a pale person from Britain is very different from a pale person from Spain or a pale person from Bulgaria. Black americans are considered a race because they have shared experiences in the US, and until recently couldn't be traced to a single country of origin.
"He's a rat, but he's British and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
"He's a rat, but he's Spanish and engaged with the ((( )))
issue."
"He's a rat, but he's Bulgarian and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
"He's a rat, but he's a black American and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
None strikes me as particularly racist, just that someone is disliked, and is now engaged with an issue to do with their origin.
IIRC within the past year or two it seemed like the account was being managed by someone else. The tone of the tweets changed, and spelling errors started to arise where there had previously been very few. This could be a result of pressure on Assange, or another party controlling the account all together
Theoretically, Twitter would be an entity capable of knowing this information by correlating IP addresses and user-agents, but I agree that would not constitute "hard proof" as that could be spoofed + VPN
As likely is that whoever runs it (Assange or other) was always an ass, or they went off the rails, or was at the receiving end of a rubber hose interrogation, or ...
Really, at this point, it's hard to say for certain with all the spooks involved and the circumstances of the major players.
That said, I maintain that "When Google Met Wikileaks" and "Cypherpunks" are excellent reads.
> Must be a native English speaker because they can’t spell for shit.
I’m not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying native English speakers are more prone to misspelling than those that speak it as a second or third language?
Yes, that is what they are saying. I believe it is meant somewhat tongue in cheek. Although there is also some truth to this.
For example, it is not uncommon in the US for native english speakers to confuse the spellings of "loose" and "lose", whereas this kind of confusion is uncommon among say native German speakers who know English as a second language.
There are of course also native speakers with excellent spelling.
yes it was tongue in cheek :)
I don't have hard data on it and therefore can only speak for my own surrounding (colleagues, friends etc). Maybe I'm utterly wrong even and my sample size to make such a claim is shit :)
What sticks out among native speakers is their inability to properly use to/too, misplaced apostrophes, "The girl’s horse" vs "the girls' horse.", your/you're, it's/its ... this is to me so basic I can't believe the frequency of these errors among natives.
Maybe it has to do with rules being easier to remember by somebody who is forced to make an active effort learning a foreign language as opposed to getting it handed from your environment. I'm not saying that a non-native speakers English is better (that would be preposterous). But most French, Germans, Japanese and Spanish I know do a lot better speaking their language than a native English speaker does theirs.
And it isn't just because of people being "lazy" or that it's hard to type on a phone.
Trump or (Rudy Gulianis) tweets as a prominent example. This is a gross generalization (and Trump of all people shouldn't be used as a standard for anything). But once you start paying attention, poor English among the English is everywhere.
> “When Emma contacted me saying the source sent her the same docs too, I took a hash of my original HTML file and it checked out, so she has a copy of the same file as me,” Lee told Motherboard in a Twitter direct message. A hash is a cryptographic fingerprint of a file; if someone has tampered the file at all, those hashes won’t match.
> Lee said his source provided an HTML file of the DMs, and then Lee logged into the Twitter account himself and downloaded the direct messages with an automated tool.
> “I confirmed that they were authentic (Twitter itself would have had to doctor them) and that the source didn't modify the content in the copy he gave me,” Lee told Motherboard.
That's the entire intent of the organization. To leak things to cause political repercussions. They aren't leaking it just for the lulz. But the original idea was that this was supposed to be politically unbiased. It seems, though, that the history of their releases has had a bias. They also seem to have a lengthy controversy section on Wikipedia: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/WikiLeaks#Controversy
It seems weird that Wikileaks exists in the form it does. I mean, couldn't they just host a giant Pastebin-style site on Tor and let people leak whatever they wanted?
No. The point of wikileaks is that they verify the authenticity of things they publish, and the veracity of past leaks gives credibility to future ones.
Regarding accusations of bias, I have yet to see an example of authentic non-public information wikileaks refused to publish. Do you have one?
The accusation they are biased in what they published does not require them to have refused to release anything, merely that the original sources of information only made biased information available to Wikileaks to publish, or that they only solicited or acted to confirm information from biased sources.
I don't think the original sources choosing what to leak counts as bias on the part of Wikileaks. As for them only acting to confirm leaks in a biased way, do you have any examples of leaks that were published elsewhere because wikileaks refused due to bias?
"In the summer of 2016, as WikiLeaks was publishing documents from Democratic operatives allegedly obtained by Kremlin-directed hackers, Julian Assange turned down a large cache of documents related to the Russian government, according to chat messages and a source who provided the records." https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...
From the article in your comment:
>“As far as we recall these are already public,” WikiLeaks wrote at the time.
>In 2014, the BBC and other news outlets reported on the cache, which revealed details about Russian military and intelligence involvement in Ukraine. However, the information from that hack was less than half the data that later became available in 2016, when Assange turned it down.
So the source was trying to piggyback on the well earned publicity Wikileaks publications get to bring attention to an old leak by adding some uninteresting documents to it. I suspect if his addition had contained revelations, we would have heard about it, especially given the anti-Russia bias of the corporate media lately.
On the Syrian payment, why is Russia giving money to an ally something I should find questionable? How much money did the US give Israel that year alone?
You vet the source, you corroborate with other sources, you check against unclassified info available, etc.
In many cases, you can ask the government if they want to comment before you publish. Sometimes they will (and sometimes it'll be "on background" or "an anonymous source"), other times they'll ask you not to publish, sometimes they'll just shrug their shoulders.
National security reporters do this pretty much daily.
National security reporters have credentials, Constitutional protection and a working relationship with the military and intelligence, often coming from that world. Wikileaks is considered an espionage organization and Julian Assange is hiding in an Ecuadorian embassy, probably avoiding the windows.
I don't think he or his organization gets the same leeway as, say, CNN or Reuters when it come to that.
Sure, but that only prevents the "get a comment" part... and that you could probably get around if you had a friendly relationship with a reporter.
The "verify against other sources, public info, etc." stuff is still entirely doable. In the case of Collateral Murder, info about the incident was already public, making the video something you could vet... and I'd imagine plenty else in Manning's leaked info was vettable.
> I mean, couldn't they just host a giant Pastebin-style site on Tor and let people leak whatever they wanted?
Part of the benefit of having an organization like Wikileaks is that they can vet stuff for authenticity and package it in a way that's understandable to the public.
Note: personally I'm happy both cryptome and Wikileaks exist - but critising Wikileaks for being a media organization - one that claims to do some journalistic work, and hence apply a certain viewpoint - misses the fact that that's the whole reason it exists.
There were other leak sites, earlier leaks - and deafening silence in mainstream media.
It's sort of the difference between "room 614a" and Snowden.
Is the leaked material real? Until that's asserted I don't believe it confirms anything.
It's no secret that there are plenty of persons interested in undermining wikileaks who are very capable of fabricating smear campaigns.
There's a Glenn Greenwald article on the Intercept from just over a week ago saying Assange is about to be kicked out of the embassy and handed over to the UK:
It's "HN", not "HM". Also, it never occurred to me for a second that "Jewish conspirators" are involved. But hey, enjoy whatever you enjoy being angry about.
It's "Corbyn", not "Corbin". There are claims that Wikileaks is anti-semitic, at the same time that there are discussions about anti-semitism in the UK media, at the same time as a rumour that the head of Wikileaks is about to be handed over to the UK government. It's an interesting coincidence, and if you wanted to accuse me of being a conspiracy nut, you'd probably claim that I was accusing the UK government of pulling strings in the media. But no, you accused me of claiming that "Jewish conspirators" are pulling strings instead. There is no logic in the connection you made. And even when I told you that you misinterpreted me, you still don't believe it. I mean, what would I gain from making a point, and then denying that very point? There is just no reasoning with some people. Believe what you want.
The tendentiousness of Wikileaks "reporting" was apparent to me from the start. Unfortunately "USA suxx" is always a popular sentiment to rally people around so people would overlook the (obvious in retrospect) fact that it was all a Kremlin-funded operation.
Looking at previous HN threads on the subject, there seemed to be a strong pro-wikileaks coalition on HN (comments similar to yours have been grayed out in the past)
“Reporting” is absolutely right. They have their own agenda in mind, not a reasonably general definition of the public interest. No real journalist would unnecessarily release the private information of innocent bystanders and call it unfortunate collateral damage.
Check out 'Inside Wikileaks' by Daniel Ellsberg, a WL cofounder who had a falling out with Assange and founded his own radical transparency platform called OpenLeaks. Brigitta Jonsdottir used to work there too, an Icelandic green.
Wikileaks stated policy and concept used to be:
- Receive, in a way that keeps the leaker anonymous, any and all state secrets that are of public interest
- Publish them after checking authenticity
This constitutes an attack on secrecy as such, not on any particular country or entity.
Yes, and my point is that that is a fringe agenda. There is broad public support for keeping some things secret.
That said, I think there is space to debate what the boundaries of that ought to be, and I think there are too many state secrets in the United States.
It's quite simple. The press is free and it is not responsible for national security, whatever that means today. It is responsible for getting the truth out. If secrets must be kept, it is the spies' responsibility to keep them, not the media's.
And WL is absolutely part of the media.
As for the 'reasonably general conception of the public interest' of wikileaks, I suppose it is 'to get all of the truth out'.
No one has an issue with WikiLeaks keeping some things secret. The issue is when they clearly support specific sides in political issues and strategically leak and manipulate information to support only that one side, while disparaging another. This isn't how a transparent, journalistic, "information wants to be free" organization operates. That's how an intelligence organization operates.
The concern is that Assange has turned WikiLeaks into his own personal intelligence agency to achieve his political goals. And these WikiLeaks-leaks from the past few years seem to confirm much of that concern. Assange constantly uses language in these DMs indicating intent to influence political situations to his favor, and the subtle and nuanced ways they can affect and control narratives.
I'm not really convinced Assange and WikiLeaks are puppets of the Russian government, but I do think Assange has let the power and prestige go to his head, and has now rejected any pretense of neutrality and humanitarianism. WikiLeaks is now Assange's personal machine to change global geopolitics in a direction he likes; nothing more. Who knows if that was his intent from the start or if it's a case of "die a hero or live along enough to see yourself become the villain". They should really change their name, either way.
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[ 3.3 ms ] story [ 141 ms ] threadIf one is anti-globalist, one is inherently anti-semitic?
What then does it mean to be a globalist?
And further, if defending being a 'globalist' automatically implies 'defending jews' what does this implicitly imply 'all jews' actually believe geopolitically?
the faulty logic runs deep in this line of thinking; the allegedly racist term then becomes 'the reality', which should then be protected..
Picking a dog whistle term that happens to sound like a reasonable position is a standard political tactic. Another example: "family values" which is a euphemism for theocracy. Who would actually oppose "the family"?
edit: Lol. Thank you for validating my theory.
For an example of A) most people think the word "perverse" means something like "sexually sick" i.e. they think a "perverse depiction" literally means a "sexually sick depiction". This is because we learn the word at a young age, and that is how most people use it, and we didn't bother to use dictionaries the first time you started using the word on the playground. In fact perverse comes from per- (away) and vertere (to turn), i.e. to turn away, or to turn a blind eye. For example a policeman approving of a crowd attacking a minority without intervening would be a true act of perversion as he "turns away" from the matter, similar with "perverse incentives" etc
This however is a clear example of B) in my view: notice how the tweet is NOT some triple parentheses, if you count carefully you will see 7 parentheses in total. The author of the tweet probably encountered the symbol before in the context of Judaism and thought through his prior domain knowledge that it signified a https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah_(Temple) which is a Jewish candelabra holding 7 candles. So while the triple parenteses meme could perfectly have an alt-right origin, the author obviously associated no racist or discriminatory connotation (btw religion is not a race). IMHO he simply refers to some unspecified "jewish issue"
That is an absolutely massive stretch. Come on.
We may all use the word "perverse" incorrectly, but it's a word we all hear. Not everyone hears/sees the ((())) denotation for Jewish people - in fact, it's almost exclusively used in alt-right circles. So if you're aware of it at all it is highly suggestive of the kind of company you keep.
I had never seen before neither the triple parentheses nor the 7 parentheses. Its the first time I see empty nested parentheses. As I read the tweet, the first thing that entered my mind was the Menorah, (actually I thought it was called a candelabra, but after looking that up, I saw a 3-pronged candelabra on wikipedia, then somewhere in the page the Menorah was mentioned and I realized I was visualizing a Menorah...).
Then I clicked the link to see how the triple parentheses could offend anyone, and I am now up to date to avoid using them (I never did, never even saw them anywhere else than the mentioned wikipedia page). Since my experience was one of recognizing the Menorah, I considered it entirely plausible that the author made the same association whenever he first encountered triple parentheses.
So if my first reaction was seeing an ASCII Menorah, then to me no that is not "an absolute massive stretch" at all!!
Once I saw the confusion I checked back on the number of parentheses and behold, unbalanced, exactly 7...
So it's safe to say you wouldn't have used them, surely? Especially when you're talking about a Jewish person - it would be an incredible coincidence to have done so.
Which of these two scenarios seems more likely:
- When referring to a Jewish person, the WikiLeaks account just spontaneously decided to surround text in parentheses, as opposed to literally any other way of communicating (why not just say "the Menorah issue"?)
- The WikiLeaks account knew of, and used, terminology common in alt-right circles?
The only modern use of the 7 candle menorah today is the state symbol of Israel which if we takes the GP tin foil hat theory to heart makes it even more racist.
I'm afraid I am unable to understand what you are saying? until today I was unaware of the 9-candle version. Do I understand correctly this would mean the WL tweet might instead refer to "Israel issue"?
https://www.google.com/search?q=menorah
"The Hanukkah menorah, also chanukiah or hanukkiah is a nine-branched candelabrum lit during the eight-day holiday of Hanukkah, as opposed to the seven-branched menorah used in the ancient Temple or as a symbol."
And no, the WL tweet does not refer to anything other than to WL using anti-semitic symbolism to attack a Jewish reporter, stop grasping at straws.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Menorah
Menorah may refer to:
Menorah (Temple), a seven-lamp candelabrum used in the ancient Tabernacle in the desert, the Temple in Jerusalem, and synagogues
Menorah (Hanukkah) or ḥanukkiyah, a nine-lamp candelabrum used on the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah
Knesset Menorah, a bronze monument in front of the Knesset in Israel
Menorah Medical Center, an acute care hospital in Overland Park, Kansas
Menorah church, a fundamentalist congregation in Switzerland founded by Bruno Meyer
So pretty hard to see how one would miss this by chance.....
So I went to my goto source wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Candelabra
Find the following sentence, the only one that references "menorah":
"In Judaism and the Philippine church Iglesia ni Cristo, the menorah is a special kind of candelabrum. "
this links directly to the menorah temple version... if you think this should be changed go BE BOLD!
I perused the wikipedia page on Menorah (Temple) some more, and learned that the 7-candle one is considered more sacred, and should only be used in the temple (or perhaps synagogues?)
If it was intended anti-semitically I consider it possible to be chosen over the 9-candle version which Judaism allows to be used outside of temples, since depicting a 7-candle version might "violate" this self-imposed rule.
When the personality cult president of turkmenistan quit smoking, he banned it nationwide.
Similarily an ex-alcoholic doesn't like to see people drink in his vicinity.
Similarily some muslims might not appreciate people around them showing off how they are eating during daytime during the ramadan.
While I can empathize with their feeling of annoyance, a self-imposed rule is a self-imposed rule.
That said I now can interpret depicting a 7-candled Menorah outside of their holy places, can sometimes be done to piss off jews...
But I don't believe others should be held to self-imposed rules of one group. Even if it is bad taste of outsiders to shove it in their face.
We are not all required by law to be friendly to each other.
If I had seen someone use an ASCII Menorah to depict something jewish, in a way that I thought it innocuously depicted a Menorah, I still probably wouldn't use it, not because it would be bad form (as I would be still under the impression it simply depicts a jewish object), but because I don't think ASCII art beyond smileys is a clear form of art, even smileys are routinely misinterpreted as sarcasm smiles when intended as honest smiles etc...
Which of these seem more likely?
I don't do non-intrinsic polarization. I usually don't mind selecting between 2 statements if they are each others mathematical negation (intrinsic or benign polarization, I believe a statement is either true or false). But being forced to choose between 2 options that are not mathematical negations of each other is extrinsic polarization AKA a false dilemma...
No, that's "life".
Except... WL didn't do that. They never surrounded text like that at all.
They said on guy who was trying to antagonize them was involved with the ((())) issue. That's REALLY FAR from them saying something antisemitic.
So, you are saying that instead of saying he was a rat that was of particular concern because he was both Jewish and involved in anti-anti-Semitism action, the pair of closely-timed tweets from the WL account were intended to say he was a rat that was of concern because he was Jewish and involved in...some kind of “Menorah issue”?
Even accepting (for the sake of argument) that that explanation is somehow plausible, how does it make the message any less anti-Semitic?
No, I am saying that since he uses 7 parentheses, the authors intended message probably has nothing to do with the anti-semitic triple parentheses.
"Not intended as anti-semitism" is not the same as "intended as anti-anti-semitism."
Intention and negation do not commute...
He simply always incorrectly interpreted the anti-semitic banter of others (the triple parentheses) as simply referring to Judaism, without any anti-semitic connotation...
Not sure what is so hard to grasp here?
Honestly a fresh account with low karma trying to push some conspiracy theory on this is also suspect as hell.
I can assure you I am not some anti-semitic sockpuppet ok?
No one is using ((()))) to describe an ASCI Menorah, and even if they did it makes no sense, there are no Menorah issues.
On the other hand ((())) Is a symbol used by the alt-right and white-supremacist to define any subject as "Jewish" this can be a place, a person, an event a cause or w/e.
Adding an extra ) is easy by simply fat fingering it
So yes you do look like an anti-semitic sockpuppet to me, or at least someone that has a clear agenda in gaslighting this issue simply because of the tenacity that you push this "theory" with and the fact that you clearly ignore Ockham's razor.
I sincerely interpreted it as ASCII art conveying simply "Jewish" and hence "Jewish issue". I do NOT claim my interpretation is representative of how the majority interprets it. I simply faithfully report my sample size 1 experience of honestly interpreting it as a Menorah signifying "Jewish"... I just had an instant flashback to highschool class -more than 15 years ago- on different world religions, where symbols of different religionns were discussed... as I said I even incorrectly thought the Jewish name was candelabra...
My point is thst even if you accept that implausible interpretation of the cluster of parentheses—that the “((()))) issue” phrase refers to some Menorah-related issue and not the controversy over a particular brand of online anti-Semitism—the pair of tweets is still clearly anti-Semitic (but also considerably more bizarre.)
Heck, it's still anti-Semitic if you remove the reference to an issue involving whatever it is that the parens signify so that the pair of tweets becomes just “He’s always ben a rat. But he’s jewish.”
It's not the parens that are the issue, though they do confirm the message of the rest of the text.
That is, unless you're referring to something else, but with accusations as serious as this, and antisemitism being as sadly pervasive and serious as it is, I would like to see a source. If you actually are referring to the DM's on that page, just no, and wtf, since it's only time "(((" appears in all of it, the only other time Jewishness is mentioned seems not to be by Wikileaks.
So, where's the meat?
Well... now you've done it! You've made hackernews and all of us altright extremists! According to some of the "logic" here.
It's not necessary racist in and of itself. But the only reason to use it is to trigger anti-Semites. Normally people don't general care about a person's religion unless it's contextually relevant.
Do you believe pointing out someone’s ethnicity/religion is a valid rebuttal of their arguments?
Or..... Just jump to pitchforks!
More of that exchange if you do want context instead of pitchforks...
[2016-08-23 01:21:32] <WISE Up Action> Satter is desperately trying to make smoke.
[2016-08-23 03:01:11] <M> Interesting to look through his past tweets re WL. He covered Saudi Cables when they came out, but I didn’t see any mention of personal info concerns (however, I only skimmed his tweets). He seemed to turn against WL after AKP, DNC and has attacked them since.
[2016-08-23 03:11:41] <M> Also note that he is trying to make this a new, recent story (“in the past year”) but Saudi Cables where 95% of claims stem from are over a year old.
[2016-08-23 04:46:09] <WikiLeaks> He’s always ben a rat.
[2016-08-23 04:46:27] <WikiLeaks> But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue.
[2016-08-23 05:28:35] <WikiLeaks> http://Govwaste.co.uk*
[2016-08-23 05:35:50] <Emmy B> surprising I don’t see any archived links from there, I thought I had archived some pages*
[2016-08-23 06:04:49] <Emmy B> Last wayback machine capture: https://web.archive.org/web/20160811212406/http://govwaste.c...
[2016-08-23 07:23:25] <M> Looking into it*
[2016-08-23 09:15:15] <WISE Up Action> Satter is keeping going in general and wide-ranging attacks on WL /JA
[2016-08-23 12:58:54] <WikiLeaks> Bog him down. Get him to show statements of his bias.
[2016-08-23 13:03:28] <WikiLeaks> He’s the son of David Satter, who is mentioned in our cables. DS is a senior member of the Hudson institute and a well known Russia basher and NSA apologist. He was expelled from Russia in 2008 and 2014. Rafael grew up in Washington DC
So... is WL being racist? No, it doesn't seem it. Is WL using ((())) in any sort of racist way? No, not at all. What is wrong with some of you? Please leave your nonsense at Reddit.
1) Where is this magical context you keep pointing towards? 2) How is his ethnicity related to the article he wrote? 3) How is this not judging this reporter solely on the basis of his ethnicity?
I understand you may have a preference for not calling anyone or anything racist regardless of the circumstances, but I work differently. I’m more than willing to reevaluate the context if given more information, but you seem to be telling me that it’s fine to judge reporters work by their ethnicity, irregardless of whether that ethnicity is related to the subject matter at hand.
No, but one might refer to such slang, you just did it yourself, and nothing more can be seen in those particular tweets.
> [2016-08-23 04:46:27] <WikiLeaks> But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue.
then please provide a source to that other thing, who you are referring to with "he", and maybe a reason for not making what you are referring to more clear as well.
It's also very nice that because of the barrage of downvotes, or maybe moderator action, I can't respond 13 minutes after you posted your comment when I actually had finished this reply, but have to keep the tab open and submit later... so I'll respond to another comment here as well:
> Do you consider referring to racism to be the same as being racist?
No I don't, which was my point. Saying "$someone is Jewish and engaged with the ((())) issue" isn't using that dog whistle, but referring to it. Without context it's really hard to judge why the Jewishness is mentioned; I don't know what the ((())) issue refers to in that specific context, what "engaged with" means, nothing. Could easily be bad, could be benign, but the claim was they "used" ((())), and that's false. Even if they're actually antisemites, they did not use the brackets in that tweet from 2016-08-23 04:46:27. Fact.
I mean, calling him also a "rat" kind of makes it moot in a way, that's not good, antisemitism or not. But if they are antisemitic, I want more than hearsay and being sloppy about something like "referring to X" and "using X". This is not acceptable. For one because it would be important in light of WL, but even more importantly because of antisemitism.
Generally, that some antisemites might like WL would never surprise me. With almost anything that criticizes society and the powerful in it, you often can find antisemites who are superficially interested in the subject so they can re-route it to Jews being the root of all problems. So in a vacuum, tweets "at" WL that seem antisemitic are to be expected -- the question is how WL deals with them, and what they themselves put out. I do not consider that question settled, mind you, but those who raise it, and those who approach it, have no right to be this sloppy.
Remember when that Google guy was fired and people said he "posted a memo to the internet"? He posted a memo in an internal discussion group devoted to the issue he posted about, and others leaked it on the net. Yet the lie is still out there in people's heads. And that wouldn't be acceptable even if he was a total red pill chauvinist. When it was cool to be dishonest about Jews, to exclude them inevitably leading to violence against them, some people did that. Now it's cool to be dishonest about and violent to Jews in some milieus, sexists, racists or antisemites in others -- as if the methods don't matter at all, just who wins, as if using certain methods doesn't make you something, too. Or to put a very sharp point on it, as if putting racists into concentration camps would actually end once you killed all racists, as if it could.
The “He’s always ben a rat. But he’s jewish and engaged with the ((()))) issue” bit is clearly intended to both impugn his character and suggest that he is influential because he is Jewish and actively engaged in anti-anti-semitism.
So, yeah, I'm going to say that sending a message that amounts to “He’s a rat, but particularly dangerous because he’s a Jew rat engaged against anti-Semitism” is pretty starkly anti-Semitic.
Not everyone agrees with that characterization of the Israeli Palestinian conflict, but to smear anyone even mentioning the conflict as anti-semitic is dishonest and partisan.
Does saying ...”but he’s white” mean someone is racist for bringing up race? I think it depends on context and intent.
"He's a rat, but he's British and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
"He's a rat, but he's Spanish and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
"He's a rat, but he's Bulgarian and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
"He's a rat, but he's a black American and engaged with the ((( ))) issue."
None strikes me as particularly racist, just that someone is disliked, and is now engaged with an issue to do with their origin.
Really, at this point, it's hard to say for certain with all the spooks involved and the circumstances of the major players.
That said, I maintain that "When Google Met Wikileaks" and "Cypherpunks" are excellent reads.
Must be a native English speaker because they can't spell for shit.
I’m not sure I understand your comment. Are you saying native English speakers are more prone to misspelling than those that speak it as a second or third language?
For example, it is not uncommon in the US for native english speakers to confuse the spellings of "loose" and "lose", whereas this kind of confusion is uncommon among say native German speakers who know English as a second language.
There are of course also native speakers with excellent spelling.
What sticks out among native speakers is their inability to properly use to/too, misplaced apostrophes, "The girl’s horse" vs "the girls' horse.", your/you're, it's/its ... this is to me so basic I can't believe the frequency of these errors among natives.
Maybe it has to do with rules being easier to remember by somebody who is forced to make an active effort learning a foreign language as opposed to getting it handed from your environment. I'm not saying that a non-native speakers English is better (that would be preposterous). But most French, Germans, Japanese and Spanish I know do a lot better speaking their language than a native English speaker does theirs.
And it isn't just because of people being "lazy" or that it's hard to type on a phone.
Trump or (Rudy Gulianis) tweets as a prominent example. This is a gross generalization (and Trump of all people shouldn't be used as a standard for anything). But once you start paying attention, poor English among the English is everywhere.
Or my personal (not-)favorite: must have/must of
> “When Emma contacted me saying the source sent her the same docs too, I took a hash of my original HTML file and it checked out, so she has a copy of the same file as me,” Lee told Motherboard in a Twitter direct message. A hash is a cryptographic fingerprint of a file; if someone has tampered the file at all, those hashes won’t match.
> Lee said his source provided an HTML file of the DMs, and then Lee logged into the Twitter account himself and downloaded the direct messages with an automated tool.
> “I confirmed that they were authentic (Twitter itself would have had to doctor them) and that the source didn't modify the content in the copy he gave me,” Lee told Motherboard.
It seems weird that Wikileaks exists in the form it does. I mean, couldn't they just host a giant Pastebin-style site on Tor and let people leak whatever they wanted?
Regarding accusations of bias, I have yet to see an example of authentic non-public information wikileaks refused to publish. Do you have one?
"Wikileaks withheld a batch of emails showing a $2.2 billion transaction between the Syrian regime and a Russian government-owned bank, according to a Daily Dot report." https://gizmodo.com/wikileaks-may-have-withheld-key-russian-...
"In the summer of 2016, as WikiLeaks was publishing documents from Democratic operatives allegedly obtained by Kremlin-directed hackers, Julian Assange turned down a large cache of documents related to the Russian government, according to chat messages and a source who provided the records." https://foreignpolicy.com/2017/08/17/wikileaks-turned-down-l...
Don't forget the time they came out against anti-Trump leaks: https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/817322050297745408
>In 2014, the BBC and other news outlets reported on the cache, which revealed details about Russian military and intelligence involvement in Ukraine. However, the information from that hack was less than half the data that later became available in 2016, when Assange turned it down.
So the source was trying to piggyback on the well earned publicity Wikileaks publications get to bring attention to an old leak by adding some uninteresting documents to it. I suspect if his addition had contained revelations, we would have heard about it, especially given the anti-Russia bias of the corporate media lately.
On the Syrian payment, why is Russia giving money to an ally something I should find questionable? How much money did the US give Israel that year alone?
How, exactly, does one verify the authenticity of illegally obtained, classified information?
Other than to just publish it and see how angry the government gets, I mean.
In many cases, you can ask the government if they want to comment before you publish. Sometimes they will (and sometimes it'll be "on background" or "an anonymous source"), other times they'll ask you not to publish, sometimes they'll just shrug their shoulders.
National security reporters do this pretty much daily.
I don't think he or his organization gets the same leeway as, say, CNN or Reuters when it come to that.
The "verify against other sources, public info, etc." stuff is still entirely doable. In the case of Collateral Murder, info about the incident was already public, making the video something you could vet... and I'd imagine plenty else in Manning's leaked info was vettable.
Part of the benefit of having an organization like Wikileaks is that they can vet stuff for authenticity and package it in a way that's understandable to the public.
For example, the "Collateral Murder" video (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstri...) was put together with a publicity campaign and contextual information about the event beyond just the video.
> That's the entire intent of the organization. To leak things to cause political repercussions.
Yes, but it was supposed to be in a non-partisan manner.
Specifically with aim of getting more publicity in mainstream media.
There's always been some concerns about why Wikileaks felt the need to rise so much money:
https://web.archive.org/web/20101210045502/http://mail.kein....
Note: personally I'm happy both cryptome and Wikileaks exist - but critising Wikileaks for being a media organization - one that claims to do some journalistic work, and hence apply a certain viewpoint - misses the fact that that's the whole reason it exists.
There were other leak sites, earlier leaks - and deafening silence in mainstream media.
It's sort of the difference between "room 614a" and Snowden.
Is the leaked material real? Until that's asserted I don't believe it confirms anything. It's no secret that there are plenty of persons interested in undermining wikileaks who are very capable of fabricating smear campaigns.
https://theintercept.com/2018/07/21/ecuador-will-imminently-...
Also, there's been a bunch of stuff about anti-semitism in the UK media recently.
Interesting timing and content for this story.
Seriously what has HM come to these days.
Check out 'Inside Wikileaks' by Daniel Ellsberg, a WL cofounder who had a falling out with Assange and founded his own radical transparency platform called OpenLeaks. Brigitta Jonsdottir used to work there too, an Icelandic green.
Wikileaks stated policy and concept used to be:
- Receive, in a way that keeps the leaker anonymous, any and all state secrets that are of public interest
- Publish them after checking authenticity
This constitutes an attack on secrecy as such, not on any particular country or entity.
That said, I think there is space to debate what the boundaries of that ought to be, and I think there are too many state secrets in the United States.
And WL is absolutely part of the media.
As for the 'reasonably general conception of the public interest' of wikileaks, I suppose it is 'to get all of the truth out'.
The concern is that Assange has turned WikiLeaks into his own personal intelligence agency to achieve his political goals. And these WikiLeaks-leaks from the past few years seem to confirm much of that concern. Assange constantly uses language in these DMs indicating intent to influence political situations to his favor, and the subtle and nuanced ways they can affect and control narratives.
I'm not really convinced Assange and WikiLeaks are puppets of the Russian government, but I do think Assange has let the power and prestige go to his head, and has now rejected any pretense of neutrality and humanitarianism. WikiLeaks is now Assange's personal machine to change global geopolitics in a direction he likes; nothing more. Who knows if that was his intent from the start or if it's a case of "die a hero or live along enough to see yourself become the villain". They should really change their name, either way.