Alt-right attacks Macron in last ditch effort to sway French Election
medium.com
medium.com
Macron is a Rotschild banker, personally responsible for anti-employee law changes [1]. He advanced as an international investment banker in a very suspicious, rocket trajectory straight to the top ... while making deals with government-owned banks [2][3].
Now I'm not saying he HAS to be dirty ... but ... euhm ... yeah actually I am. Unless someone can explain to me how to career like that fairly.
[1] https://blogs.wsj.com/briefly/2015/03/09/5-things-about-the-...
[2] https://www.ft.com/content/9bd62502-12cf-11e7-b0c1-37e417ee6...
[3] (they de-emphasize this, so let me quote from the FT article: "On the Atos deal, Mr Macron “had a fairly junior role at the time — he would be asked to redo the financial models on Excel, the basics,” recalled an adviser. But a few days after the deal was announced, Mr Macron was made a partner. A few months later, he stunned colleagues and rivals by winning a role in Nestlé’s purchase of Pfizer’s infant food operations.")
She's national socialist more than anything -- ultra right socially, ultra left economically. I consider myself "on the right" -- but Le Pen is the worst of both worlds; the totalitarian racist zeal of Hitler with the industrial protectionism fervor of the worst socialist. By the way, when I say socialist, I don't mean the Democratic Socialism common in Europe -- I am referring to the statist socialism of the Soviet era.
If anything, the free market "right" is the anomaly; classical liberal economics ended up being designated as "right wing" because it built an ideological case against any meddling with status quo wealth distributions rather than because the original "right" and many conservative movements since haven't been as strongly protectionist as anything on the Left.
Many of the "leftist" parties that rose in Europe after WW2 may well be see as on the rightish side in terms of economics. This if one read right as being about preserving the status quo.
Similarly when one hear about economic liberalization it can't be read in similar terms as being socially liberal (leftist). Because being liberal economically means turning a blind eye towards abuses of workers and environment in the chase of that almighty profit.
All in all politics have become a massive game of words, and their definition.
Staying away from the political side of things, it's impressive how many people are willing to spread obvious disinfo if it serves their agenda. I'm sure many of these alt-righters realize that those documents are most likely fakes but it doesn't matter, whatever hurts the opposing party.
Look at the Cayman document leak from yesterday, one of the laziest montages I've seen lately. Didn't stop it from being plastered everywhere on "alt-right" websites with big VERIFIED tags.
It's just the strategy of drowning actual information in a sea of lies so that nobody bothers to look for it. The worst thing is that an actual leak about Macron's tax evasion could be released now and I probably wouldn't believe it. It's just all noise.
It's about all they have left :)
There's a law in France saying that media can't discuss campaign anymore two days from election, the idea being that debate time is over and it's now time for each citizen to take a step back from the heat of the campaign and calmly decide what they think is the best for the country (this is obviously something that doesn't work as well now we have internet). So far right activists only have foreign discussion threads as a mean to spread.
Macron is the globalization candidate. Le Pen is something else.
That accords with Putin's goals.
That's why the Russians hacked Macron's campaign and released emails today.
That's why the Russians hacked Macro
Are you disputing that?
US senators have also said that there are weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and that Assad used chemical weapons against the Syrian population. In both cases, credible information has never been put forward to the public.
US Senate Intel committee and FBI head has said US knows Russia is right now targeting the French election.
These are facts.
The issue I'm raising is that a very significant portion of the French populace is "euro-skeptic". Recall that a few years ago, the French voted "no" to the EU constitution (by referendum), and were subsequently overruled by the government.
Many French are still very pissed about this.
Are you suggesting we not give them a democratic voice because Putin is also against the EU? That would be a very stupid move in a country whose national sport is going on strike.
Are you suggesting the hack was coordinated by Russia? I'm not sure what this changes.
Twitter needs to decisively put a stop to these bot armies. It can't be that difficult to detect them through ML. The bot armies are not only responsible for propagating outright lies, they also frequently target people for online harassment. I've heard from many people that were almost unable to use Twitter due to information/message overload once they were targeted. Twitter seems to not only allow the harassment, but requires users to wade through the post spam. I would imagine at some point the usefulness of having a Twitter account approaches zero for many of these people that have been targeted.
Show us the code.
>far-right wackos
It's also a mistake to put Le Pen in the same box as the likes of Trump. For one, she's a highly educated, and secondly, the far right in France has a rather long history of being the only party to say anything substantive on the topic of immigration and security. (It's worth noting that the immigration situation in France is very different from the US). I'm not a huge fan of Le Pen, but dismissing her as a "wacko" is exactly why she has maintained a growing electorate; each time media in France has tried to label her as a nutcase, they've essentially refused to address the very real concerns that motivate her electorate.
Le Pen is probably a far right wacko as well, but I don't know enough about her to form an opinion.
That is the sad part about European politics. The (champagne) Left is so enamored by the notion of EU as a peace project, that they can't see that they are undermining their very voting base (the working class) in the process.
This has left the doors wide open for the far Right to wrap their xenophobia in terminology that claims they worry about workers rights and livelihood, when they really want to see every last "foreigner" (anyone with enough skin color or other feature that makes him stand out from across the street) tossed over the border (at best).
Frankly I was with you up until this point. I think this attitude is essentially the same as the one you're condemning, albeit on the topic of immigration rather than the EU project.
To use your turn of phrase, the (champagne) Left is so enamored by the notion of the "friendly foreigner" and "global society" that they can't see that they are undermining their very voting base in the process. More specifically, said Left is unable to engage in a serious discussion about border security and immigration without accusing everybody of racism.
This has left the doors wide open for the far Right to monopolize the conversation on immigration. The net effect is that anyone who cares about security and identity politics has only one party to turn to.
I mean no disrespect, but this attitude is a large part of what got us here. Wanting to reduce immigration and harden border security is not equivalent to xenophobia.
Facebook is much harder and a much bigger influence. More Americans get their news from Facebook than Twitter, and all the Facebook data is inside a walled garden.
We're soon as a society going to need to deal with disinformation and political targeting on Facebook and Twitter. And the role of that disinformation in our politics. And when I saw "our" I mean US, UK, France and most of their allies.
Now even people I would call moderate / left-leaning are now called alt-right (a term they do not use for themselves).
It's odd cause 10 years ago 4chan trolled in the exact different direction. Would love to read a book about political reckonings that come from this tiny dark corner of the net.
- Aug/Sep 2016 (or a short while before that): People made up thr term "alt-right" to be used as the opposite of "regressive-left". People there did not call themselves that.
- Oct 2016: 4chan was mostly busy with all the Wikileaks stuff and I did not see the term used that much.
- Oct (end)/Nov 2016: Some people (not even on 4chan started to call many things that are pro-Trump or "tried to be" objective (non Trump or Hillary) alt-right.
The general message that started to come up at that time: "The alt-right are spreading fake news".
- Dec 2016/Jan 2017: People suddenly started to identify themselves with alt-right.
Update:
Google trends timeline: https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=today%2012-m&q...
Yes, the division between groups (pro/anti) created while gamergate was going on were about the same. On one side people calling for social justice on the other side the people that in a way are against social justice + the ones that did not want to choose a side.
At the beginning gamergate was just about ethics in journalism (mostly in gaming).
The Trump and (early on) Carson supporters needed a term to distinguish themselves from the established Republican base, consisting largely of neocons and evangelicals, with their rather different ideological concerns. "Alt-right" offered the vaguely young/edgy and sans-culottesque character they needed.
Example: Cernovich works with Fairbanks who is employed by Russian propaganda site Sputnik.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-politics...
Same with Farage in the UK - he's worked with Russia.
See http://talkingpointsmemo.com/edblog/insider-the-alt-right-al... Russia has log bankrolled Europe's far right. http://observer.com/2016/10/putins-support-for-europes-far-r...
https://medium.com/@Roran_Stehl/forget-social-justice-warrio...
History books are gonna be weird.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/30/russia-s-in...
Even though "alt-right" is less precisely defined, it is in many cases more accurate a term than "facist" or "far right".
To me, alt-right is a combination of anti-establishment Republicans, fascists, libertarians, internet trolls (& governmental operatives trying to influence foreign elections).
To me the grassroots part of alt-right is more a reaction than ideology; something born out of the financial crisis and its' aftermath.
If you want to view them purely as fascists, that's your prerogative, but using THAT word would be less accurate and would lose a lot of nuance.
Indeed, there seems to be something of historical importance, here.
Although, I think there _is_ something that acts as an ideological bound rather than being just a group of "anti" people. In France, there's historically always been two right wings, even without considering the far right : the liberals (mainly interested about economics and free market) and the conservatives (mainly interested about authority).
Could it be a distinction that exists all over the world, the liberals were dominant and they're losing ground? By the way, we call here the authority focused ones "bonapartists" (this is not seen as pejorative or insulting, although slightly disturbing).
- Post goes out of its way not to deny authenticity of the leak.
- Post can be traced to the Atlantic Council [1].
[1] The Atlantic Council (AC) is a core ingredient for US soft power [2] projection on other countries. Example members of AC leadership: Chuck Hagel, Susan Rice, Richard Holbrooke, General Eric K. Shinseki, Anne-Marie Slaughter, General Brent Scowcroft, Jon Huntsman. Cf https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantic_Council
Given that the Atlantic Council is for all practical purposes an arm of the US government, and it's "Digital Forensic Research Lab" is extremely well-funded and well-connected, it is noteworthy that they go out of their way not to deny the authenticity on the leak.
This is a core topic of Hacker News.
It must be unflagged.
@dang
Also a goal is to crowd social media with nonsensical views to "make social media unusable.". This New Yorker article had a good discussion.
http://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-real-paranoia-in...
You say that the media is biased in its reporting, beholden to special interests, and doesn't abide by journalistic standards. Given that, the reasonable solution would be to create a media outlet that makes a conscious effort to be less biased, more open about its ties to any industry or other backer, and more stringent about its journalism.
When I go to Breitbart (or any other alt-right news site), I don't see any of that. I see a new breed of media outlets that are even more blatantly biased, even more covert about who's paying them, with no semblance of journalistic integrity.
It's like the alt-right looks at a problem and says: "They are doing X, and we oppose that. We must start outdoing them in X!"
By the way, that approach is typical of organizations that strive simultaneously for both ideological purity and brutal pragmatism. The Bolsheviks did essentially the same. "We hate the Czar's secret police. [One year later...] We need a stronger secret police than anyone else." (Maybe the overlap in methods is no coincidence. Steve Bannon reportedly said he is a Leninist who wants to destroy the state.)
Not the person you're replying to, and aside from the issue of alt-right news sites (which I know is the main thing you're talking about), lets not forget that (aside from government-run media) the media is a business, and has to do things that are financially viable. They can't just do whatever they'd ideally like to do.
Then he said they were doing the same thing for the French election.
It's just too bad that white racists in the US are too dumb to avoid falling for manipulation.
However, since it is just after a botched attempt to make believe that Macron has a bank account in the Bahamas, which was widely exposed as bs from 4chan, I don't think it will have much of an impact here.
Macron's tax evasion: itinerary of a rumor, from 4chan to the TV set: http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2017/05/04/macron-et-l-...
Macronleaks: the questions to ask after En Marche's hacking: http://www.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2017/05/06/piratage-d-e...
The article says that while many documents appear to be authentic, some look suspicious. At any rate after the american campain and Macron knowing full well he would be a target I really doubt he would've made such a stupid mistake. We'll see I guess.
In general as far as I can tell very few people believe those leaks are genuine, whether in mainstream news media or social networks. I doubt they'll have any significant effect on the results on sunday.
I don't have any opinions on French politics other than it is an entertaining spectacle to watch. And I think it is already given that Macron wins as le Pen is still to harsh to swallow.
Here is what's going on over at the "donald":
https://www.reddit.com/r/The_Donald/comments/69ikwt/whoa_guy...
I don't know if it is true; but if it is then it is kind of amazing just how fast services we all take for granted can be censored (github and internet archives).
What can you conclude?
Maybe that there is a lot of manipulation going on.
EDIT: Here's what I'm referring to: https://www.reddit.com/r/announcements/comments/5frg1n/tifu_...
Damn, gotta go back and what the old Nat. Geo show about doomsday preppers
It's a private website and it's their prerrogative to do that
Yes it's a private website and both are within their rights, but you can't claim to be promoting free speech and expression and then edit the speech of others or rig the system so it doesn't appear in front of others per the rules of the game. The worst part of it is doing it without any indication that an edit was made.
(In the same way a completely free market is anything but)
And in general I think one should be very wary of using any kind of social media as a primary source for anything. Forging documents is trivial and this "offshore account" narrative makes very little sense to begin with. The first "proof" yesterday, the cayman island document, was a very obvious fake.
In general the people doing that don't seem to understand very well how french politics work. I really doubt they'll have any effect on the outcome sunday, their reach is very small. Just look at what was supposed to be the french version of "The Donald": https://www.reddit.com/r/Le_Pen/. I defy you to find french people in there. Bon Courage.
The github copy of the torrent links clearly was there at one point and it is now gone. Of course it could have been deleted by its author.