”I came here because last week for the first time, I crossed the Rubicon, and I call what’s going on in Gaza ‘a genocide’.
For me it was unbearable to admit. To pronounce the words.
But this is it.
It’s genocide.
And I cannot but support whoever protests against it.”
— Israeli man
#GodBless 🫶
”We all know the great prime minister of the UK and we just signed a document and we just signed it and it’s done so we have our trade agreement with the European Union.”
Horrifying reading, given the power that was given to this guy. Some day, there will be accountability.
Until then, there is late night.
Chaos.
Pain.
Death.
Strength.
Courage.
Compassion.
Struggle.
Strife.
Anxiety.
Chaos.
Pain.
Hope.
Struggle.
Hope.
Gain.
Trust.
Care.
Love.
Laugh.
Safety.
Happiness.
Love.
So Trump made so many horrifying comments in Helsinki that some stuff passed without anyone having the time to notice. I did. Because I’ve now worked for over two years as head of cloud sales at an IT company, providing more or less that particular service. And as a funny side twist, the company is in fact based in Helsinki, even though I’m not.
When asked about the Russian attack on the U.S., his response was as almost always to ramble about Hillary Clinton, and the DNC server.
”You have groups that are wondering why the FBI never took the server—haven’t they taken the server. Why was the FBI told to leave the office of the Democratic National Committee?
I’ve been wondering that, I’ve been asking that for months and months and I’ve been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media.
Where is the server?
I want to know where is the server and what is the server saying?”
Journalists are so tired of this extreme whataboutism that even Anderson Cooper just called it ”Hillary Clinton’s server” without even bothering to unpack any of it, and it’s understandable that they don’t want to go down that rabbit hole but instead keep the focus on what actually matters.
But it was never about ”Hillary’s server”. It was about the DNC’s server.
The way that not only Trump but also his minions like Trey Gowdy speak of it, it brings an image to mind of a dark corner far away in an attic or a tower, where there would be a dusty server tucked away much like Aurora’s parents tried to hide away all the kingdom’s spinning wheels. It’s sitting there, waiting to be found, filled with intriguing secrets.
”What is the server saying?”
Indeed.
The tale of the DNC server merits being discussed, even though it’s not the most important topic of today, because there are several interesting angles to it. Not to the server per se. But to the tale.
First, the facts:
There was no single physical server. There was a private-hosted cloud-based system with a third party provider. We don’t know which, but it seems to be very similar to that we provide where I work and in companies like the one where I work.
So you obviously don’t rent a physical computer, but infrastructure in the shape of virtual machines (VMs). And they can be located anywhere, in theory. A VM is what it sounds like. A program that imitates a physical server. And the fact is that unless someone had actually broken or snuck into the server hall and left marks or finger prints, the computer in itself is completely irrelevant. What does matter is the entire network, the digital content and the context surrounding it.
What happened after the DNC was hacked by the Russian government in order to support the election of Donald Trump on the very day that Trump asked them to through the infamous ”Russia, if you’re listening …” plea, was that the DNC contacted the FBI to make sure the crime was investigated, and they also, simultaneously, contacted a security company called CrowdStrike to get help to ensure this would never happen again. CrowdStrike created ”a complete image including a memory dump of everything that was in the memory of the server at the time, including traffic and connections at the time”, says Professor Thomas Rid at John Hopkins. Do read the whole article in the link, because the analysis is interesting even though not very surprising to anyone who knows anything about IT. Also, check out Politifact’s debunking for more info!
But Trump is somehow insinuating that the DNC were not cooperating with the FBI, thereby trying to move the blame from himself to the actual victims. Pretty much like when a alleged rapist blames the victim for not cooperating with the police, insinuating that she had something to hide.
But the FBI got the image, for all we know, and that helped them to, if not catch, at least name the intruders in their indictment. Therefore, there is no criticism from anyone actually involved towards neither the DNC nor the security company nor FBI.
It’s true that Comey, as well as other senior law enforcement officials, had previously said that the DNC rebuffed requests for direct access to the servers. But those familiar with FBI procedures insist that it is far from unusual for the agency to forego physically obtaining servers targeted by an attack. The former special agent in charge of the FBI’s New York field office cyber division, Leo Taddeo, told the Hill last year that “In nine out of 10 cases, we don’t need access, we don’t ask for access, we don’t get access. That’s the normal [procedure]. It’s extraordinarily rare for the FBI to get access to the victim’s infrastructure because we could mess it up.”
Taddeo added that direct access would be unnecessary “unless there was a reason to think the victim was going to alter the evidence in some way,” while another intelligence official told the Hill that CrowdStrike was “pretty good.”
Concluding: ”The president unsurprisingly either has no idea how digital forensics work or is playing stupid.”
Mmm.
And finally there’s the fun/sad/bizarre part where the leader of the free world, with access to the most advanced intelligence ever known says: ”for months and months and I’ve been tweeting it out and calling it out on social media”.
Yeah.
Social Media is where all the answers to all the intelligence mysteries in the world are to be found.
If you shout out your questions on Twitter, some day, someone will tweet the answer:
”The server is in the highest tower in a hidden castle near a river close to a willow tree with the face of Barack Obama, guarded by six golden dragons that will let you enter if you say Hillary Clinton three times backwards.”
I follow American politics very closely, since a few years ago. Before that, I normally only knew what was reported in international media. It started with the discovery of The Daily Show, actually, and me falling in love with Jon Stewart’s tone of voice. I watched not only the shows as they came out, but also his old shows backwards using Comedy Central’s archive. I have therefore watched every show since around 2006, and some even older than that.
Today, I start every morning – I wake up very early – with a routine that keeps me up to date with both late night comedy and the news.
I have one email subscription: Borowitz at The New Yorker. I read his satirical articles right away.
Now it’s time for late night comedy, which is not always updated in the Swedish morning, so often I need to go back and check when I get home from work.
I only watch political satire.
Three comedians have one show per week: John Oliver on Sunday nights, Sam Bee on Wednesdays and Bill Maher on Fridays. I subscribe to HBO Nordic to be able to watch Oliver and Maher, but they don’t always come out there fast enough, so I often have to use Youtube instead. So Mondays, Thursdays and Saturdays I busy myself with their shows.
John is my favourite, pretty much like Rachel is in the news sphere, because I learn from them and they talk about issues that others don’t. But Sam is so amazingly funny and to the point, and I love her feminist perspective. Then there’s Bill that sometimes crosses my line, but I don’t have to agree to appreciate.
Then there is of course SNL, which gets watched on Sundays. To watch it from Europe, you need a proxy to simulate being in the U.S.. We use VyprVPN.
Also, there are three daily shows that I watch. First, there’s literally The Daily Show, which is not as good as it used to be, but still pretty amazing. I love Trevor Noah. You need the proxy for this as well.
I also watch Stephen Colbert and Seth Myer. Stephen is a comedian with a touch of seriousness, and Seth is the opposite.
What about Fallon, Conan and Corden? Well, they’re not political, so I get bored with them quite quickly. But I watch them sometimes.
Hope this can be used to inspire someone.
Want a taste? Here is a rising star:
Amy Hoggart from Full Frontal:
Photo of Rachel Maddow: Paul Schultz.
Donald Trump embodies male entitlement. He is a sexist pig. That is as much a fact as any subjective epithet can be. He belittles women, he thinks he’s entitled to kissing them, to touching them, and worse. Even though he denies doing this, it’s caught on tape on numerous occasions. There’s a beautiful, young woman on stage with him, and he leans over and kisses her on the cheek. This happens over and over with different women. She most probably doesn’t want to be kissed by a fat, ugly, sleazy old man. He obviously doesn’t care. The way he talks about women and to women makes all of us recall also having been treated that way. We’ve met him before.
If you, American voters, elect Donald Trump, that will obviously continue. As will his Twitter wars with Rosie O’Donnell and Miss Universes.
And you know what? That is in a way OK by me.
I don’t fear that young Americans will be affected by this in a way that will ruin that generation. I think they will be appalled, disgusted, outraged and that they will alienate themselves from the older generation that put the misogynist freak in the White House. They will compare him to Obama, and he will be the most hated president ever.
For four years, media will be filled with women coming forward, with tweets being quoted, with young people telling how they really never ever will vote Republican. Republican senators and representatives will have to answer to his deeds over and over, either distancing themselves and thus make themselves targets for his anger, or else defending him, and then being viewed as accomplices – having to answer for this, and making it difficult for them to be reelected for decades to come.
It’s not just Donald Trump’s actions that will be challenged.
It’s the whole idea with punishing women for abortions, defunding Planned Parenthood and with it access to contraceptives, not having a plan for free college education that is something that young people really want, and the fight against LGBTQ rights and marriage and gender equality. Donald Trump doesn’t care about these issues as long as he can tweet to people he hates, but Pence and the other religious fundamentalists do, and they will go in a direction that will make young people ashamed of their parents and their country.
Young people, who will be tomorrow’s decision makers, are not religious nuts and they don’t put up with slut-shaming and fat-shaming and they don’t call bragging about sexual assault ”locker room talk”. I believe in them and in the many wise Americans I know, who are as appalled as I am. People talk about what will happen to the Republican party if he loses. Well, what will happen if he wins, and the party will have no time to remake itself, will be much, much worse from a GOP perspective.
Young people will not accept his racism or nationalism either. They will call him out and he will complain about having to be ”politically correct”, and it will be the same narrative in the press for four more years as we’ve seen for the past two years.
Thus far, as a Swedish citizen, I could almost be at peace with a four years Trump presidency, feeling sorry for American friends who would be constantly as embarrassed as Italians are over Berlusconi. It would be like America’s root canal procedure. It hurts, but then life will be much better.
I could, had it not been for the other part. The one where this narcissist, short attention spanned, vindictive and frankly quite stupid or at least below average talented chauvinist, with no moral – just look at how he stiffed small businesses, refused African-Americans from his apartments, claimed charity donations he never made, and told so many lies he deserves a huge Pinocchio statue – will be Commander in Chief. America had stupid presidents before, but they were smart enough to surround themselves with smarter staff. He will not. He doesn’t listen to anyone – ask Kellyanne Conway. He is unhinged, and acts on bad instincts.
The Daily Show’s Trevor Noah joked that Trump would nuke Iceland confusing it for ISIS-land. Well. It sounds like a joke. But …
Then there’s the alienation of NATO allies, and the weird signals he sends out to the rest of the world, given his simplified view where countries just as people are either good or bad, and where Russia is good because Putin says nice things about him.
I don’t think Donald Trump is a Russian spy, or a Manchurian candidate. He’s just not smart enough to have a hidden agenda. Everything he thinks, he eventually says, like a babbling twelve-year-old.
However, he is immoral enough to be a target for Russian or other interests. He could easily be bribed. Or he could hire people like Manafort.
He also surrounds himself with Giuliani, Bannon, Christie, Ailes and Gingrich. They may not have ties to Russia, that we know of, but they certainly don’t come out as guardians of high moral and integrity.
Then there’s his anti-Islam rhetoric, that will alienate moderate Muslims around the world, making America and Americans targets for as long as he reigns, potentially worsening the situation in Syria and other countries at war.
He will ”bomb the hell out of ISIS”, he says. But there will be no American soldiers in Iraq or Syria. Instead, he will discuss with Putin, and ask him to do it. And then there’s his secret plan that no one can hear of …
Then there’s the promotion of war crimes, including torture, killing wives and children of terrorists, and banning Muslims from entering the U.S..
The world needs a unifier. Not a divider.
Americans, I’m fine with you electing a sexist pig as head of state.
Italy and many other countries did. The world can survive that.
I would have said to you: Go ahead, elect Donald Trump, I dare you, had it not been for the fact that there’s a risk we will all die if you do.
So please don’t.
I play Civilization V.
A lot.
Earlier in life, I’ve gotten hooked on other computer games, but usually there is one that I play at the time, for a few years, and then I switch.
The thing with Civ V is that it really simulates civilizations in a very real way. And without going into too many details, here are some lessons that I actually learned from playing.
About that first bullet: Here’s why we Swedes are rich. Here’s why we have all these problems in the Middle East. If you play using a world map, which is one option, at least one of the civilizations that start out there will be erased quite fast.
Now, going back to that last last bullet, here’s a true story from a fake world.
After playing Civ V more times than I want to admit, something weird happened. Here’s a bit of background:
At first, you can only go where there is land. After that, you can also go where there are coastal tiles, and finally, after about half the game, you can travel across ocean tiles.
So usually, you will share your continent with one or several other civilizations. If not, at least you will be able to reach them through coastal tiles.
But what happened was I found myself alone on a continent completely surrounded by ocean tiles. I could not meet anyone. I was all by myself.
So I considered this to be a huge advantage. I needed no soldiers, not military, I could build cities wherever I wanted without having to speed up in order to get the best spots.
However, gradually, I realized that not having anyone to interwork with was a huge disadvantage. Why? Because there was no one that I could do trade with. I ended up with big financial problems and a population that was dissatisfied because of the lack of some resources, while I had others in abundance.
The lesson learnt is that trade is good. Interaction with other civilizations is good. It’s not good always and under all circumstances, and you don’t want too much interaction with the wrong people, but in the long run, cooperation does you far more good than bad.
Q: If you want the same things as a horrible person or group of people, are you then a bad person?A: It depends on what your support looks like.
If you are a Republican, disgusted by Donald Trump, but vote for him or even endorse him because you dislike the other candidate’s policies or because of your concern about supreme court appointments, does that make you a bad person?
If you are a Syrian or Iraqi Sunni, who relies on rebels for your protection against Assad, then are you a bad person? Are you responsible for their horrible deeds because you accept their help? We tend to view people as either ”ISIS” or ”against ISIS”, while in reality, it’s not that simple.
If you are a Swedish senior citizen, worried about rising crime, burning cars, and the economy, and therefore ignoring the racist and anti-Muslim rhetoric of representatives for Sverigedemokraterna and root for them, does that make your responsible for said rhetoric?
We have (had) separatist movements in Europe. IRA in Northern Ireland, Corsican freedom fighters, ETA in Spain, not to mention the war in former Yugoslavia, and a lot of people support(ed) their cause but felt horrified by their deeds. So at what point did their support for the cause become support for their actions?
There are no easy answers.
I can say one thing about these questions: We all tend to be much more forgiving with people we agree with. We have all at some point been ashamed of what people who represent our views or values are capable of. And we all had to make that choice: what is really important to me? My values? The group I identify myself with? Or not supporting people who do evil?
I am myself in a situation where I chose to distance myself from people who claim to represent my values. I know that is hard.
.
Helena Trotzenfeldt 