Guccifer casts out Hillary

[Hammerskjold]

Well, Racists exist. The compulsion, by fascists left or right, is to quell free speech, and free association by power of the state. I have nothing against exposing the "David Dukes" of this world for what they are, and ridiculing their wrong thinking. I am troubled when it is aided and abetted by the forces of laws, and the state power apparatchik.

Yep, capital R racists do exists, the danger I am talking about is treating it as if only white males can hold and exercise prejudice behaviors. Which I think, is a naive, sheltered, and myopic view that doesn't match reality. Current day racism IMO is often wrapped in a far more appealing package.

Pure philosophy and ideology must step aside for the pragmatic reality of how things really work.

That, that right there is absolutely key isn't it. Ideas that focuses only in it's purity with no regard in how it would function in reality, sooner or later tends to morph into an extremely myopic, dogmatic, fanatical ideology. It's acolytes starts exhibiting cult like behaviors.

It'd be like driving a car with both eyes glued to a pair of telescopes. It's not being a far seeing visionary at that point, it's merely a countdown to a crash.

But, you may retort, "Not all people need to go to college to be successful." Which is true, if you have the resources, or can tie into the resources required to "pull yourself up by your bootstraps". Here is where the cultural heritage of racial discrimination, crime, and poverty set certain groups at higher disadvantage. This is made worse by double or triple when you criminalize those who are victimized by the vices associated with poverty, such as drugs, or prostitution.

I abhor the system that enforces the inevitable inequality it produces, which is made by mostly white people who cannot fathom how their disparate support for laws tears apart communities, and destroys livelihood for generations -- while patting themselves on the back for the benevolence of their interventions, all at the expense of taxpayers. Taxpayers, who are also more white, rich, upper middle class, or wealthy and blithe the the effect to which their enforced contribution yields.

Yes, it looks like more of a fashionable trend in recent years I've noticed. I see it in things like slacktivism, or clicktivism as well. Now I agree with you that helping and empowering someone who say, didn't have a good start in their early formative period, that can arguably be a good and positive thing.

What I'm talking about is the lure and pitfall of falling into the "great savior" complex. Not you specifically, but I'm sure you've seen them in your experience. Maybe they're just young and naive, some are not so young but intellectually and emotionally immature. They want to change the world, but it's expressed in an immature way. If they're lucky, they might grow up once they are able to see a wider facet of the world and how it functions. If they're not so lucky, they can wind up as useful idiots to a metaphorical (sometimes literal) cult, prey to wolves they didn't recognize until it's too late.

I mean I'm somewhat bemused when last year in my city, I hear\read a few folks unironically going, "..well I guess I will be outraged for you/them". It just amazes me, that level of ignorance and lack of self awareness of not realizing, how racist that act of co-opting actually is. Some of them might actually mean well and really do have good intentions, but we know what the road to hell is paved with.

Anyhow, to get back somewhat to one of the thread topic you originally mentioned. Guccifer is an interesting character in this tapestry. If the articles I read about him are true, it's like a comedy of errors and hubris.

The guy is not quite a cyberElite hax0rR from some gleaming comp sci institute , his former occupation was a taxi driver. His computer was not some top of the line Renraku deck, it was considered relatively old and underpowered. He "hacked" the data by mostly persistence, and the laughably lax security of his targets.

It's also going to be interesting watching how the U.S. election coverage plays out, in light of the changing media landscape, especially with the interwebz increasing role in how people receive, and digest their news\info. It's no longer just a one way broadcast I think. Definitely interesting times.