To this image I wrote this on social media:
"Supporting people based on misplaced loyalty to some intangible ideals that hardly ever eventuate and then coming up with all kinds of rationalisations to square clear contractions to reality seems to describe most people's approach to politics be that left, right or whatever team or side one rallies for. Equally as much most forms of religion fit this technique too. Very cultish behaviour on mass scale."
Then I got this reply:
"The Russians really did hack the elections! Ask Reality Winner who forfeited her career and her freedom to reveal this. Denying it is just as bad as saying the school shootings didn't happen, and is shameful and demented. https://standwithreality.org"
I couldn't see anything of support for the claims so to which I wrote this:
""The Russians" who exactly? "did hack the elections" how exactly? This source you cite has no evidence about what you say was revealed for anyone to assess these claims. Is there evidence that makes you certain that people working for Putin influenced the result of the election? I would ask "Reality Winner" myself like you suggest, how would I do that? Did you ask her yourself?"
I did some searching into this more and seemed to be a case for someone who was well influenced by all the media hyperbole about Russia hacking the election. This was what I was getting at. Or so I thought. Could it be the worse candidate lost fair and square? I don't know for sure. It's looks like a probable cause.
Another way to approach it is this:
"Whether there's any evidence for interference or not, doesn't matter, Putin and Trump are bad and bad people are more than likely to make bad plans together, and they're highly likely to be really good a covering it all up, they are bad after all, so there's no point wasting anymore time looking for evidence of them colluding, wont be found, they should just bomb Russia, put Trump behind bars now and then look for some good reasons later. Seemed to work with Iraq, Libya and Syria, why not just keep on bombing and use some of that nuclear arsenal? Seems well enough thought through... Or not?"
But then again, the reality is that leaders of two major nuclear powers on the brink of disastrous outcomes agreed on mutual cooperation - that's a win for those that value life and reducing suffering worldwide! It's those in bed with the military security industrial complex and it's various mouthpieces that must be really gnashing their teeth and doing their best to spread fear and rage. Seems to work for many, but I'm led to believe it counts for very little, at least that's what it looks like for now.
So back to this Reality Winner, who has a great name by the way! I wrote this reply:
"Looking into this elsewhere it doesn't look like there was any evidence for "Russian hacking the election" here. As part of what I do, I recently learnt from a cyber security analyst that these companies do "penetration testing" all the time to seek out security holes in small to large enterprises including government infrastructures. I also spoke with the head compliance of a major telecommunications company recently who has to report 100s of similar breaches of this nature every week to government. These cyber probes occur from all over the world all the time. So a cyber probe detected on a company that supplies cloud based voting machine services is a non-event as it would be expected. That it was allegedly from a Russian firm, is as significant as it coming from a firm in France. If it was coming from a French firm, the suggestion that then "France hacked the election" couldn't be treated seriously by anyone because it's not evidence that supports this claim. Because it's Russia, and it fits the narrative that's been drummed into people for the last 3 or so years, people feel it's meaningful, just like this Reality Winner, who I'm guessing believed she was doing the right thing but simply ended up in jail for stepping over the protocols she would have had to agree to signing up to the NSA. That's unfortunate."
Well that's my ten cents, what are you led to believe?