
Forget the FBI cache; the Podesta emails show how America is run - Jerry2
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/oct/31/the-podesta-emails-show-who-runs-america-and-how-they-do-it
======
nxc18
This definitely highlights the importance of networking. I used to hate the
concept that it's all about "who you know", but at some point I accepted it -
it is way too common a trope to just be a toxic symptom of one particular
culture.

None of what we see here is surprising. People with a lot of money are
spending it on what they want, often doing what they can to make the world a
better place (at least for them and their friends). They work to resolve
issues; if I was a billionaire to the Democrats, I would be pretty upset that
a Democrat was trashing billionaire donors - don't bite the hand that feeds
you.

Having been in something resembling government in college (elected + appointed
members) it is easy to see why all of this happens. It is really hard to make
an election truly about what the people wants because the people typically
aren't well informed, don't have good voter turnout, and don't make rational
decisions. That leads to lots of tricks for gaming the system, which then
leads to the need to do backdoor power brokerage and of course interest in
protecting what is already in place. Incompetent politicians look bad enough
to lay people - imagine being in government and then seeing people you've
worked with for years replaced by them.

If you've gotten to this point and you still hate the system and think it
sucks, I sympathize. Ultimately though, what you're seeing here is the best
effort of a group of people to do the best with what they have, which is a
fundamentally broken system. A first step towards fixing it might be making
election results not a product of gerrymandering, targeted get out the vote
campaigns, and media buys.

~~~
trendia
The most shocking thing to me is how _little_ they talk about actual policy.
My econ friends spend a significant time debating policies and using NBER
studies to show how people would be affected by one policy or another.

In contrast, I'd say <1% of Podesta emails are about policy, and 50% of those
are how the policies benefit donors, not the public.

------
nxc18
Also, second comment: I would be pissed if someone leakes my emails to the
public. I don't care who you are, that is such an invasion of privacy that it
does feel cringey reading the emails even though they are now public domain.

I was going to say that you should never put sensitive information in
(unsecured) email because of things like this. "Never write anything you
wouldn't want printed on the cover of the NY Times" is sage advice I've heard
in the past. Unfortunately, the standard of what is acceptable is quite
subjective - I don't see anything objectionable in Podesta's emails. If I were
him I would see them as innocuous - and yet, here he his, taking a serious hit
from it all.

Now, the question is, where the heck are the Republican email leaks? At the
very least, it would be interesting to compare...

~~~
Roboprog
But when the emails are about business, they belong to the business. They can
be subpoenaed, and so on.

Doing stuff that is very close to official business on private email accounts
is shady.

~~~
hga
But what would be the grounds for a subpoena?

To the extent he was giving advice to Hillary while she was Secretary of
State, I suppose, and you can be sure Judicial Watch is on that, but simply
running her campaign?

------
paulajohnson
Its all very well getting hot under the collar about the influence peddling of
a charmed circle, but I have yet to see a plausible alternative organisation.
Every system of government comes down to Dunbar's Number (the size of a group
who can reasonably expect to know each other), and the unavoidable fact that
people in charge of allocating resources will tend to allocate as much as they
can to themselves. Attempts to disrupt this, such as sunshine laws and term
limits, also have a tendency to disrupt effective governance as well, because
people who can't negotiate a compromise in secret become hostage to various
special interest groups who will reject any move towards compromise. If nobody
can compromise then nothing gets done.

~~~
nerdponx
To tack onto this, this same "everybody knows each other behind closed doors"
is actually _applauded_ in the U.S. Senate. Collegiality leads to measured
politics and compromise, i.e. getting shit done.

------
fowlerpower
What's really troubling to me isn't so much that these guys send each other
emails asking for favors. I am a lowly engineer and I have been asked if I
would consider hiring someone who is just finish school.

That's just human nature, people will ask for shit. They will take care of
their own when they can and if there is no push back.

What troubles me the most is that these emails were hacked by a foreign
government are slowly being trickled out and are having a massive impact in
our election. This should concern every single person living in the US. I
don't know but to me the dirtiest thing about all of this is how these emails
were obtained and who is leaking them. I just can't get over that fact.

That should concern republicans and democrats. Their content is something I
can overlook at this point because my mind keeps going back to who obtained
them and for what reason.

~~~
hga
_What troubles me the most is that these emails were hacked by a foreign
government are slowly being trickled out and are having a massive impact in
our election._

That's not in the least clear, the foreign government part. Their InfoSec was
so poor we're pretty sure many foreign governments and private actors gained
access to significant parts of this data, although I suppose we only _know_ of
one to Podesta's GMail account. But the spear plishing that's though to have
captured his credentials certainly didn't take a nation state to pull off.
Plus wasn't his password trivial?

------
nippples
Truly an oligarchy. It can only last so long before the social and economic
fabric of the country collapses. You can already see plenty of signs of that.

~~~
Roboprog
The rich did just fine before the New Deal. They'll be fine again. The other
90% of us are going to be left behind, though :-(

It's too bad, though. Our country made a lot of progress and did some amazing
things in the 20th century. (even if "our" elites/overlords often did horrible
things to other little countries)

------
nerdponx
"...what is remarkable is that, in the party of Jackson and Bryan and
Roosevelt, smiling financiers now seem to stand on every corner, constantly
proffering advice about this and that."

The author can't possibly be this naive. I am not surprised at all; in fact,
I'm glad that this is being aired. Yes, the Republican Party has been the
"money in politics" whipping boy since Reagan, but it shouldn't be news to
anybody that there is plenty of money propping up the Democratic Party as
well. Obama did not get elected on hope alone.

I personally don't have serious qualms with a Jeffersonian paternalistic
republic, so long as I have the power to vote the "parents" out of power when
they fail to represent my interests.

~~~
squozzer
>I personally don't have serious qualms with a Jeffersonian paternalistic
republic, so long as I have the power to vote the "parents" out of power when
they fail to represent my interests.

Well that's the real trick, isn't it? The DNC had already picked their nominee
a year or so in advance, which makes one's vote a "take it or leave it"
proposition.

In fairness, the RNC had probably secretly anointed Jeb, but their ability to
dictate events was weakened by their nomination design. Look for them to
borrow the superdelegate concept from the DNC.

~~~
nerdponx
I'm actually very curious to see what the equivalent RNC emails would look
like. Was this all planned, or were they panicking?

The Trump campaign emails would probably also be fun.

~~~
tmaly
I thought Trump did not use emails.

~~~
hga
Trump the man, or his campaign?

It's hard to imagine his campaign functioning without something like email,
then again, I'm old fashioned and prefer it to all other forms of person to
person/small groups of people methods, and the Democrats right now are
teaching the rest of the world how not to do InfoSec....

I mean, how do you draft position papers
([https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/](https://www.donaldjtrump.com/policies/))
without at minimum running them past a nuts and bolts editor?

