Re: Who Was Seth Rich?
Posted: Fri Aug 16, 2019 2:54 am
@stickdog99: I completely agree with your analysis about acceptable vs. unacceptable conspiracy theories. The fact that Russian hacking is so entrenched in the mainstream psyche that you get attacked for mere skepticism of it whereas expressing suspicion over Seth Rich's death is enough to get you deplatformed is not logically justifiable. And I absolutely believe that Seth Rich's death, rather than being a random homicide, was related to his job at the DNC. All I am saying is to be careful about what you start believing after rejecting the dubious theories that "conventional wisdom" tells you to believe.
While I don't begrudge you for considering Seth a more plausible suspect for the DNC leak than Russian hackers, I still don't believe him to be a particularly plausible one. The differences in means and opportunity aren't as stark as you might think. Both Seth Rich and any hypothetical Russian hackers share the quality of not having had preexisting access to the emails: foreign hackers obviously wouldn't and Seth was a DNC employee who did not work in IT. Either way, there must have been a computer intrusion for which no actual evidence has been produced. Yes, Seth had a greater possibility of physical access and friendships with other DNC employees which might make pulling off a job easier. But it is absolutely wrong to think that merely being at the DNC gives him substantially better access to the emails when he almost certainly would have had to do some form of hacking himself.
Who the actual leaker would have been if not Seth is something I don't know, but that's not unusual. We don't know the identities of most WikiLeaks sources because part of their mission is to protect those sources. Indeed, if WikiLeaks is committed to protecting sources even posthumously, then Julian Assange's very suggestive hinting that Seth was the source seems at odds with that mission, except as a bit of misdirection. What better way to protect the real source, after all, then directing people towards a very suspicious and well-publicized homicide that superficially seems to fit?
In parapolitically-significant cases there are often several layers of possibilities before we actually approach the truth. The official narrative (e.g. Russia hacked the DNC emails) may be easy to dispatch with, but finding another narrative that seems better (e.g. Seth Rich leaked the DNC emails) isn't a sign to stop digging. Sometimes the most popular "conspiracy theory" is itself just an "official conspiracy theory" designed to hide an even better explanation. I have maintained since the story of Seth Rich's murder broke in 2016 and continue to believe to this day that his focus would have been on voting irregularities that targeted Bernie Sanders supporters, not the dirty tricks outlined in the DNC emails which are appalling but do not constitute outright election fraud in the same way registration tampering does.
While I don't begrudge you for considering Seth a more plausible suspect for the DNC leak than Russian hackers, I still don't believe him to be a particularly plausible one. The differences in means and opportunity aren't as stark as you might think. Both Seth Rich and any hypothetical Russian hackers share the quality of not having had preexisting access to the emails: foreign hackers obviously wouldn't and Seth was a DNC employee who did not work in IT. Either way, there must have been a computer intrusion for which no actual evidence has been produced. Yes, Seth had a greater possibility of physical access and friendships with other DNC employees which might make pulling off a job easier. But it is absolutely wrong to think that merely being at the DNC gives him substantially better access to the emails when he almost certainly would have had to do some form of hacking himself.
Who the actual leaker would have been if not Seth is something I don't know, but that's not unusual. We don't know the identities of most WikiLeaks sources because part of their mission is to protect those sources. Indeed, if WikiLeaks is committed to protecting sources even posthumously, then Julian Assange's very suggestive hinting that Seth was the source seems at odds with that mission, except as a bit of misdirection. What better way to protect the real source, after all, then directing people towards a very suspicious and well-publicized homicide that superficially seems to fit?
In parapolitically-significant cases there are often several layers of possibilities before we actually approach the truth. The official narrative (e.g. Russia hacked the DNC emails) may be easy to dispatch with, but finding another narrative that seems better (e.g. Seth Rich leaked the DNC emails) isn't a sign to stop digging. Sometimes the most popular "conspiracy theory" is itself just an "official conspiracy theory" designed to hide an even better explanation. I have maintained since the story of Seth Rich's murder broke in 2016 and continue to believe to this day that his focus would have been on voting irregularities that targeted Bernie Sanders supporters, not the dirty tricks outlined in the DNC emails which are appalling but do not constitute outright election fraud in the same way registration tampering does.