a reply to:
KellyPrettyBear
Well, there are some problems with interpreting these kind of things.
For one thing, DeLonge seems quite awestruck in his conversations with the "grown ups". I do not mean that in any negative way, but he clearly is
overly deferential and uses constant apologies and various phrases like "I apologize" and so on.
This e-mail is a good example, where we also get a idea of the "plan" as it was back in February of 2016. Note the apologies at the end.
(I won't link to the leaked e-mail directly, but it should be trivial to find with a search for "Wikileaks Podesta E-mail". If you then search for
"DeLonge" within the material, you will find this and other e-mails.)
In this particular e-mail, there are mentions of both Leslie Kean and Jimmy Kimmel. DeLonge is clearly already thinking about Kean, which is
unsurprising in view of her previous interest and work on the subject.
The difficulty is, of course, that DeLonge is making a "sales pitch", and as is the case with many a salesman, he might have overstated some things.
So there is that.
DeLonge has some grand plans at this stage. A documentary series, the fiction books, the non-fiction books, motion pictures and so on. Spielberg comes
up. HBO and Netflix as well as Ridley Scott and VICE. It is hard to tell how realistic this is, but as we have seen, the books are coming out and much
of what he is talking about is already happening. Now, consider this e-mail:
(Again, I won't link, but you will find this easily too.)
If you look at this, there are some crazy plans and some major names being thrown around. And there is no way to tell how serious the people that are
"dropped" ever were about the whole business.
As to the point about the whole exercise, I think there are some varying motivations.
Podesta is clearly looking at this from the point of benefit for the Clinton campaign. He mentions that Tom DeLonge would probably "do stuff" in a
conversation with another member of the campaign. It is, of course, well known that he is at some level interested in the phenomenon, but he is
clearly a clever politico first and foremost. It is interesting, however, that when the TTSA actually launched he promoted it on twitter. On the other
hand, he called it in another e-mail to Jennifer Palmieri of the Clinton Campaign that DeLonge was part of his "Secret plan" to which the she
responded "Jesus"... It is also clear that DeLonge is selling him his position with the youth as an incentive, pretty blatantly. Literally pitching
Podesta as a new hero of the young adults. A juicy bait for a politician.
The "general", which is McCasland, is described by DeLonge as a "believer" who has to pretend to be a skeptic due to his position in the Air Force.
According to DeLonge, this is his idea as to how they should proceed with getting the sluggish government bureaucracy to participate in the effort:
This was obviously how it was going to be in the Clinton White House, which didn't materialize, but note how the idea is to drag the whole government
along with a bit of limelight and the STEM thing. So, here is the general "selling it" to the government, one might say.
Finally, there is TDL and his own take:
Note the mission statement at the bottom. So, this is all about changing the cynical views of youth towards the government. By, apparently, appearing
to take seriously a topic they are passionate about?
I know we discussed this to death when the leak happened during the election campaign, but we mustn't forget it now. After all, this is the only piece
of behind the scenes information we actually have on the whole thing.
Cheers,
BT