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Maybe people can be critical of the way Assange is being treated and/or the way the US/UK regimes are behaving, while not necessarily supporting what he did or

Maybe people can be critical of the way Assange is being treated and/or the way the US/UK regimes are behaving, while not necessarily supporting what he did or liking the guy. Edit: In fact prefacing with "I'm not an Assange supporter but..." sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument in support of him/against the US/UK governments more weight, ie, even people who aren't the usual suspect fans of his are disturbed by what's going on.

asplake 6y ago
Exactly this. Thank you.
hombre_fatal 6y ago
> sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument more weight People do this all the time on any subject, it's a weak rhetorical device. "I'm not one to support Javascript but", "I don't normally disagree with @pmachinery but". We should just try to make our point without trying to artificially weigh it with rhetoric.
- zepto 6y ago
  It may be a weak rhetorical device, but it’s also informational. I have complex views of Assange. 1. I think the extradition hearings are bizarre and it’s hard to consider them a fair trial. 2. I support Assanges long term goal of western democracies being open and accountable, rather than being based on secrets and lies. 3. I don’t know whether Assange’s tactics are moving us towards or away from that goal. It seems like he has taken an anti-American stance and acted intentionally to undermine the US, presumably because he sees the US as the most hypocritical geopolitical actor. He may be accurate in his assessment, but the adversaries of the US who will exploit the power vacuum are Russia and China, who are either worse or at least as bad as the US when it comes to secrets and lies, and so it’s not at all obvious that his tactics support his goal. I’d like to hope that they ultimately do cause some kind of positive realignment, but that is not a foregone conclusion. Forcing someone to betray their principles in perceived self defense and then acting surprised is akin to gaslighting. Again, it’s not clear that this is a helpful move, but maybe it is. I think it’s reasonable to say he has drawn attention to insecurities of both the US and the UK, but they seem like predicable and well founded insecurities. Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist. Assange is not a journalist, nor is he a reporter. Bear with me - this is a ‘pro Assange’ point. He is a publisher with an intelligence gathering network. Recognizing this doesn’t mean it’s right that he should be prosecuted. In fact it sheds light on something more sinister - actual journalists don’t report the things that Assange published, because their publishers don’t want them to. Publishers in general are self-censoring in order to stay on good terms with governments and other powerful interests. Organizations calling Assange a ‘journalist’, especially any mainstream publishers, are actually colluding to deflect attention from this fact, and co-opting support for Assange, when in fact they are collaborating with governments and are the very reason Wikileaks was necessary in the first place. Reducing what’s going on to ‘Assange as martyr’, ‘look at this kangaroo court’, ‘This is about silencing journalists’, does nothing to advance Assange’s actual goal.
  - mariusor 6y ago
    > Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist. I think the comparison is not exactly right, Wikileaks is very far from being a media empire, and Assange is very far from using it as a tool in his own interest. In my opinion, calling Assange a journalist is like calling a news room editor a journalist, as in: he is one.
    - zepto 6y ago
      I take your point - Assange does not have a media empire and is not like Murdoch in that way. However I disagree with your reframing. News room editors answer to the publisher (I.e. whoever owns the publishing organization), and generally have been promoted from the ranks of journalists. None of that is true about Assange. He was never a journalist and never did investigative reporting, or any of the other things a journalist normally does. He did not answer to a publisher. He built and controlled the publishing platform, and therefore is a publisher. He was a publisher who was willing not to self-censor. If we incorrectly call Assange a journalist, and we say that he served the public good by ‘reporting’ what other journalists would not, then we are laying the blame for the lack of accountability in our society at the feet of journalists. That’s just not accurate. Assange has only been able to accomplish anything because he is a publisher. Journalists simply cannot do what he did, because they answer to publishers. Assange is not a journalist. He is a publisher.
      - mariusor 6y ago
        I've been following the reporting from the witness testimonies and some of them detailed that a lot of work has went into editing (and supressing some of) the documents that he supposedly released without censoring names of assets. I posted these links previously in the thread but Daniel Ellsberg talks a bit about how this was handled: https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/16/pentagon-papers-ellsberg-extradition-trial-assange/ https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/16/pentagon-papers-ellsberg-... https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-11/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...
d4rti 6y ago
I have no objection to Amnesty observing the extradition hearing and I don't see a good reason that they should be excluded, but Assange should not have skipped his bail and run away to the Ecuadorean embassy. Everyone sucks here?
- thefucnjosh 6y ago
  Please tell me this is a joke? Why should anyone be holed up in an Embassy for years?
  - d4rti 6y ago
    He chose to hole up in the Embassy after skipping bail.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]

asplake 6y ago

Exactly this. Thank you.

hombre_fatal 6y ago

> sounds to me like someone trying to give their argument more weight People do this all the time on any subject, it's a weak rhetorical device. "I'm not one to support Javascript but", "I don't normally disagree with @pmachinery but". We should just try to make our point without trying to artificially weigh it with rhetoric.

zepto 6y ago
It may be a weak rhetorical device, but it’s also informational. I have complex views of Assange. 1. I think the extradition hearings are bizarre and it’s hard to consider them a fair trial. 2. I support Assanges long term goal of western democracies being open and accountable, rather than being based on secrets and lies. 3. I don’t know whether Assange’s tactics are moving us towards or away from that goal. It seems like he has taken an anti-American stance and acted intentionally to undermine the US, presumably because he sees the US as the most hypocritical geopolitical actor. He may be accurate in his assessment, but the adversaries of the US who will exploit the power vacuum are Russia and China, who are either worse or at least as bad as the US when it comes to secrets and lies, and so it’s not at all obvious that his tactics support his goal. I’d like to hope that they ultimately do cause some kind of positive realignment, but that is not a foregone conclusion. Forcing someone to betray their principles in perceived self defense and then acting surprised is akin to gaslighting. Again, it’s not clear that this is a helpful move, but maybe it is. I think it’s reasonable to say he has drawn attention to insecurities of both the US and the UK, but they seem like predicable and well founded insecurities. Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist. Assange is not a journalist, nor is he a reporter. Bear with me - this is a ‘pro Assange’ point. He is a publisher with an intelligence gathering network. Recognizing this doesn’t mean it’s right that he should be prosecuted. In fact it sheds light on something more sinister - actual journalists don’t report the things that Assange published, because their publishers don’t want them to. Publishers in general are self-censoring in order to stay on good terms with governments and other powerful interests. Organizations calling Assange a ‘journalist’, especially any mainstream publishers, are actually colluding to deflect attention from this fact, and co-opting support for Assange, when in fact they are collaborating with governments and are the very reason Wikileaks was necessary in the first place. Reducing what’s going on to ‘Assange as martyr’, ‘look at this kangaroo court’, ‘This is about silencing journalists’, does nothing to advance Assange’s actual goal.
- mariusor 6y ago
  > Calling Assange a journalist is like calling Rupert Murdoch a journalist. I think the comparison is not exactly right, Wikileaks is very far from being a media empire, and Assange is very far from using it as a tool in his own interest. In my opinion, calling Assange a journalist is like calling a news room editor a journalist, as in: he is one.
  - zepto 6y ago
    I take your point - Assange does not have a media empire and is not like Murdoch in that way. However I disagree with your reframing. News room editors answer to the publisher (I.e. whoever owns the publishing organization), and generally have been promoted from the ranks of journalists. None of that is true about Assange. He was never a journalist and never did investigative reporting, or any of the other things a journalist normally does. He did not answer to a publisher. He built and controlled the publishing platform, and therefore is a publisher. He was a publisher who was willing not to self-censor. If we incorrectly call Assange a journalist, and we say that he served the public good by ‘reporting’ what other journalists would not, then we are laying the blame for the lack of accountability in our society at the feet of journalists. That’s just not accurate. Assange has only been able to accomplish anything because he is a publisher. Journalists simply cannot do what he did, because they answer to publishers. Assange is not a journalist. He is a publisher.
    - mariusor 6y ago
      I've been following the reporting from the witness testimonies and some of them detailed that a lot of work has went into editing (and supressing some of) the documents that he supposedly released without censoring names of assets. I posted these links previously in the thread but Daniel Ellsberg talks a bit about how this was handled: https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/16/pentagon-papers-ellsberg-extradition-trial-assange/ https://shadowproof.com/2020/09/16/pentagon-papers-ellsberg-... https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-the-public-gallery-assange-hearing-day-11/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2020/09/your-man-in-...

d4rti 6y ago

I have no objection to Amnesty observing the extradition hearing and I don't see a good reason that they should be excluded, but Assange should not have skipped his bail and run away to the Ecuadorean embassy. Everyone sucks here?

thefucnjosh 6y ago
Please tell me this is a joke? Why should anyone be holed up in an Embassy for years?
- d4rti 6y ago
  He chose to hole up in the Embassy after skipping bail.
deleted 6y ago
[deleted]