26 ms·

Julian Assange: The Man Who Knew Too Much

109 points by curmudgeon22 5y ago

h2odragon 5y ago
> If America truly values an informed public, the persecution of Julian Assange must end. We've pretty clearly answered that negatively, America values an indoctrinated public. To the point that our debates aren't about right or wrong, fact or fiction, but whose doctrine one hews closest to.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Here's a list of reasons I think the American public has such huge problems with indoctrination: - The vast majority of people enjoy indoctrination and very few people will say "hold up" when presented with a story that doesn't line up with other stories or that seems synthetic. This is partly because doctrine is designed and evolved to be salient, and partly because many people have not experienced an environment of truth, where things make sense, that could give non-sensemaking a contrasting emotional character. - There are occasional isolated incidences of powerful interests wanting very badly that the public stay uninformed, but no counterbalancing incidences of similarly powerful interests wanting the public to be informed. This averages out to a downward pressure, even though each instance is brief and each power incomplete. - Even when people want to be informed, they will usually be satisfied with the synthetic feeling of being informed, and stop there. Realizing that what you think is informing you is actually wasting your time takes a humility and emotional fortitude only present in the strongest, most humble, and most epistemically virtuous people. Consequently it is rare for people to realize it.
  - kmonsen 5y ago
    Not saying you are wrong, but could you give real examples of your three points? Right now it feels a bit abstract and hard to argue against.
    - deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    - Natsu 5y ago
      Not the OP, but the lab leak theory being 'debunked' in the press very swiftly, before any real research, in stories sourced from a bunch of people who would be implicated to some degree by such a thing would be one recent example. That's not to say it's proven by any means, but various media outlets credulously accepting stories from conflicted sources and not even disclosing that conflict is itself a black mark whether or not the theory pans out later.
      - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        It was 'debunked' because it didn't amount to a theory at the time. It was a wild political swing at a manufactured enemy to shift blame from a void of American leadership.
        Natsu 5y ago
        Well, first, that's not what the word "debunked" even means. Two, there were and are plenty of odd signs, like the furin cleavage site. Yes, that's by no means conclusive, but they say that we should research this instead of coming to hasty conclusions in either direction that are, as you point out, manifestly political.
        MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        A claim that, when being asked "where's your proof," is met with absolute silence if not wild claims without evidence, can be dismissed immediately. Just because a broken clock is right twice a day doesn't mean it's a solid timepiece.
        Natsu 5y ago
        Sure, but this was never one of those things.
  - Iv 5y ago
    I may have another reason to add. I am toying with GIS tools these days and it kind of shocked me that when I queried for "most common amenities" in a medium sized US city, I got: 1: parkings 2: places of worship Well above any educational facility.
    - beaconstudios 5y ago
      surely if you want to go to the library in the US, you have to park there? Also, lack of atheism is not a sign of lack of education or presence of ignorance.
      - Iv 5y ago
        I was not criticizing the prevalence of parking, it is obvious you need a lot because most amenities will have one. What I found weird was that places of worship is the second absolutely necessary amenity according to the American mindset. Places of worship are places where you are taught to respect a lot of indoctrination techniques as valid and where you do weekly exercises at shutting down critical thinking. I can't imagine it having a positive contribution over the wisdom of the general public.
        beaconstudios 5y ago
        I don't think there's much worth responding to in this comment except to say that I disagree and that some atheists have very strange ideas about religion and I don't know if that's because they don't understand what's going on or something else.
    - evgen 5y ago
      This is just dumb. A person spends 15% of their life using educational facilities. It is possible they will need parking and attend places of worship for close to 80% of their lives. The latter are also not amenable to geographic consolidation; you can't build one parking lot for entire medium sized city, but you might be able to only have one secondary school.
  - hedora 5y ago
    The reasons you cite should have applied equally well back before the propaganda outlets took over. I think this is the main reason the US population is so poorly informed and polarized: - For the last 40 years, the Republican Party has systematically defunded education and consolidated the news media. The Democrats haven’t done enough to push back, and many of the left wing media outlets copied Fox’s playbook, but that’s not the same as spearheading these changes.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      I suspect you may be over-evaluating the quality of news sources / the public discourse 50 years ago. Fifty years ago, the US was willfully escalating in Vietnam! The founding fathers were complaining about the yellow press in some of their communications about freedom of speech. WWI had media restrictions on anti-war text issued straight from the presidency. I really don't think the troubled discourse was invented in the lifetime of anyone around today.
- slg 5y ago
  There is an argument that Assange wants an an indoctrinated American public too, just in a different direction. The prime example is how he repeatedly implied that Seth Rich was the source for the DNC leaks despite knowing that wasn't true because Wikileaks was still in contact with their source after Seth Rich was already dead. That act shows that Assange's goal isn't to reveal truth or corruption. His goal is to seek specific political ends and the missions of truth-seeking and anti-corruption are just an act to help achieve those ends.
- sorenjan 5y ago
  Wikileaks fanned the flames around pizzagate. Don't put your hopes for an informed public in that organization. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wikileaks_staff_despite_our_editor/d9uoxzw/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...
  - ttt0 5y ago
    By saying "we don't know what to make of it"?
    - sorenjan 5y ago
      Yes. Instead of saying it's obvious nonsense, they said it might be true, basically encouraging readers to keep digging into the ridiculous conspiracy.
      - ttt0 5y ago
        Maybe because pizzagate actually was really disturbing. You can get your life ruined over making an OK sign, because it's a "dogwhistle", but powerful people making references to pedophilia and satanic rituals is just fine and dandy, nothing to see here? Do you actually know what pizzagate is beyond that one shooting? I don't know if there is any "conspiracy", but some of those people are actually really messed up.
- libraryatnight 5y ago
  Wikileaks more or less went down the road of being a tool for indoctrination. The notion that wikileaks is useful for an informed public is long dead. They made fools of everyone who thought they were champions of unbiased free information.
- rdudekul 5y ago
  Is it possible that American competitive interests are not aligned with countries or individuals that know too much? For example could allowing other countries to develop vaccines seriously damage American or European IP? https://www.openglobalrights.org/vaccine-apartheid-global-inequities-in-covid-vaccine-production-and-distribution/ https://www.openglobalrights.org/vaccine-apartheid-global-in...
  - rdudekul 5y ago
    For those downvoting me, awesome! I deserve it, since I was making a tongue in cheek comment.
kordlessagain 5y ago
> Chelsea Manning provided Wikileaks with the tape Actually the entity Bradley Manning provided the tape as is seen in the Army's court records. The last time I checked, changing one's name doesn't retroactively wipe out all usage of a prior name.
z3ncyberpunk 5y ago
Funny to see the user kordless's comment auto killed by the fake, woke HN company culture towing the line with hollywood trying to revise history to make it seem as if homosexuality, and the "robust and complex" science of transgenderism is something that has existed since the dawn of time, is a problem for more than 2% of the population, just like TV would have you believing that every couple is some interracial woke fever dream that adopts a kid for every color of the rainbow. Venture capital idiots, woke idiots, and the MBA idiots have ruined modern culture
- Cycl0ps 5y ago
  I don't know who hurt you, but I'm sorry you don't feel accepted in the groups you're in. Best of luck, friend
andrewclunn 5y ago
The best comments are the dead ones. The best stories are the banned ones.
tootie 5y ago
Assange was pretty clearly outed as having been working for or at least with Russian disinformation agents. He kept trying to push the Seth Rich conspiracy even after the truth about the DNC hack was already out. At his best, he was a guy willing to host sensitive content that other people gave him. At his worst, he's an abusive, manipulative self-promoter. We've gotten 1000X more valuable and more responsible investigative journalism from the the NY Times, Guardian, ProPublica and even Buzzfeed at this point. We don't need to prop up a guy like Assange who doesn't deserve it.
- murph-almighty 5y ago
  This always seems to get buried when talking about Assange on HN. The guy was pretty clearly biased in the reports he would send out and they _just so happened_ to harm Hilary Clinton during the 2016 election, in spite of the fact that Republican email servers were also compromised. If he really had an interest in transparency he'd release the Republican emails. But he didn't. So I can only assume the guy is a propagandist designed to sow chaos.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    Did he have any republican emails? If so that's news to me and I would not mind seeing them.
    - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
      Possibly not, Russia most likely decided not to feed those to WikiLeaks.
      - whatshisface 5y ago
        Well, you can hardly blame Assange for that. I see a lot of shooting the messenger going on with this case.
        FourHand451 5y ago
SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
If you're looking for someone with Mr Assange's good qualities, but without the bad ones, have a look at Ms Reality Winner.
grouphugs 5y ago
the man who proved how little imperialists care about the truth
absolutemoose 5y ago
The entire premise of the article is that Assange is good because he might have saved us from the Iraq war, while completely ignoring his alliance with Trump and disinformation like Seth Rich conspiracy. We can't prove the counterfactual but we can see what he actually did.
- A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
  Note that you unwittingly confirm parent's point on tribalism and sides by discounting Assange based on Trump. There are valid points to be made against both but guilt by association should not be one of them.
SirensOfTitan 5y ago
Regardless of how you feel about Assange, what's happening with him should send shivers down your spine. His attempted prosecution attacks source protection, a very important component of investigative journalism. In America, it seems the breakdown is: * Are you an individual? If yes, when you have biases, make mistakes, or commit crimes, you are a villain and are given no benefit of the doubt. * Are you a corporation or company? If yes, it's just business. NYTimes, WaPo, TheIntercept, ..., all published disinformation to support their singular echo chamber narrative this past election cycle. Pretending that folks like Assange are deeply problematic but avoiding that same look into MSM is fairly bizarre.
- MisterBastahrd 5y ago
  He isn't any more of a journalist than The Pirate Bay is.
  - lucideer 5y ago
    I welcome contrary views when there's substance to them, but blind contrary statements like this don't really contribute anything to the discussion. iow: expand
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      It's not a blind contrary statement. It's a statement of fact. That you don't like it doesn't make it less factual.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    Paid "Journalists" aren't journalists any more than any random Twitter handle. The sole basis for Politico was to distribute planted stories out of DC.
  - atatatat 5y ago
    Read what he's written, wow. Very uniformed opinion. https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/
dukeofdoom 5y ago
Given the choice, Trump pardoned rappers and war criminals but not him. A man that did more to expose the swamp than anyone. Was Trump just rhetoric, and bolster with no backbone. Other then twitter trolling, what exactly did he accomplish.
- throwkeep 5y ago
  Right, if you want to drain the swamp, shouldn't pardoning Assange and Snowden be the first thing you do?
  - barbacoa 5y ago
    Back in the J. Edgar Hoover days the FBI kept dossiers on Presidents so they could be blackmailed. Trump was under active FBI criminal investigations, spanning every aspect of his life, for the entirety of his presidency. Two of his lawyers had their offices raided by the FBI, all looking for anything they could find on him. Maybe that had something to do with it?
xaduha 5y ago
He started out as a hacker, but turned into something else, not sure what. This situation reminds me of that Petyr Baelish scene from GoT, when he proclaimed that knowledge is power only to find out that power is power. In any case it was proven time and time again that spotlight is deadly for individuals like him, but instead he sought out more of it, one way or another.
- hirako2000 5y ago
  Little finger's demise was not due to being overpowered. He lost the information war he was waging. His opponent who thought of him an ally eventually did read through his manipulations, re established the truth with the aid of the man with the greatest information seeking powers, who can even navigate to the past to reveal certain well kept secrets. Baelish died because outraced on the information front. The power cutting his throat was a strong teenager, but one who could do so because nobody remained on his side after the unveiling of the shocking truth to those present in the scene.It’s all information. Just saying. Edit: typos
- hirako2000 5y ago
  He hacked, did phenomenal work on database technology and opensourced his work, had plenty of meaningful experience which he realised could be put together to inform the public. And is currently in prison with only a slice of human rights supposedly guaranteed on UK soil.
the_optimist 5y ago
Our press, in coordination with the intelligence apparatus of the United States, turned Wikileaks into a referendum on Assange and his personality. This has always and obviously been a psyop/frame job, ever since Robert Mueller's FBI agents were kicked out of Iceland for their efforts to attack Wikileaks. It is only since the neoliberal generation, which controls power, felt themselves threatened by their own supposed ideals, that they were more than happy to hop in bed with the spy apparatus and hang Assange high.
- api 5y ago
  If the alternative to neoliberalism is fascism, I'll take neoliberalism. To dislodge an incumbent orthodoxy you have to actually offer something better, not something profoundly worse.
  - ekianjo 5y ago
    Since when is there only one alternative?
    - api 5y ago
      There are many sane alternatives. I was speaking of the specific alternative pushed during the 20-teens starting with the Gamergate era and proceeding all the way up through MAGA, the alt-right, and Qanon, and with which Assange was clearly either allied or serving as a useful idiot. That alternative is significantly worse than the orthodoxy. BTW authoritarian Marxism is not a sane alternative either. I see people pushing that too, but they never got close to real political power.
  - the_optimist 5y ago
    Far from alternatives, more like bedfellows or twins. The specious labels belie the hard reality that the US political, bureaucratic, and secret police apparatus is powerful, extensive, and weaponized.
  - simiones 5y ago
    The reality of the situation we are in, the rise of Trump, the alt right, Le Pen, and others is this: for neoliberals, if the alternative to leftism is fascism, they will actually choose fascism. As people all over the US (and the world) are becoming more receptive to traditionally leftist talking points - labor vs owners, corporate control of the media, poverty, the evils of globalism etc. - neoliberals have been investing good money in supporting the alt right, neo-fascist voices that blame these problems on immigrants and jewish conspiracy theories. Fascism is much safer for the rich than even social-democracy (not to mention the, to them, terrifying spectre of socialism).
the_optimist 5y ago
If you know that Assange's persecution is wrong, and you excuse it away, you are the problem.
am_lu 5y ago
make the ones in power not happy and literally rot in jail :-(
legitster 5y ago
> When Wikileaks revealed the DNC gamed the 2016 Democratic Party primaries, the punditry judged democratic derailments not newsworthy when the higher good was resistance to Trump. Media ran faster with narratives ripping Assange than questioning or correcting them. And rightfully so. Leaking classified government information about war-crimes is fundamentally different then hacking into the private email correspondence of organizations with the explicit intention of damaging them politically. And conflating the two is absolute madness and is antithetical to privacy advocacy. We have a right to know if the American election has been the victim of a CIA style mis-information campaign from a foreign government. Assange's ability to be an absolute hippocrate about transparency and play a dangerous shell game about where the emails came from has convinced me that the only people Assange believes deserve privacy are the people useful to Assange. I support Wikileaks. I do not think I support Assange.

109 points by curmudgeon22 5y ago

> If America truly values an informed public, the persecution of Julian Assange must end. We've pretty clearly answered that negatively, America values an indoctrinated public. To the point that our debates aren't about right or wrong, fact or fiction, but whose doctrine one hews closest to.

whatshisface 5y ago
Here's a list of reasons I think the American public has such huge problems with indoctrination: - The vast majority of people enjoy indoctrination and very few people will say "hold up" when presented with a story that doesn't line up with other stories or that seems synthetic. This is partly because doctrine is designed and evolved to be salient, and partly because many people have not experienced an environment of truth, where things make sense, that could give non-sensemaking a contrasting emotional character. - There are occasional isolated incidences of powerful interests wanting very badly that the public stay uninformed, but no counterbalancing incidences of similarly powerful interests wanting the public to be informed. This averages out to a downward pressure, even though each instance is brief and each power incomplete. - Even when people want to be informed, they will usually be satisfied with the synthetic feeling of being informed, and stop there. Realizing that what you think is informing you is actually wasting your time takes a humility and emotional fortitude only present in the strongest, most humble, and most epistemically virtuous people. Consequently it is rare for people to realize it.
- kmonsen 5y ago
  Not saying you are wrong, but could you give real examples of your three points? Right now it feels a bit abstract and hard to argue against.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
  - Natsu 5y ago
    Not the OP, but the lab leak theory being 'debunked' in the press very swiftly, before any real research, in stories sourced from a bunch of people who would be implicated to some degree by such a thing would be one recent example. That's not to say it's proven by any means, but various media outlets credulously accepting stories from conflicted sources and not even disclosing that conflict is itself a black mark whether or not the theory pans out later.
    - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
      It was 'debunked' because it didn't amount to a theory at the time. It was a wild political swing at a manufactured enemy to shift blame from a void of American leadership.
      - Natsu 5y ago
        Well, first, that's not what the word "debunked" even means. Two, there were and are plenty of odd signs, like the furin cleavage site. Yes, that's by no means conclusive, but they say that we should research this instead of coming to hasty conclusions in either direction that are, as you point out, manifestly political.
        MisterBastahrd 5y ago
        A claim that, when being asked "where's your proof," is met with absolute silence if not wild claims without evidence, can be dismissed immediately. Just because a broken clock is right twice a day doesn't mean it's a solid timepiece.
        Natsu 5y ago
        Sure, but this was never one of those things.
- Iv 5y ago
  I may have another reason to add. I am toying with GIS tools these days and it kind of shocked me that when I queried for "most common amenities" in a medium sized US city, I got: 1: parkings 2: places of worship Well above any educational facility.
  - beaconstudios 5y ago
    surely if you want to go to the library in the US, you have to park there? Also, lack of atheism is not a sign of lack of education or presence of ignorance.
    - Iv 5y ago
      I was not criticizing the prevalence of parking, it is obvious you need a lot because most amenities will have one. What I found weird was that places of worship is the second absolutely necessary amenity according to the American mindset. Places of worship are places where you are taught to respect a lot of indoctrination techniques as valid and where you do weekly exercises at shutting down critical thinking. I can't imagine it having a positive contribution over the wisdom of the general public.
      - beaconstudios 5y ago
        I don't think there's much worth responding to in this comment except to say that I disagree and that some atheists have very strange ideas about religion and I don't know if that's because they don't understand what's going on or something else.
  - evgen 5y ago
    This is just dumb. A person spends 15% of their life using educational facilities. It is possible they will need parking and attend places of worship for close to 80% of their lives. The latter are also not amenable to geographic consolidation; you can't build one parking lot for entire medium sized city, but you might be able to only have one secondary school.
- hedora 5y ago
  The reasons you cite should have applied equally well back before the propaganda outlets took over. I think this is the main reason the US population is so poorly informed and polarized: - For the last 40 years, the Republican Party has systematically defunded education and consolidated the news media. The Democrats haven’t done enough to push back, and many of the left wing media outlets copied Fox’s playbook, but that’s not the same as spearheading these changes.
  - whatshisface 5y ago
    I suspect you may be over-evaluating the quality of news sources / the public discourse 50 years ago. Fifty years ago, the US was willfully escalating in Vietnam! The founding fathers were complaining about the yellow press in some of their communications about freedom of speech. WWI had media restrictions on anti-war text issued straight from the presidency. I really don't think the troubled discourse was invented in the lifetime of anyone around today.
slg 5y ago
There is an argument that Assange wants an an indoctrinated American public too, just in a different direction. The prime example is how he repeatedly implied that Seth Rich was the source for the DNC leaks despite knowing that wasn't true because Wikileaks was still in contact with their source after Seth Rich was already dead. That act shows that Assange's goal isn't to reveal truth or corruption. His goal is to seek specific political ends and the missions of truth-seeking and anti-corruption are just an act to help achieve those ends.
sorenjan 5y ago
Wikileaks fanned the flames around pizzagate. Don't put your hopes for an informed public in that organization. https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wikileaks_staff_despite_our_editor/d9uoxzw/?context=1 https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/5c8u9l/we_are_the_wik...
- ttt0 5y ago
  By saying "we don't know what to make of it"?
  - sorenjan 5y ago
    Yes. Instead of saying it's obvious nonsense, they said it might be true, basically encouraging readers to keep digging into the ridiculous conspiracy.
    - ttt0 5y ago
      Maybe because pizzagate actually was really disturbing. You can get your life ruined over making an OK sign, because it's a "dogwhistle", but powerful people making references to pedophilia and satanic rituals is just fine and dandy, nothing to see here? Do you actually know what pizzagate is beyond that one shooting? I don't know if there is any "conspiracy", but some of those people are actually really messed up.
libraryatnight 5y ago
Wikileaks more or less went down the road of being a tool for indoctrination. The notion that wikileaks is useful for an informed public is long dead. They made fools of everyone who thought they were champions of unbiased free information.
rdudekul 5y ago
Is it possible that American competitive interests are not aligned with countries or individuals that know too much? For example could allowing other countries to develop vaccines seriously damage American or European IP? https://www.openglobalrights.org/vaccine-apartheid-global-inequities-in-covid-vaccine-production-and-distribution/ https://www.openglobalrights.org/vaccine-apartheid-global-in...
- rdudekul 5y ago
  For those downvoting me, awesome! I deserve it, since I was making a tongue in cheek comment.

kordlessagain 5y ago

> Chelsea Manning provided Wikileaks with the tape Actually the entity Bradley Manning provided the tape as is seen in the Army's court records. The last time I checked, changing one's name doesn't retroactively wipe out all usage of a prior name.

z3ncyberpunk 5y ago

Funny to see the user kordless's comment auto killed by the fake, woke HN company culture towing the line with hollywood trying to revise history to make it seem as if homosexuality, and the "robust and complex" science of transgenderism is something that has existed since the dawn of time, is a problem for more than 2% of the population, just like TV would have you believing that every couple is some interracial woke fever dream that adopts a kid for every color of the rainbow. Venture capital idiots, woke idiots, and the MBA idiots have ruined modern culture

Cycl0ps 5y ago
I don't know who hurt you, but I'm sorry you don't feel accepted in the groups you're in. Best of luck, friend

andrewclunn 5y ago

The best comments are the dead ones. The best stories are the banned ones.

tootie 5y ago

Assange was pretty clearly outed as having been working for or at least with Russian disinformation agents. He kept trying to push the Seth Rich conspiracy even after the truth about the DNC hack was already out. At his best, he was a guy willing to host sensitive content that other people gave him. At his worst, he's an abusive, manipulative self-promoter. We've gotten 1000X more valuable and more responsible investigative journalism from the the NY Times, Guardian, ProPublica and even Buzzfeed at this point. We don't need to prop up a guy like Assange who doesn't deserve it.

murph-almighty 5y ago
This always seems to get buried when talking about Assange on HN. The guy was pretty clearly biased in the reports he would send out and they _just so happened_ to harm Hilary Clinton during the 2016 election, in spite of the fact that Republican email servers were also compromised. If he really had an interest in transparency he'd release the Republican emails. But he didn't. So I can only assume the guy is a propagandist designed to sow chaos.
- whatshisface 5y ago
  Did he have any republican emails? If so that's news to me and I would not mind seeing them.
  - SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago
    Possibly not, Russia most likely decided not to feed those to WikiLeaks.
    - whatshisface 5y ago
      Well, you can hardly blame Assange for that. I see a lot of shooting the messenger going on with this case.
      - FourHand451 5y ago

SideburnsOfDoom 5y ago

If you're looking for someone with Mr Assange's good qualities, but without the bad ones, have a look at Ms Reality Winner.

grouphugs 5y ago

the man who proved how little imperialists care about the truth

absolutemoose 5y ago

The entire premise of the article is that Assange is good because he might have saved us from the Iraq war, while completely ignoring his alliance with Trump and disinformation like Seth Rich conspiracy. We can't prove the counterfactual but we can see what he actually did.

A4ET8a8uTh0 5y ago
Note that you unwittingly confirm parent's point on tribalism and sides by discounting Assange based on Trump. There are valid points to be made against both but guilt by association should not be one of them.

SirensOfTitan 5y ago

Regardless of how you feel about Assange, what's happening with him should send shivers down your spine. His attempted prosecution attacks source protection, a very important component of investigative journalism. In America, it seems the breakdown is: * Are you an individual? If yes, when you have biases, make mistakes, or commit crimes, you are a villain and are given no benefit of the doubt. * Are you a corporation or company? If yes, it's just business. NYTimes, WaPo, TheIntercept, ..., all published disinformation to support their singular echo chamber narrative this past election cycle. Pretending that folks like Assange are deeply problematic but avoiding that same look into MSM is fairly bizarre.

MisterBastahrd 5y ago
He isn't any more of a journalist than The Pirate Bay is.
- lucideer 5y ago
  I welcome contrary views when there's substance to them, but blind contrary statements like this don't really contribute anything to the discussion. iow: expand
  - MisterBastahrd 5y ago
    It's not a blind contrary statement. It's a statement of fact. That you don't like it doesn't make it less factual.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  Paid "Journalists" aren't journalists any more than any random Twitter handle. The sole basis for Politico was to distribute planted stories out of DC.
- atatatat 5y ago
  Read what he's written, wow. Very uniformed opinion. https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/ https://wikileaks.org/google-is-not-what-it-seems/

dukeofdoom 5y ago

Given the choice, Trump pardoned rappers and war criminals but not him. A man that did more to expose the swamp than anyone. Was Trump just rhetoric, and bolster with no backbone. Other then twitter trolling, what exactly did he accomplish.

throwkeep 5y ago
Right, if you want to drain the swamp, shouldn't pardoning Assange and Snowden be the first thing you do?
- barbacoa 5y ago
  Back in the J. Edgar Hoover days the FBI kept dossiers on Presidents so they could be blackmailed. Trump was under active FBI criminal investigations, spanning every aspect of his life, for the entirety of his presidency. Two of his lawyers had their offices raided by the FBI, all looking for anything they could find on him. Maybe that had something to do with it?

xaduha 5y ago

He started out as a hacker, but turned into something else, not sure what. This situation reminds me of that Petyr Baelish scene from GoT, when he proclaimed that knowledge is power only to find out that power is power. In any case it was proven time and time again that spotlight is deadly for individuals like him, but instead he sought out more of it, one way or another.

hirako2000 5y ago
Little finger's demise was not due to being overpowered. He lost the information war he was waging. His opponent who thought of him an ally eventually did read through his manipulations, re established the truth with the aid of the man with the greatest information seeking powers, who can even navigate to the past to reveal certain well kept secrets. Baelish died because outraced on the information front. The power cutting his throat was a strong teenager, but one who could do so because nobody remained on his side after the unveiling of the shocking truth to those present in the scene.It’s all information. Just saying. Edit: typos
hirako2000 5y ago
He hacked, did phenomenal work on database technology and opensourced his work, had plenty of meaningful experience which he realised could be put together to inform the public. And is currently in prison with only a slice of human rights supposedly guaranteed on UK soil.

the_optimist 5y ago

Our press, in coordination with the intelligence apparatus of the United States, turned Wikileaks into a referendum on Assange and his personality. This has always and obviously been a psyop/frame job, ever since Robert Mueller's FBI agents were kicked out of Iceland for their efforts to attack Wikileaks. It is only since the neoliberal generation, which controls power, felt themselves threatened by their own supposed ideals, that they were more than happy to hop in bed with the spy apparatus and hang Assange high.

api 5y ago
If the alternative to neoliberalism is fascism, I'll take neoliberalism. To dislodge an incumbent orthodoxy you have to actually offer something better, not something profoundly worse.
- ekianjo 5y ago
  Since when is there only one alternative?
  - api 5y ago
    There are many sane alternatives. I was speaking of the specific alternative pushed during the 20-teens starting with the Gamergate era and proceeding all the way up through MAGA, the alt-right, and Qanon, and with which Assange was clearly either allied or serving as a useful idiot. That alternative is significantly worse than the orthodoxy. BTW authoritarian Marxism is not a sane alternative either. I see people pushing that too, but they never got close to real political power.
- the_optimist 5y ago
  Far from alternatives, more like bedfellows or twins. The specious labels belie the hard reality that the US political, bureaucratic, and secret police apparatus is powerful, extensive, and weaponized.
- simiones 5y ago
  The reality of the situation we are in, the rise of Trump, the alt right, Le Pen, and others is this: for neoliberals, if the alternative to leftism is fascism, they will actually choose fascism. As people all over the US (and the world) are becoming more receptive to traditionally leftist talking points - labor vs owners, corporate control of the media, poverty, the evils of globalism etc. - neoliberals have been investing good money in supporting the alt right, neo-fascist voices that blame these problems on immigrants and jewish conspiracy theories. Fascism is much safer for the rich than even social-democracy (not to mention the, to them, terrifying spectre of socialism).

the_optimist 5y ago

If you know that Assange's persecution is wrong, and you excuse it away, you are the problem.

am_lu 5y ago

make the ones in power not happy and literally rot in jail :-(

legitster 5y ago

> When Wikileaks revealed the DNC gamed the 2016 Democratic Party primaries, the punditry judged democratic derailments not newsworthy when the higher good was resistance to Trump. Media ran faster with narratives ripping Assange than questioning or correcting them. And rightfully so. Leaking classified government information about war-crimes is fundamentally different then hacking into the private email correspondence of organizations with the explicit intention of damaging them politically. And conflating the two is absolute madness and is antithetical to privacy advocacy. We have a right to know if the American election has been the victim of a CIA style mis-information campaign from a foreign government. Assange's ability to be an absolute hippocrate about transparency and play a dangerous shell game about where the emails came from has convinced me that the only people Assange believes deserve privacy are the people useful to Assange. I support Wikileaks. I do not think I support Assange.