5 ms·

Most left journalists were dancing in joy when Assange got arrested. They never forgave him for exposing the Clinton emails and ensured he was heavily character

Most left journalists were dancing in joy when Assange got arrested. They never forgave him for exposing the Clinton emails and ensured he was heavily character assassinated over the next several years. He also became a victim of the #MeToo movement at its height. He was openly called evil/narcissist/etc in many "opinion" pieces. All the other important stuff he revealed never got the level of attention it deserved.

elif 5y ago
Yep. 100% this. After 2016, i went from getting "oh you radical crazy commie" looks wearing a wikileaks shirt to immediately "oh you're a republican, let me guess you listen to alex jones and joe rogan?"
- alexvoda 5y ago
  I believe somewhere in here lies a fundamental problem with today's society. We have reached an absurd level of polarization. Any opinion you hold that is in contradiction with someone else's opinion, qualifies you for membership of the opposing camp. We should really work on depolarisation.
  - user743 5y ago
    The establishment is the enemy, not each other. Also, I'm not sure where this "keep friends and family separate from business" idealogy came from, but business is just organizing production. If we're not going to try to hold those keys with our friends and family, then elites will hold them for us. Side note-no actual progress can come until there is sound money again.
    - TakuYam 5y ago
      > The establishment is the enemy, not each other. The problem with the premise that the establishment is a lot like The Matrix. Some people are so hopelessly enamoured with the establishment that they will do whatever it takes to defend it.
    - Jcowell 5y ago
      This just seems like another polarization to me. Other people CAN be the enemy. Racist and White Supremacists are the enemy, especially to me. Now how we treat and decide to combat our enemies is a while other matter.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  > After 2016, i went from getting "oh you radical crazy commie" looks wearing a wikileaks shirt to immediately "oh you're a republican, let me guess you listen to alex jones and joe rogan?" The flip side of this is that we're apparently focusing on the wrong things. Assange was prosecuted under Trump, now he's being prosecuted under Biden. Who were we realistically supposed to vote for in order to make this stop? If this is the only front then we lost before there was even a vote.
  - cwkoss 5y ago
    The US effectively has one party with two costumes.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      That's not it. There are meaningful differences. Which party represents the oil industry? Which party represents Hollywood? It's not the same party. The real problem is, which party represents the finance industry? Both of them. Which party is the party of small business? Neither of them. Strong antitrust enforcement? Reducing the scope of wasteful bureaucracy, as distinct from regulatory capture? It's not on the ballot. How do we fix it? Maybe start here: https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/
      - monocasa 5y ago
        > Which party represents the oil industry? https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/clinton-fracking-theworld/ https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/clinton-fracking-theworl... https://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/leaked-email-hillary-clinton-told-radical-environmentalists-to-get-a-life-defended-fracking-and-pipelines/ https://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/leaked-email-hillary-clinto... It's both, just the voters don't get told that.
marcus_holmes 5y ago
not only because of the left/right politics, but also because defending Assange as a "journalist" caused them grief. The definition of journalism is at stake: if someone who just posts to the internet is a journalist and can defend their actions as necessary for the operation of a free press, then that includes bloggers[0] and all sorts of riff-raff. Craig Murray's trial had a similar outcome: he's not a "proper" journalist because he doesn't work for a media/newspaper company. And the judge gave an opinion that bloggers should get tougher sentences than journalists[1]. It'll come back to bite the journos, and some of them know this and are saying it. But most are keen to carve out special exemptions for themselves from laws that the rest of us have to follow. [0] In journalism circles, "blogger" is an insult. Source: I used to run a newspaper. [1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/the-mind-of-lady-dorrian/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/the-mind-of-...
- xanaxagoras 5y ago
  Your comment reminds me of CNN's special-in-their-own-minds status where laws are "different for the media." [0] I agree that powerful media orgs see this as the definition of journalism at stake, and their assessment is close to self awareness in a way that falls comically short. The irony is the harder they fight the despicable internet bloggers the more credibility they lose - near zero at this point in my eyes. The media ideally is a group of citizens exercising their first amendment rights as a bulwark to government abuse; the media we've ended up today is a group of powerful entities aligned with the government. They are always on their best behavior to preserve their access to the latest carefully curated "leaks" and fat and happy in their position as lapdogs. Bloggers, citizen/independent journalists, etc. are the media, and what we call the media is at this point little more than the ministry of truth. Anyone whose worldview could consider Don Lemon a journalist and Glenn Greenwald a fringe internet blogger should be laughed out of whatever room they are in, I just can't take this position seriously. [0] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512
- myohmy 5y ago
  Yeah this is why laws, and even constitutions don't matter at this point. Only the anointed CIA affiliated "papers of record" are given protection. Despite the beautifully clear language in the US constitution. Just so you know, if you think this is new, its not. Communist speech has been deemed illegal, and upheld by the supreme court, since the McCarthy era. This is not presented as a political view on Communism vs Capitalism, just as a fact that the constitution doesn't matter. For more recent events, I challenge you to find where a "curfew" on peaceful protests, or "free speech zones" appear in the constitution. Again, not an endorsement of the protest, merely pointing out that laws don't matter. Also remember that the journalist that exposed the Panama papers mysteriously died in a freak car explosion. Very sad. I'll take off my tinfoil hat now...
pessimizer 5y ago
Democratic-party affiliated journalists. Even left-of-center journalists. But the Clinton emails were an exposure of attacks against Sanders. It's so bizarre that Glenn Beck's view of the world, making Wall Street Iraq Warriors who ended welfare as we knew it and who put more black people in prison than anyone while deregulating everything into basically Lenin, ate up even the libertarian right.
- Lucasoato 5y ago
  What a different world we would be living in if Bernie Sanders had won the US presidential elections.
  - jessaustin 5y ago
    I fear we'd just be in another JFK situation. We're only allowed so much representative government.
    - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
      Why make him a martyr when they could have done the same to him as they did to Trump?
      - jessaustin 5y ago
        Well, sure, they would have tried the smears employed against Trump and, more relevantly, Corbyn. In fact, forget "would have", that was actually done. [0] I'm just not sure the accusations would have seemed important to voters. Trump's myriad misdeeds have been salient to public attention for decades. "Collaboration" with Russia may have been one of a few awful actions he hadn't actually attempted over his life, which is exactly why it was emphasized. The go-to war media criticisms of Sanders, e.g. "he thinks healthcare should be provided to all, even during a pandemic!" probably wouldn't have seemed so bad to normal humans. But sure, our enemies have a certain low cunning in addition to their complete control of popular media. They could have surprised us with their choice of smears. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/the-rights-accusations-of-antisemitism-against-sanders-are-cynical-and-dangerous https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/the-ri...
marcosdumay 5y ago
That's how a well articulated propaganda campaign looks like.
- AnthonyMouse 5y ago
  That's what a poorly articulated propaganda campaign looks like. The better ones you can't tell so easily.
_jal 5y ago
> They never forgave him for exposing the Clinton emails The issue there was precisely how he was emphatically not acting as a journalist. Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates. Political operatives do.
- boomboomsubban 5y ago
  >Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates That's basically a press conference, which are both a mainstay of journalism and you'll see particularly well connected journalists leak what a press conference will be about before it happens.
- dpwm 5y ago
  > Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates. No, they would never do anything like that: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
- cwkoss 5y ago
  I think this is a naive and unrealistic perspective. Journalists coordinate with their preferred candidates all the time to gain better access. They shouldn't but they do. (And, whether wikileaks meaningfully coordinated with trump campaign is debatable)

elif 5y ago

Yep. 100% this. After 2016, i went from getting "oh you radical crazy commie" looks wearing a wikileaks shirt to immediately "oh you're a republican, let me guess you listen to alex jones and joe rogan?"

alexvoda 5y ago
I believe somewhere in here lies a fundamental problem with today's society. We have reached an absurd level of polarization. Any opinion you hold that is in contradiction with someone else's opinion, qualifies you for membership of the opposing camp. We should really work on depolarisation.
- user743 5y ago
  The establishment is the enemy, not each other. Also, I'm not sure where this "keep friends and family separate from business" idealogy came from, but business is just organizing production. If we're not going to try to hold those keys with our friends and family, then elites will hold them for us. Side note-no actual progress can come until there is sound money again.
  - TakuYam 5y ago
    > The establishment is the enemy, not each other. The problem with the premise that the establishment is a lot like The Matrix. Some people are so hopelessly enamoured with the establishment that they will do whatever it takes to defend it.
  - Jcowell 5y ago
    This just seems like another polarization to me. Other people CAN be the enemy. Racist and White Supremacists are the enemy, especially to me. Now how we treat and decide to combat our enemies is a while other matter.
AnthonyMouse 5y ago
> After 2016, i went from getting "oh you radical crazy commie" looks wearing a wikileaks shirt to immediately "oh you're a republican, let me guess you listen to alex jones and joe rogan?" The flip side of this is that we're apparently focusing on the wrong things. Assange was prosecuted under Trump, now he's being prosecuted under Biden. Who were we realistically supposed to vote for in order to make this stop? If this is the only front then we lost before there was even a vote.
- cwkoss 5y ago
  The US effectively has one party with two costumes.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    That's not it. There are meaningful differences. Which party represents the oil industry? Which party represents Hollywood? It's not the same party. The real problem is, which party represents the finance industry? Both of them. Which party is the party of small business? Neither of them. Strong antitrust enforcement? Reducing the scope of wasteful bureaucracy, as distinct from regulatory capture? It's not on the ballot. How do we fix it? Maybe start here: https://www.starvoting.us/ https://www.starvoting.us/
    - monocasa 5y ago
      > Which party represents the oil industry? https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/clinton-fracking-theworld/ https://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/clinton-fracking-theworl... https://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/leaked-email-hillary-clinton-told-radical-environmentalists-to-get-a-life-defended-fracking-and-pipelines/ https://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/leaked-email-hillary-clinto... It's both, just the voters don't get told that.

marcus_holmes 5y ago

not only because of the left/right politics, but also because defending Assange as a "journalist" caused them grief. The definition of journalism is at stake: if someone who just posts to the internet is a journalist and can defend their actions as necessary for the operation of a free press, then that includes bloggers[0] and all sorts of riff-raff. Craig Murray's trial had a similar outcome: he's not a "proper" journalist because he doesn't work for a media/newspaper company. And the judge gave an opinion that bloggers should get tougher sentences than journalists[1]. It'll come back to bite the journos, and some of them know this and are saying it. But most are keen to carve out special exemptions for themselves from laws that the rest of us have to follow. [0] In journalism circles, "blogger" is an insult. Source: I used to run a newspaper. [1] https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/the-mind-of-lady-dorrian/ https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2021/06/the-mind-of-...

xanaxagoras 5y ago
Your comment reminds me of CNN's special-in-their-own-minds status where laws are "different for the media." [0] I agree that powerful media orgs see this as the definition of journalism at stake, and their assessment is close to self awareness in a way that falls comically short. The irony is the harder they fight the despicable internet bloggers the more credibility they lose - near zero at this point in my eyes. The media ideally is a group of citizens exercising their first amendment rights as a bulwark to government abuse; the media we've ended up today is a group of powerful entities aligned with the government. They are always on their best behavior to preserve their access to the latest carefully curated "leaks" and fat and happy in their position as lapdogs. Bloggers, citizen/independent journalists, etc. are the media, and what we call the media is at this point little more than the ministry of truth. Anyone whose worldview could consider Don Lemon a journalist and Glenn Greenwald a fringe internet blogger should be laughed out of whatever room they are in, I just can't take this position seriously. [0] https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512 https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/787749893649600512
myohmy 5y ago
Yeah this is why laws, and even constitutions don't matter at this point. Only the anointed CIA affiliated "papers of record" are given protection. Despite the beautifully clear language in the US constitution. Just so you know, if you think this is new, its not. Communist speech has been deemed illegal, and upheld by the supreme court, since the McCarthy era. This is not presented as a political view on Communism vs Capitalism, just as a fact that the constitution doesn't matter. For more recent events, I challenge you to find where a "curfew" on peaceful protests, or "free speech zones" appear in the constitution. Again, not an endorsement of the protest, merely pointing out that laws don't matter. Also remember that the journalist that exposed the Panama papers mysteriously died in a freak car explosion. Very sad. I'll take off my tinfoil hat now...

pessimizer 5y ago

Democratic-party affiliated journalists. Even left-of-center journalists. But the Clinton emails were an exposure of attacks against Sanders. It's so bizarre that Glenn Beck's view of the world, making Wall Street Iraq Warriors who ended welfare as we knew it and who put more black people in prison than anyone while deregulating everything into basically Lenin, ate up even the libertarian right.

Lucasoato 5y ago
What a different world we would be living in if Bernie Sanders had won the US presidential elections.
- jessaustin 5y ago
  I fear we'd just be in another JFK situation. We're only allowed so much representative government.
  - AnthonyMouse 5y ago
    Why make him a martyr when they could have done the same to him as they did to Trump?
    - jessaustin 5y ago
      Well, sure, they would have tried the smears employed against Trump and, more relevantly, Corbyn. In fact, forget "would have", that was actually done. [0] I'm just not sure the accusations would have seemed important to voters. Trump's myriad misdeeds have been salient to public attention for decades. "Collaboration" with Russia may have been one of a few awful actions he hadn't actually attempted over his life, which is exactly why it was emphasized. The go-to war media criticisms of Sanders, e.g. "he thinks healthcare should be provided to all, even during a pandemic!" probably wouldn't have seemed so bad to normal humans. But sure, our enemies have a certain low cunning in addition to their complete control of popular media. They could have surprised us with their choice of smears. [0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/the-rights-accusations-of-antisemitism-against-sanders-are-cynical-and-dangerous https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/the-ri...

marcosdumay 5y ago

That's how a well articulated propaganda campaign looks like.

AnthonyMouse 5y ago
That's what a poorly articulated propaganda campaign looks like. The better ones you can't tell so easily.

_jal 5y ago

> They never forgave him for exposing the Clinton emails The issue there was precisely how he was emphatically not acting as a journalist. Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates. Political operatives do.

boomboomsubban 5y ago
>Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates That's basically a press conference, which are both a mainstay of journalism and you'll see particularly well connected journalists leak what a press conference will be about before it happens.
dpwm 5y ago
> Journalists do not coordinate news releases with their preferred candidates. No, they would never do anything like that: https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-biden-censored https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
cwkoss 5y ago
I think this is a naive and unrealistic perspective. Journalists coordinate with their preferred candidates all the time to gain better access. They shouldn't but they do. (And, whether wikileaks meaningfully coordinated with trump campaign is debatable)