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Watch the Laura Poitras movie "Risk"[1] if you want a really good feel for why Julian has every reason in the world to disrupt the possibility of a Hillary Clin

• mrtksn 4y ago
  Thanks, I will watch it. I agree, mostly. I stopped caring about Assange since the incident because selective information feeding is not a whistleblowing move but political manipulation. I don't have doubt that people representing my interests are corrupt to some degree but I don't want them eliminated in favor for people who don't represent my interest and are just as corrupt but protected from expose because the interests of the leaker aligns with them.
  • Iolaum 4y ago
    Whistleblowers are allowed to have an agenda. In practice most do. But for society it's better that shady stuff get revealed than them staying hidden because the whistleblower is not a paragon of morality.
    • mrtksn 4y ago
      Whistleblowers can do whatever they want and be judged accordingly.
      • throwaway829 4y ago
        judged, sure. Imprisoned, only in banana republics.
    • jtode 4y ago
      Not if shady is being exposed so that fascist can take its place.
      • headsoup 4y ago
        Who's the fascist you speak of? Is it the government that set up the ministry of truth?
        • mrtksn 4y ago
          Can I have link to the ministry of truth website, Google doesn’t seem to return it. Google search is very bad these days.
          • mc32 4y ago
            It’s probably the one that said not to use ivermectin and now say that what they said is that they didn’t recommend it meanwhile all news orgs and social media suppressed any mention of ivermectin and when they did it was to confound it with veterinary medicine.
            • mrtksn 4y ago
              Right, so there’s no ministry of truth but choices of some media companies to promote government recommendations that turned out to be best to their knowledge and not absolute truth?
  • leereeves 4y ago
    What "selective information feeding"? Did Assange have some damaging information about Trump that he refused to leak?
    • pessimizer 4y ago
      It's just made up. The "logic" goes: if there was bad stuff about H. Clinton out there, there must be worse stuff about Trump out there, because Trump is worse than H. Clinton. Therefore, Assange ignored all of the bad stuff (that neither the FBI, constant congressional investigations, numerous private intelligence firms, and every single anti-Trump media outlet spent nearly a decade at this point looking for still have yet to find) just to target poor H. Clinton. The most bizarre part of this theory is why anyone would think that Trump, a NYC real estate guy who wasn't good at actually building things so turned into a guy who sold his branding to real estate projects, a wrestler, a game show host, would have more or worse skeletons in his closet than H. Clinton, somebody at the center of one of the two ruling parties of the world hegemon for 25 years. We know everything that H. Clinton did (she was proud before she wasn't, like the rest of the New Democrats), so the leaks were literally about her corruption and DNC corruption during the election. The DNC also fired all of their executives over it because they were obviously corrupt. If the DNC were actually concerned about corruption rather than being caught, you'd think they'd celebrate Assange for smoking it out. I always used to wonder how dictatorships or strikebreakers could call in huge groups of thugs to beat up people at protests, or to show up to rallies for the dictator. A lot of them are paid, of course, but a lot of them just have the mindset that really prioritizes trying to figure out if Trump was misrepresenting his net worth by exaggerating the success of some of his buildings in order to secure financing from new investors, over what H. Clinton did to Haiti. Or Honduras. Or Iraq. But, you know, I think the Trump Foundation was a way for him to avoid paying taxes on a painting in the lobby of his building. Lock him up.
    • mrguyorama 4y ago
      We have evidence that when the DNC was hacked, so was the RNC. Only one of those hacks has ever been released. Unless you believe republicans have literally never done anything wrong, something doesn't add up.
  • colordrops 4y ago
    It's your prerogative to not care about someone being imprisoned indefinitely and illegally as a political prisoner because they have different politics than you, but it's not a virtue.
    • mrtksn 4y ago
      I don't care about legality, I'm not a judge or in the law enforcement. Was he wronged? Yes. Did he wronged the people who supported him in an attempt to get back to people wronged him? Yes. Well, then it's up to him and his remaining supporters to pursue justice. I don't care as long as he doesn't do more harm to me.
      • brainphreeze 4y ago
        Curious, how has he harmed you?
        • mrtksn 4y ago
          I have family in Turkey and spent good chunk of my adulthood in this country. Trump was a big enabler for Erdogan, to the point that 2020 election results were broadcasted live all day together with live graphics and stats just as the elections in Turkey as it was viewed as Erdogans last hope if Trump wins again. Erdogan is destroying my alma mater, his ridiculous economics are having very bad impact on my parents and friends, kids are sent to religious schools in much larger numbers than before which means social problems in the years to coma and the general totalitarian approach of his is something I don’t like enduring. That’s one aspect.
          • r721 4y ago
            On WikiLeaks and Turkey topic see also story of this pretty controversial leak: >Why Did WikiLeaks Help Dox Most of Turkey’s Adult Female Population? https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/why-did-wikileaks-help-dox-most-of-turkeys-adult-female-population.html https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2016/07/why-did-wikileaks-he...
  • px43 4y ago
    People gave him some crap because he didn't leak the white rose Trump leak, but it was already everywhere and he mostly just declined to promote it. Other than that, there were no Trump related leaks in the inbox, so it's not like he leaked for one side of an election, but not the other. Also Trump's corruption was already known far and wide. It's the kind of shit he brags about. I was pretty shocked not only at how far right media twisted the contents of the Podesta emails into wild conspiracy theories like PizzaGate etc, but fully disgusted at the sheer volume of people who just ate all that up without a moment of critical thinking. Even still, no sane person thought that Trump was going to win. Even the couple days before the election, all the polls had Hillary up by a wide margin. I highly doubt that Julian was hoping for a Trump presidency. I think it's much more likely that he was imagining a Clinton presidency, but where people were a lot more critical of her actions.
    • jtode 4y ago
      Lots of people were saying he was gonna win, including me to everyone around me. It's not that we were so smart, I'm sure of that because Michael Moore is an idiot much of the time. Nobody cares, though, what he thought he was doing. In social justice circles, we talk about impact being what matters, not intention. There's a lot of impact that he has to answer for.
      • rsaarsoo 4y ago
        You seem to assume, that one can know what the impact of one's actions will be. That's basically asking for the ability to predict the future. I don't want to imply that the outcomes don't matter. But at least I prefer living in a justice system where planned murder and fatal accident are not considered as equal offences, although outcomes might be the same.
  • lynx23 4y ago
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_7:5 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matthew_7:5
  • Timwi 4y ago
    > selective information feeding is not a whistleblowing move but political manipulation. The correct response to this is more whistleblowing, not less.
• arminiusreturns 4y ago
  "The leaks definitely came from GRU hackers" [citation needed]
  • kolanos 4y ago
    • matthewdgreen 4y ago
      If I’m ever murdered, I hope the FBI isn’t forced to hand over the contents of my private laptop to random strangers who file FOIA requests. This whole thing is despicable and you should be ashamed.
      • kolanos 4y ago
        It was his DNC laptop and governments have some discretion in FOIA requests.
        • ceejayoz 4y ago
          The DNC is not a governmental organization. Would you like your business laptop subject to FOIA just because the FBI investigated a crime against you?
          • fallingknife 4y ago
            I would be 100% ok with it. I have never put anything on a business laptop that would be embarrassing. My company might care, but why would I?
            • ceejayoz 4y ago
              What if it's your startup? What if the FBI seized a personal laptop of yours? Should that be subject to FOIA requests by anyone who wants it? The Fourth Amendment rights against government seizure of your property should also extend to giving that property to random yahoos who can fill a form out.
• belorn 4y ago
  > I also believe that the espionage crimes that Julian is charged with are 100% horseshit, and going after journalists like that sets an incredibly bad precedent coming from a nation that purports to be a world leader in press freedoms. Hillary was the secretary of the united states when those charges was written (and leaked). There was also reports about political pressure done by the US government directed at the Sweden and UK, allegedly to influence the legal case around Assange. Accusations was made, long before the election, that Hillary was the person responsible of authorizing and organizing those deeds. Based on that I find the events of the 2016 elections to be fairly self-explanatory. It is just sad that we will never fully know the full extend of what Hillary role was as the secretary of US during in the aftermath of the cable leaks, or how much real involvement the US had in the Swedish and UK legal cases.
  • q1w2 4y ago
    I would also love more in-depth coverage of her involvement in the early days of the Syrian civil war. Her leaked calendar showed weekly meetings with the Saudi foreign minister (much much more than any other FM), and other leaked documents showed her involvement in arming groups of Saudi jihadists who were flown from Riyadh to northern Iraq and Syria - where ISIS subsequently formed. I'll also never forget the leak that proved that she encouraged the media to take Trump seriously and "elevate" him in the GOP primary because she thought a radical would be easier to beat in the general election. She was not fit to be president. 2016 was the year of two horrible choices.
• jevgeni 4y ago
  Assange was leaking selectively for years for different reasons. You can hardly find any leaks on China or Russia. This is why the Surkov leaks went through just random forums and later Suddeutsche. Finding a humanized agenda there is a bit more difficult.
  • nkrisc 4y ago
    > You can hardly find any leaks on China or Russia. He wouldn’t bite the hand that feeds (leaks).
  • aa-jv 4y ago
    The duty to report on Russian or Chinese crimes against humanity and war crimes, falls on the shoulders of Russian or Chinese citizens. Assange is a citizen of the criminal 5-eyes superstate, and in that context has every right to select materials designed to reign in the crimes of that criminal, 5-eyes superstate - especially since it has, as an entity, been responsible for the utter destruction of countless sovereign nations and the mass murder of their innocent civilians - at scales far, far exceeding that of Russia or China. The moral authority that you claim should have been exercised over Russia and China, simply doesn't exist. 5-eyes states are not 'better' at these things than Russia or China. By statistics of "murder of innocent people", and "destruction of civilian infrastructure designed to make the target state fail, utterly", the worst criminal state in the world is the USA and its minion lapdogs - by a wide, wide margin. It is, therefore, entirely appropriate for 5-eyes citizens to focus on the crimes of their own states, and utterly inappropriate for members of war-crime committing, crimes-against-humanity committing states, to be calling for the destruction of any other sovereign nation - while their own war criminals roam free to do whatever continued evil they desire.
    • _glsb 4y ago
      "Superstate" is not a thing unless the five participants in the "5-eye" intelligence sharing program actually agree to form a state. So to stick with your logic, Assange should be responsible for leaking Australian things only. To be fair, a pretty strange logic tho, since you only allow the perpetrator of the crime to confess as means of accountability. Your statistics is a function of how you count it. You could, for example, include "use of rape as a military tactic"[1] or "deliberate genocide"[2, 3] - which might have a bearing on the whole thing. Not to mention the blatant, veiled whataboutism. Just because "USA bad" doesn't mean that countries such as Russia and China can do anything they want and we shouldn't hold them accountable. To claim any kind of moral authority "calculation" here is perverse. ____ [1] - https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221014-rape-used-in-ukraine-as-a-russian-military-strategy-un https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20221014-rape-used-in-... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uyghur_genocide [3] - https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-russias-war-ukraine-genocide https://www.foreignaffairs.com/ukraine/why-russias-war-ukrai...
• jtode 4y ago
  >if didn't have a personal grudge to satisfy. He scuttled an entire country over his personal grudge, if I'm reading you correctly. Sounds like he's exactly where he needs to be.
  • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
    I'm sorry, was there anything false in those leaked DNC emails? You are saying you wanted your crooks to be the winner instead of someone else's crooks? And say what you will but the Democrats wanted Trump to be on the ticket. And you think that everything was great in the US before the 2016 election? There were no big bank bail outs, no wars? You all are delusional.
    • mrguyorama 4y ago
      What crime was revealed by the leaked emails. There's a nice recipe in there, and some emails about getting together, but what shady dealings are in those leaked emails?
      • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
        Why does it have to be a crime to be morally wrong? It showed active opposition of Bernie Sanders directly from the DNC. And it showed collusion between Clinton and the DNC. As a Democrat, at the time it made me leave the party.
        • mrguyorama 4y ago
          Your incessant pivoting and gish-galloping is making it hard to follow what your argument even is. What are you trying to say?
          • FollowingTheDao 4y ago
            I am trying to say that you are being brianwashed into thinking Assange is the evil persons when it is the people you are idolizing and who want to kill him in prison. Seriously, have you people no human compassion?
• valeg 4y ago
  What an opportunity for her to make a sequel to "Citizenfour". Something like "Russian Citizenfour". Lots of opportunities to reflect on how Ed took her for a ride with his BS and now serving Putin. In "Risk" she implies that something is not like it seems with Julian BTW. New generations should be accustomed with a concept of a useful idiot. It is not strictly an old Comintern/USSR tactic.
• canadianfella 4y ago
• api 4y ago
  Regardless of his personal reasons, he lost credibility. If he had done the same to make sure Clinton won he would have lost credibility as a trustworthy source too. You can in fact lie with facts, especially without context. You can arrange and frame them so as to paint a biased or outright false picture. If the GRU manipulated him that just shows as well how foolish it is to think amateurs can play spy games with the pros. It’s like having your local street ball league go up against a pro basketball team.
• sonotathrowaway 4y ago
  And when he censored Russian whistleblowers that gave him documents on Putin’s involvement in Syria? I wonder if his television deal with Putin compromised his “radical transparency”.
• fallingknife 4y ago
  I don't see how you can conclude that the Russians were "definitely" involved when the entirety of the evidence is coming from the word of spooks.
  • aa-jv 4y ago
    They can't make this conclusion on the basis of any evidence, because that evidence just doesn't exist. This conclusion can only be made on the basis of nationalistic pride and blind faith in the spooks running the country. On that basis, it should be entirely ignored, since those spooks are also war criminals who are running from justice.
• aa-jv 4y ago
  >The leaks definitely came from GRU hackers Evidence?
• kergonath 4y ago
  > Watch the Laura Poitras movie "Risk"[1] if you want a really good feel for why Julian has every reason in the world to disrupt the possibility of a Hillary Clinton presidency. It does not really matter. You cannot pretend to be all about freedom of speech and exposing government misbehaviour without taking sides and play these partisan games. I was supportive of the whole Wikileaks thing before his role as a pawn for totalitarians became really visible. The fact was that at that point disrupting the election meant acting for a Trump presidency, and I cannot see how any properly-calibrated moral compass would want that. The most charitable interpretation is that he was played and a useful idiot. > I also believe that the espionage crimes that Julian is charged with are 100% horseshit, and going after journalists like that sets an incredibly bad precedent coming from a nation that purports to be a world leader in press freedoms. Yes. It also does not make Assange any less of an arsehole. Your enemy being immoral does not give you the moral high ground.