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The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces. Assange gave the public invaluable information that wou

The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces. Assange gave the public invaluable information that would not have been know otherwise, but he ended up playing right into the hands of the people who wanted to discredit Clinton. Politics is complicated.

DaoVeles 2y ago
Road to hell is paved with good intentions.
webninja 2y ago
Yes, and politics is not about supporting only one side either. If transparency makes for more informed decisions, who’s to judge the better outcome? Meritocracies die in darkness and evidence of corruption scares lots of voters away. Especially the unaffiliated/independent ones that decide elections.
- bandrami 2y ago
  Weird that he had the hacked emails of two political parties in the US and only released one of them, then
  - lukan 2y ago
    Are there sources for this?
    - bandrami 2y ago
      Both the Mueller report[1] and the Senate report[2]. There is apparently some question whether Wikileaks even got the RNC data and didn't release it or just didn't bother asking for it in the first place[3]. Assange himself has discussed why he was only interested in hurting the Democratic party in the US[4]. 1: https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl 2: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... 3: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/10/report-russian-hackers-had-rnc-data-but-didn-t-release-it https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/10/report-russi... 4: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...
      - lukan 2y ago
        The intercept link is quite good in quoting his motivation, which is indeed quite contrary to the stated goal of Wikileaks being neutral. But in [1] and [2], could you hint where in there that information is to be found? Those are quite long documents and wikileaks is not the main subject there.
      - chrisco255 2y ago
        It wouldn't have mattered in the RNC case even if it was leaked. It was well known that Republican party insiders disliked Trump, but Trump won anyway. The DNC leak was motivated by Bernie's treatment in the primary.
        CRConrad 2y ago
        I don't see how one follows from the other. It's also rather well known that Bernie was disliked by much of the Democratic establishment, so shouldn't that, by your reasoning, mean that WikiLeaks shouldn't have published the DNC leaks either?
  - whamlastxmas 2y ago
    A shame there aren’t any other journalists that could have leaked the other party’s emails, clearly Assanges fault
    - bandrami 2y ago
      I mean, yes, great example, that's the kind of sad argument Assange's defenders have to say with a straight face
  - alfalfasprout 2y ago
    This has been heavily disputed already... it's not clear that wikileaks even had access to the RNC data.
darby_nine 2y ago
A rich demagogue getting elected over a rich career politician technocrat who was smeared by right-wing money for decades sounds like "democracy" working well as it's ever worked. It's easy to blame one entity or another for these sorts of upset events, but national elections are media circuses largely run by private spending on the terms of private parties and blaming any one party seems like missing the forest for the trees. Again, election "interference" is not unfamiliar ground for democracies or republics, liberal or classic, so it confuses me why people blame the electorate rather than the flaws in our implementation of democratic ideals (eg the citizens united ruling) that allowed private capital to run rampant over our election mechanics. To illustrate how inevitable this is, the roman republic had statute stipulating the width of the halls leading up to the ballots to physically restrict voters from being harassed or intimidated. Otherwise the richer candidate would simply pay a mob to physically bully you into voting a certain way regardless of your original intentions—or perhaps they might outright buy your vote out if they knew which way your ballot cast. It was completely understood by all involved that voting (& armies) could be bought with sufficient money and ingenuity by even single people. Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me.
- fmnxl 2y ago
  > Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me. That's the point though, not that many people care about the implementation of a democracy, which itself is a form of democratic will (or the lack thereof). The problem with simply "more democracy" is we might end up with these contradictions. People don't care much about the fine details of the implementation of their governance. In an ideal world, they would have voted in people who'd tear up these "money is speech" laws, but we live in a world where the average Joe only cares and are receptive to catchphrases.
12907835202 2y ago
Played into the hands? Didn't Assange personally hate the Clinton's, that seems less played into the hands of and more intentional?
- Applejinx 2y ago
  That's really how that works, in practice. That would be why he proved useful and had a willingness to do what he did HOW he did it.
- chrisco255 2y ago
  If you actually read all the material on the Clintons, it's hard to imagine anyone not hating them. That's just evidence the man's got a soul.
SilverBirch 2y ago
Yeah, I see a lot of celebration here, but I don't see what part of this worked out well for anyone. Assange spent over a decade either running from the law or in prison. None of the charges against him are ever going to be heard either way, and the original issues he raised have largely been ignored. And over the period he and his fellow travelers have done a great job trashing their own cause by lining up beside genocidal dictators.
- Applejinx 2y ago
  I'm prepared to celebrate if he gave up a lot of useful information on who he was working with, and who ELSE was in there with him. As I see it, Assange got used, by folks who are a bigger problem than his former idealism could ever be.
badgersnake 2y ago
If he’s not actually a Russian agent then there are likely plenty of actual Russian agents doing a worse job of it than him.
- LudwigNagasena 2y ago
  If he is a Russian agent, Russia does more to help the US democracy than the US itself.
  - 0dayz 2y ago
    How exactly has Assange help us democracy.
    - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
      Leaking information about war crimes (1) deters from future war crimes (2) helps government transparency.
      - dralley 2y ago
        He repeatedly inferred that Seth Rich was his DNC source even though his emails showed he continued communicating with his "source" long after Seth Rich was found dead (the source was Russian military intelligence). He was also messaging Donald Trump Jr. during that time period. That's not journalism, that's dishonesty and activism.
        chrisco255 2y ago
        You'll have to link sources on the above quote. But even if he was a Republican-oriented journalist, that would make him one of the most endangered species on the planet.
        CRConrad 2y ago
        > He repeatedly inferred that Seth Rich was his DNC source... ITYM he repeatedly implied that Seth Rich was his DNC source, so readers should infer it.
gklitz 2y ago
Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.
- seanieb 2y ago
  When Russia enables it, amplifies it, builds their disinformation and propaganda machine around those facts and there’s no counter weight it gets into the realm of anti-democratic adjacent. There’s nothing simple when it comes to international politics. But foreign meddling by an adversary is a pretty bright line.
  - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
    The US enabled it. If there were no wrongdoings, there would be nothing to leak.
    - 0dayz 2y ago
      Every government/corporation has some "wrong doing" if it hadn't been the military there's plenty in the police force if not that then I'm sure there would have been cases of corruption. Your statement doesn't add any nuance to said concerns.
      - gklitz 2y ago
        “But Your honor! yes my client murdered his wife, but every country has murderers, so why should we punish him for that? Isn’t the true criminals his kids who went to the cops and thus caused permanent damage to his and therefore their chance of them having a happy household again?” Not “adding any nuance” is suggesting that publishing the truth about warcrimes is worse than committing war crimes.
        0dayz 2y ago
        That's a nice defense towards the straw man you constructed. I'll repeat my point so maybe you can focus on that than the straw man. It's not hard to find scandals, that's the whole point of having institutions meant to watchdog corporations and governments. But of course governments/corporation will try and cover it up or deregulate said institutions, but this doesn't make an obvious adversary (Russia) a helping hand in holding the corporations /governments accountable because it's not meant to, it's meant to create cynicism and a feeling of hopelessness. So no publishing truth is never bad, the issue is how you do it.
nmacan 2y ago
[dead]
gosub100 2y ago
A public officer running their own private email server and wiping it when authorities ask to see it is anti-democratic.
tootie 2y ago
I don't believe Assange ever believed in a noble cause. He did what he did for personal vanity and any good he did in the world is purely by coincidence. When he blamed the DNC hack on Seth Rich he had an opportunity to do the right thing and instead he impugned a victim of a heinous crime. Rich's successfully sued Fox for defamation over exactly the same thing Assange said.
DoItToMe81 2y ago
I hate to break this to you, but Trump was and is a participant in liberal democracy, not a March on Rome figure.
- kelnos 2y ago
  The events of 1/6/2020, and the proliferation of unfounded 2020 election fraud claims, would suggest otherwise. Not to mention his plans to "be a dictator for a day" and persecute his political opponents if elected this fall. The man and those in his orbit have a hard-on for Putin/Xi/Kim-style autocracy.
- CRConrad 2y ago
  > Trump was ... not a March on Rome figure. Naah, he was only the March on the Capitol figure; so much better. (FWIW, they had/have a Capitol in Rome too. That's what the American one is named for.)
hsod 2y ago
Anyone else remember when wikileaks directly collaborated with the trump campaign, gave them advice, etc.? https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/563996442/donald-trump-jr-had-direct-contact-with-wikileaks-during-campaign https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/563996442... Also interesting that they didn't Wikileak these messages, some mainstream journalist had to do it for them. Probably they just hadn't gotten around to it

DaoVeles 2y ago

Road to hell is paved with good intentions.

webninja 2y ago

Yes, and politics is not about supporting only one side either. If transparency makes for more informed decisions, who’s to judge the better outcome? Meritocracies die in darkness and evidence of corruption scares lots of voters away. Especially the unaffiliated/independent ones that decide elections.

bandrami 2y ago
Weird that he had the hacked emails of two political parties in the US and only released one of them, then
- lukan 2y ago
  Are there sources for this?
  - bandrami 2y ago
    Both the Mueller report[1] and the Senate report[2]. There is apparently some question whether Wikileaks even got the RNC data and didn't release it or just didn't bother asking for it in the first place[3]. Assange himself has discussed why he was only interested in hurting the Democratic party in the US[4]. 1: https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl https://www.justice.gov/archives/sco/file/1373816/dl 2: https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/documents/report_volume5.pdf https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/docu... 3: https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/10/report-russian-hackers-had-rnc-data-but-didn-t-release-it https://www.thedailybeast.com/cheats/2016/12/10/report-russi... 4: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/ https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks...
    - lukan 2y ago
      The intercept link is quite good in quoting his motivation, which is indeed quite contrary to the stated goal of Wikileaks being neutral. But in [1] and [2], could you hint where in there that information is to be found? Those are quite long documents and wikileaks is not the main subject there.
    - chrisco255 2y ago
      It wouldn't have mattered in the RNC case even if it was leaked. It was well known that Republican party insiders disliked Trump, but Trump won anyway. The DNC leak was motivated by Bernie's treatment in the primary.
      - CRConrad 2y ago
        I don't see how one follows from the other. It's also rather well known that Bernie was disliked by much of the Democratic establishment, so shouldn't that, by your reasoning, mean that WikiLeaks shouldn't have published the DNC leaks either?
- whamlastxmas 2y ago
  A shame there aren’t any other journalists that could have leaked the other party’s emails, clearly Assanges fault
  - bandrami 2y ago
    I mean, yes, great example, that's the kind of sad argument Assange's defenders have to say with a straight face
- alfalfasprout 2y ago
  This has been heavily disputed already... it's not clear that wikileaks even had access to the RNC data.

darby_nine 2y ago

A rich demagogue getting elected over a rich career politician technocrat who was smeared by right-wing money for decades sounds like "democracy" working well as it's ever worked. It's easy to blame one entity or another for these sorts of upset events, but national elections are media circuses largely run by private spending on the terms of private parties and blaming any one party seems like missing the forest for the trees. Again, election "interference" is not unfamiliar ground for democracies or republics, liberal or classic, so it confuses me why people blame the electorate rather than the flaws in our implementation of democratic ideals (eg the citizens united ruling) that allowed private capital to run rampant over our election mechanics. To illustrate how inevitable this is, the roman republic had statute stipulating the width of the halls leading up to the ballots to physically restrict voters from being harassed or intimidated. Otherwise the richer candidate would simply pay a mob to physically bully you into voting a certain way regardless of your original intentions—or perhaps they might outright buy your vote out if they knew which way your ballot cast. It was completely understood by all involved that voting (& armies) could be bought with sufficient money and ingenuity by even single people. Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me.

fmnxl 2y ago
> Why we are discussing anything other than restricting the ability of money to interfere with our modern processes when it comes to "democratic health" is beyond me. That's the point though, not that many people care about the implementation of a democracy, which itself is a form of democratic will (or the lack thereof). The problem with simply "more democracy" is we might end up with these contradictions. People don't care much about the fine details of the implementation of their governance. In an ideal world, they would have voted in people who'd tear up these "money is speech" laws, but we live in a world where the average Joe only cares and are receptive to catchphrases.

12907835202 2y ago

Played into the hands? Didn't Assange personally hate the Clinton's, that seems less played into the hands of and more intentional?

Applejinx 2y ago
That's really how that works, in practice. That would be why he proved useful and had a willingness to do what he did HOW he did it.
chrisco255 2y ago
If you actually read all the material on the Clintons, it's hard to imagine anyone not hating them. That's just evidence the man's got a soul.

SilverBirch 2y ago

Yeah, I see a lot of celebration here, but I don't see what part of this worked out well for anyone. Assange spent over a decade either running from the law or in prison. None of the charges against him are ever going to be heard either way, and the original issues he raised have largely been ignored. And over the period he and his fellow travelers have done a great job trashing their own cause by lining up beside genocidal dictators.

Applejinx 2y ago
I'm prepared to celebrate if he gave up a lot of useful information on who he was working with, and who ELSE was in there with him. As I see it, Assange got used, by folks who are a bigger problem than his former idealism could ever be.

badgersnake 2y ago

If he’s not actually a Russian agent then there are likely plenty of actual Russian agents doing a worse job of it than him.

LudwigNagasena 2y ago
If he is a Russian agent, Russia does more to help the US democracy than the US itself.
- 0dayz 2y ago
  How exactly has Assange help us democracy.
  - LudwigNagasena 2y ago
    Leaking information about war crimes (1) deters from future war crimes (2) helps government transparency.
    - dralley 2y ago
      He repeatedly inferred that Seth Rich was his DNC source even though his emails showed he continued communicating with his "source" long after Seth Rich was found dead (the source was Russian military intelligence). He was also messaging Donald Trump Jr. during that time period. That's not journalism, that's dishonesty and activism.
      - chrisco255 2y ago
        You'll have to link sources on the above quote. But even if he was a Republican-oriented journalist, that would make him one of the most endangered species on the planet.
      - CRConrad 2y ago
        > He repeatedly inferred that Seth Rich was his DNC source... ITYM he repeatedly implied that Seth Rich was his DNC source, so readers should infer it.

gklitz 2y ago

Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.

seanieb 2y ago
When Russia enables it, amplifies it, builds their disinformation and propaganda machine around those facts and there’s no counter weight it gets into the realm of anti-democratic adjacent. There’s nothing simple when it comes to international politics. But foreign meddling by an adversary is a pretty bright line.
- LudwigNagasena 2y ago
  The US enabled it. If there were no wrongdoings, there would be nothing to leak.
  - 0dayz 2y ago
    Every government/corporation has some "wrong doing" if it hadn't been the military there's plenty in the police force if not that then I'm sure there would have been cases of corruption. Your statement doesn't add any nuance to said concerns.
    - gklitz 2y ago
      “But Your honor! yes my client murdered his wife, but every country has murderers, so why should we punish him for that? Isn’t the true criminals his kids who went to the cops and thus caused permanent damage to his and therefore their chance of them having a happy household again?” Not “adding any nuance” is suggesting that publishing the truth about warcrimes is worse than committing war crimes.
      - 0dayz 2y ago
        That's a nice defense towards the straw man you constructed. I'll repeat my point so maybe you can focus on that than the straw man. It's not hard to find scandals, that's the whole point of having institutions meant to watchdog corporations and governments. But of course governments/corporation will try and cover it up or deregulate said institutions, but this doesn't make an obvious adversary (Russia) a helping hand in holding the corporations /governments accountable because it's not meant to, it's meant to create cynicism and a feeling of hopelessness. So no publishing truth is never bad, the issue is how you do it.

nmacan 2y ago

[dead]

gosub100 2y ago

A public officer running their own private email server and wiping it when authorities ask to see it is anti-democratic.

tootie 2y ago

I don't believe Assange ever believed in a noble cause. He did what he did for personal vanity and any good he did in the world is purely by coincidence. When he blamed the DNC hack on Seth Rich he had an opportunity to do the right thing and instead he impugned a victim of a heinous crime. Rich's successfully sued Fox for defamation over exactly the same thing Assange said.

DoItToMe81 2y ago

I hate to break this to you, but Trump was and is a participant in liberal democracy, not a March on Rome figure.

kelnos 2y ago
The events of 1/6/2020, and the proliferation of unfounded 2020 election fraud claims, would suggest otherwise. Not to mention his plans to "be a dictator for a day" and persecute his political opponents if elected this fall. The man and those in his orbit have a hard-on for Putin/Xi/Kim-style autocracy.
CRConrad 2y ago
> Trump was ... not a March on Rome figure. Naah, he was only the March on the Capitol figure; so much better. (FWIW, they had/have a Capitol in Rome too. That's what the American one is named for.)

hsod 2y ago

Anyone else remember when wikileaks directly collaborated with the trump campaign, gave them advice, etc.? https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/563996442/donald-trump-jr-had-direct-contact-with-wikileaks-during-campaign https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/14/563996442... Also interesting that they didn't Wikileak these messages, some mainstream journalist had to do it for them. Probably they just hadn't gotten around to it