I kind of get the impression that becoming a martyr was a sacrifice he was prepared to make if he managed to rip off the mask and expose the unbridled imperialist evil lurking underneath the "civilized press conference veneer" presented by the US government.
All the other important stuff he revealed never got the level of attention it deserved.
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-...
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.
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...
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.
No, they would never do anything like that:
https://greenwald.substack.com/p/article-on-joe-and-hunter-b...
(And, whether wikileaks meaningfully coordinated with trump campaign is debatable)
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.
The better ones you can't tell so easily.
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?"
We should really work on depolarisation.
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.
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.
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.
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://theintercept.com/2016/10/10/clinton-fracking-theworl...
https://www.salon.com/2016/10/18/leaked-email-hillary-clinto...
It's both, just the voters don't get told that.
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.
Wat. Is this GPT3 or something?
Would he have been as embarrassing and corrupt, probably not, but there more to an administration than all of that.
Or TLDR if you're not going to get good at making sausage stop applying for positions at the sausage factory.
And in the unlikely event you create a genuine third party, the current two parties will drop all their differences to destroy that party.
This is 100% a perfect distillation of a great criticism of Sanders from the left and on merits.
I think it's often also undersold how often he's been terribly wrong about foreign policy in the past and how he almost never walks it back.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/dec/18/the-ri...
They could easily have used the same style of attacks that were used against Trump. "Kids in cages" was the case under Obama, and Trump, and Biden, but we only heard about it under Trump.
They wouldn't have used the same issues because those are the issues you use against a Republican, but the same format works against anyone. Under Sanders there would have been huge concerns about the deficit. Any tax increase impacting the middle class would be condemned but the middle class would inherently have to pay more to have single payer healthcare, so you fight it with "tax increase bad" not "healthcare bad." Not having to pay health insurance premiums would either be ignored or condemned as a giveaway to employers.
They'd find some black families who support school vouchers to go on TV and accuse him of being a racist for supporting existing "racist public schools" and things along those lines.
The general idea is to be horrified to learn that things that have been happening for years have suddenly been discovered happening under the target administration, but choose the things related to the direction they want to move. As if the Overton window is not only not covering what they want to change, it no longer even covers the status quo, and we have to go in the opposite direction or he's literally Hitler (or, presumably, Stalin). So you burn up all their political capital just to stand still while turning the viewer against them no matter what they do. Then four years later the status quo remains intact.
Why do we need a huge federal military in peacetime when we have the state national guard? Why do we need federal welfare programs instead of state welfare programs? It's not an argument against having a military or having welfare programs, it's a question of where to do it. And the US federal government is the wrong place, because it's too big.
"Laboratories of democracy" are a public good, but you can't have them if Uncle Sam is sucking up the public's money and giving it to Raytheon and drug companies and whoever instead of letting the states and the people have that money to implement a diverse set of independent programs and allowing citizens to decide which they want to live under.
Most of which was caused by 20th century screwing up of the original design. US Senators were originally elected by the state legislatures, to represent the states and temper federal power. The 16th amendment, federal taxation without apportionment, provides the perverse incentive for federal spending to increase without bound because you then have the large majority of states as net recipients of federal spending which is coming from a handful of states who are outnumbered. And guess which ones they are -- you wouldn't know it by asking their representatives because given the setup, they have no incentive not to feed from the same trough even while their residents are getting fleeced.
The good news is most of the taker states are still around breakeven and many of those (like Texas) would likely support fixing this if the likes of New York and Massachusetts would take notice that doing so is strongly in their own interest. (The biggest takers are the swing states, for reasons that should be obvious, but the red and blue states outnumber the purple states -- if they'd work together.)
In a blessed future when we figure out a less totalitarian way to organize ourselves, Americans can still live together and trade with each other. The value of federal spending can be overstated, even for "net winners". Sure it's free money, but it's calibrated to the needs of those who hire lobbyists. No existing entitlement program is as beneficial to the population as just giving directly to individual humans would be.
Several factors that keep some Americans opposed to entitlements would no longer apply in the "laboratories of democracy" situation. No population is actually as hard-ass about deficits as some current representation claims, due to nondemocratic aspects of how such representation is currently elected. Simply redirecting the spigot of "free money" deficit spending away from armaments toward anything beneficial to humans would be a windfall. Spending on children would encourage young families to locate nearby instead of moving to the coasts, so eventually the hollowing-out middle states would see the benefits no matter their "traditional" opposition.
In fact, much of the traditional politics of both the "winners" and "losers" are simply negotiating positions that would disappear without a federal government. "Loser" states sending resources to "winner" states is the way that they "bribe" seemingly opposed representatives into accepting entitlement spending. It has much more to do with politics than with what particular areas "need" or "produce".
https://www.reddit.com/r/todayilearned/comments/45vsg1/til_c...
(He's old, so a natural heart attack is certainly plausible. But, the powers that be had means, motive and opportunity)
In that light, I always found this story of the 6 scared, cold, humiliated and alone mothers of soldiers protesting outside the White House preventing nuclear war with Vietnam somewhat inspiring.
https://www.independent.co.uk/voices/commentators/johann-har...
(The connection is tenuous, but it's not completely unreasonable.)
So I would say the effect is actually in the other direction. That is less activism of that type, not more.
And the connection is not only tenuous. You are making a very general mild claim based on scant evidence. Your consideration is valid but very weak.
Yes, governments make it hard and will go so far as to actually kill people. It’s still a moderating influence and a feedback mechanism before civil war. I may not agree with them or even care about the issue, but I still respect the sacrifice.
You are doing good, then. Need to keep talking to more people!
Every time I try to talk to my wife about what the government's doing/has done, she stops me and says, "I really don't care. So long as I can keep living my life without interference, why would I care?"
This also happens when I try to explain basic economics to her.
I find most people I talk to simply don't care so long as they get to enjoy living their dreamy lives.
This is already a very big achievement for just one individual.
How many people, activist or not, have been killed without anybody noticing?
Not really the mark of someone who wanted to be a martyr as opposed to someone like Navalny, for example.
More an indication of someone who didn't really know what he's doing and became an accidental but very effective Russian agent who ended up being a major contributor to shaking the very foundations of democracy in America.
I'm no fan of Assange. But I also have not read a lot about Assange so I may be ignorant.
the narrative of being a russian pawn doesnt work. everyone loved assange until he underlined the oblivious corruption of clinton and hence contributed to make her loose rightfully so the election. I am no trump fan and I am for a non partisan vision of the world. a vision where freedom means telling the truth even if it hurts yourself or your political leaders. Assange is a victim of usa and it is sad to bring russia to the equation
"The US had offered four assurances, including that Mr Assange would not be subject to solitary confinement pre or post-trial or detained at the ADX Florence Supermax jail - a maximum security prison in Colorado - if extradited.
Lawyers for the US said he would be allowed to transfer to Australia to serve any prison sentence he may be given closer to home.
And they argued Mr Assange's mental illness "does not even come close" to being severe enough to prevent him from being extradited."
So assuming that the international community cannot avoid his extradition, to make sure that those assurances are true and can be hold, would be already a win, no?
US assurances aren’t worth the toilet-paper they’re written on.
Totally his own fault. Neither the USA nor the UK told him to hole up in that embassy; he did that all on his own.
[0] https://news.yahoo.com/kidnapping-assassination-and-a-london...
CIA, DoD, and lots of agencies “entertain” lots of ideas, and even develop plans, for lots of things that never get close to being policy.
Unless it is with other people and, more critically, at least one of the people involved goes beyond planning and takes some concrete step to advance the execution of the plan (at which point it becomes the separate crime of conspiracy), no, planning a crime, even of that seriousness, is not itself a crime.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vikram_Buddhi
No other concrete step is needed.
Planning to kill someone is not a crime. Threatening to is, even if they aren't the President.
Why murder him when he's no threat to them anymore, and they can drag him through more hell for the next decade in order to show what happens when you cross the line?
"and could apply, if convicted, to be transferred to a prison in Australia."
My understanding is that his application could be denied, without any recourse, by the DoJ (of whichever administration is in power at the time), and probably by the Australian government too.
[0] https://www.theguardian.com/media/2021/dec/10/julian-assange...
And Epstein committed suicide. Right?
I’m not saying it’s ok - just that now he’s in custody it’s a little different.
What's inconvenient here is that the rule of law is operating in the context that the US and UK are allies and therefore take each other's statements on good faith. The United States assures he will be protected, they are not an enemy nation, and there are extradition treaties between the US and the UK. Unless the UK has some kind of carve-out for countries with bad track records of keeping their word, that might be sufficient to satisfy the rule of law.
My point is that, in this context, speculations as to whether Assange secretly desired this outcome, due to some supposed martyr complex ... are plainly irrelevant.
That's a bit absurd given showed the total opposite:
Gigabytes of diplomatic cables of highly sensitive data revealed a US Diplomatic Corps trying to do a decent job in a world rife with ugly corruption.
The 'Arab Street' saw the information and they saw the US trying to assuage and nudge brutally corrupt leaders.
The cables didn't unite Arabs against the US - they exposed the ruthless corruption of their own governments and 'united' them against their own governments.
I was in Tunisia near the time of the revolts and I can tell you the thing that pissed them off the most was probably the fact that their disgraced PM had Canadian citizenship (i.e. citizen of convenience, as many do) and simply flew to Montreal to enjoy Canadian Constitutional protections and avoid prosecution.
It's shocking that someone could read about Arab governments doing 'very bad things', the US government trying to stop them, and then come away with the notion that the US is the bad actor.
It speaks to some kind of deeply held ideology or perspective that can make facts that point one way, seem like they point in the other direction.
Assange will have to face trial given the fact that he may have explicitly helped Manning break into systems of National Security, which is definitely illegal. I don't think he did, but there's been some evidence made public that indicates that it's possible. Soon we'll have a court case and see the evidence.
I'm sensing that you believe that this is something you think that should have been concealed from them for their own good.
>It's shocking that someone could read about Arab governments doing 'very bad things', the US government trying to stop them, and then come away with the notion that the US is the bad actor.
Collateral murder is mostly what people are condemning. Also what this extradition was all about.
It's weird that you seem to believe that the war crimes are not relevant to the discussion about whether the US is "the bad actor".
Well, perhaps not that weird. Your reply suggests that you may have been part of the institution that committed and covered up the war crimes (unless you were in tunisia for a different reason).
>Assange will have to face trial given the fact that he may have explicitly helped Manning break into systems of National Security, which is definitely illegal.
Oh yes. Exposing US war crimes IS definitely illegal - more illegal than committing them, apparently.
Just like Rosa Parks sitting at the back of a bus - that was illegal too.
If all diplomatic channels were transparent, diplomats would treat it like a twitter account. If the US's Saudi Ambassador thought the Saudi leadership was unstable, they'd never write that in a cable if it was going to be released publicly.
And nobody would tell our diplomats uncomfortable truths.
Oh no, you outed me! I'm a CIA plant!
How were you able to slyly prove my complicity in war crimes from a mere comment about travelling abroad?
A testament to brilliant and rational deductive thinking and logical inference, that must prove 'America is Evil' as well of course ...
This, too, is journalism. Showing that the world isn't black and white, that sometimes the US does bad things that we should work against and sometimes they do the right thing, that's important too. Secrecy is harmful to democracy.
It's obvious why the state department tries to keep their internal communications secret, but it's also obvious why journalists have a public interest in trying to reveal them. We should let them both make their attempt instead of bringing criminal charges against one side for doing the job we need them to do.
Notice that the job is the same regardless of what's in the cables, because you (along with the public) don't know that ahead of time.
But to be clear, a strong argument against your point is that he's being prosecuted. All the government insiders who leak classified information to the media in order to advance the government's interests are not sitting next to him in a cell, are they?
Secrecy can be harmful in some cases but it's also essential in many ways, it's really not an argument at all. Nobody would be able to do their jobs otherwise.
Uncovering and publishing secrets is the core of journalism.
> Secrecy can be harmful in some cases but it's also essential in many ways
Then they should do a better job of keeping the important things secret. But it's good that they occasionally fail.
Assange also editorialized his leaks to be damaging towards the US rather than just leak them. IIRC this lead to conflict within the org. The CM video was awful, but as I understand it was a mistake made within the bounds of acceptable ROE? Similar to the recent drone strike mistake in Afghanistan. War sucks and these accidents are awful, but we live in an imperfect universe. These things don’t really say much in isolation. If anything the cables showed the US in a positive light (most on HN probably didn’t actually read them).
I found the US’s media response to be stupid as it often is, rather than engage honestly on these issues. Over the years Wikileaks went from something that could have had a genuine media purpose to a way for intelligence agencies hostile to the US to leak hacked materials to the world with plausible deniability. It was no longer a neutral actor (and frankly the editorialization by Assange in the “CM” video wasn’t neutral either).
He crossed the line with aiding the hack which gave legal recourse - this is the rule of law bit, we’ll see what happens.
I do think the “sex crimes” stuff could have been Intel doing stupid shit (imo) but that’s just speculation on my part.
There's basically no limit to how much someone can demand, e.g. "Well, if he was really committed to transparency, he would have tried breaking into the White House with a camera", or "If he was really prepared to risk dying to bring these leaks to people's attention, he should have self-immolated in front of the US embassy".
Personally, the metric I use is, if someone has achieved more for a good cause than me, and suffered more for it than I would, then they are a martyr for that cause and deserve my respect.