Am I the only one that finds Assange to be just an absolute self-centered ass? He's trying to turn himself into a cult leader, and runs his own "justice" site[0].
He's manipulative and just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
He's manipulative and just leaves a sour taste in my mouth.
Can the same not be said about virtually every prominent politician or bureaucrat around the world? I spent a decade in DC and can think of precious few cases where this is not true.
I've known Julian since the 1990s. While he and I likely still have the same policy disagreements we argued about back then, I'd say the world would be a better place if we had more people like him and fewer of our current crop of politicians and bureaucrats in power.
Put another way, I'm not as interested in complaints about someone's personality ("he's so self-centered!" "manipulative!") as I am in the public policy work they do. That's where you might find some room for criticism here.
I favour a stateless politician who truly understands the Internet over most of the others.
Edit - interesting article on sociopaths in politics:
http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/07/the-startl...
Regardless of their arrogance, we need such people to move things forward.
Saying on his site that Sweden is "effectively detaining him without charging him with a crime" when Sweden isn't detaining him anywhere (he's holed himself up in an embassy in London) is the type of misleading nonsense that rubs me the wrong way.
Also claiming that the UK isn't honoring his political asylum granted by another country for purposes other than why he's hiding out (the political asylum was to prevent him from becoming a political prisoner in the US and facing what he calls a "credible risk of torture, inhumane treatment, and unfair trial" here) is also misleading.
He seems to relish in martyrdom.
The problem is that I don't know if they are true and that they essentially don't take away from WikiLeaks mission and Assange's part in it - as horrible as those allegations are.
Who should be given the benefit of the doubt? I would argue the weak.
Who are the most vulnerable and weak in this whole issue? The women Assange allegedly took advantage of against their will? Probably.
A man shedding and successfully marketing the ugly truths of very powerful people? Probably.
It's a complicated world and not only that, it seems as if the game has been rigged from the get go (by all powerful parties) so I don't feel like I could allow myself strong judgement.
Her intention, as far as public statements has been, is quite clear. She wanted him tested for HIV. She had asked him, but he refused, so a few days later she went to the police to ask if they could force him to take a HIV.
I remember reading that she simply felt tricked by the prosecutor/police when the media circus started with the arrest warrant and extraditions. If we want to take her side (which should do), then what would the correct course of actions be?
The issues surrounding the alleged rape feel weird to me, it's easy to discredit someone (especially in the United States) by mentioning anything about sex. It seems wrong to target someone soliciting information for media purposes who themselves isn't breaking the law (assuming of course he didn't rape anyone - that's why these kind of allegations are particularly insidious). It kind of reminds me of the Snowden leak about the NSA using web history and porn habits against Islamic fundamentalists to discredit them.
I think he was talking to the media and a lot of his original conversations were clear, articulate and measured. He was building a powerful brand which upset people in the US so he was targeted to get him out of the way - and to cloud search results/stories about him with the rape allegations. If this truly was the intent, it appears to have worked.
I think it's interesting that what drove him to working on this stuff was the fact that his research in the US was retroactively classified (they used to do a lot of this kind of thing with early cryptography patents and research). From what I've read he was frustrated by this and felt it was an improper use of government secrecy.
I'd imagine if the rape allegations really were fabricated in some way (or at least distorted) there would be some fear in facing them - since that's a lot of geopolitical power against you. Seems like a difficult situation.
Plenty of people thought Assange was full of him self well-before the rape accusation (that pionar didn't even mention) or any other supposed character assassination.
It's not particularly hard to get a negative impression of him from his own writings, from his hype-man behavior for Wikileaks, his mercenary approach to selling access to media organizations, or from various first-hand accounts of people that worked with him.
I call people I feel to be self-centered self-centered. I call people who try to convince other people that they're an innocent messenger for truth while demonizing anyone who says anything bad about them a wannabe cult leader.