Assange

[shoulders]

We haven't discussed this in a while but Assange is a case study in what to expect when someone publishes state secrets (or shall we say information that was poorly guarded?)

One of the first and most important actions was to ensure the centrists and liberals who are still labouring under the delusion of a rules based order had a reason to make Assange exempt from that. What better than a rape allegation to automatically lose the sympathy of pretty much every woman in that bloc, and the vast majority of men too.

And here we are, the rules-based order who invaded an embassy, literally the most inviolable act in international diplomacy for the precise reason setting that precedent means all bets are off, who fitted him up (unsuccessfully) for rape at the exact moment he would have normally succeeded in attaining the sympathy of the centre and most likely damaged the "rules-based" order.

What is notable is how the people who most strongly tack to the idea of rules and principles see exceptions everywhere they look when it suits them

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/uk-68663344

To state the bleeding obvious, this is not about how much you like the guy or whatever shit stuff he did to some individuals. Sometimes as here it's about so much more than that, and you go into bat for the wanker.

[Funcrusher]

Agree with all of that. Terrifying to see standard journalistic reporting of leaks from whistle-blowers criminalised, or rather the law being bent to criminalise it. Western liberal democracy also using private intelligence to spy on Assange and his lawyers while he was in the embassy.

[Kankurette]

Yes, because women who accuse powerful men of rape are always taken seriously. For fuck's sake.

I really need to avoid any threads on Assange because the message I'm getting from some of you on here is 'we only believe rape accusations when the rapist is someone we don't like'. You did it with Russell Brand and you're doing it with Assange. You're no better than football fans who get mad because their fave has been accused of rape. And don't anyone DM me about this to educate me on how wrong I am, please.

[Buelligan]

Admiral John Byng drops into thread.

Isn't it like the old antisemitism.  Rape is real and terrible.  Which makes it worse when it's used as a weapon.

[Zero Gravitas]

Extrajudicial exceptionality is as central to state power as laws themselves are.

What, you want people fucking around on weird little websites?

[Buelligan]

Love the idea that our clean-handed governments really had to do something about Assange's sex crimes.  Because they always pull out all the stops when someone's attacked.  We all know that.

[shoulders]

Yes, because women who accuse powerful men of rape are always taken seriously. For fuck's sake.

I really need to avoid any threads on Assange because the message I'm getting from some of you on here is 'we only believe rape accusations when the rapist is someone we don't like'. You did it with Russell Brand and you're doing it with Assange. You're no better than football fans who get mad because their fave has been accused of rape. And don't anyone DM me about this to educate me on how wrong I am, please.

Thanks for a near crystalline example of what I was talking about.

I'll skip the DM and do this here.

You obviously didn't read my own post because I signposted how much  I don't like him. So what you have said is inapplicable.

Surprised there are still people holding to this in 2024. How far can you miss a point while still essentially have read a post?

I second what Buelligan said.

[Old Thrashbarg]

Yeah, the issue is not really whether the rape allegation was genuine or not (beyond the obvious seriousness of the crime and the impact on the victim, which should go without saying), but how the allegation has been used by various governments as a means to a nefarious end. If there hadn't been a rape allegation someone would've found indecent images of children on his computer. Or he'd have been implicated in a dog-fighting syndicate. Or some other crime that would cause the vast majority of people to immediately mark him down as a wrong 'un.

[Funcrusher]

Accusations against Joe Biden have certainly been treated with equal seriousness by liberals and their media outlets.

[shoulders]

Accusations against Joe Biden have certainly been treated with equal seriousness by liberals and their media outlets.

Very worthwhile observation.

[imitationleather]

So many people are like "Well I don't like him", as though being a bit of a bellend is justification for years of captivity.

[iamcoop]

Did he smear his shit all over the walls of the embassy?

My mate chunk did that at a house party once and he was tanned on the jaw on the driveway for it.

Yet again it's one rule for mop-headed security leaking funsters and another for hodd-carriers from Tilehurst.

[imitationleather]

Eh, it's just like I always say: You've gotta smear something.

[Funcrusher]

The charges for which he is facing life in a supermax or the death penalty aren't sexual offences anyway. The Swedish case I believe has been dropped and the circumstances surrounding it are very murky.

[Buelligan]

It's so much easier, isn't it?

Either, it's likely a vicious smear and we have to think about what's best.  We have to do something because this is fucking serious.  Is it really best to stand by his right to a speedy and fair trial?  Is it really best to let him open his mouth to an audience again?  To let people believe they can get away with letting people know they're being ruled by lying gangsters, murderers, evil fucking monsters?  Is that best?  Confronting that?  When we all know we're never going to confront it.

We are never going throw off that yoke, those blinkers.  We are never going to allow ourselves to see reality.  And the fight will take decades.

Or should be just write him off as a wrong 'un and watch Strickly Downton?

Which is nicer?

[checkoutgirl]

Why do I want Assange to be left alone for mishandling/publishing privileged information but I want Trump to go to jail for it?

[druss]

Why do I want Assange to be left alone for mishandling/publishing privileged information but I want Trump to go to jail for it?

Because his name is a fart.

[Buelligan]

I don't want Trump to go to jail for that.  But I do want him to slip off the top rail of a gate and land on his bollocks.  Not for that.  Just because.

[madhair60]

I don't want Trump to go to jail for that.  But I do want him to slip off the top rail of a gate and land on his bollocks.  Not for that.  Just because.

well i have some great news: this has just happened!

[Butchers Blind]

This cunt fucked off to America yet?

[Good One of Wally]

Years in solitairy confinement? Why is this? Is there any justification apart from torture?
Is this, as several experts have stated, about "the greatest threat to press freedoms since World War 2?

Power, enormous power, is threatened, and it is in the nature of human beings to fall in line to protect their status in the system.

A system that protects itself, as it always has, through the inhibition of communication.

Commuication always starts with information:
Information → idea (the fundamental organic process of communication) means that:
Better information → better idea

Amd the only way we can try to understand anything better is by asking and checking.

If your idea of Assange is a rapist who smears shit on his hosts walls, you might want to check where you got those ideas from.

As an example of how things work, a couple of years ago, Roger Waters sang Wish You Were Here outside the Home Office in support of Assange. There was not one news outlet in the UK which reported on it.

I'd ask why that is, but I never practiced asking and checking in school.

[iamcoop]

Roger Waters sang Wish You Were Here outside

Please, the man has suffered enough

[shoulders]

Why do I want Assange to be left alone for mishandling/publishing privileged information but I want Trump to go to jail for it?

Because of the obvious difference between whistleblowing and embezzlement/corruption?

[Good One of Wally]

Please, the man has suffered enough

That's certainly one idea.
Although Assange wasn't being held at the Home Office, so it was Priti Patel who had to suffer Waters' off-key caterwauling. Surely something we can all get behind?

[checkoutgirl]

Because of the obvious difference between whistleblowing and embezzlement/corruption?

It's only obvious if you understand what any of it means.

[Memorex MP3]

As an example of how things work, a couple of years ago, Roger Waters sang Wish You Were Here outside the Home Office in support of Assange. There was not one news outlet in the UK which reported on it.

If Waters really wanted it to be reported he'd've done something like perform a few songs off the Division Bell or something. You'd get "Roger Waters performs Pink Floyd songs for first time ever" articles. "Roger Waters does some political thing" is fairly tired ground at this stage and he's got such a high chance of saying some proper crank stuff that it's hard to rally behind him when he's right about something.

[iamcoop]

He should've covered something good instead, like Betty Davis Eyes or something by Gay Dad

[imitationleather]

Roger Waters is outside your home office and he's singing about how he wishes you were there. What are you going to do about it?

[Blumf]

Ask him to do The Fletcher Memorial Home

[BlodwynPig]

Ask him to do The Fletcher Memorial Home

Banger