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Julian Assange in Limbo

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Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#131

Post by [deleted] »

jsf01 wrote: post #100
dang wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you didn't routinely break the site guidelines you'd find it easy enough to participate. Note that this thread is on the front page.

Seems common here that many interesting discussions are also controversial and therefore result in a lot of downvotes. It’s a pain to read downvoted comments because of the low contrast despite them sometimes being insightful yet unpopular. I also catch myself automatically taking a harsher stance towards grayed out messages before even reading them. I wouldn’t be surprised if many downvotes come in after the initial…

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#133

Post by voxic11 »

theferalrobot wrote: post #9
us0r wrote: post #4

> After long research, his team of 120 counterintelligence officers hadn’t been able to find a single person, among the thousands of American agents and secret sources in Afghanistan and Iraq, who could be shown to have died because of the disclosures. Sounds like the NSA who couldn't point to a single instance of stopping any type of terrorist attack/operation despite collecting anything they could get their hands o…

> Sounds like the NSA who couldn't point to a single instance of stopping any type of terrorist attack/operation despite collecting anything they could get their hands on. This can’t be true - there are plenty of sources citing foiled plots and we see similar publications from other governments (EU and beyond) citing similar justifications. A quick google yields: https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/nsa-director-50-potent…

Those stories are from 2013 and later investigation found them to be false claims.

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/nsa-program-stopped-no-te...

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#134

Post by jerkstate »

fit2rule wrote: post #124
jerkstate wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Come on. Trump's base thinks Snowden is a patriot. Do you even know Roger Stone?

Snowden is a patriot in my mind, and I'm no Trump supporter. Just because you associate Snowden with Trump, as per standard agitprop victim procedure, doesn't mean that you should ignore the very real criminal behaviour that Snowden revealed to the world. You should probably pay more attention to the fact of illegal behaviour, more than playing cult doll games ..

Every time I say something that can vaguely be construed as not correctly hating Trump or his supporters on this forum I get responses like this, using insulting emotional phrases like “cult doll games.” I was merely pointing out what I see as a misconception in his likely motivations. I still think the scenario GP presented is extremely unlikely and alarmist, why would you call my post agitprop and not that one?

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#135

Post by luckylion »

jariel wrote: post #115
AndrewBissell wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That gigabyte of private information was released and there wasn't a single scandal of it shows how tight the operation was, moreover any reading of the cables demonstrates how well the US diplomatic corps were actually doing their jobs. No, it just shows how subservient to U.S. foreign policy the American press is (they did not undertake any widespread publishing of embarrassing details from the cables), and how u…

"No, it just shows how subservient to U.S. foreign policy the American press is " This is demonstrably false. Forst - the press loves a scandal, it's what they live on. They were happy to talk about Snowden, Assange etc. for quite a long time. You're literally saying the press is acting against their own best interest and purpose which is upside down. Second - we don't need the press to find wrongdoing. It's all ther…

> You're literally saying the press is acting against their own best interest and purpose which is upside down.

Are you suggesting that them acting a certain way shows that acting that way is in their best interest (because they wouldn't act that way otherwise)? Are you sure they know what cause of action is in their best interest? Are you sure they consider "their best interest" to be the same you consider it to be?

Is the 24/7 news cycle hype in the best interest of "the media"? Was the war-drumming with barely any skepticism about the Iraq war(s) in their best interest?

> Second - we don't need the press to find wrongdoing. It's all there for you to see. Where is the scandal?

What? The public at large gets their information from the press. If the press does not report, it does not happen for large parts of the public. That's why taking control of the press is usually the first thing during any coup and for any authoritarian state.

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#136

Post by kick »

corty wrote: post #74
mnm1 wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And these are the scumbags we're supposed to honor, thank, and in the future remember fondly? Memorial and veterans' days should only apply to soldiers who fought in wars against their will (drafted) or had a basis in reality. Last one was WWII. The scumbags who fought in later wars should question their life decisions. Some of them regret it already. Good.

Wasn't there a draft for the Vietnam war? And probably also Korea? One of the issues I can remember there is that less-well-off people couldn't buy themselves out of the draft. This affected minorities especially.

Vietnam yes, Korea yes, laughably easy to dodge in both cases for poor and rich alike.

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#137

Post by eyelidlessness »

alentist wrote: post #71
eyelidlessness wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm a victim of sexual assault, I know how to read the words and how to read charges.

I’m a victim of sexual assault as well, and what you said is not true.

You are welcome to disagree with me about what constitutes consent. But what I don't accept is randos on the internet defining consent on "were charges filed". You likely know as well as I do that the vast majority of sexual assaults go unreported, and that most which are reported either go uninvestigated or are retraumatizing for the victim.

I stand by my position that having sex with someone in a way they explicitly did not give consent to, even if they consented to other terms, is rape.

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#138

Post by eyelidlessness »

dependenttypes wrote: post #94
eyelidlessness wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In case you're not aware, having sex with someone outside the terms they consented to (use of an intact condom, awake and present) is rape. Even if the person who experienced it doesn't explicitly say so.

> In case you're not aware, having sex with someone outside the terms they consented to (use of an intact condom, awake and present) is rape Not true at least in California. Even then though, would you consider someone who has sex with his girlfriend under the terms that he will not cheat on her a rapist if he ends up cheating on her? I think that you undermining the meaning of rape if you use it for something like t…

> Even then though, would you consider someone who has sex with his girlfriend under the terms that he will not cheat on her a rapist if he ends up cheating on her?

No, and I can't tell if you're trolling or if you don't understand the words I wrote.

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#139

Post by Emma_Goldman »

runawaybottle wrote: post #52
deathgrips wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This implies that there are political motives that justify killing thousands to millions of soldiers and civilians. Can you or anyone here provide a non-exhaustive list of these justifiable motives?

Money? Grab some books on the Iraq war. There’s plenty of money involved in making and buying rockets to throw at a country (defense industry), then rebuilding said country (defense contracting), then securing that country’s resources (oil industry), all while winning re-election (Politics). In Medieval (Antiquity too? Goes pretty far back) terms, this is often called Plundering. There’s a real market for it.

There is no doubt whatsoever that the war on terror has been a calamitous waste of money. One reason for the precipitous decline in war over the last seventy year is precisely that it no longer pays:

(i) it does not pay to wage war because it has become highly resource-intensive and technologically sophisticated, and often involves protracted low-intensity campaigns against asymmetric guerrillas.

(ii) it does not pay to win wars because we now realise that land is not the principal variable of national economic growth, but the place of an economy in the global value-added supply chain.

I think the first motive was moral and political (along the lines of neoconservatism), and the second reason was a geopolitical vision of a reconstructed Middle East pliable to American demands, open to democratic reforms, and aligned with the interests of Israel.

Re: Julian Assange in Limbo

#140

Post by dependenttypes »

eyelidlessness wrote: post #138
dependenttypes wrote: post #94

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In case you're not aware, having sex with someone outside the terms they consented to (use of an intact condom, awake and present) is rape Not true at least in California. Even then though, would you consider someone who has sex with his girlfriend under the terms that he will not cheat on her a rapist if he ends up cheating on her? I think that you undermining the meaning of rape if you use it for something like t…

> Even then though, would you consider someone who has sex with his girlfriend under the terms that he will not cheat on her a rapist if he ends up cheating on her? No, and I can't tell if you're trolling or if you don't understand the words I wrote.

> No, and I can't tell if you're trolling or if you don't understand the words I wrote.

Have you considered the possibility that both of these cases are false?

What makes you think that cheating in this case is not a break of the terms of the concent?

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