Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

harpers.org

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

121–130 of 355 posts

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#121

Post by starkd »

mopsi wrote: post #92
starkd wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, noticed "walks back". He just said he is now "unsure". Why did he say it in the first place? Sounds like the US put the squeeze on him, so he "walked it back". Nevertheless, there was SOMETHING on the table that could have been the basis for talks. They ruled it out of hand. Business Insider is a rag, not credible.

His words were initially taken out of context; he meant that allies stopped pressuring Ukraine into a peace deal after mass graves were uncovered in Bucha. That's the only source for this conspiracy theory. It goes against your whole narrative of how the US is forcing Ukraine into a war.

There was still a basis on which talks could have been opened up. The fact they were entirely nixed shows they are not interested.

200,000 Ukrainian deaths when they can't even define what victory looks like beyond slogans. They are trying to fight a war on the cheap so long as no American casualties happen, but they are perfectly fine so long as they are Ukrainian casualties. At least, they could at least define what victory looks like and provide the means to do so.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#122

Post by pydry »

kspacewalk2 wrote: post #16
headsoup wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that's why people need to look past the character and heresays and look at the facts and processes. Ignore Assange's character, make him an anonymous person instead and think "is the process X person has gone through for Y actions reasonable/legal/supportable?" Should whistleblowers be supported or vilified?

Ignore Assange's character, focus on leaks of dubious, probably state actor origin, precisely timed in their release. Focus on which state propaganda network hosted his show, whom he met with in the embassy, etc.

If the USA were the source of a leaked Russian war crime would that discredit them?

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#123

Post by starkd »

misnome wrote: post #79
starkd wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Strange how you automatically feel the need to support one side and can't see the horrible outcome this has been for all parties. This could have been resolved through diplomacy. You never see the term even mentioned anymore.

One side could unilaterally end the war in one word. Strange that it’s only in the interests of that side that people call for this.

that's not how the world works. Peace deals can happen, but everyone has to put everything on the table. When people dig in and are stubborn, that's when we get hundreds of thousands of deaths.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#124

Post by naasking »

kerkeslager wrote: post #116
zzzeek wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He preferred the election of Donald Trump and worked to make that happen. His preferences in specific political outcomes are well known: https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks... So yes, that would be why $politicalside doesn't like him, because he aligned with a very specific, pro-fascist $politicalside (whether or not he is actually a fascist). downmod away folks but that's why $politicalside…

Having a preference you don't like is pretty different from "doing evil". I mean, I don't like that preference either, but the documents leaked were real, and I haven't heard that Wikileaks/Assange had equivalent dirt on Trump they could have leaked and didn't.

Even if he did have dirt on Trump and didn't publish it, I'm not sure why that's evil. Discussion of the Hunter Biden laptop was held back before the last election and most journalists still think that was perfectly justified. Either both are evil, or neither are, we should not apply double standards.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#125

Post by the_third_wave »

bandyaboot wrote: post #107
kerkeslager wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Put yourself in Wikileaks' shoes for a second: you have information, you might even know that the source is malicious, but you also know the information is true . Your mandate as an organization is to release truths. Are they really supposed to not release the truth because it hurts the Democrats? I'm not a Trump supporter by any means, but the truth is the truth. If we only care about the truth when it favors us, I…

Release the information when you get it and say, “do with this what you will.” Not at all what they did. They released in batches, for maximum effect, right up until the election. They knew exactly what they were doing.

That is more or less what the New York Post did with the information on the "Hunter Biden Laptop". It did not work out very well for the New York Post, nor for what is now finally being admitted as "the truth" - this being that the device was his, that the material on the device was his, that the material was not "obtained by hacking". It did work out quite well for Hunter Biden and his family which seems to have been the intended result.

Had Wikileaks done the same they would have met with the same fate: they would have been accused of being in bed with whatever enemy-du-jour could be concocted and the material would have been buried under miles of accusations.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#126

Post by starkd »

CamperBob2 wrote: post #106
starkd wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a more complex than that. I don't like the invasion, but its not like Russia has no vital interests in the area that is right on their border. And they have occupied Crimea in the past going back to 1776. I'm just saying they have as much national interest as the West does. Israel Prime Minister claims they had a deal that was agreed to but Biden administration turned it down. It's also the responsible thing…

Your casualty figures don't seem to line up with most other sources. Any citations?

The sources are all over the place, but they all seem to be horrific. There are estimates that Ukrainian deaths so far could be anywhere from 100K to 200K.

Russians have lost a lot too. But the only thing we know is that they are depressingly high.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#127

Post by ScoobleDoodle »

starkd wrote: post #76
mopsi wrote: post #69

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The moment you question the proxy war in Ukraine, you are immediately labelled a Putin apologist. Because the insistence of calling it a proxy war to make the war appear larger than it is comes from Kremlin's PR canon. They can't bring themselves to admit that they are losing to Ukraine and hence emphasise how they are "acktshually fighting against the whole NATO". Allies have given a lot of support, but mainly in…

Many us legislators are openly admitting it is a proxy war. See Rep. Dan Crenshaw-TX comments on Ukrain support. He calls it a good deal that we get to fight a major geo-political adversary without any American deaths by just supplying Ukraine with weapons. He is not the only one. That is by definition a proxy war. Fighting a war on the cheap that isn't designed to ultimately win anything, meanwhile sending 200,000 o…

[flagged]

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#128

Post by phphphphp »

kerkeslager wrote: post #75
phphphphp wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From the start, wikileaks was a partisan project masquerading as a righteous cause. Those of us old enough to remember their original releases (like “Collateral Murder”) remember that wikileaks was always about building a narrative rather than exposing the truth. Suggesting that people started thinking negatively about wikileaks once it came for “their side” is painfully revisionist. Many people believe wikileaks is…

The truth is a narrative. Not all narratives are true, but calling something a narrative doesn't in any way disprove it. Would you like to actually call out anything in Collateral Murder that you think wasn't exposing the truth? I'm old enough to remember Collateral Murder. I'm old enough to remember it's video footage. Of members of the US military murdering people, and laughing about it. You can't dismiss that as "…

I make no claim that collateral murder did not represent a war crime, I make no claim that the release of collateral murder was a bad thing, rather, I am claiming that Julian Assange was never a noble person releasing leaked footage to expose the truth, he was a political performer, creating the narrative that he wanted to create, using leaks as props. Julian Assange had no loyalty to the truth (as has been shown in the years since) and cares only for the “truth” when it’s favourable to whatever agenda he has at the point in time.

You can be glad that collateral murder was released while also being deeply unhappy with Julian Assange’s motives and actions.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#129

Post by monetus »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #114
monetus wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

“Rep. Dana Rohrabacher told Assange “on instructions from the president, he was offering a pardon or some other way out, if Mr. Assange ... said Russia had nothing to do with the DNC [Democratic National Committee] leaks,” The Daily Beast reported. He got stiffed in that respect, but he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign. Old interview of him talking about it: https://www.democracynow.org/201…

> he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign. I read thru that interview and wasn't able to suss out where Assange asserted he had a goal of tanking the Clinton campaign. Could you repost those lines here for us?

There is no confession if that is what you are asking for. His credibility relies on that not being his goal. Thanks for the polity - the undertone of your question implies he has to confess that word for word for that to be his intent.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#130

Post by leereeves »

the_third_wave wrote: post #125
bandyaboot wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Release the information when you get it and say, “do with this what you will.” Not at all what they did. They released in batches, for maximum effect, right up until the election. They knew exactly what they were doing.

That is more or less what the New York Post did with the information on the "Hunter Biden Laptop". It did not work out very well for the New York Post, nor for what is now finally being admitted as "the truth" - this being that the device was his, that the material on the device was his, that the material was not "obtained by hacking". It did work out quite well for Hunter Biden and his family which seems to have bee…

Or consider what the Clintons did to the many women who truthfully (we now know) accused Bill of sexual harassment.

There is no way to publish damaging information about the Clintons without being attacked for it.

Post reply on HN