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Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

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Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#181

Post by Zak »

starkd wrote: post #80
starkd wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I will also note that the cash burn rate for this war in Ukraine is now exceeding that of Afghanistan in the early years. It is more money after nothing, because they won't even define what victory means. Just more war slogans.

I think the Ukrainian government has defined victory as driving the Russian military out of all Ukrainian territory, including Crimea.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#182

Post by bandyaboot »

pessimizer wrote: post #141
bandyaboot wrote: post #105

The impact Assange and Wikileaks have had in exposing nefarious government secrets shouldn’t be forgotten. But, the damage that they’ve suffered to their reputation is entirely deserved. I don’t believe for a second that they didn’t know what they were doing when they partnered with Russia in 2016 to help draw as much attention as possible to the DNC emails—that is, engaging in an asymmetric political operation. That…

> I don’t believe for a second that they didn’t know what they were doing when they partnered with Russia in 2016 to help draw as much attention as possible to the DNC emails I don't know why you would talk like this. This is just a big lie wrapped in a sarcastic and condescending tone substituting for evidence. What you believe is not interesting to people, they care why you believe it because you may have an argume…

> That’s confirmed by the way they released the information—spaced out for maximum effect right up until the election.

Did you miss this part where I gave a reason for why I don’t believe it?

As far the rest of your personal diatribe—maybe consider for a second the possibility that you might not be able to reliably deduce the subtleties of person’s politics by reading between the lines of a single comment on hn? Jeez, get over yourself.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#183

Post by starkd »

mindslight wrote: post #149
starkd wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its pretty obvious this is a proxy war. Many legislators (both republican and democrat) are openly admitting it. See Dan Crenshaw-TX openly claim the benefits to the Ukraine war being able to fight a major geopolitical rival (Russia) with no American casualties by supplying weapons to Ukraine. That is a proxy war by definition. Looks at comments from Victoria Nuland (state dept officials from both parties) be…

I had thought there was some merit to the term "proxy war" here. But actually no, it's just another bit of specious nonsense. Thank you for making me look it up! Wikipedia: A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities Calling this a proxy war ignores the part of the d…

Its a proxy war because US is using Ukraine as an convenient excuse to take Russia down a few pegs militarily. US Rep. Dan Crenshaw-TX admitted it, saying that its a way to fight Russia on the cheap with no American casualties. Of course, that compeletely minimizes the Ukrainian casualties that it would take. Its not being done in the interest of Ukraine so much as the interest of fighting Russia. Ukraine is being used here, and they are likely to lose anyway. And even if they do win, and Russia is defeated, they will be so ravaged it, it will be little better than a pyrrhic victory. But BlackRock will have a great place to invest. Too bad for those who died.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#184

Post by the_third_wave »

mhh__ wrote: post #30
superkuh wrote: post #2

It's pretty clear what happened. People started to view the reporting of Wikileaks as evil or fake as soon as it negatively impacted $theirpoliticalside. Once these perceptions fell into place it was easy to disregard all the good, villify him personally, and ignore the authoritarian and illegal actions taken against him.

WikiLeaks arguably helped people to do that quite effectively. They've never really claimed to be neutral but especially around 2016 they were either getting played by or explicitly choosing to aid the trump campaign via the Russian state (at best as a messenger). III.B.3 of the Mueller report I don't know if they are evil but I find it very hard to view them as anything other than selectively truthful at best.

> III.B.3 of the Mueller report

The 'Russian collusion case' has been thoroughly discredited so why do you bring it up here, other than to muddle the issue?

If you want to have a clear case of meddling with presidential elections I'd point at the Hillary Clinton campaign and Democratic National Committee funding of the Steele dossier. Should that be brought up here as well? The 'dossier' was also discredited but it was used in the same way the data from Wikileaks was used to target Clinton. The difference here was that the data on Clinton was true while the 'Steele dossier' was fictitious.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#185

Post by starkd »

SideburnsOfDoom wrote: post #139
starkd wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Quite a few. I try to listen to what everyone is saying. It always makes me nervous when the media seem to march in lockstep. Looks into what David Sacks has been saying. He got into it on the ALL-in podcast a couple of weeks ago, but you can find him on Twitter. He says the corruption in Ukraine right now is off the charts. Higher than anything in any corrupt Latin American country. Its difficult to decipher what is…

> Quite a few. name a top three then, or can we assume that this is "random forwards on FaceBook or twitter" ?

No idea what a random forwards is.

Look at what David Sacks has been saying. There are many benefiting from this war. Neither Russia nor ukraine are on that list.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#186

Post by mariusor »

bayesian_horse wrote: post #152

Julian Assange has not been charged with exposing secrets or being inconvenient for the powers that be. He has been charged on the quite plausible accusation of helping Chelsea Manning illegally acquire these secrets. There are lines journalists (and you can debate if he is a journalist) are not supposed to cross, this is one of them. Most of the negative consequences in his life stem from him running from this accus…

The timeline is actually a bit different. The US espionage charges came into the light after Ecuador revoked his asylum and Assange was arrested by the UK police. He was hiding on the suspicion that Sweden would extradite him to the US and everyone made fun of him and called him paranoid for 7 years.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#187

Post by mindslight »

starkd wrote: post #183
mindslight wrote: post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I had thought there was some merit to the term "proxy war" here. But actually no, it's just another bit of specious nonsense. Thank you for making me look it up! Wikipedia: A proxy war is an armed conflict between two states or non-state actors, one or both of which act at the instigation or on behalf of other parties that are not directly involved in the hostilities Calling this a proxy war ignores the part of the d…

Its a proxy war because US is using Ukraine as an convenient excuse to take Russia down a few pegs militarily. US Rep. Dan Crenshaw-TX admitted it, saying that its a way to fight Russia on the cheap with no American casualties. Of course, that compeletely minimizes the Ukrainian casualties that it would take. Its not being done in the interest of Ukraine so much as the interest of fighting Russia. Ukraine is being us…

The motivations of the US are independent of the motivations of Ukraine. Ukraine is not fighting to benefit the US by taking down Russia, but rather to preserve their own independence. This is why it is not a "proxy war" - the US acting to help its own interests does not make it into one. Otherwise every single war would be a "proxy war", making the term useless.

You continue to conflate the actions of Ukraine with the actions of its allies, by using the passive voice to remove Ukraine's agency. This is directly in line with the Russian imperial propaganda narrative that wants to brush aside the idea that Ukraine is an independent country.

Also, appealing to the tyrannical nature of the US-led financial system is fallacious here, as being economically oppressed is much nicer than being militarily oppressed. You keep throwing out these "deaths" as if they've only occurred due to Ukraine not surrendering, while Russia's liquidations in the occupied areas demonstrate that Ukrainians are actually fighting for their own lives.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#188

Post by monetus »

WarOnPrivacy wrote: post #161
monetus wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> There is no confession if that is what you are asking for. Your parent said: but he did achieve his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign [here is an] Old interview of him talking about it: (link) That seems to clearly imply that Assange would talk about his specific goal of tanking Clinton's campaign. >Thanks for the polity - the undertone of your question implies he has to confess that word for word for tha…

I re-read the article, and they have a single sentence about the Mueller report - which claimed that they know the IP address of the specific GRU network which hacked the DNC, iirc. Crowd strike is a private company, I wouldn't expect them to have Pwned the GRU. Think that is how the Mueller report was able to say they have an IP? You should at best find a proxy IP when looking from the DNC's servers right? The article mocks this, putting exfiltrated in quotes. Sources and methods won't be publicized to be verified, so we are left with the fricken intelligence community's word (I'm assuming). Crowd strike is hilarious, in that they were so useful for creating political narratives, in more than one way.

I am curious if he thought he was targeting the DNC, because his public presence was disproportionately about things related to them. Notably, Daniel hale chose not to leak to them.

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#189

Post by starkd »

luckylion wrote: post #135
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…

Of course Russia has vital interests all around it: everyone does. But it doesn't follow that "therefore Russia should be allowed to annex everything around it". Again, we know that playbook, it has played out before in Europe. Today it's Ukraine, tomorrow it's Poland, and your arguments will still be exactly the same: Russia has vital interests in Poland, Russia has occupied Poland before, Poland is outgunned, and w…

[flagged]

Re: Alternative facts: How the media failed Julian Assange

#190

Post by bayesian_horse »

mariusor wrote: post #186
bayesian_horse wrote: post #152

Julian Assange has not been charged with exposing secrets or being inconvenient for the powers that be. He has been charged on the quite plausible accusation of helping Chelsea Manning illegally acquire these secrets. There are lines journalists (and you can debate if he is a journalist) are not supposed to cross, this is one of them. Most of the negative consequences in his life stem from him running from this accus…

The timeline is actually a bit different. The US espionage charges came into the light after Ecuador revoked his asylum and Assange was arrested by the UK police. He was hiding on the suspicion that Sweden would extradite him to the US and everyone made fun of him and called him paranoid for 7 years.

As I said, he was hiding from rape and espionage/computer hacking charges. There's nothing fishy about either of those, conspiracy theories not withstanding.

"Everyone made fun of him" is a large overstatement. He didn't want to face any of the three or four justice systems he was dealing with (Uk, Sweden, US and Australia) so he opted to go into Asylum in that embassy. He could have been convicted (or acquitted) of those charges and gotten pardoned by now.

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