Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison • Hacker News Board

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#201

Post by diminish » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

fenomas wrote: post #166

Synaesthesia wrote: post #82

Wikileaks has a faultless record. They’ve never had to retract a publication. Assange, like him not not, was a reporter, who reported uncomfortable facts about the military and our ruling class. He is being punished, tortured really for this “crime”. He has been endlessly and baselessly slandered. All that alleged bad behaviour while he was imprisoned in the embassy ... funny how there’s been no footage of it, despit…

The most detailed, nuanced account of Assange I've seen is this one[0] by Andrew O'Hagan (an author hired to ghostwrite Assange's autobiography who spent a year or so in and out of his orbit). And it's hard to square that account with the image of Assange as a journalist who's being persecuted for the truths he's shared. Though O'Hagan is sympathetic in many ways he doesn't sugarcoat anything, and I came away with th…

Assange is the luckiest of the many heroes of the journalism where even Guardian, NYT and SZ were left as establishmemt propaganda machines with command chain news.

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#202

Post by [deleted] » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:39 PM UTC

toomanybeersies wrote: post #151

rebuilder wrote: post #102

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That seems a bit simplistic. There's a wide range of crimes you can commit on-line without ever entering the jurisdiction of the victims.

Yes, just ask Kim Dotcom, who has also tried to jump on the "persecuted internet freedom fighter" bandwagon.

[deleted]

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#203

Post by tdcbfdct3 » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #82

Wikileaks has a faultless record. They’ve never had to retract a publication. Assange, like him not not, was a reporter, who reported uncomfortable facts about the military and our ruling class. He is being punished, tortured really for this “crime”. He has been endlessly and baselessly slandered. All that alleged bad behaviour while he was imprisoned in the embassy ... funny how there’s been no footage of it, despit…

> Wikileaks has a faultless record.

How about this bullshit Steve Jobs AIDS diagnosis?

https://file.wikileaks.org/file/steve-jobs-hiv/steve-jobs-hi...

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#204

Post by duelingjello » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:40 PM UTC

Synaesthesia wrote: post #82

Wikileaks has a faultless record. They’ve never had to retract a publication. Assange, like him not not, was a reporter, who reported uncomfortable facts about the military and our ruling class. He is being punished, tortured really for this “crime”. He has been endlessly and baselessly slandered. All that alleged bad behaviour while he was imprisoned in the embassy ... funny how there’s been no footage of it, despit…

In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. - George Orwell

Speaking truth to power is something the corporate-owned fourth estate no longer engages in, and instead discards civil discourse and individuals with integrity because reality is inconvenient compared to fanning the flames with phony-outrage clickbait, replacing it with corporate-led fascism and intolerance masquerading as liberalism. Here are just some of the heroes of freedom:

- Phil Donahue (completely gave up a promising career)

- Jesse Ventura

- Cenk Uyghur *

- Chris Hedges

- Julian Assange

- Chelsea Manning

- Aaron Schwartz

- John Kiriakou *

- Daniel Ellsberg *

- Gary Webb

- Robert Parry *

- Max Blumenthal *

- Aaron Maté *

- Lee Camp *

- Jeremy Scahill *

- Glenn Greenwald *

* The few, lucky ones

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#205

Post by malvosenior » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:41 PM UTC

gamblor956 wrote: post #165

Synaesthesia wrote: post #82

Wikileaks has a faultless record. They’ve never had to retract a publication. Assange, like him not not, was a reporter, who reported uncomfortable facts about the military and our ruling class. He is being punished, tortured really for this “crime”. He has been endlessly and baselessly slandered. All that alleged bad behaviour while he was imprisoned in the embassy ... funny how there’s been no footage of it, despit…

Today I learned that publishing numerous documents entirely it partially forged by Russian Intelligence counts as a faultless record.

What was forged by Russian Intelligence?

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#206

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:46 PM UTC

plutonorm wrote: post #19

threeseed wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It is alleged that Assange coordinated with Chelsea Manning and the Russian government to obtain information for Wikileaks. This would make him an active conspirator in breaking the law. Completely different from Facebook, Google, Twitter etc where they merely provide a platform for others to upload content and aren't actively involved in sourcing illegal content.

Authoritarians emphasise the fact he broke laws, everyone else appreciates the moral act.

> Authoritarians emphasise the fact he broke laws, everyone else appreciates the moral act.

It was an immoral act done as far as I can tell, for immoral purposes, which were successfully attained. That it was also illegal is why it can be punished rather than merely pointed to as the kind of thing that must be tolerated despite its immorality.

The argument has, however, been made that the law as it is prohibits some other acts that are not so immoral and it could not effectively address what Assange did without so doing, and so it should be narrowed (or treated as more narrow by the executive) so as to let Assange go free in order to not chill more legitimate acts. This is, IMO, a not entirely unreasonable argument that I can respect, though I am unconvinced by it as yet.

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#207

Post by aldoushuxley001 » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:47 PM UTC

I forgot that HN is a place of massive censorship, so unfortunate that people have gamed HN to censor views they don't like. I don't blame dang or anyone like that, it's just the way HN works and has been gamed, but it really shows the limits of reasonable discourse on this platform.

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#208

Post by corporate_shi11 » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:48 PM UTC

NovemberWhiskey wrote: post #172

malvosenior wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> People sided with him because they believed he was impartial, and turned away from him when it was clear he wasn't. He literally provided evidence of mainstream media being highly impartial in favor of Clinton (against Sanders and Trump). If people cared about impartiality, they’d be on Wikileaks side here.

>He literally provided evidence of mainstream media being highly impartial in favor of Clinton (against Sanders and Trump). If people cared about impartiality, they’d be on Wikileaks side here. Good quality newspapers tend to separate reporting and editorials/opinion fairly clearly, but have always contained both. It is also wholly common for newspapers to endorse candidates for high political office within the edito…

Most of the "news" reported by mainstream newspapers and news stations is almost across the board anti-Trump and anti-conservative. It is extremely biased, but tries to keep up the appearance of being unbiased, which is part of why the unaware masses consider them mainstream and standard bearers of truth.

What WikiLeaks revealed was the extent of this bias. If what the mainstream news networks and their executives are doing is acceptable, then what's the problem with WikiLeaks revealing it? The problem is that opponents of the Right understand how damaging it is to the image of the mainstream news networks - which shape the opinion of tens of millions in America and across the world - for the people to understand just how biased they really are.

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#209

Post by dragonwriter » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:49 PM UTC

INGELRII wrote: post #45

plutonorm wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Authoritarians emphasise the fact he broke laws, everyone else appreciates the moral act.

It's not mutually exclusive. * Sometimes individuals must break the law for greater good. This is called civil disobedience, or civil resistance. * Just because one is breaking the law for common good, civil servants can't and should not be expected to stop enforcing the law. If you allow that, it's the end of the rule of law based society. The whole idea of just society is that you restrict what individuals in the g…

> civil servants can't and should not be expected to stop enforcing the law

In general, criminal law permits but does not mandate prosecution and every prosecution is a judgement about not only the law but policy priorities. This argument is almost completely vacuous where it concerns offenses primarily against the state (it has some weight in equal protection terms when there are victims besides the state and the issue is whether the state is discriminating among victims on improper grounds in the manner in which it chooses to prosecute or not prosecute offenses against them.)

Re: Julian Assange “slowly dying” and “often sedated” in Belmarsh prison

#210

Post by jml78 » Sat, Dec 28, 2019, 5:50 PM UTC

malvosenior wrote: post #205

gamblor956 wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Today I learned that publishing numerous documents entirely it partially forged by Russian Intelligence counts as a faultless record.

What was forged by Russian Intelligence?

You do know that Wikileaks was on the verge of releasing damaging info on Putin. Then magically it never happened after Assange was visited by Russian agents.

Sorry they are nothing more than a propaganda machine of Russia at this point.

They went political in the last election choosing to keep GOP documents silenced and release the DNC data.

I have no issue if Wikileaks wasn’t playing political games. But they are.....