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The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

greenleft.org.au

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Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#41

Post by jevgeni »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #37
jevgeni wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They never seem to publish any serious leaks pertaining to other countries with imperialist ambitions. For example, what bothered me, is that there wasn't anything on Russia. For example, the leaked Surkov emails (which among other things exposed Russian plans for the separatists in Ukraine) had to go through 4chan and other ad hoc channels, but not through Wikileaks. Couple that with the fact that the person respons…

Why would anyone in Russia with access to classified information send it to Wikileaks, an organization with zero Russian speakers and extremely limited influence in Eastern Europe. They would have far better options available to them. This criticism comes up often, but it assumes a conspiracy is necessary for the expected behavior. How many Russian language news stories does your local paper cover? Assange does not n…

Since Russian is my native language, I read enough Russian papers. And I can tell when a western outlet overlaps with the official Russian party line a bit too much for comfort.

So, I guess you admit that WL has a western bias?

Also, they don’t really have any better options. Just FYI.

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#42

Post by [deleted] »

disgu wrote: post #27
varjag wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because Russia Today promotes official Russian policy, with Stalinism whitewashing being one its major component.

To be fair, pretty much every country aside from Germany is whitewashing their past with the help of the media. Some call it propaganda, some call it patriotism, some call it "promoting of state policy" but it's all the same thing.

[deleted]

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#43

Post by varjag »

maze-le wrote: post #33
disgu wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

To be fair, pretty much every country aside from Germany is whitewashing their past with the help of the media. Some call it propaganda, some call it patriotism, some call it "promoting of state policy" but it's all the same thing.

To be fair, even in Germany there is a substantial amount of whitewashing the past. Be it the founding of the BND predecessor "Organization Gehlen" or the Nazi sympathizers that worked as judges and prosecutors in the federal Republic. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gehlen_Organization

Russian official line is that partitioning of Poland with Hitler was justified. What is the official German position? (but but both sides, sure yeah)

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#44

Post by jevgeni »

jackthezipper wrote: post #36
jevgeni wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When I say “it is difficult to imagine”, what I mean by that is that it is highly unlikely, especially considering how Assange has a history of withholding leaks from publication for his own reasons. Conflict with Domscheit-Berg being pretty indicative of this behaviour. The Spy Files are not really ground breaking for the Russian public. The Panama Papers were more damning, where a bunch of Russian officials got cau…

IIRC the conflict with Domscheit-Berg was because Assange wanted to publish the war logs unredacted, no? It had nothing to do with Assange withholding leaks, quite the opposite. And wasn't it Domscheit-Berg who actually deleted unreleased documents from the Wikileaks servers?

Well, it was a bit more complicated, because there wasn’t any transparency in what leaks WL was in possession of (only Assange held such info) and because Assange published information that had little public relevance, but brought him fame.

Also, not really clear why WL would attack Panama papers...

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#45

Post by boomboomsubban »

jevgeni wrote: post #41
boomboomsubban wrote: post #37

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would anyone in Russia with access to classified information send it to Wikileaks, an organization with zero Russian speakers and extremely limited influence in Eastern Europe. They would have far better options available to them. This criticism comes up often, but it assumes a conspiracy is necessary for the expected behavior. How many Russian language news stories does your local paper cover? Assange does not n…

Since Russian is my native language, I read enough Russian papers. And I can tell when a western outlet overlaps with the official Russian party line a bit too much for comfort. So, I guess you admit that WL has a western bias? Also, they don’t really have any better options. Just FYI.

Wikileaks unquestionably has a bias towards English speaking nations. That is why their leaks primarily are about America.

If your criticism is that they didn't build a strong enough international team, remember that Assange spent most of their history unable to leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Those years treated as an enemy also likely led to him sympathizing with countries that aren't calling for his head. That isn't why they don't publish Russian leaks though.

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#46

Post by dependenttypes »

jevgeni wrote: post #21
Nitrolo wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have to admit I don't know a lot about the history of Wikileaks (I was still in school when they started going after Assange), but how did it hurt democratic movements in developing countries?

They never seem to publish any serious leaks pertaining to other countries with imperialist ambitions. For example, what bothered me, is that there wasn't anything on Russia. For example, the leaked Surkov emails (which among other things exposed Russian plans for the separatists in Ukraine) had to go through 4chan and other ad hoc channels, but not through Wikileaks. Couple that with the fact that the person respons…

I fail to see how focusing on the americas "it hurt democratic movements in third world countries". Are you saying that it would have been better if they never published anything?

I would certainly like it if the published absolutely everything that they had (in fact, I would argue that not publishing them would be unethical unless if they use said information as an insurance in order to make sure that for example Assange gets free) but I would not go as far as to claim that they did any harm.

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#47

Post by jevgeni »

boomboomsubban wrote: post #45
jevgeni wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since Russian is my native language, I read enough Russian papers. And I can tell when a western outlet overlaps with the official Russian party line a bit too much for comfort. So, I guess you admit that WL has a western bias? Also, they don’t really have any better options. Just FYI.

Wikileaks unquestionably has a bias towards English speaking nations. That is why their leaks primarily are about America. If your criticism is that they didn't build a strong enough international team, remember that Assange spent most of their history unable to leave the Ecuadorian embassy. Those years treated as an enemy also likely led to him sympathizing with countries that aren't calling for his head. That isn't…

WL tried to discredit the Panama Papers (which feature some prominent Russian officials). That doesn’t look like just a factor of not having an international team.

Re: The Stalinist Trial of Julian Assange

#48

Post by quink »

quink wrote: post #3

Quick bit of recent background on the author, I don't think it's an ad hominem as it's at least peripherally relevant to the matter of what's being discussed here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Pilger#Russia > On the Poisoning of Sergei and Yulia Skripal in Salisbury, Wiltshire on 4 March 2018, Pilger said in an interview on RT (formerly Russia Today): "This is a carefully constructed drama as part of the propag…

(minor clarification: not too wrong in the linked article, but definitely on the side of very wrong in those past statements)
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