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Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

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Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#911

Post by elliotto »

runlaszlorun wrote: post #858
jorblumesea wrote: post #840

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The entire point was to embarrass the US, not to take some high minded stance. Wikileaks has shown some extreme bias, after refusing to expose dirty secrets of the Kremlin. They are hardly some do-gooder organization. If it came out in 15 years that wikileaks was Russian funded, I would not be surprised. Spreading false rumors and misinformation, failure/refusal to fact check sources, anti-semitism, possibly editing…

This fact isn’t stated often enough. Not to mention the usually cited helicopter video is highly edited and anything but impartial, with an American Bradley fighting vehicle under ambush a block away as can be heard in the audio. And I can’t fathom why a journalist, accompanied by men with AK’s themselves, would be pointing what obviously looks like an RPG from a distance at troops in a firefight- not to mention brin…

Did you really watch the helicopter video and think 'wow the US military is definitely in the right!'. I was young when the video was released, and it was a huge step in my journey to becoming critical of imperial powers.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#912

Post by DaoVeles »

jfax wrote: post #777
drojas wrote: post #764

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more an…

This is beautifully articulated. I myself thought for a long time that if the day ever came that Assange walks free, I'd cry, but instead I feel a strange emptiness inside. The world isn't the one I'd imagined for this day.

Very understandable. There is an emptiness because it should have never come to this.

The last line of Chapter 31 Tao Te Ching sayings it right.

"Fine weapons are instruments of misfortune; all creatures fear them. In peace we favor creation; at war we favor destruction. Weapons are tools of misfortune, not the tools of the wise. The sage uses them only as the very last, with calm restraint. Victory is no cause for rejoicing; victory comes from killing. If you enjoy killing, you can never be fulfilled. When victorious, celebrate as if at a funeral."

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#913

Post by tophi »

hajile wrote: post #749
tophi wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheers. what say you to Navalny’s torture, detainment, and death?

Most reasonable people would denounce BOTH. You seem to be pushing toward the idea that "if they do something evil, my evil is no longer evil".

No, absolutely not. The West must be held to a higher standard and we have a duty to hold ourselves there, but too many are failing to understand the biggest threat to all the world’s freedom. Hint hint, it is the actual authoritarians.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#914

Post by elliotto »

sabarn01 wrote: post #783
gklitz wrote: post #540

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Clinton is not democracy. Anti-Clinton is not anti democracy. Being anti the US government is not anti democratic. And no, letting USA or any other nation for that matter commit war crimes quietly does not support democracy.

If Assange showed any interest in also undermining Russia or other authoritarian regimes I would feel more compassion. I think criticization of the US foreign policy is fine and the press has a role. To me his case has always been grey. States have secrets its just the nature of the world.

Do you think that killing swathes of civilians and children from helicopter is 'the nature of the world'?

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#915

Post by kbelder »

wizzwizz4 wrote: post #866
nikkwong wrote: post #850

Is anyone else here surprised that the reaction to him being free is so overwhelmingly positive? Assange certainly did great work to reveal government corruption and abuses of power. At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. It often seemed that he was working in his own self interest rather tha…

> At the same time, some state secrets are best kept secret for national interests and Assange seemed to show a lack of regard for protecting this type of information. Julian Assange was an irresponsible arsehole. Doesn't mean his treatment was anything resembling just. While he probably put a lot of people at risk , I've not heard of anyone actually getting hurt as a result of his actions. Given that, and given his…

Closest thing I've found in this thread to my own thoughts. I do think Assange was arrogant, personally dislikable, and had a particular grudge against the United States. This is different than my opinion of, for instance, Snowden, who seemed more motivated by a desire to trigger positive reform.

Regardless, Assange has been punished enough, particularly given the distasteful manner in which he was found guilty and imprisoned.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#916

Post by tophi »

pastage wrote: post #428
tophi wrote: post #343

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cheers. what say you to Navalny’s torture, detainment, and death?

Corrupting legal processes with a combination of weasel talk and bureaucracy is always the first step towards a Navalnyj situation. When that happens to political dissidents how ever bad they are we should all feel great concern. But I might missunderstand you.

1. I agree with you. 2. Assange is a Russian asset and the West’s (esp USAs) emphasis on freedom of speech puts us in a very difficult situation with respect to information dissemination. 3. This blind spot is being heavily leveraged to alarming success and Authoritarian regimes are gaining momentum with their goals. Mainly To destabilize democracies and make us all like them. We also want them to fail and be reborn as democracies. 4. I do not know how to navigate this challenge in an ethical/moral way. But i want to make sure we all recognize the biggest genuine threat to our descendants’ freedoms.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#917

Post by lmm »

jorblumesea wrote: post #840
drojas wrote: post #764

This is almost bringing me to tears today. I am happy he's finally going to be free but I am still in deep sadness because this is not the world we are supposed to living in. With all of our knowledge and technology we are still doing horrible things as a civilization and we have lost control of our leadership. This scares me a lot because it is a growing problem and every day it seems like humanity is losing more an…

The entire point was to embarrass the US, not to take some high minded stance. Wikileaks has shown some extreme bias, after refusing to expose dirty secrets of the Kremlin. They are hardly some do-gooder organization. If it came out in 15 years that wikileaks was Russian funded, I would not be surprised. Spreading false rumors and misinformation, failure/refusal to fact check sources, anti-semitism, possibly editing…

Even if everything you say is true (and FWIW I think you're exaggerating a lot), so what? None of that makes them not journalism or not free speech. They're clearly not a spy agency. They published important facts and that's something we should be grateful for; that they did so for their own purposes, and may have chosen not to publish other important facts, does nothing to diminish that.

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#918

Post by grumple »

Nasrudith wrote: post #909
grumple wrote: post #882

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same. Assange was an actor for Russia, and acted against American interests, whether by design or by accident. He played a role in the election of Trump and in the weakening of US standing and intelligence. This soft-handed approach towards anti-American behavior is the culmination of multiple movements in the post-Soviet era where the remnants of Soviet-sponsored communists and other home-grown agitators align thems…

Try not being a corrupt empire for a change? Unthinkable I know, choosing to not be guilty of horrible crimes for a change! So long as they engage in fucked up shit and cover it up there will be reactions against it in one form or another. Whistleblowers are the most benign form, and themselves are the result of internal channels just being honeypots instead of policing themselves. If they truly cared for their preci…

Calling the US corrupt when the world looks like this is just not something I can take seriously: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#919

Post by southernplaces7 »

shafyy wrote: post #855
tootie wrote: post #811

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Read some Steven Pinker. Your observations about our present state are not wrong, but seriously consider every other point in human history and realize we are not worse off in any measurable way. In fact, much better.

[flagged]

To simply dismiss Pinker as a moron either means you haven't at all read any of his books, or you yourself have a rather moronic definition of stupidity. You can disagree about many details in "Better angels of our nature" and debate future trends in interesting ways, but it's definitely not the work of a stupid individual. All the contrary, it's well thought out and highly robust in its arguments.

Also, "everything is relative" is an idiot's way of saying something something meaningless while trying to make it seem incisive. Yes, many things are relative to others, but there are also objective measurements and visible differences between material aspects of the world, past and present especially. Feel free to live with the violence and material resources of a 16th century peasant, with no access to modern amenities for a few months and see how you rethink "better off" when considering most of mdoern life (even for a majority of poor people)

Re: Julian Assange has reached a plea deal with the U.S., allowing him to go free

#920

Post by Salgat »

consumer451 wrote: post #784

He should not have spent all of this time being persecuted by the US government, but he should have been ostracized by the public long ago. I believe that if not for the prior, the latter would have occurred much more readily. > A reporter worried that Assange would risk killing Afghans who had co-operated with American forces if he put US secrets online without taking the basic precaution of removing their names. "W…

Don't forget being a tool for Russians leaking Democrat emails prior to the 2016 election.
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