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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

#981

Post by CRConrad »

DoItToMe81 wrote: post #810
light_triad wrote: post #342

The whole saga is an interesting lesson in how a noble cause can end up helping anti-democratic forces. Assange gave the public invaluable information that would not have been know otherwise, but he ended up playing right into the hands of the people who wanted to discredit Clinton. Politics is complicated.

I hate to break this to you, but Trump was and is a participant in liberal democracy, not a March on Rome figure.

> Trump was ... not a March on Rome figure.

Naah, he was only the March on the Capitol figure; so much better.

(FWIW, they had/have a Capitol in Rome too. That's what the American one is named for.)

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

#982

Post by CRConrad »

vintermann wrote: post #373
tetris11 wrote: post #327

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> At least the current Labour leader strikes me as a decent man with some actual principles and backbone and this would fundamentally be a decent thing to do. (massive sidetrack, but I can't let this sentence go unpunished) The current labour leader is the lamest duck in a group of wet blankets. His policies revolve around not being as corrupt as the Tories whilst doing virtually nothing else to better his constituen…

He is also personally responsible for the persecution of Assange. He was head of Crown Prosecution Services in the UK at the time we know (from Stefania Maurizi's FOIA requests) they actually threatened Sweden when Sweden wanted to drop the case. Wet blanked doesn't begin to cover it. I honestly think he's an entryist trying to tank the Labour party on the behalf of some British spy-lord. He's failing, but that's mor…

What is an entryist?

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

#983

Post by CRConrad »

xandrius wrote: post #628
DaSexiestAlive wrote: post #358

whatever happened to the r--- allegations from Sweden, I understand that Sweden has dropped the charges but.. can we get some closure about that as interested followers of this entire saga? Hope that's not too much to ask..

Is the secret word "rape"?

Yes.

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

#984

Post by CRConrad »

qzx_pierri wrote: post #651
jml78 wrote: post #601

My issue is that he was influenced by Russia. Aka they threatened his life and he then proceeded to leak information about the US but keep Russian secrets. I mean I don’t blame him for not wanting to be murdered by Russia but he isn’t a freedom fighter when he only leaks things for countries that don’t directly threaten his life.

The relentless "Russia bad!" parroting is very exhausting. Not saying it couldn't be true, but it just seems like such a low effort copout for anything that seems to be rooted in malevolence in 2024. Every single topic seems to be aimed at Russia on reddit and HN.

> The relentless "Russia bad!" parroting is very exhausting.

You know what's even more exhausting? Russia being so bad.

Also, whining about 'relentless "Russia bad!" parroting'.

The way to end the "parroting" is for Russia to stop being bad.

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

#985

Post by CRConrad »

jeswin wrote: post #243
kasey_junk wrote: post #237

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t have a strong opinion on Assange’s initial actions but a big chunk of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part. A legal tactic that appears to have worked! He could have engaged with the various legal processes being held against him, but he chose extra-legal protests instead. None of us know if that approach is better or worse than what he did, but this wasn’t torment without agency. It was a d…

> a big chunk of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part One man (and a bunch of supporters) against several governments with limitless resources. If something didn't stick, there would be another. Let's not judge his legal tactics looking back.

How does him being one man and his opponent being at least a ("several"???) government change the fact that the seven years he spent in the Ecuadorian embassy were by his own choice?

That half of his “years of torment” were a legal tactic on his part.

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

#986

Post by [deleted] »

dmix wrote: post #897
tootie wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or like read the Mueller Report which paints him squarely as a villain. He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor and then tried to blame Seth Rich. I absolutely cannot fathom how so many people still worship him. He has done some good here and there, but the benefits of things he's leaked are vastly overstated and the harm he has done is very, very real.

> He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor That is not at all a conclusion you can safely take from the Mueller report. Which makes me question whether you actually read it or you consumed it entirely via 2nd hand media reports like Buzzfeed and WaPo. There is no evidence he was colluding with them, he had encrypted conversations with a GRU agent who had concealed his identity as a hacker…

[deleted]

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

#987

Post by tootie »

dmix wrote: post #897
tootie wrote: post #805

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or like read the Mueller Report which paints him squarely as a villain. He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor and then tried to blame Seth Rich. I absolutely cannot fathom how so many people still worship him. He has done some good here and there, but the benefits of things he's leaked are vastly overstated and the harm he has done is very, very real.

> He worked with Russia to influence the 2016 election in Trump's favor That is not at all a conclusion you can safely take from the Mueller report. Which makes me question whether you actually read it or you consumed it entirely via 2nd hand media reports like Buzzfeed and WaPo. There is no evidence he was colluding with them, he had encrypted conversations with a GRU agent who had concealed his identity as a hacker…

I did read it and your comment is technically all true, but it's also a very charitable reading of the information. He most probably knew who they were and the Trump campaign was in the loop on his activities. He's never corrected the record to my knowledge. He has a pretty bad track record of protecting his sources, so offering a reward for information on who killed Seth Rich seems like a deliberate misdirection. The entire situation feels very intentional and you'd have make a bigger leap of logic to say he was so totally fooled rather than he knew and just didn't care.

I do agree that it's not constructive to say "he's a villain" but it seems the prevailing trend is "he's a hero" and he is most definitely not a hero.

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

#988

Post by BurnGpuBurn »

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…

The right time for a nuanced discussion of the material published by Wikileaks was actually before the US/UK imprisoned this innocent-until-proven-guilty individual, not after putting him in soletary confinement for 5+ years. So no, not surprised. If there's need for a nuanced discussion, a course of action like this will never be the way to go about it. The time for a nuanced discussion has been over for more than ten years, and the argument was lost by the people who incarcerated him.

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

#989

Post by dang »

impossiblefork wrote: post #474
RCitronsBroker wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wholeheartedly agree. Thank you for caring. Sincerely, an afghan.

[flagged]

As you made it clear downthread that what you actually intended to post was "not friendly", I want to make sure that you see https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40812343.

First you responded to a friendly comment with a swipe and then you added more downthread to make sure you turned it into a slur. I feel ashamed of HN when I see people treating others this way.

If that's not what you intended, please make more effort to disambiguate your intent in the future. That's every commenter's responsibility here.

https://hn.algolia.com/?dateRange=all&page=0&prefix=true&que...

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

#990

Post by dang »

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]

Please make your substantive points thoughtfully and without calling names, regardless of who is a moron or you feel they are.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

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