If you watch the recent interview with Maher linked in the article, you will hear Assange remarking that it was "great fun" to release the social security and [partial] credit card numbers of private individuals who contributed to the Democratic party. He seems to be a sociopath who is happy to let the Russian government use him to help try to elect Donald Trump. Assange has also recently lashed out with a barrage of antisemitic tweets (many since deleted) against his critics, and shamelessly defamed journalists and academics who have raised questions about the wisdom and relevance of Wikileaks' recent data dumps.
There has been some speculation about who in the Wikileaks organization actually writes the bizarre tweets, but in this interview Assange uses enough of the same phrases, verbatim, to leave little doubt that he writes them personally.
It is convenient to label anything or anybody critical of Israel as being antisemitic.
For many years, many western countries blood and treasure have been spilled and spent in propping up that country. People should be allowed to reevaluate these policies, discuss the issues, and comment on the pertinent events.
It is a common tactic used both to shut people up, when speaking to them, and to discredit them when talking about them, to claim they are racist or antisemitic. This tactic is common because it is effective, but it needs to be called out when observed, as I am doing now with you.
You hopefully are unaware that you are personally contributing to a chilling effect that inhibits a rational public discourse, when you engage in this name calling.
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EDIT because I can't reply to tptacek for some reason.
I did go and see the tweet you're talking about. The infraction in this instance, is that he used the word "tribalist". "Tribalist" is indeed a derogatory term, in my opinion. I certainly use it in that manner.
For me personally, AIPAC* members and others who actively seek to steer American resources in directions that do not actually benefit America are a source of frustration and concern. Calling them 'tribalists' captures the fact that they are acting as an autonomous group that I am not part of and frankly, find foreign and frightening.
I love Feynman, Einstein, and Peter Schiff (all Jewish). I do not love those who have a US passport, but would seek to benefit another country at the expense of the US. The word tribalist, or even zionist, is a way to distinguish a particular behavior or ideology from the Jewish race in general. It is a disservice to Jewish people in general, to allow a small subgroup to claim a mantle of moral infallibility and imperviousness from criticism in their name, under threat of being branded a racist.
* AIPAC. AIPAC is an extremely effective pro-Israel lobbying group, composed of course mostly by jewish people, that is perceived by many (including myself) to exert a very disproportionate and perhaps inappropriate influence on American foreign policy.
No. Do not move the goalposts. The Wikileaks anti-semitic tweets were not "critical of Israel". They didn't even mention Israel. They invoked racist stereotypes about Jewish people.
This argument has become incoherent, starting as it did by suggesting criticism of Israel isn't intrinsically anti-Semitic (nobody here argued that it was), and proceeding to question the very idea of anti-Semitism as "PC".
If your point is simply that being anti-Semitic shouldn't be a big deal, be honest and make that argument, not the bogus smokescreen that's been deployed here instead.
I'm regretting wading into this even as I start typing it, but, what the hell, this story will only be on the front page for a few more minutes before it's flagged off.
I do not understand why I am meant to accept at face value the idea that Julian Assange has a personalized or ideological problem with Hillary Clinton. And yet, the idea that he does is central to almost all of the narrative that I read about his involvement this election. "Of course", stories about leaked DNC mails point out, "Assange is doing this because he has an individualized problem with Clinton."
What problem would that be? Look at HRC's career to date. Where's the overlap?
I refuse to entertain the idea that Proff on #hack in the 1990s had a problem with HillaryCare, or anything else Clinton did as First Lady during WJC's administration.
I do not see a clear intersection between WJC's policies and any of the ideological stances Assange has publicly taken since. But more on that in a bit.
After WJC's administration, HRC became a Senator from New York. Start with the observation that there's no reason for a college student in southeast Australia to have opinions about a Senator from New York. Then read up on HRC's tenure as a Senator, where she was known specifically for not making partisan waves (indeed, this is the problem many Sanders supporters have with her). Does Assange have a problem with Senator Hillary Clinton? Why doesn't he have a problem with Evan Bayh?
HRC ran against Obama. Do any of you get the sense that Assange is aggrieved by the way HRC campaigned against Obama? (I mean, I have a problem with it, but my politics are... not Assange's).
HRC was Obama's Secretary of State. This is the closest I can imagine HRC came to intersecting with Assange's life or ideals in any way. But before you decide that her tenure at State is dispositive of Assange's issues, consider: the other party, which controlled two branches of government during Clinton's tenure, was actively campaigning for the US to have Assange assassinated. Not in a hyperbolic, sputtering way, but rather in a "when Trump is elected, maybe we should get around to that" sort of way.
This article dances around this issue. It seems to accept uncritically the idea that Assange has a real reason to work against HRC. But I don't think he does. That leaves open what seems to me to be the most important question about Wikileaks role in this election: why? Cui bono?
It's not hard to generate other answers to that question.
Maybe someone should address the elephant in the room? It's not like nobody was suggesting that Wikileaks was working on behalf of Putin before this election. Indeed, among natsec/infosec nerds, it's all anybody seems to ever have had to say about Wikileaks. It was funny to me before, in the sense that it's fun to smirk at the way infosec nerds want to believe they're living in a spy novel. I'm not laughing so much about it now.
During her time as Secretary of State the Obama administration's stance in regard to Wikileaks and Assange has placed them as political opponents. There's no reason to suspect that the State Department under Clinton was opposed to Assange's extradition from Britain to Sweden or would not have sought extradition from Sweden if a sealed indictment exists for WikiLeaks' alleged role in the collection of documents by Chelsea Manning [or any other act]. There's no reason to suspect that any future US administration would forgo extradition under any sealed indictment given the chance.
The rhetoric of 2010 rose beyond ordinary political discourse to that of mortal threats with Clinton stating it was worse than an attack on the US and Biden classifying it as terrorism. Politicians were openly discussing killing Assange. So far as I can tell, that hard line has not softened.
The article ignores the distinct possibility that US foreign policy includes a willingness to kill Assange. Pretending it's handbags at five paces doesn't cut it, Assange is still in the Equadorian Embassy six years later.
To me, wanting Assange dead or in frog marched in manicles is a more likely reason than appreciation or admiration for Putin.
It would be one thing if Clinton was distinguished in her opposition to Wikileaks. But she is not. Her opposition to Wikileaks is an attribute she shares with almost every US establishment political figure.
Her political opposition, which Assange is tacitly (and increasingly overtly) supporting, distinguishes itself in openly calling for Assange's assassination. It's Clinton's opponents who want Assange dead. Unless Trump is so completely in the bag for Russia that he can override both the GOP base and the GOP's national security establishment, an extralegal military strike against Assange isn't even unlikely.
I continue to make the case that Assange's supposed opposition to Clinton on ideological or personal grounds is just that: supposed.
My guess (only a guess): Assange believes that the Swedish rape charges and extradition requests are a cover for the US attempting to get their hands on him. HRC was Secretary of State at the beginning of that, I think, and would therefore be a key person orchestrating the persecution of Assange. I suspect that Assange blames HRC personally for his exile in the Ecuadorian embassy. (Or he could, you know, just avoid raping people in Sweden. Hypothetically.)
Personally, I think that Assange is a egotistical, vengeful control freak, and perhaps a sociopath. I also think he's being paranoid here. Which does not mean that I think HRC is as pure as the driven snow...
TL;DR: I suspect Assange is trying to sabotage HRC because he feels personally persecuted by her.
The word "fearmongering" is a more effective acerbic dismissal when it's applied to someone who hasn't talked openly about deploying the US nuclear arsenal against his real or imagined enemies. Anti-Trump fear is indeed strong "these days".
Your example is nonresponsive. I think military conflict with Iran would be a catastrophic mistake. But it wouldn't be an existential mistake. A nuclear strike against Raqqa would be.
Isn't all this theorycrafting a bit overcomplicated? Compare it to the idea that wikileaks is doing what wikileaks has always done in general, and w/r/t US politics Hillary simply represents the corrupt establishment (her last name is even Clinton). And wikileaks isn't even choosing the hacking targets (presumably).
But sourcing has always been a problem with the Wikileaks model! They can't generate their own info, so they're beholden to the kinds of interests that will exfiltrate huge databases of sensitive information. So far, we've seen that these kinds of interests come in two flavors:
* Well-intentioned but rash whistleblowers who relay to Wikileaks troves they can't, simply due to scale, fully vet, and as a result either (a) end up in prison or (b) end up accidentally doxing almost every woman in Turkey.
* Russian intelligence.
Unless you think the US is going to engage Russia head-on in this "information war" and start feeding Wikileaks dumps from Russia, it simply stands to reason that Wikileaks is going to end up serving an anti-US narrative controlled to a significant extent by foreign intelligence services.
I wish Assange would find evidence that Trump is Clinton's puppet.. continue to say the most insane things and worse. In turn that trustworthy, amazing woman becomes our next queen ... ooops i mean president. She acts way more like the former then latter!
HRC is a powerful person who wants even more power. Assange is just pointing out that she has a history of abusing whatever power she's been entrusted with, and has a strong disregard for the little people. She's apparently got the press cowed - just look at some of the leaked emails - so that leaves organizations like wikileaks.
21 comments
[ 1.6 ms ] story [ 94.6 ms ] threadThere has been some speculation about who in the Wikileaks organization actually writes the bizarre tweets, but in this interview Assange uses enough of the same phrases, verbatim, to leave little doubt that he writes them personally.
It is convenient to label anything or anybody critical of Israel as being antisemitic.
For many years, many western countries blood and treasure have been spilled and spent in propping up that country. People should be allowed to reevaluate these policies, discuss the issues, and comment on the pertinent events.
It is a common tactic used both to shut people up, when speaking to them, and to discredit them when talking about them, to claim they are racist or antisemitic. This tactic is common because it is effective, but it needs to be called out when observed, as I am doing now with you.
You hopefully are unaware that you are personally contributing to a chilling effect that inhibits a rational public discourse, when you engage in this name calling.
=============== EDIT because I can't reply to tptacek for some reason.
I did go and see the tweet you're talking about. The infraction in this instance, is that he used the word "tribalist". "Tribalist" is indeed a derogatory term, in my opinion. I certainly use it in that manner.
For me personally, AIPAC* members and others who actively seek to steer American resources in directions that do not actually benefit America are a source of frustration and concern. Calling them 'tribalists' captures the fact that they are acting as an autonomous group that I am not part of and frankly, find foreign and frightening.
I love Feynman, Einstein, and Peter Schiff (all Jewish). I do not love those who have a US passport, but would seek to benefit another country at the expense of the US. The word tribalist, or even zionist, is a way to distinguish a particular behavior or ideology from the Jewish race in general. It is a disservice to Jewish people in general, to allow a small subgroup to claim a mantle of moral infallibility and imperviousness from criticism in their name, under threat of being branded a racist.
* AIPAC. AIPAC is an extremely effective pro-Israel lobbying group, composed of course mostly by jewish people, that is perceived by many (including myself) to exert a very disproportionate and perhaps inappropriate influence on American foreign policy.
Hence being stereotypes. Add some PC and modern media to the recipe and you have harassment hot and ready.
If your point is simply that being anti-Semitic shouldn't be a big deal, be honest and make that argument, not the bogus smokescreen that's been deployed here instead.
edited to change pronouns
I do not understand why I am meant to accept at face value the idea that Julian Assange has a personalized or ideological problem with Hillary Clinton. And yet, the idea that he does is central to almost all of the narrative that I read about his involvement this election. "Of course", stories about leaked DNC mails point out, "Assange is doing this because he has an individualized problem with Clinton."
What problem would that be? Look at HRC's career to date. Where's the overlap?
I refuse to entertain the idea that Proff on #hack in the 1990s had a problem with HillaryCare, or anything else Clinton did as First Lady during WJC's administration.
I do not see a clear intersection between WJC's policies and any of the ideological stances Assange has publicly taken since. But more on that in a bit.
After WJC's administration, HRC became a Senator from New York. Start with the observation that there's no reason for a college student in southeast Australia to have opinions about a Senator from New York. Then read up on HRC's tenure as a Senator, where she was known specifically for not making partisan waves (indeed, this is the problem many Sanders supporters have with her). Does Assange have a problem with Senator Hillary Clinton? Why doesn't he have a problem with Evan Bayh?
HRC ran against Obama. Do any of you get the sense that Assange is aggrieved by the way HRC campaigned against Obama? (I mean, I have a problem with it, but my politics are... not Assange's).
HRC was Obama's Secretary of State. This is the closest I can imagine HRC came to intersecting with Assange's life or ideals in any way. But before you decide that her tenure at State is dispositive of Assange's issues, consider: the other party, which controlled two branches of government during Clinton's tenure, was actively campaigning for the US to have Assange assassinated. Not in a hyperbolic, sputtering way, but rather in a "when Trump is elected, maybe we should get around to that" sort of way.
This article dances around this issue. It seems to accept uncritically the idea that Assange has a real reason to work against HRC. But I don't think he does. That leaves open what seems to me to be the most important question about Wikileaks role in this election: why? Cui bono?
It's not hard to generate other answers to that question.
Maybe someone should address the elephant in the room? It's not like nobody was suggesting that Wikileaks was working on behalf of Putin before this election. Indeed, among natsec/infosec nerds, it's all anybody seems to ever have had to say about Wikileaks. It was funny to me before, in the sense that it's fun to smirk at the way infosec nerds want to believe they're living in a spy novel. I'm not laughing so much about it now.
During her time as Secretary of State the Obama administration's stance in regard to Wikileaks and Assange has placed them as political opponents. There's no reason to suspect that the State Department under Clinton was opposed to Assange's extradition from Britain to Sweden or would not have sought extradition from Sweden if a sealed indictment exists for WikiLeaks' alleged role in the collection of documents by Chelsea Manning [or any other act]. There's no reason to suspect that any future US administration would forgo extradition under any sealed indictment given the chance.
The rhetoric of 2010 rose beyond ordinary political discourse to that of mortal threats with Clinton stating it was worse than an attack on the US and Biden classifying it as terrorism. Politicians were openly discussing killing Assange. So far as I can tell, that hard line has not softened.
The article ignores the distinct possibility that US foreign policy includes a willingness to kill Assange. Pretending it's handbags at five paces doesn't cut it, Assange is still in the Equadorian Embassy six years later.
To me, wanting Assange dead or in frog marched in manicles is a more likely reason than appreciation or admiration for Putin.
[1]: http://www.npr.org/2010/11/29/131668950/white-house-aims-to-...
[2]: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZuQW0US2sJw
As for the rest: no, this simply doesn't add up.
It would be one thing if Clinton was distinguished in her opposition to Wikileaks. But she is not. Her opposition to Wikileaks is an attribute she shares with almost every US establishment political figure.
Her political opposition, which Assange is tacitly (and increasingly overtly) supporting, distinguishes itself in openly calling for Assange's assassination. It's Clinton's opponents who want Assange dead. Unless Trump is so completely in the bag for Russia that he can override both the GOP base and the GOP's national security establishment, an extralegal military strike against Assange isn't even unlikely.
I continue to make the case that Assange's supposed opposition to Clinton on ideological or personal grounds is just that: supposed.
Personally, I think that Assange is a egotistical, vengeful control freak, and perhaps a sociopath. I also think he's being paranoid here. Which does not mean that I think HRC is as pure as the driven snow...
TL;DR: I suspect Assange is trying to sabotage HRC because he feels personally persecuted by her.
Your example is nonresponsive. I think military conflict with Iran would be a catastrophic mistake. But it wouldn't be an existential mistake. A nuclear strike against Raqqa would be.
* Well-intentioned but rash whistleblowers who relay to Wikileaks troves they can't, simply due to scale, fully vet, and as a result either (a) end up in prison or (b) end up accidentally doxing almost every woman in Turkey.
* Russian intelligence.
Unless you think the US is going to engage Russia head-on in this "information war" and start feeding Wikileaks dumps from Russia, it simply stands to reason that Wikileaks is going to end up serving an anti-US narrative controlled to a significant extent by foreign intelligence services.
I wish Assange would find evidence that Trump is Clinton's puppet.. continue to say the most insane things and worse. In turn that trustworthy, amazing woman becomes our next queen ... ooops i mean president. She acts way more like the former then latter!