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The Political Thread

Started by The Legendary Shark, 09 April, 2010, 03:59:03 PM

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sheridan

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 08 May, 2019, 11:10:33 AMhe hide in a bloody embassy, then? (Extradition to the US? The UK and Sweden would have had to have agreed to that. Unlikely.)

If I had the US wanting to put me in prison for the rest of my life, I'd hide wherever I could!

TordelBack

#15616
I'm ever more inclined to the Prof's PoV in this matter, but I have irritating kids and beautiful nephews and nieces and some coastal places that I really value, and they force me back to thinking about what could be done to save it all, improve social justice, political accountability and  global equality, or maybe just mitigate the onrushing shitsunami a little.

For myself, I am resigned to my wholly deserved fate; for them, I dunno. Not quite yet.

And then I watch BBCQT and Emily Thornbury is explaining how UK Labour's Climate Emergency actually translates into - maybe - home insulation grants and - who knows -
more charging points for EVs.

And I feel like never voting again, ordering a Big Mac and booking a rake of long-haul flights.

IndigoPrime

Quote from: Professor Bear on 08 May, 2019, 01:54:56 PMDoes this mean Chelsea Manning deserves to be held without trial and tortured for showing solidarity with Assange?  I mean, if he's bad then she shouldn't be helping him.
I'm not sure if that was aimed at me. Of course Manning doesn't deserve such treatment. But arguing Assange is only a force for good is troubling, to say the least. (My point is that people see things in black and white, whereas this case has more shades of grey than the average website circa 2000.)

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 May, 2019, 02:15:40 PMAnd then I watch BBCQT and Emily Thornbury is explaining how UK Labour's Climate Emergency actually translates into - maybe - home insulation grants and - who knows -  more charging points for EVs.
They are almost all awful. Lucas gets it. Some of the SNP and Lib Dems do. Painfully few others.

Professor Bear

Everyone I've seen who has defended Assange has done so with qualifiers, even the patron saint of sensibles John Oliver.  I have seen literally one person argue Assange was a force for good, and that person was George "It doesn't count if she's asleep" Galloway.    How Assange is treated is not about Assange, it is about what we tolerate being done in our name and it's just as much a yardstick of our ongoing descent as everything else.

Quote from: TordelBack on 08 May, 2019, 10:00:14 AM"subtlety may deceive you, integrity never will",  etc

Ah I'm an old fashioned snob, me, I like Shakespeare for the poncy quotes.  "The quality of mercy is not strained - it blesseth him that gives and him that takes."

IAMTHESYSTEM

Julian Assange is a fascinating fellow. I think he's highly committed to his beliefs to uncover wrongdoing by Governments, and the revelations about secret Intelligence communications were intriguing. But you could argue that a lot these revelations suited Russia very nicely, and Assange's Wikileaks blatant attempt to sink Hilary Clinton's Presidential prospects with the release of her E-Mails must make his motives seem questionable. Only the Orange Ogre Trump then a Presidential candidate and his pal Vladimir Putin would benefit from this. These two people I wouldn't consider overly invested in freedom. So is Julian Assange a fearless Journalist, publishing and being damned or a 'useful idiot' as Lenin described some of his Western admirers? A bit of both I suspect.
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The Legendary Shark


There's just something about Assange and Wikileaks that feels a bit off to me. It's just my gut talking, I can't put my finger on anything specific.

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IndigoPrime

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 09 May, 2019, 10:07:28 AMI can't put my finger on anything specific.
I would have thought deeply partisan interventions in a US presidential election, and the reckless outing of operatives in the field, both of which only serve to assist one major actor, would be two things.

The Legendary Shark


I think it's deeper than that, somehow.

As I said, it's just a feeling.

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Theblazeuk

Julian Assange is an egoist hiding his own collusion and actions behind an ideal.

Hawkmumbler

Yeah any degree of doxing is a big red mark against an activists name for me, especially if the targets family and children are put at risk. There's no excuse for it.

Professor Bear

Wikileaks has definately doxxed people over the years, but wasn't it the Guardian that was responsible for the doxxing during their collaboration with Assange?  They were in a rush to get their story out and didn't vet security information, causing the still-ongoing animosity between it and Wikileaks - the paper was recently caught fabricating a story about a meeting between Assange and Trump aide Paul Manaforte, so I think we can assume the honeymoon is over.

Quote from: The Legendary Shark on 09 May, 2019, 10:07:28 AMThere's just something about Assange and Wikileaks that feels a bit off to me. It's just my gut talking, I can't put my finger on anything specific.

Well he's possibly a rapist so I don't really know that you have to think too hard about why you find him off, and I stopped following Wikileaks on Twitter because they kept posting autoplaying footage of atrocities that seemed more about self-promotion than raising awareness, though they've also doxxed the personal information of rape victims since then for some reason or other.

TordelBack

I'm no particular fan of Danny Baker, but I've never seen anything that'd make me think he's a racist: but his ill-judged monkey tweet is/was, and now he has to pay the iron price: when you play the game of tweets, you win or you die.

IndigoPrime

Mixed race mum and kid, and he tweets a pic of a monkey. What is this, the 1970s? Then he offers a half-arsed jokey apology. Just no.

Jim_Campbell

Quote from: IndigoPrime on 10 May, 2019, 07:35:23 AM
Mixed race mum and kid, and he tweets a pic of a monkey. What is this, the 1970s? Then he offers a half-arsed jokey apology. Just no.

Claims he didn't know about the black people/monkey racist trope. Also claims to be a lifelong football fan. These things cannot both be true.
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JamesC

I'm perfectly willing to accept that DB was attempting a joke about royals being monkeys rather than intending anything racist. It seems far more inkeeping with his sense of humour to be hitting out at the monarchy and establishment than to be making race jokes.
Having said that, I can quite see why people were offended - more to the point so could he, he accepted it and then took down the content immediately once pointed out.
To still be talking about it as a race jibe, rather than a mistake that could be easily misconstrued isn't very helpful in my opinion.