Like the Iraq Warlogs, or DWS scandal.

Even leaks like the Stratfor files are certainly in the best interests of the "little guy," if anyone actually gives a shit about them.

But if "all a man is, is what others say of him," then by watching the news, Assange is just a Russian agent.

But how could you 'remember' the DWS scandal if WikiLeaks were illegal to read :D https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-beYBLrkNAg

yeah, I don't really understand how someone dedicated to upsetting the authorities got painted as a tool of right-wing US politics.

Or maybe my left-leaning echo chamber is portraying him as that, and the alt-right bubble sees him as a Russian agent?

It'd be interesting to compare notes... is there a service for matching up people in different bubbles so we can compare facts?

It is a legitimately confusing bit of partisan allegiance shifting in my estimate. Because Hillary lost and Trump has been acting like an incredibly obvious puppet even by his standards of 'gets along fine with despots while hating and being hated by every other democratically elected ally'. Given the allegations of Hillary Clinton 'joking' about drone striking him assuming a grudge is reasonable.

Really I have the feeling that they have gotten played like a goddamn fiddle by the intelligence agencies - after they faced the right turning against them for believing what their lying eyes were telling them about Trump's blatant Putin connections. So they are trying to save their behind after they were the brunt of rightful left-wing grudges over things like the Iraq intelligence, spying on activists, and spying on everyone pissing off the general public that doesn't drink the red white and blue "we need to destroy our freedoms to save them" koolaid.

I'm personally of a liberal of a 'free market but intervene when it works better and highly value civil rights' view who believes that the sheer dark history of the intelligence agencies makes the moderate option be to purge every last organization and make sure they never work in anything peripherally related again.

Strip away all labels and contexts and you would probably agree that an agency of torturers who trains dictators, overthrows democracies for short term petty economic interests at great suffering, invented depravities like 'rape dogs', and 'rectal feeding', practices torture despite knowing it doesn't work and more means that they deserve far worse.

I've been living in Cambodia for a while earlier this year, and seeing the fucking mess they made of the place there... yeah... I'd believe anything of them

You need to step up your game mister!

Currently, the alt-right does not see him as a Russian agent, because Russia doesn't meddle in elections and stuff. That's just crazy talk propaganda. They are dangerous with some nuclear stuff so we have to build more nukes. But they are good in Syria and we need to either step away completely from that shit-show or give them a hand and fight on their side. It's complicated.

The left-leaning have Assange see him as a tool of right-wing US politics which are 100% bought by Russian oligarchs, or maybe the US politics bought the Russian oligarchs. It's unclear.

Questions?

Whatever you do, do not cross the streams. Gotta keep both (can never have more than 2 sides in a debate! that's we call it bi-partisan! have you heard of tri-partisan?! Is that some kind of cheese?! lol) sides hot and angry. Don't mind the man behind the curtain.

You claim to lay out both sides and then characterise the alt-right case as 'complicated' and therefore full of nuance, but the left-leaning side as 'unclear' and therefore nonsensical?

You're just like Mitch McConnell calling for bipartisanship and fairplay after years of crap. Completely disingenuous.

Wow...

if you can read in any flattering from me on either red or blue, I don't know what to say.

And I'm poking fun of the whole "calling for bipartisanship" for ignoring that there might be more than two parts to any one issue, and then you compare me to (red team) Mitch McConnell!

Handing over the microphone to you, my comedy act can't match this. How's that knee?

haha awesome. Good to hear the other side :)

I'm wondering why the downvotes though? Do we not understand that we inhabit bubbles?

Yeah but people get upset when you point the fact out to them, sometimes.

Bubbles are what OTHER people inhabit, see. We're all special and unique free-thinkers immune to unconscious biases. Or something.

yeah, I'm seeing opportunity here... who wants a Bubble Buddy?... someone from a diagrammatically opposite bubble from you, so you can see how the other half think

I actually do this with friends. It rarely goes well.

do tell... what happens? Arguments? Fisticuffs?

I'm proud, I think I have pissed off two persons arguing in a room!

Also if you judge him by his actions.

> But if "all a man is, is what others say of him," then by watching the news, Assange is just a Russian agent.

One of the most interesting aspect of the assange story is how the news industry celebrated assange in the early part of the 2010s and then started to demonize him in the past few years. It was all so sudden as if someone flipped a switch and everyone got on the same message.

It's also interesting how sexual assault accusations were used to take down assange just like it was used for kavanaugh.

Assange and Wikileaks have been demonised because they decided to release information in such a way as to deliberately influence an election.

The DNC/Podesta leaks were timed specifically to cause maximum negative effect to Clinton and the Democrats.

Then there's the lack of curation in some of the leaks. A lot of personal data that shouldn't be public by any means (e.g. medical information, sexual identity) has been leaked by Wikileaks. There is a limit to what information should be open and available to the public.

I also can't help but feel like they've stopped being transparency campaigners and whistleblowers, and now do it for the social media spectacle and publicity. Just look at how they released Vault 7, with their viral cryptic posts before the release. Wikileaks feels more like a media agency than a group of transparency crusaders these days.

> The DNC/Podesta leaks were timed specifically to cause maximum negative effect to Clinton and the Democrats.

What's wrong with this? Assange didn't steal this information, he just published it. That's the freedom of speech.

Also, US wants to prosecute Assange not because of leak of personal information, but rather because of political reasons. Only because he is against the wars that US started in the Middle East.

Exactly as you state (though maybe not intend). Those cheering him on didn't care about the reasons, lack of curation, content choice, etc since they were ok with who was maligned. Once those cheering him disagreed with who was hurt, it starts to "feel" different and concerns about reason, lack of curation, and content choice magically become important.

>Assange and Wikileaks have been demonised because they decided to release information in such a way as to deliberately influence an election

Wikileaks has always been anti-US, when they finally manage to deliver a good punch they’re suddenly a bad actor?

> also can't help but feel like they've stopped being transparency campaigners and whistleblowers, and now do it for the social media spectacle and publicity. Just look at how they released Vault 7, with their viral cryptic posts before the release. Wikileaks feels more like a media agency than a group of transparency crusaders

Publicity brings more leaks. They’re simply doing a good job.

If that's the real reason, then it must also be asked if there was any special influence by Assanage on the timing or if a service created by them was merely used as a conduit.

Come on.

If the best a state level actor can do to "bring down" a person, they'd most likely manage something more untoward than "had consensual sex with someone, but questionable consent over the use of a condom".

I think that more points to a narcissistic type, than a conspiracy on a state bent on character assassination.=

Why would you be surprised by ineptitude, or willingness to conspire, here, anyways? You should read about the Gulf of Tonkin, Iran Contra, watch the documentary 1971(1), McCarthyism, the FBI's dealings with MLK, or read about Gary Webb. It's not surprising.

The FBI apparently sent agents to other countries trying to frame Assange. Iceland told them to fuck off: www.katoikos.eu/interview/icelandic-minister-who-refused-cooperation-with-the-fbi-ogmundur-jonasson-in-an-interview.html

Many also claim Assange has proof he was conspired against, or at least was innocent: https://abc.net.au/news/2016-12-07/julian-assange-goes-publi...

1 - https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1971_(2014_film)

You would be doing me a grave injustice to think I am an apologist for the US government, in either colored administration (blue or red), to think that I am blind to their misdeeds, such as the "original" 9/11, the day Pinochet was installed.

And well, as someone who grew up in Australia, that article is full of nothings:

- while 'rape' is used repeatedly, no-one, including either the woman involved, nor the prosecutor has ever claimed that rape or non-consensual sex occurred, only that there was a "disagreement about the use of condoms".

- In the statement Mr Assange says he has been subjected to "six years of unlawful, politicised detention without charge" - well, yes. He does say that. Others say he has subjected _himself_ to detention and exile.

- these are all claims of Assange, who hasn't released any of the text messages, just said "he has [some, but not all] of them

So when you say "Many also claim", the more accurate statement is "Assange claims".

No, you're just misinformed, ignorant, or being disingenuous. There is a large community whom claim this, and I even linked you to the PM of Iceland claiming that he has been conspired agaist. His story is very much contested and debated. Many claim one of the rape victims in fact claimed to have been coerced and subsequently recanted(1).

1-https://medium.com/@helen.buyniski/free-julian-assange-or-yo...

I think his case will be closely studied for years.

And it is how propaganda works. There is no coordination between the 5 or 6 or however many media outlets but it seems as if there is turn almost based on how quickly he went from a martir to Russian puppet in just a year or less.

Same thing kind of happened to Greenwald though to a lesser degree.

You say this like the perception of him is entirely manufactured and divorced from any reality. Assange's image changed abruptly in 2016 because that is the year he went from politically agnostic public interest leaks to actively trying to influence an election and backing a candidate who considers the free press an "enemy of the people". It doesn't take a conspiratorial cabal to explain how Assange ruined his own image.

That some believe pre-2016 leaks were not political shows more about their bias than Wikileaks's motives. That motive matters now and didn't then shows similar bias.

Exactly what bias are you alluding to here? It certainly isn't the usual partisan hackery, as that would imply Democrats would hate pre-2016 wikileaks for damaging their president, and continue hating it post 2016 for helping the other guy. It would also imply Republican's would have liked wikileaks pre and post 2016. Instead what we see is a huge about face on both sides. I'm not being flippant here, I legit do not know what you are talking about.

Its really amazing that you would try to defend free press in a discussion about Assange. Locking up Assange is an attack on free press. Trump calling CNN liars actually isn't. Obama calling Fox liars wouldn't be either.

> There is no coordination between the 5 or 6 or however many media outlets

What evidence do you have for that claim?

Was mainly going by this book.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manufacturing_Consent

It's well known and has good research on how multiple media outlets can produce the same output basically.

Did you mean they do explicitly coordinate? I haven't seen or heard of that happening. Not that it's impossible.

The consensus is that Greenwald isn't a Russian agent. He's just stupid. His reporting has consistently had large and obvious errors at least since he was writing for Common Dreams.

How would you compare his reporting to the likes of CNN and FOX?

Shep Smith and the news anchors at CNN at least do a reasonable job of reporting the news correctly (which Greenwald can't), though none of those does strong investigative journalism.

Ok can you give me a couple of examples of these egregious errors by Greenwald you're talking about?

Seriously? The first time most people heard of Greenwald was his PRISM reporting, which was so wrong that when I thought about how many separate errors he had to combine to come up with that one article alone, I was in awe that he was able to sneak that by an editor.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18466438

This is a strong claim. Please provide evidence.

Strong claim? It's obvious to anybody who has read his work and is even a tiny bit familiar with the things he is reporting about.

https://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2013-06/prism-prob...

https://twitter.com/SamHarrisOrg/status/803464221786677248?s...

Examples?

W trained the press not to ask hard questions and keep to the provided script.