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Re:Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extrad...
by dang on Monday May 13, 2019 @03:15PM
(#19902860)
Please don't post in the flamewar style to HN. Escalatory snark and jabs like "Don't gaslight" don't belong here.
Re:Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extrad...
by kermitismyhero on Monday May 13, 2019 @10:59PM
(#19906430)
Forgive me for getting angry at the wilful ignorance of so many useful idiots. I'm just kinda done with being "nice". Over a decade of vetted, verifiable leaks exposing the unbridled evil of the US military-industrial complex, and most Americans are just as lazy and stupid and cowed as ever. Wikileaks releases video of American helicopter pilots laughing while they gun down journalists, and Americans shrug.
So let me get banned for speaking my piece in a disrespectful manner. I welcome it. Frankly, if I could find a "delete my account" button, I'd hit it in a heartbeat. Sheep, the whole goddamn lot of you.
Re:Sweden reopens Assange rape investigation, to seek extrad...
by dang on Tuesday May 14, 2019 @01:50AM
(#19907081)
People aren't asked to be "nice" here, but they are asked to be kind: https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html. Being kind, among other things, means resisting the impulse to flame others even if they are ignorant and wrong, and even if they identify with institutions that have done horrible things. I know that's a lot to ask, but that's what we do ask—even if others don't follow the same rule.
For me, it has been necessary to realize that the agitation going on inside me when I lash out at others over such issues is itself a form of violence and war. Not the same in degree, of course; but the same in kind, and that matters more.
WikiLeak's big coup was cablegate, the main revelations of which boil down to "diplomats are very frank about people when they're not speaking in public." At the same time, Assange seemed to want it to be compared to the Pentagon Papers leak, which revealed that the US military was covering up the course of the Vietnam War. Instead cablegate was a whole lot of quantity over quality, and don't really merit the comparison.
Since then, WikiLeaks has missed out on the big revelations: Snowden's releases, the Panama Papers and Paradise Papers, as well as more regionally important leaks such as Lava Jato. There's no trust among leakers that WikiLeaks is a neutral source for divulging information, and the fact that Assange has seemed to have a specifically anti-US tilt which results in him getting cozy with anti-US anti-press-freedom regimes.