dagblog - Comments for "Julian Assange Lost Big Time. Look Out, Australia!"

Where does trust come into

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 18:03:12 +0000

In reply to Sorry, I was traveling today

Where does trust come into it? I just don't think that wikileaks revelations over the past 7 years have been all that catastrophic. So without evidence to the contrary, I see no reason to expect any great calamity in the future. That said, I didn't write a blog post cheering wikileaks and don't intend to, so the burden isn't really on me to defend the organization.

I do genuinely appreciate your effort to explain why Assange's loss is important, but it still makes no sense to me. If he's a megalomaniac, why would this election make him any less likely to release the dangerous documents you fear? If anything, wouldn't it have the opposite effect, since it leaves no other way to get attention?

Just as you think I'm

A Guy Called LULU — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 16:17:07 +0000

In reply to Sorry, I was traveling today

Just as you think I'm exaggerating his threat, I think you're underestimating it.

I think it's important that he lost this election, if for no other reason than he'll have to stop and think about how the world--and especially his own countrymen--view what he is doing.

It is our own countrymen who are in the hardest position from which to view what he has revealed because so much of it reflects badly on our own government.

I find that the personal characteristics of Assange have little if anything to do with my judgment of the value his revelations, either past or future. I can easily ignore his personality and I tend to think that much of the substance of attacks on him are deliberately overblown out of spite and emphasized by a knee-jerk tendency of some/many to apologize for most anything done by our government on the international scene and to attack anyone who attacks our government regardless the legitimacy of the attack. That is not a completely consistent position on my part as I realize that I have great sympathy for the whistle blower once known as Bradley Manning and that that sympathy brings about sometimes angry feelings towards those who attack him personally in order to discredit his actions and to justify his subsequent torture and finally his [IMO] un justifiably harsh sentence.
Below I link to Tom Engelhard's opinion piece. It is "opinion" but it is supported by a great deal of reporting. I suspect that being 'opinion' intending to sway or reinforce the opinion of others accounts for his not overtly including Assange among his examples of the good he sees as having been done by Manning, Snowden, and other whistle blowers, and the necessary good he predicts coming from future whistle blowers. Because Assange' character has been successfully demonized in the view of so many, rightfully or wrongfully, Engelhard's thesis would be dismissed out of hand by many of those who would otherwise consider what he has to say in support of whistle blowing in principle if he were to include Assange as an example of someone who, for whatever reason, did something ultimately beneficial to us all. Whistle blowing is, after all, the pertinent subject, the important subject, that swirls around Assange.

http://www.tomdispatch.com/post/175748/tomgram%3A_engelhardt%2C_how_to_b...

Sorry, I was traveling today

Ramona — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 03:51:46 +0000

In reply to Because I think you're

Sorry, I was traveling today and just got back to my laptop.

Just as you think I'm exaggerating his threat, I think you're underestimating it. You don't know what he still has, either, yet you're willing to trust him with it. Why? What has he said or done that would give you the impression that he'll be judicious with the materials he still has access to? I don't see it.

I think it's important that he lost this election, if for no other reason than he'll have to stop and think about how the world--and especially his own countrymen--view what he is doing.

What if he had won? How would he have handled it? My guess--and yes, it's only a guess, based on what I've seen from him in the past--is that there would have been no end to his feeling of self-importance. He wants to be somebody, even to the point of running for a senate seat he had to know from the start he would never be able to fill. It was a game with him, just as everything he does is a game. The outcome is not nearly as important to him as the actual game. He gets to be in charge; he gets to set the rules.

Why do you think he ran for a senate seat in Victoria when he's an international figure with other, bigger fish to fry? I can't know his motives for sure, but I'm willing to bet a sense of service or a feeling of altruism had nothing to do with it.

He hides out in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London but instead of getting serious about his role as a leader he dons a mullet wig and makes a stupid video he knows will go viral on YouTube. Did he think it would draw serious voters? Of course not. It was an attention-getter and nothing more. Do you think he seriously cares that he lost that election? Only because it makes him look weak for the moment. But not because he thought he could do some good for his people and now he won't be able to.

Would he like his new Wikileaks Party to gain seats and make laws? Sure. In the same way the Tea Party does. Because they can and because they hate the government.

So I'm glad he lost, and in such an embarrassing way. He didn't deserve to win. And if you think that's gloating, well you would be right. And if you still don't get it, I'm sorry. That's the best I can do. Honestly.

Thanks, I will try Parade's

EmmaZahn — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 02:06:15 +0000

In reply to Off topic, re: Benedict

Thanks, I will try Parade's End since you recommend. I probably would not otherwise. Netflix has helped me figure out why I have never been that into basic relationship movies and television shows. I prefer to watch people doing something alone or together with relationships as subplots.

Sorry about the confusion

Peter — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 01:48:08 +0000

In reply to Because I think you're

Sorry about the confusion about my "peanut gallery" comment Michael, it wasn't aimed at you. It does tie in with your question about why some people have such a visceral reaction to whistleblowers and the fact they become celebrities. It seems to have something to do with how people view authority, some submit to it and some resist it. Those who submit to authority must attack and discredit anyone who " egregiously" attacks authority like Assange or Snowden because they represent chaos. Our celebrity culture here in the US seems to play a role in this also, there is nothing so satisfying to some than to see a celebrity stumble and fail.

Off topic, re: Benedict

artappraiser — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:51:32 +0000

In reply to Will you be writing a review

Off topic, re: Benedict Cumberbatch

Watch Parade's End (derived from Ford Madox Ford's WWI novel) if you ever have the chance. He is the lead in it. I basically watched it twice when it was on HBO, and I don't often do that. Wished there had been more than 5 episodes. Judging from your expressed tastes in the past, I think you will like it as much as I did.

Will you be writing a review

EmmaZahn — Tue, 17 Sep 2013 00:08:03 +0000

In reply to Julian Assange Lost Big Time. Look Out, Australia!

Will you be writing a review of The Fifth Estate, a biopic of Assange, that will be released next month? This interview with the actor who plays Assange, Benedict Cumberbatch, is interesting. Assange did not want the movie made and refused to meet with the actor but did send him a five-page e-mail just before filming started. Like I said, an interesting interview. FWIW, if I do watch the movie, it will be because of the actor, not the topic. His Sherlock is the best. ;D

Because I think you're

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 15:21:00 +0000

In reply to And I genuinely do not

Because I think you're exaggerating the threat he actually poses. And when I asked you to justify your assessment of that threat, I received a very vague, very speculative answer. You have no idea what documents he has, what he plans to do with them, or what impact their release would have on the country--any more than I do. All of which is irrelevant to a parliamentary election in Australia that will have no impact whatsoever on the threat from Wikileaks' document repository. I do apologize for probing, but to be honest, your answer was so unsatisfying that it seemed like there must be something more behind your animus, and I was curious what it was.

You're entitled to your opinion, of course, but it seems to me that if you publish a post that takes a strong controversial stance--as this one does--then I am well within bounds to challenge your position without drawing your resentment. I'm not some Assange-worshipper who is blind to the man's megalomania, and I do not endorse his behavior. I struggle to decide how I feel about Wikileaks and would in fact be happy to hear a persuasive explanation for why it was so great that Assange lost his election. But uncharacteristically, I sense that you have little interest in persuading me of anything in this case.

And I genuinely do not

Ramona — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:31:36 +0000

In reply to I guess that I'm not making

And I genuinely do not understand why you still have a problem with my dislike for Assange. I see him as an out-of-control megalomaniac who is still holding hundreds of thousands of our country's documents hostage until he and only he decides what to do with them. That scenario scares me.

If you see him as someone who has saved us from ourselves and will go on doing it if we'll just let him, I won't question your decision to believe that. I don't have to believe it, and I probably won't stop "picking on the poor guy". Not until the power he holds has been taken away from him. I'm glad to hear that other Wikileaks leaders are having doubts about him, too. It tells me that my instincts about him right from the beginning were not all wrong.

But I've said all this before, many times, so if you don't understand it by now I can't help you. Sorry.

I guess that I'm not making

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 16 Sep 2013 13:04:00 +0000

In reply to So what you're trying to get

I guess that I'm not making myself clear. It's not a test. I genuinely do not understand why you dislike Julian Assange so much, and you absolutely have not made it clear in this post, at least not to me. I just re-read it, and I still don't get it. I mean, I get why he's not your BFF, but I don't get why you've singled him out to gloat about as if he were some ultra-evil blond supervillain.

PS I mentioned Abbott only as a contrast because he seems much more significant and detestable than Assange.