Who is fighting for Julian Assange? No-one. Not even his cat. In fact people seem to have more concern about his cat’s whereabouts than where he’s going.
Isn’t the truth supposed to set you free? If so, it’s certainly not working for Julian. With his reputation tarnished by allegations of rape and, thanks to the Ecuadorian Embassy, now smeared with catshit, the public have lost affection for the man who should have been their albino hacking hero.
The Australian government pretend he doesn’t exist. Julian who? They abandoned him years ago. I mean, shouldn’t we be proud? He’s more famous than Kylie. Shouldn’t we celebrate the courage of this son of puppeteering parents who grew up in Terania Street in Lismore, who attended Goolmangar Public School and later took his leftie peace activism a little further than chaining himself to a tree or signing a petition outside Woolies.
In our democracy it’s okay to march – well, if you have a permit. And yes you can protest, but do it nicely. You can WANT to change the world, but for FUCKS SAKE DON’T actually do it! Don’t show the world that one man (or woman) CAN threaten governments! If people find out the TRUTH is more powerful than BOMBS, then what will terrorists do next?
Julian not only talked the talk, he walked the walk so hard he had to bunker down in British Ecuadorian Embassy. The embassy of a government who seven years ago had a president with strong anti-American sentiments. They were happy to have Assange with his FUCK YOU finger pressed up against the window in the Ecuadorian Big Brother house!
With our reputation for having our Aussie nose rammed fair and square in the anus of the US an Aussie PM was never going to bring him home.
World governments can deal with acts of violence or mobilise rhetoric around what they call ‘terrorism’, but what brings them to their knees is when the public finds out what they have REALLY been up to. That’s what WikiLeaks does.
As the founder of WikiLeaks, a rogue disruptor that doesn’t play the game, Assange made himself no-one’s ally, no-one’s friend. It’s a dangerous game to be without allegiance. It’s like turning all the bikie gangs against you at the same time. You’re Dead. The only allegiance for Assange has been to the truth.
WikiLeaks’ philosophy was about getting the truth out there, regardless of fear or favour. As a leftie I was completely on Team Assange until the historical Swedish allegations of rape. These were dropped, but have been reinstated.
To be fair the original accusation was a request for Assange to have an STD test following unprotected consensual sex. The case was upgraded to rape by a specific high-ranking Swedish prosecutor who is now pushing for the rape case to be heard. It was dropped because of the statute of limitations on the allegations but are now to be reinstated.
I’ve never seen the world’s governments care so much about pursuing a charge. It certainly didn’t impact on Judge Kavanaugh’s acceptance into the US Supreme Court. Twenty-three women have accused Trump of sexual misconduct. Apparently all 23 of these woman are ‘liars’. Is the US using Swedish laws to jockey the MeToo movement to destroy the reputation of a man who continues to expose them? It can’t be a co-incidence that Sweden has an extradition arrangement with the US.
Am I being a conspiracist by believing that the best way to lose the support of the world’s lefties, particularly the world’s women is to brand him a rapist? I mean how do you turn the women of the world against a bloke? Tell them he’s a rapist AND he doesn’t clean up after himself!
When Assange is tried in the US he could face the death penalty. The last thing they want is a Truth Martyr on their hands. Who would believe the WikiLeaks of a rapist? Seem far fetched? Let’s revisit the damage he did to the US back in 2010.
Assange was responsible for the release of the Afghanistan War Diary, a collection of 90,000 mainly US government documents relating to the military engagement of Allied forces in Afghanistan. He also revealed footage of American soldiers murdering innocent Iraqi civilians.
And so the new Ecuadorian President Lenin Moreno kicks Assange out for being a bad houseguest? For not changing his cat’s kitty litter? Assange didn’t help himself by leaking documents that imply the new president’s brother may have profited from offshore accounts in the Panama. The Brit judge called him narcissistic, but wouldn’t that mean acting in self-interest? If anything, he’s into some impressive self-sabotage.
And wouldn’t it have been in his interests not to piss off the US Democrats? WikiLeaks released the stolen emails related to Hilary Clinton’s campaign, causing Trump to declare ‘I love WikiLeaks!’. Weirdly now he says ‘I know nothing about WikiLeaks’.
To the US he’s the most dangerous man on the planet. More dangerous than Bin Laden ever was. And he doesn’t even have a gun.
Truth is the only bomb that will bring down governments. Stop swallowing the bullshit. We have an election five weeks away. Which party will fight for truth? Which party will bring Assange home?
I was discussing Assange yesterday & it’s crazy how clueless
most Aussies are regarding Wikileaks. Too true he did not give
a hoot if he’d upset the US Democrats when Hilary Clinton’s
emails emerged. Assange knows terrorism – the why & what-for
of it because he exposed it. Hell’s bells, the World Governments
fear him because he speaks the truth of the crookedness. Aussie
Pollies don’t want him home. He could be dangerous. The US
see him as a Bin Laden. That’s bull. Nah… we don’t want the
man back because he speaks too much about US soldiers &
allied forcers murdering so many civilians. That’s the deal.
And yes, an election’s coming up. Think. Wake up.
Hi Mandy, unfortunately I think most people will vote for a few extra dollars in their pockets, rather than the truth, or the environment, or human rights, or anything that night not directly affect them at this very moment.
The powerful seem to have the vast majority of us playing by their rules even if it is to our own detriment.
too right @struggling…
people voted for their governments – whether with their eyes closed or not… they didn’t vote for Assange…
and what is this backflip on #metoo? surely the guy is in the wrong anyway….
Im all for making governments look silly but I think we have bigger issues like China and India to deal with, both of whom will just eat us up over the next decade if we don’t stand together.
Well said, Mandy
I noted that on the recent ABC’s Q&A, only the Greens and (sort of) One Nation spoke in support of Assange.
Both Labor and the LNP (remember Gillard’s “he’s a criminal”) avoided the question, or gave the usual soppy “he’ll get the same support as other Australians overseas”. Yeah, like he’s just an average Joe Blow, and is not the subject of a determined (and arguably illegal) Grand Jury in the USA.
If the Greens were smart they’d really hammer supporting Assange. Affirming the rule of law will appeal to (hopefully) those who have some remaining vestige of principle.
I should have said, “supporting Assange against extradition to the USA”. He’s broken the UK law regarding bail, so fair enough, he will need to serve time for that. But to be extradited to the USA, not on.
I think there are some inaccuracies in this commentary, as well as some problems with reasoning.
First of all, there are a lot of people fighting for Assange, so the first paragraph is off to a bad start. If by “no-one” you mean “no-one in DFAT”, then you’re probably right. But people like John Pilger and Noam Chomsky are making huge amounts of noise over this, amongst others.
“With his reputation tarnished by allegations of rape”. Since when have we become apologists for sexual assualt when the accused absconds from the legal process? He fled to the embassy to get away from the Swedish prosecutor, not the US government. There were no US extradition requests hanging over his head at the time and he was traveling freely. The rape charge was not dropped due to statute of limitations (a charge based on the complaint from one of them women has); it was dropped because there was little chance of seeing it through with him holed-up in the embassy. And (at least as of a few days ago) it hasn’t been re-opened. In fact, 70 UK MPs are urging the Swedes to re-open it as they see this as a strategy to keep Assange out of the clutches of the Yanks.
” It can’t be a co-incidence that Sweden has an extradition arrangement with the US.” It is a co-incidence, by definition. And it’s not like the agreement was made after Assange was charged by the Swedes, so I don’t see the point in this statement. It’s also a co-incidence that the UK has an extradition arrangement with the US. Assange’s argument about not wanting to go back to Sweden never held much water for me as he could also be extradited from the UK. That argument always made it seem even more so that he as avoiding the sexual assault charges in Sweden.
No doubt WikiLeaks has been a power for good and that the forces of greed and power want to bring down Assange. But he wasn’t _primarily_ responsible for the Afghanistan war diaries. That was Bradley/Chelsea Manning, who stole and delivered the info. In fact, it would be dumb for him to claim he was responsible as the computer hacking charge (not one that has a death penalty) in the US against him is for helping Manning crack a password. If he did that, then I think one could argue he went beyond his role as journalist. Breaking and entering is not generally a transgression covered by freedom of the press, is it?
While I appreciate the fervour that people have for his ability to cut down tall poppies via WikiLeaks, I think it useful to keep things in perspective (and accurately if possible) that he’s not perfect and should face the consequences of his actions like the rest of the citizenry if he breaks the law.
A few weeks ago this column condemned a man for having a sexual relationship with a young, but not underage, female. Now this column is defending a man who went to extreme lengths to avoid questioning over alleged sexual assaults. Wow. Just wow.
Simple answer is ‘have the Swedes re-open the rape charge.’
Hopefully then we’ll have a for real answer – otherwise it will
be ‘the charge’ not the act that remains. Recall the old saying
& question ‘have you stopped beating your wife lately!’ or the
stigma ‘have you stopped beating your husband/lover etc.’
Damned if you didn’t or did.
By the way, there was a long way to go before anything approximating the allegation of rape came about. The original prosecutor refused to press charges, said there was no evidence of any crime being committed. Assange also spent 5 months in Sweden,waiting – making himself available for questioning. He was eventually told he was free to leave the country.
BOTH women initially refuted claims it was rape and did not wish to have such a charge filed. One of them continues to oppose any such allegation. And et cetera. The whole thing is a complete fabrication. This whole thing of ‘oh we suddenly car e so much about women being raped’ is so offensive’ – what took you so long? What about all the other ‘1%’ on rape charges that were let off, or never charged to begin with? Those women were less important?