It is easy to find fault with Julian Assange as a person and with some of the views of John Pilger, but it is also easy to find much good in both of them. I found John Pilger’s address on behalf of Julian Assange very moving
Bringing Julian Assange Home
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Neil Godfrey
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Thank you.
Rape apologia. How repugnant of you.
I’m sorry you react that way to an appeal for a just outcome for Julian Assange.
Hi Jeff. From one Geoff to another, have you actually looked in detail at the allegations?
I’m as certain as I can be, from my own detailed study of the documents and timeline of the case, that the accusations of rape have been concocted and weaponised by the US security state.
This method of character assassination was well-chosen, since
1/ Assange is a bit of a tart, and easy meat for a honey trap
2/ Assange was at that point very popular with leftists
3/ What better way to destroy his reputation with the left?
In any case, the allegations in question would, even if true, not amount to rape in any other country that I’m aware of. There are also serious concerns about the physical evidence (which favours Assange) and the conduct of the prosecution in the case.
If you have relied on mainstream media reports, these have been seriously misleading when compared to primary documents.
Australia has always rejected whistle-blowers and failed to understand that, unless we have those brave enough to expose the corruption that exists on all levels across our society, we will never reach our full potential. They often lose their job, family and assets, but continue to step up to the challenge. Governments fiddle with protective legislation, but these heroes are still punished by those in power. Assange is both an Aussie and a whistle-blower.
If in the future, we learn that climate change really did end up killing and/or displacing millions of people and costing quadrillions of dollars in damage, then Julian Assange could probably be put on the Top 100 List of people who helped cause it. He was so consequential in Trumps’s election. He’s the one who gave Trump the idea to refuse acceptance of the election if it went against him. He dumped illegally-obtained emails an hour after the Trump-Bush tape was released, knowing full well that no one would read them and the Fox News crowd would just accept the lies told about them in right wing media. The exact same thing happened with “Climategate”. Before “Climategate”, there were still some on the right that actually believed in the “Climate Hoax”. You don’t really need something to find damaging information when you steal emails for the right-wing media to embellish. Just dump some emails and lie about it. Sometimes whistleblowers need to break the law for the greater good but ensuring that Trump won the election isn’t one of those times. It isn’t whistle-blowing. It’s political sabotage.
Assange wasn’t expecting just a pardon out of it. He was also expecting an ambassadorship to Australia from Trump. But he got betrayed by Trump. He’s not the only one. Trump has been involved in 3,500 lawsuits. I’ve been reading the comments about the Palestinian conflict and I definitely side with you on the that topic, but after watching all of the pain and suffering going on with the Palestinians and now the Mexican border, it is really hard for me to sympathize with how bad Julian Assange is feeling when he isn’t meeting with right-wing politicians like Nigel Farrage.
Is there nothing good at all in Assange’s record? (I don’t like him personally by any means and I have little time for what we hear about his political sympathies, by the way.)
In 2016 I was very worried about a Clinton victory because from outside the United States it really did look like she would lead to a war with Russia. That scared the hell out of me and I am sure many other non-Americans.
Perhaps we will have to wait for Assange to die before we hear a more balanced summing up of what he has achieved, the good along with the bad.
Wikileaks did not originally leak or publish the ‘ClimateGate’ emails, although they later hosted a mirror archive.
When you talk about Assange’s “political sympathies”, that makes it sound very hypothetical, as if my complaint is about the way he votes in Australia. My point is that his actions overruled the will of over half of the United States’ population as they voted to try to push us away from climate disaster, which in my own humble opinion, is far more likely to destroy human civilization than war with Russia. Even if Wikileaks had done nothing other than post a link to ClimateGate, it’s beyond irresponsible. I’m for giving free speech to Nazis, but only when we outnumber the Nazis. Same for climate denial. Stopping climate change is by far the most important political goal in the long term, but given that U.S. Liberals would rather talk about Trans bathrooms, it’s hard to believe anyone is taking seriously the idea that mass famine and destabilization from massive dust bowls will really occur or that the oceans might really take the world’s coastal cities away.
I have never liked the Clintons. I think Bill probably did rape Juanita Broadrrick. (While we’re on the subject, I don’t like the way the sex accusations against Assange have been described as “rape” when they had more to do with negotiations over safe sex, but Assange’s “honey pot” talking point goes to the other extreme in assuming that the women he chose to help hide him had already sided with the U.S. extradition forces when he was staying with them.) Anyway, Bill Clinton pushed the Democratic Party to the right in both economics and foreign policy and Hillary probably would have done the same. But the idea that Hillary had such control over the Dems that she would be able to declare war on Russia and the whole party would lock step in line — despite the fact that Liberals had forced her to apologize for her vote on Iraq — is really out of the realm of possibility. If we were going to fight Russia over anything, it would have been over Crimea, not Syria. I would definitely put my money on Trump getting us into 3 more wars before Hillary would have attacked Russia. Heck, I’d put more money on Trump going to war with Russia, collusion or no collusion, than Clinton.
Again, my views of Wikileaks and Assange himself developed prior to his seeking asylum with Ecuador. My views of Assange’s accomplishments are based on his work up until then and I have given limited interest to what his involvement in the U.S. election of 2016 and since because I see all of that as a postscript to what he has done. I have found John Pilger very insightful and moving in many of his works but I have also seen evidence that his views are ideologically based more than fact-based (e.g. his writing on Australia’s military involvement in East Timor). But despite areas of disagreement, even strong disagreement with both persons, I fully back Pilger’s plea for a humane response to Julian Assange’s predicament right now.