They influence the public, and the public can exert pressure on the government.

Maybe if we lived in a functional democracy? Right now it's pretty clear that public pressure has little to no effect on those with their hands on the reigns.

Why do you think US propaganda has been so insistent that Assange is a Putin asset and enemy of democracy and danger to Americans?

Again, they wouldn't have that ammunition if Assange was the boy scout of truth you attempt to make him out to be. His involvement with Russia and their interference election campaign, and his workings with Trump Jr gave fuel to that particular fire.

These propaganda points are coming straight from the top and you're parroting them for no reason.

Lol, yes me saying that his leaks about the Iraq and afghan war were legitimate acts of journalism that need to be protected, is exactly what Washington is parroting..... This is the false dichotomy I was talking about.

There's zero benefit in participating in the smear campaign against Assange

Ahh, so I'm not allowed to have any nuances opinions about an individual? There is no benefit in providing context? Sounds like you care more about your biases than the truth, which is ironic considering that the whole point of wikileaks was to bring transparency to complex issues.

This helps no one but the US prosecution. That doesn't mean we deify him, that just means we don't force threads to go off topic just to air grievances against him.

Lol, I think you have an overvalued sense of self importance . Nothing we do or say is going to influence a federal prosecutor, to think so is incredibly narcissistic.

And the whole point of engaging in discourse is to provide context and gain perspective that you haven't accounted for. If your only rebuttal to criticism or context is telling someone to shut up, I don't think you really have a complete grasp of your own beliefs.

You brought this up for no reason and forced this whole derail despite all my attempts to keep it on topic

You don't get to dictate what is and what isn't on topic. If I was talking about jelly beans, yeah I'd be off topic. Me discussing the surrounding context of assanges arrest, and why he's lost public support over the years is not rejecting the topic at hand.

Again, with the strawman?

It's not a straw man if that is the thing you are expressly trying to prevent. You have been aggressively campaigning to stop any criticism of a person, even if they are valid.

And my point is that he is only being prosecuted for journalism. All these other """concerns""" you have are literally irrelevant and off topic

And my point is that the reason they felt comfortable with actually pulling the trigger on his prosecution is directly related to the actions you say are off topic. If he has stuck with his principals and actually stuck to the journalism he's always claimed to value, he'd still have friends in high places who would stick their necks out to protect him.

But in the last 5-10 years he's consistently burned every bridge offered to him. Just look at his experience in the embassy. The Ecuadorian government spent real political capital and money safeguarding him, and how does he repay them? By being a complete ass to people and eventually spying on them.

My point is that it is irresponsible to portray his current situation as a scenario where his prior actions were inconsequential to his current predicament. That it was inevitable that the government would eventually imprison him no matter what. That portrays the government as some all powerful all knowing organization that operates outside the rules of power. Taking away Assanges responsibility/agency in his mess will just lead others to believe that no matter what you do you are never outside the reach of the US gov, and that is just untrue.

Maybe you don't agree with his prosecution, but you're pushing talking points that make it easier. This helps no one but the prosecution.

So now it's my fault that he abandoned his journalistic integrity, or should we just not be talking about it? This is the inherent flaw with not being transparent. The dark spot in the room no one is talking about injects a vacuum into the discourse that can be filled with anything. In my opinion, when we shine a light on to the dark it robs the vacuum reactionaries utilize to control the discourse.

Truth is our only weapon, unlike the government we don't have the ability to control the narrative with an infrastructure of colluding media. Our only tool is to point out the internal contradictions that they utilize to keep people in the dark. However, this weapon can be easily countered if they can point out a wisp of hypocrisy.

You being so insistent on preserving the vacuum of opaqueness for reactionaries to rally around is in my eyes, very "sus" as you say.