Leftists have this really weird tendency sometimes of accusing some of their best allies of being secret feds or cryptofascists. I understand where this paranoia comes from but it's not healthy and it's not helpful.
this post was submitted on 26 Jun 2024
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I disagree, I think it's healthy as communists to be skeptical and do our due diligence and background checks before we start getting too confident in someone.
Assange is not a marxist and he's not even on the left -- there was a small part on his politics that I first wrote in but then edited out because there's not much conclusive info there and it was over 10 years ago, but basically he praised Ron and Rand Paul in 2011 for being the good part of the Republicans, despite them also being anti-abortion. He's also not a US citizen and can't vote in the elections there but eh, when has that stopped anyone from having an opinion lol. Then in Australia the same year, the Wikileaks party put up their election lists in such a way that if you voted for them and they didn't get any seats, your vote would then go the fascist Australia First party and then to a "men's rights" group before it went to the Greens. I'm not sure what the relevance of the Greens was in the article I read, but even the WL party talked about them so I feel like it was very relevant at the time.
There is also a part I didn't write into the article about how when he was a teen in the 70s his mom dated ~~a cult leader for a few years who had some ties to MK Ultra~~ edit: dated a cult member when Assange was very young, which was known to abduct children and provide them with false identities. The author then links that to MK Ultra experiments being similar, but that seems to be about it.
^ I didn't include that part about the cult in the article because the source I have for it is difficult to parse and doesn't make more links than I do, so I'm unable to really make a connection myself.
Assange/Wikileaks is only an ally insofar as some of the information they publish is interesting to anti-imperialists, but they're not doing this out of ideological leanings that I can tell. They will -- and primarily wanted to, in the beginning -- post confidential documents on China, Iran, Russia, all the enemies of the US empire basically. It's only in 2010 that they finally posted something on the US.
I disagree, I think it’s healthy as communists to be skeptical and do our due diligence and background checks before we start getting too confident in someone.
I dodge this by keeping with my younger anarchist tendancy of having no idols, no gods, no masters.
If I want to be inspired by someone I will look to someone I know in real life within my community. Media figures, celebs, they are all fake and manufactured. With people like Assange, western leftist 'celebs' (for lack of a better term) I just take what good they have to say and ignore the rest while assuming they have skeletons.
Typically if I know about them in the first place they have passed some media check that they arent a serious threat to power. (Zizek, Chomsky)
With Assange, the decades long campaign to have him put in solitary is enough for me to know the upper class are aware of the real threat he poses, hes still nothing id idolize but someone I will take the good from.
There is also a part I didn’t write into the article about how when he was a teen in the 70s his mom dated a cult leader for a few years who had some ties to MK Ultra edit: dated a cult member when Assange was very young,
How is that Assange's fault?
It ties him and his mom to an MK Ultra cult, but the links are a bit tenuous at this time unless new information comes out.
It ties his mom. A kid hardly has influence on what parents do.
Yes, and that's why I didn't put it in the article?
But you did? How are we discussing it if it's not in the article?
There is also a part I didn’t write into the article about how when he was a teen in the 70s his mom
I only mentioned this part of his life in the comment reply above.
I don't see it. Definitely not Assange anyway, not that he's a great person or anything, but he'd probably have said something by now. He spent a decade and a half in confinement, he would have said something. He had basically nothing to lose.
I think he started it for completely standard lib reasons, and then quickly discovered that there was may more shit to leak from what he previously saw as the Good Guys.
Maybe I'm missing something, but what made you say qualify your statement of him not being a great person?
It was meant to say that he might not be, not that he isn't. I just woke up and worded it poorly
I mean, there were some (possibly political and false) rape allegations in Sweden that were quickly dropped then brought up again... however
Editted
Third, as far as AA is concerned, even the Swedish prosecution never suggested that the conduct alleged by her could amount to “rape”. In a Twitter-message of 22 April 2013, AA herself publicly denied having been raped (jag har inte blivit våldtagen). AA also stated in a tabloid interview that Assange is not violent and that neither she nor SW felt afraid of him. While I agree with the prosecution that AA’s allegations, if proven to be true, could amount to sexual assault other than rape, the fact that she submitted as evidence a condom, supposedly worn and torn during intercourse with Assange, which carried no DNA of either Assange or AA, seriously undermines her credibility.
While at the police station, SW even texted that she “did not want to put any charges on Julian Assange” but that “the police were keen on getting their hands on him” (14:26); and that she was “chocked (sic shocked) when they arrested him” because she “only wanted him to take a test” (17:06).
That, and he seems to be a libertarian, if you ctrl + f "libertarian" into wikipedia
In 2010, Assange said he was a libertarian and that "WikiLeaks is designed to make capitalism more free and ethical" and to expose injustice, not to be neutral.[34][556]
The rape allegations are already known to be not only false, but completely fabricated by the Swedish government, not even the ostensible "victims" (who didn't consider it rape, didn't attempt to charge Assange with rape, and had simply gone to police to try to get him to do another STD check)
It really shows how farcical it all was- and how much "Swedish neutrality" and all that was a sham, even long before it likely aided in bombing Nordstream, or it joined NATO. It's literally the "I consent," "I consent," "I don't" meme.
My apologies... I did not look further into this than I should've...
No problem, there's nothing to apologize for.
Well if this ain’t the most out of left field question I’ve seen today 👀
Take your upvote but never make that joke again 👈
I've seen allegations of this from "the left".
The motive doesn't check out. America has no reason to pull off their own mask and shown the world their war crimes.
I’ll leave space for the possibility that one or more parts of the organization wasn’t privy to the true overarching mission and went in undesired directions. For example, there are many useful ignoramuses at USAID. Maybe Five Eyes had let WikiLeaks devolve into a hot, unmanaged mess.
They do and have done that. It's known as a limited hangout but it's become kind of the word of the day recently lol. It pays to play both sides so you can always come out on top somewhere, like betting half on red and half on black at roulette. Something gives but something else gains. And since the US government is both the casino and the player at the table, they win either way. Exposing their own crimes allows them to say "look we take accountability!" but the collateral murder video, for example, made a lot of noise but ultimately nothing happened about it other than Manning, the whistleblower (!), being jailed for a few years.
But nobody is saying America took accountability. Keeping the lid on would require no accountability to be taken.
Compare this to Israel for example which up until a year ago managed to rewrite history and shove all their war crimes under the table. They enjoyed a great reputation from it.
Exposing war crimeadoesn't appear to do anything positive.
It's the oldest trick in the book. It means that people look at what you want them to see rather than what you don't want them to see.
Not to mention that disgruntled and/or naive employees will leak things that their employer doesn't actually want leaked.
Not to mention that disgruntled and/or naive employees will leak things that their employer doesn’t actually want leaked.
But this is what we believe is happened for Assagne. A disillusioned employee leaked the documents to Assagne.
It means that people look at what you want them to see rather than what you don’t want them to see.
This was exactly what the government doesn't want us to see. What do you believe they are using this as a cover for?
What happened after Collateral Murder except that Manning was found out and imprisoned, thereby removing a liability in the US military? What happened after the scandal at Abu Ghraib except letting Iraqis know what will happen to them if they fight or even cross paths with a US soldier?
We can also look beyond the US stuff; Wikileaks has released plenty of documents on Iran, China and Syria to name just 3 (this was their stated purpose and is pointed out in the article, wikileaks was first started to go after the enemies of the US). The point of building credibility is to then redirect sentiment to the actual target with the segment of the population that does not normally consider that target to be an enemy. Much like Jackson Hinkle is going to be doing soon imo.
What happened after Collateral Murder except that Manning was found out and imprisoned, thereby removing a liability in the US military?
People like us learned about it and started rejecting US imperialist propaganda. Even the general sheep who only watch CNN and Fox News occasionally see some coverage about Assagne and US war crimes. And how their government covers it up.
In the past people would say that "America doesn't do this kind of stuff". If you said anything factual during the Iraq war they'd ridicule you like they did at the start of Israel's genocide in Gaza.
These days I never hear that argument anymore. Everyone has accepted that the American military is ran by war criminals.
Sounds like you didn’t read the article. What Assange put out didn’t have that much of an impact, and a real fed org might release some stuff on their bosses to gain legitimacy.
no
That being said, no, by your info given, Assange is not a fed asset... the org he was part of, on the other hand...
Note
@[email protected] , if this is about Wikileaks, as a whole, then title it about WIKILEAKS, not Assange... I don't care if this is supposed to be clickbait or not...
Actually Assange is the one constant face behind Wikileaks; there is an advisory board, but it's very informal to the point that people on it never did anything, never met the other advisors, and sometimes never even knew they were on it. For all intents and purposes Assange is the only person behind Wikileaks.
If Wikileaks was a federal asset or started as one, then Assange was an asset as well, even if he didn't know it. That's my defense behind the title, which does ask if Assange was a federal asset.
Then what happened to those Chinese anti-gov't leaders that made up the original Wikileaks? Did they just go to other NED-funded USAID-funded projects?
Assange may have been a federal asset, but he face turned in 2010, plus, didn't ye type in this:
I am purposely not singling out Assange here, and that is because he is only one piece of Wikileaks. We will come back to him later but Wikileaks is certainly bigger than just Assange — or at least started out that way — and it is important to separate the two.
I agree that some of the stuff that came out of wikileaks targeting everyone but the US was Sus af
Panama papers? I was suspicious of assange because of his comments about 9/11 but I don't want to get into it.
Wasn't Panama leaked to someone other than Wikileaks? Also interested in what he said about 9/11 if you have a source for it too, you can MD me if you prefer.
It is also not my goal to conclusively prove or even allege that Assange is a federal asset. Rather, I think there are enough worrying questions that should be made known more broadly
Please don't do this. This is a right-wing tactic: "I'm not making any claims, I'm just asking questions."
At the same time, the two leaks were not entirely damaging to the US government.
"Collateral murder" absolutely was damaging to the US government. It showed the callous disregard the US military had for (non-white) human life and it put them under a lot of scrutiny. It also helped a lot of "fence-sitters" take a side opposing the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
The murderers were never prosecuted.
Because that's US policy. Not prosecuting them was also a bad look for US govt.
Wikileaks, however, was never formed to build credibility around damaging the US or the West in general; it was purposely founded to go after the enemies of the US government.
What? This claim needs arguments.
confined to a small room in the Ecuadorian embassy with no possibilities of ever leaving — a golden prison.
"A golden prison." lmao. As someone who has experienced prison, his freedom taken away, you can lock a person up in a 5-star resort for 10 years and I guarantee you that person will go crazy, experience negative mental and physical effects. When criminals commit crime, they expect and are ready for the consequences, Assange never expected to be prosecuted by thr US never having stepped foot on US soil.
I think Assange’s release signals a new chapter for Wikileaks
I assume part of the plea deal is that Assange will not engage in any similar activities that landed him in trouble the first time. And even if it wasn't, if I were Assange, I'd probably take a loooooong break from it all and spend time with my family.
Please don’t do this. This is a right-wing tactic: “I’m not making any claims, I’m just asking questions.”
It's literally not. The article makes it clear there are facts many people are not aware of, and they need to know these to then be able to make an informed decision. I have defended Assange and his character at several points in the article. And frankly I don't really care what tactics the right wing decides to use, it's not gonna prevent me from living my life.
“Collateral murder” absolutely was damaging to the US government. It showed the callous disregard the US military had for (non-white) human life and it put them under a lot of scrutiny. It also helped a lot of “fence-sitters” take a side opposing the US wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
So nothing happened.
Because that’s US policy. Not prosecuting them was also a bad look for US govt.
So nothing happened.
What? This claim needs arguments.
This is proven in the article by Wikileaks' own webpage from 2006 which is linked earlier in the article.. sorry but did you actually read through it?
“A golden prison.” lmao
We agree with each other though?
So nothing happened.
Yeah, no shit. What did you expect? The US to go "oh sorry, we'll stop existing now"? The US empire won't crumble after one embarrassing video. You can't make the claim Assange/Wikileaks is a US asset just because their leaks didn't lead to the collapse of the US or significant change.
I never made the claim that Assange is a US asset but I did say in the original article, and still say, that nothing happened after the Collateral Murder video, so what is even your argument? Did something happen after Collateral Murder, or not?
In the broader picture that the US military may have leaked Collateral Murder themselves, it would have played right in their hands to release it. That's the argument.
You can’t make the claim Assange/Wikileaks is a US asset just because their leaks didn’t lead to the collapse of the US or significant change.
Did ye just handwave a bunch of evidence right here in the article?
Again, notably absent were US soldiers, intelligence analysts, senatorial aides or anything of the sort. But somehow, Wikileaks easily found Chinese dissidents to help them (despite Chinese dissidents saying for years that speaking up against the Chinese government is very dangerous to their lives!)
John Young, the founder of cryptome.org and a member of Wikileaks from the start, left the group in early 2007, calling it a “CIA conduit.” He has since rescinded that statement, but leaked more than 150 pages of emails sent between Wikileaks founders when he left.
It is however concerning that in 2011, Assange told Reuters that “China is [Wikileaks’] real enemy” and that Wikileaks was looking at ways to circumvent their “censorship”,
It is however concerning that in 2011, Assange told Reuters that “China is [Wikileaks’] real enemy” and that Wikileaks was looking at ways to circumvent their “censorship”,
That could be his "free speech absolutist" stance or perhaps his Australian/Anglo bias seeping in. I don't think it proves or indicates that he was a CIA asset. Hardcore Maoists also hate the current Chinese government/system, are they CIA assets too?
But consider the other evidence I just told ye;
if he wasn't indirectly an asset,
why tf did he join it when the website seemed to pried open to CIA influence as 'CIA conduit' and the acceptance of Chinese dissidents as such, according to co-founder John Young?
What do you mean join it? Didn't he start Wikileaks? As I said, the whole supporting Chinese dissidents thing is his free speech absolutist stance: if he supports US dissidents leaking stuff about the US govt. he also supports Chinese dissidents doing the same. That's what the idea behind Wikileaks was, a global dissident platform.