I don’t know what the Internet Archives is. I looked perhaps two (or three) years ago and then again about six month ago in the Internet, and I was unable to locate them.They must have disappeared just before Trump was elected or right after?
What is a POC?
A person of color.
In other words, bitches be lyin… if he’s not guilty, he can go to sweden and stand trial. He’d be less likely to be extradited from there than the UK.
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It’s, among other things, a very large historical archive of Web pages. Its coverage isn’t complete, but you might be able to use it to find your lost interviews.
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Thanks for replying, I appreciate your perspective. In the interest of full disclosure, I have a vivid memory of my Russian Grandmother telling me that when she was a little girl in Russia, their neighbor came by, and warned them a pogrom was happening that night, and it’d be safer if… they let her hold onto their jewelry. They left for America that night. So I can’t discount that my thinking is colored a bit by that. That said, I think there’s relatively little difference between Americans and Russians, but I do think there’s a difference between Putin and random democratic presidential candidate, or for that matter between Putin and Gorbachev and most republican candidates. So I don’t really see “Russia” as a threat, but I do see a threat from autocrats. Autocrats have been an existential threat to me and mine. And Trump seems more autocratic in character than the most democratic politicians and the majority of republicans. As noted, there is crap on both sides, and our police brutality and racism are not America at it’s best, and yeah, I have the white privilege luxury of being afraid of a ticket, not loss of life when I get pulled over.
I think it’s crazy that money being poured into radio or TV ads changes the outcome of an election. I can’t imagine an ad making me change my mind about who to choose. But it’s not hard to do some research on what works, and there have been studies that attack ads especially do work. Internet is the new TV. Lot of people spend hours online. I wouldn’t have thought ten years ago that FB would sway the electorate, but I’m concerned about it now. I think there’s frankly peril in discounting the influence.
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I read this article. I have a couple of thoughts about it. First, it reminded me of a recent xkcd in a bad way:
I know we’ve all been told that we have to unquestioningly believe all women who say they’ve been raped, and as a general practice it’s a good idea to tear away our society’s patriarchal habit of dismissing anyone who says they’ve been raped. But…
I forged on anyway. Something I found weird about the article is that the entire premise is that you can’t believe what you read in the media about this. That puts me in a tough position. I know a little, not a lot about the case. Then I encounter a whole lot of bullet points of evidence that I can’t verify except by reading other media reports that the author does want me to believe. I don’t leave feeling convinced of anything.
What struck me about the long list of bullet point evidence is that most of it isn’t evidence that Assange didn’t rape anyone, it’s evidence that there was political motivation in the manhunt for Assange. I already thought that. I think the way the rape allegations against Assange have been handled has been a real disservice to rape victims. If you’ve been raped, your rapist shouldn’t have to be an enemy of the US to get justice.
There were also arguments that rape allegations are essentially an ad hominem, an attempt to discredit Assange and WikiLeaks. But I don’t think that Assange having raped someone discredits things that WikiLeaks puts out. I think it means Assange should stand trial for rape. Which is exactly what the Swedish government is trying to do. For me, the rape allegations are the point, not a distraction from the point.
The idea that the US would create false rape charges by going through Sweden doesn’t hold any water for me. The idea that the US would try to get Sweden to lay false charges so that they could ask for extradition from the UK to then extradite to the US is too convoluted. The US has asked the UK to extradite directly to the US which is the UK would almost certainly be willing to do, being a close intelligence partnet of the US. Going through Sweden would be a lot of extra work unless the crime had already been committed there.
The idea that Assange did something that wouldn’t be rape in a nation other than Sweden because Sweden has some of the most expansive rape laws in the world doesn’t seem like a defense to me either. I like the idea of having more expansive rape laws.
All of the following can be true:
- The US is/was exerting international pressure on allies to go after Assange
- Assange never would have been charged with rape were it not for that pressure
- There never would have been international interest in the rape charge were it not for that pressure
- Assange raped someone under Swedish law
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All well made points. I could argue that elites tend to get up to the same crap in different countries with only marginal differences in the extent of their poor behavior. So Putin and Bush Senior were actually quite similar. Both have apparently made lots of money in oil extractive industries. Both have worked in the security services. To use Russian idiom, I think Bush’s was pretty much pre-destined by the US “nomenclatura” to be rich and politically connected. Im not sure how that makes him much better, even if he did manage to win a two horse race. Putin play that trick every election.
I dont mean to give Russians a pass. I just care less cos I dont live there.
FB stuff is a very long discussion. I take your points and others have made very good arguments in favor of what you suggest. I remain dubious. If this line of argument were valid, Sanders should definitely sign up some of those excellent Russian online media influencing consultants available in St.Petes. And such good value!
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Absolutely right and bears repeating.
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I’d agree oil interests are incredibly powerful and did largely own both Bush’s, and had influence over all other Presidents. Not changing the usage of oil may lead to the catastrophic failure of civilization, so, again, important. In the US, there’s a chance someone who’s not a petroleum puppet could come to power. Putin, as an oil billionaire, is the embodiment of Russian oil interests. I think Gore would have changed things, I think Obama tried, but was stymied by owned oil pet congress in both parties, but mainly Republicans. Even the incremental change a moderately democratic president could manage would be of some help. I think Jill Stein did get help from Russia, whether she knows it or not, as did Bernie, though not with the intent or real chance of winning, but to help serve as a spoiler. A close friend who marinated on FB for a lot of the day suddenly became rabidly anti-Clinton. He was pro-Bernie, as was I, but I recognized Clinton as better than Trump. As soon as Benie endorsed her, he became rabidly pro-Stein. He also spent time forwarding memes about how bogus the Russia meddling theory was.
Yeah, friends who do work in advertising/marketing tell me that FB is a good value, and at the time of the election, FB asked no questions and literally didn’t mind being paid in roubles, so…
At the time of it’s release, I think this was, up to that point, the greatest comic book movie ever.
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I doubt that political pressure from USA had anything to do with the charges. It is possible that his fame did hurt him, though. That an ambitious prosecutor figured it was a good way to get publicity. It seems Assange at the contrary thought that being important he could get away with behaving like an asshole and the women would just be flattered that he gave them attention. In any case, running away sure made him look guilty, no matter the strength of the original case.
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Oh, don’t worry. As soon as Assange finishes his stay in a Swedish prison, he can be extradited to the US to spend time in a US prison. It’s not an either/or.
It’s interesting that no articles ever mention if/whether Swedish statutes of limitation are suspended if the suspect flees to avoid prosecution. (I mean, for this to be even being brought up, it must, one would suppose.)
Is that all? Jeez - people lie about me that much every day. Hey - wouldn’t it have been nice if Assange was a real Chelsea Manning’s supporter?
But back to those lies - I’m going to trust the women accusing him for now - though he’ll hopefully get his chance to say why they’re liars and he didn’t sexually assault them soon enough. If a guy was a fugitive from justice for seven years - going to another country and then hiding in an embassy to avoid facing sexual assault charges - he’s kinda lost the high ground and any expectation of the public tending to believe him.
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I just want to echo that I really like your post and agree.
If Assange is guilty of rape in Sweden, he should stand trail for it. I mean, it is kinda like Capone going to jail for tax evasion, but if he did the crime, he should face consequences.
Extradition to the US I am not sure I agree with. There are two factors there - COULD he be charged with a crime and SHOULD he be charged with a crime. The anti-authoritarian in me says that he shouldn’t be - he is exposing what authority does behind closed doors and it should be exposed. The realist in me says that if he violated certain laws, even if they are bad laws, it is going to be really hard to legally keep him from facing consequences. I suppose since he is so high profile maybe enough people protesting could get things reduced - but he isn’t doing himself any favors with this negative press.
Sigh - just like my life, it’s a shit show…
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I’m right there with you. I give Sweden the “benefit of the doubt” in that I think they have a functioning, mostly non-corrupt investigation and prosecution system. I was in full on concede-everything-for-argument mode with a big, “even then” at the end.
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And he didn’t do it by himself, though he’s the quickest to take credit for the whole WL team’s efforts.
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You’re so righ.
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If he were in USA he would be in trouble, but if the country he ends up in, Sweden or UK, decide those laws are bad they have every right to refuse to hand him over. An additional benefit for Assange to face trial in Sweden is that USA may then decide that he has lost so much credibility it’s not worth trying to use US diplomatic and economic muscles to force it to hand him over.
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You are so right about this. When people are trying to discredit the women involved, they are basing their opinion almost completely on Wikileaks press releases, and not what was said by Sweden or the women involved. It’s a lot of bad spin on basic law.
The women have not told their whole story publicly, SIMPLY BECAUSE THERE HASN’T BEEN A TRIAL YET. They haven’t testified so anyone saying they know more than their few public statements is repeating stuff that has been proven false many times. The only person who has been fire-hosing opinions about what the women think is Assange himself.
Up to this point, the women reported sexual assault, they didn’t rescind their stories, they didn’t change their stories, they asked for the charges to be reinstated multiple times, consistently.
Also, the fact that they had to ask Swedish prosecutors to keep trying completely undermines any narrative that this was some “necessary” scheme the government was bulldozing through. Why would they set up a sting that wasn’t Hollywood airtight? Why would they do a sting that was a rape charge when people are so dismissive of women and rape charges in general?
This is a straight-up lie.
If there weren’t charges to answer, 1. Why did Wikileaks get excited that “charges are ‘dropped’”, and 2. Why did Assange’s judge in his UK extradition trial determine that the charges he was sought for were equivalent to UK charges for sexual assault?
Swedish charges are brought when the suspect is in Swedish custody, it doesn’t matter the criminal or the circumstances.
Saying he wasn’t wanted for rape is ignorant of the fact that the Swedish Prosecutors office said he was wanted for rape, for years.
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