New Wikileaks Dump is Unconscionable

hypewaders said:
FWIW I'll add one more tip (I'm too often guilty of this myself):

Don't ever assume you understand what's going on inside anyone-else's head, and never do it without posing sincere and non-threatening questions to the person of interest.
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We've been exchanging pm's for the past two weeks or so on Obama and the economy so I do know his opinion on those matters. He trusts the Federal Reserve, Obama (who of course is above corruption) and claims that the economy is in recovery:shrug:

Changing of the system is something he thinks should happen slowly or else it will all descend into anarchy. Basically we disagree on what is going on in the US but he is a liberal, a democrat. Don't know what he thinks about the Assange affair.
 
Wow, seems you understand him better than I. Obama above corruption? Really?

Hmmm. What say we talk about WikiLeaks until he drops by (joepistole I mean). Obama has others watching places like this for him.

I am grateful for WikiLeaks, but I think Assange is an asshole.
 
WillNever said:
They found it thrilling because they were in a position in a helicopter where they were untouchable to the victims they were murdering, spidergoat. There is nothing natural about such a position.

To call it a "human trait" is flawed. The fact that many military men find that they later suffer from horrific things like PTSD is good evidence that humans benefit from not engaging in war at all, much less getting a thrill from it. That you identify with such aberrant freakazoids who do enjoy it does not bode well -- as it may signify that your own mind has become rather diseased. :cool:
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No, people find war thrilling for many reasons, and in many circumstances apart from helicopter battles. You should read more. PTSD doesn't negate my premise one bit. I also didn't identify with this phenomenon personally, so your personal attack is unwarranted.
 
hypewaders said:
Wow, seems you understand him better than I. Obama above corruption? Really?

Hmmm. What say we talk about WikiLeaks until he drops by (joepistole I mean). Obama has others watching places like this for him.

I am grateful for WikiLeaks, but I think Assange is an asshole.
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Whether Assange is an asshole or not is not relevant. Whether the head of Medicine Sans Frontier is a dick-head is also irrelevant.

Maybe Ellsberg is a pain in the ass. Perhaps Howard Zinn is complete wanker. Does that have any relevance in how they are treated or undermine the significance of their work?
 
Lucysnow said:
The ones who are all up in arms are Tea Party members or those who'll raise their guns and march behind Limbaugh or someone like him
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an absolutely asinine assertion

(RTTNews) - A prominent Tea Party group issued a statement Tuesday apparently calling for the execution of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for the recent release of confidential U.S. documents.

Judson Phillips, founder of Tea Party Nation, claims that WikiLeaks has done incalculable damage to American security by releasing the documents, noting that some of the leaked documents identify people in Iraq and Afghanistan that have helped the U.S.​
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"Assange is not a 'journalist' any more than the 'editor' of al-Qaeda's new English-language magazine Inspire is a 'journalist'," said Palin. "He is an anti-American operative with blood on his hands."​
 
Lucysnow said:
Whether Assange is an asshole or not is not relevant... Does that have any relevance in how they are treated or undermine the significance of their work?
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Lucy, you're right! Let's never mention asshonge here again. We can talk about him in a thread about nefarious condom tricks, or people who blow without whistles.

But I do love his his associates' work championing whistleblowers.
 
hypewaders said:
Lucy, you're right! Let's never mention asshonge here again. We can talk about him in a thread about nefarious condom tricks, or people who blow without whistles.

But I do love his his associates' work championing whistleblowers.
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Assange will be mentioned as long as he is hounded and threatened with the loss of freedom or the loss of life.
 
Lucysnow said:
Please don't tell me what I should care about or whom I should listen to. The 'washed up' assessment of Ellsberg is yours alone. Though I'm sure Hannity, Limbaugh and Pailin would join you in that mantra.
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Do what you want. Ellsberg is ridiculous, both as a person and as an opinionater. The only people who listen to him are the people who listen to democracy now -- who had him on the other week, I think -- and think that's an unbiased news source. Nobody else credits him -- or Dean, who was last seen making ridiculous assertions akin to yours here.

Lucysnow said:
You think the Vietnam war enormous compared to Iraq and Afghanistan? Since we are 10 years down the road and haven't fulfilled our goals or seem to find a way to remove troops off the ground I find that assessment completely stupid.
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Vietnam sucked up more American GDP, wasted tens of thousands of more lives, necessitated a draft and was an incredibly potent political issue for a decade or more. Nothing like any of that is on the table now. The people who make cheap comparisons of 2010 to the Vietnam era do so either because their brains are incapable of understanding any American war outside a Vietnam-era lense or they are Left-leaning types who are invested, somehow, in intellectually re-creating the glory days of their way of thinking. The world is different now, so are the situations and conflicts. Act accordingly.

Lucysnow said:
Woodward was dependent on whistleblowers and a paper willing to run the story which at the beginning they were very hesitant to do. If they had classified written proof do you think they would have run with the story?
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I'm not dealing in what-ifs. I'm also not accepting Assange as a whistleblower. He's not. You need to look that word up and try to understand its meaning. Assange, as an outsider, by definition cannot be a whistleblower. He's an interloper. You think a useful one, I think not.

Lucysnow said:
The cables are a range from information that we find pertinent and those that are simply embarrassing. So if the wikileak cables, which have not been fully released, lacks enormity then why is there a global effort to silence the organization and charge Assange with espionage? I won't go into the power twits that have called for his assassination.
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The information is pretty useless in any terms other than what I've laid out in several previous posts. What it is useful for is to embaress the US and try to derail its foreign policy, which is exactly what I think this boob is trying to do, in addition to stroking his obvious ego. The efforts to silence Assange are for obvious reasons. No government wants its private deliberations aired in public because that completely derails its ability to make policy. Several members have explained as much in this thread. Echo did the best job, I believe. I suggest you re-read what he wrote.
 
hypewaders said:
The man is a distraction. The more attention can be focused on Assange, the less thinking and learning will occur in the public concerning the many larger issues threatening to enter mass consciousness. Activists with big egos are much easier for establishments to handle than the greater, more humble ones.
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You know too much. :m:
 
Red Devil said:
As you are anti semetic you are talking double standards. If it was indeed an australian hacker 'dedicated to bringing the truth' to the people - whose truth are we talking about here. If I posted all your details on an israeli site, what am I guilty of? Exactly the same surely, breach of confidence.

This australian is only interested in one thing - self glorification amongst the warped society he thrives in.

You have survived 69k+ posts so you live in here, and the staff are incredibly tolerant, mein fuhrer.
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The truth is painful no? Why are you attacking the messenger? Lets ban Sam for having an opinion. No better yet, lets ban Sci for facilitating the sharing of information and opinions. :m:
 
hypewaders said:
There is always that choice. Some people would rather passively die than take courage to resist, however dire the circumstance.
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When they tell you that you must buy car insurance, don't.

When they tell you, the IRS is legal, a tax on a man's labor is not a tax on his wealth, and the 14th amendment was passed legally, tell them they are criminals and lairs. Make them steal from you, make them be the thieves. Pay the legal taxes to your country, i.e. sales, excise, duties, etc., but not the illegal ones.

When they tell you that you must buy health insurance, don't. The constitution doesn't provide for that.

Continue to exercise your liberties no matter the cost. You can passively resist before you need to take courage. . . :)
 
Bells said:
I did not get much of a chance to listen to the news this evening as they were discussing the threats made against Assange and the threats of arrest. Our Attorney-General commented that Mr Assange, as an Australian citizen, was free to access consular assistance ASAP to help with the threat of arrest and stated he could come home - possibly for protection as mention was made of his rights as an Australian citizen and Government protection. This was said after condemning him for releasing the information.. My children were playing rocket wars at the time and I could barely hear what was said on the TV, so I may be incorrect.

I suspect the pressure on the Australian Government to act against him is strong and threats of arrest or cancellation of his passport has been met with a negative response in the community and from the opposition - who all state correctly that you cannot cancel his passport when you don't even know if he has broken any laws.
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I'm sure it is strong but you don't think that the pressure in our own Parliament will be stronger this time than "whatever the US wants". No legislation can pass without at least 1 of either wilky or the green in the house and nothing can pass the Senate from July 1 without the aproval of the greens. If they government gets to out of step the opositions motions of no confidence could well be passed.
 
@Counterzero

Democracy Now has never pretended to be unbiased anymore than Bill Moyers or Fox News so that's irrelevant. What you personally think of Ellsberg is irrelevant since you are neither a former military analysts who's worked for the Pentagon and State Department and then gone on to risk everything by outing the government.

Who made a comparison between the Vietnam war and now? I made a comparison to the role the press, journalists and whistleblowers had made back then and the new political climate that can globally harangue Assange and Wikileak. For me this is an issue of press freedoms and transparency. I am not arguing about one war vs another since they have both turned out to be colossal mistakes. By the way the war in Iraq and Afghanistan has cost more than the war in Vietnam.

Counterzero: I'm not dealing in what-ifs. I'm also not accepting Assange as a whistleblower. He's not. You need to look that word up and try to understand its meaning. Assange, as an outsider, by definition cannot be a whistleblower. He's an interloper. You think a useful one, I think not.

I never called Assange a whistleblower, I have called Wikileaks a vehicle for whistleblowers. So the comparison stands on whether the Washington Post should have been shut down for relating a story that the government deemed one of 'national security'. Assange is being made an example of as the head of Wikileaks and Wikileaks if Assange pay a penalty on espionage charges will limit if not shut down Wikileaks.

Counterzero: The information is pretty useless in any terms other than what I've laid out in several previous posts. What it is useful for is to embaress the US and try to derail its foreign policy, which is exactly what I think this boob is trying to do, in addition to stroking his obvious ego. The efforts to silence Assange are for obvious reasons. No government wants its private deliberations aired in public because that completely derails its ability to make policy.

Of course no government wants their private dealings made public, neither do corporations or the mob for that matter. If the information that has been leaked (what has been leaked so far) has no consequences save embarrassment then why is there a global effort to capture Assange, bring him up on espionage charges and shut down Wikileaks? Why do you have a senior advisor to a Canadian PM calling for Assange to be assassinated? A call echoed by a conservative columnist and Pailin the twit basically calling him a terrorist? Even if Assange is hoping the US and other nations will change their foreign policy we already know that even if you had every man woman and child outside the White House pissing in the wind there would still be no change in foreign policy. That being the case is still no reason for them not to release the information to the general public who can then judge their elected officials and size up their government and its dealings with other nations based on that information.

That's a lot of brouhaha for something that's nothing don't you think?
 
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Yep, they've even edited down the official Support WL page to reflect that (readers here can compare that with Lucysnow's and my previous pasts of it above in this thread).

This doesn't bother me, because I think if Assange had any backbone and common sense, he'd take his chances, face the music, and set an example of public accountability in Swedish courts (and Swedish national prestige /sentiment) rather than the various, more dangerous possibilities as he hides out in a country that is much more malleable to Washington than Sweden. I would never have donated to a legal defense fund for charges of sneaky rubberless shagging.
 
hypewaders said:
Yep, they've even edited down the official Support WL page to reflect that (readers here can compare that with Lucysnow's and my previous pasts of it above in this thread).

This doesn't bother me, because I think if Assange had any backbone and common sense, he'd take his chances, face the music, and set an example of public accountability in Swedish courts (and Swedish national prestige /sentiment) rather than the various, more dangerous possibilities as he hides out in a country that is much more malleable to Washington than Sweden. I would never have donated to a legal defense fund for charges of sneaky rubberless shagging.
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How is he not taking his actions? They have yet to issue the arrest warrant and go to pick him up. Or do you think that he should just hand-cuff himself and go sit on the steps of the old bailey? And don't you get it Sweden withdrew its warrant for arrest and allowed him to leave for the UK and only re-issued it recently probably at the behest of the US who will have him extradited. He's not going to be tried in Sweden from the looks of it. If there were legit rape charges then why issue a warrant, then drop charges and allow him to leave the country and the re-issue the warrant again? Also he isn't hiding. British authorities know exactly where he is and will go there when they have a warrant.

So what he shagged without a rubber:rolleyes:

Are you still bagging that thing of yours when you go after that rubber doll? :shake:
 
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Well, if you want to press charges- I'll see you in court.

Assange should lose his nonsensical reverse-stockholm syndrome & do the same.
 
Lucysnow said:
Oh poo! Joe believes the system is fine and Obama is 'better', the mighty mouse of politicians, and the country under his guidance will have a bright future ahead of it.:D
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You are misrepresenting my position Lucy. Things are not fine. The US now faces signficiant political risk...something I would have thought remote three decades ago. But with the rise of the radical right, Americas future is far from secure....see how well the economy and middle classs do under a Palin adiminstration or a Ron Paul administration.

What you will hear me speak out against is the unwarranted fear mongering on the right that is totally without merit and is only used to distract and manipulate the uninformed...which is most Americans.

I do believe Obama is America's best hope at this moment. He and the Democrats have done much to get this country back on the right track and they are pursuing many of the right policies. But in the end they are Democrats and not as effective at political manipulation as are Republicans. Dems tend to get tied down with moral issues whereas Republicans have no such qualms.

Obama is far from perfect in my view, but he is America's best hope. There is no one on the Repulbican side of the fence that even comes close. And with each passing day Republicans continue to divorce themselves from reality and become increasingly radical and unable to govern.
 
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