• Shalakushka@kbin.social
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    10 months ago

    Act like a spy and rapist, be treated like a spy and rapist.

    Whistleblowers are impartial. They don’t withhold information to help tip the scales. Edward Snowden is a whistle blower. Julian Assange is a Russian asset and a rapist.

    • ghost_of_faso2@lemmygrad.ml
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      10 months ago

      man discovers journalists can have biases

      man demands they be executed/detained forever

      yep its a liberal; free speech for the slave owners moment.

    • Cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
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      10 months ago

      The trial is not due to the accusations you make, and for the record, there’s no law against being biased or not impartial.

      • livus@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        True but they do have a point.

        Every time Lemmy discusses this, there are people going on about bias in journalism, as if that’s somehow relevant to how many human rights he should be allowed to have.

      • Shalakushka@kbin.social
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        10 months ago

        Assange got e-mails for both Republican and Democratic parties from a Russian hacker associated with the Kremlin and then specifically chose to withhold the Republican e-mails and release the Democratic e-mails. If he meant anything he said about transparency, he would have released everything, but that’s not what he or his employers wanted. They wanted their puppet president in Trump, and Assange was happy to help like the Russian asset he is.

        • freagle@lemmygrad.ml
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          10 months ago

          Even if this were true and from a credible source within WikiLeaks, the idea that whistleblowers should be impartial is not something I have ever heard. Assange is trying to stop the world’s most violent and virulent warmachine. Working with Russia and likely China by proxy, there are sophisticated theories of action about how best to do that.

          But honestly, Clinton was losing no matter what because her strategy was flawed, which we have ample evidence of because she still won the popular vote! You can’t have it both ways.

          • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            As I remember it, Russia supplied Assange and Wikileaks with information about the DMC, and nothing else. Wikileaks then published the full dataset, unredacted.

            Then, someone else provided evidence of Russian corruption. Wikileaks did not publish any of this. There was outcry, then Assange said publicly “Of course Russia is corrupt, that isn’t newsworthy.”

            While that still leaves some room for Assange and Wikileaks being on Russia’s side, this should all be viewed in the context that the US government was rabidly frothing at the mouth to get back at Assange for (legitimately) revealing their corruption.

          • andyburke@fedia.io
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            10 months ago

            As someone who was around for all of it, nah, you are not going to convince me Assange is an impartial good guy. Sory, but I am with camp “Russian asset” and he can reap that shit.

              • andyburke@fedia.io
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                10 months ago

                Maybe, perhaps probably. He just so happens to end up in Russia?

                It doesn’t mean I don’t believe what either of these dudes put out in the world, it just means I am not sure that their motives were as pure as so many people today seem to think they were. (Note: back THEN, I thought these guys were the good guys, many years later having seen the way the data has been handled, where they ended up, how they’ve handled themselves, I’m much less likely to give them the benefit of the doubt.)

                • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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                  10 months ago

                  Russia just so happens not to extradite people to the US.

                  Assange has always been a bit of a dick, but sometimes being a good journalist requires people to be dicks.

                  At the same time, some people are Piers Morgan.

                  I don’t think Assange is Piers Morgan. I think Piers Morgan far more deserves what Assange has experienced so far, let alone whatever may face him in future.

        • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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          10 months ago

          Assange got e-mails for both Republican and Democratic parties from a Russian hacker and then specifically chose to withhold the Republican e-mails

          but that’s not what he or his employers wanted.

          Why would Russia give him information on both parties if Russia wanted to support one party over the other?

          I think you’ve got things confused. I think the controversy was that he released information on the Democrats, provided by Russia, but then subsequently did not release information on Russia being corrupt. This was then construed as him being in support of Russia, when, by his argument, he simply did not think reporting on Russian corruption was newsworthy - of course Russia is corrupt.

          If you can please provide evidence that Assange or Wikileaks were provided evidence of Republican corruption by the Russians, that would be appreciated.

        • ralphio@lemmy.world
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          10 months ago

          Why do people keep saying this? It doesn’t even make sense. Why would the Russians give Assange the RNC emails if they didn’t want them to be published? There is no evidence that I can find that the RNC emails were ever given to anyone.

          • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            That’s because they didn’t. What happened was someone subsequently released info about Russian corruption, and Wikileaks didn’t publish it, citing the fact that Russian corruption was obvious and not newsworthy.

        • Cyclohexane@lemmy.ml
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          10 months ago

          You replied to a comment asking “source?” with an entire paragraph containing zero sources.

          • davel@lemmy.ml
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            10 months ago

            Source is probably years of watching Rachel Maddow’s Russiagate conspiracy theorizing.

          • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            A comment replying “Source?” is not contributing to the conversation, and criticising someone for writing more than 1 word in reply is also bullshit.

            It really gets on my wick when people thing saying “Source?” is a sufficient challenge in online conversation. We’re not writing academic papers here, we’re chatting shit on the internet.

            If you have an argument to make, make it.

            If you have a counter-argument, make it.

            If all you want to do is shit on someone for not writing an academic article with citations[1] but don’t actually contribute anything yourself, go suck on a turd.


            However, it should be said, @[email protected] has probably got things wrong. I don’t think Russia provided emails from the Republican party. The argument doesn’t even make sense - why would Russia provide arguments on both sides if they wanted one side, their Republican tiny-handed man, to get into the White House?

            Rather, what happened, as I recall, was that Assange also received intel on Russian corruption from somewhere else, then elected not to publish it. That is perhaps dodgy, but at the same time the reasoning I recall him giving was that it is obvious that Russia is corrupt - it simply was not newsworthy.


            1. Wow, look, lemmy has a citation function! If only the hyperlinks actually worked… ↩︎

    • iain@feddit.nl
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      10 months ago

      The American obsession with Russians is a mental condition.

      70 years of red scare propaganda really did a number on you guys.

      • andyburke@fedia.io
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        10 months ago

        … and yeh here we are with hundreds of thousands dead and the blood just fucking pouring off Putin’s hands.

        weird.

        • iain@feddit.nl
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          10 months ago

          I’m not saying Putin is a good guy, he obviously isn’t. I’m critiquing the fact that Americans can’t seem to take responsibility for their own fuckups.

          For instance: Trump is horrible, and he might do evil things with Putin. But then democrats keep framing it as if he’s Putin’s puppet. As if he, an American, can’t just be evil on his own terms. Russians must be pulling the strings, causing every shitty thing.

          • TWeaK@lemm.ee
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            10 months ago

            Trump is an evil idiot who was brought up as being a NY tabloid sensationalist. His mum got off on him being on the front page in the rags. So much so, he still dreams of being Times’ Man of the Year, and even faked his own cover page.

            That doesn’t mean he hasn’t been in bed with and under direction from Russian crime syndicates, and by proxy the Russian government, since the 1980’s. Both can easily be true.

            Just like dictators in Europe can say bad things about Russia while still sucking up in any practical issue that matters. What they say creates some form of plausible deniability, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t moving in tune with their puppet strings.

            There certainly is a fair amount of evil in America. There were American leaders who supported Hitler - they even attempted a mini uprising (that failed). Those same branches are trying again right now, but this time they’re following Russia rather than Germany.


            The Russian/Red/communist scare is a different thing entirely. That was the US trying to cement global dominance against the rise of socialism and the little people gaining control (which is deeply ironic, given that the US was founded on freedom and people trying to get away from Colonial Britain). However, in this instance, highlighting Russian interference and nefarious actions is absolutely valid and should not be disregarded.

          • andyburke@fedia.io
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            10 months ago

            Trump is an idiot. Many people pull his strings, but Putin especially.

            Not sure what point you’re really trying to make.

            • iain@feddit.nl
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              10 months ago

              You’re letting Trump get off easy by suggesting he’s being manipulated by someone else. He’s not an idiot, he knows exactly what he is doing.

              But the bigger point is this: Assange did something that benefitted Putin. That doesn’t mean he is Putin’s agent. Americans are so obsessed with Russia, they see it everywhere, which is just not true.

              • andyburke@fedia.io
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                10 months ago

                My friend, the evidence that Russia is wilding out and putting its shit out there all over the world is vast. I am not sure what to tell you if you can’t see that.

                The US fucks up all the time, badly, granted. Why are you continuously trying to obfuscate Russia’s shitty actions by talking about other countries?

                • iain@feddit.nl
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                  10 months ago

                  Of course, every country worth it’s salt is putting out propaganda, interfering with elections, and more.

                  But what I don’t agree with is that every time someone exposes the dark side of the U.S. (like people voting for Trump, or democrats being caught doing something shitty again), the default is to blame an external evil instead of acknowledging your own mistakes.

            • andyburke@fedia.io
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              10 months ago

              Possibly. Your response regarding thinking Russia is problematic being a mental condition sounds like a mental condition, though.