Two of us, Ellsberg and Noam Chomsky, testified for Assange at his extradition hearing last year. In Ellsberg’s words then, the WikiLeaks publications that Assange is being charged for are “amongst the most important truthful revelations of hidden criminal state behavior that have been made public in U.S. history.” The American public “needed urgently to know what was being done routinely in their name, and there was no other way for them to learn it than by unauthorized disclosure.”
Exact dates escape me because I’d just as soon it all never happened. These are the rough outlines cause now my bile is up.
But, it’s days before the 2016 election and everyone is laaaaaaaaughing at the idea of Trump winning. It was a real “Dewey Defeats Truman” moment except instead of one gun-jumping paper it was half the fucking country. Not me, and not a few other people who went on the record; Michael Moore called it, on the record, before anyone else that I’m aware of. I’m not a fan of his, cause after a while he becomes kind of, I dunno, cloying. But he called it a good year before the election, and he called it accurately for the right reasons.
Anyways, Assange released a bunch of nothingburgers about Clinton days before, but it was a sufficiently large trove of emails or whatthefuckever that there was no possibility of its being properly assessed on any level, and that analysis getting into the public mind before the election, in the first place. But never mind that, a lie can go round the world etc etc, and the Gamergate machine under Steve Gammon’s control had already stoked a forest fire of fascistic emotion, for which these “Hilary Papers” became explosive fuel. I was on Twitter in the year or two after that and I remember “But Her Emails” being the venomous hashtag accompanying every picture of refugee children in cages and such.
That was one punch of two, delivered by Assange through Wikileaks, and that was the moment that I became his personal enemy, whatever the law might think. It was a piece of a calculated and coordinated propagandist operation, is my opinion on the matter. Or he was just that big of an asshole. I don’t know, as I said, what all he thought he was getting, other than attention, which let’s face it, is enough for most. Maybe he also thought that there was no way Trump could possibly actually win, and he was trying to shortsell a bit of extra heat for the coming highly-lucrative Clinton presidency. Lots of fuckwits did that too.
The other punch was of course the FBI guy announcing, this one I remember was eight days before the election, that they were investigating Clinton. Again, I cannot say that this was in any way coordinated, but boy did it put a real period on the whole “Clintons are murderers who are going to be exposed any day now” conspiracy that remains strong. Comey’s PR since then has crafted an image of a resolute lawman who did what he was supposed to do according to the book. Such homunculi do exist in America. Fuck him too.
I dunno if that clarifies anything at all but that’s another serving of my loathing. P.T. Barnum still has the pulse of America.
*Edit: I give some very flippant replies to an earnest defender of Comey further down in the thread. I did not have the energy at the time so I just defaulted to ACAB, because ACAB.
BUT, here is my only-slightly-more-nuanced take on Comey: Comey also knew that the same dynamics re the dexterity and agility of lies would apply to his Obviously Very Meaningful Announcement only 8 days before an election. He knew that there was no possibility that (a) the public would assume she was innocent until proven guilty, and (b) that even if she was, that truth would never drown out the howls of the Trump faithful, which at the time were very compelling to that bizarre species of ape, the Swing Voter.
He knew he was serving one particular side of this election.
If he didn’t know these things, then he is an incompetent stooge and deserves to go down in history as an Incompetent Stooge.
Either way, fuck him also. *
Comey announcing the Clinton investigation is in no way similar to Assange, despite having a similar effect. Comey was (and is) a boy-scout. He did what he thought was right when being stuck between two bad decisions. I maintain most ethical people, if put in his position, would have done the same thing. Assange is completely different.
Agreed.
Still, fuck him too.
I mean, disagree on fuck him. Poor dude has been unfairly villified and I don’t envy the guilt he probably lives with, especially because I think he did the right thing (without the benefit of hindsight, anyway).
As a government worker myself, I know what it’s like to work for shit pay for the mission and to read in popular media about what a terrible job you’re doing. I want to see someone do it better when they understand all the nuances, or are faced with tough decisions. People are always ready to make snap decisions when they lack the whole picture or have to actually think about the consequences. Can you imagine the hue and cry if Clinton were elected and it came out she was under investigation later, and that on top of that the investigation was now dropped (because nothing was found)? For all we know we could’ve had January 6th 4 years earlier! It’s an impossible counterfactual.
ACAB
Everyone hates cops and lawyers until they need one…
I mean fair enough. I get the phrase, and while I kind of agree with the reasoning behind it even if I don’t agree with the actual sentiment, I definitely don’t think it applies to the FBI.
Let’s see what they do about that podunk police force that murdered the smalltown paper down in, was it Kansas there? Seems to me that whole town should already be overrun with g-men in horn-rimmed glasses ready to Mississippi Burning the whole county to the ground.
Edit - also, to be fair, quite a few people hate the cops even more after they need one, because the cop didn’t do shit.
The Kansas Bureau of Investigation is already investigating: https://www.washingtonpost.com/media/2023/08/15/state-investigators-will-probe-police-raid-kansas-newspaper-office/
Lots of local police forces absolutely suck. Many cops are bastards, so to speak. But lots of state and federal (and yes, even some local) cops investigate white collar crime, human trafficking, murders, and yes, even wrongdoing by other local cops!
#NotAllCops