Re: Julian Assange Captured by World's Dating Police

On Sat, Dec 11, 2010 at 10:10 AM,  <[email protected]> wrote:
> Jill Filipovic put it well in response to Wolf:
> In fact, it is totally possible to support the WikiLeaks project and to
> think that the international response to Assange and the project is
> thoroughly fucked up and to think we should withhold judgment on whether or
> not Assange is actually a rapist and also to think that we should withhold
> judgment on whether the women are lying, and to not discredit the women
> involved, and to not create a hostile climate for rape survivors, and to not
> play into every tired old stereotype about women and rape.

This sums up my thoughts on this particular issue rather well.
Especially the bit about withholding judgement and how this is
completely irrelevant to whether or not one supports the WikiLeaks
project.

A friend of mine also pointed out a Slate article at
http://goo.gl/6ylTo, which has a few especially good bits:

"I often caution people not to assume conspiracy when opportunism is
what's likely in play."

"It's possible both that Wikileaks is a necessary curative for
government overreach and that its leader is out to serve his own ego
needs above all."

"... women who file rape charges can pretty much always expect to have
their names dragged through the mud, unless they were "lucky" enough
to be raped by someone of much lower social status who also jumped out
of the bushes to rape them."

"It seems to me the most surefooted grounds for outrage in this case
is the way that Interpol is suddenly pretending they care about
rounding up sex offenders who commit difficult-to-prove crimes that
have minor punishments in the rare event someone is found guilty.
Assange's guilt or innocence is irrelevant to that question, and
there's no need to attack two women who we have no reason to believe
are liars."

We have not seen all of the evidence that will be brought before the
Swedish courts for trial.  While I do not blame Assange for trying to
avoid or delay extradition to Sweden, I think it's to his credit that
he turned himself in as soon as a valid arrest warrant was issued.  I
also cannot say with any certainty that his accusers are lying or that
he is guilty.  I don't take the alleged CIA link very seriously; our
government has acted more like thuggish gangsters than the
sophisticated chess playing spooks that would be required to pull that
off convincingly.

I'm particularly pleased that WikiLeaks (and other organizations like
OpenLeaks, Cryptome, etc) will thrive even if Assange is detained
indefinitely.

-- 
Nick

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