General Discussion
In reply to the discussion: Julian Assange: Senate my ticket to freedom [View all]freshwest
(53,661 posts)The newspaper stories that have been posted here are often are so biased, one way or the other, that it's hard to find what is credible, although this thread had some that weren't. Lots of loaded statements of support or disdain from many viewpoints.
There were posts on why Wikileaks got in trouble with VISA and MasterCard. It wasn't the government, but the fear of those companies of being sued and once again, not by the government. It was based on what appeared to be a pattern of manipulating banking share prices for hostile takeovers with bad news stories. Remember a few years ago when Anon claimed they were going to release the records of Bank of America and going to bring down the whole mess?
Nothing ever came out of all of that but a sense of outrage and the faith that Wikileaks and Anonymous were going to come and save the day for everyone. That still hasn't happened and I wonder if it was a diversion to keep people's minds off the real power brokers who elected the Tea Party to do real damage to millions of people.
The Belarus angle in one of the posts on this thread from AlJezeera was startling in the games being played behind the scenes in Ecuador. Those who said that Correa's hands were not clean, were howled at for being anti-Assange. At the same time, Correa was being hailed as a defender of the free press or whatever from the evil UK/American global cabal. He looks like another corporate stooge and not a friend of the oppressed at all.
In all of these stories, I've considered how different the lives of the players in this saga are from ordinary people. And just where the kind of money that has passed between hands here came from and where it is going. Wikileaks was attacked by Anonymous as profiting off the work of their hackers who were serving prison time. It is my belief that Manning was used - but others claim he was not or that he was mentally off.
The amount of money Wikileaks gave to Manning's defense fund was very tiny in comparison to the millions they were taking in through donations for their stated causes. The film that spawned a great deal of Wikileaks fame which you can purchase or see for free on youtube, came from what Manning provided to them for free and at the loss of his own liberty. There was more bewailing of the not-so tortorous treatment of Julian in the embassy after he jumped bail in the UK than about Brandley.
I was happy at the debut of Wikileaks and many other things I'd seen on the internet regarding social change. I met or listened personally to Daniel Ellsberg, Mike Gravel and John Kerry. All during the time they were in the course of their anti-war actions and they were punished in various ways, including arrests in street actions. I respected the VVAW and other groups of the day on social justice, the environment, women, gay and labor rights, and anti-war actions. I worked in and traveled the country with them.
If we were being manipulated back then, honestly, I don't know. But the way the media has been for so long and having learned so much more, I am skeptical of everything but the desire to live freely.