This week turned out to be one of the saddest weeks for global freedom of speech yet this year. Not only because the Ecuadorian Embassy in London opened its doors and sold an asylum-granted refugee (and let me add betraying one of its own citizens) for an IMF loan. Not only because the London Metropolitan police stormed the Ecuadorian Embassy to arrest one of the greatest journalists of our time. Not even only because the Orange Hydra administration spared not a second to demand that Assange be extradited to the US to face conspiracy charges (something that they have always denied wanting to do).
No, the frosting upon this shit sandwich that really topped the bill, was the vitriol from both sides of the US political fence that was spewn at an editor in chief of one of the most potent journalistic outlets since print was made obsolete.
From out of the American woodwork crawled all kinds. From supremacists Trumpists, to militants from the rabid Hillary army, to Russiagate supporters that seem to want to bring back the McCarthy days of US discourse. All in an effort to smear, demonize, and diminish the WikiLeaks editor-in-chief Julian Assange.
And while there are many things to be said about Assange’s part in uncovering US war crimes and corruption, about his work toward information transparency, and the national taboos or crimes he may have committed to provide us with insight, I won’t. Not now. His fourteen human rights and journalism awards speak to the credit of his work. His criminal status the world over speaks to it likewise. I will, instead, take time to examine the arguments against the man.
Argument #1: That he’s a rapist. That he’s a misogynist. An epitaph that is levied against him to vilify him as a sludge of a person. As a cretinous monster that needs to be stamped out, and no matter his awards or contribution, he should be shunned.
The global manhunt for Assange began as Sweden initiated a rape case against the man. But judging from the scant information on the Swedish prosecutions case against him that we have available to us, the case seems flimsy. At best. The prosecution has changed the classification of the case many times, but it has most often revolved around sexual misconduct and rape. Even though reports show that neither of the two allegedly raped women seems to have held much of a grudge against the man. Reports paint them as having had casual sexual encounters with Assange, and then left amicably. Until they started trying to get in touch with him due to STD suspicions.
But… having careless sex isn’t rape if it’s consensual. Nor are sexual mistakes. Which leaves us wondering… just how did the Swedish prosecution come to declare a man, that had made himself an enemy of the most influential empire in the western world, a rape suspect? Seems suspect in itself. Even more so, considering that the Swedish prosecution has changed the classifications several times. Not to mention that no suspected rapist in Swedish history has incited a manhunt of this magnitude.
Argument #2: That he’s a criminal. Pure and simple. That he has broken American law by aiding, abetting, and possibly involving himself, in the hacking of top secret government digital archives. That he worked together with Chelsea Manning, and thus made of himself an accomplice.
But Assange isn’t a US citizen. Assange wasn’t in the US when he allegedly helped break into American databases. So why should he be tried in the US? A sovereign state has no right to simply steal away foreign citizens unless a crime has been perpetrated upon their land. There’s little precedent of extraditing people for digital crimes, but what would the US say if… for example, a US citizen on a US internet connection, defamed and insulted Chinese Chairman-for-life Xi Jinping? The Chinese police state has made it clear that insulting their grand emperor is a punishable offence. But wouldn’t the very notion of delivering one of their own into Chinese hands seem absurd? It is simply mind-boggling for anyone blessed to live outside of American borders to consider how western sovereign nations barely even bat an eye at such an affront to international law.
Assange is a criminal in the UK, because he split bail there. That’s an easy fix. Assange is a suspect in Sweden, because of an equally suspect rape case. Both of those crimes, alleged and otherwise, were committed on UK and Swedish soil respectively. But Assange never committed a crime on American soil…
Argument #3: He’s not a real journalist. So press freedom concerns don’t apply to the persecution of him. This one goes hand-in-hand with the McCarthyist arguments that he’s a Russian spy. A stooge of neo-Russian influence on American politics. As if the US needed a foreign power to destabilize them. They do so well on their own.
But being a journalist isn’t a protected title. At least not in Sweden, where this absurd manhunt began. A journalist doesn’t have any more authority to dig up information or talk to people than any random citizen does. Maybe matters differ in the US, where politics seem to rule the journalistic landscape to such an extent that the Hydra occupying the White House has weaponized his patron news outlet, Fox News, to wage a propaganda war on his opposition. Going so far as to incite violence on rival members of congress.
The truth is that world wide, you are a journalist if you do journalistic work. And seeing the many journalism awards given to Julian Assange, he is more of a journalist than most accredited ones. And as for being a Russian stooge, let us carry on to the next point…
Argument #4: Assange, and anyone supporting him, is a Russian instigator. Simply for the fact that they act anti-American.
I don’ know how else to tell you this, but… you don’t have to support the Putinocracy of revived Tsarist Russia to disapprove of the US way of things. It is not Russian double agents that make the US commit war crimes on a weekly basis. It is not Russian doppelgängers in your midst that are sending your nation free-falling into civil war. It is not Russian influence that has soured the international community in your disfavour. The US is doing all of that on its own.
Even domestic favourites like Joe Biden has proven himself to be a standard molded bully in international matters. He’s even bragged about it. Even democratic darling Obama signed death warrants on US citizens without them being judged by a court of their peers. The US has been circling the drain on acceptable domestic and international etiquette for years. Decades even.
The reason that Assange has spent most of his career looking at your dirty secrets is not because of Russian patronage. It’s because you have a lot of them. A lot of very, very, very, very nasty secrets. Because you have been a very, very, very, very naught nation for a very long time now.
Argument #5, the sweet spot: That Assange is a misogynist and a white supremacist. The reason for which I can only suss out is that people blame him for bricking Hillary in the last days of the 2016 campaign. Because he had a hand in the Hydra gaining the White House.
Never in the same breath though, do I hear self-reflection from these rabid Hillarists, that she wasn’t a good candidate. That she was just as dirty as the rest of Capitol Hill. For as soon as you bring any criticism down on their sweet St. Hillary of the Pure of Heart and Just of Cause, any criticism whatsoever, be it true or false, they shall send self-righteous fury and vitriol down upon you. For as the US political climate has taken a steep turn for the gutter following their election of the Orange Hydra into office, you are either with them or against them.
I bet there’s plenty of valid criticism for the man Julian Assange. I bet people who know him have choice words to say. No one is perfect. Not even people that win awards in journalism. And it is no surprise that governments hate the man. He’s pissed on the porch of some of the world’s mightiest and thinnest skinned powers that the world has ever seen. But when I see private citizens, and million times worse yet; journalists, bashing the man for things blatantly untrue or yet unproven, it chills me to the bone.
For what I see when I look upon the fury some people levy against Assange, I only see one thing. I see We the People, wilfully banging the drums for their own subjugation. Doing the bidding of despots that wish nothing more than to impede on their rights and blindfold their citizenry with deceit and lies and nationalism. I see a people that vilify and spit on their own liberator, the very person that offers to unveil their heroes for the villains they truly are. And it breaks my heart…
/Sebastian Lindberg 16/4-2019
WastedWords 