There Is Something To See Here
by zunguzungu
Julian Assange is not that important. Don’t give him a Nobel Prize. Don’t demonize him. Don’t line up in solidarity behind someone who may or may not be a serial rapist. Don’t demand the conviction of someone who is only accused of a crime, and needs to be presumed innocent until he is convicted. Demand justice for him — and don’t pretend you know what that is, unless you’re one of the three people who do — but don’t fall into the trap of thinking his conviction, in the long run, has very much to do with the whole host of really important issues that the Wikileaks revelations have brought up. Don’t make him more important than he is.
Wikileaks is only a single part of something that is, on its own terms, very important. They’ve given us a great deal of knowledge about exactly how the American state actually acts, proof that many of the state department’s secrets are simply a way of avoiding democratic oversight, that our diplomatic corps secretly does horrible things in our name. We already had a lot of knowledge of that, but now we have a lot more, and much of it utterly and uniquely damning. Julian Assange is a smart man who’s done some brave things in service of a good cause — and we owe him a debt of gratitude for the gift he’s given us. Thank you, Wikileaks. But that’s all we owe him, and them.
Which is why I want to say this, as clearly as I can: it’s exactly because Assange and Wikileaks are relatively unimportant (compared to the gigantic scandal of the anti-democratic security state in which we now live) that the media has made him into a superstar, has tried to make the entire story about Wikileaks and a single eccentric and interesting character, rather than about the United States government’s actions as a system. The more we focus on him — and I’ve contributed to that, which is why I particularly want to write this post — the more we take attention away from the real story, the substance of the things Wikileaks has revealed.
It tells you a great deal about how our media works, after all, that so very many of the people pronouncing moralistically on Wikileaks and Assange — either pro- or con- — seem more or less completely unblemished by more than a casual familiarity with the most sketchy and incomplete details of the case or the cabledump. On day one, long before more than a tiny fraction of the cables had been released, and long before they had a chance to look very deeply at more than a few, the fact that so many pundits were already pronouncing that there was nothing new here will tell you a lot about how seriously to take such people. They were wrong, but it’s more important to point out that they simply had no idea what they were talking about; even now, we‘ve barely figured out more than a little bit what‘s in those cables (and only 1/250th of the total has been released).
But this is why we need to keep a sense of perspective here. Julian Assange and Wikileaks are unimportant compared to the larger issue they’re raising: our “progressive” government’s basic antipathy to democracy, human rights, and international justice. Wikileaks has done a great deal to illuminate what our government actually does, but as Glenn Greenwald is absolutely right to point out, by far the most immediately revelatory effect of the Wikileaks dump was not in the cables, but in our government’s reaction to them. As we have seen, across the board, even “Democratic” politicians like Joseph Lieberman will piss all over due process and the bill of rights in pursuit of the right to keep anything secret from the American people. And anyone who is “against” the United States, in any form, is seen to deserve death, the laws be damned.
I’m grateful for what Wikileaks has done, and I think the benefits of their leaking vastly outweigh whatever negative side-effects the leaks may eventually prove to have. The fact that I’ve yet to see any credible evidence that they are having negative effects speaks volumes to me. I think the leaks have been, on balance, a very good thing. That will still be the case even if — as may prove to be true — Julian Assange is a serial rapist. It will be no more or less the case if he proves not to be. Whether he is a rapist is irrelevant, in that sense,
Assange’s rape charges are important for very different reasons, of course. It is a scandal how international law fails to take seriously a very serious crime like rape, but the scandal is certainly not unique to this case, nor should this case — because of its unique visibility — be distorted by being forced to bear the burden of the gigantic structural issues it brings into focus. The two women Julian Assange may have raped deserve justice, but no more or less than the millions of abused women world-wide who also deserve justice, and focusing on two very visible victims is only useful if it allows us to better focus our attention on the invisible ones. Does focusing on two visible victims, after all, do anything to reveal the structural and systemic reasons why some victims are treated as such while most are completely ignored? To some extent it might — and particular feminist writers have been doing really good work to make this point — but it’s also really dangerous to be distracted by this particular case, because if there’s one thing it does not provide, it’s clarity. In any case, I think it’s fair to say that most people who are moralizing about either the fact that Interpol has taken a sudden and suspicious interest in rape victims (or about the fact that, most of the time, they don’t) also don’t seem to have much interest in actually figuring out when and where and why Interpol does intervene. Lots of discussion of the Assange case has not been accompanied with much discussion of other cases like it; the latter has been ignored in favor of the juiciness of the former. That seems like as obviously a bad thing as it’s an utterly predictable thing.
I think we do everyone a disservice if we don’t take the rape charges seriously on their own terms. I think Assange should face his charges, but the Swedish court and British extradition process should be scrutinized as closely as it can be to determine the extent to which political pressure is distorting how the system might otherwise work. He should face justice, whatever that may prove to be, not politically motivated persecution. And unless we’ve given up on that ideal completely — and however damaged and imprecise the mechanisms may be, they can still work if we try to use them — we accomplish that by focusing on the system, not the case.
On the other hand, if all we do is look at Assange himself — which is what most of the media wants to do — we fall into the trap they‘ve set for us. If we moralize about Wikileaks and Julian Assange exclusively, we’re not doing our moral duties as citizens, and as human beings. Our job is to watch people with power and try to ensure that people with power don’t misuse it. Part of that is scrutinizing powerful men who have the opportunity to commit rape and be forgiven for it by people who are in solidarity with their politics. But a very different — and enormous — part of being good citizens, in this case, is observing that the United States government acts like a giant, amoral, and secretive machine for more deeply establishing economic and political privilege worldwide, and that keeping secrets from us — almost exactly as Julian Assange wrote, years ago — is the way they go about doing it. Whether or not he’s a rapist, and whether or not Wikileaks has been acting like responsible journalists or irresponsible anarchists, has very little to do with the fact that he was right, at least, about that.
zunguzungu 
Brilliant again! 🙂
It’s a little bit reminiscent of the right wing’s outrage at the lack of rights of women in [Afghanistan/Iran/other country we want to drop a bunch of ordnance on].
I agree with you completely, and I also think that it is obvious that most victims of rape do not receive justice (in Sweden or elsewhere) and that many people who are accused of crimes do not receive justice. In this particular case, there has been a lot of slut-shaming of the two women, and a lot of assumptions that even if they are telling the truth it isn’t “really rape.” Both of which are troubling. On the other side, there has been a lot of mocking of the idea that one of them could be a government agent (as if the idea is ludicrous, despite the well-documented fact that various governments have infiltrated causes they see as dangerous in order to undermine them), a lot of assumptions that rape accusations are never used to uphold systems of injustice (despite the long history of lynchings and almost-lynchings (like Scottsboro) here in the U.S.), and a lot assumptions that either criminal justice systems basically work as advertised (people saying things like “prosecutors don’t go to all this trouble unless there is good evidence” or “we’ll know the truth once we see whether he is convicted or not”).
I personally find it very hard to balance keeping in mind the complexity of this situation. As you say, if there is one thing this case does not provide, it is clarity.
Just found this interesting study. It predicts an increase in authoritarianism, using the government crackdown on Wikileaks as a prime example. The author says, “The WikiLeaks saga could end abruptly if the authoritarian impulse to extinguish the site prevails. Regardless, the struggle between secrecy and transparency—and authoritarianism and anti-authoritarianism—will continue to intensify.” Very interesting read. Highly recommended: http://www.socionomics.net/free-reports/1008/wikileaks-authoritarianism-update.aspx
YES!
To the extent that we lose sight of the content of the leaks, as well as the overall intent of Wikileaks, you are correct that it is unproductive to focus on Assange.
However, what has happened to Assange and Wikileaks over the last ten days has done more to reveal the authoritarian strains within international state and corporate power structure than any of the preceding leaks have done. Assange himself has become Exhibit A in the case against the rise of authoritarianism. This is what makes the story so compelling.
Also: Everything I’ve come across states that Assange is not wanted in Sweden on rape charges. Rather, the charge is a considerably lesser one of “sex by surprise”, whatever that is. There is evidence that both women were dating Assange at the time, but were bullied into unprotected sex.
From rawstory: “Feminist activist Naomi Wolf penned an article sarcastically congratulating Interpol for its “commitment to engaging in global manhunts to arrest and prosecute men who behave like narcissistic jerks to women they are dating.”
One of the accusers, Anna Ardin, has apparently stopped cooperating with the police, and recently tweeted her support for the reprisal cyber attacks on Visa, PayPal, etc. One could make the case that her political convictions are stronger than her sense of justice, but it’s likelier that she simply doesn’t regard Assange as the criminal the Swedish prosecutor claims.
None of this excuses the behavior Assange is alleged to be guilty of. He should be given his moment in court along with his accusers. But echoing the rape meme may be doing an injustice to Wikileaks and its greater purpose. Labels like “rapist” tend to stick with John Q Public even if/after they’ve been thoroughly discredited.
I think it’s actually pretty clear that what Assange is accused of is quite serious; whether you call it “rape” or not (I would), what he is accused of is an extremely grave act of sexual violence. Whether he did it is another matter, one for the courts, but I think it would be a much greater injustice to diminish the gravity of the thing he was accused of doing.
i still think you might be hastily dismissive of the concerns raised by yankeedoodles as regards the viral toxicity of a ‘serial rapist’ meme. i don’t think he’s trying to suggest that the two women making rape accusations should just suck it up when it comes to 4chan ‘slut-shaming’, or that they’re somehow undeserving of the kind of justice which demands assange account for his actions before a swedish court. but why this necessary privileging, on your part, of the plaintiffs’ accusations in all their moral gravity, without any corresponding consideration of those grievances assange might himself have endured? when there are already on the internet – some 850,000 web pages referencing his name in conjunction with the word ‘rape’, and another 9 million or so referencing his name in conjunction with the word ‘terrorist’; might we also extend to him a similarly fair-minded presumption of innocence – that both the mainstream media and political classes have sought vigorously to deny?
because if it’s the case that the presumably enlightened sensibilities of your general audience compel you not to spare moral indignation before Assange’s actual court date – especially when considering the disturbing acts of violence alleged, or those institutions of sexual inequality that are otherwise rarely brought to light; might you not at least afford your readers with the appropriate links that would allow them to form their own opinions regarding the nature of his alleged crimes? since it’s worth keeping in mind that out of the approximately 13.5 million pages referencing julian assange throughout the internet, only about 8500 of them contain a phrase of “serial rapist” . . . .
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=131915816
http://www.aolnews.com/world/article/wikileaks-where-in-the-world-is-miss-a-anna-ardin/19755864
Who cares. You hang with pro-AIPAC, stanford phony, human garbage like Wolfson; ergo you have no credibility. Anything bay marciones squeak is wrong, even when trivially correct
Sort of demonstrates the flaws of guilt-by-association right there. I barely even know who Ben Wolfson is, much less “hang with” him; the extent of my non-association is demonstrated by the fact that I don’t even understand your epithets. But in any case, what I say either is or isn’t correct, irregardless of who I hang around with (or who you imagine I do). One earns credibility by being right, not the reverse.
Bourgeois morality, even in your own cheap, PC faux-marxist terms
You’re featured with the Unfogged kazoo band tooday, right? Thus you hang with Wolfson.
rousing rendition of …draydul draydull draydell, Z! ahhyeahh
By such logic, they have the power to defuse anyone, no matter how radical, merely by linking to them. Behold the awesome power of the Bourgeois!
Again, meeting argument with ad hominem is unlikely to convince.
meeting argument with ad hominem is unlikely to convince.
Tell that to the phonies and sentimentalists (and…orthodox) of Unfogged. Ad Hom’s their raizon de-et-trah.
Anyway you overlooked a nearly interesting, sort of PoMo-ist, Wikileak re the NYT and WaPo’s apparent “tailoring” of the news regarding Iranian missiles. Then, dissin the NYTimes: that might be bad for those in the Lit. bidness.
If only there *was* a lit bidness. Sadly, I couldn’t sell my soul to the NY Times even if I wanted to….
[…] Aaron Bady says on Zungu Zungu, there is something to see here. Stay […]
The Wikileaks/Assange affaire reminds me the episode of Matthias Rust, the young German pilot who landed on the Red Square, Moscow, in 1987. Both cases are basically challenges to the security of a decaying superpower. In the USSR as well as in the USA the country is ruled by a leader who symbolizes a horizon of change inside the system. In the case of Gorbachov, his glasnost – transparency – (and perestroika) tried to modify certain devices of the system in order to preserve the integrity and future of a communist/socialist Soviet Union. The Rust episode showed that the security system of the USSR was absolutely incompetent to imagine a challenge outside the frames under consideration by the regime establishment/nomenklatura. It showed that the USSR was a groggy giant. But the real challenge was in fact the attempt of Lithuania to be autonomous from the Soviets on March 1990. The reaction of Gorbachov was a blockade and a military repression to the growing independency movement improved by the Lithuanian people. The point here was that the limit of glasnost and freedom of expression for Gorbachov was not to put under risk the integrity of the Soviet community. Obama, in his speech in Shanghai, the 16th November 2010 (yes, less than a month!), encouraged the use of new technologies in order to consolidate an open political system. The first consequence of the Wikileaks’ cables affaire is to demonstrate how weak the security complex of the USA is. What we have to follow now is if the system can tolerate an increasing movement which defies the power of the American establishment/nomenklatura. At first glance, there are many Gennady Yanayev, Boris Pugo, Dmitry Yazov and Vladimir Kryuchkov in America calling for the return of “a traditional order”.
i have to disagree with the main thrust of this argument, though every factual claim you make is accurate. julian assange and wikileaks are extremely important, both politically — it would be a hugely significant legitimation if assange won a nobel prize — and in terms of disseminating and discussing the “really important issues” their work has raised; in their generality, any of these issues could have been ‘discussed’ without wikileaks, but they are politically charged now only because of it. all of which makes the possibility that he’s a rapist even more shameful and damaging than it would otherwise have been. that wikileaks’ political importance is so closely tied to assange’s celebrity is as much a part of his own program as it is the MSM doing their usual thing. to step back from the circus while it’s still in process is a valuable act of intellectual moderation, but politically impossible.
so while the rape case is legally distinct from the attempt to charge assange with espionage or whatever, i don’t see how the two are practically distinct. it is precisely the legal maneuvers — the rape accusations, the interpol red list, the conditions of his custody — that make the extralegal or quasi-legal or ‘super-legal’ (enforcing laws that wouldn’t otherwise be enforced) maneuvers possible. you can’t have faith in the legal system or in the power of principled scrutiny to influence it once in process without risking serious naiveté. the law is not a tool of the left unless the left takes control of it.
so i think we’ve been outmaneuvered in the sense that it would be a bad idea to try to put together some sort of “free assange” campaign, at least unless he gets shipped off to the u.s. (i.e. until it’s really not about rape at all anymore) – that’s either a win for the other side or a consequence of assange’s irresponsible and unethical behavior – but, as an example, i supported pilger and others’ efforts to bail him out. grudgingly, but the importance of assange and the doubt about what actually happened would have justified it to me. as it is, there doesn’t seem to be much we can actually do except support assange’s legal rights. which is, again, really really important.
This is worth thinking about, and I am.
The difference with China is that they basically maintain their own Internet in congruence with their political boundaries. The west doesn’t have that level of integrity. Instead we destroy ourselves holding incorrect views – through the extreme view of freedom (anarchy).
Freedom gives governments the right to shut someone up as much as it gives people the right to speech.
There is a middle way. When the kali age ends, the Kalacakra king comes from Shambala and we return to it whether the barbarians like it or not.
I don’t think it’s quite fair to say that Assange is diverting attention away from the substance of the leaks because “the media wants to”. Assange himself has stated that his role is to be the lightning rod for Wikileaks. Maybe he’s regretting that particular tactic right about now, but it’s a role he’s chosen for himself.
Sorry, but this article does a grave disservice to the man, the organization, and the cause.
One of the injustice perpetrated against an innocent man who has been accused, is that people begin to speculate on their guilt or innocence.
From your uninformed point of view, he’s either guilty or he’s innocent. You speculate about your view, while others know better.
Why were each of these women on good terms with him the day after? You’re helping drag the man down.
You cannot know that he’s innocent, however much you would like him to be, and the entire point of my post was that whether or not he’s innocent or guilty of rape has very little to do with what’s important about what Wikileaks has done. Admitting that it’s possible he might have raped someone is only “helping drag the man down” if you’re more invested in the hero-narrative of a single man than in the gigantic historic struggle between society and state that this entire event represents. I am vastly more interested in the latter.
Jesus, man, I don’t even know what you’ve read, but the rape charge was withdrawn on the first day.
Unbelievable language you’ve used here. You should hesitate to write about an accused man’s fate when you have not read the relevant information.
Julian Assange should never have been arrested. They dropped the charges the day after they were made. They could have detained him in Sweden.
You clearly have no grasp of the details of this case and you shouldn’t be writing about it.
The Swedish prosecution may eventually charge on up to four possible counts: one of rape, two of sexual molestation, and one of coercion. They haven’t even determined whether they’ll charge and they haven’t released what evidence there is because they’re still, essentially, at the grand jury phase. When we know more, we’ll know more. But you’re talking out of your asshole here; I will not be at all surprised if the whole thing turns into a farce, but at this stage it has not. What the Swedes have done seems more or less by the book at this stage. If that changes, it will be clear. But so far it hasn’t.
Which is not to say the extradition isn’t fishy as hell, or that the American espionage charge isn’t deeply fucked up. But what the Swedes are doing has to be viewed on its own terms, and if we can’t distinguish between what is (so far) quite credible due process on the charges of sexual assault in Sweden and the completely ridiculous absence of legal process behind what the US is doing (or the deeply suspicious denial of bail in Britain), we lose any credibility to protest the latter.
Your suggestion that we try to see the forest, not the trees, is an important one as the events continue to unfold. On the most recent episode of the steppin off the edge podcast, author Douglas Rushkoff explored this idea from a different perspective. To him, the significance of wikileaks is less about the “right to publish information” and more about the access to open tools / technology which enable everyone to share that information. When a few centralized systems like DNS, credit card companies, paypal, FB and Twitterl kicking wikileaks off their networks has massive implications on their ability to spread their info, you can see that this does seem to be the case. Has society really moved that much closer to an environment where we are all equal or has the concept of kingmakers just changed where / howthey are doing their deals?
Feel free to check out the entire episode at steppinofftheedge.com/podcast/civilizations-control-panel
I found it interesting that on the same day (or close to it),that the (West Virginia) Charleston Gazette had an editorial supporting the process of the wikileaks & supporting more disclosure, three readers wrote or phoned in that Assange should be executed. (one said “shot on sight”)
I assume that attitude is related to the media coaverage they’ve seen
Irresponsible anarchists.
Why, yes that’s what your site and your CalCo ideology lacks
Lucifer lives in Dianne Feinstein’s pussay. Now start over
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There is so much wrong with your post!
(a) The man is unimportant, it is the “idea” that is important. Sorry. ANY statement that seeks to glorify some ideal, at cost of even a single human being, is wrong. It is the logic used by state murderers for ages. Secondly, as Greenwald brings out, it is the US Govt’s reaction that is the issue here. And that reaction has been TOTALLY directed against Wikileaks and Assange… not against the NYT, Guardian, Spiegel etc. So it is logical to put the spotlight of the media attention on the man who is the focus of the reaction.
(c) “I think we do everyone a disservice if we don’t take the rape charges seriously on their own terms”
A bigger disservice, if you do not read the terms and just focus on “the rape charges”. He stayed in the country for over 30 days after being informed of the charges; he was allowed to leave the country; one prosecutor overruled the charges the day after they were filed ; one of his accusers now claims she never wished to charge him with rape … You are quick to state that “he may be guilty of rape”, where the focus is less on the “maybe” and more on the “guilty of rape”. This flies in face of logic, which demands that the foundation of the charges be equally called into question.
You say “..what he is accused of is an extremely grave act of sexual violence. Whether he did it is another matter, one for the courts…”
Yes. But it is also incumbent on people repeating the charges to clearly state the context of the accusations.
I didn’t use the word “idea” in the way you accuse me of doing, and you’re being far more selective in your citation of data than even you accuse me of being. The Swedish prosecution may eventually charge on up to four possible counts: one of rape, two of sexual molestation, and one of coercion. Those are serious charges, and when we know more, we’ll be able to judge whether any of it is justified. Right now, all we know is that there are two people who are saying he did some deeply, deeply seriously bad things with his dick. I respect their right to make that accusation by not pre-judging them to be CIA tools, or whatever; at a certain point in this process, they will produce evidence, and then we can decide whether any of it’s justified.
In any case, you’re missing the point, willfully, I think; the entire thrust of my argument was that I don’t know whether Assange did anything or nothing and that I think not very much hinges on whether he did; I hope he’s innocent and I’ll be depressed if he’s found guilty, but the bigger picture is the important thing: this has to be a movement, not a one-man heroic crusade. This is a hell of a lot bigger than just one person.
[…] I want to return to zunguzungu, who nails not just the rape narrative, but the Wikileaks narrative: There Is Something To See Here Assange’s rape charges are important for very different reasons, of course. It is a scandal how […]
It significant though that everyone’s demanding justice in the Assange case whereas, say, the litany of rape, torture and murder carried out by operatives trained at School of the Americas–actions US citizens bear some responsibility for (unlike Assange and the UK/Swedish legal systems, which Americans have no control over) get silence. As a rule, as with countries, individuals who threaten the empire get given microscopic scrutiny, those acting as agents for it have their crimes (vastly worse than anything Assange has been accused) safely effaced.
Obviously Assange should be “brought to justice” if he’s a criminal; but the profound inconsistency in the way justices is meted out makes one doubt this case really has anything do do with justice or preventing rape (even if Assange is a bona fide rapist)*. If anything, do its bizarre handling by Sweden, it stands to compound the process of effectively prosecuting rapists in future.
Regardless, the outcome of the case (if it goes to court) will likely have little influence on public opinion: being accused of rape makes him as good as a rapist in the minds of some whether the case against him succeeds or not; others will assume it a politically motivated action, a “honey trap”, or whatever however convincing the evidence against his is. No matter what a catastrophe for the actual victim(s), whoever they may be.
*The situation is awkward because, if the accusations are false and this is really an effort to destroy a dissident, then isn’t Assange himself the victim, deserving to have his own accusations taken seriously? Or, if Assange is a rapist but the case is politically motivated then the legal system is being misused: even though a guilty person in made to suffer, his punishment is not the outcome of justice in any meaningful since. Finally, if the case is purely a rape case with no political ulterior motives re: the court and Assange is guilty the fact the court first dismissed the case, waited months, then–at precisely the moment of the cables release–issued an Interpol warrant then one has to doubt the efficacy of the Swedish legal system.
Thank you for making the point that focusing on this one individual is an sideshow. I agree with Peter Ward: while Assange MAY be guilty of whatever. I am not saying “whatever” to diminish the seriousness of his accused crimes, only to indicate my point which is… that the crimes of the State, such as the U.N. espionage ordered by Clinton and Rice, the Reuters crew murdered by Apache helicopter, or the fatal attack on journalists in the Palestine Hotel, etc. etc… these are PROVEN by the cables and other materials.
Where is the Interpol warrant for the responsible parties to THESE crimes? This list of crimes — like the destruction of civilian infrastructure during an unprovoked war of agression committed under false pretexts involving outright lying to the UN by the highest US gov’t officials; the incarceration for life and denial of constitutional rights of political prisoners like Leonard Peltier… etc, et al… ad nauseum, THIS is the point that we should all be raising. Prosecute the War Criminals. We need an International Tribunal on Crimes Against Humanity.
The real paradigm shift are not the Wikileaks-Cables. The real change of the ‘world as we know it’ to an information-society is
1. the possibility, that everyone can be a Wikileaks.
2. the connection of acting in the virtual world and as a result, the huge impact for the real world
As a consequence, leaders of the world or people in leading positions are controlled by the masses >> in a way that they require a huge staff of potencial whistleblowers to get their things done.
That means in case of doubt: bad image, bad media, losing their reputation.
That being said, it is no surprise that some people would like to see WL shut down. But what they do not understand is the web model of decentralized organization: They try to jail Assange, hoping to end it with him or punish him in order to create a precedent.
They don’t see, that Assange is a figure, an official placeholder. And yes, everyone supports him BUT at the same time everyone is well aware of the fact that he is not a required kind of leading hero that has an irreplaceable function of — something.
For me, the cablegate was a huge step to a more political web, a web with big influence, and a good starting point for a cooperation between old and new media.
We have a new instance, the fundament for a new society.
This post seems just right (again). Upon reading through the repies, some of them substantial, I found myself increasingly vexed with the argument that the charges against Assange are a bad thing, truth or falsity aside, because they will tarnish his political credibility. First, I agree with ZZ that the hero/villain cults of Assange represent a kind of category mistake. Second, though, this kind of thinking presupposes an imaginary audience of cretins out there somewhere, people incapable of recalling (for instance) that men who have not been convicted may not be guilty. These are the same figments, one supposes, who cannot distinguish the fantasies of advertising from the sad state of actual commodities. Admittedly, I have met a great many cretins and encountered convincing evidence that myriads more exist, but conducting politics on the assumption that a great dumb mass of humanity Elsewhere must be managed and repressed still strikes me as a deeply reactionary position.
[…] on There Is Something to See Here for Aaron Cady’s latest Wikileaks commentary on his Zungazunga web log. All his Zungazunga […]
Anyone who gives a good hard look to everything that is known about this case and sees in it anything but a naked, authoritarian conspiracy of three nations to keep Assange incarcerated until the United States can indict him on charges of espionage, is either a complete moron or so invested in being the grownup in the room, they aren’t afraid to risk looking like one. It is quite unlikely that ‘justice’ will be done, since the chances are approaching 0 that Assange will even be formally charged.
There is an expression about having a mind so open that the brains fall out. The problem with this expression is, it doesn’t cover fakes, which is what I believe we are dealing with here. You know in your heart these charges are bogus. You’re pretending, because by being the grownup here you can also serve the near-religious commandment that rape accusations are beyond the kind of empirical scrutiny you would freely give to something else.
That you are so quick to write the man and this revolting persecution off as unimportant, makes you disgustingly callous on top, especially considering what the man has done for your hit count. You’re also wrong. If Assange were unimportant, the forces of darkness would not be so keen to get him either executed or confined to the same dark dungeon where they have already thrown Bradley Manning, who, of course, is completely trivial also.
if you’re more invested in the hero-narrative of a single man than in the gigantic historic struggle between society and state that this entire event represents. I am vastly more interested in the latter.
Condescending, just like a true grownup. Impressed. Did if ever occur to you that the fate of Assange might have an impact on how many people engage the struggle? That perhaps ‘the Conspiracy’ knows it will remain under attack but could perhaps lessen the attack’s immediate intensity by increasing the risks of participation, and demonstrating those risks smearing, torturing, dungeoning or executing its figurehead? Has it occurred to you, who has made such an impression needlessly interpreting Assange’s extremely lucid essays, that Assange brings a certain amount of insight, not to mention technical skill to the enterprise?
To quote myself:
“Julian Assange is a smart man who’s done some brave things in service of a good cause — and we owe him a debt of gratitude for the gift he’s given us. Thank you, Wikileaks.”
oh good God.
To quote the first line of my original essay:
“The piece of writing (via) which that quote introduces is intellectually substantial, but not all that difficult to read, so you might as well take a look at it yourself. Most of the news media seems to be losing their minds over Wikileaks without actually reading these essays, even though he describes the function and aims of an organization like Wikileaks in pretty straightforward terms.”
Copping to it doesn’t make your posts more necessary nor change the fact that you’ve been piggybacking on someone you consider so ultimately inconsequential that you consider concern about his persecution misplaced.
Interesting that such a collective-minded person opted to address the remarks that impugned your virtue, rather than the question of legal and cultural precedent that ties Assange’s individual fate to the state/society struggle that you have cast in false either/or terms.
Look, consider me told off for being a reactionary sell out or whatever.
By the way, did you notice that about twenty minutes before you started your rampage, I had just posted a transcription of Assange’s appearance in Berkeley in April? What was my angle in doing that?
I didn’t call you a reactionary sell-out. I called you fake, callous and wrong.
As to the video, it just looks like more of having it both ways. Discounting him while at the same time using him because he does things you haven’t done, couldn’t do and and probably won’t ever do yourself. Like the New York Times.
I am content that you’ve been told off.
So funny, all these nobodies on the left, who have spent their adult lives saying the same thing to each other over and over again, pointlessly, about as important to history as as a spitball missing its target. Then along comes Assange, and suddenly, it seems the whole situation might be more mutable than we thought. No one wants to say ‘revolutionary struggle’ and so instead, they even use Assange’s terminology about ‘the conspiracy.’ Then they say he’s not important, cause, y’know, he’s just an individual, and we know what bullshit individual merit is. Any of y’all coulda done it, it’s just history that chose Assange.
ZZ, I think your post is excellent even if I want to question some of your analysis here.
The focus on Assange the man is a product of how bourgeois hegemony raises the individual to the centre of analysis rather than seeing history in a more collective frame. The elites attack Assange the man because that is how they see the world (through a view of power relations refracted through a kind of methodological individualism), while Assange’s supporters mirror this because that’s how the world seems to work. Here in Australia the biggest impact of WikiLeaks seems to have been on middle class people who had previously felt a greater stake (and trust) in the overall credibility of the system… I suspect that for many working class people it just confirms their experience of how rotten and elitist society is. Yet the shaking up of such people indicates a real weakening of the ideological glue that holds together ruling class hegemony.
I agree we need to transcend the focus on Assange, yet his arrest also signals something important about the way the state acts through coercion as well as consent. In fact, the sudden deluge of information about the workings of state power means that the state is readier to use any means (even charges it would normally not bother pursuing because of its indifference to women’s rights) to remind us of who’s in charge.
The key question is whether the state should have such power and in whose interest it is exercised. Despite the fact that Assange may indeed be a rapist, the state here is acting for other reasons, as implied by the glee of senior US officials over his arrest (officials who have turned a blind eye to much more widespread and systematic abuses against women around the world as a facet of foreign policy).
The other thing that makes Assange so central to this is his essentially anarchist politics, which you so brilliantly summarised here last month. His project requires a small (elite) group to break the informational links that hold together the elite conspiracy, in the hope that better systems of governance will emerge. There is an inherent focus on that small group in such a strategy, and Assange is the front man. Yet who will build the alternative systems of governance? I take this up, using Gramsci’s approach to the question of hegemony, here: http://left-flank.blogspot.com/2010/12/let-me-tell-you-secret-wikileaks-state.html
The key, to me, is mass action represented in phenomena like the current UK student movement. Such movements can go beyond knowledge of the mere facts towards theorisation-in-practice of the way the world works and how it can be changed. Or in the Marxist shorthand, “ideas change in the struggle”. Such mass movements, while they may have leaders, in practice need to be dramatically more accountable, transparent and democratic than the state (or WikiLeaks). If they are not then they only end up duping themselves rather than raising their own consciousness.
I think I agree with traxus4420:
“i think we’ve been outmaneuvered in the sense that it would be a bad idea to try to put together some sort of “free assange” campaign, at least unless he gets shipped off to the u.s. (i.e. until it’s really not about rape at all anymore) – that’s either a win for the other side or a there is consequence of assange’s irresponsible and unethical behavior – but, as an example, i supported pilger and others’ efforts to bail him out. grudgingly, but the importance of assange and the doubt about what actually happened would have justified it to me. as it is, there doesn’t seem to be much we can actually do except support assange’s legal rights. which is, again, really really important.”
But the long game is where the action will eventually be. The case is in a state of limbo right now until the swedes charge and produce evidence, the Brits extradite, or the Americans charge espionage. When any of those things happen, then there’ll be a chance to see what the next step should be. But at this point, because it’s quite possible that he *is* guilty of serious personal crimes, there isn’t much to do but demand justice (which will, inevitably, run up against American insistence to give him no such thing, most likely)
[…] iniziare ad approfondire la questione, mi rifaccio ad un post molto interessante scritto da un giovane studioso, Aaron Bady, un africanista che sta completando il PhD in […]
Very thoughtful post, I translated it in Italian.
Thank you.
[…] charges Imperialist diplomacy exposed: Behind the witch-hunt of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange There Is Something To See Here Peter Ludlow on “The Political Philosophy of Julian Assange” Vatican reaction to WikiLeaks […]
I’ve taken my time commenting here, thinking that the point that came to mind immediately upon reading this post would be repeated to the point of tiresomeness before I got around to formulating it very clearly. But, having read through the comments again, I think perhaps it remains worth noting that a rape accusation, in producing hesitation on the part of potential supporters of Assange, functions well as a scapegoating mechanism. There is a constant repetition that Assange has been charged with rape.(For instance: “Assange was charged last week on rape and sexual molestation charges after he allegedly refused to wear a condom while having sex with two women.” NY Daily News) ( note the “charges/charges” when in fact he has NOT been charged.)
I sense I am saying something very obvious, so my apologies if so. I agree that the big story here is what is in the cables. But this persecution of a journalist for exposing state secrets is nonetheless very ugly. There is simply no reason to assume that these slanders are true, just because they are repeated again and again.
I fully disagree.
I see the big picture.
Which is the dawn of a new world, a world where people care to say what the others do not know.
Today is “the United States government’s actions as a system.”and tomorrow something else.
It is the reborn “conscience”, the wish of having again a future, better than this present, is being able to hope, which is all about life.
I had a wonderful grandfather, he hoped and dreamed to be able to do great things in his life, he didn´t reach any of his goals, but he lived a wonderful life, waking up everyday with something to fulfill.
That is why we ALL love Assange.
Give us something to die for and you will make us more human.
There is something we call “presumption of innocence”. What does this mean in this case? I think there is a correlation between what assange (WikiLeaks) mean to the public ant to *how he is treated* even under (reasonable?) suspicion of having done something wrong.
Seemingly A. was initially willing to cooperate with authorities.
Why did’T they just investigate/talk maybe even “travel Ban” him to hold him in sweden?
But from the beginning they where looking do set him to prison in any case?!
Thank you so much for this. As I’ve followed the story, it’s been fascinating how it seems to be, as you say, treated as the story of one man and that story is pulled back and forth between a hero or villain narrative depending on the perspective of the writer. By putting the value and importance of WikiLeaks/Assange in context, I think you’ve done a great service to the discussion surrounding these issues. I particularly appreciated the way you wrote about the rape charges. I think people want to believe that someone who’s accomplished arguably good things can’t also be capable of personal wrongdoing… unfortunately, human beings are complex like that.
I agree with many of your points and separating the issues, the hero worship vs. villainization is utterly ridiculous. However, in consistently OVERstating the seriousness of the offenses alleged, you are doing the same thing you are accusing others of, just in the opposite direction. How is that better?
1. “Don’t line up in solidarity behind someone who may or may not be a serial rapist.” (fact: he was never even accused of “serial rape” which would obviously require multiple “rape” accusers; there is only one “rape” accuser, the other 3 alleged offenses were never deemed “rape” so there is no issue of “rape” with the other woman)
2. “That will still be the case even if — as may prove to be true — Julian Assange is a serial rapist.” (see above)
3. “Assange’s rape charges are important for very different reasons, of course.” (He has no “charges,” only accusations against him, and again only one was ever of rape, which is now a matter of possible dispute based on what was reported re: the Nov 19 appeal. Whether that claim was in fact downgraded or it’s just a matter of semantics needs independent confirmation with the appellate court but does fit with the challenge to the validity of the Swedish warrant. Since the other offenses are not serious enough to justify a warrant even in Sweden–if there’s no “rape,” there’s no right to detain thus the whole thing’s a sham…this is central to their argument against the Swedish process)
4. “The two women Julian Assange may have raped deserve justice” (see above, wow at this blatant misrepresentation)
5. “I think we do everyone a disservice if we don’t take the rape charges seriously on their own terms.” (again with the false claim of plural rape “charges”, you do him a very real disservice even as you admonish others)
6. “I think Assange should face his charges” (he doesn’t have any yet, he only faces questioning)
7. “I think it’s actually pretty clear that what Assange is accused of is quite serious; whether you call it “rape” or not (I would), what he is accused of is an extremely grave act of sexual violence.” (fact: he was never accused of any acts of violence and one of the accusers stated explicitly to the press that he was NOT violent and they were not afraid of him. Why are you claiming he did something violent, when violence or the threat of it was never alleged by the prosecution, and is not even required to meet the world’s most expansive, Swedish definition of rape? The limited facts we have so far are a long way from violence, the prosecution never alleged violence, at least one of the women speaking on behalf of both says he was not violent, yet you claim there was at least one “act of extremely grave sexual violence.” That is astonishing.
8. “…and if we can’t distinguish between what is (so far) quite credible due process on the charges of sexual assault in Sweden…” Huh? There’s a long list of identified problems with the Swedish process, especially vis-a-vis European HR law. The conduct of the first prosecutor is being internally investigated, for starters (per news reports).
[…] here: There Is Something To See Here Tags: government, united-states Posted in: […]
[…] also suggest you read his post There Is Something to See Here for a much more rational way to assess the issues and to avoid having to make that […]
[…] this is very troubling (in addition to being completely unsubstantiated). But since Aaron Bady has already explained this (nearly two years ago!) and I happen to agree with him completely, I’ll turn it over to him: […]