Julian Assange and Wikileaks ( in a sense, Assange is Wikileaks but that is another story) are best described according to what they do. At one point, this involved whistle-blowing activity and a kind of even-handed approach, unearthing ( most times simply posting) the inner dealings of governments of all ideological stripes. I have my own strong opinions about the efficacy or ultimate purpose of such activity, but i will leave that debate for another time. The point is we must judge Wikileaks by what it accomplishes, not what it claims it does.
The recent hacked correspondence ( released in a fusillade of tweets) of Democratic Party institutions and connected officials, clearly demonstrates that Assange and Co. seem absolutely comfortable these days in aiding the rise of a fascist. The one-sided nature of this attack is obvious to even the most jaded Bernie Sanders supporter.
Meanwhile, Newsweek and the Washington Post are finally doing old school investigative reporting, exposing the machinations of the orange existential threat known as Trump. No need to kabbalistically pore over someone’s personal emails to find the truth about the candidate. Just listen to what falls out of that sphincter-like aperture Donald calls a mouth, and then check that nonsense against the record.
Whatever reservations one might harbor about Clinton— the choice before us is the textbook definition of a no brainer. And yet, I was led to believe by Julian that Julian was smart.
To casually gloss the differences between Trump and Clinton is to court a level of political illiteracy ( or cynicism) that is shocking-- but that is precisely what Assange argues. On the other hand, if he really believed they were one in the same, he’d likely be finding Trump email tidbits to breathlessly publish ( I am sure Trump has ziggurat of skulls in his closet that make his public indiscretions look like laughable faux pas) to balance out the attacks on Clinton. At least Stein supporter, Cornell West honestly refers to Trump as a neo-fascist. Assange seems too lazy to even give a shit.
I am not sure what to make of Wikileaks verbal assaults on civil society by adopting the rhetoric and unthinking posture of the Alt-Right. The Wikileaks twitter account feels almost de-cerabrated these days-- as though it were Google-translated from gibberish, or from the tongue of a nation state who combs over the latest news from “Info Wars” and calls it intelligence gathering.
The truth is— it does not matter. For Wikileaks is aiding and abetting The 21 Century’s answer to Mussolini. I suspect that is why Ecuador cut off little Julian’s internet privileges: Ecuador was not “threatened” by the US government ( a claim sputtered by the paranoid wikibot!). Rather, from the point-of-view of Ecuador’s own political self-interest, helping to facilitate the presidency of someone who hates brown folk, women, socialists, civil society, trade unions, the commons, the environment ( you name it!)-- would be the very opposite of a sensible thing.
In the past, Wikileaks has espoused some noble-sounding stuff about the need to free information, and the flow of open information dictating good governance etc. Whistle-blowing too fits into the paradigm. which is often a good thing. But these claims seem to contradict Wiki’s recent tacit support for an authoritarian asshole who would be happy to stifle the same flow of information. Moreover, Wikileaks recent habit of casually vomiting private information into cyberspace seems to cross a few ethical red lines from the perspective of basic information science. Librarians value both privacy and access; Wikileaks organizing principle lately seems to involve anything goes! according to us . Moreover, one can make noises about open access, open government, transparency— but not if you are, at the same time, making common cause with self-proclaimed fascists and cretinous oligarchs.