even if you might be wrong, because it is what you believe.
And this Diary might prove to be the most ill-judged of any I have written ... but I have something to say so I simply ask for a fair hearing.
ps I have linked another Diary. I do so for context only. I have no gripe with the Diarist, nor with many of the views expressed in the comments. I have not "recommended" the Diary, but I wholly and fully support the right of the Diarist to post it, and I feel confident that I will recommend the work of that author in future
Sometimes, and this is one of those times, you find yourself swimming uphill.
It's not a comfortable place to be, and today, Daily Kos is, for me, not a comfortable place to be. That;s okay with me generally. Politics can be rewarding, inspiring even, but it can also be brutal, bruising and it can strike right at the core of who you are, and what you believe.
If those beliefs mean that you are at odds with those you respect, even consider friends, then you find yourself doing the breast stroke up Mt St Helena.
Most times it also means that you are wrong. I can take that, I was wrong once before (I think it was 1978), and am perfectly content with being told that I am wrong again. I never mind that my views might not be so well-formed that expressing them could cause dissent and push-back. Indeed, that is how we learn, that is how I learn. Listen to the responses, compare them to your knowledge and look for the holes ... in either the responses or your knowledge. All move forward.
That is why we have comment threads to Diaries. Why this place, and others, are communities rather than News Aggregators. The Article/Posts/Diaries are great, the discussion is awesome.
What do you do though, when having done all of the above, you still think that you are right?
I mean, is it possible that sometimes the lone voice is correct? That the conventional wisdom, the supporters of the contrary view are wrong? It is far more likely that you haven't properly accounted for the various views yet still .... still there is that nagging feeling that I, a guy who rarely involves himself in controversy, and has a track record of harmonious community contributions, am, on this occasion, correct.
It would be open to me to simply sit this one out. I do that sometimes. I decide that I don't know enough, don't feel strongly enough, or need to think a while before commenting ... so I take that approach.
But today I find myself more than usually engaged. I take the view that if one feels strongly enough, and have taken some time to listen, and still feel that "I am right and they are wrong", then one owes it to oneself and the other side of the argument, to say so, calmly and respectfully.
So this is me saying that the debate about the rights and wrongs of the Julian Assange case, currently running it's course on the site, is deeply flawed.
The debate was promulgated by the framing of the original Diary. The Diary seeks to paint the Assange case as a case of "Rape", or at the very least, a serious sexual assault.
Well that may or may not be the case, but in framing the debate this way it simply meant that the discussion was, and has, polarised into "It's a case about Government excess" on one side to "so you would give a rapist a free pass" on the other. Added to that are some references to Jerry Sandusky, a worse case of false equivalence I haven't seen in a long time.
I find myself not at all blaming the Diarist for this framing. I should, but I don't. The Diarist tells it from her own perspective, and that is valid because the experience is the Diarist's own, and I do not seek to judge or diminish that.
There is a whole area of human interaction, and criminal justice that has never been handled well. That is the area of Sex Crimes, and the Diaries re-Published by the "TreeClimbers" regularly examine those points. Those Diaries have always had my unwavering support, and will continue to do so.
The problem with the Assange case is that it is a very poor example to use in furthering the aim of justice for victims. Were it the case that the original Prosecutor had filed charges then that aim might have been achieved. That didn't happen, and the Swedish Government apparently had to go "Prosecutor Shopping" to re-open this whole investigation. If the charge had been "Fraud", or "Theft" then the whole of Daily Kos would be failing to see the imperative for Interpol, and Extradition, yet it is an allegation of a sexual nature, so suddenly it is different.
This is where I depart from some, yet really we don't depart at all, we are just seeing it through a different lens. I don't think Julian Assange should "get away with a crime". I'm not sure a crime has been committed here, and it's not my job to know. It is all of our responsibility not to assume that one was. The victims in this case are "accusers", and the defendent is not a "rapist". No one is seeking to give a rapist a free pass, because no charges have been filed, no evidence heard, no verdict tendered.
Yet we allow those terms to infiltrate the discussion. The we relate them to other experiences, our knowledge of the plight of victims the world over, and that frames our debate. I won't stand by and not call that out. It is wrong to do that. It does not serve justice, and it does not help any real victims either in this case or others.
The elephant in the room of the debate is the actions and intentions of the US Government. We cannot dismiss this. We cannot simply ignore it and hope that Assange could return to Sweden and expect justice in what even the Swedes would consider to be a minor case.
We should be approaching this case from a very different direction.
As progressives who are interested in justice for all concerned what we should be doing is pressing the US State Department to declare that it has no intention of seeking the extradition of Julian Assange from Sweden.
There ... at one fell swoop we not longer need to be debating whether or not a crime will go unpunished.
My question for the State Department is simply this:
If you are interested in justice for women, why have you not given this undertaking already?
Well as yet they haven't, so one is left to presume that they are interested in his extradition, and further wonder to what extent they were behind the re-opening of a case that Sweden originally dismissed.
I want justice for everyone. I want the debate over sexual abuse to be open, and held on it's merits, without Kossack after Kossack feeling injured, unsupported and violated by a perceived call for a "rapist" to evade justice.
There can be no justice here until Julian Assange is free to return to Sweden without the shadow of the CIA, and the State Department hanging over him.
If that puts me in a minority of one, I am comfortable there .... SO explain to me why I am wrong.