Um, I Think It's Time for a Thread on WikiLeaks

the whole "it's not rape rape" thing is

disgusting, absolutely

It depends who you're reading, k3vin k. A lot of them are kooky and/or misogynist, but obviously not all.

A lot of them are probably kooky and/or misogynist ....

@caek
i mean that it's telling in the sense that it's a proven strategy of powerful people to accuse whistle-blowers of crimes, e.g. nader. whether assange is guilty or innocent, i don't claim to know.

I've seen some rather more convincing take-downs of the "OMG, the accusers are connected to the CIA!" conspiracy theories if you read towards the end of these blog posts here:

http://www.salon.com/news/politics/war_room/2010/12/07/julian_assange_rape_accuser_smeared/index.html

http://vancouver.mediacoop.ca/blog/sandracuffe/5363

A lot of this victim-smearing stuff makes me very, very angry for obvious personal reasons. But it seems to get quite lost that it is possible to simultaneously believe that yes, Wikileaks does fulfill an important purpose and yet also, Assange may be a person who is capable of sexual assault.

I'm trying to find the blog link, but I have forgotten which one it was, so I'm going to paraphrase: Yes, the CIA has a history of taking out people who are perceived as an embarrassment or a threat to the US. But there is also a history of powerful men, some of whom may even be heroes to the Left, who have been capable or even guilty of sexual violence towards women. The former does not automatically preclude the latter.

I find it completely gross, that the automatic response to "wow, most men accused of rape don't get international extradition orders out on them" is "this automatically means he must be the innocent victim of a plot" rather than "why aren't more rape cases treated this seriously and thoroughly?" It's weird to me that people who agree that Wikileaks is a force for good, for righting power imbalances, for breaking the code of secrecy, for turning the internet panopticon back on the government - can turn around and reassert power imbalances and the secrecy and victim blaming that is inherent in arguments like "rape is just not a real or important crime worthy of extradition" or "smear/blame the victims" or "women are liars who press rape charges for fun" (because, trust me, I know, just how *not fun* the process of making rape charges can be) or "I know what rape is/what a rapist looks like, and this can't possibly be it!" and the good old "it's not rape rape!"

Everyone is entitled to be viewed as innocent until proven guilty. That includes the women in this case, too.

Great post. And the Salon piece is the best I've read.

There are a whole bunch of people that are unconcerned if he is guilty or not, just as long as he's convicted....

Also, the whole "FIFA is corrupt, sure, but hey the BBC is to blame for broadcasting the documentary before the announcement" is similar (but different)

i mean that it's telling in the sense that it's a proven strategy of powerful people to accuse whistle-blowers of crimes, e.g. nader. whether assange is guilty or innocent, i don't claim to know.

― jeevves, Thursday, December 9, 2010 1:15 PM (16 minutes ago) Bookmark

your link says the authorities tried to frame nader. this isn't like that, unless you think JA's accusers are CIA.

i think there is pretty ample evidence that the CIA hasn't had any assets in the broad vicinity of wikileaks or julian, but im no expert on espionage.

There are a whole bunch of people that are unconcerned if he is guilty or not, just as long as he's convicted....

There are also a whole bunch of people that are unconcerned if he is guilty or not, just as long as he's not convicted...

i don't understand - if julian assange is being framed, which is a very real possibility, how does this credit or discredit victims of a horrendous crime such as rape? or comment on that crime at all?

"if julian assange is being framed, which is a very real possibility"

you think the CIA had people close to assange who arranged a broken condom incident, and then (somehow) got him to have sex with them while asleep

ingenious

uh, what?

If he's being framed, the crime was not committed.

(unless they've got the wrong man, etc)

rmde

(i think framing someone does mean getting them to commit a crime, but this is retarded and needs to end)

xpost Yeah, if I were trying to frame someone on rape charges I'd make the allegations a lot simpler. People keep talking about how "convenient" the timing is, so why are the allegations so inconveniently complicated?

the frustrating thing abt the rape charge (and precisely what makes it seem like, if not a frame-up, at the very least a conveniently-timed dog-wagging) is that we KEEP FUCKING TALKING ABOUT IT — it's like throwing chum to a bunch of sharks, and seems to be an all-too-convenient way of fragmenting a loose internet coalition of vaguely-progressive people — sorta wish everybody would just stfu and wait until it goes to trial

(then again, the one good thing that might come out of all this, as someone said (I think) upthread, is an increased awareness abt withdrawal-of-consent issues)

xp because most rape cases are complicated

no I dunno

how are they inconveniently complicated or conveniently complicated? i don't understand why these are being treated as two mutually exclusive ideas (e.g. that assange could be framed / and that he could have committed rape). one doesn't prove or disprove the existence of the other.

i mean forgive me if i'm missing something here or am being unclear. if he is guilty (and i believe what he is accused of constitutes rape) certainly he should be punished. it's just that he also exposed both a higher level of corruption than general motors in a more powerful company than general motors (e.g. the shell oil planting operatives in the nigerian government) - my point was, why would they not come after him more strongly than say gm did after nader, unless companies literally stopped doing this decades ago?

if he committed rape, im pretty sure you don't get to say he was framed

#law

you think the CIA had people close to assange who arranged a broken condom incident, and then (somehow) got him to have sex with them while asleep

ingenious

― ______ ___ ___________! (history mayne), Thursday, December 9, 2010 5:44 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

did i suggest this?

so you're not saying he was framed, just that the timing is AWFULLY CONVENIENT?

that's uncontroversial, and sure most rapists get away with it:: BUT THAT IS A TERRIBLE NON-ARGUMENT

uhhh it's actually a meta-argument

i mean forgive me if i'm missing something here or am being unclear. if he is guilty (and i believe what he is accused of constitutes rape) certainly he should be punished. it's just that he also exposed both a higher level of corruption than general motors in a more powerful company than general motors (e.g. the shell oil planting operatives in the nigerian government) - my point was, why would they not come after him more strongly than say gm did after nader, unless companies literally stopped doing this decades ago?

― jeevves, Thursday, December 9, 2010 1:51 PM (3 minutes ago) Bookmark

nader, if i read your wiki posting correctly, did nothing; GM tried to catch him in a honey trap

that's different from assange, who is accused of committing sexual assault, and whose notoriety and wanted status mean that the police will bother to pursue him

can you not see that these are different?

Most/all people will agree that the rape charges are of benefit to the anti-Wikileaks crew, but various actors being happy that he is accused of rape != various actors accusing him of rape.

My working assumption is that the Swedish judicial system is robust enough to give a fair trial and we'll find out more in due time, at the moment there's little we can say for sure. The other idea that seems implicit in some reports is that the US might find it easier to extradict him once he's in Swedish custody, but I have no idea why that would be the case.

People want the rape charges to be a frame-up because that would be more fun. It would allow Assange to remain cool, and it suggests a world where attractive young women in pink sweaters are employed by the CIA to have deceptive sex with left-wingers. And of course it would mean these women didn't actually get raped, which would be nice!

The idea that this is a conspiracy theory doesn't hold water with me for all the reasons Karen and Dorian have pointed out but also because it doesn't make the blindest bit of sense for anything other than character assasination. I'd be amazed if Wikileaks hadn't made contingency plans for Assange being imprisoned/assassinated/randomly hit by a bus. Not sure killing Wikileaks will stop others springing up in its place either. Wikileaks 2010 = Napster 2000 obv.

It's more likely that the allegations existed in the first place rightly or wrongly but that the Swedish authorities have pursued Assange, or been encouraged to pursue him, more strongly because of who he is. But that makes no difference to whether or not he's a rapist. The rush to denounce the accuser here is pretty disgusting.

oh ffs

(There were many xposts between me starting that post and finishing it, including your "we keep talking about it" one)

the idea that the accuser is actually a CIA pawn is so far removed from what usually falls under the concept of 'victim-blaming' that I don't really see the point of conflating the two

sry matt this is kind of a general "oh ffs"

I just get frustrated with some of the rhetoric being thrown around when, as far as I know, nobody is saying "oh c'mon, this is all just a misunderstanding!" or "these dumb skanks are just angry that he never called them back!" or w/e

um, we have a poster saying categorically assange is innocent, another saying he was framed (but also that he was guilty!)

xp I'm not sure whether I'm caught in a performative contradiction [via telling everyone to talk less about the thing I am talking about] or whether my statements performatively justify themselves [via asserting that there is a lot of pressure in and from the media to make this whole issue 'about' julian assange, including wild speculation about pending legal charges]

I'd be amazed if Wikileaks hadn't made contingency plans for Assange being imprisoned/assassinated/randomly hit by a bus

I read somewhere that this is indeed in place.

We have people writing "they asked for it" (as covert spies)

I don't think jeevves has ever outright said "he was framed", just pointed out that the observation "ppl have been framed in the past for less" is not incompatible with the factual state of affairs being "julian assange raped somebody"

bernard, kind of feel that trying to legislate what people talk about is a non-starter in general but particularly IRONIC in this case

first amendment, man, first amendment

you think the CIA had people close to assange who arranged a broken condom incident, and then (somehow) got him to have sex with them while asleep

ingenious

― ______ ___ ___________! (history mayne), Thursday, December 9, 2010 5:44 AM (6 minutes ago) Bookmark

did i suggest this?

― jeevves, Thursday, December 9, 2010 5:53 AM (0 seconds ago) Bookmark

i mean, my writing is sometimes unclear, but if he committed either of those acts, then absolutely, he is a guilty. i hope that it's clear that i'm talking about a hypothetical situation in which he is innocent of any crime. if he committed rape, he is a rapist and a criminal, end of story.

We have people writing "they asked for it" (as covert spies)

― Mordy, Thursday, December 9, 2010 2:11 PM (44 seconds ago) Bookmark

okay lol
(but then I felt bad about it afterwards)

bernard, kind of feel that trying to legislate what people talk about is a non-starter in general but particularly IRONIC in this case

first amendment, man, first amendment

― ______ ___ ___________! (history mayne), Thursday, December 9, 2010 2:12 PM (24 seconds ago) Bookmark

not trying to 'legislate' anything, just to criticize ppl who get sucked up into this whole game of chinese whispers and end up denouncing some guy with a blog who doesn't denounce forcefully enough the denouncers of the alleged rape-victims — at which point the entire discourse is poisoned because people are essentially climbing onto their soapboxes and shouting at themselves.

I was excited by the whole wikileaks thing as much because of the public enthusiasm it seemed to provoke as the actual contents of any of the cables; now it's degenerated into a conversation we've gone through a hundred times before and it's hard not to be a lil frustrated

i think it's odd how the rape charge went from 'too weak to prosecute' to making assange interpol's most wanted in a couple of months. i think the fact that the rape charge very well may be legitimate (and that assange might be guilty) doesn't exclude all other kinds of foul play from the governments involved

I'd be amazed if Wikileaks hadn't made contingency plans for Assange being imprisoned/assassinated/randomly hit by a bus

http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2010/12/wikileaks-reels/

p.s. threat level is a tech blog, so it's week on the politics/ethics of this, but it's doing the best coverage of the tech issues and internal wikileaks stuff.

.. but its better on spelling, hem hem.

oh ho ho

but uh basically if I had to summarize my position in a nutshell:

- yeah there are some dudes engaged in victim-blaming, which is overdetermined by the combined effects of:
— 1. rape culture (duh), but also
— 2. kneejerk fear reaction to the idea that rape allegations against Assange will give ppl (primarily in the media) an excuse to discredit or ignore wikileaks [via a similar kneejerk reaction?];
— - lol of course the other irony is that spreading silly conspiracy theories around has the exact same effect of obscuring the real issues
- — - ... maybe some good will still come of all this tho???

i hope it's clear that my position is that, while not necessarily true of julian assange, people making claims similar to wikileaks's against large companies or governments have been discredited on a basis of sexual relationships.
that being said, i hope i did not come across as suggesting that assange's accusers should not be given full credibility as the case progresses and in a court of law.