Eccentric Flower:201012/Assange Again
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Assange, Again
Real quick-like; I don't have much patience for this today.
First, a quote from deep in the comments on this page from Kate Harding which you should go read:
Larry Flynt, who despite being a generally obnoxious human has given a lot of time and money to freedom of speech, is giving a lot of money to the WikiLeaks legal fund, which is lovely, but then goes astray when he finishes up with a defense of Assange because he feels Assange is being railroaded.
We won't discuss Moore's motivations, because as far as I can tell Moore has acted under no motivations except a desire to feed his bloated ego for the last decade or more. I have never made a secret of the fact that I find his agitprop tactics annoying; one of those tactics is his persistent refusal to ever examine any facts which do not fit the general direction in which he's trying to steer. When a researcher does this, it gets him in serious hot water; when Moore does it, many of my peers call him a hero.
I believe, despite my reservations about the diplomatic leaks, that WikiLeaks is on balance a good thing. But supporting WikiLeaks and supporting Assange are not a bundle. You can be an even more fervent fan of WikiLeaks than I am and still safely admit that Assange is, at best, kind of a skeeve. You certainly don't have to minimalize rape, and thus get yourself in a whole big can of nasty, just because you want to support WikiLeaks.
And have no doubt about it: these are actual rape allegations with some substance. I'm still trying to dredge out full details, but anyone who is feeding you the dismissive "Oh, the condom broke, how is that his fault?" line has not read the charges for which he was remanded into custody in London:
Now, obviously, all of these charges need to be proven, but does this list sound like "just a broken condom" to you? Does it at least convince you that not all of the thousands of people saying "these charges need to be taken seriously" are just trying to find an excuse to hunt down Assange because they don't like WikiLeaks?
If Assange is innocent then he needs to stand trial and prove it. Until then, stop trying to get him off the hook; it makes you sound like a rape-denying sexist, and I'm sure you don't want to sound like that.
The one bit that has me puzzled in all this is the initial charges that Sweden brought up against Assange, then dropped, then suddenly decided to bring back up again. To me, that reads one of two ways: the initial charges were too weak to stand up to legal scrutiny but now that he's pissed off enough powerful people to get him on anything, and two: there was little reason to keep the charges up because there was little reason to expect Assange to ever come back to Sweden to face charges.
-- 22:51, 20 December 2010 (GMT)
That summary is a bit misleading. The Times has better details: http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/19/world/europe/19assange.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=assange&st=cse The sleep-sex allegation occurred after they had had sex already. Under that theory, anytime your partner wakes you up with sex, it's rape. The molestation charge has to do with the other woman (whom he allegedly held down several days earlier to prevent her from reaching a condom), who allowed him back in her apartment, where he allegedly took off his pants and rubbed against her to try to initiate more sex. There certainly is some disturbing stuff here, but there's also a lot of odd, questionable behavior by the alleged victims. I think AssMange is a douche of the first order (no offense to douches) -- and I love the delicious hypocrisy of his complaining that the Swedish police leaked the investigation report! -- but he's exercising his legal right to avoid extradition. I don't condemn him for that.
-- 03:07, 21 December 2010 (GMT)
As I may not have made clear, I don't have a strong opinion on whether or not Assange is guilty of rape. I have insufficient data and it is the court's business, and I'm trying not to let my opinion be colored by the fact that the man has set off my Sleaze Radar from day one.
What I object to - and what I'm agreeing with various outraged folks on the internet about - is the utter minimization, the dismissal, of what may very well be valid rape charges. As I said above, it would be just as bad to jump the gun and say "It's definitely rape and he needs to go to jail for it." But there is a one-sidedness here, that's the problem. As someone posted on Twitter this morning:
Of course as long as we're doing full disclosure of bias - in case it wasn't already clear: I find Michael Moore such an odious, bloated bag of flatulence that I'm automatically inclined toward hostility for any point of view that has him in it.
-- 16:22, 21 December 2010 (GMT)
Columbina:
I think this link Iko sent me is interesting and important reading. (ETA: I should probably mention there is an unrelated not-work-safe photo on that page.)
Although I continue to maintain that the best way to settle all this is for Assange to stand trial, it's a useful counterpoint: It's just as bad to jump too far in the "it's rape!" direction too fast as it is to jump too far in the direction I criticized above.
-- 16:02, 20 December 2010 (GMT)