political commentator * author * publisher * bookseller * radio presenter * blogger * Conservative candidate * former lobbyist * Jack Russell owner * West Ham United fanatic * Email iain AT iaindale DOT com
Saturday, December 18, 2010
Why the Left Worship the 'God' of Wikileaks
Read my Mail on Sunday article on why the left worship Julian Assange HERE.
"Could you imagine any other scenario where liberals, socialists and other members of the Left would be so cavalier with an allegation as serious as rape?"
Yes. Polanski. And his rape was admitted and paedophilic.
He's not claiming to be above the law, but why extradite him on a EAW (who asked for that, exactly?) for a law that doesn't exist in this country?
Filter the leaks? He asked the US authorities which ones they didn't want released and received no answer. Most of it was retrievable by the public via FOIA.
It's not just the left who have enjoyed this. I too like seeing governments, who have treated their citizens with contempt for years, squirm.
The fact isn't that the charges are lies it's the ferocity with which the authorities are pursuing him with an obvious agenda. Read this article from someone who works with rape victims: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/jaccuse-sweden-britain-an_b_795899.html
And the organisation is not hypocritical, they had their own list of anonymous donors sent to them and they published it: http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/20/wikileaks_donor_leak/
The whole idea of wikileaks is that they release the information, whatever it is and whoever it involves. It would be against their philosophy to start cherrypicking what they are given.
I agree with what you say. The majority of journalists are quite responsible, particularly when national security is involved and could harm the national interests or even result in deaths among the military. This man doesn't care. And if diplomats can't give their personal impressions of those with whom their country is dealing, which I would imagine is a very important part of their job, what is the point in their existence? But, he was only the publisher, who leaked or hacked the information? There seems to be a dethly silence on that front! .
Some day I promise to write a long and boring piece naming all the writers who write about how "the left" (or, as the case may be, "the right") think something when in fact the opinions in question are shared by only some on the left, and for a diversity of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with their politics.
Of course it will be an intelligent piece of writing so the Mail on Sunday won't touch it with a bargepole.
By releasing three million random documents, illegally obtained from U.S. government computers, WikiLeaks put paid to its reputation in one fell swoop. Had Assange and his cohorts sorted through the documents and filtered out those with a genuine public interest, he could have been seen as a modern-day hero.
They didn't "release three million random documents". This can be established by spending about five minutes on the Wikileaks site; one finds press releases written up on the basis of select cables, and only a small number of the total held have been released as integral texts.
But he released everything in the name of so-called transparency.
The Swedish have so far not charged him and they have as yet provided no evidence. Your piece smacks again of capture by the powers that be, Iain. Very worrying.
Guido says about him in:http://order-order.com/ "Well Mark didn’t last long upstairs. He ended up at Portland PR after it was discovered he had been leaking sensitive information out via email"
Poor article Iain. Trying to make a partisan point where none exists. Misunderstanding Assange's position on extradition; ignoring some of the historical details of the leaking of the US items; not mentioning some of Wikileaks actions regarding information about itself.
All in all it is either a poorly researched article or a deliberately misleading one.
But hey, if the Daily Mail are prepared to publish more articles from your after the Tom Watson libel, who are we to complain. Besides, it's only the Daily Mail, not a paper with any credibility.
I read your article, and agre with you 100% when you say:
"Assange is not a terrorist, as the increasingly ridiculous Sarah Palin suggests. But he is a narcissist and would-be demagogue. If he was half the man he purports to be, he’d voluntarily get on a flight to Stockholm tomorrow and submit himself to Swedish justice. If he’s as innocent as he says he is, what has he got to fear?"
We all know American politicians are duplicitous b******s and should not fall for their outward crowing of special realtionship when it suits them. We should grow up. No one would be surprised about Hilary's attitude towards UN diplomats (I do not like the UN, but then what she was asking is outrageous). Jemima Khan and her crusade, well that is how low we have sunk in in this country.
In a few years' time we will see this Assange guy in leg irons doing work near a pententiary in a USA watched by those vicious-looking gun toting guards with wide dark glasses. His own PM, Guillard has fed him to the Yanks. The same gang of lawyers and the money rich, Khans and other lefties seen with this fellow.
Iain, I'm very disappointed in you. Is this what you stopped blogging for?
Privacy in your private life has nothing to do with privacy for governments and how they control us. I can't imagine you don't know the difference, and are being simply disingenuous.
> It is alleged he raped one of them
Oh please. So, what are we defining as rape nowadays? When a woman gets upset?
I've been a reader of yours for 5 years, and I would never have expected to read such tripe from you. I feel very sad.
"Far from being a 21st Century hero, I have come to regard Assange as a dictatorial charlatan"
I have never regarded you as a 21st Century hero. Far from it. But I do think you should enrol on a basic English grammar course where they will teach you the folly of writing sentences such as " I saw a cow cycling down a hill".
Also, why are you writing in the Mail, having rubbished it several times in your blog following your spat with Peter McKay, even calling it a 'rag'.
Anyway, very poor article well down to your usual standard, starting with "me, me, me".
Iain, one point of contention: you make it sound as if he dumped a mountain of documents without taking the time to filter them. If you'll recall at the time he was wanted by INTERPOL, so he was in a bit of a pickle.
To ensure the information wasn't vulnerable to attack, he mirrored the files to several locations and handed responsibility to five mainstream papers before finally turning himself in.
He didn't have the luxury to do as you suggested.
Of course Assange is eccentric, egocentric, cocky, possibly deviant, but then what other personality type is going to have the nerve to pull this kind of thing off and expect to survive? Right. Only an idealistic nutter.
Yes, let the legal process reach its conclusion, and yes carefully release relevant redacted info, but don't make it about Assange. He's not the story, except for the celebrity obsessed.
The Mail on Sunday... what's happened to you? Do you need the money? Are you being blackmailed? Have aliens performed a 'mind swap' on you? Very surprising and very sad.
And cheerio, links to the Mail turn me queasy - this blog is off my RSS feed list.
I didn't realise promiscuity was a crime? Nor Narcissism. (Even though I fell foul a very nasty one in the senior corridors of Acupncture). Indeed, Assange is NOT accused or "rape", rather "sex by surprise". One should also add that he has done excellent works with leaks that are nothing do with the USA, including a famous super-injunction here.
What am I saying? That smearing him is not the right way to approach whatever it is that is happening, and helps no-one. Being a cunt is not a crime, though there's a few I'd love to see banged up
I see a lot of logical fallacies in the argument. Take the title alone for example:
He preaches openness but demands privacy. He reveals 'secrets' but 99% are prurient gossip. He's accused of rape but won't face his accusers. Why do the Left worship the WikiLeaks 'God'?
The first main parts are a tu quoque argument. As wikipedia explains:
"Tu quoque (pronounced /tuːˈkwoʊkweː/ [1]), or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for "you, too" or "you, also". A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's viewpoint on an issue on the argument that the person is inconsistent in that very thing.[2] It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.[3]"
Not that I am accepting that Assange acted inconsistently with his principles.
The last part of the title is a loaded question, because it assumes things to be true which have not actually been shown to be so.
What a surprise! In a dismally poor article about Assange's ego, your very first word is "I" and the first three paragraphs are about you. Are you sure it is Assange's ego that is the problem, and not yours?
As for your "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" conclusion - well, I still haven't stopped laughing. The Daily Mail must have paid you very well to write such drivel.
When I checked a moment ago, 172 people had recommended the most popular post criticising your article, and there were 42 votes for the most supportive (among readers of the Daily Mail) - so it would be hard to claim that it was a half and half response.
The trouble was that that the article was unbalanced, light on argument and partial in the evidence it presented.
Just as your blog had become.
You can wing it on the radio where words disappear into the ether but not with the written word; you have to be a bit more serious for that.
Come back blogging by all means - I would welcome it - but let's have something more considered than this stream of consciousness, barrack room stuff.
It's rather ironic damning those who stand up be counted. Particularly in this instance.
It's only liberal protestors who allowed Iain not to be locked up for his sexual diversions and to have his privacy respected. Otherwise he would be subject to the same hounding, insinuation, character assassination and witch hunt as Julian.
This was shoddy and irresponsible journalism. To start with, the repeated use of the word 'rape' without an 'alleged' in front of it. And as James Catlin drily observed, 'you need a lawyer in Sweden to know whether you've been raped or not'.
A moment's research will also tell you that neither woman accused Assange of rape and the Swedish charge in Swedish - already thrown out once - neither states nor translates as rape. (To be fair, the CPS didn't bother with this detail either.)
Lack of balance? Even a passing reference to the fact that Assange's accusers / honeytrappers were in collusion and the Anna Ardin was a feminist activist encouraging 'Legal Revenge Against Men' (see her blog cached on Google) should temper one's views somewhat.
I am really disappointed in Iain, because from rational blogger he has just joined the ranks of Fox News baying-for-blooders. The media's factually incorrect, sex crime conspiracy is exactly the kind of establishment, hate-mongering hypocrisy that destroyed Oscar Wilde.
26 comments:
"Could you imagine any other scenario where liberals, socialists and other members of the Left would be so cavalier with an allegation as serious as rape?"
Yes. Polanski. And his rape was admitted and paedophilic.
Good leftie deeds are clearly a defence for rape.
He's not claiming to be above the law, but why extradite him on a EAW (who asked for that, exactly?) for a law that doesn't exist in this country?
Filter the leaks? He asked the US authorities which ones they didn't want released and received no answer. Most of it was retrievable by the public via FOIA.
It's not just the left who have enjoyed this. I too like seeing governments, who have treated their citizens with contempt for years, squirm.
The fact isn't that the charges are lies it's the ferocity with which the authorities are pursuing him with an obvious agenda. Read this article from someone who works with rape victims:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/naomi-wolf/jaccuse-sweden-britain-an_b_795899.html
And the organisation is not hypocritical, they had their own list of anonymous donors sent to them and they published it:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/02/20/wikileaks_donor_leak/
The whole idea of wikileaks is that they release the information, whatever it is and whoever it involves. It would be against their philosophy to start cherrypicking what they are given.
I agree with what you say. The majority of journalists are quite responsible, particularly when national security is involved and could harm the national interests or even result in deaths among the military. This man doesn't care.
And if diplomats can't give their personal impressions of those with whom their country is dealing, which I would imagine is a very important part of their job, what is the point in their existence?
But, he was only the publisher, who leaked or hacked the information? There seems to be a dethly silence on that front!
.
Some day I promise to write a long and boring piece naming all the writers who write about how "the left" (or, as the case may be, "the right") think something when in fact the opinions in question are shared by only some on the left, and for a diversity of reasons, some of which have nothing to do with their politics.
Of course it will be an intelligent piece of writing so the Mail on Sunday won't touch it with a bargepole.
I'm looking forward to your follow up piece on why the right adore crude generalisations about their opponents.
By releasing three million random documents, illegally obtained from U.S. government computers, WikiLeaks put paid to its reputation in one fell swoop. Had Assange and his cohorts sorted through the documents and filtered out those with a genuine public interest, he could have been seen as a modern-day hero.
They didn't "release three million random documents". This can be established by spending about five minutes on the Wikileaks site; one finds press releases written up on the basis of select cables, and only a small number of the total held have been released as integral texts.
But he released everything in the name of so-called transparency.
But he didn't.
The Swedish have so far not charged him and they have as yet provided no evidence. Your piece smacks again of capture by the powers that be, Iain. Very worrying.
@David Boothroyd
You want to publish? Mark Flanagan is your man.
Guido says about him
in:http://order-order.com/
"Well Mark didn’t last long upstairs. He ended up at Portland PR after it was discovered he had been leaking sensitive information out via email"
Poor article Iain. Trying to make a partisan point where none exists. Misunderstanding Assange's position on extradition; ignoring some of the historical details of the leaking of the US items; not mentioning some of Wikileaks actions regarding information about itself.
All in all it is either a poorly researched article or a deliberately misleading one.
But hey, if the Daily Mail are prepared to publish more articles from your after the Tom Watson libel, who are we to complain. Besides, it's only the Daily Mail, not a paper with any credibility.
I read your article, and agre with you 100% when you say:
"Assange is not a terrorist, as the increasingly ridiculous Sarah Palin suggests. But he is a narcissist and would-be demagogue.
If he was half the man he purports to be, he’d voluntarily get on a flight to Stockholm tomorrow and submit himself to Swedish justice.
If he’s as innocent as he says he is, what has he got to fear?"
We all know American politicians are duplicitous b******s and should not fall for their outward crowing of special realtionship when it suits them. We should grow up. No one would be surprised about Hilary's attitude towards UN diplomats (I do not like the UN, but then what she was asking is outrageous). Jemima Khan and her crusade, well that is how low we have sunk in in this country.
In a few years' time we will see this Assange guy in leg irons doing work near a pententiary in a USA watched by those vicious-looking gun toting guards with wide dark glasses. His own PM, Guillard has fed him to the Yanks.
The same gang of lawyers and the money rich, Khans and other lefties seen with this fellow.
Iain, I'm very disappointed in you. Is this what you stopped blogging for?
Privacy in your private life has nothing to do with privacy for governments and how they control us. I can't imagine you don't know the difference, and are being simply disingenuous.
> It is alleged he raped one of them
Oh please. So, what are we defining as rape nowadays? When a woman gets upset?
I've been a reader of yours for 5 years, and I would never have expected to read such tripe from you. I feel very sad.
"Far from being a 21st Century hero, I have come to regard Assange as a dictatorial charlatan"
I have never regarded you as a 21st Century hero. Far from it. But I do think you should enrol on a basic English grammar course where they will teach you the folly of writing sentences such as " I saw a cow cycling down a hill".
Also, why are you writing in the Mail, having rubbished it several times in your blog following your spat with Peter McKay, even calling it a 'rag'.
Anyway, very poor article well down to your usual standard, starting with "me, me, me".
Iain, one point of contention: you make it sound as if he dumped a mountain of documents without taking the time to filter them. If you'll recall at the time he was wanted by INTERPOL, so he was in a bit of a pickle.
To ensure the information wasn't vulnerable to attack, he mirrored the files to several locations and handed responsibility to five mainstream papers before finally turning himself in.
He didn't have the luxury to do as you suggested.
Of course Assange is eccentric, egocentric, cocky, possibly deviant, but then what other personality type is going to have the nerve to pull this kind of thing off and expect to survive? Right. Only an idealistic nutter.
Yes, let the legal process reach its conclusion, and yes carefully release relevant redacted info, but don't make it about Assange. He's not the story, except for the celebrity obsessed.
Surely you'll blog again, eh?
I thought you'd given up Blogging Iain.
Or, is this now just an advertising hoarding?
The Mail on Sunday... what's happened to you? Do you need the money? Are you being blackmailed? Have aliens performed a 'mind swap' on you? Very surprising and very sad.
And cheerio, links to the Mail turn me queasy - this blog is off my RSS feed list.
Love that you are continuing to post. Your limited contributions are still worth reading.
I didn't realise promiscuity was a crime? Nor Narcissism. (Even though I fell foul a very nasty one in the senior corridors of Acupncture). Indeed, Assange is NOT accused or "rape", rather "sex by surprise". One should also add that he has done excellent works with leaks that are nothing do with the USA, including a famous super-injunction here.
What am I saying? That smearing him is not the right way to approach whatever it is that is happening, and helps no-one. Being a cunt is not a crime, though there's a few I'd love to see banged up
Embarrassingly weak Ian. How very disappointing.
I see a lot of logical fallacies in the argument. Take the title alone for example:
He preaches openness but demands privacy. He reveals 'secrets' but 99% are prurient gossip. He's accused of rape but won't face his accusers. Why do the Left worship the WikiLeaks 'God'?
The first main parts are a tu quoque argument. As wikipedia explains:
"Tu quoque (pronounced /tuːˈkwoʊkweː/ [1]), or the appeal to hypocrisy, is a kind of logical fallacy. It is a Latin term for "you, too" or "you, also". A tu quoque argument attempts to discredit the opponent's position by asserting his failure to act consistently in accordance with that position; it attempts to show that a criticism or objection applies equally to the person making it. This dismisses someone's viewpoint on an issue on the argument that the person is inconsistent in that very thing.[2] It is considered an ad hominem argument, since it focuses on the party itself, rather than its positions.[3]"
Not that I am accepting that Assange acted inconsistently with his principles.
The last part of the title is a loaded question, because it assumes things to be true which have not actually been shown to be so.
What a surprise! In a dismally poor article about Assange's ego, your very first word is "I" and the first three paragraphs are about you. Are you sure it is Assange's ego that is the problem, and not yours?
As for your "If you've got nothing to hide, you've got nothing to fear" conclusion - well, I still haven't stopped laughing. The Daily Mail must have paid you very well to write such drivel.
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/john-pilger-swedes-are-smearing-him-and-encouraging-the-us-2164320.html
When I checked a moment ago, 172 people had recommended the most popular post criticising your article, and there were 42 votes for the most supportive (among readers of the Daily Mail) - so it would be hard to claim that it was a half and half response.
The trouble was that that the article was unbalanced, light on argument and partial in the evidence it presented.
Just as your blog had become.
You can wing it on the radio where words disappear into the ether but not with the written word; you have to be a bit more serious for that.
Come back blogging by all means - I would welcome it - but let's have something more considered than this stream of consciousness, barrack room stuff.
Would you care to mention the fact that the act that is alleged is not, in British law, rape? Just for the sakes of clarity...
Oh don't be so harsh on Iain... remember, he's "not a journalist and has never said he was a journalist"
He's just a right wing blogger who got lucky.
It's rather ironic damning those who stand up be counted. Particularly in this instance.
It's only liberal protestors who allowed Iain not to be locked up for his sexual diversions and to have his privacy respected. Otherwise he would be subject to the same hounding, insinuation, character assassination and witch hunt as Julian.
This was shoddy and irresponsible journalism. To start with, the repeated use of the word 'rape' without an 'alleged' in front of it. And as James Catlin drily observed, 'you need a lawyer in Sweden to know whether you've been raped or not'.
A moment's research will also tell you that neither woman accused Assange of rape and the Swedish charge in Swedish - already thrown out once - neither states nor translates as rape. (To be fair, the CPS didn't bother with this detail either.)
Lack of balance? Even a passing reference to the fact that Assange's accusers / honeytrappers were in collusion and the Anna Ardin was a feminist activist encouraging 'Legal Revenge Against Men' (see her blog cached on Google) should temper one's views somewhat.
I am really disappointed in Iain, because from rational blogger he has just joined the ranks of Fox News baying-for-blooders. The media's factually incorrect, sex crime conspiracy is exactly the kind of establishment, hate-mongering hypocrisy that destroyed Oscar Wilde.
Ironic, yes.
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