*Semi*-voluntary is just a statement of fact, not an evaluation: he had
more choices than someone entirely in custody. None of those choices
were good, and, like I said, I don't think any of them could have
changed this outcome — that, sooner or later, he'd be physically
removed from the embassy.
A certain measure of normalization is inevitable: there are kids who
were born after Assange entered the embassy but know his name. I think
the issue is what *kind* of normalization. As Felix and you both point
out, albeit in very different ways, the widespread adoption of
Wikileaks's basic vocabulary — both as ways of working and as
historical context — is another form.
You give Assange more credit than he's due for changing public
discourse, I think. The exposure of classified military and diplomatic
materials has been going on for half a century or more, and there are
organizations — say, the National Security Archive in the US, and
other entities in other countries — that have been actively working
in a sort of proto-Wikileaks 'space' for decades. If anything, the more
promising aspect of Wikileaks wasn't the leaks, it was the wiki — the
hope that leaking could become pervasive and transformative (I'm tempted
to say, *be normalized*). I'd argue that Assange himself turned out to
be one of the greatest obstacles to that hope. But, as absurd as it may
sound, I don't say any of this to diminish his impact or to diss him:
the best respect is to think carefully about what he *did* accomplish.
I tried to get at some of this several years ago, in point/counterpoint
piece with Florian Cramer that Mute ~commissioned in 2011:
http://www.metamute.org/editorial/articles/wikileaks-has-radically-altered-military-diplomatic-information-complex-%E2%80%93-10-reasons-and-against
Cheers,
Ted
On 11 Apr 2019, at 13:02, Morlock Elloi wrote:
What was the voluntary part? Lifelong imprisonment in the US or
execution are viable alternatives?
The amount of normalization is staggering. And it works.
From left-talk about revelations of criminal election rigging being
far bigger crime than the criminal rigging itself (cretins on the left
still believe it, also that Assange is a rapist), to forgetting how
Wikileaks profoundly changed the public discourse (cables, war logs,
collateral murder, vault, etc etc.) how it saved Snowden from chains,
how it enabled effective whistleblowing.
And it is enabled mainly by cretins on the left living in psychotic
denial of reality.
Now watch the sad show of British and their judicial system as they
bend over to receive the final ejaculation ... state-size necrophilia.
semi-voluntary confinement
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