Hey all, Geert suggested folks might be interested in this piece I
published last week in Waging Nonviolence
<https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/11/real-threat-democracy-isnt-julian-assange-espionage-case/>,
copied below.
Make sure to also check out the fun video linked in the first paragraph
<https://theyesmen.org/project/dowbbc/wikileaks>!
Andy
The real threat to democracy isn’t Julian Assange — it’s the espionage
case against him
As the Yes Men, we have complicated feelings about Assange. But
prosecuting him under the Espionage Act would be a disaster for
journalism and democracy.
Beginning in 2010, we, the Yes Men, developed a friendship with Julian
Assange and a collaboration with Wikileaks. In 2015, we madethis short
video <https://theyesmen.org/project/dowbbc/wikileaks>about it,
originally for inclusion in our third film, “The Yes Men Are
Revolting/,/”//but it didn’t quite fit. We think it shows a charming,
funny and thoughtful side of the man, and so — despite ourmore
complicated feelings
<https://wagingnonviolence.org/2020/11/real-threat-democracy-isnt-julian-assange-espionage-case/#angry>about
him after 2016 — we’re making it available now, given the dire threats
facing Assange and free speech more broadly.
Assange is currentlyfacing extradition
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/10/2/trial-of-julian-assange>to the
United States from London, for allegedly violating the U.S. Espionage
Act — marking the first time the act has been used to prosecute the
publishing of information. If the extradition is successful, he’llface
trial in a Virginia “espionage court”
<https://www.smh.com.au/world/north-america/you-don-t-stand-a-chance-how-the-press-freedom-argument-will-go-for-assange-20190607-p51vfi.html>that
has never once absolved a national security defendant. Allowing the
Virginia court to try (and most likely convict) him would be a disaster
for democracy — something even Obama’s Justice Department believed in
2013, when they determined that indicting Assange would mean having to
prosecute any news organization or writer who publishes classified
material. (Theycalled it
<https://www.politico.com/blogs/media/2013/11/the-dojs-new-york-times-problem-with-assange-178396>“the/New
York Times/problem.”)
Assange’s extradition hearing began in February 2020, with the second
part delayed from May until Sept. 7 because of COVID-19. In its apparent
eagerness to extradite Assange, the court has committed some egregious
abuses — such as introducing new charges in June that Assange couldn’t
respond to — that are mentioned in thissummary by the Electronic
Frontier Foundation
<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2020/10/selective-prosecution-julian-assange>andthis
short film
<https://video.emergeheart.info/videos/watch/f2467447-f5a8-45c9-8d08-804d6a2d4747>by
Wikileaks collaborator Juan Passarelli.
**Meeting the mastermind**
We first met Assange in the summer of 2010, in an awkward English
manor/organic farm. He wasunder house arrest
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vaughan_Smith#Julian_Assange>as he
awaited a hearing for extradition to Sweden, where authorities wanted to
question him on allegations of sex crimes. (The case waslater dropped
<https://www.wired.com/2017/05/sweden-drops-assanges-rape-case-hes-not-walking-free/>.)
From Sweden, he would have been vulnerable to extradition to the United
States, where he might have been subject to torture or worse; all things
considered, he seemed pretty calm, not to mention funny and thoughtful,
as we hopeour little film
<https://theyesmen.org/project/dowbbc/wikileaks>shows.
A screenshot of the landing page for Wikileaks’ release of Stratfor’s
internal emails, called The Global Intelligence Files. (WNV/The Yes Men)
We saw Julian again in February of 2011. Wikileaks had received
thousands of internal emails from corporate spy agency Stratfor; a few
dozen emails showed that Dow Chemical had hired Stratfor to spy on us
<https://theyesmen.org/project/dowbbc/behindthecurtain#stratfor>, which
was flattering to say the least.
In 2015, we shared a delicious rotisserie chicken and bottle of wine at
London’s Ecuadorian embassy, where Julian was receiving
diplomaticprotection
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/15/julian-assange-ecuador-london-embassy-how-he-became-unwelcome-guest>from
Ecuador’s left-wing government.
**Angry at the DNC, angry at Wikileaks**
Our feelings about Julian got more complicated when, a year later — not
long before the disastrous U.S. election of 2016 — Wikileaks released a
trove of private emails showing the Democratic National Committee had
conspired with the Clinton campaign against Bernie Sanders’ candidacy.
The first group of emails came just before the summer congress of the
DNC, and the second, more directly linked to Clinton, a week before the
election.
Of course, the DNC’s actions against its own party’s populist leanings
were loathsome, not to mention myopic and stupid. Forty years of
bipartisan neoliberalism had left millions expecting nothing from
government, laying the groundwork for the rise of a right-wing populist
like Donald Trump. Now, the DNC was squelching the only thing that could
have countered him: aleft-wing
<https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/07/left-populism-chantal-mouffe-leftwing-popular-movement-race-nation>populist
<https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2016/oct/13/birth-of-populism-donald-trump>like
Bernie Sanders, offering much-neededpopular solutions
<https://theyesmen.org/project/dnctakeback/talk>based in reality rather
than hatred.
Without Sanders in the mix, millions faced a choice between the same old
neoliberal shit they’d been offered for decades, and a brand new kind of
shit, untested and unproven. Many chose Trump, who became far and away
the worst and most dangerous president in American history.
Still, for as much as we’ve mainly blamed Democrats for the horrible
outcome of the 2016 election — seeour 2017 #DNCTakeBack intervention
<https://theyesmen.org/project/dnctakeback/talk>— we’re also angry that
Wikileaks chose to release the DNC emails, especially the second batch,
when they did. The timing undoubtedly helped an unhinged authoritarian,
in charge of an unhinged party, to win the election. Had Trump been more
competent, we could easily be looking at the end of any sort of
democracy in America; a Clinton presidency could have been many things,
but not that.
Wikileaks claims that releasing the DNC emails when they did was a
matter of “journalistic integrity.” But “journalistic integrity” could
also have justified/not/releasing them at that time, considering
thewidely-supported possibility
<https://www.nytimes.com/2016/07/27/us/politics/spy-agency-consensus-grows-that-russia-hacked-dnc.html>that
the emails came from a concerted foreign campaign against Clinton.
(Assange continues to insist they were not from a “state actor,” but
it’s hard to see how that could be strictly ruled out.) It also seems
that “journalistic integrity” could have meant releasing the emails
after the election was over, rather than give the advantage to a
scoundrel known to have even worse skeletons in the closet (that were
known then but notpublicized until later
<https://www.nytimes.com/2020/10/31/us/donald-trump-taxes-guide.html>).
Also, “journalistic integrity” would have probably precludedtalking to
Donald Trump Jr.
<https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2017/11/the-secret-correspondence-between-donald-trump-jr-and-wikileaks/545738/>about
what they could do for each other.
**The real reasons?**
We don’t believe that “journalistic integrity” was Julian’s main reason
for releasing those emails at the moments he did. There was alsohis
abiding hatred
<https://www.vox.com/2016/9/15/12929262/wikileaks-hillary-clinton-julian-assange-hate>of
at least two things Hillary Clinton represented: her hawkishness and her
neoliberalism.
While Clinton had supported the Iraq war, Wikileaks shined a light on
U.S. abuses there with its“Collateral Murder” videos
<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/July_12,_2007,_Baghdad_airstrike#Leaked_video_footage>.
(Among the revelations for which Assange is on trial is Wikileaks’
release of the Army’srules of engagement
<https://www.newyorker.com/news/news-desk/the-wikileaks-video-and-the-rules-of-engagement>,
which it used to prove that such drone strikes on civilians are in fact
murder.) According toleaked online chats
<https://theintercept.com/2018/02/14/julian-assange-wikileaks-election-clinton-trump/>,
Assange seems to have believed that Clinton’s hawkish tendencies would
only worsen if she became president.
Wikileaks has published a lot of crucial information and
revolutionized the idea of what journalism can do, whether or not we
like all its results.
And while Clinton was the most prominent champion of the neoliberal
consensus — which helped lead to Trump — Assange had long fought that
consensus and the financialization it led to. (Financialization, the
increase in size and influence of financial institutions and markets,
was why Visa, MasterCard, Paypal and others wereable to cut off
contributions
<https://www.pri.org/stories/2012-07-19/wikileaks-almost-broke-after-visa-mastercard-donations-blocked>to
Wikileaks following its release of the “Collateral Murder” videos,
effectively censoring the organization with no legislative recourse to
speak of.)
It’s also possible that Julian, like some others on the left, thought a
Trump presidency would put a dent in U.S. power abroad, both militarily
and economically. But when strongmen succeed the results are predictable
— just look at China, Russia or, yes, Germany in the 1930s. Luckily,
Trump was too incompetent to succeed, even if he did directly and
profoundly affect millions of Americans, including the hundreds of
thousands who’ve unnecessarily died of COVID-19. You just can’t tell an
American that the gambit was worth it.
**Now what?**
We intensely regret that Julian acted as he did in 2016, whether it was
out of “journalistic integrity,” hatred for Clintonite warmongering or
other policies, or a desire to see American power fail.
But we even more intensely believe that extraditing Julian to the United
States to face trial under the Espionage Act would be a disaster for
journalism and democracy worldwide. Wikileaks is a media organization,
and an incredibly effective one at that. It has published a lot of
crucial information and revolutionized the idea of what journalism can
do, whether or not we like all its results.
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