I have changed my opinion on Assange and Wikileaks. I used to think Assange was a noble guy performing a useful function; I suspected that the charges brought against him were part of an entrapment operation run by U.S. backed intelligence services.
I no longer see any reason to believe that he was “set up” on rape and sexual assault charges, although a fair trial would help to sort that out. I think he’s probably a rapist. I used to believe that Wikileaks was what it claimed to be, a clearinghouse for information that powerful entities, both governmental and non-governmental (but including lots of impossibly wealthy people deeply connected to governments) would prefer be secret. I thought Wikileaks was an honest broker. I no longer believe Wikileaks is an honest broker. It’s a propaganda outfit. I still believe that in its early days Wikileaks provided a useful function. Over time, of course, Wikileaks has become synonymous with Assange. And since Assange has been shown to be corrupt & horrible in a number of ways, that makes Wikileaks suspect. Which raises the questions of Snowden and Manning, and of the journalist Glenn Greenwald. I continue to believe that both Snowden and Manning acted with patriotic motives. They both reported horrendous, illegal actions and activities of United States agencies that would still be unknown had they not brought them to light. I think the Republic was well served by their disclosures — even though they are, of course, associated with WikiLeaks ( I won’t go into the complicated history of Snowden/Wikileaks or Manning/WikiLeaks). I don’t know what to make of Glenn Greenwald. Comments welcome, jrs > On Nov 14, 2017, at 6:59 AM, Udhay Shankar N <[email protected]> wrote: > > I've been thinking about the whole issue of 'filter bubbles' and their > various effects, including the death of serendipity, the inability to see > things (like e.g Trump) until they hit you in the face and, more > philosophically, cutting oneself off from many potentially interesting > people and ideas. > > How do people here deal with this? As a start point, when was teh last time > you changed your opinion on something non-trivial, and how did that come > about? > > Udhay > > -- > > ((Udhay Shankar N)) ((udhay @ pobox.com)) ((www.digeratus.com))
