Tuesday, August 23, 2016

Profiles in cowardice



Trump won't speak in black communities because he is too filled with fear.

Compare to the above. Compare to perhaps the bravest speech ever given by a presidential candidate.

Elsewhere: Julian Assange has "doxxed" a large number of gay men in Saudi Arabia, thereby placing their lives in extreme danger. He also published private details about rape victims and other struggling, endangered people within Saudi society.

Why on earth...? What kind of monster would do such a thing?
Embattled WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, who has spent years hiding in London’s Ecuadorian Embassy, said previously: “The Saudi Cables lift the lid on an increasingly erratic and secretive dictatorship that has not only celebrated its 100th beheading this year, but which has also become a menace to its neighbours and itself.”
What an inane attempt to switch the subject! Outing gay people and exposing rape victims can hardly be defended by pointing to the evils of the Saudi royal family.

Also see here.
In the past year alone, the radical transparency group has published medical files belonging to scores of ordinary citizens while many hundreds more have had sensitive family, financial or identity records posted to the web. In two particularly egregious cases, WikiLeaks named teenage rape victims. In a third case, the site published the name of a Saudi citizen arrested for being gay, an extraordinary move given that homosexuality is punishable by death in the ultraconservative Muslim kingdom.

"They published everything: my phone, address, name, details," said a Saudi man who told AP he was bewildered that WikiLeaks had revealed the details of a paternity dispute with a former partner. "If the family of my wife saw this ... Publishing personal stuff like that could destroy people."
Assange is a monster who deserves to die in pain.

7 comments:

Anonymous said...

"Assange is a monster who deserves to die in pain." typical attitude of an exceptional american, where killing, murdering or maiming others over their perceived wrongs takes precedence over any court of law, lol.. it's the great amerikkkan way..

Anonymous said...

Thanks for highlighting RFK's speech. I'll be glad when November is behind us, and you can go back to your muckraking ways.

April 4, 2017 will be the 50th anniversary of Dr. King's very radical Riverside speech, where he called the USA "the greatest purveyor of violence today," and assailed the triple evils of racism, militarism, and poverty. When he was shot down on April 4. 1968, he was running for president with Dr. Benjamin Spock and was planning to bring 500,000 poor people to occupy the Washington Mall (and Congress) to press their demands for economic justice. RFK was going to be a part of the Poor People's Campaign.

There are a lot of questions about RFK's assassination, and MLK's as well.

b said...

Donald Trump won't speak in black areas because he is scared - and he is scared because he is a racist lump of shit. He can say black people should vote for him, but he hasn't got the guts to say it to their faces.

b said...

@Anon 2.12 - Benjamin Spock? I didn't know that. A Steinerite connection!

Anonymous said...

I would have thought that Court proceedings in KSA are public. So with respect to the "gay" Saudi man, I doubt he was "outed". One might argue that he is now on a searchable database which means a whole new bunch of crazies can find him. But I think the Saudi state is about as crazy as it gets in KSA so it's tough to really take your point.

I do think "Assange is a monster who deserves to die in pain" seems a little strong. Doesn't he just facilitate transparency? What does he do that Judy Miller didn't do? Apart from check the documents are true.

An Iranian scientist was recently executed for shooting by iran. An nyt staffer had published a report back in 2010 confirming he worked for the CIA. Does that journo deserve the same fate?

Bob Harrison said...

Mr. 9:19 Anon: Judith Miller is scum. Assange has become self-aggrandizing scum. If he destroyed your life with his "revelations," would you be as forgiving? Perhaps our host is empathizing with Assange's victims. Personally, I have an entire list of people I'd like to boil in oil. That doesn't make an evil amerikkan or any other pejorative. It makes me a human being.

Joseph Cannon said...

Bob, in part my fury derives from the fact that I used to emphasize with Assange. I believed in him. I thought that he was set up by our CIA.

What the hell is wrong with this world? It's getting so you can't admire ANYONE. If you do, the person you admire will eventually use his clay feet to kick your ass.