I Am Julian Assange

[Joanne98]

I am Julian Assange.

I want information so that I can hold my government accountable. If my country acts improperly and in my name, I want the proof. I want to know if there actually is no evidence proving weapons of mass destruction. I want to know if America is working with Israel to overthrow Iran's leadership. I want data that has not been spun by reporters that work for publishers and broadcasters with political and business goals that conflict with the facts. I want to know.

I am Julian Assange because I know unfettered information is valuable to democracy and a peaceful world. I can make the best decisions with the most knowledge. I can vote for the best candidates. I can support the smartest policies to help my country and the world. I am not naïve; I know that not every operation can be transparent but I have a right to know its outcome and how it has affected my country and me.

I do not believe Julian Assange has done anything wrong. The cables that have been published have all been printed in newspapers and redacted to protect individuals at risk. I do not want my country to prosecute a man whose actions are changing the way we get information and how we make critical decisions. I now know that my president and my country's military have not been honest about the war in Afghanistan. I know that my country has killed civilians and that we have refused to acknowledge our mistakes. I have learned that our allies are secretly consorting with our enemies.

I am also Pfc. Bradley Manning. I know that if I saw the disturbing information come across my desk that I would have confronted the conflict between my oath of service to my country and the immorality of its behavior. I do not believe I would have been able to ignore American helicopters gunning down journalists carrying cameras. I believe I would have acted on my conscience and found a way to reveal the facts. There was a reporter at the My Lai massacre in Vietnam but there was only a gun camera on the US helicopter in Iraq. And the Internet. And Bradley Manning.

I believe that governments are out of control and citizens have a decreasing belief that they can influence decisions. WikiLeaks and the Internet are empowering individuals and groups with information. Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are the first two faces and voices in a crowd that will soon be too big to control. Their arrests and charges and even prosecution will only spawn a broader resistance against war and deception and corruption. The Internet is now the reporter. This is the way the world is. I do not want to hear that there will always be wars and spying and death. I want information to prevent them and to build peace.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/jim-moore/i-am-julian-assange_b_793583.html

[katandmoon]

1. +1. K&R

[Autumn]

2. K/R

:dem:

[avaistheone1]

3. K&R

[Bryn]

4. K&R

[elias49]

5. K&R

[Political_Junkie]

6. K & R

:applause:

[Sancho]

7. K & R

:dem:

[katty]

8. K&R

[swilton]

9. + 1,000

[cutlassmama]

10. K&R

[Vattel]

11. K and R

[tomm2thumbs]

12. K & R

[truth2power]

13. Thank you for posting this, Joanne. n/t

[midnight]

14. K&R

[glinda]

15. K & R n/t

[slay]

16. Me too

i'll stand with the public's right to know THE TRUTH any and every day of the week! :patriot:

[robinlynne]

17. the best post today. and today was a busy day.

[jannyk]

18. k&r!

[Raphael Weber]

19. Assange is not wikileaks

He is one of wikileaks and unfortunately the reason many people actually left wikileaks.
And in a few weeks some of the people having left will start their own platform.
Assange is not above the law. Neither is Polanski (having said that I don't imply whatsoever that he is guilty of what he is charged of).
While I admired wikileaks for the video from Iraq I have some doubts about these cables cause what many reveal (the impression other politicians made on the US)
is of basically no interest. Moreover Iran gets isolated (that's lucky). In a nutshell: with many cables I don't see what they help what they accomplish. They aren't the proofs the above mentioned article talks about.

[liberation]

29. Bravo! you used almost every single fallacy in the book, from strawmen, to red herrings...

... with a side dish innuendo based on false equivalence in order to achieve plausible deniability. And all in just over 5 lines of text.

Pretty awesome!

[Senator]

20. K&+R

[marew]

21. K & R!

[Wednesdays]

22. K&R

:kick:

[DemReadingDU]

23. +++

[badgerpup]

24. K & R n/t

:applause:


:kick:

[madmax]

25. K&R

[Michigan-Arizona]

26. K&R n/t

[snot]

27. K&R'd

[Goldstein1984]

28. Yes+++

Whatever the negatives, the positives of this information becoming public outweigh them.

What I'm hoping is that the U.S. and its toadies cross the line that causes the entire unredacted dataset to be dumped.

This is a catharsis, and yes it's a little uncomfortable for those doing well under the status quo.

It's time to abandon anachronistic notions like patriotism and exceptionalism. War crimes, crimes against humanity, corruption and hypocrisy are universally wrong.

Bring on the truth.

[defendandprotect]

30. K/R

Fully support what WikiLeaks is doing !!

[RedCloud]

31. AND MAKE MEGA BUSINESS ACOUNTABLE TOO!

Enough of the government only bashing. I want to see the fat cats in a top hat squirm!

[zeemike]

32. I hope there are others who will stand up in his place should he go down

It will take courage but if enough of them do it we win.
I only wish I had the resources, skill and knowledge to be Assange.

[N_E_1 for Tennis]

33. Support fully !! n/t

[Dj13Francis]

34. I am too.

Yeah. Couldn't have said it better myself. Exactly.