Assange seeks asylum in Ecuador

[Gustaf]

I don't get all this. Is Assange so deluded that he actually believes in the conspiracy theories or is he so sure of being found guilty?

[Gustaf]

I don't get all this. Is Assange so deluded that he actually believes in the conspiracy theories or is he so sure of being found guilty?

He may just want to avoid having to return to Sweden at all costs.

Where they obviously are going to hang him (probably under CIA orders?)

Not saying you believe that

Nah, Sweden just may be an awful place to spend your time.

True.  It produces people like Gustaf.

EDIT:  Worth pointing out that idealistic leftist idiots gave this scumbag 315,000 for his bail.  Since he's fleeing, the money is forfeited.  He just blew a third of a million dollars of his supporters' donated money on a ridiculous and likely-failed attempt to flee to Ecuador.

Ok, that is a fair point. Then again, pro-rape jerks should fit right in here!

[Gustaf]

moderate heroism (translated: vapid liberal moralism) takes the thread

Oh say, I didn't see this, well done and well said.  Really your point is more apropos and certainly pithier than mine above, but I figured since everyone else was just saying 'rapist' and 'jerk' and 'scumbag' and 'leftist idiots', I thought I might express myself a little.

You and Tweed really take these things way too seriously.

[Gustaf]

moderate heroism (translated: vapid liberal moralism) takes the thread

Oh say, I didn't see this, well done and well said.  Really your point is more apropos and certainly pithier than mine above, but I figured since everyone else was just saying 'rapist' and 'jerk' and 'scumbag' and 'leftist idiots', I thought I might express myself a little.

You and Tweed really take these things way too seriously.

Not so much, Gustaf - the point is in order to understand the main character of the story, one has to realize that he, quite naturally, does take it seriously.  No doubt you would as well were you in his shoes.

If I started engaging in non-consensual sex I would take it seriously, yes.

[Gustaf]

I understand the main character, I just find him unsympathetic. Perhaps interesting, but not sympathetic. Disappointingly and unevenly written, too.

Really?  He's right up there with Bertie Wooster in my ranking.

If I started engaging in non-consensual sex I would take it seriously, yes.

If you have perpetrated heterosexual liaison in our patriarchal society, Gustaf, you have 'engaged in non-consensual sex'.  (according to some feminist analysis)

Yes, all penetrative sex is rape and all that. Then again, it's not rape-rape!

[Gustaf]

I will say one thing, the laws for rape in Sweden is stupid.

Please explain, I'd like to know why you think this.

From what I've heard it was consensual, but some circumstances like not wearing condoms now makes it illegal. I just don't agree with it.

It's hard to give consent when you're asleep. Just sayin'

[Gustaf]

it's great to see that for the first time since the fall of the USSR we have a functioning counter-power bloc in world geopolitics, no matter how weak or flimsy it may be.  viva Castro, viva Chavez, viva Correa, viva Morales.

Yup, exactly. And the fact that they so viscerally anger the usual suspects means they must be doing something right.

You really are a bunch of disgusting people.

EternalCynic, what makes a sex crime a so-called crime in your book? Please elaborate.

[Gustaf]

You really are a bunch of disgusting people. 

Moderators are allowed to say such things?

It's a moral imperative to speak out against certain things even if there is a punishment connected to it. Like, I'm fighting the system, dude. Totally.

Report it if you want.

[Gustaf]

What I said is backed by analysis and reflects my disagreement with that type of person. Insults hurled at people who are racists, etc is quite commonplace here.

[Gustaf]

You really are a bunch of disgusting people. 

Moderators are allowed to say such things?

It's a moral imperative to speak out against certain things even if there is a punishment connected to it. Like, I'm fighting the system, dude. Totally.

Report it if you want.

I feel the same way about neo-Confederates.

Heh, you're one to hold a grudge. There's a nasty personal vendetta streak in you, where you go to great lengths to smear specific individuals. I was making a general comment and don't care that much about Lief and Tweed's nasty little hypocrisy.

[Gustaf]

I was making a general comment and don't care that much about Lief and Tweed's nasty little hypocrisy.

I am the most morally consistent poster on this forum.

You want to enjoy Western freedoms while other people suffer for the sake of "political balance". It's one of the most disgusting notions out there.

Then again, I'm sure you're aware that your personality and ideology is a sad sham so I won't press the point.

[Gustaf]

I was making a general comment and don't care that much about Lief and Tweed's nasty little hypocrisy.

I am the most morally consistent poster on this forum.

You want to enjoy Western freedoms while other people suffer for the sake of "political balance". It's one of the most disgusting notions out there.

I enjoy Western privilege because I was born white and into relatively significant wealth (thanks to the unionization drives of the 20th Century, fought tooth and nail by the ruling class that you'd have supported and are not part of the official Western Freedoms narrative that you're spewing - my grandfather a railroad worker, both parents schoolteachers/employees).  such privilieges simply do not exist for a majority of the population here -- consider, the median black household net worth is $2200!  and 1/5 of all US households have zero or negative net worth.

I don't support balance for its own sake in some neo-realist sense, but because I prefer the other side of the coin.

I don't oppose unions, nor do I generally support the ruling classes. I just understand the world better than you do when it comes to what policies benefit the poor.

I understand you were born the way you are. But what prevents you from moving to one of the socialist paradises on Earth? I'm sure they'd be delighted to have you and I'm sure you would have no problem being a lackey to a proper dictator.

It'd also help your rebellious message, since most of their people want to move here. It'd be very alternative to not just support oppression and misery in theory (for other people) but actually for yourself. 

[Gustaf]

Naomi Wolf has been very much an FF on this issue.

Naomi Wolf.

Naomi Wolf.

'Overgeneralization abounds as she attempts to apply the microcosmic events of this mostly white, middle-class, liberal milieu to a whole generation....There is a desperate defensiveness in the tone of this book which diminishes the force of her argument.'--The Library Journal, on Promiscuities.

In an earlier holding-forth on the Assange case Wolf said that it's incumbent upon the woman to explicitly say no and that if she doesn't she's not to be 'treat[ed] as [a] moral adult'. Reading the article in question I see that she's turned rape apologist in the interests of supporting the snivelling narcissism of a self-described market libertarian. Color me unsurprised.

___________

Okay, I'm just going to say this now, so we're clear: Rape is a bigger problem than anything that Julian Assange, uniquely, could possibly be in any position to fight.

Nathan, you missed the memo. Rape is not the problem, it's the solution.

What could be a more important battle for the left than the fight for the privilege of the rich white man to have his pick of common women?

[Gustaf]

I understand you were born the way you are. But what prevents you from moving to one of the socialist paradises on Earth? I'm sure they'd be delighted to have you and I'm sure you would have no problem being a lackey to a proper dictator.

It'd also help your rebellious message, since most of their people want to move here. It'd be very alternative to not just support oppression and misery in theory (for other people) but actually for yourself. 

this inane point has been brought up multiple times, so I'll address it -- the fact as I see it is I am more able to change the course (or destroy the breadth) of US power from within than I would be from without.  this is my motivation and I seek broadly to make my living out of doing so -- in the tradition of Kunstler, Ramsay Clark, etc.

Lol. How convenient for you. I'll extend you the same respect that I expect you extend to really rich people who support low taxes, not because they benefit from it, but because it is best for society.

Now, the society I support has led to the best standard of living ever seen in human history for poor people. Your preferred society (the USSR) was one of mass starvation and genocide. But all your beloved countries (Belarus, Venezuela, North Korea and so on) have ruling classes that live in splendour.

So, please, prove your point. If you can.

[Gustaf]

I understand you were born the way you are. But what prevents you from moving to one of the socialist paradises on Earth? I'm sure they'd be delighted to have you and I'm sure you would have no problem being a lackey to a proper dictator.

It'd also help your rebellious message, since most of their people want to move here. It'd be very alternative to not just support oppression and misery in theory (for other people) but actually for yourself. 

this inane point has been brought up multiple times, so I'll address it -- the fact as I see it is I am more able to change the course (or destroy the breadth) of US power from within than I would be from without.  this is my motivation and I seek broadly to make my living out of doing so -- in the tradition of Kunstler, Ramsay Clark, etc.

Lol. How convenient for you. I'll extend you the same respect that I expect you extend to really rich people who support low taxes, not because they benefit from it, but because it is best for society.

Now, the society I support has led to the best standard of living ever seen in human history for poor people. Your preferred society (the USSR) was one of mass starvation and genocide. But all your beloved countries (Belarus, Venezuela, North Korea and so on) have ruling classes that live in splendour.

So, please, prove your point. If you can.

I'm not sure what point I'm supposed to prove -- your interjection here didn't have anything to do with what you've quoted, and I'm not about to start repeatedly playing on your home turf.

My home turf being reality?

You accused me of supporting the ruling classes. So I pointed out that I support an order that has led to the best standard of living the poor have ever seen, while you support one that lead to misery for the poor and abundance for the ruling class. So I thought you might want to back up your assertion with something a bit more substantive (or, since we both know you can't, you can just retract your statement and admit that it was baseless).

It's interesting how supposedly collectivist thinker tend to be so megalomaniac that they place themselves outside even of their own intellectual constructs (if one may call them that - but I'm  in a generous mood). "People should live in the best places on Earth, like Belarus - except for me, I'll endure the hardships of the US"

[Gustaf]

a few general points.


-there are plenty of places under still US dominion that have similar or worse living standards than the countries we've been talking about.  and the move away from a US-dominated Latin America has been accompanied by an increase in living standards for the majority of the population.  the typical model has been a Europeanized elite ruling over a morass of the destitute and indigenous.  the reason that Chavez and Castro* and the rest are so hated by the Western media is because they actually invest in and rely on their own populations for support instead of taking US dollars to fund a military dictatorship, allow for foreign capital "investment" to exploit cheap labor and natural resources and then expatriate the profits, etc.  the people who pay for mass media (and run economics schools) hate this sh**t and back coups whenever they can in the name of stability (Chile, Honduras, Cuba, Venezuela, Haiti have all been subjected to at least one US-backed coup attempt in the past fifty years, three of them in the last ten years).


-even assuming that Gustaf's statement is true, "I support an order that has led to the best standard of living the poor have ever seen", what does it prove?  it does not prove that this order should persist.  surely he is aware of the most elemental Marxist-Leninist doctrine, that of "stages of history", when the agrarian pre-capitalist gives way to the capitalist which gives way to the socialist.

two sub-points are instructive here.  a) the evidence is that the time for this transition is beyond ripe.  in the US the wage rate per unit of productivity has hit the absolute toilet since the 1970s, meaning the charms of growth have ceased to be dispersed around the society at all -- now this phenomenon is expanding beyond the underclass and through the middle class, as even the top 20% 'political class' has been smashed here in the late neoliberal era.  Gustaf will retort that, even as wages and wealth are falling, quality-of-life is increasing... I don't see how this is true?  sure the underclass can now dilly time away on their iPhone that they bought on a credit card at 30% APY, but they're also working 80 hours per week and can't afford to take advantage of that beautiful new medical technology... where's the quality of life if there's no time?  this phenomenon has hit the middle classes as well... I could go on forever, but one more thing.  6-year-olds now have 50% less lingustic capacity than 6-year-olds did in the 1950s.  why?  people their parents are always working and there are 34 kids for one teacher in their first grade class, so they never interact with adults, only with each other, and development is stunted.

the second sub-point is an old point, that all of the economics models in your textbooks treat natural resources as infinite, the "dirty secret" (Wallerstein) that is externalization of costs... yes, in the perfect fictional world the government then legislates to take care of the externalization, but in the real world economic power is political power, capital captures the democratic process with ease, leading to a vicious cycle (in the midst of an environmental crisis the US is not discussing new, tougher standards but instead wants to eliminate the EPA).


*using Castro mostly in past tense here.  the old Castro that had the USSR to rely on.

if I provoke, I hit a nerve -- I succeed.

[Gustaf]

as if I'm incapable of fallibility?  there's a double standard, I don't care to flesh it out here, but it's so easy for you, you Obama voters, and everyone else in between... there's such a sence of self-worship that comes with the flag!  and yet we on the real left, the left-of-liberal, express one opinion, say one silly thing, and what do you do?  no surprise, you take it as evidence of your own righteousness.  all I say is, how easy it is to convince yourself your righteousness when every media stream, every College Board, every 101 professor, every parent at a Memorial Day parade will assent, will commend you for your feigned courage.


there's a sad fact for you sad fckers.  there is another life!  and it's understood!  it's understood by men like William Kuntsler, Ramsay Clark, Aaron Burr if we go back far enough.  they understood the flip side of this fcking dumb ass coin that you worship.  oh man, you treat me like a joke, but there's a light here, brilliant people have seen it.  if you want to see that light, come to me, come to us!  and if you don't, don't!  don't convince yourselves of some superiority, all you'll be left with is a moment, at age 50, when you stare at the wall, thinking, well, what if the road had forked in Tweed's direction...?

Aw. I'm afraid this crossed into sadness now. It's still funny, but it's one of those guilty laughters where you know you should really feel pity.

[Gustaf]

... his execrable and cowardly behavior. ...he's a sleazy pervert any more as it about his belief that he is above the law and above anybody's moral standards but his own, which seem to run to 'that which gets my dick wet and/or my face in the newspapers'

But Nathan, a desire to have sex is commonplace and normal, not 'perverse', as is a desire for some form of affirmation in the real world - sometimes called 'success', and typified by being seen the media.

I don't really understand your extreme emotional response, Nathan.  Your opponents have no such passion here - I have no idea that Assange is perfect or a saint, I suppose I just consider all of us, including myself, to be real people.  Perhaps you would understand better if you enjoyed life more - had sexual desires and so forth.  

However it is in the nature of power that it does create martyrs, however flawed they are: everyone in prison at this moment is in some sense a martyr to our system of social control, however unpleasant they may appear to be on the (largely imaginary and irrelevant) 'personal level'.  The flaws are created by power just as much as the martyrdom is, and to despise the poor b*stard for his flaws is just as unreasonable as to saint him.

(this is directed, with respect, to you as well Mikado)

Why this obsession with normality, opebo? Why do you feel the need to impose your set of values on Nathan or anyone else? Most people are actually not that fixated on sex.

[Gustaf]

Most people are actually not that fixated on sex.

Really?  Really? 

Into the absurdity bin with this one!

I mean on the level of Opebo. Most people have plenty of other things going on in life that they value highly.