Glenn Beck explains Julian Assange’s Rape Case

Glenn Beck gave the more comprehensive analysis on the rape charge against Julian Assange (shockingly).
His conclusion: Julian Assange is a dirtbag, but not a rapist

His description of what happened is 100% consistant from what i have read from multiple other sources.

Apparently Sweden have very progressive rape laws. Julian Assange was in fact charge with one of those progressive laws, namely “sex by surprise”. According to Slate “sex by surprise” is highly unlikely to constitute a rape crime in the United States.

more information about one of the girls who is accusing Assange of rape.

anyway, Assange and even Wikileaks are just symptoms of whats more to come. In the age of internet and globalization, power is more decentralized than ever, Wikileaks (and sadly Al Queda) are examples of new found power of people against establishment. Even if they somehow succeed in taking down Assange and Wikileaks, they will just be replace by others. So stop trying.

p.s. The Tea Partiers need to start speaking out against the attack on Assange and Wikileaks, if the truly believen in what they preach.

A Wikileaks information site

Apparently a bunch of supporters who is not affiliated with either Wikileaks or any government agency get up a Wikileaks information site name WL Central with the following stated aims:

(a) To provide a one-stop resource for WikiLeaks-related information, current and historical.
(b) To build a community site for WikiLeaks supporters.
(c) To counteract the many rumours and plain false information disseminated about WikiLeaks.

They have written 4 well researched article debunking propaganda against Wikileaks

• Debunked: “Julian Assange is a Traitor (U.S.)”
• Debunked: “Wikileaks Did Not Redact The Afghanistan War Logs”
• Debunked: “Wikileaks Has Blood On Its Hands”
• Debunked: “Wikileaks is Anti-American”

I had a quick skim through, they look really well written and researched.

Check them out.

Defending Wikileaks: Assange is an anti-American operative

Criticism: Assange and Wikileaks is anti-American.

Response:
They have been many American leaks and mojar American leaks grab a lot of attention in the english speaking world. Thus it is easy to feel as if Wikileaks only targets Americans, even if that is completely false. A simple check on Wikileaks’s wikipedia page will tell you, leaks have come from all over the world.
Here are just a few none US government leaks
-Apparent Somali assassination order
-Daniel arap Moi family corruption
-Bank Julius Baer lawsuit
-Scientology bibles
-BNP membership list
-Climategate emails
-Australian Internet censorship lists
-Bilderberg Group meeting reports
-2008 Peru oil scandal
-Nuclear accident in Iran
-Toxic dumping in Africa: The Minton report
-Kaupthing Bank
-British Joint Services Protocol 440

It is inevitable that liberal democracy with many liberal minded people and vast electronic databases are vert susceptible to whistleblowers. This is not a weakness of democracies, this openness is their strength.

Defending Wikileaks: leaks kills innocent lives

Criticism:
Information published by Wikileaks will allow informants to be identify risk countless lives.

Response:
1. Let me be absolutely clear, U.S. officials concede that they have no evidence to date that the documents led to anyone’s death. NO EVIDENT!!!

2. Wikileaks and other news organization who worked on information released by Wikileaks are very careful and they self reduct information that they think might potentially cause warm to innocent informants. For further measures, Wikileaks and others invited the US government to review the information before each of the 3 major releases, Afghan War Diary, Iraq War Diary and Secret US Embassy Cables. Wikileaks were rejected by the US government all three times. This is one of the reason why Wikileaks has been slow in their release of information, they need to look through these information to minimise harm, to the best of their ability. Of couse, this process would be faster and damage further minimise if the US government helped. As of now, only 960 of the 251,287 diplomatic cables has been released contrary to what media organizations are reporting. More on this and other propaganda against Wikileaks.

Forgive me but….

… they look like douchebags… with all due respect.

(photo: from the left Silvio Berlusconi, Dmitry Medvedev and Vladimir Putin)

Time Magazine: Hitler/Stalin is ok but not Julian Assange.

Update: correction and my apologies,

From Time:

Not only has Julian Assange NOT been banished from the TIME Person of the Year Poll, you can vote for him right here: http://su.pr/1rnf5m

Original post below:

According to Wikileaks’s Facebook page.

Time magazine have removed Julian Assange from their person of the year poll. He was well ahead in the lead.

Really? Time is so uncomfortable with Julian Assange winning the poll that they had to take it down?
Consider Time is a magazine that have chosen both Hitler (1938) and Stalin (1939) for their Men of the Year “honor” in the past. Time’s stated aim with Person of the Year issue is to features and profiles a person, couple, group, idea, place, or machine that “for better or for worse, …has done the most to influence the events of the year.” and Times unspoken aim with the once of the year issue is to make media buzz and sell lots of magazines. Julian Assange and Wikileaks both fit perfectly with their duo aims. What is it? is it the political pressure? or the fear of Wikileaks as a media competitor? or that Time Warner have got things to hide?

I underestimated 9/11

On the morning of september 11th 2001, being a student of international relations i naturally ask me self “what will be the implication of this event?”
i naively thought, the world is still dominate by handful of major states, their relative power will not be change by this, their interest wont shift dramatically, and the US will pump up their security to make sure this attack is an isolated instance, therefore the 9/11 attack will just be a footnote in history.

9 years have gone pass, i am sad to say 9/11 has been the catalyse that lead to many of the major movement and event of this decade, contrary to what i thought.
a brief look back at the movement and events that 9/11 have contributed

2008 financial crisis: 9/11 cause a recession that had to be quickly counter by dropping real interest rate to near 1% by the Federal Reserve of US. the low interest rate facilitated the housing bubble that went bust in 2007 which tigger the most severe recession since the great depression of the 30s.

New Atheist Movement: the religious extremist that perpetrated the 9/11 attack is what got the intellectuals to reconsider their accommodating attitude towards religion in public spaces. their conclusion was: atheist need to take their stand, and religion need to be intellectually crushed. This led to many intellectuals to write anti-religious books. After the attack of 9/11, people were ready for them. Many of the new atheist books become best sellers.

Two wars with no end in sight: Afganistan and Iraq

Growing state power and secrecy: Just in the US and just to name a few, wiretapping, strip-search and confiscation at airports, torture, extraordinary rendition, assassination program, all can be done to US citizens and without warrant.

Wikileaks: wikileaks and its supports are direct backlash of growing government power and ceding liberty.

Barack Obama: without the two wars, and an economy in ruin, Obama could not be elected president in 2008.

so yeah, i may have underestimated 9/11