There Is Something To See Here

There Is Something To See Here

By zunguzungu
December 10, 2010

Julian Assange is not that important. Don’t give him a Nobel Prize. Don’t demonize him. Don’t line up in solidarity behind someone who may or may not be a serial rapist. Don’t demand the conviction of someone who is only accused of a crime, and needs to be presumed innocent until he is convicted. Demand justice for him — and don’t pretend you know what that is, unless you’re one of the three people who do — but don’t fall into the trap of thinking his conviction, in the long run, has very much to do with the whole host of really important issues that the Wikileaks revelations have brought up. Don’t make him more important than he is.

Wikileaks is only a single part of something that is, on its own terms, very important. They’ve given us a great deal of knowledge about exactly how the American state actually acts, proof that many of the state department’s secrets are simply a way of avoiding democratic oversight, that our diplomatic corps secretly does horrible things in our name. We already had a lot of knowledge of that, but now we have a lot more, and much of it utterly and uniquely damning. Julian Assange is a smart man who’s done some brave things in service of a good cause — and we owe him a debt of gratitude for the gift he’s given us. Thank you, Wikileaks. But that’s all we owe him, and them.

Continued. . .