View From The Couch - 27/Jun/2024

Welcome Home Julian Assange

After 5 years of incarceration at HMP Bellmarsh, Julian Assange has struck a plea bargain deal with the Americans, this week. And just like that the long siege was over. The seemingly quiet denouement belied the all-of-government effort Australia put together to work towards the release of Assange. 

In the commentary and articles that have come out in the wake of the Saipan court appearance, this one caught my attention. a six MP delegation consisting of a wide spectrum of Australian politics went to lobby the US Department of Justice. One of them was none other than the Fossil Fool himself Barnaby Joyce.

The delegation raised several issues including freedom of speech, shifting public sentiment in Australia, the US-Australia alliance, and jurisdictional rights.

Senator Whish-Wilson says Mr Joyce played an important role.

"He said, 'I was the deputy PM, I've been the acting PM. I have been the deputy head of the National Security Committee for many years, and I don't agree with what Assange has done. But it was not illegal and this extra-territorial overreach [by the US] is a precedent that cannot stand.'"

Dr Ryan said that the US officials pushed back against their arguments, claiming Assange's freedom was purely a legal matter, not a political one.

It was then that Mr Joyce brought Johnny Depp's dogs into it, raising the infamous case in 2015 when the then-minister for agriculture threatened to euthanise the Hollywood star's pooches — Pistol and Boo — due to quarantine breaches.

Dr Ryan said Mr Joyce suggested to the meeting that political considerations inevitably played a role in these sorts of matters.

"Basically, he said there had been pressure placed on him at the time and if it had been left to him, Pistol, Boo, Johnny, and Amber would be behind bars in Australia."

That's pretty funny. I don't much like Barnaby Joyce but if his lousy-loutish-loony-bin argument of bringing up Johnnie Depp, Amber Heard, and their dogs made the point that all of this was a political consideration over a legal one, then I have too say he was a beautiful broken clock that happy day. He's done good, and Lord knows I never thought I'd write that about Barnaby Joyce. 

The other bit that was amusing was this observation:

Senator Whish-Wilson believed two main issues cut through during the meeting — public opinion in Australia and the impact on the US's reputation globally.

"I was watching when they were suddenly taking notes on a couple of occasions. Firstly, when we raised the issue that the political situation had shifted [in Australia]," he said.

"And also that the Chinese government had commented around [Australian journalist] Cheng Lei's imprisonment … that they were criticising the US saying, 'How can you point the finger at us when you are going after Assange?'"

Dr Ryan also made the point that at a time when Russia, China and other authoritarian nations were locking up journalists, it was not a good look for the US to continue its prosecution of Assange.

"I'd taken some Chinese newspapers with me. And I said, 'Look, here's evidence in the Chinese press where this case has been used as an example of the US not respecting freedom of the press,'" she said.

"In the Chinese media's perception, there was a degree of hypocrisy in the US accusing China of that sort of action. They were really surprised by that."

You can just picture the DOJ representatives squirming in their chairs. I guess the important thing was to remind the DOJ that at the end of the day they were running point for a political consideration that had run its course. The politics surrounding Julian Assange had simply changed vastly, as had Australian politics. 

"It would be fair to say within that hyper-partisan environment, they didn't know what to make of this group of assorted Australian politicians who on paper had so much that divided them, that were all pushing for this same outcome, and all prized Julian's freedom."

"Mate, it's just a point of fairness", I can hear somebody say. 

Why Blog About This Today?

Back in the glory days of Julian Assange telling truth to power by telling the world of their misdeeds and  before his situation blew up, he made the remark that blogs are useless. Bloggers, are mostly only talking to their friends. They make no impact on the world. And it always stuck with me because by then this blog here was a few years old. 

First of all, he's right. 

Secondly, he sure made an impact because what he did got the entire US government to come for his head. Yours truly over here's been noting stuff down that amuses him over the decades and here we are - no impact, no substance, no importance - but I don't regret this. 

Thirdly, I just wanted to write how, as useless as my blog has been, I'm still here and I have enjoyed my freedom for the last 12 years so go suck on that pal. But I'm delighted he's been released. That much is true. 

Where Have I Been For The Last 8 Months?

Hard to say. The usual rabbit holes of Youtube and all that it entails, I would say. Work has been exhausting too. New years came and went and all I did was make a 1/24 scale plastic model of a 1970 Pontiac Firebird. Easter was spent doing things I didn't expect to do and then recovering from it. I haven't managed to do a whole lot of recordings, but my band WhatEva did manage to play a bunch of gigs.  

As for the Youtube thing, what have I learned? Putin's Russia is deeply, deeply fucked up. If this war in Ukraine keeps going, Russia may even disintegrate - and then we'll really be in a world of pain.  

'The Fifth Estate'

Julian Assange, Future Imperfect

So much ink has been spilt and pixels rendered to the name of Julian Assange. I must say that in most part, I've felt like a supporter more than somebody calling for his head; but he is a disturbing man in many respects, and he seems to have dreadful personal manners. He might even have Aspergers or Borderline Personality Disordered because in spite of his high-falutin' stated position and ideals he seems to create dramas in his wake that most normal, ordinary, mere-mortal-citizens would likely avoid. In many ways he's a gatecrasher who has arrived loudly but with a very strange party trick.

There have already been two movies made on the subject of Julian Assange. The other film covered the strangeness of his upbringing and circumstances. This one takes a hatchet to the self-mythologising and the self-agrandisement we've seen from him. At his best, Julian Assange provides us with an interesting standard around which the outsiders can rally against power. At his worst he seems to be an egomaniac with very little care for the lives he might be destroying. It's not surprising that the man has ended up fictionalised and immortalised on film so quickly.

What's Good About It

The film makes a very good way towards unpacking the abstract concepts it must discuss in order to address the concerns of Julian Assange, and unpack the intricacies of the argument so that even a lay person can come at the story. The film goes to great lengths to contextualise the events so the cause and effect of these rather abstract choices do get played out for the audience.

The cast is quite impressive. It boasts Benedict Cumberbatch doing his best Australian accent while David Bruhl plays a nervously charged Daniel Domscheit-Berg. The smaller roles have David Thewlis, Anthony Mackie, Laura Linney and Stanley Tucci rounding out the cast and while David Thewlis plays a real person the others play fictional members of the US government to great effect. It could've been very cheesy; but the fact that you don't feel it's cheesy is a great bonus in a film like this where you have to wade through all the risks of telling "A True Story Loosely Based On Fact".

What's Bad About It

I'm not a big fan of the shaky camera thing. The subject matter of the film is subtle enough without the distractions of a jerky camera hoping to add style to a rather grim looking film. Parts of the script are really forced and if they didn't have such good actors, I don't know if it would've worked. I don't normally sit there trying to picture the way it would've been written, but for some reason this film kept throwing screenplay pages into my mind as I was watching. Not a good sign if you ask me.

I'm also unsure about the metaphorical office landscape as a device. It  seems very contrived and never gets out of it being this adjunct visual device that commentates on the action. The abstraction inherent in the activity undertaken by Assange with Wikileaks denies easy visualisation. In fact there are two gags in the film about how Julian Assange and graphic design don't mix.

You sort of get the feeling that somebody wanted to get a free moralising boot in to a part of Assange's story without knowing where to put it. I'm definitely not convinced the film hits any mark near where Julian Assange lives and dreams. And that being the case, the film is largely in danger of being a fantastical imagination of the life of Julian Assange that has very little reference to the true problematic that drives the man. The man, whatever his strengths and faults, is complicated and convoluted. The film tries to show that picture but actually misses which parts of this man's complications are interesting.

What's Interesting About It

Perhaps the most venal aspects of the film are the most gossip-tinged and interesting. We have no idea who Domscheit-Berg ("dumb-shit berk" sprang to mind) might ave been prior to Wikileaks. What kind of techno-geek wants a revolution based on transparency and truth so much that he lets a sexy girl walk out on him? It's a strange terrain. This Domscheit-Berg gets so involved with the Assange vision, he inadvertently cracks open what the film calls the Fifth Estate. Oddly enough, the real life Assange is quite contemptuous of other entities in this Fifth Estate.

Assange's put down in this film is great. "All these kids are excited reading 'Neuromancer' and playing 'Call of Cthulhu'," he says so dismissively. It's true, I'm exactly one of those he would accuse of being complacent about the world; for indeed, I did read "Neuromancer' with much excitement way back when and also played 'Call of Cthulhu' with my mates. And no, I didn't change the world one iota - it still sucks.

Assange of course famously denounced Bloggers for being only interested in impressing their friends and are not really doing what we are supposed to do, which is read the wires he's leaking at Wikileaks and getting angry and agitating. All of this is true too.

All the same, I'm inclined to give the man moral support even if he would think I was not helping one bit. I'm just not willing to head down to the barricades with my Guy Fawkes mask on, on his say so. Excuse me sir, but I do think for myself.

Hypocrisy On A (short) Stick

The most poignant observation the film does make is that only a man so obsessed with his own secrets as Julian Assange could bring the world to the brink through exposed secrets. Indeed, this quality of having two sides to the same problematic in his head leads us to wonder out loud just how much self-control this man possesses. One is - okay, I am - inclined to think that part of Julian Assange's problem is that he's so used to not having the rules of society apply to him in society, he keeps living in a thought bubble where he thinks laws and regulations don't apply to him either. He's easy on himself - which is why he ends up in very strange circumstances involving sex and Sweden and secrets and strange denials.

The film goes a great way to intimate that the sexual encounter he had in Sweden is somehow laden with this kind of permissiveness that he applies to himself. I'm not certain it's so conclusive, but there are days where I do think maybe it's all a beat up and Julian Assange really ought to face the music in Sweden. Then I think of Edward Snowden and think that maybe the Ecuadorean embassy is exactly where he needs to hide. Its absurd. It takes an incredibly absurd person to find himself in such circumstances. And none of this Swedish Sex Crime bit really made it into the film.

An Aside On His Bad Manners

Look, I've never met the bloke. I know hackers in Australia that came across Mendax in their time back in the late 1980s and early 1990s. Yes, he was a 'name' in the hacking community. It's interesting how one of the things he 'inspires' in people is this complaint about his manners. While Geoffrey Robertson was handling his extradition case in the UK, Assange stayed with the Robertsons. Mrs Robertson, Kathy Lette was later on air saying that Julian Assange might be somebody doing something incredibly important, but he was also the person with the worst manners of anybody she had met. And this is coming from Miss Puberty Blues, the Proto-Bogan surfer chick. Of all the things she could have said about the guy, this was it.

Having watched several videos of him giving talks about what journalists are doing wrong, I do get the impression that maybe he's a pretty far gone Asperger's case on the loose. I'm not convinced he's NPD as the film portrays him.  Still, is this even all that interesting next to the actual damage he has inflicted on Governments through advocacy for truth and transparency? Somehow I think the film chooses to miss the point so that it doesn't have to address the deeper, bigger, more vexing philosophical issue to do with truth and transparency. It opts to tell how two men in partnership fall out.

News That's Fit To Punt - 14/Dec/2012

How Low Can You Go, Bro(ugh)?

We all want to know this, now that the Federal Court has thrown out James Ashby's case. What's interesting about the case is not only did judge Steven Rares throw out the case, he awarded costs against Ashby. Which is to say, the judge thinks Ashby has not just been a public nuisance but a malicious muck-raker unto Peter Slipper and now must make amends to the man.

This has led to ALP front benchers accusing the Coalition of being part of a conspiracy, and Julia Gillard has called for Mal Brough to front up to a press conference in Canberra. It's all a little too late for Peter Slipper himself, as Anna Burke will stay Speaker of the House. Mal Brough will stay the candidate for the LNP trying to unseat Peter Slipper, and the Coalition has been pretending that they had nothing to do with Ashby's case. the problem of course is that the first person to fail the Cui Bono test is Tony Abbott and the second person to fail is everybody else in the Federal Coalition. 

In my books, you don't call this sort of thing a 'conspiracy'. It's called gaming the system, and it's exactly why the judge threw out the case - he did not wish the court to be made into the Coalition's play thing. I'm sure there will be retaliation from the Coalition once they get into power; and it has to be said, they will deny that it is revenge when they exact it upon the judge.

We'll all have to hold our noses so long we'll go blue and die.

Weasel Words

Julia Gillard has said Abbott has to stop using weasel words:

As Mr Abbott today denied there was a Coalition conspiracy, Ms Gillard said Mr Abbott had to stop using ''weasel'' words over the matter and disendorse the Liberal National Party candidacy of Mal Brough - who the Federal Court found worked with James Ashby to harm Mr Slipper.

Which is funny because the Conservatives delight in weasel words. It's their credo that the language they speak is not English but Weasel Words. Pointing this out doesn't even constitute an insult. it's like telling a leopard won't change his spots - of course not, not only is it impossible, he's proud of them. I just thought I'd mention that.

Bob Carr's Lucky Break

This week, Julian Assange has been making noises he will run for the Senate in earnest. This is interesting because I've also noticed that the person who has been the least helpful to Asange's cause might be the foreign minster of Australia himself, Bob Carr. Yes, he who used to be the Premier of NSW and jumped before he got found out for running a corrupt ship of fools. There he was languishing in retirement, doing power walks around the footpaths of Iron Cove, and voila, his lifelong dream of being a foreign Minster opens up because Mark Arbib had to fall on his sword.

I seem to recall Mark Arbib got named as a CIA informant in leaked documents - documents leaked via good old Wikileaks - and so he had to fall on that sword; Mark Arbib's senate seat never would have opened up had it not been for the good work Julian Assange did in exposing that RattusRattus. Bob Carr is a net beneficiary there of the chain of events.

Well, it occurred to me today that Bob Carr should be thanking Julian Assange for allowing his lifelong dream to come true, and that he should do a much better job of protecting Mr. Assange and bringing him home.

I know he won't see it that way - he's the master of non sequitur responses and would claim some arcane reason why he's not - but it seems obvious as daylight if you bother to read the newspapers. Oh I forgot, nobody does that anymore.

News That's Fit To Punt - 30/May/2012

Julian Assange Loses Appeal

Here it is, fresh off the press. Julian Assange is going to be extradited to Sweden.

But his lawyer Dinah Rose, QC, asked the UK Supreme Court court for two weeks in which to consider the judgement and possibly to request that proceedings be re-opened as she believed part of the judgement was based on a legal question that had not been raised during the hearing and which she had not had a chance to argue on. She said this related to the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties.

The court gave Mr Assange a stay of 14 days on the extradition order so that Ms Rose could make the application. Mr Assange did not appear in court.
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n a majority decision of five to two, the judges decided that the European Arrest Warrant issued by Sweden asking for Mr Assange's extradition was legal and should be enforced.

If the court does not allow its proceedings to be re-opened, Mr Assange's only other legal avenue would be the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. If that court should agree to take his case, he would be allowed to remain in the UK until the hearing.

The scarier thing for Julian Assange of course is the likelihood that he is then swept to the USA where a Grand Jury indictment awaits him.

Mr Assange's legal advisers are believed to fear that if he goes to Sweden he could then be extradited to the United States, where authorities are considering a range of charges against him over Wikileaks including espionage and conspiracy.

American authorities link him to the case of US Army Private Bradley Manning, who faces court martial over 22 alleged offences, including "aiding the enemy" by leaking classified government documents to Wikileaks.

UA prosecutors reportedly believe that Private Manning dealt directly with Mr Assange and "data-mined" secret databases "guided by Wikileaks list of 'Most Wanted' leaks.

Nothing there we don't already know. Anyway, we should mark the moment where Julian Assange lost his appeal to be extradited to Sweden.

The End Of The SMH As We Know It?

Who'd a thunk the Kiwis were scabs?

Fairfax staff walked out at 5.30pm.

The move came as hundreds of journalists from publishers Fairfax and News Limited met with union officials at stopwork meetings today over ongoing concerns about jobs in the industry.

Fairfax plans to move the mostly sub-editing jobs from newspapers in Newcastle and Wollongong to Fairfax Editorial Services in New Zealand.

At 7pm, the company issued a statement saying it would continue to publish as usual and was disappointed at the decision to strike.

Well, that's dramatic. Of course it kind of makes sense in the way that all jobs can be out-sourced on some level. If I may, I would  submit that this is a bad decision. The moment you out-source a part of your business, it's a commitment towards a shorter corporate memory and opening the door to a potential nightmare in prcocess failure. A simple example might be Foxconn who, at arms length from Apple managed to do considerable harm to the Apple brand.

On the other hand, it is entirely reasonable to think that Kiwis can provide the same service as sub-editors in Australia with a much lower cost. If Fairfax thinks these are totally fungible processes, then you can understand how this is happening. Perhaps we as the public should be grateful they didn't send it to India or the Phillippines like the Telcos do it.

Hypocrisy Truly Knows No Bounds

...or rather, Hypocrisy they name is Abbott.

The government moved to gag the debate and Mr Thomson, who has always voted with Labor since being exiled a month ago, instead joined the other crossbenchers who, on principle, never support a gag motion.

The Leader of the Opposition, Tony Abbott, and the manager of opposition business, Christopher Pyne, made for the doors but Mr Abbott was ordered back by the Speaker, Anna Burke, because it was too late to leave. His vote was counted.

Which is totally motivated by this little bit here:

The opposition does not want to ever accept Mr Thomson's vote, fearing it could create a precedent in which it may have to grant him a pair in case he takes extended leave from the Parliament, thus negating any numerical advantage it would achieve from his absence.

Mr Abbott has also been demanding the government never accept Mr Thomson's vote, claiming it is tainted.
Sitting in his office while the numbers were being counted,

Mr Abbott told the National Times Labor should refuse to accept Mr Thomson's vote just as John Howard used to refuse the turncoat senator Mal Colston's vote by having a Coalition senator abstain.

He said the Coalition would never be trapped into having to grant Mr Thomson a pair.

Kind of self explanatory.

This Craig Thompson affair has been pretty awful for the last 2years. it won't go away because the Coalition - in their retarded bully minds - think that if they can get Craig Thompson to quit, then there would be a by-election and hey presto, they get that seat and with it the government. What they don't seem to get is that the destruction of Craig Thompson's life through trial by media, as engineered by the Coalition, is going so far into questionable territory that it would taint an in-coming Coalition government for a long time. If Tony Abbott is  willing to do all this to an individual to get his way, then how safe can any citizen feel in this country?

It is true that the allegations against Mr. Thompson are pretty vulgar and scandalous (if you have that turn of mind) but so far charges have not been laid. Yet it is also true that Mr. Abbott is trying to turn Parliament into a kangaroo court and the execution room where death by public opinion is the sought means. His position goes from total disapproval of Fair Work Australia because it favours the unions, but a 100% acceptance of its findings against Thompson after a four year inquiry, during which while it was going on, he used the ongoing investigation as an example for how bad Fair Work Australia was.

You can't make this stuff up.