Slow Time in Fat City, part 9: The Last Investigative Journalist

[The Good Reverend Roger]

I have to say that Julian Assange is currently one of my heroes...Not just because he managed to piss off just about every major power on Earth and then ran like a mad bastard, but because he's a journalist.  A real, live, honest-to-God journalist, doing what journalists are supposed to do.

The purpose of a journalist isn't to entertain you.  That's what gossip columnists and politicians are for.  No, the purpose of a reporter/editor is to drag the Horrible Truth out into the daylight, to see which parts wiggle.  If that's a problem or an embarrassment for the United States and her vassals, then maybe they need to stop doing the sort of shit they will be embarrassed by the public knowledge thereof.

Julian Assange and his crew found the Truth, and they bellowed it from the rooftops.  Ironically enough, nobody would have cared, if the governments involved didn't get so butthurt about it.

The result, of course, was the charges against him.  Very clumsy, though.  Most people are going to sympathize with a guy who gets laid with two Swedes at once, only to have the two women change their mind later, making it look like "retroactive rape".  I'm rather surprised they didn't paint him as a kiddie-fiddler and been done with it...But they didn't, and they botched the smear, and rather than discredit him, they've simply added to the Streisand Effect caused by the above mentioned butthurt.

This all makes you ask yourself how YOU will be treated by your government, given that they have not only abandoned their principles, but actively persecute those that haven't, branding them dangerous radicals, etc.

We have the choice of the voice of Athens, and the voice of Melos.  Both are wrong, and most people aren't willing to listen to anyone else, in this case the voice of Socrates.

Or Kill Me.

[LMNO]

Journalists need to do more Monstering, a la Spider J.

[BadBeast]

I have to say that Julian Assange is currently one of my heroes...Not just because he managed to piss off just about every major power on Earth and then ran like a mad bastard, but because he's a journalist.  A real, live, honest-to-God journalist, doing what journalists are supposed to do.

The purpose of a journalist isn't to entertain you.  That's what gossip columnists and politicians are for.  No, the purpose of a reporter/editor is to drag the Horrible Truth out into the daylight, to see which parts wiggle.  If that's a problem or an embarrassment for the United States and her vassals, then maybe they need to stop doing the sort of shit they will be embarrassed by the public knowledge thereof.

Julian Assange and his crew found the Truth, and they bellowed it from the rooftops.  Ironically enough, nobody would have cared, if the governments involved didn't get so butthurt about it.

The result, of course, was the charges against him.  Very clumsy, though.  Most people are going to sympathize with a guy who gets laid with two Swedes at once, only to have the two women change their mind later, making it look like "retroactive rape".  I'm rather surprised they didn't paint him as a kiddie-fiddler and been done with it...But they didn't, and they botched the smear, and rather than discredit him, they've simply added to the Streisand Effect caused by the above mentioned butthurt.

This all makes you ask yourself how YOU will be treated by your government, given that they have not only abandoned their principles, but actively persecute those that haven't, branding them dangerous radicals, etc.

We have the choice of the voice of Athens, and the voice of Melos.  Both are wrong, and most people aren't willing to listen to anyone else, in this case the voice of Socrates.

Or Kill Me.

Love this, and I'm in total agreement. In MW, most people can't decide whether Assange is a Traitor, a Spy, an Anarchist, or a shameless attention Whore. But you nailed it Rog, he a fucking JOURNALIST!  And by being a Journalist, he shows up the rest of the Worlds Press for the spineless, frightened arsekissers they really are!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Love this, and I'm in total agreement. In MW, most people can't decide whether Assange is a Traitor, a Spy, an Anarchist, or a shameless attention Whore. But you nailed it Rog, he a fucking JOURNALIST!  And by being a Journalist, he shows up the rest of the Worlds Press for the spineless, frightened arsekissers they really are!

And as the leader of the only actual journalists left, he's the most dangerous man on Earth.  It's small wonder that lickspittles like Memnoch and Terra Mater hate his guts.

[Juana]

Excellent stuff, Roger. Wish more people were like him 'cause we need more of them and more muckrakers.

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Journalists need to do more Monstering, a la Spider J.

This.

Assange, incidentally, just monstered the world, albeit mildly.

MISTER SWEENEY!

[The Good Reverend Roger]

Excellent stuff, Roger. Wish more people were like him 'cause we need more of them and more muckrakers.

This is precisely why they are going to make a very public example of him.

[Whatever]

Damn Roger this is great!  You nailed it!

You know that this proves what you've told us all along, they don't want us to know the truth and they will destroy all of those who tell it.  I doubt if he will survive this.

[Adios]

He's a fucking hero of the first order. Sadly, being a hero is usually accompanied by being dead.

[The Wizard]

He's a fucking hero of the first order. Sadly, being a hero is usually accompanied by being dead.

But he's started something. The kind of thing that continues after one dies. Killing him would be playing right into his hands.

[Bebek Sincap Ratatosk]

He's a fucking hero of the first order. Sadly, being a hero is usually accompanied by being dead.

But he's started something. The kind of thing that continues after one dies. Killing him would be playing right into his hands.

THIS.

Up to this point governments tended to worry about the enemy getting at information... worry about spies SELLING information, defecting with information... but giving it away to the public for free with no personal agenda. That's a whole new threat.

[Triple Zero]

[Juana]

[Don Coyote]

That picture is telling me to read transmet.

[Requia ☣]

Open a newspaper, there is less and less difference between the two every day.