I invite you to click this link and witness an interesting historical moment.
Among the things I discovered in the listening:
- In the 14th minute, the interviewer gains Assange’s agreement that the United States government during the Obama Administration was fascist. Convention attendees were very excited to hear Julian go on about that.
- As the 17th minute begins, Assange claims “it doesn’t make any difference who the President is” because of the forces controlling the United States. He continues in the 18th minute to claim “the Green Party, Gary Johnson and the Bernie Sanders campaign” were part of a joint movement which could prevent corruption and hold the next President accountable. Obviously, by exchanging views with the Green Party Conventioneers, Julian was associating WikiLeaks with this defense against corruption. “Jill Stein was taking copious notes during your answer,” the interviewer shares after his treatise.
- Toward the end of the 20th minute, Assange claims “I like things to look like what they are.” Around the time he made this statement, Assange engaged in multiple communications with Donald Trump Jr., offering his support and advice to the Trump campaign, all while denying in public that he and WikiLeaks were supporting the Trump campaign. “I like things to look like what they are.” LIAR.
- During the 30th minute, Julian brings a rhetorical point that supporting the Clinton campaign is acquiescing to extortion, again gaining the rapturous approval of the audience.
- As the camera pans the applauding audience during the 32nd minute, we can see strong evidence that the Green Party had a damn big problem organizing and elevating into leadership positions non-Caucasians in 2016.
Recent posts on the WikiLeaks Twitter Account shows that they are doing precious little publishing which attacks the rampant corruption of the Trump Administration, the last Congress, the Republican Party and conservative movement. Suddenly the spigot of hacked, extremely selectively curated and leaked documents is closed to a non-damaging trickle. WikiLeaks is still taking plenty of shots at Democratic Party leaders, though.
A similar phenomenon of disinterest in holding the Trump Administration and Congressional Republicans accountable for their incredibly broad attacks on the Obama Administration’s environmental policies can be observed at the Green Party’s Twitter account. They do retweet an expression of resentment that Democrats in Congress are advocating for the Green New Deal, though.
And Jill Stein appears solely interested in posting about Venezuela these days. Preventing military action in Venezuela is a worthwhile pursuit, but it sure does lack perspective to leave behind almost everything else that is being revealed and worked on by the new House Democratic majority.
As we enter the 2020 Presidential campaign, it would be valuable if we could remember this history, learn from our experiences and help more of our fellow Americans avoid pursuing these sorts of damaging attacks on the progressive movement, Democratic Party leaders, and perspective-filled analysis. It’s also worthwhile to offer critique to the Green Party for engaging with such a charlatan as Assange, something that had become quite obvious to many of us by August 2016.
There’s plenty of space between offering good faith critiques and realistic political assessments of the Democratic Party and the Green Party’s failure this century to successfully organize, win elections, help bring about its policy goals and engage in honest rhetoric.