Nope - that isn't my premise at all - my premise was/is largely this:
Those who are incapable of seeing past the canard that somehow, by exposing the truth, Wikileaks was "attacking" the US, have such a low power of observation that it borders on the irrational .... particularly when that inability stems from a willful effort on their part to not look, to not understand ....
What about those who can't get past the fact that Assange can walk on water?
Wikileaks is hardly established mainstream, and is by definition on the fringe themselves. Who is the lunatic fringe again? By definition, Assange himself is the lunatic fringe, espousing the extreme, fanatical and eccentric, in both words and deeds. That doesn't necessarily mean he's wrong, of course, but it would be incorrect to call those who may ignorantly believe that Wikileaks had only the the corrupt US government in its sights, as
"skeptics on the lunatic fringe". If anything, they're skeptics in the mainstream.
Since Assange is anti-authority and anti-authoritarian, and since one of his stated goals is to bring down the United States since they are the most successful authoritarian organization, the fact that he releases secrets of other nations doesn't necessarily mean he's not attacking the US. They aren't mutually exclusive. You can do both. Attacking the US isn't his sole or even primary goal, but it is on his agenda. His goal is to topple all authority.
Do you have any real knowledge of the history of Wikileaks and what they have done ? (that isn't related to the US)
Yup. But doing something good one day doesn't give you a pass for doing something bad the next.
I mean have you actually taken the time, and made the effort, to really become at all familiar with their work ?
I have, yes. A little bit. I'm not obsessed, tho, so I'm sure I've missed something.
BTW, don't naively assume that at least some of those "people inside wikileaks" that are "speaking out" weren't government (or other)
plants ... the use of
plants and
agent provocateurs (<--- click for definition) is a fairly common tactic with a very long history for sowing discord (and worse) within targeted organizations ....
I'm laughing so hard I can barely type. Some of the people who were right there and were a part of the founding of Wikileaks, friends of Assange well before Wikileaks was invented, are the ones speaking out. If you think they were plants, then you're giving someone, somewhere, far more credit than they deserve. Next you'll be saying Assange himself is a US government plant in a masterful deception as a way for the government to wield even more conspiratorial power, and that the government used Manning as a patsy to feed Wikileaks information.
.... they .... they ... their .... their ...
Who is they ?
Seems pretty clear that "they" and "their" are Wikileaks and the people who staff it.
You do realize that up until this year that Wikileaks was largely a volunteer organization ..... and did not pay it's staff anything, don't you ?
That was "was" and "largely". From day-one Assange has been, shall we say, less-than-
transparent about where his money comes from and how it gets spent, something that even his closest colleagues have criticized him for. I love a good irony. It no longer is staffed largely by unpaid volunteers and it never was an all-volunteer staff. But even it it was, they have still, always, relied on donations to pay for server hardware and bandwidth. That's the reason the so-called "instruments of US foreign policy" that have shut out Wikileaks has become such a large problem for Wikileaks.
I'm always amazed at how many folks there are, who never having believed in a cause enough themselves to forego the material, are incapable of attributing anything but a monetary/profit motive to actions of those who give of their own wealth, time, and efforts to support a higher ideal.
That's really a very unfair charge. Just because people don't believe in what
you want them to, to see things they way
you want them to, and they see a monetary motive in something, doesn't mean they themselves have have
never believed in some
other cause with enough conviction to forego the material. Blind Patriots who believe the US can do no evil immediately comes to mind, and many of them would give their material goods and even their life because of their convictions.
Yeah, yeah .....
sure xig .... they're in it for the money ..... that's it ... 
He's right. Many times people get into something for idealist purposes, but in the end it often becomes more about the money than the ideals, either because the ideals have long ago been stated and you want to keep on doing what you've been doing, or because more and more money is needed to help convert an ever dwindling number of people that can be converted. Assange and Wikileaks isn't in this purely for the money, at least not yet, but Assange certainly knows how to make a headline and manufacture publicity. Delaying the release of documents, and talking about them, instead, keeping himself and Wikileaks in the news, is hardly the tactic of the altruist.
Since his release on bail, has there been even a single day where he hasn't given at least one interview? For someone who wanted to keep his place of post-bail residence a secret for "privacy" and so that he could be "left alone" and not "constantly bothered", there is at the very least a little pinch of irony here. Or perhaps a rather large dollop of disingenuity.
He needs to either dump his load or get off the pot, otherwise someone is liable to charge him with conspiratorial blackmail for political purposes. And I do love a good irony.
