It’s the moment you’ve been waiting for. The moment when Julian Assange of Wikileaks removes any doubt of whose side they’re on.
Spoiler: it’s not your side, unless you’re a privileged white guy who feels oppressed.
Beginning at 0:45
ASSANGE: Matt Drudge is a news media innovator, and he took off about 8 years ago in relation to the Monica Lewinsky scandal when he first became famous by publishing information that the establishment press in the United States would not publish. It is as a result of the self-censorship of the establishment press in the United States that gave Matt Drudge such a platform and so of course he should be applauded for breaking a lot of that censorship.
1:55
ASSANGE: In relation to Rand Paul. I’m a big admirer of Ron Paul and Rand Paul for their very principled positions in the U.S. Congress on a number of issues. They have been the strongest supporters of the fight against the U.S. attack on Wikileaks and on me in the U.S. congress. Similarly, they have been the strongest opponents of drone warfare and extrajudicial killing.
That’s quite an interesting phenomenon in the United States. The position of the libertarian Republican [inaudible] Right, coming from a principle of non-violence, which is the libertarian American position, that produces interesting results. Non-violence: don’t go and invade a foreign country. Non-violence: don’t force people to put a bullet at the barrel of a gun to serve in the U.S. Army. Non-violence: don’t extort taxes from people to the federal government with the policemen. Similarly other aspects of non-violence in relation to abortion.
6:30
ASSANGE: Nearly every other Democrat – that’s right nearly every Democrat in Congress — has been co-opted by the Obama administration or co-opted by DC social networks. The economic, successful part of the Republican party is often in bed with the war industry. Completely in bed. So there’s now an extreme center in the United States where the Democratic administration and a large chunk of the Republican party have come together and are pushing forward very fast in a dangerous direction that compromises U.S. democracy. [...]
The libertarian aspect of the Republican party is presently the only useful political voice really in the U.S. Congress. It will be the driver that shifts the United States around. It’s not going to come from the Democrats. It’s not going to come from Ralph Nader. It’s not going to come from the co-opted parts of the Republican party. The only hope as far as electoral politics is concerned, presently, is the libertarian section of the Republican party.
It’s revealing that Assange draws the distinction that “nearly every Democrat” has been brainwashed by President Obama and that change is “not going to come from the Democrats,” while he’s more generous toward the Republican party in that he separates the libertarian wing from the “co-opted parts.” The idea seems to be that there are acceptable elements of the Republican party, but no acceptable elements of the Democratic party.
Why? Because drones?
Never mind civil rights, economic inequality, progressive taxation, reproductive freedom and bodily autonomy, or science and education. None of these issues — issues that actually effect the lives of hundreds of millions of people on a daily basis — merit any form of praise because drones.
For Assange and Wikileaks, progressive taxation is equivalent to ‘extorting taxes from people for the federal government,’ and opposition to abortion is born out of a principle of non-violence. Some may consider the latter to be a form of violence that forces women to carry children to term even if that child belongs to a woman’s rapist.
The Democratic party has apparently been brainwashed by the Obama administration to take matters of national security seriously while also supporting a more just and inclusive society that does not criminalize abortion, does not criminalize homosexuality, does not criminalize minorities, and does not criminalize the poor.
This leaves only Ron and Rand Paul and the libertarian wing of the Republican party — the wing that believes integrated lunch counters are an example of government overreach and that voter suppression is a matter of states’ rights — as our only hope for salvation.
Message received loud and clear.