John Young on Thu, 11 Apr 2019 21:00:51 +0200 (CEST)


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Re: <nettime> Guardian Live on Assange's arrest


Assange masterfully seduced the press, in that way presaged Trump's bountiful curative to a dying paper-profession unable to overcome online challenges, WikiLeaks was little noticed from October 2006 founding until Collateral Murder was staged in April 2010 (at the National Press Club, where else?). Then Manning's gushing, then a sustained dramaturgy of Swedish pecadillos, then Snowden/Greenwald/Poitras/Guardian/WaPo's careful teasing, redacting, withholding ("not dumping like WikiLeaks").

Assange's celebrity (Pamela Anderson, Wei Wei, ad nauseum) arrest extends an arc from Gawker's pansexual predatory excess to DJT's blow-dried sexculpation, to resurgence of top-down leadership of MeToo, Blackish, innumerable 2020 candidacies, the 99%, privacy and comsec advocates, all susceptible to being overwhelmed by rule-breaking gender and racial disintegration. Assange's dominant male whiteness not so different from Greenwald's Brazilian racism.

Presumbably Trump will pardon Assange along with his Barr-blessed hoodlums but not before feeding the media with prolonged advertising, yarping heads, febrile criticism, abhorrent violence. Assange better watch his unasylumed ass against a one-off fame seeker with a banned firearm, not least a former colleague/lover/influencer.


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