The Full Julian Assange Interview

It’s impossible to read this interview without noting the obvious ideological premises of Rick Stengel on display.
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That said, despite the insertions of Stengel’s center-right establishment biases into the conversation, it is definitely worth reading this interview in full.
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Thanks so much, Adam Sorensen.

It’s worth checking out.

Yes. Yes it is.

Who in the hell does he think he is? God? Who is he to judge what other governments are doing? He is an egomaniac and rapist with a distorted view of the world.

Interesting stuff. I was surprised by this question:

“Do you believe the American public in this particular instance was either dissatisfied or unhappy with the way the U.S. government was conducting diplomacy, so that you felt compelled to expose it to them? Because it seems to me that the public is reacting negatively to a lot of this exposure of diplomatic secrets that they presumably feel were actually in their interest.”

Again, there’s this notion that something should only be revealed if it’s scandalous. It keeps cropping up here at Time and other places. But you know, I like to see the ingredients of what I eat because I like to know what I’m putting in my body. I don’t say, “you don’t have to show me if there’s nothing gross or poisonous in there.”

Agree that it’s worth reading but the Forbes interview (minus Stengelism) is far better:

http://blogs.forbes.com/andygreenberg/2010/11/29/an-interview-with-wikileaks-julian-assange/

Thanks for the link, jcapan.

Stengel was on Charlie Rose last night, explaining that the U.S. is the “most open society in the world”, and how “mistrust of central authority” means that someone an anarchist.

What a “journalist”!

You’ve got a point, but Rick Stengel isn’t as bad as all that.

(s/b “is” an anarchist … My typing is a kind of anarchy all by itself.)
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Also — and I did not know this — you are an anarchist if you believe there is some kind of “system” of state secrets that would perpetuate itself even if Clinton resigned from the State Dept.

Stuart: FTW

I hate sites with big type where I have to click through eight pages to read the whole article, with no way print all of it at once… just so I see lots of ads on each page.

To suggest that the public, and the whole world should know, and has the right to know, all the details, let along our strategy concerning foreign policy is on the intelligence level of a 10 year old girl. “We just want to be fair.”
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Somewhere there is at least one man or woman in China that is dead because of wikileaks.
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