A shout out to "social issues"

[BainsBane]

236. I think some of the Wikileaks information has been very important

but I have nothing but contempt for the notion that publishing leaked documents makes him above the law and and unaccountable to charges for sexual assault. None of the Wikileaks information is in any way affected by Assange being held accountable for the legal arrest warrant against him. What is served by holding him immune and defending him from accountability is rape culture and patriarchy, as well as his own ego, which too many see as more important than principles of equality before the law.

People who take such an attitude make clear that they see my rights as less. They hold the interests of the few above the many and above principles of equality before the law. Patriarchy and rape culture are very real forces that lead to the economic and physical subjugation of women. I do not endorse a view of politics where the privileged few, those with wealth, racial and gender privilege, or fame are held above the rest of the human race. I consider it wholly offensive, entirely unjust. It simply props up a different axis of power and privilege, one far more pervasive that the issue you raise.

This OP is not about what are valid concerns on your part for government spying, secrecy and torture. It is about the class-, race- and gender-based construction of artificial notions of social vs. economic. Torture and abuse, including rape, are no less oppressive at the hands of non-governmental actors than govt. And make no mistake about it, states around the globe have long been complicit in maintaining rape culture. Finally that is starting to change in a couple of places, and the response by too many here is resistance an even outrage. The determination to see men like Assange not face legal allegations against him is part of the rape culture and patriarchy that leads to the subjugation of women around the planet. It holds the few above the many, accused rapists above their victims, and men above women. When people take such a position, it tells me that are fundamentally opposed to equality and that my rights and my life, and the billions of other women like me, pale in comparison to their reverence for the famous. It is about the subjugation of many for the benefit of the few, which is at the core of both social and economic justice. Assange's defenders show contempt for those principles because they elevate him not only above his alleged victims but above others accused of violent crimes.

You want to talk about politicians, to keep the discussion narrow and small, but that is not what this OP is about. It is about human, civil, and economic rights of the many, too summarily dismissed by a privileged few who think themselves the gatekeepers of justice, when fact, they are anything but.