Courtesy of Laura MacPhee at the Index on Censorship blog, I learn that Julian Assange of Wikileaks and shameless self-promotion fame yesterday addressed the Cambridge Union.
Following a “lofty allusion” to George Orwell,…
“He who controls the present controls the past. He who controls the past controls the future.”
…the brave and persecuted defender of the open society is reported to have likened his actions to those of 17th century freethinkers and soviet-era dissidents. Such flights of rhetorical fancy are entirely in character for a man who has developed something of a saviour complex.
What annoys me most about Assange’s latest sermon is the would-be prophet’s craven attempt to absolve himself of responsibility for Bradley Manning, the US Army intelligence analyst alleged to have supplied Wikileaks with classified material, who is now incarcerated in conditions that can only be described as torture. Conditions, it should be noted, that President Barack Obama is satisfied are “appropriate”.
Julian Assange, like his nemesis in the White House, is a disgrace.