Michael Moore Posts Julian Assange's Bail

digitaldc quotes Michael Moore in a story running on the Huffington Post where he says "Yesterday, in the Westminster Magistrates Court in London, the lawyers for WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange presented to the judge a document from me stating that I have put up $20,000 of my own money to help bail Mr. Assange out of jail. Furthermore, I (Michael Moore) am publicly offering the assistance of my website, my servers, my domain names and anything else I can do to keep WikiLeaks alive and thriving as it continues its work to expose the crimes that were concocted in secret and carried out in our name and with our tax dollars."

Comments

It's good to have allies

[Animats]

Having a successful Hollywood producer with a track record of successfully embarrassing big companies and governments as a supporter can't hurt.

Re:It's good to have allies

[segedunum]

This is the same guy who has insinuated that George W. Bush is pals with Osama Bin Laden

Well, we can only go on what we know and we know that Bush and Bin Laden, certainly through his family, have invested in a lot of companies together. The Bin Ladens are very well known, wealthy and extremely well connected in Saudi Arabia. The notion that Bush knows nothing about him is just plain fishy.

...and specifically sent too few troops into Afghanistan to make sure Bin Laden escaped and wanted to keep his Taliban friends safe.

Well, all we know is that not a trace of Osama Bin Laden has ever been found. Not a single lead. Not a sausage. Nothing. This is from a guy and his supporters who are supposed to be propping up a worldwide terrorism network who are well connected and well funded. Oh, and there's a lot of companies with directors who are friends of George Bush who are making quite a bit of money from the 'rebuilding' of Afghanistan. Basically, it's in their interests to keep the whole thing going.

I think people are more then entitled to ask what the hell is going on. The trouble with this stuff is that you almost get a kind of 'reverse conspiracy theory' effect and governments have learned to use this phenomenon, especially when they do something bare faced and obvious. Basically, it's so unbelievable for most people that no amount of evidence will convince them that there is even the smallest thing wrong. Note, we're not talking about grand conspiracy theories here, we're just talking about admitting that something is wrong. The notion that there is something wrong and the consequences would rock their cosy little world too much, and so, they will go into denial and even defend the status quo in order to protect their own bubble of perceived security.

uhhhh, thanks, but...

[HeckRuler]

That's probably going to hurt Julian in the long run. Michael Moore is kind of the Rush Limbaugh of the Liberals, and as odd as it is, it seems that the two-party system here has decided that Wikileaks is on the liberal side. So this will only re-enforce that.

I'm still confused why the people that are supposed to be for a smaller government would be nay saying evidence that big government is doing horrible things behind our backs.

Re:Empty theatrics

[Anonymous Coward]

It is thought that one of the women, Anna Ardin, may no longer be cooperating with prosecutors."

It should be mentioned that this statement stems from the fact that she is currently on a three month stay in Israel with an ecumenical Christian group. She has been blogging how excited she is about this trip for months.

only if

[unity100]

youre an american maybe. from the outside, we see moore a hero. maybe its possible that the endless propaganda perpetrated by corporate owned mass media have twisted you american people's views about moore, just as it twisted your views about wikileaks.

Re:Doomed

[magarity]

I don't think Moore has ever denied that he has an agenda, and that he's telling the story his way.

Then you've never seen any of Moore's work. His wildly skewed to the left shows, skewed to the point of being "creative edits" that completely misrepresent the truth, are presented as documentaries. Most people understand that term to mean factual and attempting to be unbiased. Ever watch Fahrenheit 9/11? That's the wildest piece of creative editing slant to the left ever and it won awards as a "documentary". You think calling that a documentary doesn't hide that he's pushing an agenda???

Common sense wins

[horza]

Journalist John Pilger and socialite Jemima Khan are putting up $31,600 surety each, with bail set at $380,000. It looks like enough people like Michael Moore have guaranteed the bail money as he has been bailed pending appeal (the prosecutors have 2 hours to appeal). He should be released by the end of the day.

He has had his passport confiscated, been electronically tagged, is under curfew and house arrest during the evenings, and must report to the police station every day. This is fair enough, it is no different to any other offender afaik. Certainly not the Guantamo Bay scenario he has had the past week, with "absolutely no access to any electronic equipment, no access to the outside world, no access to outside media" and no correspondence allowed.

The fast tracking through political influence, and the imprisonment for an as yet unfounded allegation in a foreign country, is a blot on our country's record, but it's good to see our strong and mostly fair legal system reassert itself after a short delay.

Phillip.

Assange a douchebag, Moore an asshat

[unity100]

apparently ANYone who upsets american right in some way, end up either as douchebags, or asshats. or some other derogatory adjective. without fail.

im not wondering about general american public. they may be too under the influence of mass media to begin with and sheepish, like the public in many countries of the world.

but, im wondering why some of the people who use slashdot, which is a place for the i.t. related life and people, are not able to stop for a moment and think 'hey, im thinking that anyone who upsets the established order is an asshat. there is something wrong with this' ?

i.t. requires more cognitive power than other fields of life. its mandatory that you have some cause-effect perception and rationalization ability to even work in it. yet, i see some people constantly iterating the same behavior pattern here, over and over, without thinking that they have been conditioned to do so.

has cognition no effect on political views ?

Common mistake in ethical reasoning.

[Lilith's Heart-shape]

I agree with you, but most people won't for the same reason that they make this mistake in ethical reasoning in the first place. Most people don't see elections as an exercise in creating the illusion of legitimacy. They don't see elections as a charade put on by the ruling classes to sucker the ruled. Likewise, most people do not understand that politicians and bureaucrats are no better than street muggers or highwaymen. Most people don't understand that the only difference between the Mafia and the government is that the government spends much more on propaganda and indoctrination.

It should come as no surprise that most people identify with the politicians who rob and subjugate them, and refuse to understand that taxation is nothing but a socially-sanctioned form of robbery. Stockholm Syndrome is a bitch.

Re:Doomed

[h4rm0ny]

Yep - Michael Moore's support is more damaging to Julian Assange than any of the stunts the US government has pulled so far.

My enemy is not some political faction, but the methods they use. And anyone who uses those same methods is just as guilty. The correct response to lies and distortion and fallacious arguments is accuracy, truth and reason. Not just more of the same in the other direction. Michael Moore - not much better than those he affects to despise, merely less adept at evil.

Re:And you're surprised?

[Myopic]

He sure does. Sigh. I wish the truth were capable of changing the minds of most people, but it isn't. That's too bad, but until individual humans reject nontruths, at least the side of morality and reason has a liar to rely on. Moore is a rare liberal, the kind that would rather convince than tell the truth, and in that he does the world good. I bet you would agree with me that the optimal world would be one in which the truth is more convincing than a lie. Alas, we will have to long for that world, while we settle for this one.

Re:Or:

[Daniel Dvorkin]

However, Assange is NOT a journalist. Journalists are supposed to have a sense of responsibility. All Assange does is release documents no matter what they are, without apparently trying to determine if they NEED to be leaked.

I don't think you know what the word "journalist" means. A journalist is anyone who reports the news as an occupation. That's it. No other qualification needed.

And journalists who worry about "sense of responsibility" are everywhere -- they're the folks writing bland, instantly forgettable wire service stories; they're the interchangeable talking heads on TV; they're the soothing voices on the radio that you couldn't put names to if your life depended on it. The very few journalists who dig deeper, who know there's always more muck to rake, who have the intelligence and dedication and raw courage to speak truth to power, are the ones whose names are remembered, and rightly so.

Woodward and Bernstein are still household names long after most of their contemporaries have been utterly forgotton. So will Assange be. And while people like you may continue to whine, those of us who want to live in a better world will remember why.

Re:Goose Gander

[puto]

Really? Though I do not doubt many cops are "crooked" in the US I have really never had a problem with them. Of course I have always yes sir, no sirred them and not run my mouth.(over the course of 27 years of driving). And I am brown and grew up in the south. However, I work in Colombia, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, Panama, and Mexico, and would love a good ol redneck police force in these countries. If you think US cops are corrupt, you have not lived, travelled in Latin America.