Many American politicians are calling for the arrest and prosecution of Julian Assange. Some are calling for his assassination, thereby putting him in a very small club, with Osama bin Laden at its head, of people the United States of America -- a/k/a my country -- wants to kill.
Or, given what we've learned lately, perhaps I should say "People the United States publicly wants to kill."
Assange's crime was that he flew several billion pixels directly into the U.S.'s self-esteem. He's done it three times now, and every time, American political leaders, a/k/a gasbags, have proclaimed with great solemnity, "This puts lives at risk."
You know what? Nobody has died.
In the past week or so, the Land of the Free has:
1. Pressured Sweden into bringing rape charges against Assange even though the young women who participated (consensually) in the sexual encounters say it wasn't rape.
2. Pressured Interpol into putting Assange on their "most-wanted" list, an honor usually reserved for mass murderers and the most sub-human Islamic terrorists.
3. Intimidated Amazon into to kicking WikiLeaks off their servers.
4. Forced the site's DNS referrer to toss WikiLeaks out on 24 hours' notice (given at 3AM on a Tuesday), thus making it impossible for web users to find the site.
5. Intimidated PayPal to stop accepting donations on WikiLeaks' behalf.
6. Badgered the British, who seem to know where Assange is, to take him into custody immediately, which, all praise to Britain, hasn't happened yet.
7. Sent a telegram, through the State Department, to Columbia University, warning students not to discuss WikiLeaks or the leaked documents on Facebook or Twitter if they ever want to work for the government.
7. Sent a telegram, through the State Department, to Columbia University, warning students not to discuss WikiLeaks or the leaked documents on Facebook or Twitter if they ever want to work for the government.
8. Oh, and a couple of our elected "leaders" are lobbying to place WikiLeaks (a website, for Christ's sake) on the official list of foreign terrorist organizations.
Is it just me, or does this feel to anyone else like an elephant trampling on a gnat?
Remember "transparency?" Didn't "transparency" sound good? Well, "transparency" has just had its ass kicked once and for all by the president I voted for (can anybody say one term?) at the head of an administration that still holds a legislative majority. (Can anyone say, we need new parties?)
Remember "hope"? Is this kind of illegal and immoral bullying compatible with "hope?"
Remember the ideal of the "informed electorate?" For that matter, remember the quaint notion of "free speech?"
I can list a lot of areas in which the America of today falls short: education, long-term planning, fiscal responsibility, compassion, the all-but-abandoned struggle against corruption in government. But there aren't many things about my country that cause me actual physical and emotional shame at being American. One or two, at most.
And now there's one more.
