Hi AC,

I thought that Navalny was very much a part of the political system in Russia. Western nations supported him because he opposed Putin, but his mindset was still one of "them and us". That Russian historian gave a good description of what was happening, with Putin using propaganda to make the population believe that Russia faced destruction and enslavement by a jealous west. Of course, Putin is the strong man hero who will save them. Nazi propaganda had much the same narrative and objective.

False equivalence and conspiracy.

Too many Australians avert their gaze from Assange's behaviour and helping the Trump campaign, now avoiding extradition versus Navalny who had the balls to return to Russia....

From US left Mother Jones, David Corn:

'Denounce Julian Assange. Don’t Extradite Him. The prosecution of the conniving WikiLeaks founder poses a threat to American journalism....
But one PR problem with the case is that Assange is a highly unsympathetic character, for he is partly responsible for the damage done by Donald Trump during his presidency: 400,000 or more preventable deaths of Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic; the lack of action to address climate change; the promotion of disinformation and lies to incite a violent attack on the US Capitol; a tax cut that favored the wealthy and added to the national debt; right-wing appointments to the Supreme Court that could lead to the severe curtailing of reproductive rights for women; the spread of bigotry and racial hatred; the suppression of voting rights; cutbacks in government health programs; creeping (or galloping) authoritarianism; and so much more.

The United States has suffered greatly because of Assange. In 2016, he collaborated with the Russian attack on the US election to help Trump win. As has been detailed by several government investigations—including in special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report and in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee last year—after Russian intelligence teams hacked Democratic targets, they passed the stolen emails and documents to WikiLeaks, which then publicly disseminated the material.

The Senate report notes that Assange’s group “timed its document releases for maximum political impact.” That is, WikiLeaks wasn’t acting in a noble information-sharing manner. It sought to weaponize the information pilfered by Vladimir Putin’s operatives to cause harm to candidate Hillary Clinton, whom Assange and WikiLeaks had disparaged as a “sadistic sociopath” and a threat to the world. (“We believe it would be much better for [the] GOP to win,” WikiLeaks had tweeted.)'

https://www.motherjones.com/politics/2021/12/denounce-julian-assange-dont-extradite-him/

Hi Andras Smith,
In all fairness, you can only make that kind of argument (damage caused by Trump winning) in comparison to the damage that Hillary Clinton might've caused if she was elected.
- And we just don't know how things would've turned out in that scenario, which makes the Mother Jones article merely a hit-piece, not unbiased fact-based journalism.

And lets not forget, Hillary Clinton had private gmail accounts that she was using instead of her official state.gov email account, and she wouldn't hand over any access or data until most of the information was scrubbed.
That most likely smells of 'corruption', which likely goes back going back to when her husband was president.
Given that she was the Democratic Candidate at the time, (and Secretary of State prior) she was probably involved in the fake Russiagate story, and the plan to spy on the Trump campaign, and the murder of Seth Rich.

Also the Clinton foundation was doing 'Pay to Play'
- Pay the Clinton Foundation, if you want favorable treatment by the government.
And she was a divisive figure, calling the majority of the country (who went on to elect Trump) deplorables.

I do agree with you about Assange regarding the Podesta emails.
- But honestly I think Assange was doing the country a good service in those releases.

AC think false equivalence....

For example, if you read summary and reporting of the Mueller Report & Congress Committee, blaming Seth Rich murder on Clinton was another conspiracy promoted by Assange, FoxNews et al.; the latter was compelled to pay Rich's parents significant but undisclosed damages.... suggesting another RW conspiracy to favour Trump....

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/11/24/media/seth-rich-family-fox-news-settlement/index.html

The Hacktivist (We Are Legion) movie features Julian Assange along with others seemingly a somewhat Wokeist / Communist movement. One of the features of the Hacktivist movement was Hoic/ Loic/ Ddos attacks on Visa/ Mastercard as well as other tactics attacking popular Traditionalist's such as Sarah Palin. Perhaps there were more shadowy communist figures inciting the proxy teenagers like Moot, Assange, etc. Some of the actions of the Hacktivist movement were seemingly about web democratization.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hacker_groups
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacktivism
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/We_Are_Legion

Hi Andras Smith,
"For example, if you read summary and reporting of the Mueller Report & Congress Committee, blaming Seth Rich murder on Clinton was another conspiracy promoted by Assange"

- Only if you believe the FBI to be squeaky clean and unbiased, which I do not.
I believe Mueller was likely chosen as a person who would cover things up and return a 'Move along, nothing to see here' kind-of story, rather than expose any wrongdoing.
He was a gatekeeper.

Navalny was a 'pied piper' type of figure, who wanted to trick Russian citizens into destroying their own country for the benefit of Western financial interests.

http://thehill.com/opinion/finance/4475835-navalnys-ominous-warnings-for-us-investors/

"Navalny’s vision for an economic transformation of Russia is embodied in the electoral platform of his presidential campaign of 2018. Among the actions that Navalny envisaged were measures that foreign investors, international financial institutions and economic analysts had been advocating for years. Those included demonopolizing the economy, privatizing state enterprises, lowering the tax burden on small and medium-sized enterprises, reducing the size and power of the federal bureaucracy, opening up the banking sector to competition to lower borrowing costs, tax revenue sharing with sub-federal levels of government and increasing government spending on infrastructure, education and health care."

- Basically he wanted to get the Russian people to support him to sell off the government stake in Gazprom and other companies with state ownership, on an anti-corruption platform, and promising to give more to pensioners and improve infrastructure. But it wasn't about helping the pensioners and building better infrastructure, it was about allowing foreign interests to get their foot in the door and hands on Russias resources, depriving the government of these important strategic state-owned assets.