UPDATES BELOW
Sady Doyle is one of my heroes. She’s one of the sharpest, funniest and most tenacious bloggers we have. Today, she launched a Twitter campaign to shame Michael Moore for his comments about the Julian Assange rape allegations. Doyle’s argument is strong on its face, but there are some serious problems with it too.
First, contrary to her statements today, Doyle is not simply angry at Moore’s dismissive and inaccurate remarks about the rape charges. Instead she’s angry at the very notion of offering Assange financial assistance for his bail. Yesterday, in her opening salvo against Moore, she wrote:
God damn, dude. You pledged bail to help a dude avoid a sexual assault investigation. YOUR PROGRESSIVISM HAS BEEN INVALIDATED.
Doyle is conflating Moore’s financial assistance for Assange’s legal costs with being a rape apologist. These are not equivalent. In any event, one wonders why Doyle hasn’t extended her contempt to Jemima Khan, who also helped with Assange’s bail.
There are, of course, very good reasons why leftists and feminists might want to support Assange’s release from solitary confinement at this critical time, when the US appears poised to have him railroaded for conspiracy.
Doyle is clouding the issues here. She refuses to allow that one can be an agnostic on the charges against Assange, while also advocating for his fair and humane treatment during a truly extraordinary and disturbing campaign of political persecution.
The second and more critical observation is that Doyle herself is no agnostic on Assange’s guilt. Last Thursday, she wrote:
“I really, really, do tend to believe that he raped those girls.”
And:
“he (Assange) — in my opinion, probably, allegedly — happened to be a repeat rapist…”
I point out these statements because Doyle is positioning her #mooreandme campaign, solely as an effort to speak out against rape apologist discourse, and to shame Michael Moore for lying about the charges against Assange. Doyle demands that we should all be agnostics on the rape charges, while she asserts without evidence that Assange is “probably” a “repeat rapist.”
When I asked her today on Twitter, to substantiate that claim, she responded with:
“Since statistics consistently report only 8% of rape allegations are unfounded, there’s a 92% chance.”
Got that? According to Sady Doyle, there’s a 92% chance that Julian Assange is a rapist.
I responded with a link to statistician Nate Silver’s New York Times piece on the Assange case, which cautions that we must put these allegations in context, in order to weigh their probability. Is Silver simply mansplaining away the prevalence of rape? Maybe. But if Doyle is going to employ statistics in such a dubious manner, then it is fair to consider another perspective, from a statistician.
Doyle disregarded my question, responding:
“You are interested in maintaining that Assange is innocent. I’m interested in eating chicken wings now. Please go away.”
I responded that I did not know whether Assange was guilty. This has always been my position. It is instead Doyle who claims to know (with 92% certainty) what happened between Assange and his two accusers.
Doyle apparently lost interest in her chicken wings, long enough to respond with:
“From where I’m standing, you look like yet another Assange fanboy slash rape apologist. I can see why #Mooreandme bothers you.”
With all due respect Sady, where are you standing?
UPDATE 12/18
Yeah, I’m aware that Doyle has claimed that I’m “trying to launch a #doyleandme campaign.” Not true. It’s just the name I gave to this post. Also, to be very clear, since Doyle wasn’t, I am not the author of the misogynist tweets in the screenshot above the paragraph referencing me. I have not accused her of “bias,” but I have pointed out that she believes Assange is guilty. It is her right to believe this, of course, but it’s also my right to point it out. I read Sady’s Tumblr because I am a fan of Sady Doyle’s (though admittedly, less a fan these days) not because I’m a troll or a stalker, or anything else. She’s a writer, a very good one and her writing is available to the public. I agree that Moore and Olbermann should be held accountable for spreading misinformation about the rape accusations, but I am not a fan of the tone of her campaign, nor of some of its underlying assumptions.
Finally, I shouldn’t have to point out that nothing on my website, and nothing in these articles I have linked to is “rape apologism” and I really wish Doyle would get some perspective on this. Feminism is not solely hers to define.
I also want to recommend two other articles. Aaron Bady is a much more thoughtful, careful and less combative writer than myself, and he has a very civil discussion on #mooreandme happening here.
This comment from Dan C. gets at the heart of my concerns about our discourse around rape, Assange and Wikileaks:
“From the standpoint of political rhetoric, the real danger here is that the narrative of rape will become metaphorically conflated with the narrative of wikileaks. The assholes in our mediasphere seem all too eager to imply that the violation of state secrecy is something like the sexual violation of real human beings.”
This was my primary criticism of Amanda Marcotte’s framing of the accusations against Assange. I am encouraged to see that Marcotte has begun to defend Wikileaks itself in a subsequent post.
There is also a very measured critique of #mooreandme by two feminist lawyers here.
I am also disturbed by comparisons some are making between Roman Polanski and Julian Assange. The former is a fugitive child rapist, with a lot of celebrity defenders, who could use a public shaming themselves. The latter has not even been charged with a crime. Jezebel makes the Polanski comparison, and then proceeds to tell its readers that they don’t need to worry their pretty little heads over cablegate.
Despite Michael Moore’s rhapsodizing about the importance of WikiLeaks, the most recent cables have mostly been of the “Berlusconi parties too much” variety.
This is seriously lame. Jezebel is telling its readers both that the news is gossip, and that gossip is news. Jezebel’s readers might benefit from a discussion of stories likes these:
US contractor Dyncorp procuring adolescent boys for Afghan police
The Vatican ducking an Irish investigation into clergy sex abuse
Obama pressuring Spain to drop torture prosecutions
Hilary Clinton ordering diplomats to spy on leaders at the UN, collecting email passwords, credit card info and other private data (ie. state-sponsored stalking).
In dismissing these issues, Jezebel is no different from the mainstream press, or the “liberal” media. (Torture apologist Jon Stewart dismissed cablegate as “chit chat.”) The stories emerging from cablegate are worthy of serious feminist discussion. Unfortunately, it seems the only discussion many want to have about Wikileaks is a conversation about sex and rape. Sex and rape sell. War crimes do not.
UPDATE 12/19
We learn today that Israel Shamir, a representative for Wikileaks is a Holocaust denier. He also co-authored the Counterpunch hit piece on one of the accusers, connecting her to the CIA while scarily intoning against feminists. That article formed the basis for the story by Kirk James White that appeared on Firedoglake and was then subsequently tweeted by Bianca Jagger, and later by Michael Moore and Keith Olbermann. It seems very likely that Shamir was given either tacit or explicit approval by Assange to write that story. Whatever the case, he’s still employed by Wikileaks. And did I mention the dude’s a Holocaust denier? This is pretty damning stuff.
This could turn the tide of liberal public support for Assange, if not for Wikileaks itself. Very disturbing. What a way to sabotage your own organization.
I am now and truly Wikifatigued.
