Balls of Steel

The trouble with people is not that they don't know, but that they know so much that ain't so. ~Josh Billings

When I started a blog, I vowed that it would never refer to anything related to current affairs. This was how I aspired to be 'different' or how I wanted my blog to be percieved.

It is not to earn money, neither fame nor to attract attention. At best it allows me to peer deeply into my life, connect dots and be a moving repository of my life. More importantly it allow me to write. Life takes us to strange places and mine is no different. In an ideal world I would be a writer and I'd be perfectly happy just getting by with whatever meager earning potential I might have.
But it is not an ideal world and but the good thing I can still do what I want to. Also being in a profession might force me to write on a specific set of subjects which are 'commercial' in nature and can be monetized. World is replete with examples when the best works have been produced with carefree and uncluttered minds. So the situation here is not that all bad.

Or so I console myself.

Sometimes this dreary world throws up individuals who jolt your thinking. The ones who move out of the herd and 'THINK'. They jolt your consciousness and shake your beliefs. You wonder at their recklessness, their brashness, free spirit and the strength of their beliefs. Their is a strong tendency of people to follow such people. They are called 'Leaders'.

Julian Assange


You have made me break one of my vows. I am mentioning you.

This calls for clearing up certain facts.

I do not necessarily agree with his beliefs. Nor do I believe that releasing some sleazy diplomatic backdoor Page 3 masala necessarily defines truth.

OK so a few army guys fucked up. They killed wrong guys. They sometimes had racial intones in their acts. The world is full of such psychos and I am not shocked. Tell me one war in the history of mankind which was 'clean'. Releasing such videos did no one good other than causing grief to their already bereaved families. Sometimes things are left best unexplained.

I have encountered more instances of regionalism and professional fuck ups my life to believe otherwise that it is rampant. So why expect Army to be any clean or be better? People get all worked up because it involve lives and futures of people, especially the near and dear ones of the affected.

..so is the case when you deny the rightful opportunity to the most deserving based on your prejudices for anything in this world, a job, an accomodation, insurance or an business opportunity.

Then what makes me a fan of this man? Here's is what his mom says:

Ms Assange, who bought Julian his first computer at age 13, said her son had been a curious child, raised to believe evil flourished when good men did nothing.

"Whether you agree with what Julian does or not, living by what you believe in and standing up for something is a good thing," she said.

"He sees what he's doing as doing a good thing in the world, fighting baddies, if you like."

Living by what you believe in and standing up for something is a good thing

No Mr Assange you deserve a mention because of your guts. You became a father at 18. You left college to take care of your son at 18 when his mother left him. You were mature beyond your years. Not many people at 18 have that kind maturity or balls to take that kind of decisions in life. It would have been easy to panic or think you've been done for. I get a shiver when I imagine myself in your shoes.

You and your son studied in the same college. It's hard to study at that age and to cope with all those young turks and all the advances that education has made. And now you have caught the most co-ordinated and savvy nation in the history of mankind with it's pants down.

Living by what you believe in and standing up for something is a good thing

Not everyone is right or right all time. But this world be a far more better place if everybody did that. See most of the most evil things we have been responsible for as a species or culture got on unchecked because collectively we did not do what we should have. Nazis, eugenics, Hiroshima, Dark ages or the recent financial meltdown are good examples.

It took some very brave and enterprising individuals to turn the tide. They frequently had to part with their lives because their were not enough people standing up with them. For Julian Assange this is a real threat right now. Most of the shameful things wouldn't have grown bigger if somebody had called their bluff earlier. For the examples I quoted the German proletariat, the literati, Oppenheimer, and the general populace are to be blamed.

US has unwittingly involved itself in the biggest war after the Cold war era. It is still in infancy but I reckon it would get bigger. You could argue the effect is not direct on the economies or day to day life. But that is only because it still hasn't grown bigger.

There are probably thousands of computer nerds and kids with misguided or no sense of purpose in life waiting for this. Suddenly Assange is the leader they have been waiting for. Suddenly now they have a purpose in life. Purportedly millions of dollars have already been spent or wasted thru hacking or financial and political machinations in the past few weeks depending on whether you are US govt or the anonymous group of hackers who have taken it on themselves to represent Assange.

I doubt if Assange would approve that. If he's got his priorities right, he wouldn't.

Every dollar could have been better utilized to reduce hunger or provide schooling or any of the million good things you could do in the world.

All of this for a bunch of Diplomatic Page 3 cables.

The stupidity of us as a culture continues to stump me. Rightly Einstein said once that Human stupidity is infinite.

He's been branded as a twisted person, a loner, rapist (by a bunch of females who can't seem decided on whether they want it done with or without a condom). Recently some hacker released a video showing one of the rape victims applauding and generally appearing moonstruck at one of the hotels where Assange delivered a press conference right after the night of purported rape incident. I wouldn't be surprised if he wasn't proud of being labeled so and derided generally. To put an entire country shivering and purporting to such feeble intimidatory PR tactics is commendable. I mean you have loads of shit faced PR and spin doctors on your payroll. They love opportunities when they can earn their salaries.

"I'm concerned it's gotten too big and the forces that he's challenging are too big."

You are right Mrs Assange. Now that US has gotten into a tangle and it will pull back and do the right thing, which it should have done earlier had it been smart. They will lock Assange and wait for the all the cables to pour out and wait and wait till the media gets bored and then wait some more.

They will imprison him or keep him locked up till he loses his mind, influence and public interest. Then they will destroy his beautiful and free mind.

I just hope Assange has something really shitty and important in those bloody cables. Something so embarrassing and dirty that it may have ramifications beyond reckoning for US and the world. Something which will help him avoid the destiny he seem to be destined hurtling into. That will be the only thing he can trade in order for his freedom.

If he has a trump card I do not want to know it. The world does not need to know it. That is the only way this man can ensure his freedom and not rot away in some cell in some non descript high security prison. He has done enough. A lot of governments have been shaken from their comfortable perches. I hope he ensures his freedom and trades his last hand.

The world will miss out on the knowledge and it may never come to light. But then we never deserved it, have we?