The reverberations of Wikileaks publication of so many confidential and secret documents will be felt for many years, and he has attracted a large band of supporters, but the support for Assange is as much about his personal situation as it is an expression of support for what Wikileaks does or proposes to do.

To properly understand the philosophy that underlies his activity or his long-term goals, people should read Aaron Bady's compelling analysis of Assange's politics, as published on the zunguzungu blog.

Bady uses a close reading of an essay by Assange on State and Terrorist Conspiracies to argue that Assange sees modern governance as a conspiracy by those with power that goes against the interests and desires of the governed, and that Wikileaks exists in order to undermine the ability of governments to communicate secretly and diminish the power of authoritarian states.

Doing this, he believes, will force openness and lead to more progressive forms of government - or at least, less repressive ones.

It will also, inevitably, lead to a response from the institutions targeted, and in the last few weeks we have seen what happens when a state feels threatened.

Although it is not pleasant neither is it surprising: governments, like other complex systems, will act to preserve themselves and seek to damage or neutralise opposition, and nothing the US or other governments have done so far is exceptional.

http://zunguzungu.word..."to-destroy-this-invisible-government"