Michael Moore ist ein Idiot

[cohen]

Herrliches Fundstück aus einem antiveganer-Thread, Michael Moores offener Brief an die schwedische Regierung:

Dear Government of Sweden ...

By Michael Moore

Dear Swedish Government:

Hi there -- or as you all say, Hallå! You know, all of us here in the U.S. love your country. Your Volvos, your meatballs, your hard-to-put-together furniture -- we can't get enough!

There's just one thing that bothers me -- why has Amnesty International, in a special report (described in detail here by Naomi Wolf), declared that Sweden refuses to deal with the very real tragedy of rape? In fact, they say that all over Scandinavia, including in your country, rapists "enjoy impunity." And the United Nations, the EU and Swedish human rights groups have come to the same conclusion: Sweden just doesn't take sexual assault against women seriously. How else do you explain these statistics from Katrin Axelsson of Women Against Rape:

** Sweden has the HIGHEST per capita number of reported rapes in Europe.

** This number of rapes has quadrupled in the last 20 years.

** The conviction rates? They have steadily DECREASED.

Axelsson says: "On April 23rd of this year, Carina Hägg and Nalin Pekgul (respectively MP and chairwoman of Social Democratic Women in Sweden) wrote in the Göteborgs [newspaper] that 'up to 90% of all reported rapes [in Sweden] never get to court.'"

Let me say that again: nine out of ten times, when women report they have been raped, you never even bother to start legal proceedings. No wonder that, according to the Swedish National Council for Crime Prevention, it is now statistically more likely that someone in Sweden will be sexually assaulted than that they will be robbed.

Message to rapists? Sweden loves you!

So imagine our surprise when all of a sudden you decided to go after one Julian Assange on sexual assault charges. Well, sort of: first you charged him. Then after investigating it, you dropped the most serious charges and rescinded the arrest warrant.

Then a conservative MP put pressure on you and, lo and behold, you did a 180 and reopened the Assange investigation. Except you still didn't charge him with anything. You just wanted him for "questioning." So you -- you who have sat by and let thousands of Swedish women be raped while letting their rapists go scott-free -- you decided it was now time to crack down on one man -- the one man the American government wants arrested, jailed or (depending on which politician or pundit you listen to) executed. You just happened to go after him, on one possible "count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape (third degree)." And while thousands of Swedish rapists roam free, you instigated a huge international manhunt on Interpol for this Julian Assange!

What anti-rape crusaders you've become, Swedish government! Women in Sweden must suddenly feel safer?

Well, not really. Actually, many see right through you. They know what these "non-charge charges" are really about. And they know that you are cynically and disgustingly using the real and everyday threat that exists against women everywhere to help further the American government's interest in silencing the work of WikiLeaks.

I don't pretend to know what happened between Mr. Assange and the two women complainants (all I know is what I've heard in the media, so I'm as confused as the next person). And I'm sorry if I've jumped to any unnecessary or wrong-headed conclusions in my efforts to state a very core American value: All people are absolutely innocent until proven otherwise beyond a reasonable doubt in a court of law. I strongly believe every accusation of sexual assault must be investigated vigorously. There is nothing wrong with your police wanting to question Mr. Assange about these allegations, and while I understand why he seemed to go into hiding (people tend to do that when threatened with assassination), he nonetheless should answer the police's questions. He should also submit to the STD testing the alleged victims have requested. I believe Sweden and the UK have a treaty and a means for you to send your investigators to London so they can question Mr. Assange where he is under house arrest while out on bail.

But that really wouldn't be like you would it, to go all the way to another country to pursue a suspect for sexual assault when you can't even bring yourselves to make it down to the street to your own courthouse to go after the scores of reported rapists in your country. That you, Sweden, have chosen to rarely do that in the past, is why this whole thing stinks to the high heavens.

And let's not forget this one final point from Women Against Rape's Katrin Axelsson:

"There is a long tradition of the use of rape and sexual assault for political agendas that have nothing to do with women's safety. In the south of the US, the lynching of black men was often justified on grounds that they had raped or even looked at a white woman. Women don't take kindly to our demand for safety being misused, while rape continues to be neglected at best or protected at worst."

This tactic of using a rape charge to go after minorities or troublemakers, guilty or innocent -- while turning a blind eye to clear crimes of rape the rest of the time — is what I fear is happening here. I want to make sure that good people not remain silent and that you, Sweden, will not succeed if in fact you are in cahoots with corrupt governments such as ours.

Last week Naomi Klein wrote: "Rape is being used in the Assange prosecution in the same way that 'women's freedom' was used to invade Afghanistan. Wake up!"

I agree.

Unless you have the evidence (and it seems if you did you would have issued an arrest warrant by now), drop the extradition attempt and get to work doing the job you've so far refused to do: Protecting the women of Sweden.

Yours,
Michael Moore

http://www.michaelmoore.com/words/mike-friends-blog/dear-government-of-sweden

[cohen]

Und hier die obergeile Watsche von einem schwedischen Anwalt:

Open Letter to Mr. Michael Moore

december 20, 2010 in Juridik och politik | Tags: assange | by Mårten Schultz

Dear Mr. Michael Moore,

I read your open letter to the Swedish Government. I am afraid they will probably not answer. They're a bit busy at the moment: The aftermath of the financial crisis requires attention. And there's also the thing with the first suicide bomber in our country, which has caused quite some commotion. But don't you worry, it is very unlikely that we will use this single act of terror as an excuse to invade a country. Or maybe a very small one, but that it is unlikely.

Anyway, since the Government will not answer your letter I thought maybe I could send you a short note,from the perspective of a Swedish lawyer on how the Swedish legal system works and how it doesn't work . It seems there is some confusion here, probably as a result of differences between our systems.

1. I am afraid that you sent the letter to wrong place. In Sweden we keep our judicial system separated from the Government. The courts and the prosecutors carry out their work without intervention of the Swedish government. In fact, such intervention is forbidden.

We think this is a good idea, but maybe we should think more outside the box here. It is just that states that allow for the Government to decide if an accused person should be held in custody or not in our country would be considered as dictatorships. Like the Soviet Union.

2: In some countries the Government runs a little judicial system of its own, on the side. I know that some countries even run little torture camps, so to say, outside the borders of the country where it is said that normal rules don't apply. This way one could escape the tiresome requirements of due process, for instance.

The Swedish state has not taken this route, even if there are several nice islands close that could be used for this purpose. Ösel, for instance. Or Åland. But so far the Swedish government has refrained from trying to cheat its way out of the requirements of the rule of law in such a way.

I am sure this seems very backwards and inefficient to you.  Anyway, this all means that the Government has nothing to do with the the processes of the legal system in individual cases.

3.Statistics is a difficult thing. Not all people know how to read statistics. When you quote statistics on the ratio between reported rape and legal proceedings, you seem to be getting it quite wrong, I am afraid. A reported crime is not the same as a crime and it is something completely different from a provable crime.

Many reports of rape has its background in events that have happened behind the closed doors of a home. In these cases it can often be difficult to prove what has happened. And when sufficient evidence cannot be produced we have this peculiar principle in Swedish law called the presumption of innocence.  You might have heard of it.

It means that if the prosecutor cannot prove her case the law will consider the accused person as innocent. The downside of this is that possibly guilty men and women will go free. Yes, we would even let "thousands of Swedish rapists roam free" if needed to uphold a Rechtsstaat.

4. Maybe there's another difference here. In Sweden, we try not to let statistics influence individual cases of criminal investigations or proceedings. In your letter you quote (misinterpreted) statistics and seem to hold that this has relevance for whether Mr. Assange should be arrested or not. (So far the only question on the table has been whether to arrest Mr. Assange.)

In the view of our archaic legal system it is not considered relevant whether Mr. Assange or someone else involved in the case, or if the allegations as such, fall into any particular statistical category. Each case should be dealt with individually.

5. A little digression into the Swedish language. In Sweden we have a saying that has recently become popular. We talk about "foliehattar". A foliehatt is a hat made by tin foil. It is used by people who wants to protect the brain from mind reading and other intrusions, for instance by the Government. I am not sure, but I think that the hat may also be used to block out signals from a transmitter that has been hidden in someone's  teeth.

When a person is called a foliehatt it's often because she's a conspiracy theorist. The Assange case is a wet dream for the conspiracy theorist. Some talk about "dark forces", others about "honey traps", and you pitch in a little story about  "a conservative MP" that supposedly influenced the prosecutors in Sweden to change their position.

People forming these arguments we call foliehattar in Swedish. It is difficult to take such arguments seriously. Some of these arguments may turn out to be, in reality, true or somewhat true. But it seems unlikely. It seems unlikely that an advanced CIA/Mossad/SÄPO trap would use these kinds of accusations. They crimes that Mr. Assange has been accused of are not the kind of activities that would put you in jail for a very long time. It seems unlikely also for a lot of other reasons. Even the wikileaks people in Sweden seem to think so. But what do I know, maybe it's all part of the plan.

6. Your argument seem to be resting on an idea of fairness different from that of our little system. Here's a quote. "But that really wouldn't be like you would it, to go all the way to another country to pursue a suspect for sexual assault when you can't even bring yourselves to make it down to the street to your own courthouse to go after the scores of reported rapists in your country." You seem here to be saying, in a nuanced manner, that since many rapists are allowed to walk free in Sweden, without even being brought to justice, the accusations of Mr. Assange shouldn't be investigated. I don't agree with the premise of the argument.

Outside my window right now I see a father with a trolley, a woman holding a bag full of Christmas presents and two people trying wipe snow off their cars. Now, I know you can't tell just from looking – but I would be quite surprised if all these people turned out to rapists. But let's assume they are rapists, rapists that are being allowed to push trolleys, buy Christmas presents and drive cars, without the Government even trying to arrest them. Even if it was so, I can't understand why not another accusation should be sufficiently investigated. Two wrongs don't make a right.

7. Finally, to clear out some misunderstandings that have flourished in the discussion: Mr. Assange has not been charged with anything by anyone as of yet (and maybe he never will – the investigation is still ongoing); it is not criminal to have sex without a condom in Sweden; it is criminal to have sex without a condom if the person you're having sex with wants you to use a condom; it can be criminal to have sex with a sleeping person; whether the accused person is a saint, or a horrible person, has no influence on the investigation of a crime; Sweden's rape law is as far as I understand it not that different from most other Western countries.

Futhermore: Mr. Assange has the right to be presumed innocent, and a right to privacy; the women that has accused Mr. Assange of a crime should be considered as trustworthy as long as no compelling evidence says otherwise, and these women also has a right to privacy. Here I think that we have already seen a problem with the Swedish legal system, namely that it does not protect privacy enough  in matters such as these. This holds for both Mr Assange, as well as for the women that made the allegations. We should also talk more about the relationship between the protection of privacy and freedom of speech. But these points have been completely lost in some strange war where people feel they have to take sides in an ongoing investigation regarding something they cannot know anything about. Quite depressing, really. Personally I sympathize strongly with wikileaks and the struggle for transparency. But that is not what the Swedish legal system is occupied with at the moment.

Allright, that was just some thoughts from Stockholm. I am sorry for mistreating the English language like this. I have been trying to make knäck at the same time as I wrote this. Have you tried it? I think you'd like it. Knäck is normally very tasty. This batch turned out a bit burned, though. Those damned dark forces.

With best regards from a snowy Stockholm

Mårten

[Update: A preliminary draft of this post was published for a short while here. A hacker attack, I'm sure.]

http://juridikbloggen.wordpress.com/2010/12/20/open-letter-to-mr-michael-moore/

[Dienstag]

Der Bursche ist brillant!

[Enkidu]

grandios
Michael

[Rattentod]

ROFL.

Moore würde ich allerdings nicht als Idiot bezeichnen, er ist IMHO eher ein Polemiker/Demagoge. Ich bin zwar oft seiner Meinung, aber seine Methoden sind eher fragwürdig. Das er es mit den Fakten zugunsten einer besseren "Optik" nicht so genau nimmt, ist ja nichts neues.

In den Kommentaren kriegt er auch ganz schön eine drüber (hab nur die neuesten überflogen)

[cohen]

Der ist selber nicht zimperlich, also kann ich ihn auch polemisch als Idiot bezeichnen.
Außerdem beleben drastische Überschriften die Threads. 

[Ridcully]

Bei den älteren Kommentaren wird ihm eher zugejubelt. Klare Rollenverteilung, Wikileak-Fans gegen Feministinnen, Schweden gegen den Rest der Welt und so.

[scorpio]

Ich find beide Briefe klasse :)