Russians, shortarse Frenchmen, artistic pictures of horses and people who duet with Blue: Just some of the things that the US government HATES

The publication last week of the first few batches of leaked US embassy cables has brought whistleblower website WikiLeaks – as well as the fate of its founder and editor in chief Julian Assange – dramatically to the front pages and top bills of news media around the world. As this article was being drafted, Assange, the website’s principal spokesperson and main public figure, is reported to be have been taken into custody in London, in connection with alleged sex offences in Stockholm in August this year. Unlike some others, SSY prefers to take rape allegations seriously, at least until substantial evidence suggests we should do otherwise.

To deal with this issue first, first of all let’s say something – Wikileaks is not Julian Assange, and Julian Assange is not Wikileaks. Attempting to repress and punish Wikileaks for being inconvenient and worrying to the establishment is not the same as a man being arrested because he is suspected of the very serious crime of rape. Let’s not confuse Assange with Wikileaks. Wikileaks (with Assange as its public face), as we will go on to discuss, has made a brilliant contribution to anti-imperialist activism and we absolutely applaud it for that. Do not let the fact that Wikileaks has got the right ideas about freedom of information blind us to the fact that rape is one of the most reprehensible crimes someone can commit, and that violence (sexual, physical, psychological, emotional) against women (which the overwhelming majority of the time goes unpunished) should be opposed in all its forms – and perpetrators brought to justice where it has been committed.. We offer no opinion on whether Julian Assange is guilty of the crimes that he has now been charged with. It wouldn’t be appropriate. But neither is it appropriate for socialists to promote the position that the women who have made allegations against him should be disbelieved, simply because Assange’s organisation Wikileaks do good things, or because of what the women have said on the internet in the past, or because they are women – which is what a lot of the ‘Defend Assange’ stuff out there on the interwebs is boiling down to. Just because we consider someone to be a “good man” who promotes some of the same ideals that we do does not mean that, if they HAVE abused women, they should get away with it, sticking it to the man yeah? Many men, men who consider themselves to be left wing, are using this arrest as an excuse to propagate often repeated rape myths, and this is unacceptable. Rape myths should always be challenged, no matter how suspicious you find the timing of Assange’s arrest. It’s sad to see people we respect, like Naomi Wolf join in the reactionary smear campaign against the women who reported Assange to the Swedish authorities. This is a misguided approach to anti-imperialism. You have to be anti-patriarchy too, or sorry, you’re not a socialist. For a brilliant article on the meaning of the word ‘consent’, visit Feministe. No means no, and tricking someone in to consenting to sex is rape. That goes in all cases, not just the ones where there’s no left wing icons who might be involved. Now, on to the substantial issue of the leaked cables..

WikiLeaks was founded in 2006, originally adopting a wiki-style of organisation (similar to Wikipedia, where users could freely upload, edit and discuss documents. However it has since taken on a far tighter editorial policy, as it became clear the wiki format wasn’t appropriate for the organisation’s aims.

The ongoing release of US embassy cables – taken from the US military internet system SIPRNet (insert Terminator joke here) and representing a database of some quarter of a million secret communications from US embassies around the world – is just the latest in a long line of high profile stories broken by the organisation.

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The vigilantes took photos as they wrestled the thieves to the ground.

On Thursday, a group of five people attempted to make off with a load of watches from a posh London jewellery shop after smashing the window with a sledgehammer. They were foiled not by police, or shop security – but by a mob of more than 50 passers by and shoppers who jumped in and booted fuck out of the would-be thieves.

WHAT. THE. FUCK? What would make so many ordinary people risk the wrath of a sledgehammer to protect a load of watches and jewellery they could never afford, and that belong to a company that’s never done a thing for them?

Society has put a lot of effort into the vilification of the shoplifter and the thief – the government and the media have worked hard to make ordinary people think of theft as a crime on the same level as rape or murder, which it simply isn’t.

Who would have suffered if the sledgehammer gang hadn’t been thwarted? The shop would have had insurance to cover the cost of the products and the broken window.

Defending the property of private companies against people who want access to that property, or the power or opportunities that come with it, is nothing more than a defense of capitalism and inequality.

One new attempt to pit impoverished people against each other, and widen the gulf between so-called good and bad citizens, is a new scheme called Internet Eyes. Ordinary people can volunteer to sit at home monitoring CCTV cameras in shops, and notify the owners if they spot a shoplifter.  Their website says:

The sole purpose of Internet Eyes is to enable responsible members of the public to use the latest technology to help shopkeepers and the police combat the serious social harm that shoplifting causes.

The site is aimed at businesses that are too cheap to pay anyone to watch their cameras. Firms pay £20 a week for the service – much cheaper than actually employing a member of staff, and paying the tax, National Insurance and other costs associated with that. The volunteers, each watching up to four screens at a time, have the opportunity to receive a reward of up to £1,000 a month – if they manage to catch anyone.

Volunteers first have to pay a membership fee (£12.99 a year, £4.99 a quarter, or £1.99 a month). You are then rewarded for the hours you put in – if you watch the monitors more than 30 hours per month, you will receive a generous shiny 50 pence piece. More than 45 hours per month gets ￡1, and more than 60 hours per month gets￡1.50. Each volunteer receives feedback points from shop owners according to how much they spot. The volunteer with the most points at the end of each month will receive  £1000. If two or more volunteers have the same number of points, the money will be split between them.

So, if you’re poor and can’t find a job, you’ve now got a choice: go out and steal what you need to get by, or sit at home on the internet hoping to catch someone else stealing and get rewarded for dobbing them in.

And what happens when shoplifters do get caught? As we’ve previously reported, shoplifters in the UK are more likely to be jailed than sex offenders.

And in the US, vigilantism against shoplifters is just as strong. Last week, when a costume shop owner in Virginia caught a teenager trying to pinch something, instead of calling the police, he forced the boy to stand outside his shop for the rest of the day, in a Sesame Street costume holding a sign admitting to his crime.