Just recently, the actor and rights activist George Clooney married the international law and human rights lawyer, Amal Alamuddin. Theres an interesting angle here that I havent yet seen covered I read one article which focused entirely on the male/female aspect, debating which one of them was better. This good/bad perspective naturally attracted value based arguments from those who commented, taking sides about who was the superior person. But lost in that debate was a dimension of this particular union that I find quite interesting: Amal is a lawyer who has represented Julian Assange, the creator of Wikieaks. Wikileaks has electrified the world security wonks by dumping huge amounts of top secret documents which expose government complicity in inhuman behavior, including the infamous collateral murder video showing a US helicopter killing unarmed Reuters reporters and other civilians. Just last year, Assange and Wikileaks assisted Edward Snowden in escaping the clutches of US authorities after he released details of NSA spying on -- well, basically everyone. President Obama started looking a bit silly as he came popping out of his cuckoo clock White House to make vague palliative statements like no one is listening to your phone calls. Riiiiiight. Of course not. Julian Assange has been receiving asylum in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for two years now, after leaving Sweden with the permission of the prosecutor who had examined a purported rape case. After he left for England, a new prosecutor was appointed who suddenly wanted Assange back in Sweden. Assange smelled a rat, and refused to go,and even though he has offered to be deposed via skype or other media, or to allow the Swedes to come to London, Sweden has refused. Assange suspects, perhaps rightly, that the US is concealing a secret grand jury indictment, which they would serve to the Swedes to bring him to the US. So far, he has not been indicted for any crime, though politicians like Palin and Huckabee have called for him to be executed, and Hillary Clinton described his work as an attack on the world. So thats the person Amal has defended legally. George Clooney, besides being a well known actor, has been very active in humanist causes for years, going to Sudan for human rights reasons, and getting himself arrested a year or two ago. During the 2012 presidential campaign, Clooney hosted Obama at his California mansion for a major fund raising soiree. So do you see the interesting dimension of this? The legal defender of Assange, the man who may be wanted by the Obama administration, and who also assisted Snowden, who is definitely wanted by Obama, is now married to Clooney, the liberal activist and onetime buddy of Obamas. This examination of the underlying web of connections between prominent social actors is, in the study of ancient history, called prosopography, from the Greek work prosopon, which means mask. Here is a quote from the Wikipedia article on prosopography, which was brought to wider attention in 1971 by the British historian Stone. The nature of prosopographical research has developed over time. In his 1971 essay, Lawrence Stone discussed an older form of prosopography which was principally concerned with well-known social elites, many of whom were already well-known historical figures. Their genealogies were well-researched, and social webs and kinship linking could be traced, allowing a prosopography of a power elite to emerge. The power elite indeed. As is so often the case, the power elite exists at different levels; the obvious and the covert. One might speculate; did both Obama and Assange receive wedding invitations? Assange would have had to regretfully ask forgiveness for not attending, as he is currently indisposed in London. Obama could have begged off because of his important job. If they had attended, Obama would have sat on the side of friends of the groom, while Assange would have been a friend of the bride. Would they have glared at one another? Would Obama have had Assange arrested during the wedding, or maybe something worse? Or would they have gritted their teeth and shaken hands? Would Assange have danced with Michelle at the after party? Would Obama have kissed the bride, or given it a pass? Did they send gifts? Was Obamas gift bugged? Is the NSA spying on Amal - and George? Is the whole wedding a sham put on by Clooney at the behest of his friend Obama in order to find out about Assange and Snowdens legal defense? Okay, thats going too far, isnt it? Or perhaps another angle is possible: Will Clooney prevail on his friend in the White House to cool his jets (or drones) and let Assange free from his covert prosecution? Will secret messages or offers or threats be exchanged? Will we ever know? Its all to be continued -- as is everything.
Posted on: Fri, 03 Oct 2014 14:26:03 +0000