> I'd love to know what Assange's endgame plan for all of this fuss is.
The same endgame he has had for a while: more attention, more publicity, more people donating to his bank account (which is basically what wikileaks functions as) to make up for those that got burned when he jumped bail, more book deals, who knows, perhaps a film. Whatever feeds his ego.
You're underestimating the drive hat comes from conviction in an idea. The guy has been living like a nomad. He gave away his book rights earlier to pay for his and the organization's defense. That's when all donations were blocked by credit card companies and Paypal. He could be making much more money working as a programmer in San Francisco or as a talk sho host on CNN. His fame came from the effects of his actions. It's like saying Larry Page started Google because he enjoys the limelight. He built a world-changing organization, and fame happened as a side effect. He might get rich in the future though another book or a movie. But at this point he's personally in the red.
First of all, most of wikileak's budget goes to pay his salary (other than that, wikileak's accounts are notoriously murky and not very transparent), second, for a while (until he was called out for it) donations to wikileaks went to his personal defense fund, which is still listed in the wikileaks donations page.
Even after that, to this day, Wikileaks lists his personal P.O. BOX in Australia as a way to donate, as far as I know no auditing of what has happened to any money sent there so far over the years. This is a curious detail that I have not seen anyone report, and that can be checked if you look at his pre-wikileaks website in archive.org, which lists the same P.O. BOX.
For all practical purposes, Assange is Wikileaks and Wikileaks is Assange, anyone that disagreed or questioned the wisdom of his actions has been kicked out or left in frustration at his dictatorial and self-serving management style.
Edit: Oh, and almost forgot how Wikileaks kept most of the money that they had supposedly raised for Bradley Manning's defense, who in the end, is the real hero of this saga, and who is languishing in jail while Assange goes on with his egotistical show.
The same endgame he has had for a while: more attention, more publicity, more people donating to his bank account (which is basically what wikileaks functions as) to make up for those that got burned when he jumped bail, more book deals, who knows, perhaps a film. Whatever feeds his ego.