Consortium News brought live coverage of the 27th Vigil. Watch the replay of a spirited discussion about the importance of public protest and the fate of Assange’s extradition here.
Volume 29, Number 356— Saturday, December 21, 2024
Consortium News brought live coverage of the 27th Vigil. Watch the replay of a spirited discussion about the importance of public protest and the fate of Assange’s extradition here.
Assange’s arrest marks the beginning of blatant tyranny in the United States.
This a repeat of the posted link by Nance above-it is very important analysis with the conclusion that assange will face additional charges under Espionage Act contrary to provisions of treaty and it could result in the death penalty at maximum-extremely long article but detailed analysis:
http://www.thepolemicist.net/
also in counterpunch
Cat out of bag June 30.
Alistair is poison to #Unity4J. Don’t bring him back. He’s like the Qtards for Trump : “Trust the Plan” , causing activists to lower their defenses , with the result that they get it up the rear , hard , once again.
His professed belief in the inherent fairness of the UK justice system is highly suspect , unless he’s been in a coma for the last few decades. When the US says “Jump!” , the UK says ” How high?”. Nobody is that naive.
I’m listening to this program from last night. It is most informative on many levels. Joe Lauria talked quite a bit about previous American civilian protests and how they changed the direction of our government in history. The role of our free and open press and its importance in a democracy that must be maintained to serve its part of the balance of powers.
The power of national security agencies in the US and abroad was discussed and the laws around charging individuals of crimes.
The bodily threat to investigative journalists treading into forbidden waters and those reporters who have been killed for doing their jobs is also worth acknowledging with respect.
The NSA can and does spy on everyone in the country, so why is it a crime to hack their information. How can we protect ourselves from the government if they have all the access to citizens’ information and we are not allowed to see it or prove otherwise? We have no possibility of a defense the way things stand. How do we prove otherwise if the government control all the information and they decide what the truth is?
In case you missed it, there’s a great article on Counterpunch that discusses the diversion of the Swedish investigation among many other things. https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/25/avoiding-assange/
Thanks much for the vigils.
People will spin his arrest to obscure the real issue. Publishing is what journalists do. But publishing classified information is not in the publics bezt interest (unless your really nosy). Its a no-brainer. You dont publish classified information about government and military operations.
Spike, we cannot assume that those government operations are in the public interest; that is the whole question here. None of these matters involve defensive military operations in wartime.
The whole problem is that information is classified to keep the public from making public policy. There aren’t any no-brainers in constitutional law. Preserving democracy requires a lot of careful thought on these issues.
The essence of this whole struggle was very well summed up in this statement:
“The whole problem is that information is classified to keep the public from making public policy.”
Excellent. Thank you for distilling this down to its bare nature.
Classifieds information is IMPORTANT
BUT NOT CLASSIFIEDS CRIME….
THANKS JULIAN ASSANGE AND…
EVERYONE WHO FOLLOWING HIM
WE NEED MORE INFORMATION ABOUT
INTERNATIONAL GANGSTEROS DOMINATION….
Really folks! another vigil for Assange?
Okay he did his duty to expose the “bad guy” he’s a hero!!!
Now let’s move on to matters that are up to date….and what are the up to date matters?
Israel
Saudi Arabia
Syria
Iran
North and Central Africa
City of London
Wall Street
Venezuela
Cuba
Central America
Consortium majors on the minors….distraction ??? yes I think so!
Right, and who needs journalists to inform the public on all those “up to date matters”? I’m sure that will just take care of itself even if governments fill up their dungeons with journalists like Assange.
Yahweh,
You left out Yemen.
Also you left out Macron’s efforts to go after the French journalists who broke the story that the Saudis depend on weapons sales from the U$A, the U.K., and France to kill the civilians whom the Saudis are intentionally targeting.
Macron’s effort to intimidate and threaten those who reveal the truth of the vary things you list, kind of, sort of, relates, very directly,to the assault on Assange and what he represents.
You are saying, “Ignore the messenger, forget about the messenger, forget even the message, and look elsewhere!”
Had you been in Athens, would you have said, “Socrates is dead, which he well deserved. Let us move on to other more important things.”?
There are many things that deserve attention, but turning away from the plight of Assange, who might face a very severe fate, perhaps even a death sentence, is to belittle the efforts forever tied to combatting all those interests who pursue the wars and the violence so profitable to the few seeking obscene wealth and total power.
You seem to be implying that those who expose the truth behind the destruction, and reveal those interests, are not worthy of the concern and continuing support of the rest of us.
Presumably then, from your perspective, Chelsea Manning, or the many other whistleblowers who Obama savaged, should be forgotten and left to their fates, should be but “minor” concerns shifted to the periphery of thought and consideration?
That said, if you wish to provide the rest of us considered analysis and thoughtful perspective and history around those other many things you mention, all very important, without a doubt, then you may count on my rapt attention to your thoughts on those matters.
I would hope you might seek to reveal underlying connections among those things and reflect, as well, upon even other issues which have potential impacts on the whole of humanity, you know, nuclear Armageddon, human-induced environmental catastrophe by other means, or even the vicious assault on even the merest pretense of democracy, anywhere and everywhere on the planet.
Not forgetting the next Wall Street scam on the commons through privatization of everything, including Social Security, here in the U$, or aspects of the social contract elsewhere in the We$t, or those places subject to We$tern “intervention” all over the rest of the globe.
I would add, as well, the behavior of “educational” systems, be they the MSM or academia itself, in ensuring that the kinds of critical thinking Assange’s revelations well ought encourage, are attacked, belittled, or kept from even being heard.
Yes, it is complex, the daily and ongoing outrage, the corruption, perversion, and destruction of conscience and principle, it is a massive moral crisis which confronts humanity, and it is all interconnected as well as connected to an economic system more akin to cancer than to the sniffles.
Do you think that the fate of individuals might not presage the fate of all?
As goes Assange, is it possible, so go we all?
Or will the many be “safe” if they simply ask no questions and follow the doctrine of, “I know nothing ..,”?
Socrates admitted that there were many things about which he knew nothing, and because he did not pretend to know things he did not, the Oracle of Delphi said that he was the wisest man in Athens.
Sergeant Shultz, on the other hand, when he claimed to know nothing, sought to hide what he did know.
There is a difference between these assertions of not knowing.
In a world where ignorance is bliss, wisdom is a curse and crime.
Do you suggest that sharing knowledge of what power does, in the name of the people, is such a small thing as to deserve, not merely punishment, but banishment from the thoughts of those who should insist upon knowing what is done in their name?
Of course, Consortium News has little need of my meager defense of what chooses to focus on. Nor any need to justify those choices.
At a time when many sites seem to be increasingly bowing to conventional assumption, especially in those areas that lead to, and seek to justify aggression and violence as, for example, the clamorous assertion that Russia is attacking the U$, without any proof but that empty assertion which could, all too easily, however righteously, lead to very dire and grim ends, Consortium News chooses to support those who dare question and expose corruption and deceit.
Consortium News is in the forefront of raising the critical, and moral, questions demanded by our time and by conscience, as well as exposing the crimes being waged against the many, including Julian Assange by those who seek by all means, subtle or gross, to subjugate and enslave the many in what amounts to a global neofeudal oligarchy controlled by as few as several thousand “folks” who care not a whit for the existence of other life forms, including human beings, or even about the continued capacity of the planet to support such life forms.
We are dealing with a social pathology which has access to a technology that permits levels of control and domination heretofore unimaniginable and unobtainable for any who might have had the Machiavellian desire for such total and absolute power.
Assange recognized this crisis for what it is and seeks further to become.
He permitted many others to grasp the depth and extent of it.
He deserved to be thought about, by everyone, every single day.
Those who hate him for exposing their crimes and deceits, those who have been harmed by those crimes and deceits, and even those who are manipulated to hate and believe the worst lies about him, as well, especially, as those who dare recognize and value the courage it took and takes to question when prudence and “looking out for number one” dictate being quiet, subservient, and small.
Assange is not a small person.
Perhaps what is happening to him reveals those who are.
What do you think?
Could it just be possible that people are not so binary? Love/Hate Assange? I agree with somethings he did, I disagree with others. In Sweden , two women accused him of sexual assault. Should those two women be silenced because Assange is who is ? If I was raped by John f Kennedy, what would be more important? JFK or my rape? Think about it. There are no easy answers.
Christina-
You might reconsider the rape allegations from Sweden after you read this:
https://www.globalresearch.ca/assange-allegation-stitch-up/5674521
Christina, no, the two women went to the police to find out if Assange could be made to take a HIV-test.
Read his full testimony, given to the prosecutors who conducted the interview with him at the Ecuadorian Embassy in 2016, through a link at the end of this statement.
There never was a question of rape. That is an after-construction with political motives..
https://justice4assange.com/Assange-Testimony.html
Certain suspicious activities by JFK were known to his staff, but the press kept quiet about them, it was another era.
Yahweh- I can only conclude that you HAVEN’T been reading Wikileaks, or Consortium News, or listening to the vigils. If you had, you would have learned a lot more about the issues you complain are being ignored- and about our illegal wars, and torture, and the evisceration of our civil liberties and human rights, and social and economic injustice, and the corruption of our political institutions and judiciary, and much, much more- and maybe you’d have a clue about how important this case is to independent journalism, and the public’s right to be informed with unassailable facts and truthful narrative- and how that is so essential if we are to hold those in power accountable to the rule of law.
I applaud Joe Laurie, and Elizabeth Vos, and Suzie Dawson and all of the other participants in these weekly vigils. Hopefully, more and more people will be watching to understand the existential issues of this case, and get involved in some way or other in that fight for justice.
” Consortium majors on the minors….distraction ??? yes I think so! ”
Yahweh a Deep State asset out to destroy the opposition ??? Yes , I think so !
Luckily , he’s really bad at his job.
Exactly. Yahweh is so mediocre that he does not deserve any response to his dribbling. And his trying to peddle his “knowledge” of headlines on this site is so very original.
Hey I have a question for anybody, all US Americans know why we hate English imperialism, and we know a hell of a lot about American imperialism as well, I’ve mostly Studied Quigley and Sutton does anybody abroad had and accessible European perspective on Empire?
Yup, grew up in the tail end of Empire, in Africa.
Those poor foreign types, living in ignorance and misery. Britain bought civilization across the world. The world benefits from this to this day with 100% global healthcare and literacy that everyone enjoys. If there are any places where this has not happened it’s due to interference by people like Assange and Putin.
The sooner we shut up these whining critics, the sooner we Brexit, the sooner Great Britain can stride smoothly across the globe.
I’ve’ run out of gin, anyone got some spare
You forget to mention evil China, daring to be prosperous again.
If you are not joking, you should study the history of the remnant British empire after WWII. There was almost zero literacy, and almost no government health care. Not to suggest that other imperialists did much more, before or after WWII. The US has done almost nothing in foreign aid, less than one meal a year for the world’s poorest, and has overthrown many democracies and replaced them with dictatorships. Some heritage of imperialism.
But the British empire certainly had some positive effects. The rule of law, the concept of human rights (although seldom respected much for natives), and above all, its decision to get out of America and India when they were too large, far away, and rebellious to be suppressed. That indeed gave rise to the globe’s two largest democracies before 1950. That is not an accident, and although not primarily an act of benevolence, it is far beyond anything benevolent the US has ever done.
Why would you want “Great Britain” to “stride smoothly across the globe”? Cheaper imports than under the empire of global capitalism? Do you think that the abuses exposed by Mr. Assange are acts of benevolence? Surely you jest.
I apologize if I misunderstood: now I think that you really were joking.
Check out Petra Kelly Germany Also the beginning of Green parties but not communistic. Germany the 1980s
Just a shout out to everyone, Julian is a hero to all mankind now and everyone from Donald Trump, Sheldon Aleman, the -ite British lapdogs and any other spooks you cared and name can all go suck it, Down with video drone, Long live the new flesh!
Joe – Not only all sides of the Atlantic need effected ’cause of the arrest of Julian Assange, don’t forget all sides of the aisle. Let us not forget the displeasure that we should show towards the Dems as well as the Rep. party. They cannot suffer any less for what has happened. I say this a nonpartisan.
I say this as a nonpartisan, is what I meant to say. And as for the next part of this great conversation you and Ms. Vos are having, yes, George H.W. was always looking for revenge. That was his M.O. And Ms. Vos, wouldn’t a yellow vest movement (long overdue here) just fit the US current situation with House/Senate doing only Russiagate and no other work to help the country?