Julian Assange has remained incommunicado for more than six weeks and as his health deteriorates many of his former supporters have remained silent too, says James Cogan.
By James Cogan
Julian Assange is in immense danger. Remarks made this week by Ecuador’s foreign minister suggest that her government may be preparing to renege on the political asylum it granted to the WikiLeaks editor in 2012 and hand him over to British and then American authorities.
On March 28, under immense pressure from the British and U.S. governments, Ecuador imposed a complete ban on Assange having any Internet or phone contact with the outside world, and blocked his friends and supporters from physically visiting him. For 46 days, he has not been heard from.
Ecuadorian Foreign Minister Maria Fernanda Espinosa stated in a Spanish-language interview on Wednesday that her government and Britain “have the intention and the interest that this be resolved.” Moves were underway, she said, to reach a “definite agreement” on Assange.
If Assange falls into the hands of the British state, he faces being turned over to the U.S. Last year, U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions stated that putting Assange on trial for espionage was a “priority.” CIA director Mike Pompeo, now secretary of state, asserted that WikiLeaks was a “non-state hostile intelligence service.”
In 2010, WikiLeaks courageously published information leaked by then Private Bradley [now Chelsea] Manning that exposed war crimes committed by American forces in Iraq and Afghanistan. WikiLeaks also published, in partnership with some of the world’s major newspapers, tens of thousands of secret diplomatic cables, exposing the daily anti-democratic intrigues of U.S. imperialism and numerous other governments.
For that, Assange was relentlessly persecuted by the Obama administration. By November 2010, it had
Espinosa: Intends to ‘resolve’ Assange’s asylum.
convened a secret grand jury and had a warrant issued for his arrest on charges of espionage—charges that can carry the death sentence. The then Labor Party government in Australia headed by Prime Minister Julia Gillard threw Assange, an Australian citizen, to the wolves. It refused to provide him any defense and declared it would work with the U.S. to have him detained and put on trial.
On June 19, 2012, under conditions in which he faced extradition to Sweden to answer questions over fabricated allegations of sexual assault, and the prospect of rendition to the United States, Assange sought asylum in the Ecuador’s embassy in London.
Since that time, for nearly six years, he has been largely confined to a small room with no direct sunlight. He has been prevented from leaving, even to obtain medical treatment, by the British government’s insistence it will arrest him for breaching bail as soon as he sets foot outside the embassy.
Silenced
Now, for six weeks and three days, he has been denied even the right to communicate.
Jennifer Robinson, the British-based Australian lawyer who has represented Assange since 2010, told the London Times in an interview this month: “His health situation is terrible. He’s had a problem with his shoulder for a very long time. It requires an MRI [magnetic resonance imaging scan], which cannot be done within the embassy. He’s got dental issues. And then there’s the long-term impact of not being outside, his visual impairment. He wouldn’t be able to see further than from here to the end of this hallway.”
The effort to haul Assange before a U.S. court is inseparable from the broader campaign underway by the American state and allied governments to impose sweeping censorship on the Internet. Lurid allegations of “Russian meddling” in the 2016 U.S. election and denunciations of “fake news” have been used to demand that Google, Facebook and other conglomerates block users from accessing websites that publish critical commentary and exposures of the ruling class and its agencies—including WikiLeaks, Consortium News and the World Socialist Web Site.
WikiLeaks has been absurdly denounced as “pro-Russia” because it published leaks from the U.S. Democratic Party National Committee that revealed the anti-democratic intrigues the party’s leaders carried out to undermine the campaign of Bernie Sanders in the 2016 presidential primary elections. It also published leaked speeches of presidential candidate Hillary Clinton that further exposed her intimate relations with Wall Street banks and companies.
As part of the justification for Internet censorship, U.S. intelligence agencies allege, without any evidence, that the information was hacked by Russian operatives and supplied to WikiLeaks to undermine Clinton and assist Trump—whom Moscow purportedly considered the “lesser evil.”
In response to the hysterical allegations, WikiLeaks broke its own tradition of not commenting on its sources. It publicly denied that Russia was the source of the leaks. That has not prevented the campaign from continuing, with Assange even being labelled “the Kremlin’s useful idiot” in pro-Democratic Party circles. WikiLeaks is blamed for Clinton’s defeat, not the reality, that tens of millions of American workers were repulsed by her right-wing, pro-war campaign and refused to vote for her.
Silence of Former Supporters
Corbyn: Mute on Assange.
Under conditions in which the Ecuadorian government has capitulated to great power pressure and is collaborating with British and U.S. agencies to break Assange, there is an almost universal and reprehensible silence on the part of dozens of organizations and hundreds of individuals who once claimed to defend him and WikiLeaks.
The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, which in February 2016 condemned Assange’s persecution as “a form of arbitrary detention” and called for his release, has issued no statement on his current situation.
In Britain, the Labour Party and its leader Jeremy Corbyn have said nothing on the actions by Ecuador. Nor have they opposed the determination of the Conservative government to arrest Assange if he leaves the embassy.
In Australia, the current Liberal-National government and Labor leadership are just as complicit. The Greens, which claimed to oppose the persecution of Assange, have not made any statement in Parliament or issued a press release, let alone called for public protests. Hundreds of editors, journalists, academics, artists and lawyers across the country who publicly defended WikiLeaks in 2010 and 2011 are now mute.
A parallel situation prevails across Europe and in the U.S.. The so-called parties of the “left” and the trade unions are all tacitly endorsing the vicious drive against Assange.
Around the world, pseudo-left organizations, anxious not to disrupt their sordid relations with the parties of the political establishment and the trade union apparatuses, are likewise silent.
If Assange is imprisoned or worse, and WikiLeaks shut down, it will be a serious blow to the democratic rights of the entire international working class.
A version of this article originally appeared on WSW.
James Cogan is the national secretary of the Socialist Equality Party Australia.
When Bernie was still running, Wikileaks claimed to have the leaks that they leaked. So I wondered why they did not leak. It wasn’t until after Bernie was finished that they did. So, if Assange is favoring Trump over Bernie, it make me wonder and pause. I doubt this is the reason for the silence, though.
I would suggest a people’s attempt to free Julian: Assemble a huge amount of people outside of the embassy. Assange leaves the embassy in disguise, shielded by the crowd. Assange melts in to the crowd while more people continue to join from cars and puplic transport. Assange escapes by jumping in to one of the cars. Suddenly the whole crowd dissolves and disappear, leaving the surveillance people desoriented and confused, unable to single out who they should follow.
Indy journalist Jamarl Thomas interviewed Elizabeth Lea Vos today on the subject of Julian Assange & Wikileaks developments:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QAjFeJ5LLZs
Also, Elizabeth Lea Vos, editor of Disobedient Media, has written an exposé of The Guardian’s recent smear of Julian Assange:
https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/05/the-guardian-publishes-smear-against-solitarily-confined-journalist-julian-assange/
Julian may go down but if I know him and his amazingly high IQ, it will not be without a BANG!
Sadly, I suspect the only noise you will get out of the American MSM is that of crickets chirping.
Progressives would like to lop off his head for the crime of not bending the knee at Queen Hillary’s coronation.
Even the guy who directly benefited from Wikileaks work in 2016 (Bernie) is too afraid to cross ‘The Resistance’ and come out in support of Assange.
If the US/UK get their way and he is arrested and taken to the the United States and imprisoned or worse…….
I pray there will be noise like the world has never heard before.
I am certain you are right…it is only the calm before the storm and if Julian is arrested it will be the final straw…we’re all just waiting for just one more good reason….
Julian Assange should be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. And any other prize going for courageous reporting of the truth about the abuse of power, in the face of lifelong persecution, death threats and threats of life imprisonment in solitary confinement. That is the only way to try to generate enough public concern to stop him being handed over to the UK/US police state in some sordid underhand deal by Ecuador’s new US-backed regime. The only other way is for journalists to finally expose the truth about the Seth Rich story, whether he was murdered in his hospital bed after a successful operation for non-lethal gunshot wounds, in a room full of goons who prevented any medical staff attending to him. Surely it is not too great a task for American gumshoe journalists to track down the medical staff on duty that day, including the surgeon who operated on him? And it would be helpful if Assange would, before he dies or disappears into a black hole, drop his exaggerated principle of not naming sources even after they are dead. Especially when the Russia lie, which is universally pushed by MSM in the absence of his clear naming of Seth Rich as his source, is being used as a run-up to the 3rd World War.
We should just take the one given erroneously to Obama and give it to Julian; in fact, we already have for all intents and purposes…symbolically if you will.
Selling the Truthteller to the Liars. Fashion of the day. Unfortunately.
You do realize that the WikiLeaks vault 7 exposed the false attribution tools intelligence agencies use? It’s called umbrage.
Further information on what is happening to Assange: “Conspiracy emerges to push Julian Assange into British and US hands,” By Mike Head, 16 May 2018 at WSWS. https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/05/16/assa-m16.html
They spy on everything he does and everyone who visits him. And they’re still trying to connect the source of the leaked DNC emails to Trump and Russia.
Are the powers afraid of what Assange may yet reveal, and if so, is he tho only one who can reveal it?
500+ years and counting of the glorious “West” raping, pillaging and genociding the rest of the planet yet always agreeing on and sticking to one basic concept: “the truth of this shall never be spoken.” Assange committed the cardinal sin in the minds of Western elites, and he will never be forgiven for it. He dared to speak the truth (share the truths) about our absolutely corrupt completely amoral Western leaders and institutions. His courageous actions are of course “heresy” in the minds of the amoral psychopaths running the show. I just wonder if they realize that there are many many of us who do see and will see Julian as a martyr should the Western States continue to exact their absurd revenge for “truth telling.”
Has Julian Assange gotten out of limbo? This is a tweet from him from this morning. Unless his account has been spoofed.
https://mobile.twitter.com/JulianAssange/status/995973294590496769
It is stated on the tweet that JA’s account is run by his legal team.
I seem to recall when the MSM, the WPO, NYT among others, were quite willing to publish at least some of what Wikileaks had provided to them. I surmise that a brief exposure of some unpleasant truth such as the collateral damage video that Manning sent to Assange could give the MSM a veneer of progressiveness and sure as hell sell a lot of newspapers. A one off that would be acceptable. To his credit Julian Assange demanded the curtain be pulled back more than just an inch. Pull the curtain open from one end of the stage to the other. Show the world all the sordid details of corruption: MIC, NSA, CIA, Political Parties and their elections, all infused with corporation cash and bribes from KSA, and Qatar. Assange is great example of what an investigative journalist should be. Someone who could connect the dots and speak truth to power. I admire his courage in standing up to and confronting the vile US hegemony even though this came at cost to his health and safety. He has exposed the MSM and their propaganda narrative. They vilify him now that he shames them for their complicity and their cowardice. The road ahead for Julian looks grim. We can only hope he finds a way out of the BS. If there is a silver lining to the disaster its this: People all around the world wanted to hear what Assange and Wikileaks had to say even though the MSM has for some time refused to reprint or in any way cover the stories he was breaking. This has led many to begin to seek alternative media to get the truth. The cat is out of the bag. Many thanks to CN for the high quality of articles published on this website. Many thanks to the investigative journalists who write here. Many thanks to those who comment and leave very good source information.
I remember there used to be a permanent picket outside the South African embassy during the apartheid era. Why aren’t Julian’s supporters doing the same? This will shame both the UK and Ecuador.
Assange has no diamonds
here here “This has led many to begin to seek alternative media to get the truth. The cat is out of the bag. Many thanks to CN for the high quality of articles published on this website. Many thanks to the investigative journalists who write here. Many thanks to those who comment and leave very good source information.”
And I say hear hear..
Never trust any government anywhere ever. Those holding public office are gutless worms who spent their lives bending over for the pezzonovante pulling their strings.
Amazing how people such as those in the intercept ( scahill included with greenwald) have distanced themselves from him. I guess money got in the way and the corrupting power of the US have made us all comfortably numb. Assange will die and the world will let him and we brave warriors will move on
Anyone happen to know the details of what the “immense pressure from the British and U.S. governments” entails? The standard sanctions…? Curious. Thanks.
Economic sanctions would be my first guess. Total regime change would be another one. Countries that don’t do what we tell them to are not long for self determination.
The Honduran coup is another idea. If you want to continue to pretend that you are an individual country then you play by our rules.
I think that while the threat is obviously there, Lenín Moreno is proving to be a very willing accomplice to the U.S. in general (beyond just Assange), so I don’t believe they’ve actually had to turn the screws very much at all.
Some questions about this situation as it stands at the current time.
1) Julian’s most outspoken, stalwart and activist supporters are silent. I’m hoping they are very busy seeking to in some way affect the outcome positively for him.
2) The “deadman’s switch.” In the past, Assange spoke of a dead man’s switch that, if he were to be harmed or killed, would release a cache of substantial information about very powerful offices and entities. It is controlled by trusted allies who are geographically scattered. As I understood it, a set of “keys” (short numeric strings) would be published and the people would then use them release the data. That’s as much as I know about the procedure. It was intended as a kind of life insurance for Julian. Of course those who want him gone would be equally interested in preventing the release of the data.
3) I hope this one is far-fetched. A question has arisen in my mind about a video showing two well-known individuals doing something horrific. It seems to have popped up on the internet fairly recently and could be entirely fake (which I hope it is.) Now I’m wondering if it could have anything to do with the latest assault on Julian — such as a sample of what might be released by the dead man’s switch?
So much uncertainty. All best wishes for Julian and his active supporters.
S. Black, your comment gives me some hope. That is such a depressing article, yetI find it hard to believe that his friends are not working behind the scenes to do something positive. I would assume for example that his good friend Craig Murray will not and has not abandoned him. I think maybe the silence means that something is afoot. I’m glad to hear about the “deadmans’s switch” I hope its not apocryphal , but I hope there is more afoot that is helpful to Julian. I was appalled to hear what bad shape he is in physically. And I wish there were some way to help. Does anyone know of a link to donate money, or a link to sign a letter of support, or a letter of protest of his treatment?
I like someones comment about finally telling who his informant at the DNC really was. If it was the boy who was murdered, the shit will really hit the fan.
Ranney, I’m glad my comment gave you some hope. I’m feeling depressed about the whole thing at this point, for those who want to kill him are among the wealthiest, most powerful people alive — and they don’t have consciences.
As for donating, for several years Freedom of the Press Foundation had a donor page for Wikileaks but discontinued it when they felt it was no longer necessary, as they explain here: https://freedom.press/crowdfunding/stopping-financial-censorship/
They recommend going through this site: https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.html#04 and https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.nojs.html
There are several change.org petitions for Julian here: https://www.change.org/search?q=julian%20assange
There may be other donation pages and petitions out there, but these are the ones I’m aware of. If anyone knows of others, please post them. But of course, check each one out carefully first — for obvious reasons.
Most, but not all, who have been following these events believe Seth Rich was very likely the DNC leaker. Certainly Julian hinted as much in a televised interview back in 2016.
To donate money to Wikileaks and Assange:
(as of 1/2018 the Freedom of the Press Foundation no longer does this, says banks allow donations)
FPF stated 12/2017 “WikiLeaks now accepts online donations through the German non-profit Wau Holland”
To donate via Wau Hollande:
Go to https://www.wauland.de/en/donation.html
Select Project “Enduring freedom of information (Wikileaks)”
I donated via FPF last year but have not used WH yet.
Ranney, my reply was essentially the same as Sam F’s, but for some reason it has been put under moderation.
I’ve been wondering if he has already been removed from the embassy, but your reminder of his “deadman’s switch” gives me hope. Thank you.
What has been done to this brave man is reprehensible!
In the known history of human’s uncivilized-civilizations just who are the first ones to disappear? Who gets killed off? Take just the ‘modern’ era, the last, oh say 300 years and make a list of who goes first.
The ones who don’t follow the rules of totalitarian reality as dictated by whomever is in power be it a king or dictator or head of a religion or a wealthy corporate board of psychopaths. Different labels abound but all of them were and are right-wing nasty vicious examples of the worst our species has to offer.
These people kill anybody that doesn’t do exactly what they want and always have throughout our written history. Over and over again, same shit different decade/century/eon. Assange is by no means ignorant of that fact; he knew what he was risking as did every single person who ever spoke out against lies and tyranny. And most of those people, a gi-freaking-gantic majority, died horribly at the hands of these rulers or their puppets or their ‘patriotic’ believer mobs that are manipulated by those in power to destroy who and what the powerful want destroyed.
As a species, we just keep repeating the same history over and over again. Until that particular civilization crashes completely and the pattern starts up all over again.
The two differences this time is:
1) we’ve got weapons that will totally destroy our ecosystem right back to there only being microbes around deep ocean thermal vents. The mind sick rulers never had the power of nuclear weapons before. Who believes they won’t use them? Anyone?
2) We have unraveled the climate that allowed our species to build these 23 major civilizations the last 10,000 or so years to such an extent that there is pathetically little we can do to change the course of this train we’re on other than stand staring at the cellphone screen to check our FaceBlech likes while pretending it’ll all turn out well in the end like some dumb-ass Hollywood movie.
Not something to be proud of.
I’m currently reading Oliver Stone/Peter Kuznick’s ‘The Untold History of the United States’ that I picked up used at Powell’s Books (NEVER buy anything at Amazon EVER). It is like reading a summary of current events. I’m only on page 79, pre-WWII, and…whoever came up with the stupid ‘history never repeats’ crap didn’t pay attention.
Same actors involved, wall st banks, US military, industrialists and war material-making corporations, corrupt politicians, owners of the media, the wealthy, A complete repeat of 1930s US Fascism for profit. Most people I talk to, friends and family etc, have NO IDEA of the history of their own country. NONE. They are so consumed by the lies and the social pressure to conform to those lies that they cannot function without those lies.
And over and over I run into people like this Thomas Gilroy character, completely and thoroughly buried in the lies so deeply that they cannot even imagine what it would be like to think for themselves. One of those ‘believer patriotic mob’ personalities that will never get it. They can’t as they are mentally unable to assimilate new information.
Years ago I gave copies of Zinn’s People’s History of the US as a Winter Solstice present. Before that I gave copies of ‘Lies My Teacher Told Me.’ Other books were given, for years and years, and the last fifteen I’ve handed out used copies of ‘War is a Racket’ to kids of friends who then went ahead and joined the military anyway because there are no jobs that can get them out of their parent’s house.
I’m so tired of stupid I could scream which would do absolutely no good but might make me feel better.
Part of me doesn’t want to read anymore of this book. I was aware of quite a bit of what I have already read in the first 80 pages but this book puts even more info (and names names) into my head about the reality of then which is the reality of now. I know how this book turns out and we here talking on CN know pretty much how the book being written right now will probably turn out.
Not well.
I won’t say good luck as it’s not appropriate.
sealintheSelkirks
What you say is quite true. You might gift your clueless friends with Paul Street’s article (above on CN) – it’s short enough they might actually get through it. You can console yourself, as I do, that we have not yet found a short cut to the incisive self and culture critique necessary to birth a new consciousness. It always takes a long process to flush out all the crap we have absorbed from years in this culture. It helps to start early as I and others did, due to being unable to stomach the abuse our culture served up as our “education”. By the time my country prevailed on me to go try and kill some Koreans, I was able to say “F you!” loud and clear.
Thank you for venting, Seal! I feel the same. Made me feel slightly better to read your post. No, I’m not crazy–and I’m not alone.
Thanks CN for publishing this fine piece by Mr.Cogan. I am worried about J. Assange. What can we do?
“(NEVER buy anything at Amazon EVER)”
D’ accordo. They are on a long list
I like how everyone tries to lionize the Manning/Assange debacle. Assange released the Embassy cables UNREDACTED, meaning he released the names of THOUSANDS of innocent people and placed their lives in danger. A quarter million cables spanning a decade? And none of them needed to see the light of day. NONE, NADA, ZIPPO! Why? Because there was nothing to see. People like priests in China and Syria, or aid workers in Africa who were simply mentioned in cables. Assange, Manning, Wikileaks, and the US government should all have their shirts sued off them.
This is a complete lie. How sad that this kind of comment adds to the already dangerous falsification of the work of Wikileaks, which has been used, as in the Guardian, then shamefully turned into trashy biographies like those of David Leigh, to downplay the value of Assange’s work.
Oh is it? Have you read the cables? I have.
And yet we haven’t heard that anyone died from the releases. “People shouldn’t be afraid of their government, the government should be afraid of its people.” V
“No governmental activity should hide in darkness. It should be allowed to live in the light.” Me
Do you also believe that the government should be allowed to spy on us in order to keep us safe? This goes against the kind of country that the founders wanted for us. I think that your anger is misplaced.
TYPICAL TROLL COMPLETE BULLSHIT.
So articulate. Such a compelling argument.
Mike’s statement works for me.
Accuate, concise and abrupt.
As a troll, you need to get and about to cleanse your BS.
Obviously you write anti-Syrian govt, pro-jihadi BS.
Otherwise why would you have included the statement that “people like priests in Syria” would be ‘outed’ and their lives threatened.
Christians have been in Syria for ~2000 years, living peacefully. It’s only now, in the areas controlled by the jihadi groups are the priests lives threatened.
Mike and Abby, right on. If someone is mentioned in a cable of the U.S. gov’t as an “asset”, they deserve what they get. Julian Assange did what Trotsky did in the wake of WW1: After seizing the records of the capitalist foreign office in Russia, they made them public for the world to see. JA is a modern hero, and we should all stand by him.
Your claim is that WikiLeaks, having “released the names of THOUSANDS of innocent people,” has somehow “placed their lives in danger.” That’s quite a claim.
Maybe you could explain how being mentioned in government cables would put innocent people’s lives in danger.
Then, maybe you could substantiate your claim by citing examples of innocent people mentioned in the government cables released by WikiLeaks that have, as a result, found themselves in danger, and from whom.
This is false, jsinton. You are uninformed.
Assange enlisted the press to help disseminate the State Dept. cables. They chose to redact in some instances.
All of these cables were the lowest level of classified (to wit: top secret / secret / confidential). This is what Manning, as a very junior soldier, had access to.
What”s more, they are the property of the USA people. Our govt at work–and the USA govt notoriously overclassifies. We deserve to know what our govt is up to around the world. We’re paying for it.
Lastly, name one person harmed by the release of these cables. Other than Assange and Manning. I’ll wait.
Free Julian Assange.So true. Wikileaks has a history of telling the truth and that’s what’s needed in this sorry world. The public has a right to know the nefarious deeds of our misleaders and yes, we can handle the truth! It will set us free.
Your brain has been colonized.
Jim Garrison, 1967:
In a very real and terrifying sense, our Government is the CIA and the Pentagon, with Congress reduced to a debating society. Of course, you can’t spot this trend to fascism by casually looking around. You can’t look for such familiar signs as the swastika, because they won’t be there. We won’t build Dachaus and Auschwitzes; the clever manipulation of the mass media is creating a concentration camp of the mind that promises to be far more effective in keeping the populace in line. We’re not going to wake up one morning and suddenly find ourselves in gray uniforms goose-stepping off to work. But this isn’t the test. The test is: What happens to the individual who dissents? In Nazi Germany, he was physically destroyed; here, the process is more subtle, but the end results can be the same.
I’ve learned enough about the machinations of the CIA in the past year to know that this is no longer the dreamworld America I once believed in. The imperatives of the population explosion, which almost inevitably will lessen our belief in the sanctity of the individual human life, combined with the awesome power of the CIA and the defense establishment, seem destined to seal the fate of the America I knew as a child and bring us into a new Orwellian world where the citizen exists for the state and where raw power justifies any and every immoral act. I’ve always had a kind of knee-jerk trust in my Government’s basic integrity, whatever political blunders it may make. But I’ve come to realize that in Washington, deceiving and manipulating the public are viewed by some as the natural prerogatives of office. Huey Long once said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” I’m afraid, based on my own experience, that fascism will come to America in the name of national security.”
Bob in Portland – “Concentration camp of the mind” and “The citizen exists for the state” are very good descriptors of the current situation.
But I’ve got to say I like what Huey Long said, “Fascism will come to America in the name of anti-fascism.” Exactly what is happening. First, label your enemy a “fascist”, compare him to Hitler and Mussolini, and then accuse him of working and collaborating with a foreign hostile government. None of this has to resemble the truth and no facts need be given; just get the message out there. The bought-and-paid-for talking heads and print media are only too happy to oblige.
Once you’ve convinced a good proportion of the population that the new Hitler has arrived and their lives are in mortal danger, start shutting down any dissenting opinion outside of the media. Elicit the help of an army of eager anti-fascists, pay them if you have to. Have them shut down opposition speakers on university campuses, heavily protest their speech. Break windows and burn cars if you have to. Pose enough of a threat that future speakers are reluctant to speak out. Shut down meetings and conferences with copious amounts of violence. Have the signs read “Stop the Fascists!” or “Concentration camps are just around the corner”. The compliant media will report it all, making sure to report any retaliatory remarks or actions made by the other side, but never the actions that precipitated them.
Antifa is born. From nothing.
So, yes, I think Huey Long was a pretty insightful man.
Insofar as you have described Antifa: bullshit. Ann Coulter, who was shut down at UCB, has advocated the Zionist solution at the Mexico/U.S. border, that is, mass murder. Milo Y, who was also shut down at UCB, has outed undocumented immigrants to ICE and gays who prefer to keep their preference private. Both have advocated the complete suspension of civil liberties for those they oppose, yet want the “freedom” to oppress for themselves.
Antifa prevented fascists, that is, not MAGA hat wearers, but those who identify as “Identity Europa”, “Proud Boys”, “Traditionalist Workers’ Party”, the KKK, and others who openly call for stopping all socialist speech, increasing police violence against all disadvantaged groups, esp the black community, and explicitly against Jews, from speaking. Speaking for fascism – and it is just that – is part of organizing for it; and organizing for it is part of its crimes against humanity.
I watched Antifa on Aug 27 last year in Berkeley, and they defended free speech of the community against those determined to end it. If you think the “right” to organize for fascism is equivalent to the right to organize for socialism, after all history has taught us (and please, do not equate Stalinism with socialism), then you are part of the problem and I am not talking to you anyway. But for those who are tempted by these attacks on Antifa – like those of Diana Johnstone, who leads the attacks on them – you need to get a handle on what they really do and the historical lessons of allowing fascists the right to organize instead of assertively stopping them.
Congratulations. You learned a lot in a year, and learned it well enough to express it and share it. Thank you.
Thanks for this Bob–interesting. How remarkably prescient Garrison was! Taken from the Playboy Interview, 1967:
https://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?address=389×7643280&az=view_all
Full interview: http://www.jfklancer.com/Garrison4.html
Bob in Portland. It’s good to see you again. IIRC you were a member of DK? If so, we’d love for you to stop by and say “hey” to us on https://caucus99percent.com/diaries where many of us have landed. This is an open invitation to anyone who is interested in the 99% of us who are not the 1%. We are a non partisan website that covers various topics, but our biggest achievement is “The Evening Blues” a weekly gathering of the important issues that take place daily. Come visit the blue blog. Check us out. We’re always looking for people who enjoy articles such as the ones found here which joe includes frequently.
:)
It seems it is past time for Assange to reveal why he offered a reward for the arrest and conviction of the assassin of Seth Rich.
It would be a really nice parting gesture, if he must depart. I hope somehow he evades the nasties, but they are closing in. It might give them a bloody nose if he revealed Rich as his source.
This article does not even state that Ecuador has a new president, Lenin Moreno, who was VP to Rafael Correa, leftist populist president in the vein of Chavez and Morales; it was Correa who granted asylum to Assange. Moreno was actually kicked out of his party and is noted to be more pro business, less populist than Correa. Moreno has stated that Assange is an “inherited problem”. Mike Pompeo would love to get ahold of Assange, just as Clinton did.
And Ecuador is under ‘serious consideration’ for a month’s stint at UNSC Presidency, I understand. Wonder what kind of good turns, the kind that make profitable returns, this position affords the kind of person who would send Assange to ‘Guantanamo for journalists’. Maybe someone in Thailand would like to help out our CIA again.
This is a serious blow to the truth, much less democracy. It’s my understanding that WikiLeaks has never published any thing that was subsequently shown to be inauthentic. The axis of evil that is the US, Israel, Saudi Arabia, plus their client states, is doing their best to bring about a dystopian fascist hellscape.worldwide.
Our Rulers hate the truth.
They fear it. For it could destroy them.
The Iceland embassy is literally two blocks away. Is there anyway he can get there? Maybe run for it in broad daylight during peak tourist season?
At least you’re thinking! But the Brits are so afraid of Assange, they have a small army surrounding him. Public enemy number one – a guy who tells the truth!
Love this!
Maybe someone could spirit him out in a laundry cart, a la El Chapo?
A NATO member like Iceland would not be high on my list of likely candidates to resist the U.S. and U.K. in this matter.
During the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 Cardinal Mindszenty was granted political asylum by the United States embassy in Budapest where Mindszenty lived for fifteen years.
Then we reviled the USSR but now the tables have turned.
The US/UK/NATO are the vile fascist rogue entities of our time.
I wonder if Equador’s possible promotion in the UN and other potential financial benefits from the ruling powers have any bearing on their change in dealing with Assange?
The Mueller investigation has advanced far enough to determine that Russia did interfere in the US election. The Russian Troll Factory was indicted by Mueller for interference in the US election. The meeting at the Trump Tower was also about US sanctions and “dirt” in the form of emails on Hillary Clinton. Possibly, the same emails were released a short time later by WikiLeaks. There is little doubt that the Russian government was behind the campaign to elect Trump. Putin had a strong motive to elect Trump based on the campaign rhetoric of Trump.
Did Assange know that Russia was the source of the emails? Chances are very good that he did – and he may have conspired with the Russian government to release the emails to do maximum damage to HRC during he campaign. Assange has always maintained that the emails were leaked from an insider at the DNC – and has hinted strongly that Seth Rich was the source of the leaks. Julian even offered a reward for finding the killer(s) of Seth Rich giving the impression that Seth was the DNC leaker. WikiLeaks, of course, has never provided any real evidence that Seth was the leaker because WikiLeaks never names the source of stolen documents. Yet Seth is dead while US-Russian relations continue to deteriorate. At risk is a possible US-Russia nuclear confrontation. That would seem to be a good reason to name the source and clear Russia of the charges. Additionally, law enforcement has not connected Seth Rich to the DNC “hack” so at this juncture, connecting Seth Rich to the “hack” is little more than a conspiracy theory. There were potentially four diversions to prevent the identity of the (Russian) hackers from being revealed.
Julian Assange likely conspired with the Russian government (through RT) to help elect Donald Trump. Assange was hostile toward HRC. Assange has long been hostile to the US, in particular, and to the west, in general.
No, you are not correct. The emails were leaked by the DNC and someone gave them to Wikileaks. You have swallowed the government’s propaganda.
This has been proven, and the proof is available online. The DNC is the source of the leaks
Thomas Gilroy, you haven’t mentioned the yellowcake. US intelligence is not a reliable source of information, never has been. They leak what is favorable to them and lie about the rest.
Much of what is identified as Russian intelligence in the Russia-Trump psyop is actually Ukrainian intelligence. And just as CrowdStrike misidentified a Ukrainian-originated computer hack as Russian, so have many of the other details of this psyop been blamed on Russia when their sources and creators are abiding in the dark corners of US, British intelligence, etc. (Is that Novichok on your lapel?)
I have long had suspicions about Assange and Snowden in this vast psyop. Snowden’s “escape” to Russia suggests the old CIA false defector program used to insert Lee Harvey Oswald and others into the old Soviet Union in the late fifties. Oswald’s time in Minsk wasn’t about spying, it was about exposing double agents in the CIA, and later to implicate the USSR and Cuba in JFK’s assassination.
As far as RT’s part in electing Donald Trump by reporting news, I find it all laughable. Hillary Clinton lost because of a number of misplays. While she was the CIA’s choice she was a very bad choice. Aside from some hardcore supporters who see Clinton as somehow the icon of their belief system, her support was solely from the monied class. She entered the primaries as the least liked, least trusted Democratic candidate in polling history. She ran a lousy campaign, in part because she spent the last month of the campaign in New York City than across the Rust Belt, where state leaders warned her that her numbers were falling. If that was a misplay or not I do not know. What I do know is that the DNC, with the psyop and with the current crop of CIA candidates in the 2018 elections, has become the CIA’s go-to party in Washington, perhaps the only contest the Dems will win over the Republicans.
Please stop this ridiculous nonsense. The waste of time and energy by the whole US establishment for the last 18 months may explain why the USA is in the terrible state it is, Trump has not been stopped from his destructive acts and the “Democratic Party” has learned nothing and is fading in the polls.
Muellers investigation has been such a dud that he was wrestling in the gutter with porn stars
Mueller has found zero evidence of collusion but we do know that the FBI colluded with Hillary and changed the charges against her and helped pay for and use the Steele dossier to lie to the FISA court to illegally spy on Trump.A dossier created from rumors from top Russian government officials.
That’s treason and sedition bub
I was just thinking to myself today: consortium has (relatively) polite and knowledeable posters. There are exceptions though. Surely you can do better than “totally full of shit”?
Mike’s statement works for me.
Accurate, concise and abrupt.
All of your tired assertions, Thomas Gilroy, were debunked long ago. The so-called “Russian troll farm” that Mueller rather laughably indicted, for instance, is an Internet marketing agency.
The Trump Tower meeting was aborted by Jr. as soon as he realized the Russian lawyer had no dirt on Hillary and wanted to talk about Magnitsky sanctions that prevent Americans from adopting Russian babies.
“There is little doubt that the Russian government was behind the effort to elect Trump,” you say.
There is zero evidence.
Odd that you have so “little doubt” given that there is zero evidence for this claim. I have little doubt that you get your news / propaganda from CNN, MSNBC, NYT, WaPo.
Blah, blah, blah…..
Hillary Clinton lost, deservedly, because she was a horrible candidate, who showed no empathy with the people. Full stop. The person who risked their life to film her wobbling and being “assisted” (dragged) into her ambulance-in-disguise deserves a Medal of Freedom.
Agreed.
Does anyone remember when this came out? (6 mins, 22 secs)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hl4NlA97GeQ
Although this was meant to be funny at the time (the situation now is not),
there is more truth in that six minute video than can be obtained anywhere
else, regarding Assange,Hillary, Wikileaks & Australia… etc.
Worth watching if you have not seen it.
Thank you!!
If there are any future historians of the rise and fall of the American Empire, the Assange affair will be a chapter in their histories, that describes the death of all respect for truth in the collapsing society of America. Telling how America continued the same doomed project of Nazi Germany with slight changes in the words they used to describe themselves. Ironically the Jews who were persecuted by the Nazis played a leading role in perpetrating the same atrocities on others that had been done to them; the victims smoothly morphing into the newly minted perpetrators.
Julian Assange needs our help.There’s plenty we can do! His heroic work revealing the war crimes of America and corruption and duplicity of western countries, has attracted the fury of America, with a warrant for his arrest out since 2010. For 7 years, he found protection from arrest in the UK by living in Ecuador’s embassy in London. His health is suffering, and the past few weeks his situation is deteriorating, having been cut off from internet, phone and prevented from receiving visitors. Ecuador appears to be preparing to hand him over to the great cowardly bully America after heavy pressure from the UK and US. We can help! We can write to governments, embassies, newspapers. Shout, make as much noise as possible, outside US, British embassies and anywhere relevant.. Don’t give up! – kay – Wellington, New Zealand
I’ll write a decent letter. Can you recommend a newspaper that will publish it?
I suggest avoiding any online comments sections that are screened by Disquis. I seem to get blocked by them and the people running the websites have no reason why.
With the retributions that Washington is prepared to throw at any uncooperative country, I don’t think Assange can be kept from their clutches forever. Ecuador will either turn him over or he will default to Washington’s control in a medical emergency.
Very few countries, like Russia or China, could shield him as Snowden has been protected, but it is not in their interests to do so and the price would be astronomical, even if they could make a deal for him. Washington could nab him at will from weaker countries, including Ecuador, even if he could get out of Britain. If the Snowden episode were to be replayed today, you can bet that Washington would put some major screws on Russia to get him back. It’s just that Russia was not yet a target of furious American aggression yet back then.
It is a major injustice, but Assange will be lucky to avoid torture, an execution, or a “hit” by our spooks once he walks out of that embassy. The fiends in Washington will gloat over his many decades of incarceration in some place like Guantanamo. He is a symbolic target for the death cult that presently rules America.
With the Congress reportedly drafting legislation to give the president free rein to unilaterally declare war and the power to indefinitely incarcerate any citizen who exercises free speech in protestation, as discussed in an article appearing on 13 May by Majorie Cohn in this blog, a person confronted with the charges against Assange will receive absolutely no rights and no due process, as you would expect from any dictatorship. The most that freedom-loving people can do for him is to constantly decry the injustice of his situation in the world arena and accuse Washington of making him a martyr, as the world did for Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and Andrei Sakharov. The American government will eventually become synonymous with tyrannical oppression, if it is not already.
I seem to recall candidate Hillary claiming Assange was Russian, and she remarked to how we should kill him with a drone (I’m paraphrasing a bit). Joe
Indeed, Hillary Clinton did identify Assange as a Russian agent (From AP 16 Oct 17):
“Clinton told Australian Broadcasting Corp. in an interview broadcast on Monday that the Australian whistleblower had “become a kind of nihilistic opportunist who does the bidding of a dictator,” Russian President Vladimir Putin.
“He’s a tool of Russian intelligence, and if he’s such a … martyr of free speech, why doesn’t WikiLeaks ever publish anything coming out of Russia?” she said.”
However, it was not she who suggested droning him, that would be Jon Levine (from Mediaite 5 Jun 17):
“Assange should be given an ultimatum, say 48 hours, to surrender to British authorities, or face a drone strike.”
“If you accept the premise that drone attacks are appropriate in some situations where it is impossible to apprehend suspected terrorists, then a proposed drone attack against Assange seems permissible,” Robert Precht, a former public defender told Mediaite. “Giving the option of surrendering or being attacked actually seems generous.”
I assume that the Ecuadorian embassy and personnel would be considered incidental collateral damage. These people really do believe that they are permitted to do anything in pursuit of their agenda.
Yeah right now they are helping to move their agenda big time to rewrite history in the disputed Middle East. To bad Assange is missing, whereas he could have exposed the lying and hypocrisy of making Jerusalem Israel’s capital… imagine emails between Haley and Adelson, or something like that. Watching the Zionist ceremonies in Jerusalem all the while Palestinians are being murdered says a whole lot of how terribly troubling this event is, and where the lying is in full view, but there again the MSM is lame with its perspectives of reporting the truth. Joe
Thanks.
So a news organization publishes a sources material, which is factual. The source and news organization go to great lengths to ensure it does not jeopardize national security of the state involved.The news organization is guilty of espionage and no one cares. how is this different than seymour hersh or the nyt publishing the pentagon papers. welcome to dystopia.
The Guardian, the NYT and other major newspapers gladly published material provided by Wikileaks starting back around 2006 (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_material_published_by_WikiLeaks) because it was considered investigative journalism of facts the public had a right to know.
In 2010, the Guardian rigorously defended its right to do so (https://www.theguardian.com/media/greenslade/2010/jul/26/press-freedom-wikileaks).
Yet, today, the same Guardian wants to safeguard the public from classified intelligence generated by the government (or is it really the other way around?) and calls for Julian Assange to turn himself in to face “justice.” The NYT has been even bigger hypocrites on the issue.
You see, what happened in the interim while no one was paying attention was a complete and far-reaching coup de etat in the entire Western Empire controlled from Washington. The forces of free and open, democratic government which defends human rights and strives to tell something approximating the truth was silently defeated and cast aside to be replaced by an oppressive militarism in which might makes right and anything is permitted to serve the agenda of the state run by people behind the scenes whom you do not need to know. The seeds of the transformation were visible in hindsight under Slick Willy, but came into full flower under Dumbya and Obomber. Now it is etched in stone under Trump who often seems to be just a bystander in the decision-making process, but the worst is that rather few seem to know this or even care about it. Too busy working three jobs, watching prime-time television or farting with their digital devices, I suppose.
My first reaction to the World Trade Tower incident, as it was happening was “This is the Death of Dissent.”
Realist –
“The seeds of the transformation were visible in hindsight under Slick Willy, but came into full flower under Dumbya and Obomber. Now it is etched in stone under Trump who often seems to be just a bystander in the decision-making process, but the worst is that rather few seem to know this or even care about it. Too busy working three jobs, watching prime-time television or farting with their digital devices, I suppose.”
Yes, you are right. Obomber , the smooth operator, with the help of his African heritage turned out to be even more destructive than the others as he put the so called liberals, antiwar crowd to eternal sleep. And now, it is not only the people busy working three jobs only who do not seem to care, those who are retired, and have time have no clue and believe in everything the government and MSM tells them. It is same in our home. My wife right now is watching “The Royal Romance” on TV – about this prince Harry and his fiancee, and is waiting anxiously to watch the upcoming wedding. This ‘Downton Abbey’ drama has been watched many times over in our house. I don’t watch these British dramas, and I am accused of being anti-British. It is the same with our liberal retired social friends we have; watching these dramas and of course watching MSNBC, CNN.
The chosen people who run the Media, and produce Movies and TV entertainment are exceptionally gifted in this psychological art – hypnotizing the population to make them believe in whatever they want them to believe in. It seems to me that most of the population has been completely brainwashed, and it is not going to be easy to deprogramme them.
1984 was 1948 transposed and showed the evil Israel would bring to the world.
He could never be tried in the United States without big trouble from the people.
Anastasia, you are deluded. Yes there would be some token protest but big trouble form the people?
It would probably be a secret trial in a secret location by a secret court. For national security.
Nailed it. Secret trial, for national security but of course. As police states do.
Anybody think we in the US are not living under a fascist government? Wake up Americans!
The corporate media will not mention him, and everyone else seems paralyzed.
Julian is an exceptionally honorable person. His personal strength and professional conduct have been impeccable.
His great sin was in pulling back the curtain to reveal the true nature of the powerful.
If they capture and harm him, I sincerely hope that the soul of humankind will be awakened and judgment will run down as waters, righteousness as a mighty stream. May justice come to them from every corner, and may they know it.
Follow your own advice take a look https://www.wikileaks.org/index.en.html or https://www.wikileaks.org/spyfiles/russia/.
Find another bingo card.
Another droll troll.
Pathetic. Israel keeps its secrets well. Wikileaks publishes what it is given-only the Yanks think their news is what matters. lots of other countries are exposed too, and always info they do not want public.
Unfortunately, Assange must not only make it out of England but also all the way to Ecuador. The precedence of bringing down Bolivian leader Evo Morales’ plane in a futile search for Ed Snowden a few years ago looms large over any escape scenario. But he will never make it out of England except as a prisoner being transferred to America.Documents released over the last year from Sweden established that the most determined party in seeking a reason to arrest Assange has been the UK government, which included direct pressure on a wavering Swedish justice system to not interview him at the Embassy.
Once in America, based on what happened to Manning, whatever the charges, Assange will be prevented from mounting a defence by legal maneuvering and judge’s decisions. There is not really a countervailing force which could prevent this. The resulting triumphalist glee at the destruction of this man will be a very very ugly episode in the history of humanity, and it will be the result of a rot embedded deep within our supposed liberal “rules-based” order.
Assange might not even get a trial. One of the Obama NDAAs made it so that the military can arrest people, hold them indefinitely without charges or have access to a lawyer. Habeous Corpus is no longer in effect in this country.
Whichever country detains him might not disclose that he has been arrested and people will just continue to believe that he is still in the Ecuador embassy. Poof! Just like that Assange has been disappeared. Of course this is an extreme probability, but with everything that he has done, does anyone think that this could not happen?
Notice that Yulia Scripal and her dad seem to have been spirited away by the British “authorities”, never to be released. I wonder can someone hide Julian under some protective clothing against nerve gas and transport him to safety. Are there no real spies in the UK-good ones, with humanity??
Assange’s situation is an injustice and a tragedy. Silence on the part of his supporters may in part be due to his own enforced silence. Until 3 days ago, I myself did not know what had happened to him. I only knew I hadn’t heard a word about him for some time. So thanks for informing us, James Cogan. I hope you don’t mind if I post your article on my website, to help spread the word.
He is an Australian citizen.
Why doesnt an Australian diplomat drive to the Ecuadorean Embassy
In an Australian consulate car under diplomatic impunity.
Rescue Julian, and fly him back home.
And refuse to allow him to be extradited for the crime of telling the truth.
Period. End of story.
But my guess is that the Aussies are gutless
The right wing of Australia apparently pretends to be afraid of China, because tyrants must have foreign enemies to pose as protectors and accuse their moral superiors of disloyalty. It could only be the threats and drills of the right wing that keeps the Chinese at bay, although the US lost in Vietnam without help from China.
We all know that China has an acute shortage of deserts and must covet those of northern Australia. They might at any time sweep aside a mere 300 million Muslims in Indonesia and occupy the whole region. At any instant they might seize all traffic through the straits of Malacca, so as to ruin their foreign trade.
Aussies must wonder why China hasn’t moved to take over Korea or Vietnam et al, the “dominoes” that were supposed to fall if the US didn’t kill millions for “democracy” there, but still stand. Or why it has never interfered with trade. Or why China would not have a Monroe Doctrine for its region, when the US has one in its region.
Excellent sarcastic comments, especially the last two paragraphs!
Because Australia is not really a country.
It is under the control of the British Crown.
Look back to the removal of the Gough Whitlam led government of Australia in 1975.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2008/apr/07/foreignpolicy.australia
http://www.news.com.au/national/politics/queen-made-scandalous-intervention-in-aussie-politics-says-researcher/news-story/802395e0c326e5dd45d9748fc70a49eb
Australia is a vassal State of America, another poodle in the dog pound of compliant Countries America has at its disposal & Aussie is willing to go along with whatever immoral action the US comes up with including involvement in fabricated wars of pillage & plunder of other Countries resources, anything goes with this lot? Australia just goes along with whatever “it’s told to do” by its dog leash handler the US Govt? Australia & America also share a common history of genocidal murder against its native inhabitants from the establishment of their respective Colonies & share a common suppression of this immoral history? The US attempted to wipeout Native American Indians & Australia tried to do the same with the Aborigine people!! Treatment of both native groups in the past & present is a national disgrace, that continues today in both America & Australia? Throwing one of their own Australian Citizens, such as Julian Assange, under the tyres of the US Bus is just a small price to pay too preserve this demented alliance as they have no qualms whatsoever as their been sticking it to the Aborigines for years? NZ used to be part of this ANZUS Military alliance but we were kicked out due to having a moral conscience & on becoming a Nuclear free Nation, banning all Nuclear weapons & Nuclear vessels from our shores? It’s is now called the ANUS alliance? How apt a name for two of the biggest A**hole Countries in the World! If Australia had any spine it would stand up to the US & demand the release of Julian Assange for his courageous actions but that will never happen as they are too gutless? My small Country of NZ, paid a Military isolation & economic price for making a moral stand against a Superpower & it’s nuclear weapons of destruction but Australia has never, ever done something like this? Gutless wonders we call them!
I hope that the Kiwi people still celebrate ANZAC Day. Ozzies, too, in case the Dingo Dogs in power receive tugs on their choke-collars from their Animal Rescuers.
Yes, yes, yes…come on Turnbull…..make history happen!!!!
Correct. It is disgraceful ever since Julia Gizzard(sic) the gutlessness of Australian governments on this “freedom” issue.
So Corbyn and hundreds of fair weather friends now find it politic to keep silent. Cowards all.
A few days ago in the UK parliament a Labour Mp stood up in a rage, foaming at the mouth and demanding of prime minister Mrs May that UK funding for the white helmets terrorist propaganda outfit would continue despite the news that the US was no longer continuing to fund this outfit. He got his assurance from Mrs May, who agreed with him that the white helmets terrorist outfit was doing a marvelous job. There was a cheer around the house from all sides at this news. I’m afraid that Assange can’t look to anyone in the UK parliament as none of them has a spine.
I believe much of our society’s indifference may be due to a huge surfeit of web information, combined with the greatly diminished lack of personal communication. Everything is seen or experienced as just another tweet or post. In most cases it is not fear of reprisals from MSM, but rather a lack of faith that one will be heard, noticed, or be able to make any difference.
I’m afraid that use of the internet has actually reduced the critical thinking skills of most of the population. I wonder if it’s a physical change to the brains of people who are constantly online and even sleep with their phones. Present company excluded of course!
It is an outrage to all civilization that Assange is imprisoned for exposing corruption of the US government.
Those responsible should be imprisoned for treason if they will not end this travesty.
The UK must immediately guarantee the freedom of Assange.
Ecuador will be heroes if they expose the US corruption.
I agree. The entire problem here is simple and is a direct affront to our sense of justice. A whistle blower publishing the files exposing the US military committing crimes and all we see is a six year vigil to smoke him out from his hiding spot so we can kill him. WTF? And all the rest of the other countries can do is sit on their hands and wait for the end. It must be a delicious and agonizingly pleasurable wait for his pursuers. Slow roasted on the spit and aged nicely with declining health and muscle atrophy that will make breaking his bones a lot easier. That crisp snapping of weak bones. Ahhhhh…… so satisfying to the torturers he will be handed over to. Perhaps Fox News can televise the handing over ceremony replete with black head sack and shackles as he is thrown off the deck of an aircraft carrier into an open missile silo on a sub which then launches him into the stratosphere with a starburst and fireworks display while Trump declares “Mission Accomplished” “Let this be a warning to anyone who thinks thy can go around telling the truth. You will be hunted to the ends of the Earth and we will wait forever if we have to and I do mean forever. We will not waver and we will not second guess ourselves.” “Then one day we will throw you truth telling ass off the end of a mighty ship where you will be launched into the heart of the sun. Amen.” “God Bless America.”
Allow me to add my two cents to yours and Sam’s excellent comments.
So when John Kiriakou exposes CIA torture programs who ends up going to jail? Not the torturers or their evil bosses, but the whistleblower. On top of that Kiriakou is portrayed as the traitor, while the MSM skims lightly over the details in such way as to allow the public to think that Kiriakou deserved his jail sentence.
Then we recently saw Ray McGovern get thrown to the floor, under the guise of his resisting his removal from the Senate hearing room, where a well documented torturer gets her hearing to become the next CIA Director. Where McGovern should have been invited to be on a panel to discuss Haspal’s confirmation, instead the 79 year old 29 year CIA veteran was wrestled to the ground by multiple capital police.
Funny how the release of the JFK Assassination documents went by the way side, isn’t it? Even more hilarious is we are suppose to believe the corrupted 911 Commission Report, as if any real investigation had ever been done to get to the truth.
We are living in a matrix of lies. Torturers guarantee that the Cover Up Story will prevail, as the public is better off to accept the lie of a tortured detainee than any citizen has a right to know the truth. The DC careerist plays the role of an opportunist who lies their way to the top, and is rewarded for doing so.
I feel for Julian Assange, for he may just be one of the greatest journalist of our time. If for nothing else Assange is a hero for his dedication to his getting out the truth to the world. Although the Zio-Masters may have silenced Assange their hard work at hiding the truth will be never done, as new Assange’s will rise to the occasion to report the truth. God bless you Julian for you have sacrificed a lot to help other humans gain access to what’s behind the curtain of doom.
I’m afraid, Joe, that men of the caliber of Assange are becoming as rare as hens teeth.
Yeah but your here John. Joe
Great comment Joe. I think this is one area that shows how Trump was either lying from the beginning, or he has had his “trip to the woodshed”. I remember him saying “I love Wikileaks” on the campaign trail, yet he chooses people like Jeff Sessions and Mike Pompeo to be on his team? I also suspect that other governments have not stood up for Assange not only out of fear of US reprisals, but also because they fear Wikileaks uncovering their own dirty laundry. It is a real shame and a crime that Julian Assange will most likely end up a martyr for truthful reporting. I wish the world’s citizens would rise up, but they are asleep, or worse- they are hypnotized.
Skip the biggest letdown over support for Assange is where’s the journalistic media? The whole media industry throughout the world should be making Assange’s absence front page news. Maybe it’s me, but outside of the alternative media hardly have I heard a word about Julian Assange disappearance. CNN ought to have that countdown clock in the right hand lower corner of the screen saying how many days and hours we haven’t seen him. I digress Skip. Joe
Joe-
I suspect the MSM is complicit in demonizing Assange because the MSM is nothing more than a propaganda tool for the Deep State, and Julian is “pulling back the curtain”. Bad dog!
p.s. Funny- I just noticed Sam F used the exact same analogy before I clicked “post comment”.
Skip great minds think alike. What you and Sam stated is even more proof to how our Western media is corporate controlled with a heavy sprinkling of Zionism somewhere within that lying mix to make it what it is… a propaganda mill. Outside of a small handful of websites, like the Consortium, we have no responsible free press… it’s all controlled by the people from behind the curtain. What makes Assange a breath of fresh air, is that he appears to be the real deal, and if he isn’t well he sure rattles the Establishments cage a bit for what that’s worth… doesn’t he? Joe
Skip Scott,
“I wish the world’s citizens would rise up, but they are asleep, or worse- they are hypnotized.”
The world’s citizens are not hypnotized. They are the subjects of a massive campaign by the commercial for profit “news” corporations to deprive American Citizens of the truth.
Their commercial interests are tied to the flood of dark money in politics in much the same way that the tobacco industry was effective in squashing information about tobacco health issues as long as they held the ability to flood the commercial media publications with cash.
The ability of the tobacco companies to silence debate on the negative health aspects of smoking was enabled by their advertising contributions to those news corporations which held purse strings tied to the bottom lines of the media. In effect the media were held as financial hostages to support big tobacco because big tobacco was funding their operations. Any attempt by the media to provide content contradictory to the financial interests of the tobacco companies was met by the threat of withdrawal of revenue by the tobacco companies which spent their profits lavishly on advertising which funded the commercial media. No editor could face the wrath of the Board for transgressions against the hand that fed the media.
Then the Federal Government severed the money ties by banning commercial advertising for tobacco and the purse strings which went along with the advertising evaporated. By banning tobacco advertisements. The media was now unchained from the tyranny of the tobacco companies and were free to report the negative health effects of smoking tobacco.
Fast forward to today:
We have a largely anti tobacco citizenry and there have been laws to tax tobacco, limit its free use in public spaces, make the tobacco companies liable for health issues etc.
This same formula needs to be applied to toxic dark money advertisements for political elections. They need to be banned and then the media corporations will be freed to report honestly about what a shit bag of corruption that is our government.
Elect leaders who want to end the era of dark money in politics. That way the economic purse strings will be severed and the news organizations will be free to report stories about government corruption.
This is going to be a fight.
CitizenOne, Joe, john, and Skip, Indeed we are living in a “matrix of lies” of government and mass media. The lies are told by the public to themselves, especially those rewarded to “lie their way to the top” and threaten those who tell the truth. The sell-out class who denounce whistleblowers, or torture suspects, seek to prove their loyalty by persecuting the enemy du jour of their tyrant masters.
The DC careerist is a troubling character to observe, always campaigning for himself, always aware of the party line he must claim and the party interest he must defend. Nothing could be further from his mind than the interests of democracy or of the people, a bit of decoration he throws on at the last minute only where necessary. They are gangsters serving the boss and nothing more.
History will finally reckon those who pulled away the curtain among the leaders of the age, however rare. Perhaps they will show future tyrants that those who destroyed our former democracy were at last exposed, and we hope, revealed as scoundrels forgotten except as synonyms for their misdeeds.
Well said Sam F.
“especially those rewarded to “lie their way to the top” and threaten those who tell the truth. The sell-out class who denounce whistleblowers, or torture suspects, seek to prove their loyalty by persecuting the enemy du jour of their tyrant masters.”
This “Sell-out class” are precisely the people who benefit from a system that rewards loyalty at any cost especially those having no honesty, integrity, morals, or a sense that the truth is more important than their station. Obsequious sycophants and toadies who whore their support for any means to seek promotion within the ranks are an ever present threat to justice and the rule of law.
These folks are on the right side of the law and it is extremely difficult to ferret them out and expose them since their behavior is cherished by the ruling class and they are protected by the power structure.
In this environment it is easy to see how even torture is supported by the people who see no obstacle such as morality too high a barrier for supporting injustice to smash the basic human rights we have inscribed in our Constitution written in the pain and suffering and blood of our original revolutionaries who bore the brunt of cruel and unusual punishment under our former oppressors and felt the sting of an overlord as it trampled their freedoms and rights in the pursuit of power and control.
Our national history is filled with the brave tales of those who fought against an infernal machine which placed no value on human rights and tortured and killed opposition leaders who stood in the way of economic serfdom imposed by a foreign power.
The cautionary tale for the “Sell-out class” is that that same system of malfeasant governance resulted in a bloody uprising which eventually overthrew that system of tyranny.
Today we are being programmed to accept that torture is an acceptable official policy and that we will gain control of the situation through the means of cruel and unusual punishment for those who oppose our system of government. That is a dangerous course and especially when it involves those who have only tried to tell the truth about the unjustifiable actions which take place when the “Sell-out class” seeking power decides that honesty, integrity and morality are dispensable as they seek power at any cost.
This is not what we were educated in as we studied the history of our nation in school and the system of laws that came out of the forming of our Constitution and the rights it endowed on We the People. This crushing of truth tellers is a new interpretation of history which holds the same values of the distant past regime which we rebelled against. So it is a cautionary tale for us. If we follow the course we are on with persecution of truth tellers we may get away with it for a while but the long road into the future will be filled with the tragic deeds and injustices of our own doing which will grow in egregiousness until they become obviously wrong to a majority and we will reject them as abhorrent to a free society.
Unfortunately that road will be filled with injustice and inhuman cruelty.
So let us recognize it for what it is right now and try to avoid a long road to a hard learned understanding that the truth is more important than the lies our government and its toadies tries to thrust on us all and that we need to protect and defend the tellers of the truth against a corrupt government filled with sycophants and toadies who are only interested in their personal gains and who do not give a damn the fate of others right or wrong.
Julian Assange will only be the first casualty of the war against truth. There will be many others and it may come to pass that every citizen is faced with persecution for daring to speak the truth.
Lest we all suffer the same fate, we should condemn the governments universal zeal to punish those who dare to tell the truth.
So it was in former totalitarian governments like Nazi Germany. Joseph Goebbels said that “the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”
Just think about where that logic got the Nazis? It sounded great on paper like communism but in practice it got them beat in a war.
Let’s not repeat history. China and Russia are watching.
Very true; thank you.
Oh my God what a chilling scenario. What’s even worse is that it’s all too likely to happen.
Sam F – “Those responsible should be imprisoned for treason if they will not end this travesty. The UK must immediately guarantee the freedom of Assange.”
Yeah, enough already. He has already suffered more than enough punishment. Let him go.
Nobody should be buying any U.K. product. Boycott the crap out of them. See how THEY like prison.
Good idea: some courageous official or judge in UK should just sentence Assange to half of his present confinement and order the US to pay him the other half, after letting Ecuador or whomever spirit him to safety until Australia takes him back quietly. At the worst they could let Australia keep him under house arrest in Australia, perhaps with expenses to be paid by the US.
Common sense.
It would be a serious blow to democracy world wide, not merely of the working class.