LF: The Empire Keeps Proving Assange Right About Everything

Title: The Empire Keeps Proving Assange Right About Everything
Source: Caitlin Johnstone, Rogue Journalist
URL Source: https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2018/1 ... ssange-right-about-everything/
Published: Nov 17, 2018
Author: Caitlin Johnstone
Post Date: 2018-11-19 09:48:50 by Deckard
Keywords: None
Views: 4078
Comments: 40

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has been charged under seal by the Trump administration. This has been revealed by a purportedly accidental copy-paste error in an unrelated court document which used Assange’s name, interestingly not long after it was reported to the Wall Street Journal that federal prosecutors “have considered publicly indicting Mr. Assange to try to trigger his removal from the embassy because a detailed explanation of the evidence could give Ecuadorean authorities reason to turn Assange over.”

Insider sources have reportedly confirmed to the Washington Post that Assange has been charged. Because those charges are sealed, it’s impossible to know what they are or how they’re being justified. If you ask #Resistance Twitter, it’s because it’s #MuellerTime and Assange is about to be arrested under some mysterious charges involving WikiLeaks’ publication of non-government, non-classified emails in 2016. If you ask QAnon cultists, it’s because Donald Trump is planning to extradite Assange so as to rescue him and deal a fatal blow to the Deep State. If you ask people who actually know what they’re talking about, however, it’s most likely for WikiLeaks’ Afghanistan and Iraq war logs and/or last year’s CIA leak publications, and most likely using the Espionage Act. This would constitute a deadly blow to press freedoms, and arguably a greater leap in the direction of Orwellian dystopia than the Patriot Act.

It also proves once again that Julian Assange was completely right.

I’ve had so, so many arguments with people this year about Assange’s publicly stated rationale for remaining in the Ecuadorian embassy, where he was granted political asylum by Ecuador’s previous government on the basis that the US was seeking his extradition. The refrain that he can “leave whenever he wants” is extremely common, with Assange’s detractors insisting that he’d never be arrested and extradited to the United States, and that he is instead hiding from (non-existent) Swedish rape charges. The narrative that Assange couldn’t possibly be hiding from the same government which tortured Chelsea Manning has been aggressively promulgated by mainstream outlets like the The Guardian, as in this article by James Ball from earlier this year titled “The only barrier to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador’s embassy is pride”, claiming that “The WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US.”

Ball’s article includes the following galaxy-brained excerpts:

“Visitors, like fish, stink in three days.”

“There is no public criminal case against Assange or WikiLeaks in the US, though Assange frequently says there is evidence of sealed indictments against him and his associates, and there have been publicly disclosed surveillance warrants against WikiLeaks staff, as well as FBI interest in Assange and his current and former co-workers (including me, as I worked with WikiLeaks for a few months in 2010 and 2011). There is no real reason to believe anything has changed with Assange’s situation in the US.”

“The problem for both sides is that neither wants to lose face: Assange wants to be a symbol of resistance against an overreaching US state, and does not want to admit his asylum was about his personal actions and not those of WikiLeaks. Ecuador does not want to suggest it made a mistake in granting Assange asylum.”

Ball was at best completely wrong, and at worst knowingly lying about the very real possibility of secret US charges. We know that the charges are from the US government, so they’ve got nothing to do with any rape or bail violation allegations. But the narrative that Assange is a stinky, stinky weirdo hiding in a cupboard has been so aggressively promulgated by imperial propagandists like Ball it’s (for me at least) literally impossible to talk about Assange’s plight on social media without some stranger coming up and spewing it all over the conversation.

And it’s no mystery why that is. The alternative to making Assange the creepy rapist hiding from justice would be to acknowledge the possibility of what we now know for certain: that a vast, sprawling superpower, with so many extremely tight alliances that it is effectively the center of a globe-spanning empire, is working to extradite an Australian journalist from an Ecuadorian embassy in the United Kingdom so that it can punish him for publishing facts. Much, much easier to have him be the stinky cupboard man than the center of an assault on speech with implications stretching to all future generations and every corner of the globe.

Julian Assange founded an innovative leak outlet on the premise that corrupt power can be fought with truth and transparency. Corrupt power responded by silencing, persecuting and smearing him. In so doing they succeeded in slowing down the leaks, minimizing the impact of publications, and nullifying Assange’s ability to defend himself, and in exchange they have publicly proved that his thesis was, and is, absolutely correct. There is a power establishment which uses lies and secrecy to manipulate and deceive us, and it hates having the light of truth shone upon it more than anything. We know that for certain now. There is no doubt whatsoever.

Julian Assange was never hiding from justice. Julian Assange is, and always has been, hiding from injustice. He has been proven right about his reasons for seeking political asylum from Ecuador, as he has been proven right about so very much before.

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If we really wanted him, we'd buy off Ecuadorean politicians and they'd expel him. We're leaving him twist in the wind of uncertainty, and letting the Ecuadoreans eat the dog's breakfast they bought themselves by having this irritant holed up in their embassy.

He has no life - he's already in prison - and Ecuador has to bear the public damage and the damage of sour relations with the US.

It is a strong public deterrent to others doing what he did, and for other countries letting an Assange type take refuge in their territories.

Never Pick A Fight With An Old Man He Will Just Shoot You He Can't Afford To Get Hurt

"If there are no dogs in Heaven, then when I die I want to go where they went." (Will Rogers)

"No one ever rescues an old dog. They lay in a cage until they die. PLEASE save one. None of us wants to die cold and alone... --Dennis Olson "

Dip-Shit Donnie, October 10, 2016: "This just came out. WikiLeaks! I love WikiLeaks!"

https://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/330052-wikileaks-reminds-trump- of-time-he-said-i-love-wikileaks

That doesn't mean that the conservative intelligence and military establishment love Wikileaks, and Trump loves them too. They hate Assange, and they are more important to Trump than Assange is.

Unfortunately, conspiring with hostile foreign government agents, and directing one's associates and family members to do the same, in an organized effort to deny the American people a fair and honest election

http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/Proof-of-Collusion/Seth- Abramson/9781982116088

Accusations of collusion do not collusion make. The fact of collusion doesn't make a difference as long as he can ride out the impeachment, which he can.

Vic, I know we are not in agreement on this point, but I'll still express my belief......

If Mr. Mueller has the proof, (which I believe he does since he has ALL of Mr. Cohen's documents pertaining to the president's organization and campaign)

and if he has sworn testimony from his lawyer, his campaign officials, members of his inner circle, and the CFO of his company ( which I believe he has)

There will be no impeachment - there will be an angry resignation followed by a very public storm of lawsuits, indictments, trials, settlements, and convictions.

IF Mr. Mueller has what Mr. Abramson believes that he does....the crimes will prove to be far more than conspiracy....

Jameson, what you see is an illusion. You have become trapped in a paradigm of such bitter hatred towards a man, Donald Trump, that your mind has created a fantasy scenario in which he is defeated.

You don't realize it, but you're doing the same thing the Southerners did when they seceded, and the Germans did when they bought into their ubermenschen racial theories: you're believing your own wishful thinking.

The South was destroyed. Germany was destroyed. Trump will neither be impeached nor resigned, and he will never be held accountable for the crimes you so firmly believe he has committed, just as Hillary and Bill Clinton will never be held accountable for the crimes I believe they have committed. It will never happen.

Trump may even win re-election. I can't tell you to stop hoping. I will tell you the truth: there is no Santa Claus.

The illusion is that this "man" represents the best interests of the people of the USA.

Look, Trump did the tired old Republican thing: slash taxes and regulations, run up the national credit card, and then rely on the artificial, temporary boom to gain tremendous popularity.

Reagan did it, and the run lasted for 7 years, ending with the S&L debacle and the 1987 stock market crash. In the afterglow of good times, HW Bush even got elected, but the people did not renew his term. The debt got worse, the middle class got poorer.

W did it. And once again, 7 years and change in, the economic collapsed. The debt got worse, the middle class got poorer.

Trump did the same shit, but there's less fat in the land now, less to burn through. So that market is crashing now, two years in.

The Republican get-rich-quick style hasn't worked three times in a row. They're not going to get a fourth bite at the apple.

People remember Clinton as having done a good job with the economy, and they remember slow and steady recovery under Obama, from the worst crisis of our lifetimes.

Republicans will wave their hands and say whatever they say, but nobody's buying that soap anymore. Republicans will change or their party will die.

Because I don't like Democrats and what they do, I try to tell Republicans what they need to do to take control of the future. They don't want to hear it. So they're going to rely on their ever-dwindling numbers and the Democrats are going to prevail in the end.

And I think that's too bad. I also think it's inevitable. My experience on LF has taught me that. This really is the face of rank-and-file Republicanism. It won't change because it can't. And it can't win if it doesn't. So it's doomed.

But you see, there will be no healing, because the opposite of the Republicans is not the Democrats. The Democrats are crappy in their own special way. They, too, are dominated by the rich. They have their own country club. The Republicans assemble religious rubes and rurals with guns as the base they use but do not help. The Democrats assemble the minorities and the union working class. They use them but do not help them.

The Republicans, by self-elimination, will hand the country over to the Democrats, who will represent the interests of the wealthy Democrat elite and throw just enough in sops (compared to the zero the Republicans will throw),

With a lock on power, the minorities and working class will languish under Democrat rule also. It will just be stable decadence, as opposed to the feel of bust and boom,

To bad no one takes seriously a clown who says that he is so special that God raised a rat and a lizard from the dead for him.

If you truly believe there is a dimes worth of difference between the policies both parties want the most, you really have zero clue how things work, even after all these years.

Cronyism is the system we have, and it’s BOTH parties. In fact, it’s the entire system of the world. They put different names to it, but it’s all the same.

The really poor countries have fewer partaking of the spoils, since there is less to skim, or outright steal. At your age, you should know this.

There are major differences between the policies of the two parties. And on balance, the Democrat position is more in keeping with what they actually try to do when they get power. The Republicans are malevolent in their souls - they love money too much - but they know they can’t win elections in a democracy if they tell the truth about what they will do with power. So Republicans lie continuously about their motivations. They have to to get elected. Democrats generally do what they say they’re going to do.

Example: Democrats promise national heath care for all, and they enacted it. They promise to keep it, and they have.

But Republicans said they were going to repeal it, got power, then didn’t. Democrats are honest about their goals. Republicans are perpetual liars.

They say they are for the children while holding a bloody scalpel that just murdered them.

You're a thief that is why you hate tax cuts. You like the government stealing it and doling it out after they pay some bureaucrats. You are more French then a real American.

That is where you'll hear the Dems tell the most lies and for some reason the independents (Charlie Browns) believe them, the gullibility is stunning.

My wife and daughter do. I've considered it - would do it if there were a reason to. Can't really think of a reason, though. I already have the right to work in France and, with my French green card, the EU, if I wanted to. I'm pretty content here in New England for now.

Given that my wife loves the big city, and I hate living in almost all big cities - New York is tolerable, if there's a reason to do it (like work), once I retire I'm probably going to have to move to a city to keep her happy. I've made a deal with her: I'll live in a city if it's Paris. Paris is a nice place to live.

I may take out French citizenship so that health care is easier when I'm retired and living over there. Also, so I can vote, not that it makes much difference in either country, really.

Abortion was put into place by the Republican Supreme Court. The Supreme Court has been Republican ever since. The Republicans have always had the power to stop it. They campaign on it, but they never do it.

Republicans have held power a lot more since 1973 than Democrats have. They have always held the Supreme Court. Under Bush and Trump they held both Houses of Congress and the Presidency.

You Republicans are the liars. You say you oppose abortion, in order to get the votes of idiots, and the idiots fall in line and vote. But you never do anything.

Democrats are honest. They support abortion rights because they view it as a women's rights issue. They don't claim to be pro-life and then do nothing. They claim to be pro-choice, promise to protect Roe v. Wade, and they do, to the extent of their power.

But they don't have any power to do anything about Roe, because that's a Supreme Court decision, and only the Supreme Court can do anything about that.

And Republicans have held the Supreme Court continuously since 1969. The Republicans put Roe v. Wade in place. They extended and strengthened Roe with Casey. All of these other bad decisions, like Kelo: Republicans.

You want to rage at Democrats, but this is simply because you don't understand things. You're a duped rube who votes for Republicans because you believe them. They lie to you every time, and you never wise up.

Democrats have been telling the truth about what they are all along. When elected, they doggedly try to do what they campaigned on.

I agree with the social welfare on which they campaign. Republicans say they don't, but they've held the whole government many times, and they have expanded the deficit every time and cut nothing important, ever.

So, Democrats tell the truth about what they are going to do. Republicans lie to get elected, then betray you. And then you come and yell at me about it, as though it were my fault.

You seem to have spent a lot of time you'll never get back writing pages and pages of angry diatribe at me.

God did raise a lizard and a mouse from the dead in my hands. That's true. It seems to drive you insane. You keep bringing it up.

Yep, if you wrote the laws that would be the rule. But you don't. People like me do, so I can be a dual citizen, and you can mewl and puke about it as much as you please: nobody cares. Your beliefs lose again.

No individual makes rules. Government does. Elected government, that represents the will of the majority of the people.

Look at how much of the government and the rules reflects what I think is better? Most of it. Not all, but most. Including the laws that allow dual citizenship. In the modern era, dual citizenship is a perfectly normal thing.

But, you're still living back there in the swamp, so you see it as bad and scary. And you use words like "traitorous" to really, really make the point you don't like it.

Ok, you don't like it. I do. And the law sides with me. So you lose. Objectively speaking, on this issue, you're a loser. You think it's wrong, I think it's right. And the law agrees with me. I win. You lose.

Now let's look at other issues. I'm mostly content with the social welfare state. You go bonkers when it's mentioned. We both pay taxes. You feel as though you're being robbed - it's all very much against your will. I see it as necessary, so it's in accordance with my will and what I want to see.

Once again, you lose, big time, and it costs you about a third of your income, all in, every year. You work, and a third of what you make goes to serving my moral imperatives. I'm trying to find one of your moral imperatives that I have to fund. Nope. can't think of any.

Which means that people like me rule, and people like you pay and serve. That makes me a winner. And you? A tax slave. Suck it up, buttercup. It's never getting better for you.

Well, you do get to die, and then find out that the Catholics were right all along.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him.

Therefore people like that are not to be trusted and are in fact not truly American.

Yes, he did, And he did so with distinction. He fell because he became crushed by debt trying to please his socialite wife, Peggy Shippen. Then he served the British and retired to England.

You didn't serve, but you would impose your cranky little values on the nation. The nation isn't interested. You lose.

So, you are not loyal to the United States, then? Your master is God, after all. At least you say so all the time.

Your God said you cannot serve two masters. God and the United States are two masters. So you can't serve them both.