THE ASSANGE ARREST IS A WARNING FROM HISTORY ...

Welcome to Wondercafe2!

A community where we discuss, share, and have some fun together. Join today and become a part of it!

Register Log in
Ritafee

Ritafee

Is Being Human
Assange Arrest.jpgThe glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years.

Assange's principal media tormentor, the Guardian, displayed its nervousness this week.

The Guardian has exploited the work of Assange and WikiLeaks in what its previous editor called ...
  • "the greatest scoop of the last 30 years".
The paper creamed off WikiLeaks' revelations and claimed the accolades and riches that came with them.

With not a penny going to Julian Assange or to WikiLeaks, a hyped Guardian book led to a lucrative Hollywood movie.

The Guardian's tone has now changed ...

"The Assange case is a morally tangled web," the paper opined. "He (Assange) believes in publishing things that should not be published.... But he has always shone a light on things that should never have been hidden."

These "things" are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars, the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders, the expose of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East, the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown, and much more.

If Assange is extradited to America for publishing what the Guardian calls truthful "things", what is to stop the current editor, Katherine Viner, following him, or the previous editor, Alan Rusbridger, or the prolific propagandist Luke Harding?

What is to stop the editors of the New York Times and the Washington Post, who also published morsels of the truth that originated with WikiLeaks, and the editor of El Pais in Spain, and Der Spiegel in Germany and the Sydney Morning Herald in Australia. The list is long.

David McCraw, lead lawyer of the New York Times, wrote:

"I think the prosecution [of Assange] would be a very, very bad precedent for publishers... from everything I know, he's sort of in a classic publisher's position and the law would have a very hard time distinguishing between the New York Times and WilLeaks."

Even if journalists who published WikiLeaks' leaks are not summoned by an American grand jury ...

Will the intimidation of Julian Assange and Chelsea Manning be enough?

Real journalism is being criminalized by thugs in plain sight. Real journalism is the enemy of these disgraces.

A decade ago, the Ministry of Defence in London produced a secret document which described the "principal threats" to public order as threefold: terrorists, Russian spies and investigative journalists. The latter was designated the major threat.

The document was duly leaked to WikiLeaks, which published it. "It's very simple" Assange said ...

"We had no choice. People have a right to know and a right to question and challenge power. That's true democracy."

In the 1970s, Pilger met Leni Reifenstahl, close friend of Adolf Hitler, whose films helped cast the Nazi spell over Germany.

The message in her films, the propaganda, was dependent not on "orders from above" ...
  • but on what she called the "submissive void" of the public.
"Did this submissive void include the liberal, educated bourgeoisie?" Pilger asked her. "Of course, especially the intelligentsia" ....
  • "When people no longer ask serious questions, they are submissive and malleable. Anything can happen."
The right to know and question and challenge is being taken away.

Seriously ...

Assange, Manning and other 'whistle blowers' are all being silenced.

... Do 'we the people' care?

THE ASSANGE ARREST IS A WARNING FROM HISTORY

THE ASSANGE ARREST IS A WARNING FROM HISTORY
johnpilger.com johnpilger.com
 
He is not being extradited for publishing. If he gets extradited it will be either or both a) to US on charges of computer hacking of DoD computers, with a max 5 yr sentence b) to Sweden for sex assault charges. Neither of those has anything to do with journalism. A journalist can print what they want but they can’t break into government computers to get what they want to print. Playing up the martyrdom is not helpful. He’s fortunate not to be charged with espionage. If that happens I will reconsider my opinion.
 
He should've gone to Sweden and faced those charges and no matter the outcome he would've been protected by their non extradition laws.

If Manning gave him the information, she was the whistleblower. As a journalist he cannot help her break into government computers to get it. That's beyond the purview of a journalist.
 
Light shines in the dark and the dark cannot put it out. Think of truth tellers facing the falsehood of the state in all times and places. They were imprisoned, tortured, killed, smeared in the media. Even so, the light in them continues to shine. Hopefully each day another person decides to let their little light shine. Pete Seeger noticed that 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 soon equals a million.
 
GeoFee said:
Light shines in the dark and the dark cannot put it out. Think of truth tellers facing the falsehood of the state in all times and places. They were imprisoned, tortured, killed, smeared in the media. Even so, the light in them continues to shine. Hopefully each day another person decides to let their little light shine. Pete Seeger noticed that 1 plus 1 plus 1 plus 1 soon equals a million.
Click to expand...
I do is think of that. I also think he's pretty much imprisoned himself for 7 yrs. initially it was to avoid facing sex assault charges in Sweden, where he would've been safe from extradition to the US on charges related to Wikileaks. There are a few different things going on, so he was not just somebody exposing falsehoods of the state.

And he's not being charged related to publishing, but of assisting in hacking a DoD computer. That's not part of a journalist's job. He could get a max of 5 yrs for that (and I think he could bargain a very reduced punishment).

I think he could get a reduced sentence, a light one, maybe in lieu of time served considering that he's been living under lockdown for 7 yrs. - if he were to be facing a long sentence or the death penalty my view would change.
 
Last edited:
Kimmio Laughterlove said:
I do is think of that. I also think he's pretty much imprisoned himself for 7 yrs. initially it was to avoid facing sex assault charges in Sweden, where he would've been safe from extradition to the US on charges related to Wikileaks. There are a few different things going on, so he was not just somebody exposing falsehoods of the state.

And he's not being charged related to publishing, but of assisting in hacking a DoD computer. That's not part of a journalist's job. He could get a max of 5 yrs for that (and I think he could bargain a very reduced punishment).

I think he could get a reduced sentence, a light one, maybe in lieu of time served considering that he's been living under lockdown for 7 yrs. - if he were to be facing a long sentence or the death penalty my view would change.
Click to expand...
I know very little about the facts of our time. My point of view notices how power works in history and where we are in the pattern of power just now. My hope is for the engagement of a new imagination specific to human meaning and purpose.
 
Assange is accountable for whatever damage he may have caused to democracy and justice, as well as whatever good he did for it. In his case there's probably some of both. I hope he is treated fairly with regard to all the charges.
 
There are hundreds, if not thousands, maybe millions, of people who are in prison, who shouldn't be. All but those who are dangerous violent offenders who are at risk of reoffending - I think reconciliation and rehabilitation, and not locking people up, is more just.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top