Crime And Punishment.

     It may seem an odd question, "Should criminals be allowed to punish those who expose their crimes?", but in this crazy corporate/state world we live in, that is the question that is being debated. Another excellent article from Caitlin Johnstone, certainly well worth the time spent reading it in full.

      We’re Asking One Question In Assange’s Case: Should Journalists Be Punished For Exposing War Crimes?

By Caitlin Johnstone 

       This is a speech I gave yesterday at a demonstration for Assange with the Socialist Equality Party Australia.

      Tomorrow in the UK a judge will start the process of answering a very important question. It’s a question that many of us knew was the heart of this debate back in 2010, ten years ago, when this all started. It’s a question that they have been obfuscating, bloviating, huffily denying, smearing, gaslighting, and distracting from–basically doing anything they can to hide it from view. It’s a question that they don’t want the public to know that we are answering. A question that goes to the heart of democracy, and to the heart of the role of the fourth estate, journalism. And that question is this:
      Should journalists and publishers be punished for exposing US war crimes? And, ancillary to that question: should we allow them to be punished by the very people who committed those war crimes? Is that something that we want for our world, ongoing? Because our answer to this question is going to shape our society, our civilization, for generations to come. There is no coming back from this for a very long time should the answer be, “Yes! Yes, it’s fine, war criminals should go ahead and punish journalists for publishing true facts about their war crimes.”
      If we allow the answer to be yes, then we’re stuck with the endless stupid wars that everyone wants done with, from Melbourne to Kabul, from Sydney to Syria–right across the world people are done with these stupid wars for profit. Even the people like us who are very insulated from the effects of war want them over with, let alone the children of Pakistan who fear a sunny day because drones only fly in a blue sky, or the children of Syria whose country is being terrorized by “moderate rebels” armed and funded by the US war machine, or the starving children of Yemen who are being bombed constantly by munitions made in the good ol’ U S of A.
      No one wants war except those who make big bucks from it. It’s the most evil thing that humans are capable of. It is murder. It is theft. It is rape. It targets and traumatizes and displaces our planet’s most vulnerable populations. It destroys the environment. It leaves behind cancer-causing waste. It’s like as if the worst serial killer is going on the worst killing spree while dumping planet-killing chemicals behind him, but instead of running from the cops, he’s been given a trillion-dollar budget and immunity from prosecution. This is already happening. This is the world we have currently. The question that is being posed in Assange’s case is, should we be allowed to question this? Should we be allowed to expose it? Should we be allowed to stop it?
       Julian Assange’s case is a nexus point of where to next.
      I was thinking on the way over here what I would most like to say to Julian if I had the chance. If I could tell him anything right now it would be, “Rest now, mate. You’ve done all you can. We’ve got you. Let us take it from here.” Assange acted as a kind of lightning rod for all this bullshit for all those years, and through what they did to him, we saw their true face. We saw their true evil. We know what they are now, and we know how they do it, we’ve seen enough to know how they operate. And in the end it’s never about one man, it’s always about the movement. It’s our job now to stand up now and say as one “We do not consent”, and carry him out of there ourselves if we have to. This is where we’re at. We need to decide, do we evolve, or devolve? Do we pivot towards utopia, or dystopia?
      The persecution of Assange is so blatantly, obviously wrong that the only thing stopping people from seeing it is empire propaganda. You don’t have to be well-read. You don’t even have to be smart. You just have to have to have eyes that are unfiltered by narrative manipulation. Anyone with common sense and a beating heart in their chest can see this is wrong. Should journalists be tortured and imprisoned for life when they expose war crimes? The answer is not complicated. It’s obvious to anyone who hasn’t been propagandized out of their own clarity.
      Assange’s plight only looks complicated when you add on layers of narrative and verbiage. “Ah but Sweden stinky, stink man, hacker not a journalist! Mueller sexist Trump poop on the walls, Nazi Putin!” Without all the spin it’s very obvious he’s being torturously, unjustly persecuted. It really is an “emperor has no clothes” thing. The court propagandists fill our ears with fancy words about what a bad man Assange is, and why he must be dealt with, they’re trying to tell you that the emperor’s clothes are invisible to those aren’t educated. But the unpropagandized just yell “Hey! Why is the emperor ass-dick naked? Dude, I can see him! I can see his willy! ”
     This is why there are no counter protests here today. There are no regular, every day citizens taking to the streets with signs saying “Jail all the journalists! Endless war for all!” Some people still have strong feelings about Assange, but they’re just feelings, and you’ll find that it’s usually about only one or two of the smears, and if they turn and try to find evidence for the particular smears that have snagged them, they find nothing. That’s why Nils Melzer, the UN’s Special Rapporteur on torture, is such a courageous figure to me. When people first approached him to look in to Assange’s case, he was reluctant because he too had been affected by the smears. When he turned to the evidence though, he found no substance there.
       Because of his honorability, though, he felt through the embarrassment of being duped, and being wrong, he swallowed his pride and he changed course. And he very quickly became one of our most powerful allies in the fight to expose war crimes, expose propaganda, expose the modern-day mobbing and torture tactics used against Assange, and expose the precedent that Assange’s prosecution will set for journalists and publishers world wide. And you know what? I think the power behind his testimony comes from the fact that he realized that he had been duped, and if he, a very intelligent, well read, worldly, informed and educated person could be duped, then anyone can be.
      No one is immune. Human minds are hackable. We’re all very busy with our lives. We’re all kept busy by capitalism, and very few of us have the time to do what he did and sit down and take a look at the facts and assess them. And even if they did that, even fewer of them have had the courage of their convictions to put up with the social consequences of changing course. Being manipulated isn’t immoral, being a manipulator is. People feel ashamed when they’ve been conned, but it’s not their fault; it’s always the fault of the con man. That’s why fraud is the crime, and being defrauded is being a victim of that crime.
       In order for people to see this question that we’re asking ourselves–the question of whether journalists should be punished for exposing war crimes–clearly they have to admit that they have been victims of propaganda. It’s not their fault, but they will be embarrassed to admit it. This shame underpins a lot of reluctance to join us here today, so I think it’s important to outline. So when you’re talking to your friends and family, keep in mind that they’re hurting. They’re afraid of feeling the shame of having been duped, because in our crazy, ass-backwards culture, being duped is considered shameful while duping people just makes you a productive member of society.
     Be gentle with them. Reassure them that it’s not going to be the end of the world if they change their mind. In fact, it may be the end of the world if they don’t. That’s why I find Nils Melzer’s testimony to be so powerful: because it exposes the abusive nature of propaganda, and he modeled how to act when we find ourselves on the wrong side of the debate. His very existence gives me hope because it means that there are others like him waking up all over the world. Actually, I’ve seen it already myself. There’s a huge movement in Germany gaining traction supporting Assange. It was the prisoners of Belmarsh who organized three separate petitions and got Julian out of solitary (how’s that for grassroots activism?). Just on Friday Alan Jones posted a poll on Facebook that posed the question “should the Australian government do more to help Julian Assange and bring him home?”. Thousands of people answered and there was a 75 percent “Yes! Yes we should bring him home.” Underneath the poll there were hundreds of comments in support of Assange.
      So the tide is changing. Is it enough? I reckon it might be. But we have to keep pushing on it like our lives depend on it, because they do.

Viva Assange!      Thank you.

Visit ann arky's home at https://radicalglasgow.me.uk 

How Dare He Expose Their Brutal Corruption!!

      Because Julian Assange has, more or less, been dropped from that babbling brook of bullshit, our mainstream media, does not mean that all is well in his life. The main Western imperialist thugs, USA and UK still want him vilified and done to death, for his audacity, via Wikileaks, of exposing the brutal corruption of their power game. How dare he clear the smoke of illusion from their underhand dealings allowing the public to see their filthy, savage power game, a game played with people's lives.

      Six years locked indoors, refused a safe passage to a hospital for treatment for a persistent cough, probably brought on by his total lack of sunlight, is in any civilised language, torture.
Thanks Loam for the video link.

This from Consortium News:

        After nearly six years in exile holed up inside the Ecuadorian Embassy in the heart of London, Wikileaks founder and publishing visionary Julian Assange has suffered another body blow; Assange, who has been absolved of all accusations, has now been rendered incommunicado inside the tiny embassy in the Knightsbridge section of London.
       This latest attack on Assange, this shut down of crucial communication devices, obviously challenges Wikileaks publishing activities and undermines the crucial work of this incredibly important global news and publishing service.
       Meanwhile, the US and UK governments continue their drumbeat demonization of Assange, who has become part of their Russiagate frenzy towards a new Cold War and maybe World War III. Indeed, the US and UK continue to threaten him. In the US, some senators and the current CIA director [Mike Pompeo], about to become Secretary of State, want to see Assange tried for treason and put to a public death. They threaten to arrest Assange in violation of two UN rulings and their own laws, as soon as he walks out of the embassy.
        Change.org said in a statement they released, as a part of a petition in support of Assange, “It is with great concern that we learned that Julian Assange has lost access to the internet and the right to receive visitors at the Ecuadorian London Embassy. Only extraordinary pressure from the US and the Spanish governments can explain why Ecuador’s authorities should have taken such appalling steps in isolating Julian. We demand that Julian Assange’s isolation ends NOW!”
       In the following interviews with noted journalist and filmmaker John Pilger and Christine Assange, mother of the WikiLeaks founder, we attempt to shed some light on the crucial case of Julian Assange and why he should finally be freed from further prosecution so that he can continue unfettered the great work WikiLeaks has done as one of the most significant publishers of government whistleblowers in modern history.

Read the full article HERE:

Visit ann arky's home at radicalglasgow.me.uk

The Ever Threatening Presence Of Big Brother.

This information and appeal from OpenMedia:

      Now we know why the TPP Internet censorship plan has been kept so secret.

Wikileaks just made public secret documents that show how industry lobbyists are trying to impose an extreme Internet censorship scheme.1

We knew it was going to be bad. We knew it could mean that entire websites and families could be kicked off the Internet. We knew it could lock out the deaf and the blind.

But the TPP Internet censorship plan is even worse than we thought. The leaked documents reveal that:

• U.S. President Obama is trying to impose laws that would clamp down on free expression, compel your Internet service provider to track your Internet usage, and impose extreme penalties for everyday online activities.
• The TPP would create secret transnational Internet censorship courts. It could override national courts and national laws.2

      Yeah, it’s that bad. This leak could change everything -- but only if people know about it. We need to raise a loud public call at this unique moment:

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SHARE ON FACEBOOK NOW

PLEASE CLICK HERE TO SHARE ON TWITTER

THEN, SHARE THIS WEBPAGE WITH EVERYONE VIA EMAIL: https://openmedia.org/censorship

      The leaked documents have revealed that the United States government and lobbyists are nearly alone in pushing the most extreme parts of the TPP’s Internet censorship plan.3

    However, the leaked draft also lets us know which countries oppose these extreme new rules. And here’s the good news: many countries are pushing back.4

      The more voices we join together, the stronger the message we can send. It’s that simple. Your action today will make a difference.

Thank you. We can do this,

     Steve and Josh, on behalf of your OpenMedia.org team

P.S. If you’re still reading this, it means you care. This plan is worse than our worst fears. Your small team here at OpenMedia.org are working hard to make sure people know the truth about what’s going on. Can you do your part by chipping in what you can today towards our campaign?

 

Footnotes

[1] Secret Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement. Source: WikiLeaks

[2] How the TPP endangers access to knowledge, technology, and information. Source: Public Citizen.

[3] Leaked treaty is a Hollywood wishlist. Could it derail Obama’s trade agenda? Source: Washington Post.

[4] The Trans Pacific Partnership IP Chapter Leaks: Canada Pushing Back Against Draconian U.S. Demands. Source: Michael Geist.

Visit ann arky's home at www.radicalglasgow.me.uk

WIKILEAKS FOREVER.

For the latest on this go HERE.
This has to be kept alive, the outcome of this will play a large part in determining the shape of our future society. Will government be that of an open society or will it be a closed club for the chosen few from the rich and powerful, as I think it is at the moment. We are governed by consent we should withdraw that consent if those that we elect decide to govern in secret and persecute those who try to open that secret club up to public scrutiny. Your own freedom may well depend on the outcome of this affair.

ann arky's home.

WIKILEAKS = TRUTH = TREASON???

     
      It is a strange world where telling the truth is seen by many as treason. Some would have us believe that we shouldn't know all that goes on behind the closed doors in the corridors of power, well let's not forget, they are put in the corridors of power by the people to serve the people, who also fund their lifestyle. If that doesn't give us the right to know exactly what they say, do and who they do their deals with, then the rules of the game are rigged and should be changed.
       We are governed by consent, if those elected are not up to OUR standards then we should withdraw our consent. Without every detail we can never know the truth, so it is time we honoured our heroes, the whistle blowers, the prober, the investigative journalist, the rebel who pokes his nose in where they don't want him. Without them we are at the mercy of a bunch of deceiving political careerists, who in most cases are in bed with the corporate world to the benefit of themselves and that corporate world. Do we really believe that blind trust in a bunch of millionaires who are cozied up to the corporate/financial world will see them working hard for the benefit of the ordinary people??
      People like Assange are heroes, they know they are putting their liberty and possibly their lives on the line. They know that power corrupts and so should never be left to get on with things in an unscrutinised fashion. He is doing what we all should be doing, calling the political class to task. They are lifting the curtain on the devious world of politics, that you public fund but are not allowed to control or see.
       It is not that this will clean up governments, that's impossible, but putting that on display to the world might set people thinking of alternative ways of running our society, of which there are many.
 

 

 
ann arky's home.

WHY WIKILEAKS??

       The present time is one of total open corruption between the various governments and the corporate world. The discussions, arrangements, and back scratching, all for the benefit of that corporate world and its lackeys, the politicians, is so open and blatant that it is now deemed as normal. Anyone out there who still believes that, so called “representative democracy”, has anything to do with the welfare of the people, is living an illusion. Across the globe we are seeing a massive attack on the living standards of the ordinary people by governments, to save their friends in the banking casinos and the bond markets from losing some of their unearned wealth. We keep hearing about they are “too big to fail” but never that the welfare of the people is more important. Profit first, people anywhere down the scale that you can fit them in.

      The recent flood of Wikileaks is just lifting the curtain on the invisible world of corporatism and governments. The world that you and I are not meant to see or be part of in any shape or form. We live on the other side of the curtain and are meant to watch the authorised pantomime that the powers that be put on for our benefit. We are meant to live the illusion while they get on with the rape and plunder of our resources and all our public assets.

     If we want a better life for all our people then we have to remove the power structure that lurks behind that curtain. We have to bring an end to the political class, the state apparatus and the festering marriage between government and corporatism. We are no longer governed nationally but by international corporate bodies over which we have no control, they call the shots and dictate to the various governments what policies to implement. The people have to take control of society, power must lie at the grass roots level. Communities in control of their own communities, federated to all other communities, workers in control of their work places in federation with other workplaces and communities. Our society must be based on mutual aid that sees to the needs of all our people and not to the selfish, greedy desires of a bunch of parasitical shareholders and power hungry wealth seeking politicians. A society of co-operation based on sustainability freed from the profit motive.

The following is from Julian Assange's “State and Terrorist Conspiracies.”

      "Behind the ostensible government sits enthroned an invisible government owing no allegiance and acknowledging no responsibility to the people. To destroy this invisible government, to befoul this unholy alliance between corrupt business and corrupt politics is the first task of statesmanship." (President Theodore Roosevelt)

      To radically shift regime behavior we must think clearly and boldly for if we have learned anything, it is that regimes do not want to be changed. We must think beyond those who have gone before us, and discover technological changes that embolden us with ways to act in which our forebears could not.

      Firstly we must understand what aspect of government or neocorporatist behavior we wish to change or remove. Secondly we must develop a way of thinking about this behavior that is strong enough carry us through the mire of politically distorted language, and into a position of clarity. Finally must use these insights to inspire within us and others a course of ennobling, and effective action.

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