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Debt Rattle DayX 2024

Feb 202024
 
 February 20, 2024  Posted by at 9:45 am Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , ,  49 Responses »


Vincent van Gogh Lane near Arles 1888

 

• Julian Assange Judge Previously Acted For MI6 (Dec.UK)
• Brandon, Rotting in the (White) House (Kunstler)
• Democratic Lawmaker Urges Vote Against Biden (Sp.)
• Biden’s Lies On Top Of Lies On Top Of Lies (Victor Davis Hanson)
• US Threatens to Veto New Gaza Ceasefire Resolution at UNSC (Antiwar)
• A Nuclear Power Cannot Lose In War (Medvedev)
• Putin Is The New Climate Change (Marsden)
• Euromaidan Triggered Ukraine’s Nine-Year War on Donbass (Sp.)
• Ukraine Used US Chemical Weapons Against Russian Troops – MoD
• Helping Crimea Recover From Decades Of Ukrainian Misrule (Scott Ritter)
• About Navalny’s Death (Lubos Blaha)
• Germany Gives Timeframe For Possible Russian ‘Attack’ On NATO – Bloomberg (RT)
• Czech PM Labels Protesting Farmers ‘Supporters Of Moscow’ (RT)
• Houthis Attacked UK Ship in Gulf of Aden, Vessel Severely Damaged (Sp.)
• 2024 Is the Last Year of Free Speech and Democracy in the Western World (PCR)

 

 

 

 

RFK Assange

 

 

Ai Weiwei

 

 

Yanis Julian

 

 

Waters

 

 

Assange DDN

 

 

Hillary

 

 

Liz Cheney

 

 

Udo

 

 

 

 

Eric Trump

 

 

 

 

Craig Murray syas he’s at the courthouse, but doesn’t know if he can attend the hearing. Julian doesn’t know either if he can attend his own hearing.

• Julian Assange Judge Previously Acted For MI6 (Dec.UK)

One of the two High Court judges who will rule on Julian Assange’s bid to stop his extradition to the US represented the UK’s Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) and the Ministry of Defence, Declassified has found. Justice Jeremy Johnson has also been a specially vetted barrister, cleared by the UK authorities to access top secret information. Johnson will sit with Dame Victoria Sharp, his senior judge, to decide the fate of the WikiLeaks co-founder. If extradited, Assange faces a maximum sentence of 175 years. His persecution by the US authorities has been at the behest of Washington’s intelligence and security services, with whom the UK has deep relations. Assange’s journalistic career has been marked by exposing the dirty secrets of the US and UK national security establishments. He now faces a judge who has acted for, and received security clearance from, some of those same state agencies.

As with previous judges who have ruled on Assange’s case, this raises concerns about institutional conflicts of interest. Exactly how much Johnson has been paid for his work for government departments is not clear. Records show he was paid twice by the Government Legal Department for his services in 2018. The sum was over £55,000. Justice Johnson became a deputy High Court judge in 2016 and a full judge in 2019. His biography states he has been “often acting in cases involving the police and government departments”. As a barrister, in 2007 he represented MI6 as an observer during the inquests into the deaths of Princess Diana and Dodi Al Fayed. Johnson worked alongside Robin Tam QC, previously described by legal directories as a barrister who “does an enormous amount of often sensitive work” for the UK government.

Johnson was appointed to “sit in on the hearing” At the time, Foreign Office sources could not recall “a previous occasion when MI6 [had] appointed lawyers to an inquest”. MI6 was reportedly “so concerned by possible revelations” during the inquest that Johnson was appointed to “sit in on the hearing”. He reportedly received a brief from MI6 in advance of the inquest, and was tasked with providing “such assistance as the coroner may require”. Johnson has also represented the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) on at least two occasions. In 2013, he acted for the department during the high-profile Al-Sweady inquiry, which looked into allegations that “British soldiers torture and unlawfully killed Iraqi prisoners” in 2004. The MoD’s lawyers said the Iraqi allegations were a “product of lies” and that those making the claims “were guilty of a criminal conspiracy”.

Johnson argued there was “compelling and extensive and independent forensic evidence” to refute the case. The five-year inquiry, which cost around £25m, exonerated the British troops. Johnson also acted for the MoD in 2011, in an appeal case against Shaun Wood, a Royal Air Force (RAF) serviceman. Wood had the previous year won his case claiming compensation against the MoD, arguing his neurological condition akin to Parkinson’s disease was caused by exposure to organic solvents while serving in the RAF. The judge upheld Wood’s claim against the MoD, which had admitted a breach of duty but disputed that this had caused the damage claimed by him.

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“What have they got left? AI-contrived photos of Mr. Trump having sex with a manatee in the intercoastal waterway off Mar-a-Lago?”

• Brandon, Rotting in the (White) House (Kunstler)

We’re also informed in recent days by the Department of Justice that “Joe Biden” is not mentally competent to answer for anything in a court of law, should someone inquire into the signal irregularities emerging from the fugitive annals of his long career. Of course, “Joe Biden” running for reelection is one of the greatest gags ever put over on the American public. But more astounding yet is that half the country persists in pretending to believe it. They are egged on in every possible way by persons in high places of government fearful of going to prison if the Democratic Party loses its grip on the levers of power.

Since “Joe Biden” is not actually calling the shots, one naturally wonders who is responsible for all the dubious achievements of the past three years. I guess we’ll find out when Mr. Trump wins that election in November, an outcome increasingly guaranteed unless “Joe Biden” (or, let’s face it, our Intel Community) takes the final decisive step of bumping off the Golden Golem of Greatness. What have they got left? AI-contrived photos of Mr. Trump having sex with a manatee in the intercoastal waterway off Mar-a-Lago?

In New York City, the Woke lunatics did a victory dance after Judge Arthur Engoron, beaming his Joker smile, laid a $350-million fine on Mr. Trump for conducting a set of normal real estate transactions with a bank that profited from doing business with him. Many are still trying to figure out how that amounts to a crime of any sort. Don’t suppose that the check is in the mail, though. There is an appeals process that leads, you may be sure, to a dismissal of that inane judgment and the puerile hypotheticals that the case derived from. And, by and by, you also might expect a countersuit for malicious prosecution when all that smoke clears. New York Attorney General Letitia James, lacking impulse control, is for the moment enjoying the fulfillment of her campaign promise to “get Trump.” Waiting to see how much she enjoys losing her law license in the days to come.

Every reaction provokes an equal and opposite reaction, Newton’s Third Law states. It manifested shortly after Judge Engoron’s end zone dance when a call went out over the Internet for America’s truckers to refuse loads inbound to New York City. We’ll have to stand by to see how that develops. No more bok choy, Texas beef, or Meyer Lemons for you, “progressive” denizens of the Five Boroughs! Embrace the suck! The genius part is that, unlike the 2022 Canadian truckers’ action in Ottawa, the American truckers will not be cluttering up New York’s streets with their rigs, license plates on view, leaving them vulnerable to such pranks as the shutdown of their bank accounts. All they’ll do is sit innocently at home back in Kentucky and Missouri, enjoying a break from the rigors of the highway. Is that a crime? Arguably no more than doing a normal real estate deal in good faith with a willing lender was a crime.

The truckers have promised to include Washington DC next in their delivery boycott. The K-Street lobbying gang won’t be buying any influence for a while over platters of grilled branzino and Mariscos Molcajete. Maybe there will be a few Cliff Bars left in the Farragut Square 7-Eleven and they can do business in their cars. As for “Joe Biden,” his minders have probably laid in enough Ensure for a well-meaning elderly man with a poor memory to get by for a few weeks — until the magic moment when, alas, he must needs be thrown under the bus of expediency to keep their game going.

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“..Trump won Michigan in 2016 with a margin of just 10,700 votes; Michigan has an Arab American population of some 211,000..”

• Democratic Lawmaker Urges Vote Against Biden (Sp.)

In the latest example of opposition to US President Joe Biden from within his own party, Democratic Representative Rashida Tlaib publicly urged Michigan voters to oppose the president in the state’s primary election next week. Rep. Tlaib made the call Saturday in a video posted by the Listen to Michigan campaign on the X social media platform. Listen to Michigan is an organization of pro-Palestine activists in the state organizing opposition to Biden’s support for Israel’s deadly campaign in Gaza, which has killed some 29,000 people. “It is important as you all know to not only march against the genocide, [to] not only make sure that we’re calling our members of Congress and local electeds and passing city resolutions all throughout our country, it is also important to create a voting bloc – something that is a bullhorn to say ‘enough is enough,” said Tlaib, the first Palestinian American member of US Congress. “We don’t want a country that supports wars and bombs and destruction,” she added. “We want to support life. We want to stand up for every single life killed in Gaza.”

Tlaib and other activists are urging Democrats to vote “uncommitted” in the party’s presidential primary election next Tuesday rather than supporting Biden or any of his challengers. Activists portray the move as a show of opposition to the president’s handling of the Palestine-Israel crisis. Biden has attempted to express modest criticism of Israel through leaked statements to the press alleging consternation with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, but the US president has continued to back the country with the frequent provision of financial support and lethal aid. In December the Biden administration even bypassed Congress to rush an “emergency” arms shipment to Israel, with Secretary of State Antony Blinken affirming the move was necessary in response to an alleged imminent security threat to the United States.

Observers have noted Blinken could be impeached on perjury charges for the dubious claim, which is unlikely to generate opposition given the significant influence of AIPAC and other Zionist groups in US politics. “This is the way you can raise our voices,” Tlaib continued. “Don’t make us even more invisible. Right now we feel completely neglected and just unseen by our government. If you want us to be louder then come here and vote ‘uncommitted.’” Tlaib made the statement standing outside of an early voting location in Dearborn, a major hub of the Arab American community in Michigan. Pro-Palestine activists have warned Biden that his unrelenting support for Israel could cost him reelection in November, with Michigan representing a crucial swing state for the president. Former President Donald Trump won Michigan in 2016 with a margin of just 10,700 votes; Michigan has an Arab American population of some 211,000.

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X thread.

“Well apart from his cognitive decline, Biden himself is a pathological prevaricator.”

• Biden’s Lies On Top Of Lies On Top Of Lies (Victor Davis Hanson)

In the last week, Joe Biden had flat-out lied in the most egregious fashion in so many ways. In his disastrous press conference of last week, he claimed that special counsel Hur’s report exonerated him. Anyone who read the findings concluded exactly the opposite. According to Hur, Biden would have been indicted for his willfully unlawful removal of classified documents except for two reasons: one, the Department of Justice protocols apparently prohibit indicting a sitting president; and two, Biden suffers such cognitive decline that the special counsel believes a jury would more likely pity him into acquittal than convict him of what he is certainly guilty. He lied that Hur brought up his son’s death (“How in the hell dare he raise that?”).

In fact, Biden as is his serial wont, raised it, and does on a regular basis, usually deliberately and further lying that his son died while on military duty in Iraq (he died six years subsequently as a civilian in Walter Reed Hospital), and always contorting the death to enhance his own greater sense of grieving. He lied that he notified authorities when he discovered that he unlawfully had taken out classified documents to various residencies (perhaps for over some 30 plus years during his senatorial and Vice Presidential tenures). In fact, Biden only admitted that he had apparently for decades unlawfully removed classified files in 2017, to his ghostwriter in a recorded tape, and then he hid that fact and kept quiet for five years—until his administration’s special counsel began to investigate Trump for the same thing. Note the worried ghostwriter erased the tape of Biden’s confession as soon as he learned there was an appointment of a special counsel. (Destroy evidence much?)

He lied that the files bore no classification marks. In fact, they did and do. He lied that he kept the files safe in a secure location. In fact, the special counsel report includes several photographs of the Biden garage, in which there were sloppily stored, open, and torn boxes of classified documents amid a complete mess of junk. He lied that Trump’s once secure border is somehow responsible for Biden’s intentionally open border. He just lied that Trump caused the 2022 Putin invasion of Ukraine on Biden’s watch that never occurred on Trump’s. It is not enough that the Biden team must wildly lie daily that the non-compos-mentis President is dynamic, impressive in his recall and cognition, and stands out as the most astute mind in most of this meetings. Well apart from his cognitive decline, Biden himself is a pathological prevaricator.

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“The US has already used its veto power on the Security Council to veto two resolutions calling for an end to the onslaught..”

• US Threatens to Veto New Gaza Ceasefire Resolution at UNSC (Antiwar)

The US is threatening to veto a resolution calling for a ceasefire in Gaza at the UN Security Council as the US continues to provide political cover for the Israeli massacre of Palestinians. US Ambassador to the UN Linda Thomas-Greenfield said in a statement that if the resolution, which is being drafted by Algeria, was brought to a vote, it would not be adopted. Thomas-Greenfield justified US opposition to a ceasefire by pointing to US efforts to push for a new hostage deal between Israel and Hamas. However, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu vetoed hostage talks last week, and Qatar, the mediator of the negotiations, said Saturday that things were not looking “promising.” Thomas-Greenfield said Algeria’s resolution would “run counter” to US efforts on the hostage deal. “We have communicated this concern repeatedly to our colleagues on the Council.

For that reason, the United States does not support action on this draft resolution. Should it come up for a vote as drafted, it will not be adopted,” she said. The US has already used its veto power on the Security Council to veto two resolutions calling for an end to the onslaught. The Biden administration has also dismissed the International Court of Justice’s ruling that it’s “plausible” Israel is committing genocide and continues to provide unconditional military support for the slaughter. Thomas-Greenfield said the resolution would get in the way of US “diplomacy” related to pushing for a hostage deal. “It is critical that other parties give this process the best odds of succeeding, rather than push measures that put it — and the opportunity for an enduring resolution of hostilities — in jeopardy,” she said.

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X thread.

• A Nuclear Power Cannot Lose In War (Medvedev)

“Some time ago I wrote in my Telegram channel: “A nuclear power cannot lose in war.” Immediately, sniveling Anglo-American lackeys popped up with hysterical cries: “No, that’s not true at all, even the USA has lost wars.” This is an obvious lie. I wasn’t talking about Vietnam, Afghanistan, or dozens of other places where Americans waged colonial wars of conquest. I was writing about historical wars where defending one’s Homeland occurs. Defending one’s land, people, and values. These are the wars nuclear powers have never lost to anyone. Why am I writing about this again? Well, I’m reading the words of various Pistoriuses with shaps, and I’m thinking: are they really such idiots or are they just pretending? “The world cannot afford Russia’s victory in this war.” How so? Here’s how.

Okay. Let’s imagine for a moment that Russia lost, and “Ukraine with its allies” won. What would such a victory mean for our enemies – the neo-Nazis and their Western sponsors? Well, as it has been said many times, a return to the borders of 1991. That is, the direct and irreversible collapse of present-day Russia, which includes new territories according to the Constitution. And then a furious civil war with the final disappearance of our country from the world map. Tens of millions of victims. The death of our future. The collapse of everything in the world. And now the main question: do these idiots really believe that the Russian people will swallow such a division of their country? That we will all reason approximately like this: “Well, alas, it happened. They won. Present-day Russia has disappeared. It’s a pity, of course, but we have to continue living in a collapsing, dying country, because nuclear war is much scarier for us than the death of our loved ones, our children, our Russia…”? And in such a case, will the leadership of the state headed by the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces of the Russian Federation hesitate to make the most difficult decisions?

So here’s the thing. It will be completely different. The collapse of Russia will have much more terrifying consequences than the results of a normal, even the most protracted war. Because attempts to return Russia to the borders of 1991 will lead to only one thing. To a global war with Western countries using all the strategic arsenal of our state. Towards Kyiv, Berlin, London, Washington. Towards all the other beautiful historical places long targeted by our nuclear triad. Will we have the courage for this, if the disappearance of our thousand-year-old country, our great Motherland, is at stake, and the sacrifices made by the Russian people over the centuries will turn out to be in vain? The answer is obvious. So it’s better to let them return everything before it’s too late. Or we’ll take it back ourselves with maximum losses for the enemy. Like Avdeevka. Our warriors are heroes!”

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“..von der Leyen laments the Russian president’s attempt to “blackmail” Europe with fossil fuels while at the same time saying that whatever’s left of them can’t disappear fast enough. If that seems like a contradiction, it is.”

• Putin Is The New Climate Change (Marsden)

It’s hard to tell if she’s blaming him or crediting him, but European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told a meeting of the Paris-based Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) on February 13th that “[Russian President Vladimir] Putin’s attempt to blackmail our union has utterly failed. On the contrary, he really pushed the green transition.” [..]

Germany is the canary in the coal mine for the EU green transition, having gone all-in, and clearly wind and solar weren’t ready for prime time when the cheap Russian gas tap was effectively turned off – first through the EU’s own anti-Russian sanctions that complicated payment for sales, then when it was blown up altogether. This is why the German economy is taking a hit, with the country’s own national statistics office now qualifying the economic environment as “marked by multiple crises,” as last year’s GDP dropped by 0.3%, with high energy prices as one of the top contributing factors. If mighty gusts of wind could singlehandedly prevent German deindustrialization as industry bails to less fantasy-powered jurisdictions, then Queen Ursula’s speeches alone would have long since done the job. In this latest one, von der Leyen laments the Russian president’s attempt to “blackmail” Europe with fossil fuels while at the same time saying that whatever’s left of them can’t disappear fast enough. If that seems like a contradiction, it is.

The truth is that Putin just served as a convenient pretext for something that Brussels had long wanted to do anyway, but was prevented from doing because of how it feared the average EU citizen would react. It’s now obvious what the impact of the green transition is on inflation as energy costs have skyrocketed. If the EU had pulled a stunt like this by simply caving to Washington’s relentless insistence that it renege on Nord Stream pipeline gas, telling Europeans that it was pivoting to far pricier US liquified natural gas – at least until it could figure out how to use the basic elements of earth to live like a developed country using tactics from the Stone Age – people would have gone ballistic and wondered what the heck was really going on. Putin came along just in time to rescue the transition from the growing skepticism of the climate-change excuse, fueling popularity for the right-wing populist parties calling the Brussels establishment out for its use of it to manipulate citizens into compliance with their agenda.

What agenda, exactly? Profits, first and foremost. Ask the farmers currently protesting all across Europe against a heavy-handed Brussels bureaucracy put into place that increasingly controls their production using everything from climate change policies that put precious farmland into the state’s hands through buyouts of climate change policy offenders, to pro-Ukraine trade policies that crush domestic production in favor of Ukraine’s Western-backed corporate Big Farming, like Bayer, Monsanto, Cargill, and DuPont. When the Ukraine conflict went hot, Queen Ursula just substituted Putin for the climate-change excuse, then kept hammering the need to plough cash into renewable energy projects that just happen to be dominated by European and American big finance and their investors, like US defense contractor General Electric, Germany’s BASF, Shell, and BP. Von der Leyen dropped a hint herself that all this is about not wanting to share the pie outside of her coffee klatch.

“The old fossil fuel economy is all about dependencies. The new clean energy economy is all about inter-dependencies,” she said, pointing out that “clean energy can be produced anywhere.” And that means being able to keep the profits among your friends and supporters. Interesting that she used the term “inter-dependencies” rather than “independence.” You’d think that national sovereignty would be a good thing. But apparently not when it could mean a country being able to tell Brussels to bugger off. Both climate change and national security are profitable causes, first and foremost. They should just be honest about that rather than trying to hard-sell it with virtue-signaling and bogeymen. But it’s the increased authoritarianism to control emissions or the ubiquitous “Russian threat” by introducing policies and tools that can also be used to quash domestic dissent, that are even more troubling. And for Brussels that seems to be a nice bonus.

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“It all started back in 2004, when the first Maidan, dubbed the Orange Revolution, and [the West’s] interference in the presidential elections happened. I think at that moment everyone realized exactly what was happening.”

• Euromaidan Triggered Ukraine’s Nine-Year War on Donbass (Sp.)

The “Russian Spring” in Donbass was a grassroots movement that began when the Euromaidan protests were raging in Kiev, Alexander Matyushin, call sign “Varyag,” former commander of the “Varyag” detachment and war correspondent, told Sputnik. The protests started on November 21, 2013, with up to 2,000 protesters gathering in Kiev’s central square, Maidan Nezalezhnosti (Independence Square), after then-President Viktor Yanukovich refused to sign an EU association agreement. “Nikolai Azarov, Yanukovich’s closest aide and adviser, at the 11th hour calculated that switching to European standards would indebt Ukraine at a scale one had never imagined,” Matyushin said. “The transition envisaged changing everything, starting from sockets to railway tracks, everything had to be rebuilt. [The Yanukovich government] concluded it was unprofitable and refused [to sign the agreement with the EU – Sputnik]. After that, students took to the streets and were dispersed by Berkut on camera, which caused a wave of indignation in Kiev. From that point Euromaidan started to gain momentum.”

“Historically, the southeast [of Ukraine] has always gravitated towards Russia,” Matyushin said. He recalled that in 1919, Vladimir Lenin, then head of the Soviet government, integrated Donbass into the Ukrainian Socialist Republic against the will of the region’s population. After the collapse of the USSR, the 1994 plebiscite in Donbass concerning the region’s federalization and making Russian a second official language was similarly ignored by the then-Ukrainian government. By the time of Euromaidan, the southeastern and northwestern parts of Ukraine had already been divided over the future of the country: the former sought to integrate with the EU, while the latter wanted to develop economic ties with Russia, according to Matyushin. “The southeast included the territories from Kharkov to Odessa, the so-called Novorossiya, along with Crimea. And separately, there was the northwest, where these Ukrainian [nationalist] tendencies were strong,” he said.

The split became especially visible in 2004, when the Western-backed Orange Revolution on Maidan square brought Viktor Yushchenko to power in Kiev, the war correspondent pointed out. “And all the economic vicissitudes starting from 2004, when there was a severance of relations [between Russia and Ukraine], i.e. the gas war, the sugar war, etc., hit Donbass very hard because its industries relied, in particular, on cheap Russian gas.” In 2005, the Yushchenko government unilaterally initiated a review of tariffs for the transit of Russian gas to Europe through the territory of Ukraine, which led to the termination of a long-term Russo-Ukrainian gas contract that had fixed the fuel price for Kiev at $50 per 1,000 cubic meters until 2010. The increase in gas price dealt a blow to Donbass, which “blamed the Western Ukraine protege Yushchenko” for the economic turndown, Matyushin noted.

Another driver for the split was the glorification of WW2-era Nazi collaborators by the Yushchenko government. Yushchenko openly praised the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists (OUN) and Ukrainian Insurgent Army (UPA)* responsible for the ethnic cleansing of Jews, Russians, Roma, and Poles during Nazi Germany’s occupation of Ukraine and granted the titles of Hero of Ukraine to OUN-UPA leaders Roman Shukhevych and Stepan Bandera in 2007 and 2010, respectively. He also declared Ukrainian NATO membership a priority in 2008. According to the war correspondent, over 10 years – from 2004 to 2014 – the ideological and political rift between western and eastern Ukraine deepened dramatically. The 2014 Euromaidan events became the catalyst for the final division, he underscored.

“We had understood from the very beginning that everything that happened on Maidan could not lead to anything good,” Maya, warrant officer and commander of the support platoon of the 1st Slavic Brigade, told Sputnik. “I think the majority [of Ukrainians] also knew and understood that the West was involved in this. It was not the first time that the West had interfered in the domestic affairs of our state. It all started back in 2004, when the first Maidan, dubbed the Orange Revolution, and [the West’s] interference in the presidential elections happened. I think at that moment everyone realized exactly what was happening.”

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Surprised?

• Ukraine Used US Chemical Weapons Against Russian Troops – MoD

Russia has recorded cases of Ukrainian troops using US chemical munitions during the special military operation, Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov, the head of the radiation, chemical and biological defense troops of the Russian armed forces, said on Monday. “During the special military operation, cases of US chemical weapons used by the armed forces of Ukraine were recorded,” Kirillov told a briefing The Ukraine military used US-made chemical grenades dropped from UAVs several times against the Russian armed forces in 2023, and this January, Ukrainian units used an unknown toxic chemical against the Russian troops, which led to burns, nausea and vomiting. “Ukraine, with the complicity of Western countries, does not limit itself to the use of non-lethal chemicals, actively using chemicals from the list. I would like to draw attention to the statement by representatives of the Ukraine armed forces about the availability of such compounds at their disposal, including analogues of the combat toxic substance Tabun, which is included in List 1 of the Convention [on the Prohibition of the Development, Production, Stockpiling and Use of Chemical Weapons and on their Destruction],” Kirillov said.

The head of the Kherson region administration, Saldo, was poisoned with ricin in August 2022, the substance was detected in biomedical samples, the head of the Russian Chemical Defense Forces, Kirillov, has said. The head of the Lugansk People Republic Leonid Pasechnik in December 2023 received a severe poisoning with phenolic compounds, said the head of the RHBZ troops Kirillov. Before that, Pasechnik’s poisoning had not been reported. The Russian Defense Ministry reported on the facts of the use of poisonous substances by the Ukrainian military:
• On August 19, 2022, a toxic chemical, an analog of the warfare poisoning agent “Bi-Zet,” was used.
• A similar substance was found on January 28, 2024, during operational-search activities in a cache in Melitopol. It was in vials labeled “Biosporin”.
• On February 8 and 16, 2023, cases of using hydrocyanic acid with drones were registered.
• On January 31, 2024, the Ukrainian Armed Forces used an unknown toxic chemical that caused burns. Analysis showed the presence of a compound known as anthraquinone.
• On December 28, 2023, American-made gas grenades loaded with a substance called “CS” capable of causing skin burns and respiratory paralysis were dropped in the area of Krasny Liman.
• On June 15, 2023, a drone carrying a plastic container with a mixture of chloroacetophenone and chloropicrin was used against Russian troops near Rabotino.

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“Ukraine effectively destroyed Crimea’s agricultural industry..”

• Helping Crimea Recover From Decades Of Ukrainian Misrule (Scott Ritter)

As the Russian military operation against Ukraine approaches its third year, the focus on the ongoing conflict has allowed another anniversary to go relatively unnoticed – it’s now around ten years since the violent events in Kiev’s Maidan square that put in motion the circumstances which precipitated the current conflict. Over the course of five days, from February 18 to 23, 2014, neo-Nazi provocateurs from the Svoboda (All Ukrainian Union ‘Freedom’) Party and the Right Sector, a coalition of far-right Ukrainian nationalists who follow the political teachings of Stepan Bandera and the Organization of Ukrainian Nationalists, engaged in targeted violence against the government of President Viktor Yanukovich. It was designed to remove him from power and replace him with a new, US-backed government. They were successful; Yanukovich fled to Russia on February 23, 2014.

Soon thereafter, the predominantly Russian-speaking population of Crimea undertook actions to separate from the new Ukrainian nationalist government in Kiev. On March 16, 2014, the Autonomous Republic of Crimea and the city of Sevastopol, both of which at that time were legally considered to be part of Ukraine, held a referendum on whether to join Russia or remain part of Ukraine. Over 97% of the votes cast were in favor of joining Russia. Five days later, on March 21, Crimea formally became part of the Russian Federation. Shortly afterwards, Ukraine built a concrete dam on the North Crimean Canal, a Soviet-era conduit transporting water from the Dnieper River that provided around 85% of the peninsula’s water supply. In doing so, Ukraine effectively destroyed Crimea’s agricultural industry. Then, in November 2015, Ukrainian nationalists blew up pylons carrying power lines from Ukraine to Crimea, thrusting the peninsula into a blackout that prompted a declaration of emergency by the regional government.

The Ukrainian assault on Crimea’s water and electricity was merely an extension of the lack of regard shown to the Crimean population during the two-plus decades that Kiev ruled the peninsula. The local economy was stagnant, and the pro-Russian locals were subjected to a policy of total Ukrainization. In general, the Gross Regional Product (GRP) of Crimea was well below the average of Ukraine (43.6% less in 2000, and 29.5% less in 2013.) In short, the Kiev government made no meaningful attempt to develop Crimea culturally or infrastructurally. The Crimean Peninsula was in a state of decay perpetrated by Ukrainian governments. The damming of the North Crimean Canal and the destruction of the electrical transmission lines were simply the radical expression of the indifference shown by Kiev.

In the years that followed the return of the peninsula to Russian control, there has been a gradual improvement in the economy of Crimea. The Russian government undertook a $680 million program to bolster water supplies which involved repairing long-neglected infrastructure, drilling wells, adding storage capacity, and building desalination plants. While this effort wasn’t sufficient to save much of Crimea’s agriculture, it did provide for the basic needs of the population. The Russian government also constructed the Crimean ‘Energy Bridge’, laying down several undersea energy cables across the Kerch Strait that effectively compensated for the loss of power brought on by the destruction of the Ukrainian power lines.

But the greatest symbol of Russia’s commitment to the people of Crimea was the construction of a $3.7 billion, 19-kilometer-long road-and-rail bridge connecting Krasnodar Region in southern Russia with the Crimean Peninsula. The bridge is the longest in Europe. Construction began in 2016, and it was opened for car traffic in a little more than two years. It has become a symbol of pride for the Russian people and their leadership; President Vladimir Putin personally drove across the bridge during its formal opening ceremony in 2018. The rail line was opened to passenger traffic in 2019, and freight traffic in 2020. The construction of the Crimean Bridge coincided with the building of the Tavrida Highway, a 250-kilometer, $2.5 billion four-lane road connecting the Crimean Bridge with the cities of Sevastopol and Simferopol. Construction of the road began in 2017 and is still ongoing.

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X thread. Lubos Blaha is Vice Speaker of the Slovak Parliament.

• About Navalny’s Death (Lubos Blaha)

It’s sad, of course, that the man died, but it’s strange that the whole West is now cheerfully promoting conspiracy theories here, and his death has not even been investigated. Putin definitely didn’t need his death, Navalny would have had to spend the next decades in prison and he didn’t threaten anyone politically. According to officials, the cause of his death was a blood clot. We don’t know anything else, the case is being investigated, everything else is conspiracies. I will not pretend that I will cry all night because of Navalny now – thousands of children are dying in Gaza and all the media spit on them, they will now talk on air for a week only about this one American agent.

They better look at what the British and Americans are doing to Julian Assange, who is in custody on the verge of death in this glorious West, which prides itself on freedom of speech and protection of journalists. Let them remember how they remained silent when the American journalist Gonzalo Lira, who criticized Zelensky, recently died in Ukrainian custody. They didn’t even remember about it. And today they will moralize about Navalny’s death. Again, it’s always sad when a person dies, but this is pure hypocrisy. – FRWL reports

Read more …

”I can’t predict if and when an attack on NATO territory might occur,”[..] “But it could happen in five to eight years..”

• Germany Gives Timeframe For Possible Russian ‘Attack’ On NATO – Bloomberg (RT)

Russia may attack NATO within the next five to eight years, German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius has claimed in an interview with Bloomberg. Pistorius was speaking on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference over the weekend. NATO leaders and defense officials met in Germany to discuss current geopolitical challenges, in particular the situation in Ukraine and military aid to Kiev. ”I can’t predict if and when an attack on NATO territory might occur,” Bloomberg quoted Pistorius as saying. “But it could happen in five to eight years,” he claimed. According to the outlet, EU countries are increasingly alarmed over Russia’s success on the battlefield, the potential reduction in US support for the region, and the fact that they are not prepared for an attack.

On Saturday, Russian forces liberated the key town of Avdeevka in a significant battlefield victory, inflicting heavy casualties on Ukrainian troops. The Ukrainian defeat came as a $60 billion emergency aid package for the country remains held up in the US Congress. “The problem with Europe is it doesn’t provide enough of a deterrence on its own because it hasn’t taken enough of an initiative,” J.D. Vance, a Republican senator and an opponent of Ukraine aid said in Munich, as quoted by Bloomberg. “The American security blanket has allowed European security to atrophy,” he added.

German tabloid Bild reported last month that the German Defense Ministry was developing a plan of action in case Russia attacks a NATO state following a victory in its conflict with Ukraine. In December, Bild cited the intelligence service of a European country as saying that Russia could attack Europe in the winter of 2024-25. Russian President Vladimir Putin stressed the same month that Russia has never had plans to attack NATO. The fears of a ‘Russian threat’ in the EU are being fueled by the US, as Washington fears losing its dominance on the European continent, Putin said.

Read more …

Idiot.

• Czech PM Labels Protesting Farmers ‘Supporters Of Moscow’ (RT)

Czech Prime Minister Petr Fiala has claimed farmers protesting against EU agriculture policies, environmental requirements and high energy prices are “supporters of Russia”. On Monday, hundreds of tractors blocked off sections of Prague and disrupted traffic outside the country’s Agriculture Ministry as demonstrators demanded that the EU’s Green Deal, which calls for regulations on the use of certain chemicals and greenhouse gas emissions, be rejected. The farmers have argued that the Brussels’ proposals place a heavy burden on their businesses, making products more expensive and less competitive, especially when compared to non-EU imports, such as those coming from Ukraine.

In a post on X (formerly Twitter), however, Fiala dismissed the demonstration and suggested that the farmers who took their tractors to Prague on Monday have “little to do with the fight for better conditions for farmers.” “The demonstration is organized by people who, for example, do not hide their support for the Kremlin and pursue goals other than the interests of farmers,” Fiala wrote, adding that the Czech government would only deal with those who “really represent farmers and talk together about what our agriculture needs.” He also noted that Monday’s protests in the Czech capital were not organized by the country’s largest farmers organizations, such as the Agrarian Chamber, the Agricultural Union, and the Association of Private Agriculture.

The three groups have announced plans to hold a separate demonstration against the EU’s green policies on Thursday in a joint action with farmers’ associations from other EU member states. The Agrarian Chamber has stated that farmers will lead their tractors and other machinery in convoys to the Czech border, but have stressed that the demonstration would be symbolic and will not interfere with the operation of the border. Similar protests have swept the EU in recent months, taking place in countries like Poland, France, Spain, Italy, Belgium, Hungary, Bulgaria, Latvia, and Slovenia. Demonstrators have been demanding more government aid for the agriculture sector, less bureaucracy from Brussels, as well as tighter controls on imports from non-EU countries.

Read more …

“As a result of the extensive damage the ship suffered, it is now at risk of potential sinking in the Gulf of Aden..”

• Houthis Attacked UK Ship in Gulf of Aden, Vessel Severely Damaged (Sp.)

Yemen’s Houthi movement, also known as Ansar Allah, has attacked a UK Rubymar cargo ship in the Gulf of Aden, Houthi military spokesman Yahya Saree said on Monday, adding that the vessel was severely damaged.”The Naval forces of the Yemeni Armed Forces carried out a specific military operation, targeting a British ship in the Gulf of Aden, ‘RUBYMAR,’ with a number of appropriate naval missiles. Among the results of the operation were the following: The ship suffered catastrophic damages and came to a complete halt. As a result of the extensive damage the ship suffered, it is now at risk of potential sinking in the Gulf of Aden,” Saree said in a statement on Telegram. The Yemeni air defenses were also able to shoot down a US-made Drone, MQ9, “with a suitable missile while it was carrying out hostile missions against our country on behalf of the Zionist entity,” the spokesman added.

Read more …

“our” government in Washington is financing the replacement of American Democracy subject to the will of the people with the government’s protection of the elite institutions..”

• 2024 Is the Last Year of Free Speech and Democracy in the Western World (PCR)

Tyranny is easy to establish over peoples who have confidence in their Constitutional rights and integrity of their institutions. The more patriotic the population is, the more susceptible it is to deception and betrayal by government. Try telling patriots what is happening to them, and they will call you a commie for speaking badly about their beloved country. Christian evangelicals have no opposition to the evil that is engulfing us, because they have been brainwashed that they will escape it by being wafted up to Heaven. The growth of evil is actually their escape from a sinful world into Heaven. The more evil, the sooner their escape. For most of the rest, liberal interventionists and hegemonic neoconservatives have taught that America is exceptional and indispensable, so how can anything go wrong.

Combine these awareness-blockers with the fact that uncomfortable truths are a bad news turnoff, and that censorship is being established as a national security matter with the argument that it makes us safe and “protects democracy.” Consequently, the criminalization of truth is rushing ahead. Even the word “truth” is slated to become a hate word that cannot be spoken. Any information that you have saved that helps you to understand the tyranny that is engulfing us should be stored in thumb drives and not in the cloud as all information undermining of the “consensus-building institutions” will be consigned to the memory hole. [..] Note: The Atlantic Council, one of the main anti-democratic “consensus-building (false narrative) organizations,” is possibly associated with the Burisma/Hunter Biden scandal.

Burisma, a Ukrainian company, put Hunter Biden on its board and paid him large sums of money for his father’s protection against prosecution of the company by Ukrainian authorities. US Vice President Biden actually admitted on TV, indeed he was proud of it, that he used billions of dollars in US taxpayers money to threaten Ukraine to withhold the US aid unless Ukraine fired the prosecutor, an offer Ukraine could not refuse. Atlantic Council board members Sally Painter is under investigation by the US Justice (sic) Department for illegal lobbying on behalf of Burisma. She and former Atlantic Council board member Karen Tramontano created a partnership between the Atlantic Council and Burisma. Burisma contributed $300,000 to the Atlantic Council. Perhaps it was the purchase price for Burisma officials to speak at Atlantic Council forums and for prestigious Atlantic Council members to speak at a Burisma conference in Ukraine in 2018. All of this to show American protection of the company to Ukrainian prosecutorial authorities.

In 2021 the United Arab Emirates Embassy donated more than $1 million to the Atlantic Council, and the UAE’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs added another $100,00-250,000. This might have been the purchase price for the Atlantic Council to use its influence to have the UN choose the UAE for the location of its 2023 climate change conference. Apparently, the Atlantic Council did not make the required or proper disclosures of the UAE’s donations. The Atlantic Council, a principal member of the anti-democratic censorship industry is supported by the hapless, unaware American taxpayers by grants of taxpayer’s money from the Departments of Defense, State, and Energy and by the US Agency for International Development. Thus, it is clear that “our” government in Washington is financing the replacement of American Democracy subject to the will of the people with the government’s protection of the elite institutions that have changed the definition of democracy to mean the service of their agendas.

Read more …

 

 

 

 

Elon law

 

 

 

 

Deep sleep

 

 

 

 

Covers
https://twitter.com/i/status/1759649058069623161

 

 


I said no pictures!

 

 

 

 

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What It Means To Be Human

Dec 102021
 
 December 10, 2021  Posted by at 6:15 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  18 Responses »


William-Adolphe Bouguereau Whisperings of Love 1889

 

 

What’s the difference between Julian Assange being robbed of his freedom for 12 years and you being robbed of yours for two? From a legal point of view, very little. Because both are based on, “justified by”, no existing laws. They are based on people who happen to have grabbed power, interpreting existing law in their own favor, aided and abetted by their respective judicial branches.

Assange being told he can have no life, or freedom, today, despite never having been formally accused, let alone convicted, of a crime, is no different than someone in Austria threatened with being imprisoned because they don’t want to be vaxxed with an experimental substance. Neither will have broken an existing and valid law, still both will end up behind bars.

I support people who say it should be everyone’s own choice whether they want to be vaccinated with mRNA or not, but I doubt that more than 2% know even what that is, what it does, and what it still may do to them, and to their children. Informed consent is not just some abstract idea, even if it is treated as such.

The vast majority of people who are coerced into being jabbed, are undoubtedly the same ones who pay no attention to what is happening to Julian Assange. They just read and watch the media they always have, and their media tells them only what the owners and sponsors of the channels and papers want to let them know.

Nothing to do with what is important to their lives, or their freedoms, just a narrow passage way in which their lives are “allowed” to take place. And nothing to do with what that may mean to the lives and freedoms of their children, or to Assange, whose “crime” is he tried to warn them about all this coming.

 

You cannot talk about what government agencies, like the army or secret services, do behind the curtains, that is against “the law”. And if you do, they will say that itself is against the law. It isn’t, but who cares if they find some judge who says it is anyway?

By the same token, you cannot refuse to be jabbed with some untested thing, and then again and again, because some judge will declare that refusing it is against the law. Even if there’s no such law, but there are plenty laws -including weighty international ones- that say it is not.

All three branches of government, along with industry -in this case the pharmaceutical industry, in Assange’s case the secrecy industry-, are lined up against you, just in case you might want to express an opinion that doesn’t coincide with the narrative they have devised for you, your family, your community.

You are now no longer a human being. Not in the sense that western democracies once defined it. You still have two legs and a nose, but your brain has been switched off beyond the point where it is (was?!) capable of original and independent thought. Yes, that is you, today.

 

You never realized it, and how could you, but you are now among the first specimens of a whole new kind of “human” being. Which historians of the future will be sure is proof of a cross between humans and sheep. Either that or a very serious deterioration of brain power, even if no such thing might show up in an autopsy.

Letting your 2 year old child be injected with spike proteins is the exact same thing as letting Julian Assange rot in some prison because the CIA doesn’t like their secrets spilled. Both signal the end of your ability to think for yourself, to make your own decisions, and down the line, obviously, to protect the people, your spouse, your kids, your family, who are dearest to you.

Because no, you do not protect them by giving in to illegal demands about either what you are free to say and do, or to your freedom to not get inoculated with some commercial chemical product. You may think there is safety in complying with the behavior of the crowd, but the bottom of the sea is full of lemmings who had that exact same thought.

Standing up for Julian Assange equals standing up for the rights and freedoms of your children. Who you, make no mistake, surrender to the wolves if you don’t speak up. We do not live in times where these is safety in crowds or in silence. That is not an option.

Or it is, but then we must give up all that makes us human, all that is essential to being who we -potentially- are, essential to your beautiful kids living up to their full potential. Which they cannot possibly do if they follow your example and not use their voices to voice what their brains tell them. You’ll end up halfway murdering your children, just like you’re actively murdering yourself today.

But I have a successful career! I have smart kids! I have a nice house! I have a great car, and the next will be an electric one! Yeah, we know, we know.

It’s just that the essence of a human being is to not be a sheep or a lemming. The essence of a human being is not a house or a car, it is courage, and empathy, and love, and independent thought, independent living.

If we fail to defend the best and brightest and bravest amongst us – that would be Julian – how can we hope to defend the less bright and brave, our very children, and what would it even be worth if we do?

 

What the Assange sorry story, and the blown out of all proportions Covid debacle, make me think is that we live in a turning point of history. The information age has grown up faster than we have, than we ever could.

And it’s leaving us behind. The only defense mechanism we have left is a deep notion of what it means to be human, and how that divides us from other living species, or even from machines. And we are failing.

 

 

 

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I Am Still Julian Assange

Apr 112019
 
 April 11, 2019  Posted by at 10:35 am Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  4 Responses »


Carl Spitzweg The raven 1845

 

 

In light of the horrible news that Julian Assange was arrested by British police inside the Ecuadorian embassy this morning, what is there to say that we haven’t already said?

We originally published this essay on May 16 2018.

 

 

Julian Assange appears to be painfully close to being unceremoniously thrown out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. If that happens, the consequences for journalism, for freedom of speech, and for press freedom, will resound around the world for a very long time. It is very unwise for anyone who values truth and freedom to underestimate the repercussions of this.

In essence, Assange is not different from any journalist working for a major paper or news channel. The difference is he published what they will not because they want to stay in power. The Washington Post today would never do an investigation such as Watergate, and that’s where WikiLeaks came in.

It filled a void left by the media that betrayed their own history and their own field. Betrayed the countless journalists throughout history, and today, who risked their lives and limbs, and far too often lost them, to tell the truth about what powers that be do when they think nobody’s looking or listening.

Julian is not wanted because he’s a spy, or even because he published a number of documents whose publication was inconvenient for certain people. He is wanted because he is so damn smart, which makes him very good and terribly effective at what he does. He’s on a most wanted list not for what he’s already published, but for what he might yet publish in the future.

He built up WikiLeaks into an organization that acquired the ultimate trust of many people who had access to documents they felt should be made public. They knew he would never betray their trust. WikiLeaks has to date never published any documents that were later found out to be false. It never gave up a source. No documents were ever changed or manipulated for purposes other than protecting sources and other individuals.

 

Julian Assange built an ’empire’ based on trust. To do that he knew he could never lie. Even the smallest lie would break what he had spent so much time and effort to construct. He was a highly accomplished hacker from a very young age, which enabled him to build computer networks that nobody managed to hack. He knew how to make everything safe. And keep it that way.

Since authorities were never able to get their hands on WikiLeaks, its sources, or its leader, a giant smear campaign was started around rape charges in Sweden (the country and all its citizens carry a heavy blame for what happened) and connections to America’s favorite enemy, Russia. The rape charges were never substantiated, Julian was never even interrogated by any Swedish law enforcement personnel, but that is no surprise.

It was clear from the get-go what was happening. First of all, for Assange himself. And if there’s one thing you could say he’s done wrong, it’s that he didn’t see the full impact from the campaign against him, sooner. But if you have the world’s largest and most powerful intelligence services against you, and they manage to find both individuals and media organizations willing to spread blatant lies about you, chances are you will not last forever.

If and when you have such forces running against you, you need protection. From politicians and from -fellow- media. Assange didn’t get that, or not nearly enough. Ecuador offered him protection, but as soon as another president was elected, they turned against him. So have news organizations who were once all too eager to profit from material Assange managed to obtain from his sources.

 

That the Guardian today published not just one, not two, but three what can only be labeled as hit pieces on Julian Assange, should perhaps not surprise us; they fell out a long time ago. Still, the sheer amount of hollow innuendo and outright lies in the articles is astonishing. How dare you? Have you no shame, do you not care at all about your credibility? At least the Guardian makes painfully clear why WikiLeaks was needed.

No, Sweden didn’t “drop its investigation into alleged sexual offences because it was unable to question Assange”. The Swedes simply refused to interview him in the Ecuador embassy in London, the only place where he knew he was safe. They refused this for years. And when the rape charges had lost all credibility, Britain asked Sweden to not drop the charges, but keep the pressure on.

No, there is no proof of links from Assange to Russian hackers and/or to the Russian government. No, there is no proof that DNC computers were hacked by Russians to get to John Podesta’s emails. In fact there is no proof they were hacked at all. No, Ecuador didn’t get tired of Julian; their new president, Moreno, decided to sell him out “at the first pressure from the United States”. Just as his predecessor, Correa, said he would.

Julian Assange has been condemned by Sweden, Britain, the US and now Ecuador to solitary confinement with no access to daylight or to medical care. Without a trial, without a sentence, and on the basis of mere allegations, most of which have already turned out to be trumped up and false. This violates so many national and international laws it’s futile to try and count or name them.

It also condemns any and all subsequent truth tellers to the prospect of being treated in the same way that Julian is. Forget about courts, forget about justice. You’ll be on a wanted list. I still have a bit of hope left that Vladimir Putin will step in and save Assange from the gross injustice he’s been exposed to for far too many years. Putin gets 100 times the lies and innuendo Assange gets, but he has a powerful nation behind him. Assange, in the end, only has us.

What’s perhaps the saddest part of all this is that people like Chelsea Manning, Kim Dotcom, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are among the smartest people our world has to offer. We should be cherishing the combination of intelligence, courage and integrity they display at their own risk and peril, but instead we let them be harassed by our governments because they unveil inconvenient truths about them.

And pretty soon there will be nobody left to tell these truths, or tell any truth at all. Dark days. By allowing the smartest and bravest amongst us, who are experts in new technologies, to be silenced, we are allowing these technologies to be used against us.

We’re not far removed from being extras in our own lives, with all significant decisions taken not by us, but for us. America’s Founding Fathers are turning in their graves as we speak. They would have understood the importance of protecting Julian Assange.

To say that we are all Julian Assange is not just a slogan.

 

 

Warning Mr. Trump

Apr 052019
 
 April 5, 2019  Posted by at 11:43 am Primers Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , , ,  9 Responses »


Pablo Picasso Crucifixion 1930

 

 

President Donald J. Trump
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, N.W.
Washington, DC 20500.

 

 

Mr. President,

I write to you because I’m seeing something unfold that concerns you, and I have no way of knowing if you’re aware of it, nor have I seen anyone else mention it. That is, sir, you are being set up, a trap is being set for you, and unless you are aware of it, you may well walk into that trap eyes wide open.

It may not be in your briefing this morning, but the WikiLeaks organization has reported that high-ranking Ecuadorean state officials have told them Julian Assange will be expelled from their London embassy in a matter of “hours to days”. Now, I don’t know what your personal opinion is of Mr. Assange, maybe you think he deserves punishment for leaking secret files to the public.

Your personal opinion of Mr. Assange, however, is not the most important issue here, no offense. What’s most important to your own situation, as well as that of Mr. Assange, is that the people who are after him are the very same people who have been after you for 3 years, and who will double their efforts after suffering a huge loss due to Robert Mueller’s No Collusion report.

What the trap set for you consists of is that if you let these -largely anonymous- deep state actors get their hands on Mr. Assange, you will greatly empower them (even further). But, sir, his enemies inside US intelligence are the same as yours, and empowering one’s enemies is not the way to do battle.

 

We know they are the same people because of Robert Mueller. Mr. Assange was the only way Mr. Mueller could think of to link you to “the Russians”. This is a narrative built upon the -false- notion that “Russians” hacked the DNC servers and sent the contents to Mr. Assange. The narrative has been fully discredited by multiple voices multiple times, but Mr. Mueller has never retracted it.

For good reason: this way he -and others- can leave the story, and suspicion, open that there is a link between you, Mr. Assange and the Russians, despite the Mueller report’s no collusion conclusion. And do note: it not only maintains the popular and media suspicion of Mr. Assange, it also leaves suspicion of you alive.

Former British ambassador Craig Murray explained the intricacies -again- a few days ago:

 

• Muellergate and the Discreet Lies of the Bourgeoisie

Robert Mueller repeats the assertion from the US security services that it was Russian hackers who obtained the DNC emails and passed them on to Wikileaks. I am telling you from my personal knowledge that this is not true. Neither Mueller’s team, not the FBI, nor the NSA, nor any US Intelligence agency, has ever carried out any forensic analysis on the DNC’s servers. The DNC consistently refused to make them available. The allegation against Russia is based purely on information from the DNC’s own consultants, Crowdstrike.

William Binney, former Technical Director of the NSA (America’s US$40 billion a year communications intercept organisation), has proven beyond argument that it is a technical impossibility for the DNC emails to have been transmitted by an external hack – they were rather downloaded locally, probably on to a memory stick. Binney’s analysis is fully endorsed by former NSA systems expert Ed Loomis. There simply are no two people on the planet more technically qualified to make this judgement. Yet, astonishingly, Mueller refused to call Binney or Loomis (or me) to testify. Compare this, for example, with his calling to testify my friend Randy Credico, who had no involvement whatsoever in the matter, but Mueller’s team hoped to finger as a Trump/Assange link.

The DNC servers have never been examined by intelligence agencies, law enforcement or by Mueller’s team. Binney and Loomis have written that it is impossible this was an external hack. Wikileaks have consistently stressed no state actor was involved. No evidence whatsoever has been produced of the transfer of the material from the “Russians” to Wikileaks. Wikileaks Vault 7 release of CIA documents shows that the planting of false Russian hacking “fingerprints” is an established CIA practice. Yet none of this is reflected at all by Mueller nor by the mainstream media. “Collusion” may be dead, but the “Russiagate” false narrative limps on.

 

Mr. Trump, sir, I don’t doubt you have realized by now that you are not rid yet of Robert Mueller. But Mr. Mueller is but one cog in the large wheel of intelligence running against you. Yes, the same wheel that runs against Mr. Assange. I’m sure you recognize that it’s hugely ironic, but there is a for now unbreakable bond between the two of you.

Not because of anything you did yourselves, but because Russiagate conspirators in the media, the Democratic party and the intelligence community have created it. And you need to be careful on account of that bond, because they’re going to -try to- use it against you.

I may be a lot more sympathetic to Mr. Assange than you are, but as I said before, this has nothing to do with personal opinion. This is about a trap being set for you. And Mr. Assange is an important part of that trap.

Through him, and especially if they keep him incommunicado, they can keep Russiagate alive, which allows for hundreds of billions of dollars in annual arms expenditures and the 24/7/365 threat of war.

Without the empty allegations against Mr. Assange, Robert Mueller would have had to drop his probe much earlier, but in keeping the allegations alive by silencing Mr. Assange, Russiagate can live on, because the link between Russian hackers and WikiLeaks can be left hanging in the air. And that, Mr. President, will be bad news for you, whether you like it or not, whether you acknowledge it or not.

 

We haven’t talked about the media yet, but there’s another giant irony in the US media clamoring about press freedom, and using it to smear you for 3 years, but not saying a single word to defend that same freedom when it comes to Mr. Assange. They, too, will continue to haunt you, using Mr. Assange as their bait. Don’t let them.

I don’t know what you intend to do about Russiagate and its main perpetrators, but I do know you can make things much easier for yourself if you solve the Assange conundrum first. And you can’t do that by allowing your own enemies to get their hands on him and rendition him; that will backfire on you.

You could pardon him, but that may be a step too far for you at this point. It might be better to simply allow him to go home to Australia.

What would amuse me to no end is if you would personally nominate him for a Nobel Peace Prize. That would piss off so many of your enemies it would be a sight to see. The biggest bird you can flip them all. And then after that, you know, go talk to Vladimir Putin and tell him you’re sorry for all this bad theater.

There’s this scene in the Godfather where Marlon Brando as the ageing Don tells Al Pacino how to recognize the traitor in his own midst: the one who suggests setting up a meeting. This is very similar: whoever comes to you to suggest the harshest treatment of Julian Assange, will be the one(s) intent on coming after you too.

One last thing, Mr. President: Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden are among the best, brightest and bravest people our world has to offer. We need people like them, and we need them badly. And it’s a lot more stupid than it is simply ironic, that they are the ones we are locking up and silencing. That way America will never be great again, guaranteed.

And you, sir (I know, more irony) may be their -and our- best and even last hope. You have the power to set free our best. Please use it wisely. And Mr. President, sir, be careful out there.

Know your enemies.

 

 

 

 

The Ritual Burial of the US Constitution

Sep 122018
 
 September 12, 2018  Posted by at 1:17 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  9 Responses »


Winslow Homer Salt Kettle, Bermuda 1899

 

In the wake of a number of the Lehman and 9/11 commemorations in America, and as a monster storm is once again threatening to cause outsize damage, we find ourselves at a pivotal point in time, which will decide how the country interacts with its own laws, its legal system, its Constitution, its freedom of speech, and indeed if it has sufficient willpower left to adhere to the Constitution as its no. 1 guiding principle.

The main problem is that it all seems to slip slide straight by the people, who are -kept- busy with completely different issues. That is convenient for those who would like less focus on the Constitution, but it’s also very dangerous for everyone else. Americans should today stand up for freedom of speech, or it will be gone, likely forever.

The way it works is that president Trump is portrayed as the major threat to ‘the rule of law’, which allows other people, as well as companies and organizations, to drop below the radar and devise and work on plans and schemes that threaten the country itself, and its future as a nation ruled by its laws.

Bob Woodward’s book “Fear: Trump in the White House” and the anonymous op-ed published in the NYT a day later serve as a good reminder of these dynamics. If you succeed in confirming people’s idea that Trump is such an unhinged idiot that an unelected cabal inside the White House is needed to save the nation from the president it elected, you’re well on your way.

Well on your way to separate the country from its own laws, that is. Not on your way to saving it. You can’t save America by suspending its Constitution just because that suits your particular political goals or points of view.

 

Late last night, Michael Tracey wrote on Twitter: “Trump’s preference to pull out of Afghanistan is depicted in the Woodward book as yet another crazy impulse that the “adults in the room” successfully rein in.” “We’re going to save you from yourselves, thank us later!” Nobody voted for those adults in the room anymore than anyone voted for the Afghanistan ‘war’ to enter year 17.

Meanwhile Infowars said: “Several people within Trump’s inner circle know the threat to the mid-terms and his re-election chances that social media censorship poses, including Donald Trump Jr. and Brad Parscale, his 2020 campaign manager. However, older members of the administration are completely unaware of the fact that banning prominent online voices and manipulating algorithms can shift millions of votes and are oblivious to the danger. This ignorance has placed a temporary block on Trump taking action, despite the president repeatedly referring to Big Tech censorship in tweets and speeches over the last few weeks.”

Yes, Infowars, I know, everybody loves to hate Alex Jones. And perhaps for good reasons, at least at times. But does that mean he can be banned from a whole slew of internet platforms without this having been run by and through the US court system? Without even one judge having examined the ‘evidence’, if it even existed, that leads to such banning, blocking and shadowbanning?

Alex Jones is an ‘easy example’ because he’s so popular. Which is also, undoubtedly, why all the social media platforms ban him so easily, and all at the same time. ‘He’s a terrible person’, say so many of their readers. But that’s not good enough, far from it. Twitter and Facebook should never be allowed to ban anyone, using opaque ‘Community Standards’ or ‘Terms and Conditions’ interpreted by kids fresh out of high school.

These platforms have important societal functions. They are for instance the new conduits governments, police, armies use to warn people in case of emergencies and disasters. You can’t ban people from those conduits just because a bunch of geeks don’t like what they say. If you can at all, it will have to be done through the legal system.

That this is not done at present poses an immense threat to that legal system, and to the Constitution itself. But Americans, and indeed Congressmen and Senators, have been trained in a Pavlovian way to believe that it’s not Google and Facebook who threaten the Constitution, but that it’s Trump and his crew.

 

Meanwhile, Trump is being put through Bob Mueller’s Special Counsel legal wringer 24/7, while Alphabet, Jack Dorsey and Mark Zuckerberg escape any such scrutiny at all. That discrepancy, too, is eating away at the foundations of American law.

And like it or not, Trump had it right when he said “You look at Google, Facebook, Twitter and other social media giants and I made it clear that we as a country cannot tolerate political censorship, blacklisting and rigged search results..”

America as a country cannot tolerate a few rich companies deciding whose voice can be heard, and whose will be silenced. It is entirely unacceptable. That goes for voices Trump doesn’t want to hear as much as it does for whoever Silicon Valley doesn’t. That’s why neither should be in charge of making such decisions. It kills the Constitution.

None of the above means that everyone should be free to post terrorist sympathies or hate speech on social media platforms. But it does mean that legislative and judicial systems must define what these things mean, that this not be left up to arbitrary ‘Community Standards’ interpreted by legally inept Silicon Valley interns, nor should it be left to secret algorithms to decide what news you see and what not.

America itself hangs in the balance, and so do many other western countries. What exactly is the difference between China’s overt internet censorship and America’s hidden one? That is what needs to be defined, and that can only be done by the legal system, by Congress, by the courts, by judges and juries.

And it’s not something that has to be invented from scratch, it can and must be tested against the Constitution. That is the only way forward. That social media have taken over the country by storm, and nary a soul has any idea what that means, can never be an excuse to leave banning and silencing voices over to private parties, whoever they are.

 

It’s not a unique American problem. In Europe there are all sorts of attempts to ban ‘hate speech’, but there are very few proposals concerning who will define what that is. And since Europe has no Constitution, but instead has 27 different versions of one, it will be harder there. Then again, it will also be easier to get away with all sorts of arbitrary bannings etc.

Hungary will be inclined to ban totally different voices than for instance Denmark and so on. And nobody over there has given any sign of understanding how dangerous that is. Banning ‘hate speech’ doesn’t mean anything if the term hasn’t been properly defined. But that also allows for banning voices someone simply doesn’t like. To prevent that from happening, we have legal systems.

It’s essential, it’s elementary, Watson. But it’s slipping through our fingers because our politicians are either incapable of, or unwilling to, comprehending the consequences. Why stick out your neck when nobody else does? It’s like the anti-thesis of what politics means: stay safe.

So the social media’s industry’s own lobbying has a good shot at getting its way: they tell Washington to let them regulate themselves, and everything will be spic and dandy. That would be the final nail in the Constitution’s coffin, and it’s much closer than you think. Do be wary of that.

 

In the end it comes down to two things i’ve said before. First, there is no-one who’s been as ferociously banned and worse the way Julian Assange has. His ban goes way beyond Silicon Valley, but it does paint a shrill portrait of how far the US, CIA, FBI, is willing to go, and to step beyond the Constitution, to get to someone they really don’t like.

But has Assange ever violated and US law, let alone its Constitution? Not that we know of. Mike Pompeo has called WikiLeaks a ‘hostile intelligence service’, and the DOJ has said the 1st Amendment, and thereby of necessity the entire US Constitution, doesn’t apply to Assange because he’s not an American, but both those things are devoid of any meaning, at least in a court of law.

Bob Woodward has an idea of what Assange faces, and he’d do much better to focus on helping him than trying to put Trump down through anonymous sources. And that also leads me to why I, personally, have at least some sympathy for Alex Jones, other than because he’s being attacked unconstitutionally: Jones ran/runs a petition for Trump to free Julian Assange.

Come to think of it: it’s when that petition started taking off that Jones’s ‘real trouble’ started. Given how closely interwoven Silicon Valley and the FBI and CIA have already become, I’m not going to feign any surprise at that.

And before you feel any wishes and desires coming up to impeach Trump, do realize that he may be the only person standing between you and a complete takeover of America by the FBI/NSA/CIA/DNC and Google/Facebook/Twitter, which will be accompanied by the ritual burial of the Constitution.

Think Trump is scary? Take a step back and survey the territory.

 

 

 

 

Interview Raúl Ilargi Meijer about Julian Assange

Sep 082018
 
 September 8, 2018  Posted by at 1:00 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , ,  7 Responses »


Charles Burchfield Bluebird and Cottonwoods (The Birches) 1917

 

 

My Australian friend Wayne Hall, who‘s lived in Athens for many many years, is doing a video project on fellow Aussie Julian Assange. This is an interview with me, recorded 3 weeks or so ago, that’s part of the project. I would have done 1000 things differently, but it’s not my baby, it’s Wayne’s world. At least some snippets of information come through.

Note: it was 100º, and it shows. Very sweaty, very uncomfortable. Still, while I’m not wild about doing videos -we had Nicole for that, right?!- maybe I should be doing more of this. Not that I watched this one, mind you. But you can.

 

 

 

 

Wayne Hall: Good afternoon Raúl Ilargi Meijer. You have a blog called “Automatic Earth” and you are very active with it. Can you say something about “Automatic Earth”? When was it founded? What is its aim?

Ilargi: It was founded almost eleven years ago. Nicole Foss and I founded it because we wanted to write about finance whereas the people we were writing for before that, “The Oil Drum”, didn’t want us to do that and we thought it was too important not to.

WH: And what are you doing here in Athens?

Ilargi: I’m supporting a group of people who feed the homeless and refugees. I’ve written a bunch of articles at “Automatic Earth” about that.

WH: Now even though you have written articles that show clearly how important you think it is to try to defend Julian Assange (I read one that you published today [17/8/2018] that was very much on that subject and it was a powerful article), you really don’t agree with Julian Assange on the importance of defending the European integration project or citizens’ Europe.

Ilargi: I have no idea what either of these things are.

(Note Ilargi: here Wayne leaves several lines untranslated. I said again that I don’t know what the European integration project or citizens’ Europe are. And of course I can’t disagree with Assange, or anyone else, on things I don’t even know exist.)

WH: Well, let’s move on. In an article entitled “I am Julian Assange” on 16th May 2018, you wrote: “Julian Assange appears to be painfully close to being unceremoniously thrown out of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London. If that happens, the consequences for journalism, for freedom of speech and for press freedom, will resound around the world for a very long time”. Would you like to say more about that?

Ilargi: I think there are not nearly enough people who realize what the consequences are going to be of Assange being thrown to the wolves.

WH: What will they be?

Ilargi: He stands for every journalist but he also stands for every citizen. He is the man who offered his freedom to give everybody else freedom..

WH: You say that he has the credibility he has because he has never published anything that is not 100% verifiable and true.

Ilargi: That is the basis of Wikileaks: it’s truth, honesty. Nobody would ever give him another document if they were in doubt that he would preserve secrecy, he would protect their identity or he would treat the documents in the best way possible.

WH: You also wrote: “People like Chelsea Manning, Kim Dotcom, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are among the smartest people our world has to offer. We should be cherishing the combination of intelligence, courage and integrity they display at their own risk and peril, but instead we allow them to be harassed by our governments because they unveil inconvenient truths about them. And pretty soon there will be nobody left to tell these truths, or any truth at all.” That’s a very pessimistic assessment. Would you like to believe that it is too pessimistic?

Ilargi: Isn’t it more like realistic? How many people like Assange and Snowden or Chelsea Manning are there? We don’t have a never-ending supply of them.

WH: In your article “Julian Assange and the Dying of the Light” you wrote: “The ideal situation would be if Australia would offer Julian Assange safe passage back home. Assange has never been charged with anything, other than the UK’s bail-skipping change.” He has been charged with other things, but the charges have been withdrawn.

Ilargi: He has been charged with what?

WH: Wasn’t he charged with rape or something, in Sweden?

Ilargi: No, no..

WH: What was it? What happened there then if it was not a charge?

Ilargi: They said they wanted to talk to him. That was very strange. From what I know of the story the prosecutor let him go. Told him he was free to go to Britain and then – I don’t know if it was the same prosecutor, Marianne Ny, but anyway the Swedish justice system did a 180 and as soon as he got to London they said that he had to go back because they wanted to talk to him again.

WH: Merry-go-round.

Ilargi: But neither of the two women involved ever filed any charges against him, or any complaint. They even went out of their way, albeit far too late, to say “He didn’t rape me. It never happened.” It seems .. That was a smear thing. And it’s been very successful..

WH: It seems so. Talking about Australia again, and safe passage back home, it’s true that years ago the Australian government acknowledged that it had responsibilities to help and protect Australian citizen Julian Assange. For example in 2001 Australian Prime Minister Julia Gillard said:


“We are supporting Julian Assange the same way that we would support any Australian citizen who got into a legal difficulty overseas.”

But for years after that, these responsibilities seem to have been forgotten. Even supporters of Julian Assange seem to assume that it is OK for the Australian government to allow Ecuador, a weaker, poorer and more vulnerable country than Australia to take responsibilities that the Australian government had said that it was taking but it seems simply was not. .

Ilargi: Who wrote that?

WH: Do you mean this comment about Australia and Ecuador? I wrote it.

Ilargi: OK. OK.

WH: Don’t you agree with it?

Ilargi: The Australian government has a very strange role in this. There is an older speech by the later PM Malcolm Turnbull that is being tossed around on Twitter in which he is very supportive of Assange.

WH: Is this a recent speech?

Ilargi: I think that was also from 2011 too. Apparently he no longer is.

WH: Next subject. Would you like to comment on the controversy Seth Rich versus the hacker Guccifer 2.0.

There seems to be a lot of misunderstanding and disagreement about this. I think a lot of people wouldn’t even know who Seth Rich was. Would you like to enlighten the people who don’t know?

Ilargi: From what I know Seth Rich worked for the Democratic National Committee. He was found murdered in Washington, not far from the White House. He is rumoured to be the guy who gave the DNC e-mails to Assange, to Wikileaks.

WH: This is something that Kim Dotcom apparently also says.

Ilargi: Yes. I don’t know enough about that but it seems obvious that the whole Guccifer 2.0 story is a fabrication. The US really really wants to make a link between Assange and Russia because it smears both. If they can make a connection between the two they will both look a lot worse.

WH: They’re trying hard.

Ilargi: And since neither can really defend themselves this narrative can be built and built. .

WH: Yes, that’s right. If you are dead or you re prevented from speaking, you can’t defend yourself.

Ilargi: No..

 

WH: At the moment I and a few other people are discussing two ideas in relation to Julian Assange. One of them is purely symbolic and it’s aimed at counteracting the media bias against Assange. That is the declaration of a Julian Assange Day. The day we propose is 26th January. We heard a few words from the mayor about the significance of January 26th in Greece in the context of Greece’s liberation from the Ottoman Empire.

But January 26th is also an important day in Australia. It is the national day. But many people are saying today that Australia s national day should be moved to another date, more inclusive of the many Australians who don’t feel that 26th January is suitable for the country’s national day. Let’s see what Amanda Stone has to say. In 2017 she was the mayor of the City of Yarra in Melbourne.

Amanda Stone: We ve been talking to the aboriginal community in Yarra for some time about the meaning of January 26th for them and we’ve heard from them that it is not a day of celebration. It is a day of sadness and loss for them. We ve been considering how we might address that to reflect those views. In February this year (2017) the Council resolved to ask the officers to consult with the aboriginal community about the future of January 26th, and that was also in the context of a growing momentum more broadly around the Change the Date campaign.

So we felt that it was an action whose time has come, that there would be broader support for it. And when the officers presented the results of the consultation with aboriginal people on Tuesday, that’s how we voted. But we’re not telling anyone what to do. We’re not changing the date of Australia Day as it is at the moment. We are not instructing people on how to spend January 26th. It will continue to be a public holiday, 26th January. People will still enjoy their barbecues and picnics and get-togethers in parks and gardens.

Lamourette Folly: Why is it important from your perspective as a mayor to change the date?

Amanda Stone: For me as mayor of the City of Yarra it is important that we are inclusive in what we do as a council. By holding celebratory events on January 26th we are actively excluding an important part of our community, the aboriginal community, who do not find it an occasion for celebration, who have told us so for many years, and are thoroughly supportive of the action we have taken. We want to be inclusive. We don’t want to exclude anybody.We want everyone to be able to celebrate our national identity and we need to find a date that we can do that on.

Lamourette Folly: That’s great. Do you have any date in mind?

Amanda Stone: No. I think it is something that needs to come out of a conversation. And I think lots of people have lots of ideas. And if we are going to be really inclusive we need to discuss it with everybody, not impose another date that might be contentious for another part of the people.

WH: If Julian Assange is freed it could very well be changed subsequently to Media Integrity Day, or something along those lines.

 

The second proposal is more concrete. It was initiated by the following posting by someone who calls himself “Realist” in the discussion that was started by Ray McGovern. What he said was this:

“If the American government thinks better of it and decides not to prosecute Mr. Assange (or perhaps offers him a plea bargain counting his time cloistered in the embassy against a short sentence), I wonder where he will choose and/or be allowed to live. Australia has abandoned him, and now Ecuador has betrayed him. He can’t trust any American vassal state in the EU, NATO or the “Five Eyes” (basically the Anglosphere). Would Putin allow him to run Wikileaks out of Russia? I suspect not. No free press throughout the Middle East, most of Africa and the “–stans” of Central Asia.

China is not looking to harbor a gadfly of the West. Latin America is spotty, though Glenn Greenwald makes his home base in Brazil despite the de facto coup against the Left there. How well are human rights protected in places like India or Malaysia? Singapore, Burma and Thailand are too authoritarian. Arthur C. Clarke decamped in Sri Lanka. Are there any truly sovereign nations in the Indian or Pacific oceans? Too bad New Gingrich didn’t get to establish his proposed Moon base. Julian might have managed Wikileaks from there, beyond the jurisdiction of any nation state on Earth.”

I said in response: “Realist’s” comments on Julian finding asylum on the Moon is frivolous, and if frivolous comments are permitted, why not outrageous comments? Are there Jewish people who would be outrageous enough to begin to lobby for Julian Assange to be given political asylum in Israel? Would he accept such an idea? Just the discussion of such an idea might be helpful in clearing some mental blocks.” ”

“Realist” replied: “Assange finding asylum on the Moon might be a frivolous comment but it underscores the paucity of venues that could pay the price to shield him against American wrath. In response to your invitation to discuss Israel as a plausible safe harbor for Assange, I should think his morals would preclude that possibility, even as a last resort. It would be repudiating everything he has stood for. As they say “tell me who your friends are and I’ll tell you who you are.”

 

Ilargi: That’s a very long way of saying “there are no options”. You don’t have to go through all the options to arrive at the conclusion that there are no options.

WH: So in other words…

Ilargi: A new country that is brought to the front in the past few days is Mexico. .

WH: Mexico.

Ilargi: Yes. People think that Lopez Obrador might be the guy to turn to. I suggested Iceland.

WH: I remember that. . .

Ilargi: They are independent enough to pull off something like that. Though I have no idea what the Icelandic government feels or thinks about Assange. But they’re independent. They’re the only country that locked up a bunch of bankers and told the creditors to go take a hike.

WH: I think what “Realist” would say is that these countries are not strong enough to protect Assange and that the CIA, or whoever is after him, would get at him.

Ilargi: Iceland has got a big moat. That is natural protection. .

WH: A big moat!

Ilargi: Yes. Of course there is no country that could give 100% protection to someone like Assange.

WH: There was a similar discussion in response to an article by Caitlin Johnstone.” “As long as Assange is silenced, claims against him are illegitimate”.

In any case, a campaign is under way. The ideas we are discussing here are not part of the campaign and I don’t want to impose them. The campaign is following its own logic.

Ilargi: There are no ideas. There is just a long list of “no options”.

WH: Yes, as you said. Right. This is continuing the discussion we had with the mayor.

Ilargi: I would like to add what we were saying before we started. The news about Assange’s health is not good. He has severe toothaches. His legs are swelling and his bone density is falling fast because of the lack of exposure to sunlight. So in the end, what it comes down to: Ecuador doesn’t even have to kick him out. They’re counting on the fact that he’ll have to walk out. .

WH: Yes, if he can. .

Ilargi: Or be carried out, on a stretcher. Or in a coffin. .

 

 

Julian Assange: (Trafalgar Square, London – 8th October 2011)

When we understand that wars come about as a result of lies peddled to the British public and the American public and the publics all over Europe and other countries, then who are the war criminals? It is not just leaders. It is not just soldiers. It is journalists. Journalists are war criminals. … If wars can be started by lies, peace can be started by truth.

 

 

I Am Julian Assange

May 162018
 
 May 16, 2018  Posted by at 1:09 pm Finance Tagged with: , , , , , , , , , , ,  10 Responses »


Carl Spitzweg The raven 1845

 

Julian Assange appears to be painfully close to being unceremoniously thrown out of the Ecuadorian embassy in London. If that happens, the consequences for journalism, for freedom of speech, and for press freedom, will resound around the world for a very long time. It is very unwise for anyone who values truth and freedom to underestimate the repercussions of this.

In essence, Assange is not different from any journalist working for a major paper or news channel. The difference is he published what they will not because they want to stay in power. The Washington Post today would never do an investigation such as Watergate, and that’s where WikiLeaks came in.

It filled a void left by the media that betrayed their own history and their own field. Betrayed the countless journalists throughout history, and today, who risked their lives and limbs, and far too often lost them, to tell the truth about what powers that be do when they think nobody’s looking or listening.

Julian is not wanted because he’s a spy, or even because he published a number of documents whose publication was inconvenient for certain people. He is wanted because he is so damn smart, which makes him very good and terribly effective at what he does. He’s on a most wanted list not for what he’s already published, but for what he might yet publish in the future.

He built up WikiLeaks into an organization that acquired the ultimate trust of many people who had access to documents they felt should be made public. They knew he would never betray their trust. WikiLeaks has to date never published any documents that were later found out to be false. It never gave up a source. No documents were ever changed or manipulated for purposes other than protecting sources and other individuals.

 

Julian Assange built an ’empire’ based on trust. To do that he knew he could never lie. Even the smallest lie would break what he had spent so much time and effort to construct. He was a highly accomplished hacker from a very young age, which enabled him to build computer networks that nobody managed to hack. He knew how to make everything safe. And keep it that way.

Since authorities were never able to get their hands on WikiLeaks, its sources, or its leader, a giant smear campaign was started around rape charges in Sweden (the country and all its citizens carry a heavy blame for what happened) and connections to America’s favorite enemy, Russia. The rape charges were never substantiated, Julian was never even interrogated by any Swedish law enforcement personnel, but that is no surprise.

It was clear from the get-go what was happening. First of all, for Assange himself. And if there’s one thing you could say he’s done wrong, it’s that he didn’t see the full impact from the campaign against him, sooner. But if you have the world’s largest and most powerful intelligence services against you, and they manage to find both individuals and media organizations willing to spread blatant lies about you, chances are you will not last forever.

If and when you have such forces running against you, you need protection. From politicians and from -fellow- media. Assange didn’t get that, or not nearly enough. Ecuador offered him protection, but as soon as another president was elected, they turned against him. So have news organizations who were once all too eager to profit from material Assange managed to obtain from his sources.

 

That the Guardian today published not just one, not two, but three what can only be labeled as hit pieces on Julian Assange, should perhaps not surprise us; they fell out a long time ago. Still, the sheer amount of hollow innuendo and outright lies in the articles is astonishing. How dare you? Have you no shame, do you not care at all about your credibility? At least the Guardian makes painfully clear why WikiLeaks was needed.

No, Sweden didn’t “drop its investigation into alleged sexual offences because it was unable to question Assange”. The Swedes simply refused to interview him in the Ecuador embassy in London, the only place where he knew he was safe. They refused this for years. And when the rape charges had lost all credibility, Britain asked Sweden to not drop the charges, but keep the pressure on.

No, there is no proof of links from Assange to Russian hackers and/or to the Russian government. No, there is no proof that DNC computers were hacked by Russians to get to John Podesta’s emails. In fact there is no proof they were hacked at all. No, Ecuador didn’t get tired of Julian; their new president, Moreno, decided to sell him out “at the first pressure from the United States”. Just as his predecessor, Correa, said he would.

Julian Assange has been condemned by Sweden, Britain, the US and now Ecuador to solitary confinement with no access to daylight or to medical care. Without a trial, without a sentence, and on the basis of mere allegations, most of which have already turned out to be trumped up and false. This violates so many national and international laws it’s futile to try and count or name them.

It also condemns any and all subsequent truth tellers to the prospect of being treated in the same way that Julian is. Forget about courts, forget about justice. You’ll be on a wanted list. I still have a bit of hope left that Vladimir Putin will step in and save Assange from the gross injustice he’s been exposed to for far too many years. Putin gets 100 times the lies and innuendo Assange gets, but he has a powerful nation behind him. Assange, in the end, only has us.

What’s perhaps the saddest part of all this is that people like Chelsea Manning, Kim Dotcom, Edward Snowden and Julian Assange are among the smartest people our world has to offer. We should be cherishing the combination of intelligence, courage and integrity they display at their own risk and peril, but instead we let them be harassed by our governments because they unveil inconvenient truths about them.

And pretty soon there will be nobody left to tell these truths, or tell any truth at all. Dark days. By allowing the smartest and bravest amongst us, who are experts in new technologies, to be silenced, we are allowing these technologies to be used against us.

We’re not far removed from being extras in our own lives, with all significant decisions taken not by us, but for us. America’s Founding Fathers are turning in their graves as we speak. They would have understood the importance of protecting Julian Assange.

To say that we are all Julian Assange is not just a slogan.