So it turns out it’s really really important for powerful people to be able to lie to us with impunity, you guys. I know this because an actual, literal spy told me that that’s what I’m meant to believe in an article published by Newsweek yesterday.

If you were wondering how long it would take the imperial propagandists to ramp up their efforts to explain to us why it is good for the Trump administration to prosecute WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange after we learned that sealed charges have been brought against him by the United States government, the answer is eight days. If you were wondering which of those propagandists would step forward and aggressively attempt to do so, the answer is Naveed Jamali.

To be clear, I do not use the word “propagandist” to refer to a mass media employee whose reliable track record of establishment sycophancy has propelled him to the upper echelons of influence within platforms owned by plutocrats who have a vested interest in maintaining the status quo, as I often mean when I use that word. When I say that Jamali is a propagandist, I mean he is a current member of the United States intelligence community telling Newsweek‘s readers that it is to society’s benefit for the US government to pursue a longstanding agenda of the US intelligence community in imprisoning Julian Assange.

https://twitter.com/NaveedAJamali/status/1066497085648719872

Jamali is currently a reserve intelligence officer for the United States Navy, and is a former FBI asset and double agent. He is also like many intelligence community insiders an MSNBC contributor, and is a senior fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute, a think tank which has featured many prominent neoconservative war whores like Donald and Frederick Kagan, Max Boot, and James Woolsey. Any think tank with the words “foreign policy” in its title is nothing other than a group of intellectuals who are paid by plutocrats to come up with the best possible arguments for why it would be very good and smart to do things that are very evil and stupid, and Naveed Jamali sits comfortably there.

His Newsweek article, titled “Prosecuting Assange is Essential for Restoring Our National Security”, begins with the sentence “Full disclosure: I am not a fan of Julian Assange or Wikileaks,” and doesn’t get any better from there. The article consists of two arguments, the first being that since Assange is “not a journalist” he is not protected by the First Amendment from prosecution by the US government. This argument is bunk because (A) this is a made-up nonsense talking point since neither the US Constitution nor the Supreme Court have made any distinction between journalists or any other kind of publisher in press freedom protections, and (B) WikiLeaks has won many awards for journalism. The second argument is that it is very important for the US government to be able to hide any kind of secrets it wants from the American people.

And really that’s the only thing these paid manipulators are ever telling you when they smear Assange or argue for his prosecution: powerful people need to be able to lie to you and hide information from you without being inconvenienced or embarrassed by WikiLeaks. If they say it often enough and in a sufficiently confident tone, some trusting, well-intentioned people will overlook the fact that this is an intensely moronic thing for anyone to believe.

Contrary to what US intelligence operatives would have you believe, the prosecution of Julian Assange by the United States government would indeed be disastrous for press freedoms around the world. A good recent essay by Matt Taibbi for Rolling Stone titled “Why You Should Care About the Julian Assange Case” breaks down exactly why everyone should oppose this administration’s aggressive pursuit of Assange, even if they hate him and everything he stands for. In terms of speech protection there is nothing that legally distinguishes an outlet from WikiLeaks from outlets like the New York Times and the Washington Post, both of whom have published secret documents and information which was taken through illegal means. If Assange is successfully prosecuted for doing the same thing other mainstream publications do to hold power to account, there will be little stopping the US government from going after those types of outlets all around the world for publishing its secrets.

After Taibbi published his article, he spent a couple hours on Twitter explaining to Democratic Party loyalists over and over and over and over again that the charges Assange is facing almost certainly have nothing to do with the 2016 WikiLeaks publications, and rather relate to much earlier publications of a far more classified nature than a few Democrats’ emails. He had to do this because Russiagate conspiracy theorists have been shrieking that it’s #MuellerTime ever since news broke about the sealed charges, and now you’ve got the strange scene of liberals everywhere cheering on a Trump administration agenda which threatens to cripple the free press they claim to be protecting from the very administration that they are cheering for. The concept that the prosecution of someone they’ve been trained to hate has nothing to do with the thing they hate him for is inconceivable from within the walls of the binary narrative matrix that these people have become trapped in by establishment manipulators like Jamali.

Taibbi’s essay wraps up with the words, “Americans seem not to grasp what might be at stake. Wikileaks briefly opened a window into the uglier side of our society, and if publication of such leaks is criminalized, it probably won’t open again.”

He’s right. They don’t grasp it. Here’s hoping they do before it’s too late.

_____________________________

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22 responses to “Newsweek-Employed Spy Explains To Us Why Assange Should Be Prosecuted”

  1. I learned a new category of political methodology today:
    “populist strongman” – from buzzfeed. Apparently, they destroy democracy.

    Forgive my ignorance, I suppose it’s old news.

  2. News WEAK is a controlled propaganda rag. It is so obvious. The only way it stays in circulation is it is supported by the Controllers. Its about as valuable as People magazine.

  3. Funny side note: was checking out the Taibbi twitter links and followed him there. Twitter’s suggestions for who else to follow based on that: Maddow, Hayes, Reid! The MSNBC trinity of Russiagate insanity. Thanks Twitter.

  4. William Roper: So, now you give the Devil the benefit of law!

    Sir Thomas More: Yes! What would you do? Cut a great road through the law to get after the Devil?

    William Roper: Yes, I’d cut down every law in England to do that!

    Sir Thomas More: Oh? And when the last law was down, and the Devil turned ’round on you, where would you hide, Roper, the laws all being flat? This country is planted thick with laws, from coast to coast, Man’s laws, not God’s! And if you cut them down, and you’re just the man to do it, do you really think you could stand upright in the winds that would blow then? Yes, I’d give the Devil benefit of law, for my own safety’s sake!

  5. “liberals everywhere cheering on a Trump administration agenda which threatens to cripple the free press they claim to be protecting from the very administration that they are cheering for.”
    The only thing wrong with that statement, which some may consider to be nitpicking, is that those who were previously known as ‘liberals’ are now corporatists situated right of center in the space vacated by moderate Republicans who moved further right seeking even greater campaign donations than previously. Possessive f one or two liberal issues or concerns, does not a liberal make. That’s what made for moderate Republicans.
    The only true liberals, today, are the true progressives for whom political affiliation will have no bearing on the full extent of their beliefs.
    These are people who already understand the need to set Assange free and who would never even consider prosecuting him. Much like we hold Edward Snowden, we consider Assange to be a hero.

    1. No. True liberals are independent and self sufficient and do not demand a government require everyone to like them or even tolerate them.

  6. Nazisme work the same way , in Germany 1932 , like in Israel and in Usa today.
    Where ever you see nazis crime , 95 % of nazisme is jewish.

  7. The prosecution of Assange is disastrous not only for a free press. It would mean a victory for the criminal US government. It would mean the US government gets away with horrific war crimes, and leaves the door open to continue as is, unabated, waging war, torturing, commiting genocide, and furthering the empire through military might alone, unafraid of consequences and uncaring for the fate of humanity.

  8. Who is the journalist – Assange or Jamali?
    George Orwell famously said: “Journalism is printing what someone else does not want printed: everything else is public relations.”
    Assange is a hero and a martyr.
    Jamali is a public relations puppet performing on a plutocrats’ platform.

  9. It’s becoming increasingly clear to me that most of the exceptional population of the US agrees with their government’s treatment of the area of the world outside US borders as an abattoir. But that exceptional population does not want to do the slaughtering itself, or even see it being done on their TV screens. They, like their president, do not want to listen to or see that “suffering tape”
    h…..ttps://thehill.com/homenews/sunday-talk-shows/417306-trump-says-he-doesnt-want-to-hear-audio-of-khashoggi-killing
    of people being blown to bits by bombs or machine-gun fire, or being starved to death in order to protect US (corporate) “interests”. Especially not on Sunday — the sacred day of warship.
    ..
    Col. Jessep was right –we “CAN’T hamdle the truth”.
    ..
    Therefore, it is vitally important that US citizens be shielded from knowing the truth of how their country treats the rest of the world. Truth-revealers must be eliminated. And in order to justify doing that, “we” need good writers who will write and say absolutely anything to make a few bucks; to convince us that anyone who reveals the truth must be destroyed. With recent history as a guide, it won’t take much convincing.

  10. A large part of the problem is that so many US citizens – and other Westerners – seem to be suffering from chronic Stockholm Syndrome.

    No matter how clearly and unmistakably they are shown that government and big business are working deliberately against the interests of them, the citizens – they persist in giving government and big business their unconditional support.

    It is a powerful demonstration of how completely the Edward Bernays plan of brainwashing the people has worked.

    Mind you, there really is nothing new under the sun. Those who are old enough or religious enough to have read the relevant texts may recall how the people of Jerusalem clamoured to have Jesus Christ crucified, even at the cost of releasing the murderous bandit Barabbas.

    1. Just learned to my shock, since you mentioned it, Tom, that Jesus Christ was proven to be a masterful piece of Roman propaganda and mythology designed by Roman Emperor Titus to retroactively cover up their invasion and suppression of Palestinian rebels, a literary rather than a historical figure. Why do you think that Rome is the capital of Catholicism? A little mind-blowing. Worth the time to watch:
      https://youtu.be/zmEScIUcvz0

      1. That is how Roman Empire fashioned original antisemitism with “the Jews” playing the role of eternal scapegoats, “the Jews” meaning the militant Jewish rebels that tried to separate Palestine from the Roman Empire, not the pacifist Jewish “Jesus.” Watch the documentary.

        1. The Romans referred to an area as Palestine and the British called it the Palestine Mandate. However, there never was am actual country named Palestine, just names attached to a geographical area primarily loosely populated by various Arab tribes, many of which were nomadic and regularly fought one another.
          The are was most of that of the original country of Israel, from which the Jews were driven, before being continually expelled, throughout history, from one country to another. The current country of Israel is but a portion of the original. Furthermore, before the Jews were awarded with the ‘new Israel’ they accepted an agreement that there would be peace among the Jews and Arabs. However, the Arabs never accepted it. It has always been their goal to exterminate the Jews, a goal that became stronger and frequently acted upon after the formation of Hamas.

      2. Thanks for sharing this; watching it now. This narrative control stuff is very much my shit.

      3. annemarie Bruggink Avatar
        annemarie Bruggink

        Thanks for the link, extremely interesting

      4. God is what we make him.
        Does not make him any less real.

        Clearly, could be used for control of masses.
        As could media.

        Interesting documentary.

  11. The US would likely prefer to assassinate Assange in captivity by torture and cover it up than to prosecute him, which would be very embarrassing to the country’s image.

    1. Yes, they’ll take him to Gitmo Bay instead of Amerika.

    2. Unfortunately, it seems the U.S. has little to be concerned about in regard to image at this point.

      Once the criminal knows that you know he’s a dirtbag, he kind-of drops the formalities.

      Haskell has been learning from MbS no doubt.

      Trump is having the honor of being front man for U.S. crime syndicate.

      I am sorry to say, I think there is no happy ending – no hero to save the day. Likely, Correa was removed to allow this to proceed.

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