Democracy Now has conducted a thorough interview with the UN Special Rapporteur who found that a collaboration between multiple governments in “a relentless and unrestrained campaign of public mobbing, intimidation and defamation” has placed such severe stress on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange and done so much damage to his psychological well being that it can only be described as torture.

The 15-minute interview is by far the most in-depth breakdown of UN Special Rapporteur Nils Melzer’s findings that I have yet seen, and I highly recommend watching it in full for an articulate explanation of Assange’s persecution and the physical, psychological, and legal abuses that have been inflicted upon him.

But I am writing this article to highlight a specific part of this interview which I am quite sure I’ll be quoting again and again in my future reporting on Assange’s plight, because it perfectly illustrates with great authority an aspect of his persecution which has gone severely under-acknowledged despite the incalculable damage that it has done to Assange, to his case, and to society as a whole.

While discussing the unjustly stacked biases which Assange faces in the governments that are participating in his persecution, Melzer said something very, very interesting, which I will highlight in bold in the following text:

“I believe we have to take a step back and look at all these proceedings, how they have been conducted, and come to our own conclusions whether these are fair. We also have to take a step back and look at this whole narrative of suspected rapist; narcissist; selfish, ungrateful person; hacker, and scratch the surface a little bit and see what’s below there. When I was first approached by his defense team seeking protection from my mandate in December last year, I was reluctant to do so, because, me, too, I had been affected by this prejudice that I had absorbed through all these public, you know, narratives spread in the media over the years. And only when I scratched the surface a little bit, I saw how little foundation there was to back this up and how much fabrication and manipulation there is in this case. So I encourage everybody to really look below the surface in this case.”

Hearing a UN expert lay this out with such honesty, humility and clarity is perhaps the most pleasantly astonishing thing that I have ever witnessed in the entire time I’ve been engaged in political commentary.

For ages WikiLeaks supporters like myself have been doing our best to highlight the unbelievably massive smear campaign against Assange which has convinced people across all political factions throughout the entire western world that he is a foul-smelling Nazi Kremlin spy rapist who smears feces on embassy walls and abuses his cat, but we are almost universally rebuffed by credulous media consumers who believe the information they’ve been receiving about Assange is an accurate reflection of reality. And now in comes this outsider who’d subscribed to the same smears as everyone else, but, because of his unique position (and probably because of an unusually healthy mind as well), he was able to see the whole thing for what it is and describe it for all to see.

For someone like me who writes all the time about the primary agenda of the powerful to control the dominant narrative, it is extremely gratifying to see the toxic influence of mass media smear campaigns highlighted in such a direct, simple and authoritative way. The ability of the owners of the political/media class to discredit and neutralize anyone who poses a threat to their interests simply by rearranging the narratives about them is one of the most destructive psychological weapons in their arsenal, yet it’s difficult to highlight for mainstream public understanding without testimony like Melzer’s.

The main reason it’s so hard to convince the public that they have been taken in by propaganda and smear campaigns is because for some stupid reason, one of the most shameful things anyone can do in our society is be fooled. Admitting that you have been duped takes tremendous humility and courage in such a society, and most people are too afraid of scaling that wall of shame and cognitive dissonance to be willing to face it.

If we are to overcome the narrative dominance of the powerful, it is essential that we find a way to shift that shame from those who have been fooled onto those who have been fooling them. We will know we are living in a healthy society when being a manipulator becomes more shameful and taboo than being gullible.

Today we took one small but very positive step in that direction.

_________________________

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57 responses to “UN Special Rapporteur On Torture Exposes Anti-Assange Smear Campaign”

  1. Unfortunately it now appears that George Orwell was as much a prophet as a novelist.

  2. Robert Edwards Avatar
    Robert Edwards

    The end is near:

    The one percent is not the problem; the problem is the other 99% for it is their total denial of reality and of the truth that allows the 1% to maintain their corruption over the planet. We the people have the power to shift the pendulum towards a more humanitarian existence. But as Smith and many others have pointed out, we are quite happy not to rock the boat, not be critical or adversarial towards our government. BUT, what the 99% don’t realize, is that the disparity between those who have and those who have-not, is getting wider and wider. The middle class no longer exists, so we are left with a society that will eventually fall in on itself by way of bottom-line economics. Politicians are now millionaires and they want to keep it that way, while the rest of the nation is fighting to maintain an existence. The biggest polluter, and by far the biggest waste of our natural resource, is the MIC (Military Industrial Complex) with its endless wars, its over 800 bases on foreign soil – costing Americans trillions each year. We look up to our troops as some kind of hero, looking after our freedom, when in fact they are doing the exact opposite. Prey tell me who has Iran attacked and yet we are gung-ho in beating the war drums. Since WWll the US has either invaded and or overturned democratically elected governments in 70 or more countries. Main land America may have known peace during these years but the rest of the world live in fear of American democracy. And, let me tell you this, America WILL NO SURVIVE WWlll – if you vote then you are committing us all to darkness – do not be fooled by “the lesser of the two evils”. The future is in your hands not those in corporate America and at the Pentagon…
    Adam Smith wrote the following in “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”:
    ====
    “Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … he intends only to his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”

  3. What The World’s Top 10 Tech Firms Have In Common

    “The world’s top ten tech companies –Microsoft, Apple, Amazon, Google, Facebook, Alibaba, Intel, Oracle, Samsung and Baidu–increasingly have something in common: they’re doing mission-critical work in Israel that’s core to their businesses back at HQ. Let’s take a look at how this trend is playing out.

    Earlier this year, Microsoft hired a 34-year-old cyber-security prodigy –a hacker essentially–as its new head of R&D in Israel. The young man, a veteran of the country’s elite Unit 8200 (Israel’s version of the NSA), will be responsible for future-proofing Microsoft’s defense of its crown jewels in the cloud. Microsoft is a cloud-first company now, everything is there: Azure, Cortana, Office, even Minecraft. In other words, Microsoft’s cloud has to be an absolutely critical part of the company’s core business going forward, and the Redmond-based company is entrusting its security to a 34-year-old Israeli.”
    https://www.forbes.com/sites/startupnationcentral/2018/02/20/what-the-worlds-top-10-tech-firms-have-in-common/#44a1090b2b3a

  4. “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11, when all around we provide evidence of real conspiracies, for war or mass financial fraud.”-Julian Assange

    Newly Released FBI Docs Shed Light on Apparent Mossad Foreknowledge of 9/11 Attacks
    New information released by the FBI has brought fresh scrutiny to the possibility that the “Dancing Israelis,” at least two of whom were known Mossad operatives, had prior knowledge of the attacks on the World Trade Center.
    https://www.mintpressnews.com/newly-released-fbi-docs-shed-light-on-apparent-mossad-foreknowledge-of-9-11-attacks/258581/

    People forgot that: At least 60 young Israeli Jews have been arrested and detained around the country on immigration charges since the Sept. 11 attacks, many of them held on U.S. government officials’ invocation of national security.
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2001/11/23/60-israelis-on-tourist-visas-detained-since-sept-11/a918a45b-e406-4b97-b9b8-cab7d0c9de20/?utm_term=.c2c339dd4859

    Why this drastic action: People forgot about the truck bombs stopped on that day.

  5. Wikileaks Is Zionist Poison II: Deconstruction Of The Myth

    “The more despicable, and most certainly more collusive of Assange’s praises, is that of the originator of the ‘war on terror,’ Zionist war criminal Benjamin Netanyahu. In an interview with Bewkes-owned TIME Magazine, Assange called Netanyahu a ‘sophisticated politician,’ and used the butcher of Gaza as an example of a world leader who respects the leaks of his organization, and even went on to say that Netanyahu believes Wikileaks will lead to ‘an increase in the peace process in the Middle East and particularly in relation to Iran,’ and most damningly, admitting that Cablegate was in the interest of Israel (236). It is not coincidental at all, that the two Zionist objects of Julian Assange’s praise are quite good friends; Netanyahu stays at Rupert Murdoch’s estate when the war criminal is in London (237).

    What kind of whistle-blower gives his leaks to Zionist-owned, corporate, elitist newspapers and then writes an editorial for one? What kind of hero of the oppressed people hires a Zionist lawyer that defends the torture of Palestinians and the institutions that cover it up? What kind of freedom fighter accepts an award from the Rothschild family, one of the greatest causes of the destruction of peace and justice throughout the world? What kind of revolutionary is inspired by Zionist liars like the Murdoch family and offers his praise to filthy war criminals like Benjamin Netanyahu? What kind of champion of the people subscribes to Zionist-created free market capitalism and admits that his organization was created to nonsensically make an anti-freedom and anti-ethics ideology more ‘free and ethical?’ What kind of defender of truth mentions Iran’s nuclear program as if it was a threat to ‘peace’ while totally ignoring hundreds of Israeli nukes? Julian Assange is none of these things; and to label him as such, is an insult to those righteous persons who are. Julian Assange is a Zionist shill, bought and paid for by the Israel-first elite, Mossad and the CIA, planted in the activism community as the front man for the new generation of COINTELPRO.”
    http://www.maskofzion.com/2010/12/wikileaks-is-zionist-poison-ii.html

    1. Lori, a.k.a. PCPrincess Avatar
      Lori, a.k.a. PCPrincess

      You state as a fact that an absence of published material about an event or events is proof that Wikileaks and Assange are Zionist puppets. However, it is one of the most basic tenets of Wikileaks that they ONLY publish material that is GIVEN to them. The absence of material does not equate to a cover-up, it can only logically equate to the fact that Wikileaks did not have relevant material to publish.

      If there is secondary evidence to back-up your assertions, I did not find it (as it relates to this issue).

      1. “The slickest way in the world to lie is to tell the right amount of truth at the right time-and then shut up.”
        ― Robert A. Heinlein, Stranger in a Strange Land

  6. I am still hoping that the United States government implodes on itself into a gigantic free-for-all where all of the bad actors, and actresses, go about stabbing each other in the back every day and the American public finally gets disgusted enough to demand that our wayward government be cleaned up ASAP!!
    Prelude to a Fiasco by James Howard Kunstler. You can peruse it here:
    https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/prelude-to-a-fiasco/

    1. stop hoping. start facilitating the implosion.

  7. Caitlin, do you realize that the assault on Julian Assange’s character falls under the category of relational aggression, often called the “female” form of aggression? The other form of aggression is physical aggression, also known as “male” aggression. Traditionally, relational aggression isn’t taken as seriously as physical aggression because it leaves no marks on the body, doesn’t draw blood, etc. It is conducted via gossip, smear campaigns, put-downs, social exclusion, social isolation. It’s usually downplayed as a “girl” thing, an adolescent problem, silly behavior that kids are expected to outgrow.

    But anyone who has ever functioned within organizations or communities (including online) knows that relational aggression is quite common among adults of both genders (perhaps more often among females), and the higher the stakes — as in office, church, school or national politics — the uglier, crueler, and more destructive it can become. Probably all public figures are subjected to it to some extent.
    But Julian Assange, a brilliant, courageous, painstakingly honest, warm and friendly individual, has been the target of professional relational aggressors operating at a level and to an extent and duration that is extreme. And finally, finally, people are paying attention to what precisely has been done to him. With the exception of untreated medical problems and now, possibly, psychotropic drugs, the damage to his psyche has been deliberate targeted psychological abuse known as relational aggression.
    It’s time to take a closer look at what it is and how it operates.

  8. The lies have no beginning and no end. They’re infinite.

  9. “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer

  10. I found myself nodding in agreement with Mr. Ralph Nader’s article. Peruse it here:
    https://www.truthdig.com/articles/ralph-nader-american-society-is-in-rapid-decay/

  11. Robert Edwards Avatar
    Robert Edwards

    Why and how has the US become so evil – is their no power that can bring them to justice.

    1. There are those that claim that the ” United States ” has always been evil from its beginning. As far as bringing any part of the United States government to ” Justice ” that might never happen at all.

    2. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      The USA ALWAYS was Evil. Make Evil Great Again doesn’t quite have the self-satisfied ring, but MEGA looks more marketable.

  12. the virginia beach municipal building shooter was an ex-military. chickens always, ALWAYS come home to roost.

  13. Excellent Caitlin. Please keep pounding away at your message of truth.

  14. The technology changes, but the song remains the same. This of course is an ancient technique in human societies. Think back upon concepts like excommunication, the declaring of someone as a heretic or a witch. And of course, the old favorite of Kings, the declaring of someone as a traitor. All of these included some concept of smearing someone’s name to the wider public.
    This of course only works after the size of a society grows beyond that of a small clan or tribe. At that size, the smear campaign has a big problem in that someone says, no, I know Bob, I’ve known him all my life. I know he’s not a heretic/traitor. The technique obviously becomes more pronounced and effective when there are billions of people who can be reached by the smears. Remember of course that even in pre-Internet days it was said that a lie could get halfway round the world while the truth is still getting out of bed and putting on her boots. This is combined with the physical impossibility of very few if any people on this planet really knowing a person for decades of life anymore.

    1. Yes. As our numbers increase beyond all reason, we become just another number among faceless numbers. Our precious uniqueness is lost, and we are reduced to anonymous nothings that are easily expendable. In Martin Buber’s terms, we become its, rather than I’s.

  15. Humanity’s probably-insurmountable problem all boils down to “it is difficult to get a man to understand something when his livelihood depends upon his not understanding it.” –Upton Sinclair — because “the world is a business, Mr. Beale.” — “Arthur Jensen” in “Network” — and under the present arrangement (which requires perpetual growth and war), businesses cannot operate at constant loss. There must be “profit” for “investment” and the historical and continuing quest for profit is what will lead to human extinction. Ever more people; ever more jobs, ever more production equals ever more growth/GDP equals “how humanity can commit suicide without ever really knowing why”.
    ..
    Humanity adopting Adam Smith’s “greed is good” philosophy for the good life was IN REALITY the formula for a “timed release” Jim Jones Kool Aid. You can almost taste the irony as you swallow it down every day of your life.

    1. Good one Ish. And we are hooked on that deceptively delicious Kool Aid, unfortunately. Will we ever wake up and kick the habit?

    2. yes, there’s survival, greed, selfishness, and arrogance. and then there’s fear, the primal fear, that the parasites and their thugs have put in our psyche …

    3. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      ‘Greed is Good’ was not the philosophy of Adam Smith. It was of Milton Friedman and his ilk, however.

    4. Adam Smith wrote the following in “An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations”:
      ====
      “Every individual necessarily labours to render the annual revenue of the society as great as he can. He generally neither intends to promote the public interest, nor knows how much he is promoting it … he intends only to his own gain, and he is in this, as in many other cases, led by an invisible hand to promote an end which was no part of his intention. Nor is it always the worse for society that it was no part of his intention. By pursuing his own interest he frequently promotes that of the society more effectually than when he really intends to promote it. I have never known much good done by those who affected to trade for the public good.”
      ======

      What the above says is IMO the “foundation stone” of whatever you want to call the present, for lack of a better word, system. That particular stone actually existed long before Smith, but he was the first to elucidate it so well to the rest of the ruling class of his day.

      To me, what Smith wrote boils down to Gordon Gekko’s “greed is good” in the movie “Wall Street”.

      Smith’s treatise was published in 1776. The human population in that year was supposedly around 850 million people. The population of the world today is supposedly around 7,600 million (7.6 billion) people. For some modern perspective, in 1972 the living/consuming population of the world was supposedly around 3.8 billion, so in the approximately TWO HUNDRED years between 1776 and 1971 the living/consuming human population rose by about 3 BILLION people; and in the approximately FORTY-SIX years between 1971 and 2017, the living/consuming human population grew by ANOTHER approximately 3 BILLION people.

      Today’s Elite, along with the vast majority of the thoroughly brainwashed members of the bewildered herd, erroneously think that all they have to do is get up out of bed each day and “follow my greed”, or to “stand up and do what comes naturally” and things will turn out just great for not only an, apparently, infinite number of billions of people, but also for an ever-forgiving Mother Earth that will certainly accommodate that infinite number of billions, just as She did those 850 million in 1776.

      It won’t.

      In short, humanity’s present rapidly-deteriorating situation is IMO ALREADY proving that no greater BS has ever been written than Smith’s, and, one horrible way or another, humanity’s next few years on Mother Earth will confirm it.

      But the 0.001% in Smith’s day loved it (at least the above part of what Smith wrote), and so, religiously, do the 0.001% of today. And because the 0.001% controlled the world then and the 0.001% controls the world now, BS (AKA trickle down economics) is still The Official Truth that the Elite will NEVER allow to fail. Unfortunately, this means that the Elite, intentionally or unintentionally (when pushed by the irresistible, “invisible hand” of greed), as they have many times in the past, WILL / MUST start WW3 in order to obtain a profit on their investments.

      Because the population of the world is no longer increasing wildly enough to create enough demand for the capitalists’ wildly-over-capacity, large-scale capital equipment, and the War OF Terror and the War on Drugs are not anywhere close to being expensive enough to generate enough profit, World War Three, it will be.

      For the Elite, when it comes to generating profit, whether they know it or not (plausible deniability before God), “all options are on the table”. Their financial and political minions will “push the button” FOR the Elite and, shortly thereafter — after this final time around “the business cycle”– the Elite will plead innocence at the Pearly Gates rather than in a court room in Nuremberg, or in a corporate boardroom on Wall Street. This final time around, the “profit” from “unintentional”, “unexpected”, “it struck the world like an asteroid from space” war will be dispersed equally among ALL people. For the very first time since the “birth of a nation”, true equality among all men and women will, for once and for all, have been achieved!

      Hooray, Adam Smith!!! Hip Hip Hooray!! For he’s a jolly good fel low; for he’s a jolly good fel low; for he’s a jolly good fel l low; that nobody can deny!

      1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
        richard le sarcophage

        If you are going to reduce Adam Smith’s work to one cherry-picked paragraph from several hundred pages in his two most famous works, The Theory of Moral Sentiments, and An Inquiry Into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, you are going to miss a lot. That the parasite classes and tribes do so is no reason for us to do so.

  16. Then do something about it UN! If the UN stands up to the US and stops being the US’s b*tch, then the rest if the world will join in and do the right thing. The US wants to rule the world! It is the Nazi vision.

    1. What do you think the UN should do?

      1. Robert Edwards Avatar
        Robert Edwards

        Arrest American Politicians and MIC generals for War Crimes…. Then perhaps the will be some substance behind the UN

        1. Using what authority and mechanism? The US has veto power in the Security Council, the primary enforcement arm for the UN. The US has withdrawn from the Rome Treaty and the International Criminal Court. The US recently revoked a visa to the chief prosecutor of the ICC investigating war crimes in Afghanistan. It has been reported that Trump is likely to pardon soldiers accused of war crimes in military courts.

          1. Germany withdrew from the League of Nations. They of course were eventually stopped. But it was very expensive, and afterwards everyone agreed that the world should have reacted sooner.

      2. richard le sarcophage Avatar
        richard le sarcophage

        Move to Geneva or somewhere else, outside of the USA, for a start.

        1. Move yes, but I suggest a less than comfortable venue perhaps on an isolated “no country” fully self contained autocratic island… Maybe some place more suitable for serious work and less diplomatic immunity party time. Besides, isn’t their current headquarters long overdue to be underwater?

    2. UN has been playing a critical role in building and supporting the fascist vision of the neoliberals. we the people across the borders need to get off our ass and do whatever we can collectively and individually.

  17. Robert Edwards Avatar
    Robert Edwards

    Julian Assange, a true American Patriot, exposing the corruption and insidiousness of American politics. Also, the total influence of the MIC in the American way of life – he should be treated as a hero.

    1. yeah, i know a couple of engineers who work for MIC for $$$$$$. they can’t even tell us what they actually do but that tells us everything and more that we need to know. we soon boycotted them and their whole damn family. we couldn’t relate to such creatures.

    2. Julian Assange, a true American Patriot
      Uh, Julian Assange is Australian. One suspects that he would be insulted to be called an American.

  18. Thanks, Geo, for your post and link above. The sheer hatred and ignorance of the commenters you cited did not come from factual information or from these individuals’ first-hand knowledge of Julian or Wikileaks. It can only have come from what they read, watched, or heard on the MSM and public figures calling for Julian to be droned or given the death penalty. It’s enough to make a sane person despair.

    1. Thanks. With this positive turn of events and the recent, surprising, about face of so many in the media speaking out against the espionage indictments, I was hoping for there to be a bit of an awakening. To see all that vitriol, while expected in the past, really hit me hard. Even when the propagandists (i.e. Maddow) try to undo their narratives it seems their audiences are too far gone to listen anymore.

      To see those who were most likely against the war mongers during the Bush years now cheer for torture and idolize Mueller, Brennen, Comey and so many other merchants of death and deceit is just depressing.

      Partisan tribalism has truly driven the populous mad. Might have to reread Erich Fromm’s “Sane Society” again for some levity where he explores the idea: “The fact that millions of people share the same vices does not make these vices virtues, the fact that they share so many errors does not make the errors to be truths, and the fact that millions of people share the same form of mental pathology does not make these people sane” and “We consume, as we produce, without any concrete relatedness to the objects with which we deal; We live in a world of things, and our only connection with them is that we know how to manipulate or to consume them.”

      1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
        richard le sarcophage

        Madcow makes Hannity look house-trained.

  19. The UN Special Rapporteur makes a compelling case. But many surveys have shown that a majority of people support torture when it is used against those they perceive as enemies. There’s a lot of work still to do to educate people and enforce the international and state prohibitions against torture. Rightly or wrongly Assange is not likely to be a poster boy to eradicate the use of torture.

  20. Human beings are natural at being negative. We are chock full of hate, envy, etc.,etc. Every single thing that makes us different from one another is something to be hated and despised. Our personal problems are always the fault of ” a host of others “. As a species we love to hate; one might go so far as to say encountering another human being not full of hate and envy is a very rare thing. Even extremely educated people are not immune to having intense hatred and envy to gender, race, religion, etc., etc. There are many human beings that ride the wave of hatred all the way to the top of the heap as Donald Trump has done. Human history is full of these people that exploit hatred and envy inside human beings. That is a major part of our dysfunction as a species!

    1. “To the primitive mind all evil comes from outside.” J.G Frazier

    2. richard le sarcophage Avatar
      richard le sarcophage

      Human beings can be hateful or benevolent. They can be both, at different times or in different circumstances, with different people. However, when controlled and relentlessly brainwashed by the evil creatures who rule under capitalism, a type we euphemistically call ‘the Right’, who are, in fact, psychopaths, then we can be driven, individually or en masse, towards evil.
      The Rightwing psychopathology promotes competition over co-operation and collaboration, not because it is more ‘efficient’, but because it divides societies into ‘winners’ ie the parasites, and ‘losers’ ie the human beings. For the Rightist greed is not an evil, but the highest good, and is insatiable. Other people are enemies, or competition at best. Religions are cults of xenophobic hatred, greed, and groveling before blood-thirsty ‘Gods’ who are just ego-projections onto the cosmos of the Rightist. And, fatally, life on earth is nothing but a resource that may be destroyed in the process of being turned into money, profit and wealth. That last hatred, of life itself, has been our Achilles Heel.

  21. And your wordpress isnt working.

  22. Two thumbs up. Keep the faith. Where we go One we go all os a literal belief, not just a campaign slogan or marketing ploy.

  23. flushtheparasites Avatar
    flushtheparasites

    the neo-liberal and neo-conservative narratives about Assange and Wikileaks are like two snakes that have started eating each other’s tail. they think they are getting a nice full meal… part of me would like to think that Mr. Assange is breaking out of his prison as a great martyr for humanity while forcing his enemies to tear each other into pieces.

  24. That is a very thorough and detailed assessment of Julian Assange’s treatment, persecution and torture.

    Sadly, none of those 4 governments are likely to respond positively, which to my mind is further evidence of a) their complicity, and b) their disinterest in human rights.

  25. If anyone wants to see the deranged mania of supposed lefties regarding Assange, check out the new piece there about the UN report. Every comment is rejoicing in his torture, calling for more torture and his death, and so much more vitriol it’s absolutely horrifying. I do mean every single comment – hundreds. It’s horrifying.

    Have tried talking sense into them by pointing out their idol, Rachel Maddow, is even talking some sense on this but to no avail. The Russiagate TDS crowd is too far gone it seems. They’re just bloodthirsty mobs at this point.

      1. Here’s a sampling of some of the Bathsh!t lunacy coming from what passes for “the left” in America now days:

        “i 100% support the torture of this vile, barely human, pro Trump, puss silo, Julian Assange. He gave us Trump. He deserves far worse torture. Make his torture pay per view. I will watch.”

        “Thank you for helping Trump get elected. A grateful nation would like to give free room and board for the next thousands years. Your look of horror is thanks enough.”

        “YAWN…I really can’t muster up the give a fuck about how badly Assange gets abused. In fact if someone wanted to kick him once or twice in the head for me, I’d be OK with that, too.
        Fuck him. He helped destroy my country with help from Russia. I really wouldn’t give a battle fuck if they tossed his ass out of an airplane with no ‘chute.”

        1. richard le sarcophage Avatar
          richard le sarcophage

          I watch a little Fox every day, then a bit of MSNBC. The MSNBC LUNATICS are by far the worse, so thoroughly brainwashed, and all gesticulating and gibbering in perfect Groupthink unison. The Fox demented are, in comparison, almost sane, and in regard to the plain elite conspiracy to avert a Trump candidacy and Presidency, then frame him for impeachment, they at least speak a semblance of sense.
          The mania that decrees that ONE Russian click-bait farm, with no proven links to Putin, which produced 0.something of Tweets, Facebook links and other social media traffic during the election farce, swung the election, or rigged it, or (the best so far) ‘hacked American minds to vote for Trump’, is beyond normal insanity. The IRA trolls posted half their ‘mind-hacks’ AFTER the election, many were puppy photos and the like, and some of those indicted by Mueller had left the place as long ago as 2014. And, as for ‘the Russians stole’ the DNC e-mails, the content of which showing the rigging of the Democrat candidate race is NEVER mentioned, that is simply a lie, like all the hundreds of others that US ‘intelligence’ has concocted over the years. Binney of the NSA and nowadays the VIPS has shown that they were leaked, not hacked, almost certainly by the arkancided Seth Rich. This insane narrative, driven by the blood-soaked Harpie demi-goddess, Clinton, itself, and her camp followers of dementing feminazis who demanded that it was ‘Her time’, are driving the USA to civil war, ignoring Trump’s brutal policies in their impeachment obsession, and actively seeking thermo-nuclear war with Russia. How effing insane and evil is that?

          1. Lori, a.k.a. PCPrincess Avatar
            Lori, a.k.a. PCPrincess

            I truly do fear for Assange’s safety for the very fact that he KNOWS the truth about the DNC doc LEAKS and that it was, in fact, Seth Rich that was responsible for Wikileaks’ possession of the material. That information might be the most damaging information he possesses.

        2. My God! Really bitter and twisted. Both the Left and Right are so full of hate. So brainwashed. It is deeply disturbing. The predictable response from Jeremy Hunt’ (Secretary of State for Foreign and Commonwealth Affairs) to Nils Melzer’s report, tells me that we have a long way to go. Jonathan Cook’s blog contains two articles: ‘Abuses show Assange case was never about law’ and ‘Don’t be fooled: Media is still selling out Assange’.. They are well worth reading

  26. Dear Caitlin: Your own clearsightedness is always commendable for calling out ugliness and for supporting the truth. Hopefully we can see a few Aussie politicians called to account for this torture of Julian – maybe time on a nearby Pacific Island country might help them to reflect on their sycophancy to the US narrative – and serve as one of the messages they are always sending the rest of us that such ignorance carries accountability. Sacking and other penalties.

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