This is the speech I gave at a demonstration last night in Melbourne for Julian Assange, whose extradition trial begins February 24th.
Julian Assange started a leak outlet on the premise that corrupt and unaccountable power is a problem in our world, and that problem can be fought with the light of truth. Corrupt and unaccountable power responded by detaining, silencing and smearing him. His persecution has proved his own thesis about the world absolutely correct.
Power is the ability to control what happens. Absolute power is controlling what people think about what happens. Humans are story-oriented creatures, so if you can control the stories that the humans are telling each other about what’s going on, you can control those humans.
This is the power of narrative management. This is why governments and billionaires use propaganda, advertising, buy up media conglomerates and fund think tanks, employ public relations and spin doctors, buy up troll armies and bot farms: because they know that those who control the narrative, control the world.
You can do whatever you like, as long as you can control what people think about what you’re doing.
No one understands this better than Julian Assange. He famously said that if wars are started by lies, then they can be stopped by truth. That’s the basis of WikiLeaks. Bringing truth to the public in the most pristine and revolutionary way possible. They made it so people could leak documents to them safely, and then they released them with minimal redactions and editorial. Like many online innovations it cut out the middle man, and the middle man, in this case, are the media spinmeisters who normally present information with an overlay of establishment-friendly narrative.
You know the ones. The ones that are like, “Here’s what I found out, but more importantly, this is what you should think about what I found out”.
It had immediate effects. Global reach, exposing the most corrupt roots of the most powerful people in an environment where the growing alarm at the GFC, climate change and endless war meant that people were hungry for the truth about why these things are still happening despite their unpopularity and despite our every effort to stop them.
The spotlight Assange’s persecution has thrown on the institution of journalism is one of the untold stories, mainly because the villains are the journalists–the people we usually rely on to tell us all the stories. This corruption was unearthed not so much through leaked documents, but through what we have been witnessing as the media-driven public mobbing of Julian Assange the person.
The mainstream media, to this day, lies constantly about Assange. If you pick up any recent story about Assange it will be littered with smears and lies. They’ll say offhand how he colluded with the Russians like that’s true, or that he was ”charged” with rape, or they’ll have a throwaway line about how he smeared poo on the walls of the embassy, or they will say the reason he was granted asylum by Ecuador was to flee rape charges (like that’s a thing).
There are dozens and dozens of lies, and they get repeated as truth throughout any reporting on Assange even after months or years of being debunked. There is a story on The Guardian website right now from November of 2018 that claims that Assange met with Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chair. Can not have happened. Did not happen. The Ecuadorian embassy was the most surveilled building on planet earth at the time. Every single person who went in or out of there had to jump through many bureaucratic hoops.
No video evidence or any evidence at all was ever found for this claim, and there were plenty of people who wanted to find it. It didn’t happen.
And yet, that story is still on The Guardian website today over a year after it was first published. It still comes up as the number one result on Google when you search assange and manafort. There’ve been no retractions. No apologies.
The Guardian. Not New Idea. Not Hello!. Not News of the World. The Guardian. The bastion of all things worthy and noble.
It has been very revealing.
Assange has only ever been persecuted because he exposed US war crimes. No one has ever gone to jail for those war crimes, but instead of concentrating on that, the press decided to go after Assange.
Let’s be clear: when journalists use their power and privilege to cover up and divert attention from war crimes, they become war criminals themselves.
Journalists today are finally waking up to the fact that the legal precedent the Trump administration is setting by reaching out across the Atlantic, taking an Australian journalist, from an Ecuadorian embassy, in the middle of London, is devastating to journalism all over the world. Not just in the US, not just in the UK, but all over the world. No journalist is safe. Because if they can do that to him, they can do it to anyone.
We also learned that the United States do not consider foreign nationals to have a First Amendment protection, so the US is effectively saying that the long arm of US law can extend to get you anywhere, but they also don’t have to extend its protections.
And journalists are finally realizing that, but still silence is pretty deafening. Australian journalists should be writing furious op-eds vigorously defending Assange and demanding that our politicians act immediately, but at best we are getting tepid, smear-laden, mealy-mouthed wet squibs of copy that try to maintain that they were, of course, correct in the past, but also hit the alarm button.
And it just doesn’t work.
Until journalists admit they were wrong and Assange was right, and the US really did want him in jail for publishing like he said back in 2010, back when they were calling him paranoid, their readers aren’t going to notice that its time to change course. They aren’t going to know to act.
There is a lot of confusion about what to do. Radio host Alan Jones had a very popular Facebook poll going this morning asking whether the Australian government should intervene and bring Assange home. I saw it a few hours ago and it was at 75 percent for “Yes” with thousands of responses already, six days to go, and gathering hundreds of pro-Assange comments. He deleted it. Obviously that was not the response he was planning on.
So there is confusion, and there is silence. But silence is space. A space has opened up before us. In Australia right now, there are two kinds of people: those who think that Assange should be brought home, and those who don’t want to think about it at all. They’ve gone quiet. And we’re so used to being on the defense, we’ve gone quiet too.
A space has opened up.
The narrative is there for the taking.
All we have to do is to stand up as one and take control of this story.
Let our voices ring out.
This man is innocent.
We must bring him home.
Publishing is not a crime!
Viva Assange!
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65 responses to “Assange’s Persecution Has Exposed Media Depravity The World Over”
“… when journalists use their power and privilege to cover up and divert attention from war crimes, they become war criminals themselves.”
Journalists are like soldiers who are just following orders. Journalists do what they need to do to keep their paychecks coming in. In the military, it is the generals giving the orders. In the media, it is the owners. Journalists behave as directed by the money, and the media owners direct the money. Veteran German journalist Udo Ulfkotte exposed this loud and clear for anyone lucky enough to hear his words. The real war crimes originate from the sociopaths who lead us, who control the money, and who give the orders. They are the invisible hand directing the entire Assange psy-op. Just as Hitler defied the Jewish money cabal only to be targeted by the Jewish controlled warmongers (Stalin, Churchill, and Roosevelt) and be falsely demonized by the Jewish controlled media, Assange too has defied the same narrative controllers and is being targeted and demonized in the same way. Hitler at least had his entire nation of 65 million people supporting him, while Assange has no such luxury. Hitler and Germany were crushed by the biggest war criminals on the planet (the Allies), and subsequently Hitler and Germany were falsely painted as the biggest war criminals on the planet. Assange is getting nearly the same treatment. As long as the sociopaths keep the public convinced of Assange’s “crimes”, he too will face his Nuremberg and the appointed executioners. The ruling sociopaths play this game all the time, and they are very experienced at it, while the public doesn’t even know there’s a game being played against them. The playing field is heavily tilted. Care to bet which team will win? Like WW2, it will not be the good guys.
Chico I have never investigated why the Germans wanted to exterminate the Jews.
Am I correct if I assume that Hitler wasn’t smart enough to realize that it was only the greedy and corrupt Zionist Jews that were the enemy of Germany? And while he arranged for the poorer Jews to be killed while the rich ones got away? The ones who got away are the ones that still rule the monetary system today?
Or did he really believe that all Jews were the enemy of Germany?
I do know that homosexuals, Romani and ‘anti socials’ were also included in the extermination program so there was more to the mood than just hatred of Jews.
I don’t think America really cared who was crushed in the 1939-1945 war, either way it was a sales bonanza for America for weapons, hardware, uniforms and other military supplies to anyone who would pay for them. If only Julian Assange had been around then to expose that crime!
Study it. You will learn that the Germans had no plan to exterminate the Jews, that no one was ever gassed in the concentration camps, and many other surprising things. Everything we have been taught about WW2 is propaganda. Fake news is not a recent phenomenon.
CHICO: Whom do you recommend we read to learn more?
Would you please give me some information as to where I could study it.
I learned that the news media lies when I saw the fabrications during the American war on Vietnam. Nothing has changed!
Hmmm
Your present perspective is reflection of more than half a century of brain washing. Your comment “or did he really believe that all Jews were the enemy of Germany?” is a direct reflection of that effort which is not supported by historical fact, only be jewish efforts to rewrite it.
Consider these examples of jewish members of Hitlers most senior Staff before and during WWII:
One of the founders of the SS: Emil Maurice considered by many to be 2nd only to Hitler himself
Hitler’s Air Force Chief of Staff: Erhard Milch
Other General officers included Wilhelm Keitel, Walther von Brauchitsch, Erich Raeder, and Maximilian von Weichs
20 jewish soldiers who fought for Hitler during war actually received Knights Cross. Some of them pinned by Hitler himself.
Many of Hitlers richest and most power backers throughout the 1930’s and early 40’s were in fact zionist jews.
More Geman Jews applied for benefits in post war1946 than were alive in 1938….
So the short answer to your question is: don’t be silly…..
My ignorance is due to the fact that it happened before I was born in far away Europe. I didn’t really become aware of the state of the world until young men in our community were being shipped off to Viet Nam to murder people who were not our enemies.
I knew the ‘world wars’ were money making endeavors but my interest in what happened was limited to the Pacific arena. It was only after watching movies that I believed what was portrayed about Germany and the fate of Jewish people.
I agree that it is important to gain an understanding of what happened because the Zionists control the biggest military force in the world now, along with the western media.
Hmmm
“Hitler at least had his entire nation of 65 million people supporting him”
That statement so casually slipped into the discussion is simply not backed by historical fact. There was huge resistance to the Hitler’s rise to power by large segments of the German people. And that resistance to Hitler and Nazism continued throughout the war. The irony here is that there were many zionist jews that served Hitler right to the end of the war. Jews who did not hesitate to punish and kill fellow jews. That zionism and nazism are little more than mirror images of each other is another terrible truth carefully concealed from the public by the media, Hollywood, and now even the US government.
I am always curious as to how anyone that claims to have a conscience and a soul can continue to tell lies about a war in which there was so much pain and suffering by so many people that were not jewish that are so obviously contrary to well established historical fact. Not that I harbor any expectation that liars will suddenly start telling the truth…..
The storyline that we are taught is “historical fact” is not. A number of brave historians have tried to correct this, but all have been targeted and persecuted by those who don’t want the storyline changed. Consider the evidence of these suppressed historical revisionists and it will change your perspective. Controlling the narrative is nothing new. It reached astounding heights during and after WW2, but you will never realize that if you stick to “historical fact”.
The presstitutes as Paul Craig Roberts calls them, inside the CMMM/controlled mass mainstream media are paid to feed lies, smear and propaganda by the ZIONIST owners, in the service of israel. There are those who are the worst: CNN, MSNBC, FOX, NPR, BBC, the Guardian and even RT have been infiltrated.
There is almost no free press in the west. This website is one of the exceptions. So is Veterans Today which is so dangerous to the PTB and to the Zionists, their servers are continually under attack, not by just from inside Israel but the CIA and the Pentagon as well. These people, all of them working for the global elites do not like it when the truth comes out.
Just as David Icke.
The MSM today is more controlled than at any other time, fortunately more and more people are beginning to catch on. This is reflected in the number of people turning to alternative news sites that are accountable to themselves and not to wealthy elite Zionists or George Soros or Ray Kurzweil or Mark Zuckerberg or any of the other Silicon Valley technocrats who want to rule humanity.
If Assange is allowed to die in prison or extradited to the states, where he will die eventually or maybe even murdered in prison just as Epstein was or given a cocktail to poison him as was done to Dorothy Kilgallen, then he might as well die in Britain where the shame will fall entirely on already discredited British government, that has been connected to decades of pedophilia and cover ups.
Not only is the freedom of the press endangered bu the entire idea of freedom of speech is being targeted for removal by “woke” activists including the technocrats in Silicon Valley(the devil’s playground). Once the freedom of speech is eliminated, then freedom of thought is next, which is exactly what people like Musk and Kurzweil are promoting with their AI /human connection.
The future of humanity is in grave danger from all those who want the rest of us silenced and obedient.
The author of this smear piece, whilst covering his backside, is Global Editor of The Bureau of Investigative Journalism. What a disgrace.
https://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/entry/julian-assange_uk_5e5381a6c5b6b82aa65555d9?ncid=other_email_o63gt2jcad4&utm_campaign=share_email
Thanks again Caitlin for your work, standing up to the vile filth that has ensconced itself in the corridors of assumed power. The smearing of Julian is often blatantly stupid, uninformed and imbecilic and it can also be very, very subtle. A while ago I turned on Radio National (Australian Broadcasting Corporation) to hear information about forest fires. Fran Kelly was announcing upcoming segments in the morning’s program. Her words actually shocked me, she said: ” Love him or loath him, Julian Assange………….”)
Would she dare to introduce an upcoming segment with the prime minister: “Love him or loath him, Scott Morrison……..” or a segment about journalist John Pilger: “Love him or loath him, John Pilger……..”
The ABC that we all pay for is complicit in crimes against us. The ABC willingly lies to us and supports the military industrial complex war agenda. They have thrown themselves into the dunny can (latrine) with Rupert Murdoch and Fairfax. It’s time to shut the lid on them. All three of those entities can climb out of the latrine and come clean with the public or they can stay in there and rot in their own filth.
Excellent speech Caitlin, and you’re dead right about the depravity of the mainstream media. They are fully complicit in all of this.
Sadly, many have been brainwashed due to the MSM’s diligence in smearing and slandering Julian Assange.
End of the day, this is about All of us. It’s about freedom of speech, and the very real threat ever encroaching fascism.
We need to try and wake up more people to the danger this represents for all of us.
Hmmm
That the “Media” in the Western World has been completely corrupted and co-opted has been self-evident for decades. The real question is why hasn’t anyone stopped the jewish/zionist/israeli cabal who has maintained their stranglehold over Western Media and in many cases entire governments since the early 90’s?
I have before and no doubt will again take Caitlin to task for refusing to specifically and directly confront these lobbies and the state of israel as the primary driver behind so much of what is wrong in the Europe and the America’s today. Having said that, I do understand the massive power, size, scope and reach of those lobbies. An evil cabal which has never hesitated to perpetrate all manor of mayhem and evil upon anyone who dares rally the people with the truth. The thing is that if everyone lets Fear be their dictate, they will remain in someone else’s grip.
History has shown time and time again that In the end, it always boils down to simple math. The will of one cannot stand fast in the face of the will of thousands. And no matter how much “technology” they foist on the masses today, the zionists attempt at a 4th jewish Reich, like a malignant growth will be cut out and discarded. Relegated to the same scrape heap as Apartheid White South Africa and the model upon which zionism was drawn: Hitler’s Third Reich……
I totally agree with you. The Zionist/Israel cabal, has far too much wealth and power.
It was their intention all along to rob America of a free press and now free speech.
As Netenyahu proclaimed recently, “I destroyed free speech in America.”
We need to make sure he is not welcomed in America.
Not only will he be welcomed in America (and Australia), if the red carpet is not long enough to reach the limousine, the bought politicians will lay on their bellies so he can walk on their backs.
Thank you Caitlin.
This is Ragnarok. If Assange falls, so does the world. This is the last battle for freedom and truth that we’ll ever fight. If Assange loses, welcome to Winston Smith’s world. Accept Big Brother, love him, and weep gin-scented tears.
Remember Orwell’s final image.
Remember Julian Assange. Edward Snowden. Chelsea Manning. And so, so many others.
Amnesty International (amnesty.org) has launched a new global campaign yesterday: Julian Assange.
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[Video] Espionage charges are a chilling blow to journalists & publishers who work to expose serious human rights abuses — Amnesty International — Twitter — Feb 21, 2020
https://twitter.com/amnesty/status/1230882370712166402
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US/UK: Drop charges and halt extradition of Julian Assange | Amnesty International | 21 February 2020
https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2020/02/usuk-drop-charges-and-halt-extradition-of-julian-assange/
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Take Action: USA must drop charges against Julian Assange | Amnesty International
https://www.amnesty.org/en/get-involved/take-action/julian-assange-usa-justice/
Thanks for these links! This was news to me.
It’s about time Amnesty got involved, many people have been writing to them.
This will make a difference.
Thank you for sharing this, JMG!
You’re welcome, thank you too. Reporters Without Borders has a Julian Assange campaign now as well. 42320 signatories so far:
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#FreeAssange : Sign against Julian Assange’s extradition to the United States ! | Reporters Without Borders (RSF)
https://rsf.org/en/free-assange
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“#RSF will be at the court tomorrow for the start of the hearing. Now, more than ever, is the time to join us in this fight. Sign and share the petition against Julian #Assange’s extradition to the United States.”
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Reporters sans frontières – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) — Twitter — Feb 23, 2020
https://twitter.com/RSF_inter/status/1231629840798932996
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“At a press conference today in Paris with Julian Assange’s international lawyers — Eric Dupond-Moretti, Antoine Vey, Baltasar Garzon, and with Assange’s father John Shipton, RSF secretary-general Christophe Deloire firmly opposed Assange’s extradition to the United States”
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Assange’s extradition to the US would “threaten the work of all journalists” | Reporters Without Borders (RSF) | February 20, 2020
https://rsf.org/en/news/assanges-extradition-us-would-threaten-work-all-journalists
It is clear that the DNC is a very shady outfit; but what about the RNC? Please take a look at how they run their ” operation ” here:
https://www.truthdig.com/articles/corruption-goes-all-the-way-to-the-top-of-the-republican-national-committee/
Big fan of your work, Caitlin.
Please stop blaming journalists for what publishers and media owners are doing TO journalism, journalists and the public at large. You’re blaming the workers for what their bosses are forcing them to do for a living. If narrative control is the big issue (and I tend to agree), then how the hell is any one journalist to blame for that? The guilt goes 100% to publishers and media owners engaged in gaslighting humanity for power and profit.
The same goes for soldiers. All the same, it was established at Nuerenberg that just following orders is no excuse.
The journalists at the top of the food chain today are mostly political operatives and former government officials. They are part of an informal network of the powerful, not old-time reporters comforting the afflicted and afflicting the comfortable. And an awful lot of journalists lower down are looking to move up, not to dismantle the corrupt fourth pillar of power that the press has become. When Ezra Klein started Journolist, it wasn’t a network of advertisers making sure that everybody was reminded to have a Coke today. It was a group of people who wanted to join those among the elite who pick our presidents and decide what the people should and shouldn’t hear.
But, it is the journalists who write the copy, deliver the news, and put their names and reputations on the work, mostly knowing that it all is a game and much of it is false information. They are equally guilty, aiding and abetting the publication of blatantly false information. And, they are getting paid, in come cases handsomely, for doing so. How they can live with themselves is beyond me.
Shall I respond to everyone at once?
For every journalist we read, there are at least ten more who can’t get their work published, even though it is very good, highly competent, work. You folks have no idea how many good journalists have been denied any chance whatever at making a living by being honest like all of you surely are, never doing anything humiliating because, you know, the boss and rent and stupid stuff like that.
Sy Hersh cannot get published in the US anymore, hasn’t been for some years now. How can you all be so absorbed in Caitlin’s narrative of “narrative control” and not recognize that it co-opts every single person by poisoning the entire field? Being different is publishing death since Google and Facebook changed their algorithms and policies to favor the powerful. Any publisher who prints outside the AP, AFP, Reuters, NYT, WaPo narrative is giving up 2/3 of their Google Search referals and 3/4 of their Facebook circulation. If all of you are so smart and independent, you can become a journalist and publisher and all the other amenities of working for a news organization–all by yourself. We’ll be looking for your work and not finding it no matter what you do. And I’m sure whatever any of you publish will be brilliant because you’re ethical, conscientious and determined.
Empathy much? These unpublishable journalists are really damn good at something very challenging, that is, being real journalists. For that reason alone, they are unemployable and they know it. Are they going to write PR material for corporations? What’s a writer of fact and not fiction to do? What are all the reporters supposed to do when the rule is to deceive if you want work? People dreamed of doing these noble careers and this horrible neoliberal nightmare has been eating their dreams as if they made buggy whips instead of democracy by way of informing the electorate as thoroughly and honestly and immediately as possible.
The government and all major corporations are fully shrouded, as if fortresses, in highly sophisticated security technology and legally created shields, combined with prosecutorial and surveillance powers, making investigative journalism either a long fought war or a privacy violating crime with severe penalties.
Yes, the well known journalists telling huge lies are absolutely guilty of violating the fundamental tenants of journalism. The other ten times their number of unpublishable journalists are something else.
Neoliberalism dissolves all social bonds, structures, and ethical constraints on stealing money as a business model. Racketeering is the central mechanism of the US economy. The DoJ is 100% corrupted as an institution and has been for a decade or more. White-collar crime is more massive than at any time since first been tracked, yet there’s no news about that and prosecutions are at a 30 year low. Silly journalists. They’d hate to cover that, wouldn’t they?
We talk about a New McCarthyism then ignore the reality of black listing and universal chilling over truth telling in public. Have you watched cable news? We’re living on one of Dante’s levels now, aren’t we. The entire planet is provably about to “catch fire,” so to speak, and the president of the United States leads a party that denies this immanently existential threat entirely. Aggressive zombies with money and power rule the world.
I want all journalists who write and speak the truth to have a decent living and venue for publication. Until then, your collective line of complaint feels to me like blaming people for being poor. I would think all of you would recognize the shape of this problem, given your presumed orientation. Context here is cruel and I’m trying to show how that cruelty is hidden by the primacy of those few who have “sold themselves.” I’d wager most people are pre-sold to whatever seems popular and only those who think about their principles, and are willing to pay and to suffer for them, ever even try to speak truth as their life’s work.
Sorry for being too passionate. Nothing personal as I don’t know any of the people who all seemed to respond similarly to my OP. Thanks for reading if you have. Ciao!
Great post, Bret. You’re right about our needing a new system to share information widely. For as long as the PTB are espousing the “Russiagate” narrative, we can be sure that they will use this to silence any opposition to the established powers.
Nope. Absolutely wrong Bret Bowman.
The creatures (that’s being polite by the way) you describe as ‘journalists’ are fully to blame for this situation and many others.
The lies, smears, and outright bullshit directed at Julian Assange for years is a travesty. It’s not journalism. It’s mere craven, gutless stenography for the owners of this Planet and the Empire.
The same goes for the outrageous bullshit and lies about Syria. Again, in the full service of the American Empire.
The same with Venezuela. The same with Yemen.
Simple question Bret – Why have the Gilets Jaunes (yellow vests) in France been blatantly ignored, yet for months we were bombarded with news about the Hong Kong protests?
Were the Gilets Jaunes the Wrong kind of protest?
Lastly, have you ever heard of John Pilger, Seymour Hersh, Udo Ulfkotte?
Please read my reply to Joe Van Steenbergen wherein I spend 700 words explaining my position more thoroughly. Are you aware Sy Hersh hasn’t been able to publish in the US for years now because his research contradicts the Western corporate narrative?
You are fond of asking questions. Here’s one for you: Are you going to address the role of publishers and media owners at all or just pretend they don’t exist, don’t direct the entirety of news promulgation, and control the very narrative that is Caitlin’s central theme of late?
Thank you, Caitlin, for your constant support of Julian Assange, who is indeed the “21st century Jesus” being savagely crucified by the same corrupt ruling elites of 2000 years ago. History repeats itself, over and over, as if it is our spiritual teacher trying to instill in humans that “we must learn from our past in order to prevent it from repeating.” Sadly, our most critical lessons never seem to be learned: that there are so many more of us than those who are who are oppressing us! And if we finally understood this truth, we would disarm the globalist criminals and put them where they belong: in chains, in prison. Until then, it will be a continuation of the 1% against the 99% of us. The question is for our 99%: when will we say, Enough? When Assange is locked up for life? Regime change after regime change? Nuclear war with Russia, of which we are fast approaching? Or a “corona-virus” intended for the American people? We must all ask ourselves “how much” we will tolerate before we rise up collectively, and realize our strength does lie in numbers– against the small handful of psychopathic criminals ruling our planet.
So moved (to tears) by the speakers and this crowd at Parliament Square in London…for Julian Assange.
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/1231230050877480960
when the lackies of the American Empire come to take him, to destroy him and hang him in the hedge as a warning to frighten future journalists, we will look them in the eye and steadfast with one voice we will intone.
“Over our dead fucking bodies.”
Roger Waters Feb 22nd 2020
(I must sign up to Twitter one of these days 🙂
Yes, I loved when he said that.
Why is Claudius relevant today?
Claudius excesses and abuses of power contributed to the ultimate fall of the Roman Empire, which continued to maintain some vestiges of the even greater Roman Republic. Claudius predecessor, the bloodthirsty tyrant Caligula, and successor, the bloodthirsty and inept Nero, would, together, help seal the date of Rome.
Donald Trump exhibits many of the traits of Claudius. Please read this relevant article here:
https://www.strategic-culture.org/news/2020/02/22/i-trumpius/
Well that’s a long bow.
There are so many notable differences between Trump and Claudius I’m surprised anyone even considers them in the same paragraph. Most notably that Claudius’s time as emperor was comparatively peaceful, he was a very good administrator, he was a serious scholar, and he wrote various books of history. Trump and Claudius – really??
The reality is that Assange has effectively been in prison from the first day he was forced to take refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy. Our hats off to Ecuador for their hospitality in this respect while being under who knows how much political pressure for so very long. Something had to give, so we have now entered the next phase of “making an example” for what happens to world class journalists who manage to exhibit unlicensed reality in the “free world”, meaning those who fall off the reservation, step beyond the pale and/or piss off the wrong people at the wrong time. Fortunately the Overlords of all things media have continued to fine tune their control as to who sees, hears, reads, smells or can even comprehend what, where, when, how, truth, and relevance (AKA “why bother?”). As such, Julian should now be free to go home, write a book, make a movie, run the talk circuit and do all other such typical things the same Overlords can now make very good profit of.
They will extradite Assange because they can do what the f***k they like and no one can do anything about it. The government is becoming, has become, too powerful. We seem to have allowed this to happen here in the ‘West’ in our frantic need for ‘safety’ and ‘security’.
If you have done nothing wrong you have nothing to fear, the government will leave you alone. Unfortunately the government decides now what is right and wrong.
That’s because the government is no longer “of, by and for the people”–assuming that it ever was. It is now owned totally by a small coterie of oligarchs who were given carte blanche by two notorious Supreme Court decisions: one declaring money the legal equivalent of free speech (Citizens United) and the other declaring corporations to be “people,” with all the rights of citizens including full political rights. It also didn’t help that most government regulations controlling banking, finance & investment (Glass Steagle) and the mass media (Telecommunications Act of 1996)were eliminated, most notably under Reagan and Clinton. Destroying the federal government’s revenue stream with relentless tax cuts for the rich has also played a major role in shifting both power and wealth to those who already have it. Events are now routinely manipulated via false flags and false narratives in the media to advance the agenda of the insider elites. These, in a nutshell, are the forces that have so radically changed the America you might have known from 50 or 60 years ago, especially in its relationship between its government and its citizens. I see nothing in the offing to reverse the process.
The problem is that there is no sympathy for Mr Assange if you compare with other dissidents in the past.
I remember the sympathy in many countries for Nelson Mandela or Lech Walesa for example, even among the ruling elites.
But I cannot find sympathy for Mr Assange among ruling elites in any country.
It would help to have ruling elites in some country with admiration for Mr Assange but it is not the case.
No wonder why it is difficult all over the world for ordinary people. In this 21st Century, ruling elites of the whole world are united by common interest more than ever before.
It could have been the case in the days of Noah because it is written that it was a violent society at the time. No doubt, we are in the return of the days of Noah just before the Second Coming of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His Glorious Return because I do have seen enough.
What few true journalists there are who are a part of the MSM fail to recognize is that if he is not given his freedom, we will never, ever hear the truth again. His totally unjustified incarceration is indeed a tragedy, but it pales in comparison to the consequences.
I truly hope that the following comment was meant as sarcasm:
“The Guardian. The bastion of all things worthy and noble.”
It wasn’t obvious to the casual reader, and it probably had the morning coffee go wrong in the throats of the Off-Guardian crew!
It’s called irony, and undoubtedly caused a bit of a laugh of recognition when the phrase was spoken in her speech – one she was undoubtedly asked to give because her views and her style of satire are widely known, by all who read her opinion pieces.
It’s called irony, and undoubtedly caused a bit of a laugh of recognition when the phrase was spoken in her speech – one she was undoubtedly asked to give because her views and her style of satire are widely known by all who read her opinion pieces.
As always – thank-you for clearly stating the truth. Viva Assange – as you say!
As you say plainly, the silence is indeed deafening. Brings to mind the way a herd of animals behaves when the predators take one and savage it. Huddling together 200 feet away and just being grateful it’s not THEM that got it this time. It’s sad to watch, but until we mere Proles get angry enough to actually do something, the old Who lyric will remain true. Meet the new boss. Same as the old boss.
You have to fully understand the infantile minds of the persecutors of Julian Assange, to fully defeat them.
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Viva Julian Assange!
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“Is Jesus Christ coming back soon to earth as the evangelicals promise?”
Such nonsense questions go on in people’s minds, and not only in the minds of ordinary, common people, but in the minds of many political so-called leaders, the religious, theological, philosophical intelligentsia too keeps itself involved in such absurdities.
About 62 million adults in the US, are evangelicals.
Evangelicals maintain an outsized influence on US politics and policy.
Vice President Mike Pence and Pompeo both cite evangelical theology as a powerful motivating force.
These people are mentally ill and unfit to hold positions of power within any government.
They wish to destroy the Earth, to fulfill the conditions of a completely insane prophecy for the second coming of Jesus Christ.
https://www1.cbn.com/sites/default/files/styles/image_xl_640x480/public/media/standard/images/trumpprayedover1_si.jpg?itok=J_cjDknv
Evangelicals also have access to many prominent US politicians including the current idiot in the white house, and have shaped the lives and influenced the politics, morality, and strategic decisions of not only the US but unfortunatly much of the world.
Evangelical Christians had created a comprehensive Trojan horse plan in the name of bringing so called democracy to the nations of the middle east and north Africa where much of the world’s Muslim population lives, to convert them to the Christian faith in the years before the 9/11 attacks.
For many US evangelical Christians, one of the key preconditions for the second coming of Jesus Christ, is the gathering of the world’s Jews in a greater Israel between the Mediterranean and the Jordan River.
It directly colours views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and indirectly the attitude towards Iran and broader Middle East geopolitics.
Evangelicals relish the absurd delusion of the second coming because for them it means eternal life in heaven.
The rapture invokes an apocalyptical Christian vision of the future, a final battle between good and evil, when Jesus will magically return to life, and the faithful will ascend to heaven and the rest will go to hell.
What is the point of waiting for someone else to come and save you, and how can anybody else save you?
The deliverance that will come from somebody else will not be much of a deliverance.
Freedom has to be earned, it cannot be given.
If it is given, it can be taken away.
If it is given it is not yours, it is not your growth.
And anything that is given to you remains only an accumulation on the outside.
It never becomes part of your interiority.
It has to be remembered that truth is almost always going to be unpleasant, for the simple reason that the whole of humanity is living in many lies.
The truth itself is not unpleasant, but because people’s lies are exposed, it feels unpleasant to them.
And if you try to make the truth pleasant, you will have to make it a lie.
Only a lie can be a pleasant thing for the Christian masses because it fits with their conditioning.
Christians think Christ belongs to them.
Christ cannot belong to anybody, but Christians think he belongs to them.
Don’t think that Christ and Jesus are synonymous.
That’s where the error lies in two thousand years of propaganda, and the absurd narratives of the Christian Church.
Christians go on living in illusion.
But to live in illusion one needs to avoid truth, because if truth comes it will shatter all your illusions and all your so-called life and all your so-called love.
Truth looks like a calamity.
Why does a dead Jesus seem to be more important than an alive Christ?
The reason is an alive Christ can prove fatal to your illusions.
A dead Jesus cannot do anything to you.
A dead Jesus is in your control, an alive Christ cannot be controlled by you.
A dead Jesus is just a name, a word, empty, impotent.
An alive Christ is a fire.
You can play with the word ‘fire’ but you cannot come close to fire itself.
It will burn you, it will destroy you.
An alive Christ is like death.
A dead Christ is a consolation, a comfort, a security.
An alive Christ will not look like the Savior but like the enemy.
Remember Christ is not a person, it is an experience.
Jesus had it, you can have it.
Christ is synonymous with Buddha.
What we call in the East the Buddha, the awakened, the West has called the Christ, the crowned one.
Jesus Christ cannot come back, but you can become a Christ any moment.
You can become the flame any moment, if you are ready to truly discover ‘Who You Are’.
But rather than looking inwards, you go on looking outwards, waiting for Jesus Christ.
Rather than searching inwards, you go on searching in the scriptures, in mere words.
Rather than transforming the state in which you are, you go on hoping that some miracle will happen and everything will be good.
These hopes are not going to help you, these hopes are deceptive, dangerous, suicidal.
There have been Christs before Jesus, there have been Christs after Jesus.
Jesus is only one of the Christs.
Buddha is a Christ, Mahavir is a Christ, Lu-tsu is a Christ, Zarathustra is a Christ.
But if you are waiting for Jesus’ second coming, then you are waiting in vain.
Remember, Christ is not a person, Christ is a state of consciousness.
To all the Christians looking for Christ’s return.
Christ is in front of you, you are listening to him.
Evangelical Christians were conned by the Jew’s (Rabbinical Talmudist Pharisee sect) Schofield ‘bible’ to believe the BS of Judeo-Christian, despite Christ being vehemently opposed to these parasitic bastard heretics.
Until people stop wailing about the MSM not doing their job we’re not going to get anywhere. Thinking/hoping that if things get bad enough MSM journalists will find their ethics and start researching and writing the truth is a time-wasting futile daydream. Accept the fact that the MSM is a bought-and-sold department of the Global Elite (the one per cent, the corporations, the banksters, the War Machine etc.), and take it from there. Ignore them, get your news and analysis from sites with a proven record of principles and truth, and encourage everyone you can to do the same. The MSM has to be left to die in its own squalour. Rewarding it with clicks just keeps it alive.
No one in their right mind DOES pay any attention to the MSM. Unfortunately, insanity has become the rule rather than the exception. Far too many actually believe government, including the MSM branch, is their friend, and they can’t exist without it. Government is not a nutritional requirement.
It used to be that the Soviet Union was infamous for the high-profile dissidents that it chose to incarcerate because they did something or publicly said something that the powers-that-be didn’t like. Individuals like Sakharov, Solzhenitsyn, Sharansky or Orlov became household names to Americans back in the 70’s and 80’s, and protests sprang up in their defense around the world. All were released, most to become Russian expats, as the Soviet government responded to the international pressure. Today it is the United States which acts the thug and locks up (or tries to) men and women of principle like Assange, Manning and Snowden because the establishment has been so dishonored by its own acts divulged by these courageous individuals. Some, like Seth Rich, may have even lost their lives as a consequence of exposing criminals in high office. It seems that human rights policies in the United States and Russia conspicuously flipped not long after the nominal end of the Cold War which sadly seems headed into a record-setting ice age mostly due to American actions and attitudes.
Enquiring minds want to know, if Washington is so determined to destroy Assange and Manning for spilling the beans, via Wikileaks, on its fashionable new way to mass murder people without warning or due process using their new-fangled high-tech drones, why aren’t the editorial boards of the New York Times and The Guardian charged as accomplices? Manning only provided the recorded data to Assange who merely passed it on to the corporate newspapers that actually put the information into newsprint and sold it to the public for their usual profit. Yes, it was classified information but the only person in that chain with a sworn responsibility to protect such material from unauthorised eyeballs was Manning. To anyone else it was simply a profound truth to which the public, in whose name the acts were committed, were entitled to know, i.e., it was news. The same argument holds in the cases wherein Assange received the information through other conduits and divulged it to the public on-line (e.g., Clinton, Podesta & DNC emails via Rich to Murray to Wikileaks). Aside from Rich, who was mysteriously shot dead, the only target of the Anglo-American Axis has been Assange. Why is that?
Very powerful stuff. Free Assange. Free Manning.
Excellent speech Caitlin, so much power in your words, so much truth, pain and agony hidden behind them. Jim Morrison once said, and this refers to the journalists who don’t have the guts to stand up for the freedom of speech, when you submit to an authority, you become an authority.
Someone had to say this! Fantastic speech, Caitlin.
Re journos. Pathetic pitiful sycophants of abusive power.
Mind, compared with our Kiwi sad-sack apologies for journalists, your Aussie ones are outspoken.
Depravity The World Over! That Ms Johnstone is what ” humanity ” is all about. Those of us ” Not With Satan ” are few and far between; but we are not extinct yet. Thank you for your courage and your commitment>
I had a chat about this last summer (northern hemisphere) with a friend of a friend, a grizzled veteran of a thousand actions we’ll call James. He said it was kill the messenger and I conceded at first, though I felt that that wasn’t quite it. I didn’t have the words ready. It dawned on me later that day.
Tell the world the messenger treats his cat poorly and if the world falls for that shtick –as it will– who cares whether the messenger lives or dies?
I was told a while back that the supposedly left-leaning Guardian, that bastion of establishment bashing, is actually the organ of choice for the British intelligence services to disseminate whatever version of the narrative they want the public to believe. One has to assume that the editorial staff are facilitating this pernicious relationship and that the writers involved are either willingly co-opted, or irredeemably ignorant.
Free Speech Absolutism is where we all should be! Free Julian Assange! Thank you for fighting the good fight, Ms. Johnstone!
Excellent Caitlin.
Journalists all over the world are afraid to defend Assange, lest the US come after them.
This root of this evil persecution comes from a long history of the politicians bought by Oligarchs to control the narrative, so that they can continue to maintain and grow their fake wealth, which only grew to such obscene amounts because they were able to repeated pillage real property via debt usury, enabled by earlier Oligarchs progressively and literally repeated killing off the principle of debt forgiveness, by martyring heroic tyrants, and murdering Jesus who kicked the agents of the evil Rabbinical Talmudist Pharisees out of the temple, because of their heresy of denying this principle enshrined in real Judaic Mosaic law. This mosaic law was based on the critical original practice by the earliest kings of pragmatic debt forgiveness, so that their subjects could retained enough productive resources to pay taxes, provide labour for large projects and fight for their king, instead of wasting resources pay off debt, because those kings who didn’t forgive debt pragmatically were conquered by enemies.
Mainstream medias people are well paid to tell what the ruling elites want them to tell. In short, they are bought.
I remember after 9/11, a reporter from mainstream medias describing the image on tv saying: “We can clearly see the airplane hitting the Pentagone” And I tried my best to see the airplane but in no way I was able to see something looking like an airplane.
It should have been that way in the days of Noah, a world of lies and people of bad faith. So much so that only Noah and his family were of good faith. So it looks like it is the return of the days of Noah just before the return of Jesus and I pray the Rosary to hasten His return because I do have seen enough bs.
Some people serve us, not only by providing us with truth, which can allow us to find our way to freedom, but by suffering interminably for their integrity and actions.
We owe them the honor of using the truth which they have revealed to us.
Amen, brother. I wrote every official I could think of, from Lambeth Palace in London to the Pope in Rome, to all of my Congress critters, and Amnesty International. Free Assange!!!
Well done, Mel. In Australia I have sent a lot of emails to various politicians – only ever got two replies, one (when Julian was in the Embassy) said Julian was free to leave the Embassy any time he liked, and the other said the Australian Government was providing ‘consular assistance.’ The two MPs who have travelled to London at their own expense to do what they can for Julian are exceptions but I have to ask what took them so long.
Hi Robyn. I heard back from the Archbishop of Canterbury’s secretary that he “doesn’t take public positions” on controversial topics. The Pope’s offices never responded. All three of my American Congressmen never even emailed me back to address my concerns about Julian and I live in the “blue” state of Oregon. Amnesty International sent me my letter back with two post-it notes attached where some staffer I’d guess, had written that they support Assange “whether or not public statements are issued.” What cowards! Anyway, I spent the time to protest his mistreatment and it was time well spent. Public pressure is building. That’s all any of us can do. Cheers, Robyn. ML