When it comes to human behavior, things only change for the better when there is a lucid and unobstructed perception of what’s going on.

Self-destructive behavior patterns only go away when there’s a lucid and unobstructed perception of the previously unconscious psychological dynamics which were driving them.

Victims of abuse only end their abusive relationships when they obtain a lucid and unobstructed perception of the abusive dynamics as they truly are.

Toxic social dynamics like racism, sexism and homophobia only begin moving toward health when society collectively begins gaining a lucid and unobstructed understanding of how disordered and damaging those dynamics really are.

It only becomes unacceptable to have a totalitarian monarch who tortures and executes people without trial, murders anyone who speaks ill of him, and rules by divine right when society begins collectively gaining a lucid and unobstructed awareness of how ridiculous, unjust and unacceptable such models of government are.

Whether you’re talking about individuals or humanity in its entirety, the story of human progress has always been a story of moving from blindness to seeing. From unawareness to awareness. From the lights in the room being off to the lights being switched on.

There is no progress without clear seeing. We cannot move in the direction of health and harmony if we cannot lucidly perceive the ways in which we are still sick and dysfunctional. We can’t move forward if we’re unaware of the specific ways in which we are stuck in place.

Most of us, on some level, want things in our world to change for the better. Some few others want things to stay the same, because the status quo happens to be treating them quite well thank you very much. The struggle between the deep desire of the many for healthy change and the corrupt desire of the few to maintain the status quo is the struggle between turning the lights on and keeping them off. Between wanting to become aware of the various ways we are stuck so that we can move forward, and wanting the light of awareness as far away from our stuck points as possible.

The struggle for our species, which is really the struggle for our very survival, is therefore between the many who desire truth and the few who desire confusion. We’ve got numbers and truth on our side, but they have power, wealth, and a remarkable knack for psychological manipulation.

We see this struggle playing out in many ways in our world right now. Between propaganda and those trying to learn and share the truth. Between the push for internet censorship and the fight against it. Between government secrecy and freedom of information. Between the campaign to imprison WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange for exposing US war crimes, and the campaign to free him.

On Monday January 4th a UK judge will be ruling on whether or not to allow the process of Assange’s extradition to the United States to move forward. It’s important for opponents of this extradition to be aware that the fight will not end at this time; there’s still a gruelling appeals process to go through which could take 18 to 24 months or longer in the likely event that the incredibly biased judge overseeing the case rules against Assange.

So as we prepare for the next stage in this fight, it’s important for us to be perfectly clear what’s at stake here.

It is absolutely true that this case will have far-reaching implications for press freedoms around the world. The imperial narrative managers have been toiling for years to frame the persecution of Julian Assange as something other than what it is, but in reality this case is about whether the most powerful government in the world is allowed to extradite journalists anywhere on earth who expose its malfeasance. Whether or not the United States should be allowed to imprison journalists for exposing its war crimes.

If the US succeeds in normalizing the legality of extraditing any journalist anywhere in the world who exposes its wrongdoing, there will be a worldwide cooling effect on national security journalism which will greatly impede humanity’s ability to form a lucid and unobstructed understanding of what’s going on in the world. The largest power structure on earth will have succeeded in not just turning the lights off in the room, but in uninstalling the light switch.

There is no legal case in the world right now where the struggle for lucid and unobstructed seeing has so much on the line. For this reason, this isn’t just about journalism: we really are collectively deciding the fate of our species with our response to the prospect of Assange’s extradition.

Are we going to allow the most powerful government on the planet to set a legal precedent which allows it to obstruct truth around the entire world? Or are we going to oppose this tooth and claw?

Are we going to allow power to remain corrupt and unaccountable? Or are we going to insist on our right to know what’s going on?

Are we going to let them keep the lights off? Or are we going to turn them on?

Are we going to let the bastards lock us into an omnicidal, ecocidal status quo while they drive us at a rapidly accelerating pace toward extinction and dystopia? Or are we going to move toward the kind of lucid and unobstructed perception of our situation which will allow us to progress into a healthy world?

These are the questions that we are in the process of answering together. I hope we can get everyone to very seriously consider what they want their own answer to be.

______________________

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72 responses to “Let’s Be Absolutely Clear What’s At Stake In The Assange Case”

  1. Julian Assange’s escape from the clutches of the US military murder machine is a victory for people power, and direct action. The hundreds of supporters demonstrating outside the Old Bailey on January 4th when Judge Baraitser performed her surprise somersault on his case are just a fraction of hundreds of thousands, if not millions, around the world who have gone out on the streets to express solidarity with the imprisoned Wikileaks Editor and founder.

    Baraitser had hitherto behaved like some US-style “hanging judge,” implacable in her bristling hostility towards Assange and his legal team. She has had to dismiss the US extradition request through gritted teeth, and against her own wishes, primarily because of the enormous pressure brought to bear by the worldwide campaign in support of the whistleblower. She has clearly been leant on by the inner circles of the British ruling class, who are aware that this international cause celebre is causing huge damage to its international reputation. They are also conscious that Trump is on his way out of the White Office, which is a very happy coincidence for Assange, which has also had a direct bearing on Baraitser’s surprise decision.

    Her dismissal of the US extradition request should, however, be greeted with caution. She only did this on the grounds of Assange’s shattered mental health, whilst dismissing all other arms of his legal team’s case. A more significant hearing will take place before this “hanging judge” on Wednesday, 6th January, when an application for bail will be made by Assange’s legal team. If this is refused, then Assange could be spending a lot longer entombed in Belmarsh prison, as the US witchhunters have already declared their intention to appeal. The proceedings could thus drag on for many more months, or even years, if the appeal reaches the European Court of Human Rights.

    So the popular pressure that forced Baraitser to U-turn on Assange must maintained until this remarkable and incredibly resilient Journalist is freed, and reunited with his wife and two children.

    His 9 years of imprisonment for simply telling the truth about US/British war crimes in Afghanistan and Iraq is a chilling reminder of the lengths to which US warmongers and imperialists, and their vassal States, like Britain, are prepared to go in their desire to impose their corrupt, capitalist dominion over the entire world. Human rights, democracy, and justice are just words to these monsters, to be trotted out as propaganda in the new Cold War against Russia and China. The want to imprison the entire world under US jailers. Only world Socialist Revolution can thwart their plots, conspiracies, and covert schemes on behalf of rapacious, ruthless US Big Business.

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  2. Easier said than done. President Trump’s spent 4 years removing us from senseless, pointless wars against invented enemies. Yet one time he took a militaristic stand. Against the corrupt and stolen government of Venezuela. But rather than recognize the contrast Caitlin chose to repeat thirdhand talking points about imperialism and the ridiculous ‘Spanish Elite’. No number of firsthand accounts I could offer her regarding the real situation could sway her. She read the newspapers, adopted the usual sound bites and condemned a genuine humanitarian effort. Fast forward to late 2020 and what do we know? That Venezuela and Maruro are the origin point of Dominion/Smartmatic and their worldwide campaign of election fraud. We saw the tallies and heard (more) firsthand accounts from the very software engineers behind it. Maduro never won an election. He lost badly but rigged the outcome anyway. He was never the rightful elected leader. He stole his way into power then abused a citizenry that never elected him. TRUMPS EXACT WORDS. And the world’s reluctance and failure to support these innocent victims turned out to have untold unintended consequences. Joe Biden, heir to Maduros election theft strategy has now usurped the office of President of the United States. What seemed like an irrelevant uprising in some banana republic has morphed into the darkest hour of history since the Bubonic Plague. The shining beacon on the hill has been snuffed out. And why? Because the Caitlin’s of the world COULD NOT RECOGNIZE that they were not in control of their minds or their thoughts or their grasp of reality no matter how shrill their assertions to the contrary. So while this article is very astute and very well written, it is very rich coming from Caitlin. Has she ever conceded how verifiably wrong she was about Venezuela? Or is she just preaching to you? A gospel that she failed to follow when it counted most. When far more than we knew hung in the balance Why? What is her soap box built on? Contradiction? Denial? It would sure seem that way and the best evidence against her came from her own hand. But it doesn’t matter much now. The snowball is too far down the hill to be stopped. So now, quite predictably, she wants to take issue with YOUR denial. That should make you want to vomit.

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  3. I would have no trouble with absolving Assange if, and only if, what he did had not cost the lives of a large number of people in China. Because of what Assange and Bradley did, well over 100 people were killed by the Peking regime. Both should have been put in front of 12 rifles for what they did.

    Assange did not act as a journalist, as so many fantasize, but an agent of espionage. He deserves what he is getting.

    1. Is there any proof of your claim? Footage? Or just saying?

  4. Assange is just used as an example to other potential ‘Whistle Blowers’ !!

    DON’T try it !!

    PCR test is a joke as well – DNA amplification !

    https://roundtablereport.com/?p=6582

  5. Asylum rights have already been shredded. Next up is press freedom.

  6. this was so lucid . . . . . .

  7. Comorbidity 2024 Avatar
    Comorbidity 2024

    Homophobia, sexism, “person”… we see through your silence and diversion. Mr Orwell armed the proles well.

    Unfortunately I’m an atheist. Though I don’t revel in suffering, I confess I’d love to be audience to your final reckoning with a god/spirit/creator/ancestor.

    “the actual risks of mRNA vaccines to the pregnant person and her fetus are unknown because these vaccines have not been studied in pregnant women.”
    cdc

    1. Official UK government advice is rather different to the US CDC’s:

      if you are pregnant you should not be vaccinated unless you are at high risk – you can be vaccinated after your pregnancy is over
      if you have had the first dose and then become pregnant you should delay the second dose until after the pregnancy is over (unless you are at high risk)
      https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/covid-19-vaccination-women-of-childbearing-age-currently-pregnant-planning-a-pregnancy-or-breastfeeding/covid-19-vaccination-a-guide-for-women-of-childbearing-age-pregnant-planning-a-pregnancy-or-breastfeeding
      (Updated 31 December 2020)

  8. Roundball Shaman Avatar
    Roundball Shaman

    “…a UK judge will be ruling on whether or not to allow the process of Assange’s extradition to the United States… it’s important for us to be perfectly clear what’s at stake here…this case will have far-reaching implications for press freedoms around the world.”
    .
    How Assange and Snowden (and some others) are being attacked speaks to the heart of the way Empire always does things. And it’s not just the current version of Empire. All of them throughout history do the same things (remember how Jesus was treated by THAT Empire and the local religious-types?).
    .
    When The State calls itself and treats itself as a god – the only god —, then all must submit and bow heads and do nothing but whatever They say to do. No dissent or deviation is ever allowed (because to allow such would send a very bad precedent and example to others).
    .
    When Empire acts this way this is a violation of the very First Commandment to not have any other gods (or false gods) before the True One. And once They’ve violated the very first Commandment, then violating all the rest of them becomes much easier and becomes the guide for all other Empire behavior.
    .
    If the New World Order is to be fully entrenched as the ultimate governing authority on the Earth (and They are working damn hard to make sure it is) then anything resembling a free press has to be snuffed out. Totally snuffed out. And They are getting close to closing the deal on that. And of course, any kind of free thought of any kind by any person on the Earth must also be snuffed out.
    .
    Government becomes god. That’s what They believe. That’s the way They already behave. That’s what They want from you. What remains is how each of us responds to the calling of the First Commandment and the strong-armed demands of Empire.
    .
    Empire… and The Almighty… are watching and waiting for your answer.

  9. At a young age my very wise grandfather told me ” If they turn you into a hater; they have won. They have turned you into one of them; and you have lost your soul! “

    1. Wise, indeed. How difficult to hate the evil but not the evildoer, much less to love the evildoer. Yesterday, on the radio, I heard some so-called expert argue that the U.S. should not yet pull its troops out of Iraq because of all the noble, though perhaps mistaken, sacrifices America had made to help Iraq build a genuine democracy. I shit you not–that’s the gist of what he said. And how did I react? I screamed “MF” at the radio, wishing it had a two-way speaker, before snapping it off.

  10. At this point, “the US [has already] succeed[ed] in normalizing the legality of extraditing any journalist anywhere in the world who exposes its wrongdoing.” And, those who are totally compliant worldwide partners have been exposed (without shame).

  11. Wilfred Burchett’s article Atomic Plague revealed the devastation and disease caused by the nuclear strike on Hiroshima, at a time when the official US line, parroted by its media, was that it was basically just a big bomb, with no health impacts from radiation.
    Seymour Hersh revealed the massacre of hundreds of Vietnamese civilians by US troops at the village of My Lai. (One soldier was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment, eventually serving three years.)
    Both Burchett and Hersh found themselves shunned by mainstream media.
    Julian Assange revealed just what US troops were up to in Iraq, with the video Collateral Murder showing a US helicopter crew gleefully machine gunning civilians. He is in prison, and likely to remain so for a very long time or until he dies. This is a considerably worse environment for journalism than that faced by Burchett or Hersh, and a considerably bleaker future for us all if they get away with it.

    1. Ian Perkins wrote:
      > Julian Assange revealed . . .
      .
      .
      Here you go:
      .
      .
      The Revelations of WikiLeaks — Consortium News Series
      .
      1. The Video that Put Assange in US Crosshairs — April 23, 2019
      2. The Leak That ‘Exposed the True Afghan War’ — May 9, 2019
      3. The Most Extensive Classified Leak in History — May 16, 2019
      4. The Haunting Case of a Belgian Child Killer and How WikiLeaks Helped Crack It — July 11, 2019
      5. Busting the Myth WikiLeaks Never Published Damaging Material on Russia — September 23, 2019
      6. US Diplomatic Cables Spark ‘Arab Spring,’ Expose Spying at UN & Elsewhere — January 14, 2020
      7. Crimes Revealed at Guantánamo Bay — June 24, 2020
      8. Busting the Myth WikiLeaks Published Nothing on Israel & Syria — July 9, 2020
      9. Opening the CIA’s Vault — October 26, 2020
      .
      The Revelations of WikiLeaks (Series: Iraq, Afghanistan…) — Consortium News
      https://consortiumnews.com/category/wikileaks-series/
      .
      .
      “You are being lied to about Julian Assange. He has exposed more war crimes, crimes against humanity, corruption, and lies than perhaps anyone in history. That is why our government is so eager to lock him away forever.”
      — Lee Camp, broadcaster, April 23, 2019
      https://twitter.com/LeeCamp/status/1120718472076562432
      .
      .
      WikiLeaks released a great fundraising video explaining its work when Julian was under house arrest at Ellingham Hall, Norfolk:
      .
      How Much Does it Cost to Save the World? — TheWikiLeaksChannel — July 9, 2011

      1. Thank you. I certainly didn’t mean Collateral Murder was Julian’s only revelation, though it probably was what put him in the USA’s cross hairs.

      2. Ian Perkins wrote:
        > it probably was what put him in the USA’s cross hairs.
        .
        Ian, yes, probably that’s the case. A few months after the Collateral Murder video (published in April 2010), Julian was framed in Sweden and the UK. The persecution had started.
        .
        Then, the following year, after War Logs, Cablegate, Guantanamo Bay, etc., the US tried to frame him again in Iceland. And so on…
        .
        It has been revealed that, in August 2011, a plane full of United States federal agents accompanied by prosecutors landed in Reykjavik, Iceland, aiming to carry out police investigations without proper permission from the authorities.
        .
        The Icelandic Interior Minister stopped them:
        .
        “2011 . . . I knew that the FBI were on the way . . . they came here to frame Julian Assange and WikiLeaks . . .
        “As things turned out the best they could hope for was our silence. They can live with anything as long as they can keep us silent, uncritical, complaisant, but once we speak, they are just naked, like the emperor in the fable.
        “Kristinn Hrafnsson is highly respected in Iceland. . . .
        “WikiLeaks was bringing out the truth, revealing crimes which should have been taken to court. This has been prevented. So the charges brought against the publisher are, in reality, charges against free speech and freedom of the press. The American police and secret services are trying to create an atmosphere of impunity, where they can do anything. Even when they landed here, they were showing contempt for democracy.
        “What they are doing to Assange is in opposition to the American Constitution and the principles of human rights, they claim they are protecting. . . .
        “All this for carrying out investigative journalism. . . .
        “All depends on us. There is not such a thing as spectators. Everybody is taking a part — sitting quiet is taking part!”
        — Ögmundur Jónasson, former Icelandic Interior Minister, November 2019
        .
        The FBI tried to make Iceland a complicit ally in framing Julian Assange — Independent Australia — Nov 5, 2019
        https://independentaustralia.net/life/life-display/the-fbi-tried-to-make-iceland-a-complicit-ally-in-framing-julian-assange,13277

    2. See also:
      .
      WikiLeaks
      10 Years, 10 Million Documents (2006-2016)
      .
      – Global Top 10
      – Trade Top 10
      – Arms Trade Top 10
      – Afghanistan Top 10
      – France Top 10
      – Germany Top 10
      – Iraq War Top 10
      – Nuclear Top 10
      – United Nations Top 10
      – Timeline of Publications
      – Frequently Distorted Facts
      – Graphics
      .
      10 Years, 10 Million Documents — WikiLeaks
      https://wikileaks.org/10years
      .
      Graphics: 10 Years, 10 Million Documents — WikiLeaks
      https://wikileaks.org/10years/graphics.html
      .
      WikiLeaks Top 10 — Oct 4, 2016

  12. Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
    > On Monday January 4th a UK judge will be ruling on whether or not to allow the process of Assange’s extradition to the United States to move forward.
    .
    Yes, and even with later appeals this Monday January 4th can be the day of truth for journalism.
    .
    It’s the day of a historic verdict that can set the new legal precedent of US extradition and life imprisonment for receiving and publishing whistleblowers’ public interest disclosures on unlawfully covered-up crimes and corruption.
    .
    .
    In another great article, Caitlin explained what the details of the Assange indictment plainly show:
    .
    “. . . the fact that we now have undeniable evidence that the US government is working to set a precedent which will allow it to jail any journalist who exposes its misdeeds, and we can now force Assange’s smearers to confront this reality.
    .
    “‘Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?’
    .
    “That’s the debate now. . . .
    .
    “Demand an answer. Call attention to them and demand that they answer. . . .
    .
    “This really is do or die time, humans. . . .
    .
    “So what’s it going to be, humanity?
    .
    “Truth, or lies?
    .
    “Light, or darkness?
    .
    “A world where we can hold power to account with the light of truth, or a world where power decides what’s true for us?
    .
    “A world with free speech and a free press, or a world where journalists are imprisoned whenever they expose the evils of the most powerful institutions on this planet?
    .
    “A world where we all actively fight to free Assange and get the job done, or a giant, irreversible leap toward the end of humanity as we know it? . . .
    .
    “Choose your path, humans.
    .
    “Choose wisely.”
    .
    Humanity Is Making A Very Important Decision When It Comes To Assange — Caitlin Johnstone — March 1, 2020
    https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2020/03/01/humanity-is-making-a-very-important-choice-when-it-comes-to-assange/
    .
    .
    A very important warning on this case from the United Nations Special Rapporteur on Torture:
    .
    “Well, democracy is there. The power does not belong to the government, it belongs to the people.
    .
    “But the people have to claim it. And you see power without transparency disempowers the people. . . .
    .
    “It’s about bad systems or good systems. Good systems are systems that don’t give any space to unchecked power.
    .
    “So, for now, we still have democracy. But when once it has become a crime to tell the truth, then we will have tyranny.
    .
    “And then it will be too late to speak out, because now you have become a spy as soon as you tell the truth, and you will spend the rest of your life in a dungeon.”
    .
    Nils Melzer: “Once it has become a crime to tell the truth, then we will have tyranny.”

    1. Caitlin Johnstone wrote:
      > It is absolutely true that this case will have far-reaching implications for press freedoms around the world. The imperial narrative managers have been toiling for years to frame the persecution of Julian Assange as something other than what it is, but in reality this case is about whether the most powerful government in the world is allowed to extradite journalists anywhere on earth who expose its malfeasance. Whether or not the United States should be allowed to imprison journalists for exposing its war crimes.
      .
      Yes, clearly, Julian Assange’s work is investigative journalism. He is the former WikiLeaks editor-in-chief (until September 2018), and its current publisher. Of course, editors and publishers are journalists too.
      .
      .
      For example, well-known investigative journalist Stefania Maurizi recently wrote on Julian Assange’s imprisonment:
      .
      “It’s unacceptable to me: my newspaper and I have published the very same revelations and yet I was never put in prison or arrested. Dozens of journalists published the very same documents for which he is now in prison: none of us have had any problem at all.
      .
      “. . . media organisations like WikiLeaks and journalists like Julian Assange”
      .
      ASSANGE EXTRADITION: Maurizi Tells Chaos Computer Club Assange Must Be Saved — Consortium News — Dec 31, 2020
      https://consortiumnews.com/2020/12/31/assange-extradition-maurizi-tells-chaos-computer-club-assange-must-be-saved/
      .
      .
      There are remarkable details on WikiLeaks’ investigative journalism work in section “1.4 How WikiLeaks verifies its news stories” of:
      .
      WikiLeaks — About — May 7, 2011
      https://wikileaks.org/About.html
      .
      .
      From rulings on WikiLeaks and Julian Assange by different tribunals:
      .
      “Mr Julian Assange, a journalist well known through his operation of Wikileaks”
      — High Court of Justice, judgment in London, on November 2, 2011
      .
      “WikiLeaks is a media organization which publishes and comments upon censored or restricted official materials involving war, surveillance or corruption, which are leaked to it in a variety of different circumstances.”
      — Judge Andrew Bartlett QC, judgment in London, on December 12, 2017
      .
      “. . . the First Amendment interest in the publication of matters of the highest public concern. . . . This type of information is plainly of the type entitled to the strongest protection that the First Amendment offers. . . . the documents were of public importance. Therefore, the First Amendment protects the publication . . .”
      — Federal Judge John G. Koeltl, on WikiLeaks’ media activities, judgment in New York, on July 30, 2019
      .
      .
      Collateral Murder — Iraq — WikiLeaks, Apr 2010

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  14. Is it too difficult to conceive the lawyering-up of Julian as the play, was the plot.

  15. Lest we forget, the world wide bank cartel which has controlled governments and economies for centuries has its home in London. Not surprising they are all in with the actions of the US government, since the bank cartel controls it as well.

    1. “JFK to 9/11, Everything is a Rich Man’s Trick” > beforeitsnews

  16. Should anyone be in doubt, view WL’s website and see what is there. I suggest you copy and save anything interesting.

    1. WL’s website? Can you explain? Am I missing something obvious? A Google search for ‘WL’s website’ gives me:

      “WL’s official website is wlgmbh.com” – “This site can’t be reached”
      “WL’s official website is http://www.wlcompany.ca.” – “WL & Company, Chartered Professional Accountants”
      as well as World Lacrosse, a bakery, and something about shoes.

      1. I found it equally vague.

        1. I guess wlgmbh.com is what LLOYD meant, and whatever it was, it’s already been taken down. Hence the advice, a bit too late, to save anything interesting?

      2. Yes Ian, you are missing something obvious. Apparently, any attempt at subtly to avoid big brother’s attention is lost on some people? OK… The subject of this article is Julian Assange, who, least we forget, is the founder of WikiLeaks, hence WL’s website is AKA https://wikileaks.org/ (Easy enough)

        Any proper “rebel” would have this site bookmarked on their bookmarks bar for their fun and entertainment. My favorite section on this site is the Vault 7: CIA Hacking Tools Revealed. I suggest BB (see above) doesn’t like this very much… Direct link to that is
        https://wikileaks.org/ciav7p1/

        Now that we have EVERYONE’s attention, please “lets-be-absolutely-clear-whats-at-stake-in-the-assange-case.”

        1. You’re absolutely right, it should have been immediately obvious! I don’t have WL’s site bookmarked, but I’m quite familiar with it and its revelations, including Vault 7. I’ve no idea how I failed to make the connection. Brain not in gear, I guess.

  17. I think we’d all be amazed at how many Americans are totally insensitive’ regarding the Assange case. “What me, worry”?

    Watching the nation go completely to hell and gone is a brutal reminder that we haven’t thrown off our Neanderthal genes completely.

    1. There is abundant evidence that Neanderthals were not inferior, just less aggressive. No need to blame their genes for the current psychopathy. Murder is common among other primates, especially among chimpanzees, who are our closest genetic relatives. No surprise it is among us.
      What is most distressing about the unjustified assault upon Julian Assange is that his persecution not only is a demonstration of the US Psychopaths In Charge willingness to seek and destroy any journalist in the world who discloses their abuses, but any person, period. Even if he had committed some crime, he did not do so on US soil. He is not a US citizen. Which means the US Psychopaths In Charge are claiming jurisdiction over any and every one in the world.

      1. While ALSO announcing that their own nationals must be exempt from the international criminal court.

        1. Two sides of exactly the same coin. US imperialism must not be challenged; its crimes must not be exposed or investigated.
          How long before any who question the Empire’s divine right to act however it wants to, in secret when it wishes, are banned from the likes of Youtube?

    2. I bet you a bitcoin that the majority of americans do not even know jullian assange is in prison.

      1. I gather a lot of them are still convinced Iraq had weapons of mass destruction and was working with al-Qaeda.

  18. While I agree that the few wish to spread confusion, they value the truth too. They know they can’t remain in control without accurate information, but they wish to retain all the advantages of knowing the truth by being the only ones who possess it. The perfect example is, of course, the CIA, where one sees massive information-gathering, extreme levels of secrecy, and the running of permanent propaganda campaigns to misdirect entire populations.

    1. Yes, that’s what this case is about. In my opinion, governments should do virtually all their work in daylight; might not even be a bad idea to have their walls literally made of glass. They’re doing it on out dime, in our name–we are entitled to see what they’re doing. But private citizens, those who are not high in government or celebrities, should be entitled to privacy. In the last couple of decades we have seen governments use 9/11 to invert this principle, entitling themselves both to spy on everyone, everywhere, all the time, and to hide what they are doing.
      I think everyone in the world owes Julian a debt of gratitude–he took great risks to let the world know what governments were up to. No one owes him more, though, than US citizens, because it’s our government that is most determined to hide from us, while spying on us and everyone else–this is a large and well-organized criminal gang. Which doesn’t mean everyone who works for the government is part of it–just the Washington DC/Langley crowd.
      But the idea that we need to free Assange–we do, but I’m not sure we can. Peltier is still in prison after over 40 unjust years.

  19. Your support for Julian Assange is welcome, but your diagnosis and prognosis in relation to his personal plight are misguided and unhelpful to getting him out of the clutches of the US war machine.

    Assange has trodden on the blood-stained toes of the US capitalist class and its military murder machine. He has exposed SOME, but by no means all, of its barbaric crimes in the Middle East. For this service to humanity, he will never be forgiven by US imperialism and its flunkeys all over the world, including the judicial impostor, crook, and catspaw “Judge” Baraitser. She is utterly corrupt and has been reading from a script prepared for her by the US and British “intelligence” services throughout the kangaroo “court” to which Assange has been subjected.

    What is conspicuously missing from your viewpoint on this situation is the CLASS NATURE of modern society, and the need for a political organisation to fight capitalism, and overthrow it. US imperialism wants to enslave the entire world in its interests. It already has enslaved most of the world, outside of Russia, China, and their satellites. We have a world that is dominated by the struggle for hegemony between rival capitalist powers, all of whom want to own and control natural resources, like oil, gas, minerals, metals, and anything else needed for capitalist production processes: world markets; and the peoples of the world, the consumers of capitalist products and the labour force that generates all profits for capitalists.

    Capitalism and its class society is the root cause of all wars, and all socio-economic problems, in society. It can only be overthrown by uniting the exploited class, the working class, against the exploiting class, the capitalists. Revolutionary Socialist Parties must be built in all countries to set about overthrowing capitalism and building a new Socialist world, free of war, unemployment, exploitation of man and nature for profit, and classes.

    Assange is a victim of US imperialism and its lackeys like Britain, Sweden, Australia, and other powers in the so-called “West.” He can only be freed by building a mass campaign amongst working class people all over the world. Most importantly a mass campaign of this nature must be built within Britain and the US to thwart the plots of these powers to KILL Assange, either directly by execution, or indirectly by life-long imprisonment in a US hell-hole that goes by the euphemism of a “prison.”

    But such a campaign must be linked to building Revolutionary Socialist Parties around the world to put an end to capitalism, imperialism, and all its horrors. Assange is not the first Journalist to fall foul of the dark, secret, unaccountable, and ruthless powers that really rule the world in the interests of Big Business, and he won’t be the last, unless a Socialist Revolution takes place in the US to overthrow the reign of the capitalists. Such a Revolution would have enormous repercussions for the entire world, and be quickly followed by Revolutions in other key capitalist countries, like Britain, Germany, France, Russia, and China.

    Assange is an INDIVIDUAL victim of the world’s capitalist power structure. It will take a MASS MOVEMENT OF WORKING CLASS PEOPLE AROUND THE WORLD to set him free, and not pious appeals to the more “enlightened” members of the ruling classes, whose numbers dwindle daily as US imperialism prepares to impose its will on the world through a third, nuclear World War.

    1. I doubt that US imperialism intends or wants a nuclear world war. The use of just a few hundred relatively low-yield nuclear weapons on cities would precipitate a nuclear winter, and the use of the world’s stockpile of these weapons would make it a decade or so in duration.

      1. But just think how much it would help global warming.

        1. A nuclear winter would only interrupt global warming, and then we’d be back to where we were, though with considerably less ability to make it worse.

      2. Mr. Perkins overestimates both the “intelligence” and the “humanity” of US warmongers and empire builders, who have killed MILLIONS around the world with conventional AND nuclear weapons – Hiroshima and Nagasaki in 1945 – for the past 100 years.

        It isn’t only madman Trump talking about “winning” a nuclear war. These ideas are now being circulated within the highest ranks of the Pentagon and CIA. War also has a momentum and “logic” of its own. There is also the PERMANENT risk, in a world bristling with nuclear weaponry, of a catastrophic blunder on the part of either side, and we have had incidents of this sort already. Mercifully, none has actually triggered an apocalyptic nuclear exchange – as yet.

        US capitalists, military, and its intelligence agencies would, of course, prefer to impose their will upon the world with the minimum of expense, loss of multi-billion dollars equipment, and US human casualties. But they are planning for ALL scenarios – including the use of nuclear weapons. To overlook this prevalent psychosis within the highest echelons of the US capitalist State is to delude oneself, and, more importantly, the potential victims of US imperialism which would run into billions if a third World War ever got underway in earnest. Such a war would, as Mr. Perkins correctly points out, be very brief in duration, but its devastating, ruinous consequences would last for many decades, eliminating the vast majority of mankind and most, if not all, other forms of life on the planet. Fighting against this termination of human civilisation is INSEPARABLE from the fight for world Socialist Revolution.

  20. ‘Lucid, unobstructed awareness’
    If only.
    The people have been made vague, distracted and dense by lifelong diets of junk education, junk news, junk entertainment, junk food, rivers of alcohol and mountains of chemicals, prescription and ‘illegal’.
    Julian, and others like him, are being publicly crucified as examples to anyone who rocks the boat of Mammon.
    Let us pray, as the 1% PREY.

    1. Hmmm, pizza, corn dogs, french fries….
      Budweiser, Busch, CNN, Tequila, ectasy and of course degrees in fields that have no use but propaganda. And of course youtube and tiktok. Just think how the world would be without these gems.

      1. If you mean ecstasy, the word comes from the ancient Greek ἐξιστάναι, to put out of place, with the phrase phrase ἐξιστάναι ϕρενῶν meaning to drive a person out of their wits, while the drug MDMA was invented in 1912 by Merck chemist Anton Köllisch, a German working in Germany for a German company.

        1. Learn something new every day.

    2. Nice last line.

  21. My understanding of the consequences of being a part of the EU was that we came under Napoleonic Law , which states we are guilty until proven innocent, and although it was rarely enacted, the government have used it against Assange. in order to comply with our ‘special relationship’ with the USA.This status changed upon Brexit on Jan 1st 2021 and can now revert to control of our own judicial system (whatever that means) and Assange becomes ‘innocent until proven guilty’ , which would place the US in the dock with its’ war crimes fully exposed and the whispering CIA ‘advisors’ directed to leave the court.It all depends upon the barristers and the judge and whether they decide to use this new found freedom to reset the precedent first enacted back in the 17th Century when a lone barrister decided to defend a hungry and poor young man against the accusation that he stole a loaf of bread, laying the groundwork for the whole British legal system employing the key ingredient to establish justice : The Truth,

    1. “It all depends upon the barristers and the judge.”
      Julian’s barristers appear to be doing their best to defend him.
      The judge appears to be doing her utmost to thwart them and return the verdict wanted by the US and UK governments, and I doubt this change in English law due to Brexit, even if true, will change her mind or approach.

  22. brilliant. perfect. every discussion of assange should show the private manning video report of our soldiers ordering and laughing as the chopper splatters the white van full of children being brought home from school…as the men–some maybe their fathers–gathered also cut down by drone chopper video “experts” in Vegas…who then later report their PTSD from slaughtering innocents from the safety of our suburbs on the other side of the Earth;
    true, we have become gods and goddesses. but Unknown to those upon our controls we are only insolent nasty self-absorbed, ego-centric bratty GODs of Destruction…who can only break the biggest toy we ever had…our planet home…to shreds.
    we have a very weak desire to love our neighbors…even if half our mother military is Christian…

    1. Those were not children, they were civilian casualties in a war zone, I mean midget terrorists, I mean friendly fire misscommunication. Next question.

      1. “Is the price worth it?” – journalist Leslie Stahl.
        “This is a very hard choice, but we think the price is worth it.” – US Secretary of State Madeleine Albright, regarding the deaths of half a million Iraqi children.

  23. It will be yet another sad day for freedom and justice in the UK if it bows down to US pressure and allows Assange to be extradited. I say ‘yet’ another because the UK is rapidly sliding down into the mire with its American bosses.

    Such principles that it used to have around justice, such as ‘innocent until proven guilty’ have been thrown out of the window, along with any pretence of being other than a brutal police state.

    Assange’s treatment has been far worse than that of the worst criminal the UK has ever caught. It really is torture, there is no other truthful way to describe it.

    I’m so glad I don’t live there anymore.

    1. His “own” government has also fallen into line with the American Imperialists.

  24. Random Castagna Avatar
    Random Castagna

    Julian will be extradited to the US because the British don’t have the balls to oppose the US when it comes to virtually *anything*. Julian will be tortured by the US for as long as they can keep him alive, while they leak details of his torture so as to dissuade other journalists from disclosing the crimes the US has already committed and will commit in the future. When they finally kill Julian, and they will do that eventually, they won’t tell anyone, or if they do, they will call it a “suicide”.

    Nothing anyone says or does will free Julian or save him.

    1. No. Hd will die of Covid. Everyone dies from covid.

    2. Certainly Julian anticipated this ahead of time, prepared himself for it in every manner possible, before undertaking his work. JFK, Malcolm, MLK, RFK, The Panthers, etc. all knew the price they would likely pay for doing their work. So did a certain Palestinian prophet, when he reenacted the Maccabean cleansing of the temple. It has always been so, which does not mean for a second that we should accept it. So Caitlin and those others who openly challenge demonic power must daily ask themselves: Am I ready? And those of us who would stand with them might also ask ourselves: Are we? Are we willing, for example, to take even the small step, the minor risk, of standing with them by posting, by speaking, by participating in their work, in our real names?

      1. Some might conceal their real names as they’re taking bigger steps.

      2. I give much credit to Caitlin for using her own name and fully understand why she avoids other sensitive subjects for the exact same reason.

  25. Caitlin is one of only several journalists in the entire world who is willing to speak so clearly about the unimaginable situation that humans are facing. Even my most “woke” friends (most are now former friends) in the USSA (I live in South America) are AFRAID to read her work (I mean that!), because they would have to change their behavior. That is the problem. Way too many intelligent folks are way too comfortable with their current positions in the economic world, and have no interest in giving it up. “Yes, the Assange case is bad, but but but…. I like my life”. Unbelievable!

    1. Unbelievable, yes, in a way, but also, in another way, refreshingly honest. Who knows?–that honesty may eventually lead to a change of heart…especially when so much else is changing as we speak.

  26. The entire spectrum of Narcissism includes sociopaths and psychopaths, and I was just reading today that they may have a biological cause for their expression in human society; wouldn’t that be nice? No such thing as evil, just a sickness, and almost ironic that the people who would force vaccinations on us would pave the way for us to forcibly cure them of their intended ways.

    1. Random Castagna Avatar
      Random Castagna

      You are conflating Symptoms and archaic unused diagnoses in an incoherent comment. Try again but study first.

  27. Perfect! Thank you, Ms. Johnstone!

  28. A wonderful, brilliant piece. I am fortunate to be allowed to read your words, your honesty, your humanity. Tom golden. Stay safe.

  29. Talking about Assange instead of forgetting is a good start.

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