Thursday, June 27, 2024

Some Thoughts On Julian Assange

Assange is free, but journalism seems more shackled than ever.

With his coerced guilty plea this week  to one felony count under the archaic, repressive, anti-democratic Espionage Act, the United States has essentially declared adversarial journalism to be a crime. To say that the plea deal will have a chilling effect on what is still actually left of independent reporting in the public interest is an understatement, given that such reporting already has been frozen out of existence.

From the news deserts resulting from the mass closures of local newspapers and radio stations and thousands of reporters losing their jobs in the process, journalism has largely morphed into a consolidated corporate behemoth whose main function is not to inform, but to indoctrinate and propagandize. Noam Chomsky called it the "manufacture of consent."

But failing at this task, as evidenced by the polls revealing unprecedented distrust in mass media and with the growing numbers of people out in the streets and on social media protesting everything from wars and genocide to capitalism-engendered climatate catastrophes, to the manufacture of consent has been duly added the manufacturing of fear and polarization.

Take the coverage of Julian Assange in the New York Times. The headline in today's "news analysis" of his release from prison casts him not as a journalist and a publisher, but as a "hacker and polarizing figure."

One of the main duties of our six or seven polarizing media giants  is to divide people for the benefit of the conquerors. Rather than address the inconvenient truths and crimes exposed by the likes of Assange,  the default position is to shoot the messenger. It's easier to accuse people that they consider dangerous to the status quo of having personality disorders or malign ulterior motives,  Assange, the Times sniffed, became nothing but a "sideshow"  before becoming "a ghostly throwback to another time."

For a media outlet that's been so obsessed with promoting a sideshow called Trump Derangement for at least the last decade, that epithet is pretty weak. Then again, classic Freudian projection is one of the  few weapons they still have left in their propaganda arsenal.

Only a hack would ever call Assange a hacker, given that he did not personally download or  steal the emails of the rich and powerful which he published in Wikileaks. Chelsea Manning accessed the initial trove of emails related to Iraq and Afghanistan.

And despite the oft-repeated claim that "Russia" hacked the Podesta emails showing that the Democratic National Committee manipulated the 2016 primaries to boost Hillary Clinton - among other embarrassments - officials have readily admitted in sworn testimony that there is no concrete proof that Russia was involved in the theft. But nonetheless, the Times persists to this very day in claiming that Assange was in cahoots with the Kremlin, and by extension, the Trump campaign.

Clinton, who published an op-ed lauding her Broadway production cred in the Times on the same day of Assange's release. had once suggested, while she was Obama's secretary of state "droning" the Wikileaks founder. She went on to pontificate about the sideshow known as the Trump-Biden debate, scheduled to air on the CNN behemoth tonight.

And in today's Times news analysis, the reporters even went so far as to imply that any "chilling effect" has been not on journalists, but on poor Hillary herself. To wit:

As secretary of state, Mrs. Clinton had to apologize to foreign leaders for embarrassing details in cables sent by American diplomats to the State Department. In one case, the foreign minister of a Persian Gulf nation refused to allow note takers into a meeting with her, for fear that his comments would be leaked.

Fear is the keyword here. Assange inserted an unaccustomed fear into the hardened hearts of  the rich, the powerful and the secretive. Disclosures of their crimes and lies robbed them of that power, permanently. Those shackles they've devised show signs of rusting out, at least among independent writers and broadcasters. That "chilling effect" on journalism that the Assange persecution engendered could, paradoxically, be the very stimulus required to thaw our minds right of the propaganda deep freeze. That is my hope, anyway. The only ting we have to fear is their fear, itself. Cornered predators can be very dangerous indeed.



The eyes of the whole world were opened thanks to Assange and Wikileaks. And they'll remain open despite the best efforts of the overlords to tape them shut, right along with our mouths.

The sideshow is them, and the reviews are pouring in. And they're devastating.

******

I will be watching the CNN sideshow tonight and writing it up either tomorrow or Saturday. Meantime, if any of you would like to weigh in sooner, please use the comment section. Blow-by-blow, minute-by-minute reactions as the action happens are more than welcome.

10 comments:

  1. Looking forward to your writeup, Karen.

    FYI, the freakshow will be broadcast on all the major broadcast networks, plus Jill Stein will be streaming a live response on X (Twitter) as will RFKJr. His will also be available at TheRealDebate.com for those not on X.

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  2. Ms. Garcia, thanks to your reference to the NYTimes article , I looked at it, but didn't need to read much of that screed to get its gist, which as you note is grossly manufacturing consent for crimes committed by the USA. A quick scan through the comments posted by readers reveals the hideous effect of that mind-control, as nearly all noted reactions so far fail to realize the critical service for exposing war crimes that Assange performed at horrible personal cost, and instead, despicably consider him the criminal. Control the news and you control the views has never been so frighteningly evident. Calling that polemic by reporters Mark Landler and Megan Specia "news analysis" is grotesque. The Gray Lady has become a corporate whore, servicing the military-industrial-surveillance state. Hastening the inevitable end of the Amerikan (sic) Empire is our only hope.

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  3. In no particular order of importance:

    China may have found a cure for diabetes.
    Children in Gaza are being deliberately starved to death.
    We bombed a beach full of civilians in Sebastapol.
    Israel is about to invade Lebanon and get their tushes kicked out of west Asia.
    The Colorado River is drying up. Los Angeles may be uninhabitable within the decade.
    We are placing huge bio-weapons labs in the midwest in tornado alley.
    China is building the biggest deepwater port in this hemisphere 40mi north of Lima.
    Pennsylvania is waging no-holds-barred lawfare against Amish farmers.

    Tell me again why a debate between two blithering puppets is worth my time.

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  4. I hear that CNN will use a 1-2 minute delay instead of the usual 7-second delay. That should be enough time to edit out a Biden brain freeze or trip and fall.

    With Jaipac Tapper and Danaipac Bash moderating, we can rule out any questions about Gaza, but hopefully Trump will at least slip in a reference to 'Genocide Joe'.

    My biggest wish is they'd mute the moderators' mics to keep them from interrupting, leading, etc.

    Is DNC's Donna Brazile 'helping' with the questions again I wonder? Not a conspiracy theory! The more they put their thumbs on the scales, the more Trump will end up benefiting. Democrats never seem to learn.

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  5. Valerie in AustraliaJune 27, 2024 at 6:35 PM

    As someone posted in a previous comment, thank you, Karen, for reading the NYT so I don't have to. What a scandal sheet! - but dangerous if one reads the comment section to find out how effective the propaganda is.

    I'm relieved that Julian is back in Australia. After my maligning of the Labor led Australian government for not doing enough to ensure a release, the Assange campaign is saying, they actually worked hard on his behalf in the end. Well good and better late than never. Even the sleeping Australian public was getting a little ticked off that we were not left to deal with our own citizen. A small win for our team.

    I know a Trump presidency can only mean insane leadership but honestly, I don't care who wins unless it is Jill Stein. Since the deck is stacked in favour of the duopoly, I can only see the economy spiralling down and hopefully, taking the military industrial complex and the swamp politicians with it. Biden and the Democrats seemed doomed considering that Israel seems to like Trump better - and they seem to be controlling our country. We are witnessing the end of an empire and like all dying empires, the decline takes on exponential speed. My biggest fear is the cornered animal analogy. I hope America will be too busy to badger Julian and he and Stella can have some peace. He certainly deserves it.

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  6. It's not just the general public that CNN isn't allowing to attend the debate. REPORTERS aren't allowed either, not even pool reporters from the White House Correspondents Association.

    Reportedly neither campaign has any objections to allowing reporters in but CNN is refusing access. WHCA has made multiple unsuccessful requests.

    So where in hell does CNN think they are, Gaza? Israel doesn't allow reporters in there either. Combined with the 1-2 minute time delay, it seems fishy. What are they afraid of? Truth.

    This CNN control game reminds me of AG Garland in contempt of Congress refusing to release the videotape of Biden being interrogated by Robert Hur, insisting that the transcript - which the Biden team had the opportunity to edit! - was enough.

    This was the interview where Hur concluded that Biden was too mentally incompetent to stand trial = too mentally incompetent to be President, IMHO.

    Biden must be protected at all costs for 'Our Democracy' to survive. All's fair in love and war.

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  7. Holy moly, only 15 minutes in and Joe Biden has lost it.

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  8. I have to ask after watching the debate, who is running our country?

    I could say Israel, but Natanyahu/Mileikowsky is as unstrung as Trump.

    Who is running the world? Everything is upside down. The Greens are the biggest warmongers - and there is nothing more unenvironmental than war. Friends, people I talk to in Australia, the U.S., Europe - all I encounter is ignorance and repeating of media propaganda. It is as if we are a bunch of children covering our ears, closing our eyes tight and repeating, "I want things to go back to the way they used to be." No grappling with reality - no desire to tackle the problems that exist.

    That debate was unbelievable. If there was ever proof that there is a duopoly and they really don't care who is the figurehead, that was the moment. Trump lying his head off and Biden rambling.

    I remember reading an essay by Chris Hedges years ago where he described the collapse of the American empire based on his knowledge of empires of the past. At the end, the collapse speeds up exponentially.

    If anyone can spare ten dollars and wants to support Dennis Kucinich, his campaign needs financial support. The last of the good and decent politicians. Even if he wins his election, he is up against an avalanche of corruption and ignorance - I don't know whether to hope he wins or fails - for his sake, maybe failing and being able to walk away knowing he did his best for his country is the kindest thing to hope.

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  9. Good interview with Kevin Gosztola from TheDissenter.org on BreakThroughNews on Julian Assange. A lot of info about the why and what happened concerning Julian's release. It sounds like the judge in Saipan was wonderful - a very different treatment than he would have received had it taken place in the U.S. It is only about 15 minutes.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HQbrY2MaZ3o

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  10. Democrat elites and their media lackeys are such phonies. They're shocked, shocked I tell you, that there's a demented man in the White House. But Glenn Greenwald reminds us that Biden's cognitive impairment was obvious and a big issue with the Democrat elites (NOT the Republicans) dating back to 2020 and he provides the receipts on his Rumble show.

    This is all political theater. The only thing Dem pols and media partners are shocked about is that they've been busted in their years-long coverup of Biden's serious cognitive decline. Just recently they were all claiming that Republicans were creating cheapfakes to hurt Biden and we shouldn't believe our lying eyes and ears. My how quickly the worm turns.

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