Julian Assange has had his Ecuadoran citizenship revoked and has been forcibly removed from the Ecuadoran embassy where he'd been imprisoned for the last seven years. Had he set foot outside, the British authorities would have swept him up and packed him off to America. It took years of pressure and a regime change in Ecuador, but they finally got permission to go in and get him. <h>Making You Complicit</h> Why did they bother to get permission? Why didn't they just go in and get him whenever they wanted? The British police could have done it---just barged in, trampling on Ecuador's sovereignty. What would Ecuador have done? Who the fuck cares what Ecuador thinks or says? Would they have sued for redress in the ICC? Who cares? Britain does. It still cares, a little bit. But not for any moral reason. No, they care because they need you to think they care. They don't just want to arrest Assange and send him off for torture in America. They need to you to believe that, in doing so, they are defending your freedoms, defending your families from the lies of Wikileaks and its ilk. They need to send the message that they can not only do what they want, but they can do it with the world's support. They want to do it in a way where they not only do not fear reprisal, but are lauded for their upstanding commitment to moral rectitude. The U.S. also still cares---death threats against Assange by U.S. politicians notwithstanding---which is why it took so bloody long. I believe Edward Snowden can thank his lucky stars that he ended up in Moscow, where, oddly enough, he is probably more safe than anywhere in the western world (or anywhere subjugated by the west, like most of South America). Poor Chelsea Manning made the mistake of sticking around in the U.S. and has been arrested <i>yet again</i>. Neither she nor Assange (once extradited) is likely to be heard from again, if the U.S. has its druthers. I hope fervently that this will not be the case, but I have no reason for doing so. <h>A Quick History</h> Julian Assange's form of imprisonment has recently changed. Before 2012, he had to be careful where he went, but he was ostensibly free. Sometime after 2010, the powers-that-be began making noise about old sexual-misconduct charges from Sweden. Sweden duly issued an international arrest warrant, but Assange's need to comply was muddied by the fact that there were murmurs of extradition from Britain to Sweden, and then to the U.S. for as-yet unspecified charges.<fn> It was plausible to think that the ostensible charges were a smokescreen to get Assange "into the system" and make him disappear. It reeked of railroading. It reeked of the authorities trying to put legal lipstick on their pig of persecution. Assange had already heard enough death threats from American politicians at that point and fled to the Ecuadoran embassy, having been granted asylum by the left-leaning government of Rafael Correa. He would later grant Assange Ecuadoran citizenship. It was only a matter of time before Ecuador would swing back to the right, though, which they did with the election of Lenin Moreno. It took him just under two years, but he worked with the British to issue another arrest warrant---this time for jumping bail on a charge that had been dropped---and revoking his Ecuadoran citizenship.<fn> Assange's life was a prison. He had some space to himself, but he was in all-but-solitary confinement, with spotty access to outside information. He was able to occasionally meet people. He could not go outside. His health declined catastrophically. He has aged 30 years in 7. A doctor who has examined him says that he will never recover completely, either physically or mentally. Not that it will matter once Gina Haspel's CIA gets their hands on him. For a more complete and detailed history, see the excellent summary in <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2019/04/12/after-7-years-of-deceptions-about-assange-the-us-readies-for-its-first-media-rendition/" source="Antiwar.com" author="Jonathan Cook">After 7 Years of Deceptions About Assange, the US Readies for its First Media Rendition</a>. Or you can check out the video below for a purportedly satirical but actually totally accurate, 2-minute summary of the situation. <media src="https://www.youtube.com/v/1efOs0BsE0g" href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1efOs0BsE0g" source="YouTube" caption="Honest Government Ad | Julian Assange" author="thejuicemedia" width="560px"> <h>Mindless Kowtowing to Power</h> It's a testament to western brainwashing that "killing Assange", possibly "with drones" was chirpily bandied about in the press. Hillary as a candidate thought it was a grand idea. So did John McCain. No-one suffered any reprisal for making threats against a journalist/publisher's life. Australia's lack of effort on behalf of its own citizen is not unexpected for a criminal, racist and kowtowing state. Britain's role is the same as Australia's, licking its own spittle from America's shit-stained boots. It is utterly unsurprising that they both assist the U.S. in prosecuting a publisher for publishing. Especially in the U.S., where the media is desperately searching for a way to keep up its completely parallel and fantastical narrative called "Russiagate". Assange and Wikileaks are on the hook, of course, for helping Russia and Trump steal the presidency. Getting "justice" against Assange will go a long way in cementing this storyline as the main timeline in America, forever. The rulers of the world are slavering to establish a precedent and cow other journalists and publishers. The freedom-of-the-press train left the station a long time ago in those major English-speaking countries. They are all a media and journalism wasteland.<fn> It is utterly unsurprising that they want to help "disappear" someone who's not only showing how criminal the major world governments are, but also how inept and gutless the major media are, as well. The press has been telling the western world for years that Wikileaks is borderline, if not outright, criminal. They couldn't care less about the truth. They just don't like to be upstaged. It loses them money. They've put considerable effort into getting public opinion squarely against Assange and Wikileaks---just as their ruling class would have it. The media is composed not of journalists, but <i>elites</i> whose interests are just as threatened by a world made more open and equal by Wikileaks truth-telling. <img attachment="ddy5xaryrxr21.jpg" align="right-column" caption="Assange vs. Zuckerberg">Instead, the media celebrate their own immolation with stories trumpeting utter falsehoods---or they celebrate billionaires and giant corporations or anti-Russian propaganda, drumming up support for the next military action/war against a bunch of hapless people, or drumming up hatred against the refugees generated by the last umpteen such wars. The article <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/julian-assange-extradition-press-freedom-trump/" source="Jacobin" author="Branko Marcetic">The Next Woodward and Bernstein Could Go to Jail</a> comes to the same conclusion: <bq>The issue here is that, once he is extradited, the Trump administration may well end up achieving one of the national security state’s most cherished, long-held goals: restricting the publication of classified information by using a widely hated figure to set a precedent.</bq> The article <a href="https://original.antiwar.com/cook/2019/04/12/after-7-years-of-deceptions-about-assange-the-us-readies-for-its-first-media-rendition/" source="Antiwar.com" author="Jonathan Cook">After 7 Years of Deceptions About Assange, the US Readies for its First Media Rendition</a> concurs, <bq>For seven years, we have had to listen to a chorus of journalists, politicians and “experts” telling us that Assange was nothing more than a fugitive from justice, and that the British and Swedish legal systems could be relied on to handle his case in full accordance with the law. Barely a “mainstream” voice was raised in his defense in all that time. From the moment he sought asylum, Assange was cast as an outlaw. His work as the founder of WikiLeaks– a digital platform that for the first time in history gave ordinary people a glimpse into the darkest recesses of the most secure vaults in the deepest of Deep States – was erased from the record.</bq> <h>Assange's Supporters are Legion</h> It's not just my opinion, either. Luminaries who've never been on the wrong side of history, such as Edward Snowden, Yanis Varoufakis, Glenn Greenwald, Srecko Horvat (of DiEM25) and Noam Chomsky in the video below (22m). <media href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LeJ3DZXGs24" caption="Julian Assange - Comments from Snowden, Chomsky, Varoufakis, Greenwald & Horvat (REWIND)" source="YouTube" author="acTVism Munich" src="https://www.youtube.com/v/LeJ3DZXGs24" width="560px"> John Pilger, a fellow Australian write poignantly in the article <a href="https://www.counterpunch.org/2019/04/12/the-assange-arrest-is-a-warning-from-history/" source="CounterPunch" author="John Pilger">The Assange Arrest is a Warning from History</a>, <bq>The glimpse of Julian Assange being dragged from the Ecuadorean embassy in London is an emblem of the times. Might against right. Muscle against the law. Indecency against courage. Six policemen manhandled a sick journalist, his eyes wincing against his first natural light in almost seven years. That this outrage happened in the heart of London, in the land of Magna Carta, ought to shame and anger all who fear for “democratic” societies. Assange is a political refugee protected by international law, the recipient of asylum under a strict covenant to which Britain is a signatory. The United Nations made this clear in the legal ruling of its Working Party on Arbitrary Detention.</bq> Of what is Assange guilty? He spoke truth to power and he did it in a way that could not be stopped. He leveraged the power of the Internet to fight against the masters of the world. He did this secretly and diligently and cleanly and correctly. He and his organization don't profit from the news---unlike the major news organizations who cross-publish their material and then stab Wikileaks in the back at every opportunity. No-one is saying that what Wikileaks has published is <i>untrue</i>---just that they shouldn't be allowed to publish it. The dirty secrets about how the world works should <i>remain secret</i>. States like the U.S. and Britain consider Wikileaks and its ilk to be their gravest threat, outshining Isis or even Russia, believe it or not.<fn> <bq>These “things” are the truth about the homicidal way America conducts its colonial wars, the lies of the British Foreign Office in its denial of rights to vulnerable people, such as the Chagos Islanders, the expose of Hillary Clinton as a backer and beneficiary of jihadism in the Middle East, the detailed description of American ambassadors of how the governments in Syria and Venezuela might be overthrown, and much more. It all available on the WikiLeaks site.</bq> This why they are after him. This is why he must <i>pay</i>. This is why he must <i>suffer</i>. This is why he must be <i>stopped</i>. This is why of him must be made <i>an example</i>, a <i>warning to others</i>. Keep your mouth <i>shut</i> if you know what's good for you. Do not tell the subjugated about their chains. Do not pull back that curtain. To hell with the lot of them. We should rise up and tell them that this must end, now. But they'll probably get away with it. Again. Like they always do. Poor Assange. He'd hoped to launch a revolution and ends as so many others, in a slow-motion immolation, crushed by the slow gears of the state. His whitened, wizened head will be a fading memory within a few weeks. And no-one will know where he is or what became of him. And it will, somehow, all be legal. And no-one will be made to stand trial. And there will continue to be no justice. I hope I'm proven wrong. <hr> <ft>The article <a href="https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/cascading-cat-litter/" source="Clusterfuck Nation" author="James Howard Kunstler">Cascading Cat Litter</a> muses that the U.S. may end up "disappearing" a Nobel-prize winner, ending with a lovely summary (emphasized below). <bq>The US supposedly reserves the authority to lob additional charges at Mr. Assange, though they may face a lengthy extradition battle with his attorneys to lever him out of the UK and into US custody. In the meantime, Mr. Assange may receive a Nobel Prize as a symbol of a lone conscience standing up against the despotic deceits of the world’s deep states. Wouldn’t that gum up the works nicely? I’d like to see The New York Times’s front page headline on that story: Russian Colluder Wins Nobel Prize, Put on Trial in Federal Court. <b>By then, the United States of America will be so completely gaslighted that it will pulsate in the darkness like a death star about to explode.</b></bq></ft> <ft>According to <a href="https://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/useful-idiots-on-parade/" author="James Howard Kunstler" source="Clusterfuck Nation">Useful Idiots on Parade</a>, <iq>Ecuador was promised debt relief from the US-controlled International Monetary Fund within hours of expelling Mr. Assange.</iq></ft> <ft>Surprisingly enough, people like Tucker Carlson of Fox News are somehow getting the story straight on Assange. See the video <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SnwC_1Pf9VQ" author="Jimmy Dore" source="YouTube">Tucker Carlson Defends Assange. Huh?</a></ft> <ft>Pilger writes, <bq> A decade ago, the Ministry of Defence in London produced a secret document which described the “principal threats” to public order as threefold: terrorists, Russian spies and investigative journalists. The latter was designated the major threat. The document was duly leaked to WikiLeaks, which published it. <b>“We had no choice,” Assange told me. “It’s very simple. People have a right to know and a right to question and challenge power. That’s true democracy.”</b> (Emphasis added.)</bq> Contrast this with how the rest of the media functions, in the main, as detailed in the article <a href="https://jacobinmag.com/2019/04/julian-assange-extradition-press-freedom-trump/" source="Jacobin" author="Branko Marcetic">The Next Woodward and Bernstein Could Go to Jail</a>, <bq>Mother Jones‘s David Corn, who was earlier revealed to have given the now discredited Steele Dossier to the FBI in an effort to take down Trump, spent yesterday helpfully delineating between what is officially acceptable journalism and what isn’t. “Do not help sources break the law to obtain information,” he advised. “However, you can publish info that is brought to you.” <b>Remember, journalism is simply publishing whatever secret information the government deems fit to reveal to you.</b> (Emphasis added.)</bq></ft>