Category: Human Rights

The Moral Right to Govern

The  arrest  of Julian  Assange  for absconding while  on bail from  a UK court;  (a charge that  normally requires a non custodial ( non-prison) sentence) and  his proposed extradition to  the United States for  ‘conspiring to hack into a Pentagon computer network in 2010″  alongside Chelsea Manning, raises important issues , not only for journalistic freedom, but also puts into  question the right of those in power to  have any  moral  capacity to make any decisions for  the publics they  supposedly represent .  Assange’s real  crime is that  his website Wikileaks exposed, and continues to  expose, the criminal  behaviour of state actors.

The U.K.  judge, Judge Michael Snow,  presiding over Assange’s arrest,  made the highly unprofessional  and unscrupulously  biased comment  when  describing Assange in  his  legal judgement as a “narcissist, who can’t get beyond his own selfish interests” and found him guilty of failing to surrender to bail in 2012.  No  doubt “Justice” Snow, considered it contemptable that  an  upstart  colonial  boy like Assange should challenge his imperial  betters in  such an unseemly way.  The personal characterization of Julian Assange by Judge Michael Snow was “highly improper,” Mads Andenas, former UN special rapporteur on arbitrary detention noted.    Should being   a narcissist ever become a chargeable crime then  certainly most judges and every politician would be spending long periods in  incarceration. As Craig Murray  notes: One key fact gave away Snow’s enormous prejudice. Julian Assange said nothing during the whole brief proceedings, other than to say “Not guilty” twice, and to ask a one sentence question about why the charges were changed midway through this sham “trial”. Yet Judge Michael Snow condemned Assange as “narcissistic”. There was nothing that happened in Snow’s brief court hearing that could conceivably have given rise to that opinion. It was plainly something he brought with him into the courtroom, and had read or heard in the mainstream media or picked up in his club. It was in short the very definition of prejudice, and “Judge” Michael Snow and his summary judgement is a total disgrace.

Its noted that  the current prime minister of the U.K. Theresa May  stated in  related to  Assange’s arrest  that “This goes to show that in the United Kingdom, no one is above the law”. . One assumes   that  May  will   therefore proceed to  the nearest  Police Station to  confess her direct  complicity  in genocide in Yemen, and that her predecessor Cameron  will  come forward to be  charged with war crimes in Libya and Syria and that  the ever determinedly evil  Tony Blair will  finally confess to  his monumental  war crimes in Iraq and elsewhere.

Similarly the media’s  constant attempts prior to Assange’s  arrest over the previous 6 years to  characterize him  as some objectionable human  being;  including his not  emptying the kitty litter for his little cat (who was voluntarily extradited to safety in November 2018) ,  or his personal  hygiene (one wonders how much  those journalists  might smell  after being incarcerated in  virtual  solitary  confinement for 7 years?) clearly demonstrates the depths to  which   Western  mainstream  journalism  has sunk, and its cosy-ing up  to “intelligence’  services determined to punish  and get  rid of Assange. ( as well as the extensive limitations of its case in  attempting to justify locking Assange up).   One can  expect  the (linked) type of response from  newspapers like the Daily Mail,  but  Mainstream  media’s attempts to  character assassinate

Assange have continued after his  arrest. Note the language in this screenshot from  the  ‘respectable’  news outlet  Reuters from 12th  April  2019 ,  stating that   Assange  was being indited for sexual  offences (charges which  as the U.N. has noted,  were dropped almost two  years ago). Wikipedia notes: ‘On 19 May 2017, the Swedish chief prosecutor applied to the Stockholm District Court to rescind the arrest warrant for Julian Assange,[39] effectively ceasing their investigation against Julian Assange.[40] The case may be reinstated until the expiration of the statute of limitations. Additionally, Britain’s arrest warrant pertaining to bail violations remains open. In 2013, Sweden tried to drop Assange extradition but the English Crown Prosecution Service dissuaded them from doing so.[41]‘

There appears to  be some  not inconsiderable discrepancy  between  the intent and motives of the two  women  involved in  the Swedish  rape cases and the Swedish  prosecution’s account of events.

Or  we can note another ‘respectable’  media  U.K.  outlet,  with its  ongoing wild accusations  ( screenshot below)   that  Assange and Wikileaks were somehow

connected to  Russia’s “military intelligence  spy agency”  who supposedly ( without a shred of evidence)  had   hacked the U.S.  Democratic Party’s  servers,  exposing the very  real corruption within  the party to ‘select”  Hilary  Clinton  as a presidential  hopeful..

The  numerous attempts by  the UK Justice system  to  force Sweden  to  maintain  its prosecution case for rape against  Assange,  despite their clear resistance, is one more  line of evidence of conspiracy  against  justice by  those currently  in  power in  the United Kingdom.  Ms. Agnes Callamard, Special Rapporteur on extrajudicial, summary or arbitrary executions  tweeted that the expulsion of Julian Assange from the Ecuadorian Embassy in London exposed him to “risks of serious human rights violations”. 

However it should be noted that  the U.K.;  like its ‘partner’  the U.S. , takes no  cognizance of its  extensive human  rights violations, as it  is  apparently above international  law. In December 2018 the U.N.  has noted that the U. K.  should: ‘abide by its international obligations” and allow Mr. Assange safe passage out of the embassy.

“States that are based upon, and promote the rule of law, do not like to be confronted with their own violations of the law, that is understandable. But when they honestly admit these violations, they do honour the very spirit of the rule of law, earn enhanced respect for doing so, and set worldwide commendable examples,” said a statement released by the Working Group.

In December 2015, the Working Group concluded in its opinion No. 54/2015 that Mr. Assange – who at the time had a European arrest warrant issued against him for an allegation of crimes committed in Sweden ‑ was being arbitrarily deprived of his freedom and demanded that he be released.

“Under international law, pre-trial detention must be only imposed in limited instances. Detention during investigations must be even more limited, especially in the absence of any charge” said the experts. “The Swedish investigations have been closed for over 18 months now, and the only ground remaining for Mr. Assange’s continued deprivation of liberty is a bail violation in the UK, which is, objectively, a minor offense that cannot post facto justify the more than 6 years confinement that he has been subjected to since he sought asylum in the Embassy of Ecuador.”

“Mr. Assange should be able to exercise his right to freedom of movement in an unhindered manner, in accordance with the human rights conventions the UK has ratified,” the experts added.

Of course it should be remembered that  those U.K.  and U.S. people in  positions of power are the very  same people who  ultimately will  face extradition  to  The Hague and life-time imprisonment  for their war crimes and facilitation of genocide in Iraq,  Afghanistan, Libya,  Syria and now Yemen,  and whom Wikileaks has exposed as genocidal  abnd corrupt  psychopaths,  time and time again.

It is now high  time for the public in  both  the  United States and the United Kingdom,   to  acknowledge that  those who  rule    those two  nations (and who  view themselves as the ‘elite’  despite all  the evidence  to  the contrary of their minimal  vision and intelligence),  are simply  parasites  who  have no  moral  right to  rule. That  in  fact  they  are the people who  need to be in  the dock  now for  their well documented war-crimes and murders of many millions of people world-wide in  their corrupt drive for power and more money.

They  are  in  fact  truly psychopaths.

Perhaps the conclusion can  best  be left to  a quote from President Roosevelt in 1944 and  recently re-quoted by  the courageous and articulate Richard Falk: It seems apt to recall President Franklin Roosevelt’s 1944 message on German war crimes directed at the German people in the midst of World War II: “Hitler is committing war crimes in the name of the German people. I ask every German and every man everywhere under German domination to show the world by his action that in his heart he does not share these insane criminal desires. Let him hide the victims, help them to get over their borders, and do what they can to save them from the Nazi hangman. I ask him also to keep watch and to record the evidence that will one day be used to convict the guilty.” (emphasis added) Is this not precisely what Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange have been doing?

As Richard Falk notes,  the attempt to  extradite Assange to  answer for  his access to,  and publication of, criminal  wrongdoing by  state actors, and thereby  muzzle the release of further information on  state criminal  activity, is indisputably an international  act of criminality  in  itself.

https://defend.wikileaks.org/take-action/

Links

https://www.rt.com/news/456290-assange-uk-judicial-system-us/

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/754-assange-indictment/d093e7dc7982f7fe4c24/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

https://news.un.org/en/story/2019/04/1036491

Chelsea and Julian are in Jail. History Trembles.

https://amp.theguardian.com/politics/2017/jul/05/iraq-war-judge-to-review-tony-blair-prosecution-ban

Assange’s arrest shows us very clearly who supports freedom of speech, and who doesn’t

https://www.theguardian.com/media/2019/apr/12/julian-assange-charges-press-freedom-journalism

Anonymous Message To The Captors Of Julian Assange

Julian Assange Arrested, Take Action Now

https://caitlinjohnstone.com/2019/04/12/how-you-can-be-certain-that-the-us-charge-against-assange-is-fraudulent/

Assange’s ‘Conspiracy’ to Expose War Crimes Has Already Been Punished

https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2019/04/14/julian-assange-criminal-or-benefactor/

https://intpolicydigest.org/2017/06/21/analysis-julian-assange-case/

 

The Pink Supremacists

Christchurch is my old hometown;  long before the earthquakes that shattered the city, long before multiculturalism  thankfully arrived ,   and long long  before Mr Tarrant decided it was his mission to  save the ‘white”  world  from  those “others” by murdering 50  people in two  mosques in March  2019. Certainly there has always been  racism  in little old  New Zealand-  but  in my experience a greater  tolerance of diversity  than in  many countries. Our  current Prime Minister Jacinda Adern  is thankfully a symbol  of that  tolerance and compassion.

Mr Tarrant is however not a symbol  of white supremacy  ( he is ,  as the headline of this post  suggests ,  in  reality   pink skinned;  not ‘white’;  a fact  which  rather  detracts from  the white power rhetoric) but he is rather;  a symbol  of  grief, fear and  loss. Like so many  angry  men  across the world, he found a rationale for the expression of that  anger and violence. In Mr Tarrant’s case, it was ‘white’  supremacism;   but for others  it might be  Salafist    murderous  jihadi fundamentalism, or Hindu  or Buddhist ‘righteous’  anger. In fact  anything to  avoid the real  grief and loss gnawing at  their psyche . In  Mr Tarrant’s case it was ,  almost indisputably the suicide of his father in 2010 when he was 18 , and more explicitly his discovery of the body  after his father shot himself  after he was diagnosed with cancer as a result of asbestos exposure. In the case of Anders Breivik, the Norwegian  who  killed 77 Muslim children in an attack  – it was perhaps the  separation of his parents at  an early age and the subsequent  split from  his father at  15.

What  might we be able to  say  about Osama bin Laden  and his childhood, or even  Genghis Khan?

Please note ,  none of this   rationale in  any way  condones or excuses the violence of such individuals,  but it can  give a rationale for their actions,  and hence an opportunity to  remove and reduce such  risks in  others .

And it is important  also  to  note that  by  far the greatest  violence by  such  angry  men is not committed  by  their own  hand,  but via the hands of others. Those men  ( and some women) who  manipulate others into  carrying out  their acts of violence  against  those ‘others”. In recent times those mass murderers have been  politicians and military  men and specifically those in  the Western ‘democratic’   nations. One can  only speculate on  the childhoods of sociopaths like John Bolton, the US advisor who  advocates the  killing of so  many Arab people,  but more importantly the Iranian people,  in the supposed belief that  this will  protect  the apartheid state of Israel,  or U.S.  Secretary  of State Mike Pompeo  who  apparently sincerely believes that  war against  Iran  will  hasten the Second Coming and the Rapture . Or we could list  a few women like  Gina Haspell  CIA director who is  clearly able to  internally rationalise her brutish  actions in  torturing people in a systematic manner,  or note the psychopathic glee of Hilary  Clinton when she learns of  Muammar Qaddafi’s brutal  death.

Such  people  use their  concoctions of beliefs to  rationalise their  brutal  and violent actions…when in  fact  they  are  simply  frightened little people who  need our compassion – and to  be taken  away  from  any capacity to  control  other’s lives.

 

Venezuela Madness

President Trump has  recognised as President of Venezuela, a man  who  has never stood for the Presidential  role  but who presides over  the Venezuelan  national  assembly: Juan Guaidó— a man  who  the New York Times (1/22/19) describes as “virtually unheard-of”—and who has now – at  the behest of the Trump administration- proclaimed himself the country’s new leader. Guaido  was elected President of the National Assembly of Venezuela in December 2018, and was sworn in on 5 January 2019.  He appears to  have strong links into  the American  neocon  ‘thinktank’  and policy   systems and strongly supports  the United States  re- taking more ownership  of Venezuela’s extensive oil  reserves, (the largest in  the world)  and the privatisation of many state-run  services which  currently fund health  and welfare  in Venezuela.  In  addition,  according to  ConsortiumNews,  he hads a long history  of involvement in  the violence associated with Popular Will party  which   formed the shock troops of the guarimbas that caused the deaths of police officers and common citizens alike. He had even boasted of his own participation in street riots. And now, to win the hearts and minds of the military and police, Guaido had to erase this blood-soaked history.   According to  Consortium News, Within 48 hours, Guaidó quickly tried to seize control of Venezuela’s major US-based oil refiner and use its revenue to help bankroll his US-backed coup regime.  Guaidó is attempting to fire the directors of Citgo Petroleum, which is owned by Venezuela’s state oil company PDVSA, and seeks to appoint his own new board……This plan would involve the creation of a “new hydrocarbons agency” that would “offer bidding rounds for projects in natural gas and conventional, heavy and extra-heavy crude.” In other words, these are rapid moves to privatize Venezuela’s oil and open the door for multinational corporations. As David Pear notes- this is essentially a racist  white supremacist  counter-revolution 

The current President of Venezuela is Nicolas Maduro,  who  was  re-elected in  a disputed election ( ie some of  the opposition parties  chose not to  run  a candidate and then disputed the election)  in January  2019 . Maduro has used increasingly repressive measures to  maintain  his powerbase and repress  opposition, whilst  confronting increasingly violent  opposition groups.  Telesur (a news agency funded by the Government of Venezuela and  other governments such as Cuba, Nicaragua, Uruguay, and Bolivia ), notes that the ‘National Assembly has been in a situation of contempt of court for almost two years. After the election of deputies in December 2015, the United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV) candidates in Amazon State filed a complaint because their opponents had purchased votes to win the election. The court subsequently condemned the fraud and the Electoral Power Tribunal demanded that the election for these three seats be redone. Since the Speaker of the National Assembly refused to comply with the judicial and electoral authorities, the National Assembly was declared in “contempt of court.” Decisions and votes emanating from the legislative power are therefore null and void as long as the speaker of the National Assembly fails to authorize the return to the polls.”

The United States has implemented wide-ranging sanctions against the  Maduro  administration since 2014 ,  claiming that it is a dictatorial regime. The sanctions ,  along with  declining oil  prices and to  a lesser extent, structural  failures by  the socialist  Bolivarian presidents, Chavez and Maduro  administrations ,  has resulted in  an  economic disaster for Venezuela,  with  rampant inflation  and high  unemployment . The working classes and peasants who  formerly supported the Maduro  government because of its extensive redistribution of state owned oil  wealth  and its  health and social  policies, appear now to be  increasingly angry  with  the Maduro  administration for the economic failures they have recently endured.  Mainstream  media in  the West  and many Western  politicians are now able to  insist that  it is solely the  socialist  agenda of the Chavez/Maduro  administrations  that  has caused this economic crisis, while  ignoring the very  deliberate attempts by  the United States to de-stabilise the country  over an extended period of years via sanctions and supporting an  attempted coup  in 2002,  and using its pressure with other Latin American  states to  isolate the Venezulean  administration.

The United States and its Western  and Latin American ‘allies’  have a desperate need to  invalidate the socialist  wealth  distribution policies of Venezuela;  both  to  ensure its corporate elites, the “comprador”,  continue to  receive their ‘rightful’  incomes, and bank  accounts in  Miami , but also  to  ensure that their home populations do  not begin  to understand that  state ownership  and wealth  distribution is a very  valid and effective method to ensure a  sustainable and fair world. (where would we be -God forgive!!-if we had an equitable, efficient, sustainable   and accountable economic process that  ensured a country’s assets actually returned to  all  of its population?)

 The appointment of Elliot Abrams by  the Trump  administration to  coordinate ‘diplomatic’  efforts to  replace Mafuro is a clear indication of the regime change efforts of the United States. The contemptible Abrams was heavily involved in  the  coordination of terrorist activities by  the  Reagan  era contras in Nicaragua and El Salvador, and would clearly be  a key contender for  long-term incarceration if there was in  fact a neutral   international  War Crimes Tribunal. As the Guardian  article on  the 2002 notes:  the crucial figure around the coup was Abrams, who operates in the White House as senior director of the National Security Council for ‘democracy, human rights and international opera tions’. He was a leading theoretician of the school known as ‘Hemispherism’, which put a priority on combating Marxism in the Americas.

What  Guaido and his American  neocon  advisors seem  to fail to  understand,  is that his possible ascension to  the Venezuelan presidency  ( a re-run of the coup  of  the U.S.  2002 attempted coup ), while  allowing the US regime to  remove sanctions and its stranglehold over the Venezuelan  economy,  will  inevitably lead to  a nationalist  backlash  in Venezuela as it becomes clear that  the majority of the country’s resources are being sold off  to  US corporates and the IMF,  with  possible negative implications  for the  recently installed intellectually impaired Bolsonaro  extreme right wing administration  in neighbouring   Brasil-as it becomes clear who  is pulling the strings in  that  country.

In addition,  as the centre of global  power inexorably moves from  the United States to  China , Latin American  states aligned to  increasingly erratic  and violent U.S. corporate and  state imperialist  ambitions, will  find themselves isolated.

What  is also  equally disturbing is the alacrity which  which  EU nations have fallen in line behind the United States’ sponsored coup  in Venezuela. Their insistence on  interference in  another country’s domestic issues and their pronouncements on who is the ‘legitimate’  ruler of Venezuela do  not bode well  for human  rights and the international  rule of law.

Postscript: Stansfield Smith  at  Covert Action lists  a damning history of U.S.  intervention  in Venezuela and beyond

See another unpleasant history of U.S.  intervention  in  Venezuela here at  Telesur https://www.telesurenglish.net//opinion/The-History—and-Hypocrisy—of-US-Meddling-in-Venezuela–20190128-0016.html?

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Understanding-Venezuelas-Crisis-An-Interview-With-Guillaume-Long-20190129-0005.html

https://www.greenleft.org.au/content/venezuela-why-capitalism-not-socialism-blame-corruption?

History of US Interventions in Latin America (courtesy of @asadabukhalil on Twitter.)

Or read David Pear’s analysis that  this is essentially   a racist  counter-revolution http://www.unz.com/article/us-and-canada-are-backing-an-elite-white-supremacist-minority-in-venezuela/ 

Links

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juan_Guaid%C3%B3

The Making of Juan Guaidó: US Regime-Change Laboratory Created Venezuela’s Coup Leader

https://venezuelanalysis.com/video/14253

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Ongoing-Coup-in-Venezuela-What-If-Same-Scenario-Happens-in-France-20190126-0007.html

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bank-of-England-Refuse-to-Return-US1.2BN-Venezuelan-Gold—20190127-0003.html

Yet Another U.S. Coup Attempt to Eradicate the Bolivarian Revolution

Venezuela’s US-Backed Coup Leader Immediately Targets State Oil Company and Requests IMF Money

US Backs Coup in Oil-Rich Venezuela, Right-Wing Opposition Plans Mass Privatization and Hyper-Capitalism

https://www.telesurenglish.net/news/Bank-of-England-Refuse-to-Return-US1.2BN-Venezuelan-Gold—20190127-0003.html

‘Resistance’ Media Side With Trump to Promote Coup in Venezuela

 

The Madness of Military Intervention in Venezuela

https://www.moonofalabama.org/2019/01/venezuela-trumps-coup-attempt-is-based-on-a-seriously-flawed-plan.html

The Vultures of Caracas

https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-us-sanctions-united-nations-oil-pdvsa-a8748201.html

Your Complete Guide to the N.Y. Times’ Support of U.S.-Backed Coups in Latin America

“Death to Wikileaks”: the battle for truth

The recent Guardian article penned by  Luke Harding – of famed ‘the Russians are invading Ukraine with  a convoy of (mythical)  tanks”  and other anti-Russian hysteria,  and  co-author Dan Collyns,  alleges that  Paul  Manafort, U.S.  convicted felon and former Republican  campaign  chief for Donald Trump’s election campaign, met  and conspired with  Julian  Assange of Wikileaks  to  ensure Hilary  Clinton was not elected President.

The authors of the Guardian story, Dan Collyns and Luke Harding, were in Ecuador recently with Equadorian , Fernando Villavicencio, who ‘assisted’  with this story  and who they had previously worked  with on  other  evidence -free  stories. Villavicencio ( Fernando Villavicencio, oil exsindicalista refugee in the US)  has fabricated claims about people visiting Assange in the past. In May he claimed Farage visited Assange on 28 April  2009, a month after Ecuador initiated its 8 month-long isolation of Assange, banning phone calls, all visits and  internet. Assange’s isolation at  the Embassy coincided  with the  defeat of Ecuadorean president  Rafael  Correa to  U.S.  supporter Lenin Moreno. The Guardian article states ; based on  the allegations from  Villavicencio,  that Manafort entered the Equadorian  Embassy  in London  where Assange is currently in  refuge,  and spoke   to  Assange, on  several occasions.  But as  Craig Murray  notes ,  the Equadorian Embassy  security files,  let alone the London Police records,   strangely show no  evidence of such  meetings.  Embassy employees who were there during that entire time period  also say they never saw Manafort or heard of his visit.

Assange and Wikileaks; and also  separately,  Paul Manafort, are  now proposing legal  action  against  the Guardian.  Wikileaks is raising money here for their legal  appeal. In likely response to these legal  threats, the Guardian has now edited its original  story  to  soften  the tone  of the allegations.  See the edits here  at   https://www.newssniffer.co.uk/articles/1706143/diff/0/1. If both libel  actions are successful  against  the Guardian;  its capacity to   survive financially are questionable -as will be its reputation as a reputable news-source.  Why  then would the Guardian  take such  a risk? It is to be noted that  legal  libel proceeding costs in  the U.K.  can be up to  140  times the costs of similar proceedings in  Europe ( ironically this is a Guardian link) .

Wikileaks’ crime is not only that it did the unpardonable;  it published leaked   information that  accurately and truthfully described war  crimes committed by  both  the U.K. , the US and  other Western states,  but more importantly  Wikileaks also  has put into  question the very  lucrative financial  dealings of the City of London  and also the Maltese government.    Without these illegal   financial dealings,  (primarily via Russian ‘oligarchs’ who  have  fled Russia), it is possible  that  the City of London   and much of the British  economy,  could collapse.

These murky financial  dealings  intermesh  with   much of the  terrorist activities carried out by  Western (particularly U.S.) intelligence agencies  to  ensure  their corporate sponsors  retain  their supplies of cash regardless of the  impacts on  lives  and the local environment. South  American  right wing governments and  their military/intelligence agencies have played a key  role in  these activities –  hence the arrival  of the very  dubious Fernando Villavicencio and his timely allegations of  collusion between  Trump,  Assange and the Russians.

Jimmy Llama notes  many  convoluted links to  neo’liberal’  thinktanks,  shady  corporates and   U.S.   and other individuals    such  as Bill  Browder,  famed for instigating  the U.S. Magnitsky Act ( Russia  has now accused Browder of Magnitsky’s murder) and a key player in  the Russiagate allegations.

These allegations are one of many determined concerted media  efforts to  ensure that once  Assange is  no  longer under the protection of the Ecuadorian  London  Embassy,  there will  be limited public backlash   against  those governments responsible for his subsequent  deportation to  the U.S.  –  his show-trial and likely disappearance..

That  process is after all ,  standard practice  already by  the United States and others;  make allegations against  someone you don’t like or need ,  inform  the necessary  Western authorities,   and a  drone   can  eliminate any unnecessary  evidence forthwith.

Julian Assange and Wikileaks have indeed played a very dangerous game-  unmasking the  extremely brutal  and vicious  international  game of exploitation and greed by  those  in  positions of power  in  the name of “democracy and freedom”…

Links

 

https://theintercept.com/2018/11/27/it-is-possible-paul-manafort-visited-julian-assange-if-true-there-should-be-ample-video-and-other-evidence-showing-this/

Assange Never Met Manafort. Luke Harding and the Guardian Publish Still More Blatant MI6 Lies

https://www.latimes.com/ct-julian-assange-russian-visa-20180917-story.html

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/27/manafort-held-secret-talks-with-assange-in-ecuadorian-embassy

https://www.couragefound.org/2018/11/the-guardian-publishes-fabricated-claims-of-paul-manafort-visiting-assange/

https://www.gofundme.com/wikileaks-suing-the-guardian-over-manafort-story

https://archive.fo/9w6Zv

The Fate of Julian Assange: Chris Hedges Interviews Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria

A Written Guide to the Guardian’s Smear Campaign Against Assange

The Truth About Fernando Villavicencio, the Guardian’s Source for Their Anti-Assange Campaign

Russiagate Part One: The Story That Everyone Missed

Russiagate Part Two: Malta

https://nationalinterest.org/feature/what-really-killed-sergei-magnitsky-16612

https://wikileaks.org/Statement-Julian-Assange.html

https://justice4assange.com/

Misreporting Manafort: A Case Study in Journalistic Malpractice

https://www.telesurenglish.net/opinion/Why-No-Outrage-Over-Ecuadors-Illegal-Constituent-Assembly-20181130-0016.html

12 Years to Go….

Homo  sapiens are a strange species. They self-proclaim their superiority over other species  because of their  supposed ‘intelligence”, while they  are self-evidently systematically  destroying all aspects of life on  the planet  they rely on  for their survival. We are, branch  by branch,  cutting off all  the limbs of the tree of life that  enables our survival.

One might be forgiven   for thinking that  those actions of destroying life in  exchange for  the creation of inanimate objects might be considered the ultimate in  folly and stupidity;  but apparently this is not the case.

Academics, politicians and researchers continue to promote an undeniably ridiculous self-delusional  note that  more  human ‘progress’  can somehow,   in its ongoing destruction of the natural living world ,  create a new and better world  for humans-  ( a dead world)  Perhaps these Nobel  prize winners will  continue to get  their  university research stipends  from big business  until  their lives become unlive-able in  their hothouse  university offices; part of  that newly ‘progressive’ dead world…where slight-of-hand carbon  trading,  or the wonders of “renewable energy”,  allow us to pretend –  right up  to  the last  moment-  that we are creating a new reality..

A quote from The Guardian about these illustrious Nobel Prize winners…

The Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences said the two men had won the prize – which is not one of those originally instigated by Alfred Nobel – because they had “designed methods for addressing some of our time’s most basic and pressing questions about how we create long-term sustained and sustainable economic growth”.

The two men, it continued, had “significantly broadened the scope of economic analysis by constructing models that explain how the market economy interacts with nature and knowledge”.

One of the most recent media  releases from  the Intergovernmental  Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) notes that  global  warming will  certainly   increase  to 1.5C  above previous ‘normal” global  temperature levels in  the next 12 years,  and that  that increase will  dramatically impact  on  human being’s survival  and many other species . Should global  temperature increases reach  2C;  as they  will  without dramatic  intervention,  then the impacts on  all  species will  be catastrophic..

A previous study  by  the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) noted that  species loss is as great  a threat to  humanity (and the rest of the living fabric of the Earth,  as climate change.   It does not appear to  occur to those scientists  that   climate change and species loss are part of the exact same issue:  the commodification of the living world.

I am always reminded when  I go  to  our local  supermarket of this bizarre absurdity- of man making living things into  commodities for human beings ,  when  I see the little plastic  labels on  the fruit and vegetables  being sold there. Human beings have somehow created a collective psychosis  over many millenia that  sees this world we live in as something for use- something outside of us –  rather than  the reality of being intimately and totally connected to  us and essential  for our mutual  survival.

Few,  except  some of the South American  indigenous communities have retained this essential understanding of how our world actually lives and breathes. Human  beings will  only survive on  this planet  if we recognise our intimate and sacred connection to  the rest of our living world.

Is it too  late to start  to  re-learn  this lesson   and begin the  re-greening  of  our world?

Links

http://www.ipcc.ch/news_and_events/pr_181008_P48_spm.shtml

http://report.ipcc.ch/sr15/pdf/sr15_spm_final.pdf

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2018/oct/08/world-leaders-have-moral-obligation-to-act-after-un-climate-report

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/oct/08/two-us-economists-win-nobel-prize-for-work-on-climate-and-growth-william-nordhaus-paul-romer

https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/oct/09/shell-ben-van-beurden-mass-reforestation-un-climate-change-target

https://www.truthdig.com/articles/fate-of-human-race-depends-on-massive-greening-effort/

http://www.ipsnews.net/2018/10/going-full-circle-growth-planet/

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/UN-Report-Confronts-Nations-with-Tough-Choices-on-Climate-20180930-0010.html

https://www.fws.gov/nativeamerican/pdf/tek-salmon-2000.pdf

Brazilian Indigenous Guardian of the Amazon Murdered: & Facebook..

In the last few weeks Facebook  has become assiduous in   removing “fake news’  newsposts  from  its servers.  Telesurtv is one such example-  now  reinstated

One might be forgiven for thinking that Facebook  serves interests other than  truth and honesty in  its promotion of the ‘fake news’  meme,  when one looks at just one such  media article listed on  the Telesur website  Telesur is one of the few English language media outlets in  South America that promotes indigenous rights against  the rapaciousness of corporate entities ( predominantly   US-based).

The history of  the U.S. ongoing  intervention in South  America to promote its own  interests ( ie US corporate profits) has resulted in many many thousands  if not  millions of of deaths,  the decades long support of South American tyrannical  regimes ,  death  squads,  torture and the oppression of South America’s working classes, peasants and indigenous population-  as well  as the rape of its incredible environmental heritage for logging and  meat production companies, and the facilitation of the drug trade .

The recent U.S. sanctions against Venezuela are just one more example of the techniques used by  the United States to  destabilize various Latin  American  governments that  do not suit U.S.  corporate interests.

How much longer does South  America have to endure  the tortures of this ignorant  bully from  the North  I wonder? How much longer will  supposedly ‘honest’  American media portray  U.S.  interventions as being upholding ‘freedom  and democracy’?

Sadly this distortion and manipulation  of ‘truth’ by  powerful  American  companies  for the benefit of corrupt  U.S. businessmen has been  an ongoing reality for the past century.

Craig Murray   beautifully outlines  the Facebook  censorship  issues from  another perspective here,  and the  extraordinarily ignorant and inept role of the Atlantic Council. 

Links

https://www.telesurtv.net/english/news/Brazilian-Indigenous-Leader-Guardian-of-the-Amazon-Murdered-20180816-0009.html?

http://www.yachana.org/teaching/resources/interventions.html

https://www.telesurtv.net/english

Facebook Censorship, Mad Ben Nimmo and the Atlantic Council

America Unhinged

Perhaps it  should not be a surprise that  the United States political  scene is becoming increasingly deranged  with its talk  of ‘treasonous Trump” , and  it’s ( and the U.K.’s) media screaming headlines  about the  purported but totally unsubstantiated ‘hacking’  of the U.S.  presidential  elections by  Russia, and where any foreign media or politician  that  does  not support the “Democratic” Party’s view of American politics, is subverting democracy  .

After all ,  we have seen more than a hundred years of American  politicians  trumpeting the United States as  the international  beacon of freedom  and hope for the oppressed,  while at the same time committing endless wars against  vulnerable countries ( almost exclusively populated by  darker skinned  peoples) who  dare to oppose its economic demands . And indeed has conduced a  long-standing violent war  against  its own  vulnerable populations.

Perhaps now we simply   see  American society, previously  unable to  differentiate between  the constant lies  it has told the world over the past century and more, and the reality  of its sordid and brutal  foreign  policies, now turning in  on itself- cannibalizing what  remains of its   democratic processes , innovative thinking and compassion for the underdog..

Sadly , with  such  immense natural  resources, the United States has squandered its opportunities  to build a truly democratic  open  society  that provides free education, healthcare  and job opportunities  for   all;   and protects the environment in real  ways while building a prosperous and sustainable  future for its human  citizens ..It has  instead become an oligarchy  where greed  and  brutality rule ..

A nation  is in  deep  trouble when it begins to  believe the lies it tells itself – here’s just one bizarre example of American  groupthink..

As Bill  Van Auken at  the World Socialist  Web,  (and bear in  mind that  Putin is no  socialist!) quotes: “1964 is a year of crisis and decision. Will America continue to aid the communist enemy, to disarm in the face of danger, to bow before communist dictators in every corner of the earth? The decision is yours.”

Postscript:

Perhaps a quick  read of Code Pink’s Assessment of American Foreign  Policy might also  be instructive?

 

Links

https://eand.co/how-russia-conquered-america-without-firing-a-bullet-36d9f0132b8c

https://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2018/07/detente-bad-cold-war-good/

https://williamblum.org/chapters/rogue-state/war-criminals-theirs-and-ours

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/433793-putin-helsinki-interrogations-russiagate/

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/19/pers-j19.html

https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/20/pers-j20.html

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-5971475/Flake-suggests-TREASON-Senate-floor-saying-Trump-gave-aid-comfort-enemy.html

https://blackagendareport.com/russiagate-ruling-class-diversion

https://www.al-akhbar.com/Opinion/254619/

Trump’s Treasonous Traitor Summit or: How Liberals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the New McCarthyism

The Utility of the RussiaGate Conspiracy

CODEPINK  War Profiteers: The U.S. War Machine and the Arming of Repressive Regimes*

The Barbarism that is Israel

 

We have witnessed the incredible barbarity shown by  Israeli soldiers towards Palestinian  protesters  in  the last  few weeks of the “Day of Rage”  and the marking of 70  years of  theft and violence by  the Israeli population  against  Palestinians since the Nabka:   70  years of murder,  terror,  torture  and imprisonment,  for the crime of not giving away  the lands of their  ancestors to  the settler invaders.

Penned  in Palestinians who  are , as one journalist  put it, “like sheep  for the slaughter”.

Despite the dictatorial  behaviours of the Turkish  President,  and his many other shortcomings ,  President Erdogan is quite specifically accurate in  calling  Israel  an ‘apartheid state”. Israel has, over the past 70  years,  progressively ‘acquired’  former Palestinian land and walled in  those remaining who  dared to  stand up to  the U.S.  funded  military might of Israel.   Arabs  in Israel, (who have the exactly the same genes as the original  Jewish inhabitants of Israel); are discriminated against  in  a very systematic and ‘legal’  way by  the Israeli  state.  Settler extremism,  violence   and bigotry  reinforce those laws.  We only need to  look  at  the extreme racist  rants of Israelis in  leadership  positions in  Israel,  to  convince ourselves of the obscenity of their stance. Or perhaps you might like to  endure this list of disgusting anti-Palestininan   behaviours and statements   from  a series of Israeli  ‘leaders”  by  the Angry Arab

Thus the latest  targeted killings of largely defenceless  ( apart from  stones and a few molotov cocktails) Palestinians protesting their illegal  walling in  by  Israel, are just  one more example of the barbarism that is the state of Israel.  A systematic, crude and vicious attempt to  destroy the Palestinian people in order  to acquire their lands. The extraordinary bravery and tenaciousness of  generations of Palestinians since the Nabka ,  should never be  forgotten.

As Jonathan  Cook  notes: the Wests’ direct  and implicit endorsement of Israeli   very literal  terrorism  towards Palestinians over the past 70  years , will  result in  further atrocities by  Israeli  troops and settlers.

From http://www.whatreallyhappened.com/WRHARTICLES/mapstellstory.html

And as the former UN Rapporteur for Palestine puts it ‘The feeble Israeli claims of its right of self-defense or attributing Palestinian martyrdom to Hamas are so shallow and lacking in credibility as to discredit further rather than provide justifications for this exhibition of homicidal violence on a massive scale not as isolated incident but as a series of arrogant reenactments.”

 

Links

https://richardfalk.wordpress.com/2018/05/15/gaza-grief-horror-outrage-remembering/

http://www.arabnews.com/node/1227956–  65 laws that discriminate against  non-Jews in Israel

The Stomach-Churning Victim Blaming by “Labour Friends of Israel”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakba_Day

West’s Failure to Act Will Be Cause of the Next Gaza Massacre

http://angryarab.blogspot.com/2018/05/a-primer-on-israeli-politics.html

From Cold to Hot War..

“On the Beach”

The recent very  fake news from  the White Helmets about Assad’s government gassing civilians in Douma in Ghouta province of Syria has clearly been orchestrated by  Western intelligence agencies ( who  largely control  the White Helmet’s agenda   and their Al Qaeda affiliates on  the ground in  Syria). As has been noted elsewhere,  Syrian government forces have no  need to  gas anyone;  they  are on  a roll  and likely to  overrun  all  Al Qaeda rebels in  the Ghouta area in  the next week..And in fact  Syrian  government forces and Russian  advisers now control the area where the gassing supposedly occurred. An unfortunate fact  for the U.S.  now gunning for war…

The appointment of John Bolton as Secretary of State for the U.S., who  along with  U.S.’s U.N.  representative, Nikki Haley,  know  no other response to   perceived threats to  U.S. global  omnipotence than  war  and more war,  is a solid indication that  the U.S.  intelligence community and State Dept  is indeed preparing for war  with  Russia.

If we combine those changes to  U.S.  administration, with  the farcical  attempts by  the U.K.  government to  blame Russia for the Skripal’s near death  experiences in Salisbury, and advance  agreement by  the French  sock-puppet Macron to obey the U.S.’s every  command in fighting the Assad  government if a gas attack  just happens to  occur in  Syria ;  we are left with no  option other than war.

Russia has given  categorical  statements at  the U.N. , and to  the U.S. , that  missile attacks  against  the Syrian  government will  be responded to “at source”  ie by attacking   U.S.  French or U.K.  aircraft ,  airbases  or aircraft  carriers that  carry  out such  attacks.

As noted in  a previous post on  this site;  the argument in NATO command and the Western  “think tanks”, is that by destroying once and for all, the  threat of Russia as an state entity capable of having an independent  foreign policy  and  economic pathway,  all  the other dominos;  China,  Iran,  North Korea who  currently oppose Western global  control,  will  inevitably  ‘fall  into line”

We know from previous experience,  that  Western  countries;  particularly those who have signed up  to  NATO,  will indeed  fall   into line with their masters, and  both  acquiesce and actively participate in  whatever horrific actions the Americans and their British  allies  have decided upon.

The blatantly  absurd arguments about Saddams’  little trucks full  of WMD,  or the  viagra given  to  Libyan soldiers so  that they could rape Libyan  civilians, or any of the  ridiculous other  casus belli formulated in  the rather small  brains of the military strategists  in  London  and Washington  over the past 60  years since the second world war, have been  promulgated by  a compliant (or perhaps ‘bought”)  Western  media without analysis, and accepted as fact by  the vast majority of the Western world’s population. We do  not need rational or factual  arguments,  any old rationale, however ridiculous,  will  do  to destroy another country  and its population.

We are after all,  as members of the Western world-  defenders of democracy  and freedom  and civilised  humanity-  are we not?…..

Except this time, making war with  Russia as  a major nuclear power, and with  very formidable weaponry,  will  not be the ‘cake-walk’  it was supposedly going to be in Iraq. In  addition it is unknown  at  this point,  but likely,  that China will  have to take a stand beside Russia  in the lead-up  to  war-knowing they will  be next  if Russia falls. The writing is on  the wall  for the Chinese with  Trump’s ‘trade war”,  and the Chinese have demonstrated they  will  not be bullied by  the U.S.

If  you think  that none of  this could  be possible , (we wouldn’t risk global  war-  would we?) it is well  to be reminded about  the last  Western  allies in  the pursuit of ….something….  invaded Russia.

Or to be reminded of the total barbarity of the Western invasions of North Korea  during the Korean War , the still ongoing excuses by  the U.S.  for its totally vicious devastation of Vietnam  and its population during the Vietnam  War. But right now in Yemen,  where millions of civilians are starving and dying  because of Saudi  bombing ( coordinated by  U.S.  and U.K.  ‘advisors’)  and  a naval  blockade of food  ably assisted by  the US  Fifth Fleet,  we see clear evidence of active complicity in  massive war crimes by  the U.K.  and U.S.

Why  should such barbaric partners therefore  need things like evidence or truth  when responding to  allegations  by  the jihadists they  support in  Syria, of gas attacks  by  the Syrian military ( and therefore Russia).

There is a higher goal  here-  the pursuit of more money  and power…

Links

The Rush to War

Trump’s Rush to Judgment on Syria Chemical Attack

Syrian War Report – April 9, 2018: Another ‘Chemical Attack’ Story Triggers Escalation In Region

Russia controls Douma, guarantees impartial investigation; that makes US attack MORE likely

The Rapidly Evolving Skripal Story: Evidence of the Destruction of an Anglo-American Plan

https://disobedientmedia.com/2017/01/us-supported-syrian-white-helmets-involved-with-war-crimes-committed-by-rebel-groups/

https://disobedientmedia.com/2018/04/all-russiagate-roads-lead-to-london-as-evidence-emerges-of-joseph-mifsuds-links-to-uk-intelligence/

http://www.syrianews.cc/last-terrorists-of-douma-jaish-helmets-sams-collaborate-in-massacre/

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/423846-syria-attack-trump-war-russia/

http://en.farsnews.com/newstext.aspx?nn=13970122001526

Control 101: Creating Consensus Reality

 

Faking News

As the great journalist John Pilger notes in  his 1st April  2018  article about the Ecuadorean  Government’s silencing of Julian Assange , we are being subjected to  a constant battering on  many fronts to  ensure we only listen to the ‘right’  information about the world around us.

The demonisation  of Russia can partly be explained by  Western Government’s concerns about the role of RT.com  providing an  alternative meme ( in most cases as legitimate -and often more so   than its Western news-agency  counterparts) to that  expressed through what is termed Mainstream media (MSM) . Mainstream Media is in  essence, western media which  toe the dominant  political party line –  whether it be anti-Russian,  anti-Trump,  pro-‘intervention’ ( read  ‘killing’)  in  other countries, or most importantly,  pro-consumerism.

But this attempted silencing of alternative media stories, no  matter how legitimate or truthful they  are, not only extends to  foreign  entities like Russia or China ,  it also  includes any  highly visible figures like Assange  who  do not espouse what is known to be ‘right’ by  our esteemed leaders, and the multitude of internet  bloggers who  research  and analyse the stories behind the stories.

The recent bizarre attempt by western governments and MSM,  to conflate alternative opinion as ‘fake news”,  borders on  the psychotic.  It  is a  witchhunt against  those who do  not respect  the  often  infantile repetitive lies told in  the MSM or by  apparently intellectually impaired politicians such  as U.K’s Foreign  Secretary  Boris Johnson, or for that  matter  Donald Trump. By  now the old lies about  the reasons we must fight  wars in  ‘foreign’ lands  for ‘freedom  and democracy”  or  to “save civilians”, are wearing remarkable thin.

Thus the  ‘establishment’ is now flailing around for a further reason why  we should just  accept that   the mass-killing  of ‘other’ people is good for them. In  John Pilger’s belief,  this media frenzy  against  those who detour from  the party line is  a  significant threat to  the establishment, with the intended  war against  Russia and China looming and the drums beating ever louder – they can  not afford a dissenting “fifth column” in  their midst who  can undermine the thirst  for war or the need for civilians to rally behind the flag.

As the recent Cambridge Analytica scandal  has made clear;  it is not just  Russia and the ‘enemy’  who  is manipulating public opinion through  ‘slanted stories’ and  twitter bots! SCL, Cambridge Analytica’s British parent company,  prides itself on  its capacity to manipulate public opinion in  both  foreign lands and internally in  the UK.  We can be sure that there are many other western  companies and intelligence services who, despite their actual  minimal real intelligence,  aim  to manipulate public opinion at  home and abroad. In the United States, this is an  easy  task. The vast majority of Americans have limited education,  no understanding of foreign countries and no memory  for history-  an ideal  subject for manipulation!

In the United States therefore we have something passed into  law by  Congress  in  2016  called

The Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act would ensure America’s national security infrastructure helps counter the false narratives that harm our security — delivering truthful information and making the world a safer place for the United States and our allies.”

Note .. that as written into the NDAA, the legislation’s provisions establish an inter-agency body “to track and evaluate counterfactual narratives abroad that threaten the national security interests of the United States and United States allies,” and to develop “procedures to expose and refute foreign misinformation and disinformation and proactively promote fact-based narratives and policies to audiences outside the United States.”

Where the ‘facts”  come that  the public needs re-education on,  and the ‘false facts’  that  the public needs protection from,  do  not of course need to  be stated. Our respective governments always know best! -don’t they??

As we have seen in  the ludicrous litany  of lies put out by  the British government  around the Salisbury  nerve gas poisoning affair, all  the key  mainstream  UK and other Western media have jumped in lock-step to  push the U.K government Russian-basking charges without once examining the implausibility of the  facts presented. Whether these media agencies and their journalists  are  paid,  bribed, coerced or blackmailed into  regurgitating this British  propaganda, is unknown  at  this point,

This is of course not something new.  State entities  have always attempted to manipulate their publics to ensure compliance to  the  official  line -whether it be going to  war, or maximising the potential threats of other states  to  maximise profits for the corporates who  fund the ruling “elite” . In  all  cases, the states’ manipulatory processes are for  short-term  gain and almost  inevitably have a long term negative impact  on  their public.

The most telling  and catastrophically fatal example of this flaw in  our ‘democracies”, is the media  and political drive for corporates to produce more ‘things’  and for their publics to consume more things.  All analysis shows that in  a closed system  like our little world, this drive inevitably leads to  planetary disaster – but it helps keep  political  parties in  power…for now….

Postscript

A  useful analysis of military  propaganda here from Adam  Ramsay here 

Note also  the “The Times” (U.K.) fascinating attempt to shut down academic dissent around the  U.K. government’s version of events in  Syria 

 

Links

http://johnpilger.com/articles/the-isolation-of-julian-assange-is-the-silencing-of-us-all

Roger Stone: Obama’s National Censorship Board is Very Real

https://2009-2017.state.gov/r/gec/  Global Engagement Center (U.S.)

The Poison in our Body Politic

Control 101: Creating Consensus Reality

https://www.opendemocracy.net/uk/philip-hammond/syria-stop-asking-questions