The War Against Wikileaks
Ola Bini, a Swedish software developer, was arrested while trying to board a plane in Ecuador yesterday. Why is that relevant?
A senior Ecuadorian official says a Swedish software developer living in Quito and who is allegedly close to Wikileaks founder Julian Assange has been arrested as authorities attempt to dismantle a blackmail ring that in recent days had threatened to retaliate against President Lenin Moreno.
...On Twitter earlier Thursday, Bini called claims by the Interior Minister that Russian hackers and someone close to Wikileaks were working inside Ecuador “very worrisome” news. “This seems like a witch hunt to me,” Bini wrote.
...Vijay Prashad runs a Marxist publishing house based in India and considers himself a close friend of Bini. He said Bini is “the last person who would ever be involved in an attempt overthrow a government.”
I'm not making any judgements at all about Bini, except to note the coincidental timing of his arrest with Assange's arrest.
Speaking of coincidental timing, this also happened yesterday.
Facebook has unpublished the page of Ecuador’s former president, Rafael Correa, the social media giant confirmed on Thursday, claiming that the popular leftist leader violated the company’s security policies.
Correa's crime was denouncing PM Moreno for turning in Assange.
If this didn't already look like an organized hit job on Wikileaks, consider Caitlin Johnstone's report on events so far.
A British judge named Michael Snow has found the WikiLeaks founder guilty of violating bail conditions, inserting himself into the annals of history by labeling Assange “a narcissist who cannot get beyond his own selfish interest.” So that tells you how much of a fair and impartial legal proceeding we can expect to see from the British judicial process on this matter.
...An unsealed indictment from the Trump administration’s District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, accompanied by an extradition request, charges Assange with “conspiracy to commit computer intrusion for agreeing to break a password to a classified U.S. government computer” during Chelsea Manning’s 2010 leak of government documents exposing US war crimes.
You can be absolutely certain that this charge is bogus because it isn’t based on any new information. The facts of the case have not changed, the information hasn’t changed, only the narrative has changed.
There's a huge myth being misreported about today's indictment of Assange. The claim that Assange tried to help Manning circumvent a password to cover her tracks isn't new. The Obama DOJ knew about it since 2011, but chose not to prosecute him. Story on this soon.
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) April 11, 2019
The weakness of the US charge against Assange is shocking. The allegation he tried (and failed?) to help crack a password during their world-famous reporting has been public for nearly a decade: it is the count Obama's DOJ refused to charge, saying it endangered journalism. https://t.co/xdTQ8xauB0
— Edward Snowden (@Snowden) April 11, 2019
Why the Assange arrest should scare reporters: column https://t.co/V99gBokkXz
— Matt Taibbi (@mtaibbi) April 11, 2019
And yet, many Democrats are backing Trump's prosecution of Assange.
Comments
I hate Facebook.
If our page there wasn't helping to bring in new posters to c99, I'd shut it down and never go back.
Also interesting
is the >warare the hard feelings brewing between the left twitterers. Tulsi is now Mother Teresa,and her supporters are pretty touchy in her defense. She can do no wrong. Gravel is pissing Tulsi's people off because how dare he think or even intimate that his is further left or more progressive than she. Bernie is still MIA on Assange, and his supporters think Assange, Gravel, and Tulsi don't matter one whit to the front runner. I tried to point out that there are quite a few disgruntled and/or less enthusiastic Bernie supporters this time for a variety of reasons, and I was firmly told I didn't matter.We get the government we deserve because we are an incredibly stupid bunch.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I will never get beyond my disgust of
so many people on social media talking about Julian Assange "facing justice." I never thought I would be agreeing with Tucker Carlson on anything, yet here we are:
https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2019/04/11/tucker_carlson_what_w...
I can't believe I'm linking to Real Clear Politics, I can't believe that Tucker Carlson is speaking the truth, and when I compare this to Rachel Maddow's lie-based, hysteria-fueled ""journalism"" my stomach turns.
Here's another example of why I support Tulsi.
https://youtu.be/wroVuMHhgK0 She has the courage that Bernie lacks.
I get that you don't like her, but I sure wish you'd stop taking shots at her.
chuck utzman
TULSI 2020
Oh please...
1. I won't tell you what to say, and you quit telling me what I can and can't say. DailyKos is that-a-way. I get that you don't like any criticism of Tulsi, but I wish you would stop trying to censor others.
2. It was my observations on what is happening on twitter.
3. If the shoe doesn't fit, don't wear it.
4. It was an equal criticism of all the left candidates. I wasn't particularly kind to Bernie either. I don't see Bernie supporters complaining.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I don't understand the quarrel or touchiness
I've given a few bucks to Tulsi and one buck to Gravel. Gravel is not running. Tulsi is polling less than one percent in poll after poll. I think if she does win a primary (maybe Hawaii) or gets some delegates, and it looks like Bernie can win the nomination if she releases them to him, she'll do so.
I'd like to think we're all in this together, trying to build the critical mass that's necessary for significant change. Sometimes that might entail temporarily backing off a bit on this or that issue, because that's what it takes to win.
I donated to Tulsi to help her make the debate stage.
I donated to Gravel, and I donated to Bernie. None of them are my ideal candidate, and Bernie is rapidly moving higher on my sh!t list. I cancelled my monthly contribution to his account. I may start it up again, but right now I'm angry at him for not defending Assange and protesting Russia's involvement in our elections.
If I can criticize my own candidate, I sure as hell can criticize the rest of them. People who don't want their candidate criticized remind me of the Hillary people on dailykos. I don't remember the person, but I remember the Hillary "morning safe place" that was verboten to Sanders supporters.
Somehow or another, I got involved in some private group IMs for Bernie people. It started with making Bernie win the Kos straw poll, grew from there, and I remain even though they don't think I'm sufficiently loyal to Bernie. It is where they told me that I didn't matter, and they argued over whether Tulsi would help or hurt Bernie and whether or not she mattered. Many think she and many other candidates running in the Dem clown car are just running for cabinet appointments or VP. It is all too manipulative for me to grasp.
To answer your question, I don't know why people get so emotionally involved with their candidate that they get touchy when their candidate is criticized.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
The polling numbers reflect political reality
I want both Tulsi and Gravel up on the debate stage. But I don't believe for a second either has a snowball's chance in hell of getting the nomination. So I don't see the point of criticizing them. I don't even see the point of criticizing Bernie right now either although I probably agree with most of your criticisms. I'd prefer to wait to push him farther and farther left if and when he gets into office. I don't think he's anything like Hillary or Obama (coz socialism). I'm not even so sure that will be all that necessary. But right now, I think he's agonizing over what he really thinks and what he can say and still get elected. Finally, I'd sure like to see a lot more criticism of the neoliberals/neocons. Maybe I will start doing some essays although I hate to go back on my promise.
Nope here too.
Push Bernie to defend Assange? Seriously? He has to be not just told, but pushed? Obama got my last two lesser of evil votes, and I voted for Stein in MI in 2016. I am not backing down now. I will not sugar coat candidates or parties, and if they don't like what's being said about them, then they need to not do it instead of telling others to shut up. I'd rather see Trump re-elected and both parties burnt to the ground than to support another lying, do nothing, President who just blames everyone else for what they are or aren't doing. Obama was the last of my wasted votes.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
Can Bernie get elected without Hillary voters?
My main concern is that somebody genuinely "progressive" or "a democratic socialist" be elected president. The only such candidate who has any chance whatsoever is Bernie imo. The other front runners are Biden(Obama) and Harris(Clintons). The others (aside from Tulsi and maybe Warren) are there to siphon votes away from Bernie and to situate themselves in terms of appointments in case Biden or Harris get the nomination and win against Trump. I've long gone on and on about how I see this election as a last chance for us all because of the 12 year climate change window of opportunity and given the doomsday clock otherwise which includes consideration of nuclear obliteration.
But whatever. I've long ago disabused myself of the notion that I can persuade anyone to think differently than they do now. But making the argument keeps me going politically (at least until March 3, 2020) or even earlier if Bernie fizzles out in Iowa and New Hampshire.
I think Bernie can get elected without hillary voters.
Obama did.
Not to mention that Bernie is the number one pick of Independents and of sane Republicans who would like an alternative to Trump that isn't a Clinton or an Obama. Add in the anyone but Trump vote, and who needs Hillbamabots. Besides it is a win/win. If the Dems lose again and Trump wins, maybe it will be the torch we need to blow up and burn down the Democratic Party. They need to go the way of the Whigs.
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
I hope you're right
But I think 2020 is much different than 2008. Way too many Dems right now are in delirious frenzy with Russia hysteria and insane Assange hatred. I've looked around on social media and they are like a rabid howling out of control mob.
I agree with you that "Bernie is the number one pick of Independents and of sane Republicans who would like an alternative to Trump that isn't a Clinton or an Obama." Yay!
But I don't think losing again to Trump will destroy the Dem Party. They will still have their jobs and apparatus and political/cultural hegemony via the MSM. It'll be weaker but I really don't see it going down anytime in one fell swoop anytime soon. There's just too much money invested in it.
And I'm not so sure that Biden can't beat Trump, especially if they (notice I didn't suggest we here) play identity politics via a VP pick and solidify and increase the Black vote.
Finally, I just don't see any hope in turning things around and getting them on the right course if we can't pull it off this go round. Other people here may well be right in having reached that state of mind in 2016. I'm giving it one last whirl and then I'll be throwing in the towel in terms of politics if things don't pan out with a Bernie victory.
Cheers.
Nope on this
This would make it seem like this site supports voting for democrats which it does not. People are welcome to say whatever they want about the candidates just not attack people who is backing one over others. This site is neutral and supports people who don't vote.
Replying to your other comment.
Tuff. Other democrats are not censoring themselves on saying things about Assange's arrest and I don't think they are playing for their voters. Bernie does need to let people know where he stands on this. He's either for it or he's not. People shouldn't have to guess which.
You're new here so you have missed many, many essays doing just that.
@snoopydawgThis would make it
This site is largely 1) Bernie-wing people, 2) Green Party people, 3) disgusted with politicians people.
I did just a few days ago.
True enough re critiques of neoliberalism and the neocon
And yea, there have been good critiques of certain scuzzy candidates. I'd just like to see more ongoing and focused critiques of the likes of Beto, Pete B., Harris, and Biden. I'll leave Warren alone at least at this point coz she's polling third in her own state of Massachusetts.
Cheers.
That looks like an essay on health care
but maybe I'm missing something? Wally said that he would like for this site to write about the neocons. I said that we have and he might not have been here when we did.
I should have said that this site is neutral and even supports people who don't vote.
Other than that I'm not sure what you are disagreeing with. Or if you are.
I think Bernie is a different kind of Dem with a chance to win
ISTM the Dems you speak of go on and on about how Bernie really isn't a Democrat.
My main concern is that Bernie is progressive and a democratic socialist unlike the others vying for the Democratic nomination.
I've been supportive of both Tulsi and Gravel re. getting into the debates.
And if folks want to vote Green in the general election, that's fine with me. I voted Green in 2016 and for Nader way back when. But I just don't see myself voting in the general election this time around if Bernie doesn't pull it off. Or ever again.
Cheers.
I thought that about Obama during his first campaign
I thought that he really would change the direction that the country was going and he would deliver on his promises. He fooled me big time when he said that he would rather be a one term president and win big than be a two term one and fail to deliver. I also thought that he was serious about addressing climate change, but we know how things turned out for us.
ISTM the Dems you speak of go on and on about how Bernie really isn't a Democrat.
??? I'm not sure what you are saying here?
ISTM = “It seems to me” ? Just a guess …
Or am I missing the point of your question?
I never thought Obama was a Dem Socialist
What I was trying to get at is that I don't think Bernie should be lumped in with the Democrats In Toto even if he is running for the Democratic nomination. He's never shied away from advocating socialism. Obama never advocated socialism. Many Dems don't consider him a Dem because he has run as an independent known to be a socialist.
I suppose you can lump Bernie in with the Dems in the respect that he has pledged to support the nominee but he had to do that to even compete for the nomination. Even though I voted Green in 2016 and previously, I never thought they could win actually win office. My vote in 2016 was a protest vote but in years previous, I thought my vote could help build a successful party that could win some elections at least locally. From my perspective, that never panned out. I also sent a few bucks to Brana when he started up efforts to build another third party. I just don't see that happening in time to make the changes that need to be made like immediately.
dkmich, I like them all ...
Gabbard, Gravel, Sanders, but I never liked Mother Theresa. Sorry to not fit in your scheme.
Just saying...
https://www.euronews.com/live
Heh. I was just
If TG continues to speak out and ever gains traction with the sleeping masses, the delightful folks at DeepState will consider her an existential threat and will be war gaming ways to be rid of that threat. So, think more in terms of the major truth-tellers of our past who were seriously threatened by TPTB or who were eventually taken out.
huh.
I was scrolling up from the bottom of the page, saw your comment about "MoT", and wondered who brought Ministry of Truth into the conversation.
Just a weird little dPOS flashback.
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
I sent that Ministry of Truth guy $$ at the height of Occupy WS
Never heard so much as a peep back. No “mahalo / thank you” — no acknowledgement that anything had ever arrived — nuthin’.
Such are the rude ways of the “Wild West” World Wide Web, I guess.
“♪ But I was so much older then, I’m younger (and poorer) than that now.” (h/t B. Dylan / R. Zimmerman)
MoT was Jesse LaGreca, OWS folk hero and resident of
my neighborhood in Queens.
In fact it was some kind of weird coincidence that on one of my days carrying a clipboard from the local Bernie campaign office in 2016 with a list of names I was to canvass it included a visit to a residence with his name and status. I hadn't seen him since Occupy, and believed he moved away. He wasn't there.
Jesse's disappearance/conversion was to me emblematic of how burgeoning figures/voices could be co-opted by the PTB. There were other brilliant Occupiers of whom I often lament the status also. Guy named Hero, a tall effervescent young black guy, who I think the police targeted and harassed by arresting so many times that he was intimidated into not participating anymore.
Of course his famous video shredding the Fox News reporter in the foreground of City Hall by the Brooklyn Bridge went viral and launched the Civil War Union hat-wearing dissident into relative stardom. I saw him a lot down at Occupy and talked with him once, if you can call it that. It was basically one of those many times in which you'd find yourself in a circle of people/strangers, each eager to talk, share, honor and commiserate with each other about the state of the world and the protest. But as somebody else remarked, Jesse seemed to talk in a way as if he were auditioning for a spot on a cable news panel. I don't know if it was that cynical, but he did have a knack for nailing things concisely and delivering in those ways. I'd give him an encouraging pat on the back if I ever was just walking by him and remained very impressed by his ability to think on his feet so quickly.
Then during or just after OWS it was rumored that Jesse was offered a tv show of his own, or a spot on one as a pundit. And that was it, as far as I was concerned right then and there. It was a payoff. At the time he was also out of a job and I believe had just gotten his girlfriend pregnant. He was obviously vulnerable. I don't know that I'd have done anything different.
Not long after came the confirmation. His comments, especially his tweets, became all totally Dem Party gruel in support of Obama, etc. Haven't seen anything from him in a while, though I haven't been looking.
This is exactly how it goes down. The PTB buys off as many of the potent, dissident voices as it can. Because, as we know, everyone has a price.
Jesse, or MoT, the brilliant Occupier, was just another one in a long line of Casualties of Capitalism, as far as I can tell.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
jeez, dude, i'm so glad i took a moment to toss off that
random comment, or we'd never have had your extraordinary response. thanks for taking the time to put that all down ...
The earth is a multibillion-year-old sphere.
The Nazis killed millions of Jews.
On 9/11/01 a Boeing 757 (AA77) flew into the Pentagon.
AGCC is happening.
If you cannot accept these facts, I cannot fake an interest in any of your opinions.
Stuff like that kind of haunts me...
You come upon it throughout your reading of history, and you sense it happening in real time when following politics. And then you're rubbing elbows with it on the streets of your city and it becomes a different thing.
Bottom line conclusion is that it's all driven by the varying degrees of vulnerability to the very real depredations and insecurity of life under capitalism.
I can't confirm any of this about Jesse, and for all I know it could be hearsay. There are others I encountered or became friends with, whose mental state and vulnerability and where their philosophies lie in this moment I also wonder about. But the evidence of his conversion is quite clear to observe.
It just saddens me. Also makes me bitterly angry at the power of our rulers, to capriciously crush the spirit of anyone who dares dream of a better world, that is no doubt possible, if only the masses could retain a requisite amount of healthy discernment and rationale in order to recognize the sheer torrent of propaganda keeping us in a holding pen of fear.
Glad you mentioned him too. Just another related component of this dystopia we endure.
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
You could be right.
I met him at NN12
in Providence, RI.
Alonzo brought him along.
Jesse filled in on our 'web
radio' stream that weekend, and we asked him
if he would like his own weekly spot on our fledgling
'network.' We could call it a network - and did - becuz we were
hosting ToP's radio stream too.
But, sadly, Jesse couldn't get the tech down, so that was that.
But it was great fun talking to him about Occupy all weekend,
seemed like a great guy. I wouldn't be surprised, however, that TPTB
"got to him" shortly after that. Or maybe before.
And maybe why he couldn't get the tech right.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
mimi
You don't have to apologize to me. Except for Bernie, I wasn't sharing my opinions so much as I was telling you about my observation of what the factions on Twitter appear to think. I am always interested in your opinions, and you are free to express your like or dislike for anyone you choose. So am I. Right?
"Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich."--Napoleon
of course, and it is very early to make
up one's mind about who of the three or four one dislikes or not. (Warren is not out of the club yet who I like)
I have my difficulties to understand when my comments are taken as a lecture to someone else like 'this is something you can't say' and when they are acceptable.
Nothing for Ungood.
https://www.euronews.com/live
Whatever Bernie has lost
in supporters over the
last three years, he's gained
new ones to replace those.
That's why they don't care.
Nor does he.
Damn the torpedos and all that.
the little things you can do are more valuable than the giant things you can't! - @thanatokephaloides. On Twitter @wink1radio. (-2.1) All about building progressive media.
Wikileaks defense fund
some people still care
The new Fascists depend on the people politiely looking away
because it would be disrespectful to the jackboots to bleed on them.
They always look the same when they drag the people away. Spielberg chose to depict it as angry shouting men, but I would find it far more frightening if it was just calm men, quietly leading their neighbors to the pens.
Because that's what I'm seeing today.
I do not pretend I know what I do not know.
The striking similarities
Of a warmongering regime bent on keeping their nefarious power grabs "secrets" and those lone voices pushing back on the propaganda are tragically echoed through history. Giving props to travelerxxx who posted a link in bobswern's essay about Osseitzky receiving a Nobel piece prize for fighting against the Nazis.
I never thought, especially as an American citizen with parents born in Germany in 1937 , I would actually be making comparison between the two countries. I'll let you be the judge if the connection I'm making here is a bridge too far, but frankly I do think Julian deserves a Nobel peace prize for pushing back against this warmongering government at great personal cost.
https://allthatsinteresting.com/carl-von-ossietzky
Ossietsky was cruelly tortured in prison by the Nazis and sent to a concentration camp where he contracted TB. After being visited by the Red Cross he was finally sent to a hospital, where he received the Nobel Peace prize and then died shortly afterwards.
There is always Music amongst the trees in the Garden, but our hearts must be very quiet to hear it. ~ Minnie Aumonier
My parents were both
born in Poland shortly after WW II ended, and they both left the country before martial law locked it down. What I know of my family's history validates your perspective, and I agree that Assange is deserving of a Nobel.
Oh STFU Chuck and go back to leading the against Trump
This goes double for you or Queen of Heinousness!
An you too you blue dawg ass.
Whoa @ Manchin
Do I hear the sound of guillotines being constructed?
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible will make violent revolution inevitable." ~ President John F. Kennedy
Gotta push the Russian narrative though now that
Mueller has flopped.
Trump loves Wikileaks so much that he has had Ecuador expelled him from the embassy? How do you make sense of that in your mind>
This is one of the saddest things America ever did...
Most disgusting thing I heard was Hillary saying about Julian something to the effect of "he needs to be held accountable for what he did."
Had I been there "what about you and Lybia?" surely would have uncontrollably spewed forth.
Or maybe "unlike you, your husband, and the Clinton Foundation!"
To Her Turness, 'what he did', is ruin her Queenship.
The empire wants him dead, but not until after torturing him.
Julian does deserve a Nobel Peace Prize.
We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.
Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.
both - Albert Einstein
What's this fascist fuckery about the IMF blackmailing Ecuador
for the loan they needed in exchange for giving up Assange?
From Off-Guardian:
IMF Deal for Ecuador Paved Way for Assange’s Arrest
From a March 7 Popular Resistance article, "With Ecuador’s Cooperation Bought By IMF Loans, Washington Waxes Optimistic On Assange Extradition"
Appears it was Mint Press who first reported this, but I'm not positive.
Don't know who Press For Truth is but found this on the Duck Duck Go search:
This is so fucking ugly and disturbing. It's everything John Perkins was whistleblowing about in his book "Confessions of An Economic Hitman."
"If I should ever die, God forbid, let this be my epitaph:
THE ONLY PROOF HE NEEDED
FOR THE EXISTENCE OF GOD
WAS MUSIC"
- Kurt Vonnegut
"Curious Eyes Never Run Dry In My Experience"
vs $500,000,000 to your foundation after a nuclear deal. Or millions from a "friendly" state. Scrubbed voter roles in your district. DWS.
How this can lead to extradition and actual fucking bribery can't be proven unless there is a wink, a nod, fingerprints, and "intent".
This shit has gone too far.
“Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat.” ~ Sun Tzu