Assange in the Land of Free Speech

From my archived blog (April 2019) at donaldjeffries.wordpress.com

This article from 6 years ago provides an eerie reminder of how effortlessly Donald Trump can lie and deny the obvious truth. Given his recent debacle in attempting to convince the public that Jeffrey Epstein killed himself, and that there was no Epstein List, this piece is now especially relevant.

First, let me make it clear; I consider Julian Assange to be a heroic figure, a true journalist in an age when there aren’t many of them left. The fact that anyone considers him to be a traitor, and that he faces possible imprisonment, tells us all we need to know about the level of tyranny and corruption we face.

But Julian Assange isn’t perfect. He has said publicly that “I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11…” For someone who has exposed a good amount of deep state chicanery, Assange evidently hasn’t expended much effort at researching the absurd fairy tale of 19 crazed Arab hijackers.

Donald Trump, in yet another of the incalculable examples he’s provided to show that he’s a certified member of the swamp, laughably reacted to Assange’s recent arrest by saying he “knew nothing” about Wikileaks, and that it was “not my thing.” Trump claimed to “love Wikileaks” during his 2016 presidential campaign, and some have tabulated that Trump in fact mentioned it nearly 150 times.

Trump is the maverick “outsider” who blasted Bradley/Chelsea Manning as an “ungrateful traitor,” and previously claimed another whistleblower, Edward Snowden, should be executed. He certainly doesn’t sound very different in regards to these courageous souls than Hillary Clinton, the Bushes, or any other card-carrying member of the swamp he promised to drain.

Trump’s new comrade, John McCainiac-style perpetual warmonger Sen. Lindsay Graham, angrily tweeted, “In my book, he has NEVER been a hero.” Another Republican Senator, Ben Sasse, commented, presumably with a straight face, that Assange’s arrest was “good news for freedom-loving people” and that the embattled founder of Wikileaks was “a wicked tool of Vladimir Putin and the Russian intelligence services.”

As always, there is no partisanship within the War Party when it comes to these things. Democrat Rep. Steve Cohen chided the President over his previous support for Assange, tweeting, “Might Trump pardon #Assange. He loved #WikiLeaks,” and further stated, “There is honor among thieves.” Democratic Sen. Mark Warner exclaimed, “Whatever Julian Assange’s intentions were for WikiLeaks, what he’s become is a direct participant in Russian efforts to weaken the West and undermine American security. I hope British courts will quickly transfer him to U.S. custody so he can finally get the justice he deserves.”

Hillary Clinton, Queen of the Deep State, laughed when asked about the situation, and said, “The bottom line is he has to answer for what he has done, at least as it’s been charged. I do think it’s a little ironic that he may be the only foreigner that this administration would welcome to the United States.” None of the other ridiculous crop of Democratic Party presidential contenders commented on the arrest, including “socialist” Bernie Sanders. Joe Biden went on record when he was vice-president, calling Assange “a hi-tech terrorist.”

Trump’s latest Deep State appointee, veteran Bush acolyte Attorney General William Barr, has declared that Wikileaks stole the DNC emails, and that Russia, not the slain young staffer Seth Rich, was the source. Those waiting for Trump to tweet something about the mysterious and still unsolved murder of Seth Rich need to stop fantasizing. The appointment of someone like Barr assured the Deep State that this is going to be business as usual, despite the loud tweets, and that injustice will continue to prevail.

You know things are bad when you have to look favorably in contrast at the Obama administration on these issues. Obama didn’t prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act, something which may happen now under Trump. Obama also commuted Manning’s outrageously harsh sentence. Obama prosecuted more whistleblowers than any President in history, despite campaign rhetoric that praised their courage. Such broken promises are all too familiar to those who were swept up in Donald Trump’s 2016 populism.

What is noticeable here is the lack of outrage from the Left, who should theoretically defend Julian Assange and be appalled at his persecution. As I’ve noted before, there aren’t many civil libertarians left in this country. Even those who have defended him seem to do so with great reluctance; in one case it was with the caveat that Assange is “difficult to defend.”

Tucker Carlson, who is displaying an increasingly Pat Buchanan-style populist streak, probably spoke out for Assange more forcefully than anyone else with a public platform. “What was Julian Assange’s crime?” Carlson asked. “He embarrassed everyone in power…Assange’s real sin was preventing Hillary Clinton from becoming president.” The feisty Fox News host went on to say, “The guardians of speech are now its enemies. The people charged with policing power are now colluding with it. There’s a reason you see John Brennan on NBC all the time.”

Which brings us to the false debate. There is no side here trumpeting the complete truth. Even Tucker Carlson hates “conspiracy theories.” Trump has now cast his lot firmly in the War Party camp, and his putrid aides like Bolton and Barr can attempt to tie Assange to “the Russians” just as well as his “liberal” enemies. No one wants to investigate the Seth Rich murder, any more than they wanted to investigate the JFK assassination, 9/11, or other high crimes of the Deep State.

So within the consistently limited parameters of debate permitted on the public stage, Trump and his neocon allies trade juvenile barbs with his “liberal” enemies. They all opt for war over peace, every time. They all use incendiary language to cause senseless division between races and sexes. If it wasn’t obvious before, Trump’s seeming acquiescence to some kind of prosecution of Assange proves unequivocally that he isn’t draining any swamp, or going after any of the career criminals in the Deep State.

Trump’s cult continues to imagine that he playing 8000D chess, with his profaned ignorance of Wikileaks actually some brilliant strategy to get Assange to testify and expose the fact that Seth Rich was the leaker. Whatever one can say about this astoundingly faithful lot, they are true believers if any ever existed.

To those who rely exclusively on mainstream media for their news, for the record Julian Assange, probably through the late Seth Rich, leaked a series of damning Democratic National Committee emails, which revealed conclusively that the party was going to deny Bernie Sanders the nomination, regardless of any inconvenient primary voting process. This was, of course, to benefit establishment favorite Hillary Clinton. Our vaunted state-run press managed to convert that into a scenario where “the Russians” leaked these emails, in an effort to deny Hillary the presidency.

As the great Ron Paul said, “As long as Assange is in prison, we are all in prison.” Paul went on to accurately point out that Assange was every bit as much a political prisoner as the sainted Nelson Mandela was. Assange, Manning, and Snowden all exposed something about our government that our corrupt leaders wanted to conceal. What does it say about our politicians and our professional “journalists” that they overwhelmingly side with those who wanted to keep such information from the public, rather than the whistleblowers who exposed it?

The Julian Assange saga is simply the latest example of a country, and a world, that continues down a dark, austere road. Without that antiseptic sunshine, we are left with an all encompassing tyranny and corruption.