I unequivocally support freedom of speech, and especially freedom of the press. We need more outsiders like Julian Assange who take on the elites and the industrial military complex … and fearlessly publish without redaction.
Much in the opinion piece published today by the WSWS articulates my concerns:
“The World Socialist Web Site emphatically condemns the forcible seizure and arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We call for an all-out campaign in the UK and internationally to defend Assange, oppose his extradition to the United States, and secure his freedom and return to Australia, with guarantees against any future prosecution.
“Assange is in grave peril. The US Justice Department has issued a statement claiming that Assange only faces charges that could lead to a prison sentence of up to five years if he has been found guilty. This is a transparent lie, the purpose of which is to facilitate Assange’s extradition and provide the Ecuadorean and British governments with a pretext that they are not turning Assange over to a government that might subject him to torture and execution.
If he is transferred to the custody of the United States, anything is possible, including charges of treason that carry a death penalty or indefinite detention as an “enemy combatant”.
Julian Assange was arrested Thursday morning at the Ecuadorian embassy in London
Assange has become a target because he did what journalists are supposed to do—expose the truth. Along with Chelsea Manning, who remains in prison for refusing to testify against the WikiLeaks publisher, Assange exposed the crimes that emerged out of wars launched on the basis of lies, which have led to the deaths of more than one million people.
New crimes are now being prepared. Even as the conspiracy against Assange was unfolding, Trump was meeting with Al-Sisi, the butcher of Cairo, and Secretary of State Mike Pompeo was issuing threats against Iran.
Everyone involved in this crime stands guilty of a monstrous attack on fundamental democratic rights, without even the pretense of due process.
Ecuadorian President Lenín Moreno, beset by a domestic crisis provoked by popular opposition to his corrupt administration, and desirous of economic aid offered by the White House, broke Ecuador’s own asylum laws to force Assange out. Its actions are a violation of the honor of Ecuadorean workers, who overwhelmingly support Assange.
The UK government, headed by Theresa May, is gloating over Assange’s arrest, issuing statements that are clearly prejudicial to any legal proceedings. When May, speaking to parliament, declared the “whole house will welcome the news this morning that the Metropolitan police have arrested Julian Assange,” Tory MPs and many Laborites cheered in approval.
Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn issued a pro-forma statement declaring that the extradition of Assange “should be opposed by the British government,” but he kept his mouth shut when May issued her denunciation before parliament and has maintained a silence on Assange during his forced asylum in the Ecuadorean embassy.
As for the United States, while the Trump administration is now leading the campaign against Assange, the Democratic Party is solidly behind his persecution, blaming Assange for contributing to the exposure of the crimes for which Hillary Clinton was justly and massively hated. One of the central aims of the Democrats’ anti-Russia campaign has been to justify the attack on WikiLeaks as part of a broader campaign for internet censorship.
Added to the list of those responsible is the pseudo-left, the organizations of the upper middle class in the US and internationally, which seized on the initial fraudulent and trumped-up rape allegations against Assange to justify his persecution and their own cowardly abandonment of Assange to American imperialism.
For its part, the establishment media, which functions as an arm of the state, has jumped in to support the attack on Assange.
On Thursday evening, the editorial boards of the New York Times and the Washington Post issued statements supporting Assange’s extradition. “The government charged Julian Assange, founder of WikiLeaks, not with publishing classified government information, but with stealing it,” declared the New York Times, adding “The administration has begun well by charging Mr. Assange with an indisputable crime.”
The Washington Post was even more open in its support of the Trump administration’s campaign against Assange, declaring “Mr. Assange’s case could conclude as a victory for the rule of law, not the defeat for civil liberties of which his defenders mistakenly warn.”
“Mr. Assange is not a free-press hero,” declares the Post. “Unlike real journalists, WikiLeaks dumped material into the public domain.” By the Post ’s definition, the only “real journalists” are those that self-censor at the behest of the Pentagon.
These newspapers, which once published the Pentagon Papers, are nothing but apologists for US imperialism. One can only imagine the howls of outrage that would issue from the media if it was the Russian government that had carried out the forcible seizure and arrest of a journalist and critic of its foreign policy!
In the seven years of Assange’s confinement in the Ecuadorean embassy, much has changed. Most significant is the eruption of class struggle internationally. It is the fear of the emergence of the class struggle, combined with growing opposition to capitalism, that is compelling the ruling elites to destroy all democratic rights, including the freedom of expression, of which Assange’s persecution is the most grotesque example.
In the working class there is overwhelming sympathy for Assange. A dividing line has opened up in social, economic, and political life. The ruling elites are shedding their democratic pretenses. Their media and the pseudo-socialist opposition—the representatives of the politics of the affluent upper-middle-class—function as defenders of the state and the dictatorship of the financial oligarchy.
It is the working class, the broad mass of the population, that must be mobilized to defend Julian Assange, Chelsea Manning and all class war prisoners. The demand for their freedom must be a rallying cry for the global working class.
The World Socialist Web Site calls on all workers and young people, and all those who uphold democratic rights, to come forward and take an unequivocal stand in defense of Julian Assange. Organize meetings, protests and demonstrations to demand his immediate release and his safe return to Australia!
Statement of the World Socialist Web Site Editorial Board.
Jennifer Marohasy BSc PhD is a critical thinker with expertise in the scientific method.
I think Assange is a traitor who endangered diligent honest Americans and others who are keeping the world a safer place. Your muddy logic does not address the facts of life that there are worse military industrial complexes who welcome this useful idiots behaviour. You need to spend time in North Korea or Iran as a free spirit and see how long you last. Assange’s ego trip costs lives and treasure.
The end never justifies the means.
Because there are ‘worse’, this does not justify the war crimes from our side … or indeed the war in the first place.
North Korea, nor Iran, are a threat to your way of life …
Your utopia is attractive but it only exists if good people protect it. There are some evil people who follow a different path called an ego trip. Free speech stops when it does not pass that smell test. Some families have endured several non-stop wars and some were destroyed completely. Try to put yourself in their shoes at the time of their hardship.
Dr Francis Mann: Your comments are extremely questionable. You call others idiots when you are arrogant. Your comments lack substance.
You say “diligent honest Americans and others who are keeping the world a safer place”.
Wrong! Just to get started.
Wars are banker wars. Wars are fort to dominate the oil wells so as to control production and price. Greed, not just money but power.
Afghanistan. Oil & opium
2 X Iraq wars
Plus the Iraq sanctions
1 X Libyan war
1 X Libyan bombing
9/11
Millions of deaths
Trillions of dollars
And you talk about those who make the world a safer place.
WWII was forced onto Germany. Germany went up against Bolshevism. Germans died to save Europe. No one thanked them. For Bolshevism read Mike Walsh
We should have helped Hitler destroy communism. Refer General George Patton
What happened to eastern Europe after the war was continuous war crimes and crimes against humanity. Horrible to read about.
Marxism is rife in the world today.
Interesting reading, Benjamin Freedman, Hellstorm, Myth of German Villainy, Red Storm over the Reich.
Let’s wait and see what Trump does with Assange.
To justify the arrest of Julian, Theresea May has said … no one is above the law.
But as shown in Climategate, and its aftermath, British scientists can destroy data and remodel data with impunity
Much more about the arrest here https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04-11/julian-assange-arrested-london
The US leftists are wetting their pants now that Assange will be free to spill the beans about Hillary Clinton’s corruption, and therefore about the Democrat Party and Obama too.
The Democrats want Assange to be jailed and worse. John Mc Cain’s daughter has openly declared her wish for Assange to burn in hell forever. She forgot to tell us where her Trump-hating daddy ended up, heaven or hell.
Commentators on this thread are tilting at windmills. Now that’s an old saying before the days of renewables.
Broadly speaking I agree with the WSWS on Assange but bearing in mind the socialists have their own agenda. The Trotskyites believe in constant revolution but that’s out of fashion. They make good use of psychology, particularly environmentalism. Here’s their comments on the Children’s Climate March: “The International Youth and Students for Social Equality (IYSSE), the youth wing of the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) and the world Trotskyist movement, welcomes the widest protests among students and youth against the environmental crisis and climate change.
The critical question, however, is what political program and perspective is required to halt and reverse environmental destruction, and establish a decent world free of war, inequality and dictatorship?
The starting point is to recognise that the fundamental problem is the capitalist profit system and the division of the planet into competing national-states. Capitalism prevents any rational, global plan being implemented to carry out the necessary drastic and rapid reduction in carbon emissions, while protecting the living standards of the world’s population.” and on it goes interminably
Just to get it straight, renewables are one of the most destructive forces in the modern world. The mining and production of exotic metals by the poorest people on the land are at the start of an expensive manufacturing chain.
The sacrifice of land and animal and plant life for huge solar farms and wind farms is deplorable. The green capitalists have no less environmental conscience than the robber barons of the 20s. Why? – because they justify and turn a blind eye and a deaf ear to the destruction they cause.
Carbon dioxide is a trace gas in our atmosphere that is essential to all life on earth. It’s plant food. Stop being a useful idiot; look up the origin of the term.
Mike Burston: You are obviously a socialist/communist. A Bolshevik Trotskyite Leninist Stalinist Marxist.
“The World Socialist Web Site emphatically condemns the forcible seizure and arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. We call for an all-out campaign in the UK and internationally to defend Assange, oppose his extradition to the United States, and secure his freedom and return to Australia, with guarantees against any future prosecution.
In other words if Assange shuts up, let him go.
Assange may not be in grave peril. The lies may be in grave peril. The truth may come out. Assange may be in Trumps hands, he may be in safe hands.
Lets just wait and see. The Democrats may get what’s coming to them.
The capitalist profit system? Good or bad capitalism has given the world the modern world we have today. Electricity, dams, irrigation, homes, cities, water supplies, sewer systems, roads. Take away the bankers and their reserve banking system and things could be even better. To really understand what socialism/communism is really all about read: Mike Walsh 30 odd books and Stalins Curse by Robert Gellately.
Drastic and rapid reduction in carbon emissions. What! Professor William Happer, “We have a carbon drought”. You get that. We need more carbon not less. Dr. Patrick Moore says we can take carbon up to 2000ppm and receive a benefit.
Carbon at 150ppm life ceases. We dropped to 280ppm which was dangerously low. 400ppm is just above the threshold. Hothouses have CO2 pumped in at 1600ppm for a very good reason.
The carbon myth is being used to drag us kicking and screaming into an authoritarian New World Order. We don’t need you like a Bolshevik Red helping them.
What Stalin did to eastern Europe after WWII was criminal.
What was provided to western Europe was dignity and a standard of living.
Mike we need all the help we can get to knock out the evil left. It is not to late to change sides. Have you gone to far down the wrong track?
NB: Gas oil and gas are not fossil. They are generated off the planet. They are not old forests and dinosaurs. They are abiotic. The Russians ‘rediscovered’ this in the early fifties. Planet earth is an oil planet and their are many others.
Dr Francis Manns says renewables are destructive. You are right, I agree.
In addition millions of tons of wind turbine blades go to land fill. Dumped in Africa so it may not matter.
Could I add: The electricity grid is Synchronous. Wind turbines are Asynchronous and useless, they do not produce 50/60Hz energy, the very energy required to boil a jug. They do produce useless harmonics which are detrimental to the grid and are through smart meters fraudulently added to consumers power bills.
In New Zealand The Serious Fraud Office nor The Commerce Commission nor The Electricity Authority will take action. How does this industry gets away with it. The fraud is into the millions.
PV solar panels, while suitable for powering ones own water heater is one thing,as for powering the neighbours water heater forget it. The panels do not have the capacity to power the grid.
Australia has closed down ‘fossil’ fuel power stations – the idiots have even dynamited them, scorched earth policy – and added renewables. The reports are that their grid is dangerously close to collapse.
For an additional problem Australia has through renewables greatly increased the capacitance in the lines. When the lightening strikes – does not require a direct hit – down goes the grid. When the grid goes down and back up kicks in the wholesale price jumps from less than $100 to more than $14,000. South Australia has among the worlds highest electricity prices. They have allegedly spent $300million on a Tesla battery which has never been proven to work. When will they have a serious grid crash?
New Zealand next.
Free Julian the truth teller! Killary a dIbuma should be in jail for treason
“I think everybody should take a sober look at the world about us, remember that practically everything you’re told about other countries is untrue.”
https://www.amazon.com/dp/1494887991
I also favor free speech and journalism but have not followed the Assange story very closely. I don’t think he should be freed if he broke laws and endangered people just because his actions exposed other crimes. I lean to the free market side of politics but will not support anarchy. But what I noticed in this post is a problem no mater where you land on these subjects. Words without context or clear definition subvert free speech and prevent clear journalism. I find “American imperialism” about as explicit as “climate change” and don’t even know how to respond to it. I think both terms have grown many shades of political meaning that renders them meaningless without further explanation. Very often their context shows that their use is merely to cause an emotional reaction. That may be a fair purpose for journalism but it is also often used to obscure the truth and that fits my idea of “yellow journalism”
DMA: You say
“I don’t think he should be freed if he broke laws and endangered people just because his actions exposed other crimes”. Wishy Washy. Says nothing.
Writing like this does not help. “I don’t think”. “if”. You have to investigate. Did he endanger others. Did he expose crimes. Should the one who endangered the most be exposed. Who decides. Governments lie.
Those who fled to America went in the name of freedom. To shake off the shackles of to much government. The British attempted to disarm the new colony. The constitution came into being with the 2nd Amendment. Whatever transpired subsequent to that is a separate issue. Rights, wrongs and excesses all existed on all sides.
The debate is not ‘Climate Change’. The debate is Anthropogenic Climate Change and is it real, is the anthropogenic bit a problem. The climate has been changing for four billion years. Have humans added to the change. Yes. How much. To little to bother about. Volcanos contribute far more. Is CO2 a problem. No, it is the life of the planet.
Why are some reacting? The introduction of an authoritarian New World Order. Who is driving this? The idiot Left. The Marxist experiment rolls on. Do we want more CO2, sure do.
In case i was to cryptic above, the quote is from the back cover of the book he is holding.
Yes Silliggy , the lies are Goebbels standard and about most things.
I notice that ABC net news has a continuous glossy feature, which is called “Russia are you listening?”.
Absolute war mongering propaganda most of it. I often wonder what they would do if they got their wish and the Opera House vapourised in front of their eyes ?
The notion of USA being “the world’s policeman” is MSM fake news.
Last week the policeman declared the Iranian Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organisation. Iran is probably going to go tit for tat.
The few thousand US service people stucki n the ME are surrounded by millions of Iran friendly Shiite’s and their US govt has effectively declared war on these people.
US forces cannot beat these people and Israel is committing suicide, by pushing the barrow.
Trump might just be playing one of his clever games, where he is “forced” to settle for his initial goal. Who knows ?
Apparently a lot of rabid Zionists,( both Christian and Jewish), were put out by Trump’s Golan Heights announcement, because it imposes a boundary on Israel.
All is not what it seems.
In the meantime, I hope Killary, Obomber and Podesta all will feature in stuff that Trump will “force” Julian to “reluctantly” release.
I also note that an overseas commentary ,(about Assange), yesterday singled out “Washington obsessed Australia”, for a grilling over the Timor whistleblower prosecution.
I guess they don’t yet know overseas about the ATO whistleblower , who’s facing longer in jail than Milat, for telling us of corruption.
I can’t understand why the USA is so mad about Assange when they carry a torch for democracy and in fact do it better than we do
The USA has also assumed the mantle of Worlds Policeman from the UK, and got a bollocking. Gilbert and Sullivan were right the policemans lot is not a happy one.
As for climate change, it’s just an excuse for predatory economics to exploit primal fears in devious ways
Are you sure that Assange is in trouble with what he has published?
My understanding is that his Swedish Problems are to do with sexual matters and in the USA he is wanted essentially for involvement in Computer Hacking of High National Security installations.
He endangered innocent lives so it’s understandable. If you know the difference between totalitarian aggression and right and wrong the answer is simple in a real practical world. He has a distorted sense of self and his ego has convinced him he’s right. History is punctuated with these mad people. Ego combined with ignorance is a dangerous mixture. The military industrial complex of the totalitarian left is very dangerous.
I agree. Thank you for standing to be counted.
Julian Assange is a hero.
The same cannot be said of the people he has revealed.
The helicopter crew in Iraq were complete animals.
Yet they still roam free.
The myriad of liars who colluded to buy consent for the Iraq War, notably Tony, GW, and the vicious Vice man. They still roam free.
And then there are all the numerous psychological warfare agencies who practiced their dark arts, not on some enemy, but to dupe their own public and leaders into supporting their crime of Aggressive War.
“Are you sure that Assange is in trouble with what he has published?”
Oh yes – nasty secrets being exposed. ‘Bi-partisan’ ones too. Neither side wants their own dirty laundry exposed and will cooperate to make it so.
“My understanding is that his Swedish Problems are to do with sexual matters …”
Odd laws over there – most would claim it a set-up, and they have since been dropped. The goal appears to have been a simple, political based smear – “he’s a sexual offender and he’s telling tales”.
“… and in the USA he is wanted essentially for involvement in Computer Hacking of High National Security installations.”
If “involvement” includes accepting secret government documents from a whistleblower that expose war crimes, publishing it and saying “If you find any more, I’m happy to publish it” is a crime, then the Watergate expose would have been illegal too, along with pretty much all major political scandals – ever.
Consider too that WikiLeaks has not had to retract anything yet – they have only, as far as we know, published the truth.
Or that those whose crimes have been exposed by WikiLeaks remain free, while those who exposed them are gaoled or hunted as “criminals” – in truth, if the exposed crimes had resulted in consequences for the offenders, I would consider a trial for those who exposed them a more reasonable request.