Ironic, isn't it — that one who acts on the principle of a free press — is better off fleeing to Russia

11 April 2019

My title

Compare American truth-advocate, Edward Snowden's situation in Russia to Julian Assange's in Britain.

Today, Britain arrested Assange

Thus bringing Assange's Ecuadorian embassy refuge to an end:

Julian Assange, 47 . . . has today, Thursday 11 April, been arrested by officers from the Metropolitan Police Service (MPS) at the Embassy of Ecuador . . . on a warrant issued by Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 29 June 2012, for failing to surrender to the court.

Met Police posted an update to include the fact that Assange had been “arrested on behalf of the United States authorities.”

Who are Julian Assange and WikiLeaks?

Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are known for repeatedly revealing the top secret corruption and autocracy that lie at the heart of "western" democracies.

Their bureaucracy-penetrating effrontery motivated the American Imperium to pursue both, with the intention of crushing them.

For instance, back in 2017, then CIA director Mike Pompeo threw propaganda gasoline on the fire:

Mike Pompeo blistered WikiLeaks in a speech Thursday, calling WikiLeaks a "hostile intelligence service" aided by Russia and accused WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange of making "common cause with dictators."

"It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is," he said, "a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia.

"In January of this year, our Intelligence Community determined that Russian military intelligence — the GRU — had used WikiLeaks to release data of U.S. victims that the GRU had obtained through cyber operations against the Democratic National Committee.

"And the report also found that Russia's primary propaganda outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with WikiLeaks."

Holy doo-doo, Pops, the Russians is coming!

Shortly afterward

When Pompeo became President Trump's Secretary of State:

American prosecutors . . . obtained a sealed indictment against Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, whose website published thousands of classified U.S. government documents, a U.S. federal court document showed on Thursday.

The document, which prosecutors say was filed by mistake, asks a judge to seal documents in a criminal case unrelated to Assange, and carries markings indicating it was originally filed in U.S. District Court in Alexandria, Virginia in August.

Prosecutors sought to keep the charges confidential until after Assange’s arrest, the document shows, saying the move was essential to ensure he did not evade or avoid arrest and extradition in the case.

Any procedure “short of sealing will not adequately protect the needs of law enforcement at this time because, due to the sophistication of the defendant, and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged,” the document reads.

Think about this

First, American Republicans and Democrats both blame Russia for originating all of the world's evil. Despite the fact that Russia has less than half the American population and a vanishingly small economy in comparison.

It is a nitwitted analysis on their part. Fit only for persuading a brain-dead population.

Second, recognize that the American judicial proceeding is secret. Which pretty much supports the Assange-WikiLeaks' contention that the governmental entities involved are hiding a lot that citizens should arguably know about.

On the historical record, I can safely forecast that — if Assange is extradited to the United States — much of the purported evidence in his show trial will be concealed.

Shades of what we once called Red China and Soviet Russia.

Lapdog Britain

Britain's Assange arrest warrant, you may recall, issued upon a self-evidently concocted Swedish charge that Assange may have assaulted a woman (or women) in Sweden.

The questionability of those allegations was obvious even in 2015:

For nearly five years, Sweden has maintained that WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, may have done bad things to women.

But, for the last three or so years, the Swedish prosecution has declined to come to London’s Ecuadorian embassy to interview the political asylum-seeking Mr. Assange — as Swedish law reportedly requires it do, before formal charges can be brought.

As a result of this delay, Sweden’s statute of limitations has wiped out 3 of the 4 allegations of sexual illegality on Assange’s part. Yet, Sweden still sits on its blondly butter-filled behind.

This is not rational prosecutorial behavior — something else is going on

The United Kingdom’s complicity in these autocratic shenanigans gives us a clue.

The Brits, for their America-toadying part, have been maintaining a cordon around the Ecuadorian embassy, so that the trapped there Mr. Assange cannot act upon Ecuador’s offer of refuge in South America.

Our English buddies, it seems — like Sweden — are acting at the very expensively indulged behest of the United States.

Why should we care?

An observation from last year remains accurate:

Public complacence is fascism's food.

Squashing Julian Assange and Wikileaks is not substantially different than the "thought control" that we used to accuse the Soviet Union and communist China of.

The United States has become a militaristically inclined oligarchy — similar in key respects to the totalitarian states that it pretended it was going to supplant with Freedom's new and unipolar dawn.

We see that excessive power, foreign or American, chews personal freedom and truth away, no matter who is in control.

The moral collapse of the allegedly free world is indicative of this. Recall that even supposedly moral Sweden cooperated in imprisoning Mr. Assange for trumped up reasons.

In sum, whatever liberty-loving "soft power" Americans might have exercised (as antidote to competing totalitarian political systems) has pretty much vanished.

What we have left is a mass of viciously led sheep reflexively chanting "USA".

God help the one that individually wanders out the automated flock and goes off message.

What appalls — even cynics like me

Note the blanket-like silence of most of the world's press outlets to Assange's long and very painful situation.

Materially spoiled "western" humanity seems not have the gumption to protect its liberties, even when we dopishly stumble into some.

I am reminded of wily Ben Franklin's disingenuous quote — made after the close of the American Constitutional Convention in 1787:

“Well, Doctor [Franklin], what have we got—a Republic or a Monarchy?”

“A Republic, if you can keep it.”

The moral? — We are unlikely to hold onto something — which we do not recognize as being valuable

Failure to appreciate Liberty is a form of either stupidity or lassitude.

It is (therefore) challenging to apportion blame. Do we primarily finger wolfish oligarchs, or our sheepy ourselves?

More and more, my curmudgeonish self tends toward blaming us. I am not a lover of air-headed victimhood.

Perhaps I share that sentiment with our crassly mean-spirited president.

OMG.

PeteFree.com

Ironic, isn't it — that one who acts on the principle of a free press — is better off fleeing to Russia