Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST

Assange Is Free, But Justice Has Not Been Done

 

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Upgrade to paid

Julian Assange is free. As of this writing he is en route to the Northern Mariana Islands, a remote US territory in the western Pacific, to finalize a plea deal with the US government which will see him sentenced to time served in Belmarsh Prison. Barring any shady shenanigans from the empire in the process, he will then return to his home country of Australia a free man.

Importantly, according to experts I’ve seen commenting on this astonishing new development it doesn’t appear that his plea deal will set any new legal precedents that will be harmful to journalists going forward. Joe Lauria reports the following for Consortium News:

“Bruce Afran, a U.S. constitutional lawyer, told Consortium News that a plea deal does not create a legal precedent. Therefore Assange’s deal would not jeopardize journalists in the future of being prosecuted for accepting and publishing classified information from a source because of Assange’s agreeing to such a charge.”

 

I’ve obviously got a lot of big feels about all this, having followed this important case so closely for so long and having put so much work into writing about it. There’s so very, very much work to be done in our collective struggle to liberate the world from the talons of the imperial murder machine, but I am overjoyed for Assange and his family, and it feels good to mark a solid win in this fight.

---

The Deep State came down hard on Assange, and the "Free Press" applauded.

Remember this? The non-solidarity of the filthy media. (Daily Mail/ UK)

---

None of this undoes the unforgivable evils the empire inflicted in its persecution of Julian Assange however, or reverses the worldwide damage that has been done by making a public example of him to show what happens to a journalist who tells inconvenient truths about the world’s most powerful government. 

So while Assange may be free, we cannot rightly say that justice has been done.

Justice would look like Assange being granted a full and unconditional pardon and receiving millions of dollars in compensation from the US government for the torment they put him through by his imprisonment in Belmarsh beginning in 2019, his de facto imprisonment in the Ecuadorian embassy beginning in 2012, and his jailing and house arrest beginning in 2010.

Justice would look like the US making concrete legal and policy changes guaranteeing that Washington could never again use its globe-spanning power and influence to destroy the life of a foreign journalist for reporting inconvenient facts about it, and issuing a formal apology to Julian Assange and his family.

Justice would look like the arrest and prosecution of the people whose war crimes Assange exposed, and the arrest and prosecution of everyone who helped ruin his life for exposing those crimes. This would include a whole host of government operatives and officials across numerous countries, and multiple US presidents.

 

Justice would look like a hero’s welcome and a hero’s honors from Australia upon his arrival, and a serious revision of Canberra’s obsequious relationship with Washington.

Justice would look like formal apologies to Assange and his family from the editorial boards of all the mainstream press outlets which manufactured consent for his vicious persecution — including and especially The Guardian — and the complete destruction of the reputations of every unscrupulous presstitute who helped smear him over the years.

If these things happened, then we could perhaps argue that justice has been served to some extent. As it stands all we have is the cessation of one single act of depravity by an empire who’s only backing off to make room for newer, more important depravities. We all still live under a globe-spanning power structure which has shown the entire world that it will destroy your life if you expose its criminality, and then stand back and proudly call this justice.

So I personally think I’m just going to take this one small victory in stride with a quick “thank you” to the heavens and get back to work. There is still so much to do, and vanishingly little time to do it. 

The fight goes on.

Lili News 029

• In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
• Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
• Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.

window.addEventListener("sfsi_functions_loaded", function() { if (typeof sfsi_widget_set == "function") { sfsi_widget_set(); } });

This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone

Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 

Garland Nixon

DYING FROM TRUTH - US IMPERIALISM IS IN FREE FALL

Garland Nixon
Streamed live on Jun 23, 2024
Garland starts by noting that YouTube (Google) is applying sneaky algorithms to depress his circulation, reflecting the ruling class' conviction that a tight narrative control is now essential to carry out the violent and illegitimate tasks needed to keep the Empire afloat, "legitimate", and viable.  What follows is a tour de force analysis of how the US Empire is imploding, as it fights its multiplying contradictions and the collapse of long-held myths giving it legitimacy—starting with the illusion of American democracy, freedom, and ruling class patriotism—while its military supremacy is also eroding fast and has actually been surpassed by peer nations such as Russia and China. In this context, the Western totalitarian ruling class sees no way out from the necessity of imposing ever more stringent censorship and repression on sectors of the population that insist on spreading "inconvenient truths", or turning to Same extreme methods are being used to keep the Empire's vassals in line, which the Empire is actually cannibalizing, as the destruction of NordStream 2—intended as a warning to other vassals— demonstrates. Trump, basically a capricious and ignorant man, obviously offers no real change in this sinister arrangement with no viable cure except revolution, but, as a super imperialist anchored in nationalism, he promises to make the working class gets at least a small share of the imperialist loot. 

Caitlin Johnstone
ROGUE JOURNALIST

We've Seen This "Antisemitism Crisis On The Left" Script Before

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE

JUN 16, 2024

J. Corbyn

 

(Author screenshot)

Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley):

Upgrade to paid

It sure is a crazy coincidence how western politicians and media always start urgently telling us about an invisible epidemic of left wing antisemitism every time western military ties to Israel are subjected to widespread public scrutiny.

It’s getting bad, and it will likely get worse.

The mass media are filling up with op-eds and cable news segments about how antisemitic leftist anti-genocide protesters are becoming. 

Instagram progressive Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez recently hosted two virulent Zionists in a livestream where the three spent their time concern trolling about the rise of antisemitism in left-wing activist circles.

Whoever runs Joe Biden’s presidential Twitter account for him is tweetingabout “horrific acts of Antisemitism” by demonstrators, citing four incidents which were demonstrably not in the least bit antisemitic.

 

These same false claims about antisemitic activity by protesters are being used by US officials like House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries to push through the “Countering Antisemitism Act”, a bill which would give the White House new powers to “counter the spread of antisemitism online” (read: government internet censorship to promote US and Israeli information interests).

ran the exact same script a few years ago in the UK to kill the rise of Jeremy Corbyn, who supports Palestinian rights. It’s the exact same bad faith concern trolling op where the whole political-media class suddenly starts pretending to believe something that is transparently ridiculous in order to protect an agenda of the empire.

It’s also important that everyone understand that every part of this is 100 percent cynical manipulation. The people pushing this narrative are fully aware that it is false. Everyone knew Jeremy Corbyn was a lifelong anti-racist who didn’t have an antisemitic bone in his body. Everyone knew there was no crisis of antisemitism in the Labour Party. But they pretended to believe otherwise because they didn’t want to see socialism and anti-imperialism gain a political foothold in the UK. The same thing is happening in the US and throughout the west right now regarding protests against the genocide in Gaza.

 

So when you see people aggressively rejecting the concern trolls on this issue, that’s why. They’ve seen this schtick before, and they know how politically devastating it can be. They’ve seen how it can be used to suck all the oxygen away from real discourse about real things and funnel it all into this insanely vapid, idiotic conversation about a problem that exists nowhere outside the imaginations of the people talking about it. It’s a deeply evil, disgusting thing to do, especially now in 2024 when it’s being done to facilitate an active genocide.

There is no crisis of antisemitism on the left. It is not happening. The people pushing this narrative know it is not happening. Even the claim that anti-semitic incidents overall are on the rise is highly dubious, given that the figure everyone always cites for this claim comes from the Anti-Defamation League, who after October 7 began categorizing pro-Palestine rallies as antisemitic incidents — including rallies organized and attended by Jewish groups.

People get into left-wing politics exactly because they oppose racism and injustice. Nobody who actually understands the pro-Palestine movement sincerely believes all these peaceniks and commies have suddenly morphed into Jew-hating Nazis in contradiction of their entire worldview. They might pretend to believe this is a real thing that is actually happening in order to advance a political agenda, but they won’t actually believe it.

There’s plenty of hatred for Jews to be found on the extreme right, where the ideological inability to acknowledge capitalism and western imperialism as the source of today’s ills leaves a void for blame that will be filled by anything from Jews to immigrants to Satanic pedophile cabals to drag queens. But it’s always the lefties who get the overwhelming brunt of the antisemitism accusations, because their pro-peace, pro-justice, anti-colonialist, anti-racist activism makes them an obstacle to the information interests of Israel and the murderous empire which supports it.

We saw it with Corbyn, and we’re seeing it again today. 

---

All my work is free to bootleg and use in any way, shape or form; republish it, translate it, use it on merchandise; whatever you want. My work is entirely reader-supported, so if you enjoyed this piece please consider sharing it around, throwing some money into my tip jar on Patreon, Paypal, or Substack, buying an issue of my monthly zine, and following me on Facebook, Twitter, Soundcloud or YouTube. If you want to read more you can buy my books. The best way to make sure you see the stuff I publish is to subscribe to the mailing list on Substack, which will get you an email notification for everything I publish. For more info on who I am, where I stand, and what I’m trying to do with this platform, click here. All works co-authored with my husband Tim Foley.

Bitcoin donations:1Ac7PCQXoQoLA9Sh8fhAgiU3PHA2EX5Zm2

---

Lili News 029

• In cynicism and power, the US propaganda machine easily surpasses Orwells Ministry of Truth.
• Now the fight against anti-semitism is being weaponised as a new sanctimonious McCarthyism.
• Unless opposed, neither justice nor our Constitutional right to Free Speech will survive this assault.

---

window.addEventListener("sfsi_functions_loaded", function() { if (typeof sfsi_widget_set == "function") { sfsi_widget_set(); } });

---

This is a dispatch from our ongoing series by Caitlin Johnstone

Caitlin Johnstone is a brave journalist, political junkie, relentless feminist, champion of the 99 percent. And a powerful counter-propaganda tactician. 

 

 

---

VITAL

• If you approve of this article, please share it with your friends and kin.
• Help us grow our reach. Lies cost countless lives. And freedom.
• We must act together to smash the VILE Western disinformation machine.

---

   This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

Photo Credit: GDA via AP

Covid-19 has put this site on ventilators.
DONATIONS HAVE DRIED UP… 
PLEASE send what you can today!
JUST USE THE BUTTON BELOW

---

---

---

 NOTE : ALL CAPTIONS AND PULL QUOTES BY THE EDITORS, NOT THE AUTHORS.

George Galloway • Miko Peled
MOATS

!function(r,u,m,b,l,e){r._Rumble=b,r[b]||(r[b]=function(){(r[b]._=r[b]._||[]).push(arguments);if(r[b]._.length==1){l=u.createElement(m),e=u.getElementsByTagName(m)[0],l.async=1,l.src="https://rumble.com/embedJS/uukz21"+(arguments[1].video?'.'+arguments[1].video:'')+"/?url="+encodeURIComponent(location.href)+"&args="+encodeURIComponent(JSON.stringify([].slice.apply(arguments))),e.parentNode.insertBefore(l,e)}})}(window, document, "script", "Rumble");

Rumble("play", {"video":"v4ygxww","div":"rumble_v4ygxww"});

JOHN VAROLI
SUBSTACK.COM

Five months remain before the elections in November, and no election in modern America is complete without a witch hunt for “Russian spies and agents of influence”. If you believe the White House, these extraordinary super-agents can dupe millions of Americans into voting for ‘right-wing’ candidates just by posting videos on websites that few people have seen, as well as humorous memes on social media.

In their effort to root out ‘Russian influence’ the White House has a number of tools at its disposal — from the muscle of FBI goons and criminal cases that bankrupt the accused, to the defamatory pen of New York Times propagandists. On the hit list over the past month have been two independent American journalists and one activist in New York whose only ‘crime’ is being interested in Russian history.

1) In early May, the FBI stepped up its investigation into the organizers of the New York chapter of the Russian historical movement, The Immortal Regiment. 2) In early June, Biden’s goons went after Scott Ritter, a critic of U.S. militarism and proponent of friendly relations with Russia. 3) The New York Times did a hit piece on John Mark Dougan, another critic of U.S. militarism who fled to Russia in 2016 after facing persecution for his investigation into local corruption in his home state of Florida.

These certainly won’t be the last victims caught up in the White House’s anti-Russian witch hunt before the November elections. Let’s take a closer look at the three cases.

Founded in Russia in 2012, The Immortal Regiment is an annual non-political event that is now global. Participants meet once a year — on May 9 — to commemorate their ancestors who served in the Soviet army that defeated European Nazism. It’s a beautiful and inspiring event. (Unless, of course, you are a Nazi sympathizer).

"The main front of World War 3 is on the field of information and psychological warfare. Each of us is on the front lines. There’s a battle raging for your mind and soul..."

Since the White House avidly supports the regime in Kiev, which openly glorifies Nazi butchers, it’s not surprising that the U.S. government harasses and threatens members of The Immortal Regiment. Because of their hatred for Russians, even Nazis are now heroes for western liberal elites. (Remember how last autumn Canadian PM Justin Trudeau’s government publicly honored a Ukrainian Nazi).

Igor Kochan, a long-time New York resident and Russian citizen, was one of the organizers of the recent (and last) Immortal Regiment march in New York City, on May 9. He had long faced FBI harassment, but this spring the threats reached a boiling point when they confiscated his cell phone — an act indicating that a criminal case is being fabricated. In mid May, Mr Kochan fled the U.S. for the safety of Russia where he now has the freedom to speak out.

For years, Mr Kochan had faced FBI harassment and was even fired from his job due to his Russian ethnicity, a severe violation of U.S. federal law. But in the U.S., Russians have no rights, are widely viewed as “the enemy” and therefore stripped of any legal protections. “Russians are persecuted in the U.S.,” Mr Kochan recently said in a TV interview in Moscow.

The FBI’s harassment of other organizers and participants in The Immortal Regiment in New York continues, and concocted charges against some of them are highly likely as November approaches. The FBI has to justify its vast budget fighting “Russian election interference”.

The next incident came on June 3 when military analyst Scott Ritter was prevented from boarding a plane in New York to travel to Russia to attend the St Petersburg Economic Forum. Several men claiming to be police officers demanded his passport and still haven’t returned it — an ominous sign.

I’ve never heard of the U.S. confiscating someone’s passport,* and I wonder if it means the White House is fabricating a criminal case against Mr Ritter. He is certainly a huge thorn in Biden’s side.

A statement from Mr Ritter’s podcast producer, Jeff Norman, said: “Just prior to boarding the plane, he was prevented from doing so by U.S. Customs and Border Protection agents, who confiscated his passport. They told him they were acting on orders from the U.S. State Department. He was given no other explanation, and wasn't given a receipt for his passport. Scott has sent a letter to the State Department seeking an explanation and the return of his passport.”

Later, on his podcast, Mr Ritter said that the White House wants “to send a signal to anyone who wants to travel to Russia. They were afraid about what I was going to say and where I was going to say it”. The St Petersburg Economic forum is a “giant megaphone to the whole world”.

Mr Ritter is already on “Mirotvorets” the hit list run by Ukrainian nationalists and that receives support from the U.S. government. Mirotvorets labels Mr Ritter an “information terrorist”, which is an open call to have him killed. (Assassination of journalists supported by our tax dollars. Where are you George Clooney?!).

Despite the threats, Mr Ritter said on his recent podcast: “We’re not giving up. I’ve been at war with the U.S. government 24/7, for 30 years. It wears you down, but the cause — to stop a nuclear war and promoting peace — is very important.”

The second thing that surprised me is the article’s length — over 2,600 words (about five A4 pages) and an audio version that runs almost 21 minutes. Articles of this size are usually reserved only for very important public figures and events.

With all due respect to Mr Dougan, who I do not know and have never met, the fact is that he’s an unknown and minor figure. Devoting so much space and time to a man whose life and actions have little impact on the world is quite bizarre. But Meyers has to justify his high salary — he has to produce ‘evidence’ that supports the White House’s fake narrative of ‘Russian interference’ in our elections.

Meyers writes: “Mr. Dougan, 51, who received political asylum in Moscow, is now a key player in Russia’s disinformation operations against the West. …Working from an apartment crowded with servers and other computer equipment, Mr. Dougan has built an ever-growing network of more than 160 fake websites that mimic news outlets in the U.S., Britain and France. …With the help of commercially available artificial intelligence tools, including OpenAI’s ChatGPT and DALL-E 3, he has filled the sites with tens of thousands of articles, many based on actual news events.”

Intriguing. But is it true? Is there any evidence? Look closely at the article. In fact, there’s none. Nothing. We’re supposed to blindly trust Meyers and the NYT. The article’s main premise revolves around the dubious testimony of two characters who provide no evidence.

POST SCRIPTUM: I take no pleasure in writing these articles, exposing American corruption, mass murder, and the rise of a totalitarian state in Washington DC. Like many of you, I was raised to love my country and take pride in it. Today, however, there’s little to love and take pride in. Everywhere I look I only see reason for eternal shame. And don’t think for a moment that we’ll escape the Almighty’s judgement.

I’ve decided to make deconstructing and exposing western media lies a main focus of my labors. Today I’m launching my Telegram channel (link here). It’s in Russian only, precisely because it’s meant to be a tool to help Russian parents and teachers help their children/ students who might be susceptible to western disinformation. The main front of World War 3 is on the field of information and psychological warfare. Each of us is on the front lines. There’s a battle raging for your mind and soul.

ADDENDA BY THE EDITORS

* A case also worth remembering is that of Paul Robeson.
Here's a rather fair account (excerpted) of Robeson's trials with the US Government, of all places in Politico,  a liberal interventionist publication, via WWW.HISTORY.COM

Paul Robeson gestures May 31, 1948, as he tells the Senate Judiciary Committee he is willing to go to jail rather than answer a question as to whether or not he is a communist. | HUAC Photo By ANDREW GLASS 08/16/2018 12:01 AM EDT Before World War II, Paul Robeson, an African-American advocate for civil rights and an entertainer renowned for his work on Broadway and in films, became so dismayed over racism that he left the country and lived in Europe until 1939. During his 11 years abroad, Robeson became enamored by the Soviet Union, focusing on its disavowals of racial bias. During the war, while the United States was allied with Soviets against Nazi Germany, Robeson often performed before U.S. troops around the world. With the advent of the Cold War, the political climate changed; Robeson’s public statements in support of the Soviet Union began to draw pushback from official Washington. Before and after his performances, Robeson gave numerous interviews condemning segregation and discrimination. Some U.S. policymakers, including John Foster Dulles, the secretary of state, viewed America’s race relations as the nation’s “Achilles’ heel” in the propaganda war with the Soviet Union. Witnessing a well-known, globally popular African-American denounce segregation while praising the Russians was deemed unacceptable. In 1950, Robeson attempted to renew his passport so that he could travel abroad to fulfill his performance contracts. State Department officials insisted that before a renewal occurred Robeson sign an affidavit declaring that he was not a member of the Communist Party and that he was loyal to the United States. Robeson refused to do so and filed suit in federal court. On this day in 1955, a federal judge ruled that the State Department was within its legal rights to deny Robeson a passport. After the decision, Robeson declared that it was “rather absurd” that he was not “allowed to travel because of my friendship — open, spoken friendship — for the Soviet people and the peoples of all the world.” At a 1956 hearing before the House Un-American Activities Committee, Robeson said: “Whether I am or not a Communist is irrelevant. The question is whether American citizens, regardless of their political beliefs or sympathies, may enjoy their constitutional rights.” In 1958, the U.S. Supreme Court in Kent v. Dulles affirmed painter Rockwell Kent’s right to travel, declaring the denial of a passport a violation of his civil rights. The majority opinion, written by Justice William O. Douglas, found that “the right to travel is a part of the ‘liberty’ of which the citizen cannot be deprived without due process of law under the Fifth Amendment.” Six years later, in Aptheker v. Secretary of State, the court found that a law that barred communists from traveling abroad violated First Amendment principles, while leaving unsettled the extent to which this “liberty” can in any circumstances be curtailed. The 5-4 decision in 1958 also led to the restoration of Robeson’s passport. The damage to Robeson’s professional career, however, was done. He performed for a few more years before retiring in the 1960s, although the FBI continued to investigate him until his death in 1976 at age 77.

ADDENDUM 2
Leading civil libertarian and geopolitical analyst Garland Nixon sounds the tocsin about our vanishing constitutional rights—every American should listen
Here's Garland Nixon's trenchant analysis of the ruling elites' intensifying harassment of dissidents, as typified by their attacks on geopolitical analyst Scott Ritter, and the slandering and framing of independent websites opposing imperialist war and the rapid unraveling of Constitutional rights in the US, such as The Grayzone and The Greanville Post, both mentioned in this video commentary. 

Garland Nixon