The disgraceful judges of Britain’s High Court – who have gone along with torture, extraordinary rendition, every single argument for mass surveillance and hiding information from the public, and even secret courts – have ruled that it was lawful for the Home Office to detain David Miranda, a journalist as information he was carrying might in some undefined way, and if communicated to them, aid “terrorists”.
Despite the entire industry, both private and governmental, devoted to whipping up fear, it is plain to pretty well everyone by now that terrorism is about the most unlikely way for you to die. A car accident is many hundreds of times more likely. Even drowning in your own bath is more likely. Where is the massive industry of suppression against baths?
I had dinner inside the Ecuadorian Embassy on Sunday with Julian Assange, who I am happy to say is as fit and well as possible in circumstances of confinement. Amongst those present was Jesselyn Radack, attorney for, among others, Edward Snowden. Last week on entering the UK she was pulled over by immigration and interrogated about her clients. The supposed “immigration officer” already knew who are Jesselyn Radack’s clients. He insisted aggressively on referring repeatedly to Chelsea Manning as a criminal, to which Jesselyn quietly replied that he was a political prisoner. But even were we to accept the “immigration officer’s” assertion, the fact that an attorney defends those facing criminal charges is neither new nor until now considered reprehensible and illegitimate.
As various states slide towards totalitarianism, a defining factor is that their populations really don’t notice. Well, I have noticed. Have you?
Hi Fred,
Well, we may be coming to it from different bases but I’m glad to hear you thought it helped your understanding.
My problem with it is the outright lies it contains, such as saying that Julian Assange and Wikileaks hacked and reversed the Mubarak shut-down of the internet during the early days of the Arab Spring. In fact, it was an organisation called Telecomix who did that. Telecomix are closely connected to Wikileaks, and sympathetic to their cause, but they are nevertheless a different organisation. And giving his readers the false impression that Wikileaks themselves did this hack, instead of merely knowing about it as it was happening, plays right into the hands of the US Department of Justice who are eager to find *any* charges on which to hoick Assange over there – whether founded in fact, nor not.
Another substantial lie it contains is the part about Al-Jazeera allegedly offering Assange/Wikileaks $1.3 million dollars for exclusive access to Cablegate. O’Hagan is, of course, careful not to say whether such an offer was accepted or indeed whether negotiations proceeded beyond the point of this ‘offer’. You see, Al-Jazeera became one of the official media partners (meaning the cables relating to their region were shared with them free of charge, as with all the other media partners) pretty early in 2011 just as the Arab Spring was kicking off. See the excellent little film Mediastan – can be downloaded here: http://mediastan.net/ – to see that all media partners got the cables for free. But, again, this type of allegation – “Wikileaks sold the cables” – gives the US Department of Justice the opportunity to drum up all sorts of false charges against the organisation. Damn dangerous stuff.
So, that’s my reasons for having a problem with this O’Hagan piece – not the character assassination of Assange it contains (which, I guess, he must be used to by now – struck me as very old hat, anyway).
Here are some others who certainly have noticed;
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/feb/21/on-liberty-edward-snowden-freedom
@Arbed
Can’t say that I noticed any character assassinations, maybe we have different opinions on what good qualities in a person are.
Doug; I am still looking for any media outlet telling a different story on Maduro. He could just be a victim of covert ops, but his behavior plays into their hands.
http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/02/20/who-is-jailed-venezuelan-opposition-leader-leopoldo-lopez
This is the link…sorry.
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/venezuela-protests-internet-a-crucial-battleground-president-nicolas-maduro-blocks-websites-removes-tv-network-for-showing-student-killing/1/344953.html
@Fred,
Actually, I agree with you. What I meant was that Assange comes across in it as more human and likeable than O’Hagan does. I always hate it when a writer attempts to paint themselves whiter-than-white, while at the same time doing their best to blacken their subject’s character – hence, I call it character assassination but really I should add the word ‘attempted’ because I don’t think the piece really succeeds in that objective.
I’d also be curious to know how this piece squares with the ethics of being a ghostwriter. I know that the ghostwriter/subject confidentiality relationship is not legally formalized in the same way that attorney/client or doctor/patient is, but there must be some sort of professional ethics subscribed to by ghostwriters. As far as I’m aware, a ghostwriter doing something like this to a living subject he’s contracted with is unprecedented.
Ben
I see from that link of yours on Venezuela (http://www.ticotimes.net/2014/02/20/who-is-jailed-venezuelan-opposition-leader-leopoldo-lopez) that President Nicolas Maduro Moros (to give him his full name!) has taken to calling his opponents “right wing fascists”. Typical for a left wing wannabe demagogue.
“The largest country in Europe. Population 46 million.
The BBC appear to very satisfied with the current situation.”
Germany no longer in Europe then?
As the Ukraine appears to have halted its descent into civil war we might be excused a small sigh of relief. Of course it may be short lived and a lot will hinge on the forthcoming elections.
Guano Nadim Zahawi is the trougher who was claiming on expenses for the heating of his horse stables!
Child benefits cuts call from Tory MP who claims expenses to heat stables at his mansion
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/child-benefits-cuts-call-tory-2931012
I switched him off Guano.
“The Security State crushes ever tighter”
While some of the previous comments are interesting and thought-provoking in their own rights some do not exactly fit in with the topic. Have you noticed, asked Craig Murray, that states, he means like the UK and US, are moving ever closer to totalitarianism. Since 9/11 new laws have been introduced called anti-terrorism laws. They have enabled the imprisonment of people like Talha Ahsan and Babar Ahmed without trial for years on end. In this short video Hamja Ahsan, brother of Talha, speaks about why he has become a human rights’ activist. The way the police entered the Ahsan household and took away personal possessions that could not in any way be connected with terrorism, and imprisonment without trial demonstrates how things we took for granted are gone. Think about this carefully. One day it is going to you and your family.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jVa7dPOKLXM
Mary
I’m cynical enough to believe that they say and do these things deliberately to get themselves onto the BBC panels and further up the UK political pole and one day when they get to the top… chop… suddenly they call for Shari’ah.
I want shari’ah, but not racially-tinted shari’ah.
I like democracy in Ukraine, but not US=flavour, Chewyer’ear.
On Canadian politics and Stephen Harper.
Speak Now or Forever Renounce Peace
February 9, 2014
Antoni Wysocki argues that having to decide amongst the Liberals, the New Democrats and the Conservatives is like being asked if it would be preferable to drink hemlock from a red, orange or blue cup.
‘Stephen Harper is odious; this much is obvious. His foreign policy is about running interference for Washington in internationals affairs; his economic policy is to export whatever can be extruded from the tar sands; his domestic policy is building prisons. Harper’s determination to obstruct, divert or distort all streams of information that do not flow directly from his office suggests a man at war with the idea of independent thought as such. Harper’s very countenance and manner are vaguely horrifying, giving the impression of some failed simulacrum of a human being — a creepily imperfect copy whose uncanny presence is wont to induce horripilation. In short, Central Casting could scarcely have selected someone better suited to the role of bogeyman in the nightmares of Canada’s left and liberals. No wonder editorial cartoonist Michael de Adder likes to depict Harper in the guise of Darth Vader.’
[..]
‘What changes took place in 2013 to so radically overthrow standard conceptions of the global political order? One was the release of an avalanche of top secret documents by Edward Snowden, who obtained them while working for the National Security Agency of the United States.
That the capitalist system is safeguarded the world over by a universal policing establishment under the direction of the United States was not news to those who had been paying attention, but it was only with Snowden’s revelations that the regime’s true dimensions finally hove into view. Thanks to Snowden we now know that the United States government commands a global spying operation that is invasive and ubiquitous beyond the most fervid longings of a Hitler or a Stalin; a totalitarian surveillance apparatus so monstrous as to have no parallels outside the realm of science fiction.
Nor — and here we come to the other great thunderbolt of 2013 — are the masters of the universe satisfied with merely being omniscient. One of God’s attributes is that nothing is hidden from Him; another is that He alone decides who will live and who must die. Naturally then this is a regime that, in the person of the president of the United States, openly and explicitly reserves to itself the right to exterminate by fiat whomsoever it pleases, anywhere on the planet. In February of last year a white paper released by the administration of US President Barack Obama put the world on formal notice of this autotelic licence to kill.
There could be no more obscene insult to the most basic notions of justice, freedom and democracy than this world-spanning system of surveillance and repression. Yet the parliamentary opposition has neither denounced this unbounded tyranny nor called for Canada to cease its direct participation in it as a member of the “Five Eyes” network with the US, the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.’
http://halifax.mediacoop.ca/blog/antoni-wysocki/21347
I agree, John. I think of the Pastor Bonhoeffer poem when considering this creeping totalitarianism. Maybe the West thinks that as China can have capitalism without democracy, “we” should go the same way.
To answer Craig’s question, if you pay attention, you’ll notice. But for as long as there is cheap food and screen-based distractions, most people, it seems to me, don’t really care.
If UK capitalism can’t be revived – growth and jobs – that might change, I guess; there could be enough disenfranchised young people to become politicised and active – and angry.
“If UK capitalism can’t be revived – growth and jobs – that might change, I guess; there could be enough disenfranchised young people to become politicised and active – and angry.”
There were a lot of angry young men in my day as well as playwright John Osborne. But then our forefathers had fought to get a national health service and other rights (like amendments to working hours, overtime pay and good safety practices). Many of these have gone and the Tories are currently chipping away at the NHS, siphoning off the more lucrative parts to their private sponsors, and making the rest top-heavy with management (who all have to be paid) instead of doctors and nurses. It is a world gone mad.
Can the UK’s official unemployment figures be trusted (sorry for O/T)?
http://www.mirror.co.uk/money/jobs/unemployment-figures-iain-duncan-smiths-3152770
There was also a snippet (tucked away) in the Guardian, but not a peep from the state broadcaster.
“Can the UK’s official unemployment figures be trusted”
http://johnnyvoid.wordpress.com/2014/02/19/dont-believe-the-hype-unemployment-is-back-on-the-rise/
USA
http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2013/12/10/misleading-official-employment-statistics-paul-craig-roberts/
I agree John Goss.
When I was at school in the ’60s, we were all politically aware, and mostly ‘left’ in the sense of caring about inequality and injustice. I went to the Garden House demo in Cambridge against the Greek military junta. Melford Stephenson would be at home in today’s world I think.
Johno, Judge Stevenson defended the last woman to be hanged, Ruth Ellis. At the Nuremberg trials he “served as Judge Advocate at the “Peleus” Trial, swiftly despatching Commander Eck and two other officers of the German submarine U852 to death by firing squad.” He fought for the reintroduction of the death penalty after its abolition. He stood as a Tory. There is not much more to say about him except for the harsh sentences he handed out especially as concerned the Cambridge protesters.
http://copperknob.wordpress.com/extra-notes-melford-stevenson/
“The Security State Crushes Ever Tighter”
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/?fb_action_ids=285510408267366&fb_action_types=og.likes&fb_ref=.Uwj8jyzeFdk.like&fb_source=other_multiline&action_object_map=%5B529352443847785%5D&action_type_map=%5B%22og.likes%22%5D&action_ref_map=%5B%22.Uwj8jyzeFdk.like%22%5D
An interesting and quite scary article here about the use of panoptical surveillance and its uses within the corporate world:
https://medium.com/matter/76d9913c6011
@ Mary 22 Feb, 2014 – 6:37 pm
Quote from the Antoni Wysocki article you referred to above: “One of God’s attributes is that nothing is hidden from Him…”
It isn’t necessary for God to exist, only for a large number of people to believe that nothing is hidden from Him and He will exact vengeance.
This from a reader’s comment on a Washington Post blog some months ago, discussing the ObamaCare website fiasco:
This from the British playwright Sir David Hare:
http://
aangirfan.blogspot.co.uk/2014/02/the-spooks-run-country-sir-david-hare.html?m=1
Habbabkuk (La vita è bella!
22 Feb, 2014 – 10:16 am
“Re the repressive security state:”
“Interesting video footage just available (from RT!) showing how rasPutin’s state deals with protest in Russia (Sochi)…”
Yes Habbabkuk it is disturbing but not surprising; power corrupts.
A link to the video here:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26263141
British police are not immune to the corrupting effects of power.
How the British state deal with protest:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/8597217.stm
There are many other example of police brutality in Britain and of course the USA and most go unpunished.
Perhaps you can’t see the wood for the trees Habbabkuk
Last October’s speech given by Andrew Parker, head of MI5, at the HQ of RUSI.
Director of Security Service on MI5 and the Evolving Threat
http://www.rusi.org/events/past/ref:E5254359BB8F44#.UlRy-RZsfld
I had been looking at this profile of David Abrahams, the Labour Party donor involved in a donations scandal in 2007. He is now a vice president of RUSI!
He obviously seeks and obtains associations with the powerful as he views them. He is still a Labour supporter.
Political Lives: David Abrahams
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-25869867
Petraeus is the Senior Vice President.
http://www.rusi.org/about/council/
McChrystal is speaking there on March 3rd
A lecture by General (Ret) Stanley A. McChrystal, former Commander of US and NATO International Security Assistance Forces, Afghanistan.General Ret Stanley A McChrystal
In his lecture, General McChrystal will reflect on the enduring lessons of leadership and the complex security challenges of Iraq and Afghanistan. He will also make observations on the emerging requirements of the ‘post-Afghan’ security environment.
LOL
I have just referred to Petraeus speaking at RUSI.
I saw this quote about him in the Bill Moyers’ article that Someone posted.
http://billmoyers.com/2014/02/21/anatomy-of-the-deep-state/
‘In 2013, General David Petraeus joined KKR (formerly Kohlberg Kravis Roberts) of 9 West 57th Street, New York, a private equity firm with $62.3 billion in assets. KKR specializes in management buyouts and leveraged finance. General Petraeus’ expertise in these areas is unclear. His ability to peddle influence, however, is a known and valued commodity. Unlike Cincinnatus, the military commanders of the Deep State do not take up the plow once they lay down the sword. Petraeus also obtained a sinecure as a non-resident senior fellow at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard. The Ivy League is, of course, the preferred bleaching tub and charm school of the American oligarchy.
Petraeus and most of the avatars of the Deep State — the White House advisers who urged Obama not to impose compensation limits on Wall Street CEOs, the contractor-connected think tank experts who besought us to “stay the course” in Iraq, the economic gurus who perpetually demonstrate that globalization and deregulation are a blessing that makes us all better off in the long run — are careful to pretend that they have no ideology. Their preferred pose is that of the politically neutral technocrat offering well considered advice based on profound expertise. That is nonsense. They are deeply dyed in the hue of the official ideology of the governing class, an ideology that is neither specifically Democrat nor Republican.’
Sorry. It was McChrystal who is speaking at RUSI. Petraeus is the Senior Vice President there. Lots of flights across the Atlantic then?
Ben
22 Feb, 2014 – 3:40 pm
“Doug; I am still looking for any media outlet telling a different story on Maduro. He could just be a victim of covert ops, but his behaviour plays into their hands.”
I don’t know what you mean by his “behaviour” Ben.
If you want to know more about the situation in Venezuela you could try this:
http://venezuelanalysis.com/
Thanks for the link to O Hagans piece of ‘ghosting, at Ellingham and the intersting discussion you had with Arbed.
The problem with taking other peoples assumptions or near truth, is the exclusion of the subject from real life.
If Julian Assange was free to speak and act, without the pressures that eminates from the hegemonial power structures of this world, then we could make our own mind up, won’t have to rely on this or that morsel to pre judge a character.
It still was a good reflection of his time at Ellingham Hall, some 20 miles from here. I desisted from visiting Vaughan during that time, but ensured that his plight was raised on local radio and in the press.
Mayb e the omissions of OHagan were due to lax research, or feeding from too many troughs out there, all pushing one or other false speculations, maybe its due to some editor asking for embllishments, we do not know.
I do not need to see Julian in the flesh to support his plight for freedom, justice and acceptance of his vital work within Wikileaks, but it would slightly change my perception of him should it happen in future.
Which brings me back to the ‘against crushing us with security garden party’…….
re President Nicolas Maduro Morors
“I don’t know what you mean by his “behaviour” Ben.”
___________________
I think, Mr Scorgie, that if you look at the links Ben supplied, you will get some idea of what he meant.
I know it’s heresy to even whisper a word of criticism about El Presidente and so I would like to thank Ben for those links.
I shall of course also peruse the link you kindly supplied, Mr Scorgie, and then compare what’s there with comment and analysis available from other sources.
“There are many other example of police brutality in Britain and of course the USA and most go unpunished.”
________________________
I’m sure you’re right, Mr Scorgie, but if I were a protester, dissident or otherwise disaffected with the the state, I think I’d rather take my chances in the UK than in the land of President rasPutin.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Actually, you may have (inadvertently) put your digit on it when you wrote
“…it is disturbing but not surprising; power corrupts.”
I would tend to agree with that and therefore draw the conclusion that many of the woes and travails of humanity have their roots in the nature of the human being himself and are not unique to the UK, the USA and the West.
“Judge Stevenson defended the last woman to be hanged, Ruth Ellis. At the Nuremberg trials he “served as Judge Advocate at the “Peleus” Trial, swiftly despatching Commander Eck and two other officers of the German submarine U852 to death by firing squad.””
________________
Thanks for the above, Mr Goss, it was very interesting. I looked up the case just now and also learnt that the three Germans were tried, convicted and executed (firing squad) for having shot the survivors of a Greek merchant ship clinging to wreckage in the water.
I didn’t find anything about “swiftly dispatching” anyone, though; the impression I got was that the trial was a perfectly normal war crimes trail, neither faster or slower than any other. But if you dispose of any information to the contrary, I’d be interested to hear it.
BTW, did you know that the house in Brighton to which Judge Stevenson retired was named “Truncheons”? I think that was rather witty.