The Guardian has today published a whole series of attack piece articles on Julian Assange which plainly exult in the fact he has now been silenced by the cutting of his communication with the outside world. They also include outright lies such as this one by Dan Collyns:
In fact Julian Assange was questioned for two days solid in the Embassy by Swedish procurators and police in November 2016. The statement he gave to them at that time I published in full. Following that questioning it was plain that there was no hope of a successful prosecution, particularly as the only physical evidence Swedish Police had was a condom Anna Ardin claimed he had worn but which had no trace of his DNA – a physical impossibility.
Dan Collyns is a freelance based in Peru, but the Guardian’s editors certainly know it is blatantly untrue that the investigation into Assange was dropped because he could not be questioned. They have knowingly published a lie. “Facts are sacred” there, apparently.
The Guardian article gives another complete lie, this time in the Harding penned section, where it says that “sources” reveal that Assange had hacked into the Embassy’s communications. That is completely untrue as are the “facts” given about Julian’s relationship with the Embassy staff, whom I know well. It is plain that these “sources” are separate from the Ecuadorean security dossier published in Focus Ecuador by the CIA. I would bet any money that these anonymous “sources” are as always Harding’s mates in the UK security services. That the Guardian should allow itself to be used in a security service disinformation campaign designed to provoke distrust between Assange and Embassy staff, is appalling.
I had a front row seat in 2010 when the Guardian suddenly switched from championing Assange to attacking him, in a deeply unedifying row about the rights and money from a projected autobiography. But they have sunk to a new low today in a collaboration between long term MI6 mouthpiece Luke Harding and the CIA financed neo-con propagandists of Focus Ecuador.
The Guardian pieces are full of truly startling revelations. Would you ever have guessed, for example, that Julian Assange was visited by his Wikileaks colleague Sarah Harrison, his friends Vaughn Smith and, err, me, and his lawyer Gareth Peirce?! This great scandal, Harding states in an assertion as evidence-free as his entire “Russia hacked the elections” book, “will interest Mueller”. Despite the fact none of these visits was secret and mine was broadcast live to the world by Wikileaks on Brexit referendum night.
The aim of the “Guardian” piece is of course to help urge Ecuador to expel Julian from the Embassy. There is no doubt that the actions of Lenin Moreno, under extreme pressure from the USA, have been severely disappointing, though I am more inclined to praise Ecuador for its courageous defiance of the US than blame it for eventually caving in to the vast resources the CIA is spending on undermining it. It is also worth noting that, post the Francoist human rights abuses in Catalonia, it was Spain and the EU joining in US pressure which tipped the balance.
Julian’s principled refusal to abandon the Catalan cause, against direct Ecuadorean threats to do precisely what they have now done, has not received the credit it deserves.
The same Blairites who supported the latest Israeli massacre will this morning be revelling in the Guardian’s celebration of the silencing of a key dissident voice. I have no wish to try and understand these people.
The aim pf the “Guardian” piece is of course to help urge Ecuador to expel Julian from the Embassy. There is no doubt that the actions of Lenin Moreno, under extreme pressure from the USA, have been severely disappointing, though I am more inclined to praise Ecuador for its courageous defiance of the US than blame it for eventually caving in to the vast resources the CIA is spending on undermining it. It is also worth noting that, post the Francoist human rights abuses in Catalonia, it was Spain and the EU joining in US pressure which tipped the balance.
You’d think the Guardian and the Spanish government would realise that they’ve been taken over by the CIA? I wonder who else might have been infiltrated? I mean, the Nobel Prize for literature, obviously. Why else would they silence themselves? Sainsbury’s, clearly. Why else would they sell their proud British business to Wallmart? I wonder if Sainsbury’s is now going to cut off food supply to the Ecuadorian embassy to force Assange to surrender himiself to the CIA…
But seriously, contrary to what Julian Assange seems to think, the world does not revolve around him.
Curious, Martinned, why do you say Julian seems to think that the world revolves around him?
Martinned thinks the world revolves around him. I knew as soon as I saw the heading who would be making the first post… some kind of algorithm in place Martinned?
So you are saying that Julian Assange is delusional if he thinks the four articles about him in the Guardian today, are about him?
Being the first to jump from the bushes and place the first two comments here, your world seems to revolve around him plenty, or just a bit too much to throw that criticism unto others.
Classic case of projection, methinks.
Given how much effort the US and others have gone to silence him and/or extricate him from various places they appear to think him very important.
First out of the trap? What a surprise.
RSS readers are great, you should use them.
Spot on, love him or hate him, Assange/WikiLeaks has been a power for good, the US Hegemony is in its death-throws as the Dollar/Oil world system is being outstripped by renewable energy which is rapidly becoming cheaper than the carbon-based alternatives.
But the US is like a rabid dog and its incumbent POTUS is so deranged, so in the control of both Russian & Israeli that he is exponentially dangerous as he makes a mockery of the U.S. and hastens its inevitable downfall!
We are watching a re-run of the Fall of the Roman Empire…
keep up the great work
Monty
and what happened to the ‘civilised’ (and ‘uncivilised) world when the Roman Empire fell?
It stayed ‘civilised’?
“Throes”, not “throws”.
🙂
We need more whistleblowers to come forward and keep the pressure on the English and American governments.
The Guardian Media Group CEO is reportedly paid over £700,000 pa and they ask at the end of each article if readers would please pay only a pound in subscriptions to keep them afloat so their journalists can write the stuff they do.
.. can write the ‘stuff’ they do.
I guess Rob that ‘stuff’ is a euphemism for ‘Propaganda’
I didn’t know that, but why should I be surprised.
Even now, most people seem to think the Guardian is a left wing rag.
The public tend to confuse Liberal with left wing, Liberalism within the context of the Guardian is the liberal hand of the Estsblshment – it approves of liberal causes such as gay marriage, immigration, nutroast, renewables, some state intervention in domestic policy. These things drive Establishment conservatives nuts, they dismiss it as the left. However when it comes to foreign policy they are both in total agreement, in fact they’ll announce that foreign policy is where they should bury the hatchet after all, they say, Military intervention is just common sense.
The *real* left are excluded from any mainstream debate. When the MSM perceived Overton Window was more towards the centre they very left policy we’re entertained and extremely lively debate built around them, but never actually implimented. However since the extreme right has got its hands on some government leavers we’re being steered well away.
Extreme right wing thought is an illness of the mind, it’s greedy and paranoid, both these traits are insatiable and unappeasable, the more appeasement the further to the right it will drift, till it ends in collapse, I believe the west is well and truly on this path, especially in the English speaking countries. I hope with all my heart we pull it back and I work towards that outcome, but I doubt it, we’re watching a fascist government in Isra*l shooting babies in a ghetto of their making, and we have the pseudo left such as LFI members openly victim blaming, and covering for this clear case of genocidal nazism. Where have we seen that before at this extreme level? Well Germany 1935, where the madness was unleashed and within 10 years collapsed.
We should never fear that fascism will never collapse, it always does, the problem is the damage it does on its road to hell.
Still we must fight it with all our might. As I learned from the great Stuart Hall “pessimism of the intellect, optimism of the will”. You can see that in the brave Palestinians who marched to their deaths yesterday, knowing that they can no longer live in a cage, knowing that they will probably die if they march, but knowing every death with spur on the next level of resistance, they know that Isra*li fascism will collapse, the changing demographics are with the Palestinians not the European colonialists.
Well I’ve wittered on enough. Peace to you
@ Shatnersrug May 16, 2018 at 10:32
They’re half right; the rag bit.
Yes, the media formerly considered ‘leftist’ nowadays like to focus on issues such as LGBT, sexism, racism etc – all noble causes, but its at the expense of some bigger elephants in the room. Its a very convenient way of deflecting attention away from the more traditional leftist topics of wages, poverty, self betterment, public services, fair taxation, unions, etc.
Seems to me that its all about virtue signalling without rocking the rich peoples’ yachts.
The Guardian keeps begging readers for money so that they can serve them more CIA boilerplate feed. Stop this nonsense and just get a budget straight from Langley. They can join the NYT, WaPo and the EU apparatchiks: being able to print an infinite number of dollars thanks to willing $unni oil enables this U$ financial perpetuum mobile.
I don’t think their begging messages are really there to provide funding, I think they’re there to hide where the real funding is coming from, I bet at the end of the year they publish some old claptrap about how donations are taking off. Except anyone with half a brain can look at the current editorial content and work out where the funding is coming from
A whistleblower is “jailed” on made up pretext, and then you have western mainstream liberal media blast him.
And the same The Guardian why no one longer trust nor read this rag?
With great respect, Mr Assange is neither a whistle-blower nor is he jailed (with or without inverted commas).
He is the publisher of illegally obtained information passed on to him and has chosen to hole up in the embassy of a foreign country in order to escape arrest and conviction for skipping bail.
If it were for you there wouldn’t have been a Watergate. You sound like an FBI agent.
No, the FBI agent is the bloke who commented earlier on at 12:13 pm. He even admits it (“Agent Green”) !
Comparing the Assange brouhaha with Watergate is just plain silly. Hence your ad personam is also plain silly.
As a punishment, I’ll give you (yes, you, not one of your fellows) the following task: in no more than 10 lines, tell us what good exposing Watergate did anyone.
Listen, I’m gonna do you a favor: You’re not the sharpest knife. With every comment that shows more and more. You might want to consider that.
You are maybe right re Watergate especially when this was happening?
“COINTELPRO (an acronym for COunter INTELligence PROgram) was a series of covert, and at times illegal,[1][2] projects conducted by the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) aimed at surveilling, infiltrating, discrediting, and disrupting domestic political organizations.[3][4] FBI records show that COINTELPRO resources targeted groups and individuals that the FBI deemed subversive,[5] including anti-Vietnam War organizers, activists of the Civil Rights Movement or Black Power movement (e.g., Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panther Party), feminist organizations, independence movements (such as Puerto Rican independence groups like the Young Lords), and a variety of organizations that were part of the broader New Left.
The FBI has used covert operations against domestic political groups since its inception; however, covert operations under the official COINTELPRO label took place between 1956 and 1971.[6] COINTELPRO tactics are still used to this day, and have been alleged to include discrediting targets through psychological warfare; smearing individuals and groups using forged documents and by planting false reports in the media; harassment; wrongful imprisonment; and illegal violence, including assassination.[7][8][9][10] The FBI’s stated motivation was “protecting national security, preventing violence, and maintaining the existing social and political order.[sic.]”[11]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COINTELPRO
It demonstrated clear corruption on the part of the Republican party and exposed the dirty tricks they employed
It struck a blow for brilliant investigative journalism
It brought down President Nixon
It enshrined the notion of a free Press and freedom of speech without prosecution or consequences for the Journalists
It led to the exposure of how Nixon continued the Vietnam war in order to be re-elected an action which cost hundreds of thousands of life
It led to the Washington Post, through some brilliant investigative journalism to expose the lies the US Government told, some years ago now about the Korean passenger jet shot down whilst flying over Russian restricted airspace ignoring all warnings to leave the airspace, that it was, in fact, carrying USA Government reconnaissance equipment (i.e. cameras etc) in order to identify what military capacity Russia had in the region
Things have considerably changed since that time with Fox being the extremely right wing propaganda arm of the Republican Party and the NRA. Now you might think the above are not ‘good’ things for anyone, but they are because it is underpinned by brilliant investigative journalism – which now seems to be a thing of the past – at least in the MSM not outside of it. Now though, the MSM are just a massive propaganda machine for the Tory’s and Republicans in the USA and UK. So, at the time it did the power of good by providing proper, impartial information as to the dirty tricks of the Party in Government at that time. It’s a shame those principles have been lost now tough.
Julian Assange’s bail was in extradition proceedings on false allegations made in a CIA conspiracy to pervert the course of justice in Sweden.
His main fear if he walks out of the embassy is that the British poshboys will obey their US masters and that they will keep him in a British prison, get an SIS judge to say some magic words, and then hoik him on to a US plane so that he will end up in a US prison called Marion. The Ecuadorean embassy is preferable to Marion.
I find it hard to believe that Catalonia is the main issue here. That said, the forces in play in that dispute are not “the Catalan people” and “Francoist imperialists” as some people, including some Scottish nationalists, would have it. US-educated Rafael Correa now lives in Belgium and works for RT, right? What’s that about?
Interesting that John Young of Cryptome never trusted Wikileaks.
You have to look at what Wikileaks has helped achieve. The release of few bits of information about “Prince” Andrew was good, but there could have been a lot more. They haven’t contributed much to stopping US-led war efforts in the Middle East. They haven’t hurt western big business or the public relations profiles of any western elites, although they have stroked the feelings of those who are already alienated from and opposed to those elites, which is something different. The election of a fascist to the US presidency has got to be near the top of the list of what they’ve helped achieve.
There’s a new lady now.
She’s called Florence
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ADX_Florence
– “I find it hard to believe that Catalonia is the main issue here”
Catalonia is a big issue to Spain, and Spain is a big issue for Ecuador.
– “Interesting that John Young of Cryptome never trusted Wikileaks”
Substantiation please. So far as I remember, John Young advises readers and contributors to trust no one, including himself and his own site. He recommends readers to do their own verification, and contributors to take their own precautions to protect their anonymity.
A whistleblower indeed, if you want to play semantics go ahead, your diminishing comments wont change the facts.
There is no conviction left, instead there are threats by UK government that he’s going to be arrested regardless for petty crimes and God knows what more (extradition?), thats why he is in the embassy.
shouldn’t your name be Bostick rather than Bostock – you seem to keep trying to make things stick together that don’t??
Jizzer
I hate to tell you this, but Sharp Ears beat you to it !
Any news on the DUI ?
Charles, I am not sure who these days would be classified as a whistle-blower – but I think on a broad definition, Julian Assange would fit the title as it is exactly what he did with the information he was given. It is the case that the reason he is in the Ecuadorian Embassy now held incommunicado so to speak, is precisely because, due to the information that was made public, the USA/CIA/MI6 no doubt wish to bring some sort of prosecution with the am of a long term of imprisonment for him. We should be glad that he published the information he did as we should of Snowden because the information is damning to the USA and UK Governments and shows the extent to which the deep state international interference affect the world. We live in a democracy, well, an alleged democracy that is, even though it is less and less beginning to look like any vestige of one, we have a right to know this information and how it affects our lives – nobody should go to prison to protect the deep state – it should be held accountable for its actions even if it doesn’t want to be. I sincerely hope there will future Julian Assange’s and Edward Snowdens in this world.
As far as I’m concerned, the Guardian isn’t a newspaper. It’s a satirical publication, only not as good as Private Eye. People haven’t realised that yet. One look at it’s home page online clearly shows that it’s satirical and not a serious journal.
That or a fake feminists web site. MeToo but never by a Muslim.
Thank you so much for your upholding of truth, principal of fighting against abuses of human Rights against powerful forces.
Some disgusting woman named Kleiman on Sky’s papers review on Assange said ‘time to get him out and face the music’. These supposedly progressive airheads mouth off without mentioning the consequences of life in a US max prison. They utterly refuse to recognise that the US is now a fully fascist police state where the rule of law works only in exceptional circumstances. But then Sky is Murdoch influenced if not controlled.
If Assange would support Hillary he would be out just like that. Now he apparently is labeled an enemy and the reason why she lost, and the western media cant accept that.
“The US is now a fully fascist police state”
Absolutely right! That’s why so many people are prepared are prepared to risk everything to get there. Same as the UK, really.
If only the US and UK were liberal, democratic, caring nations in the Russia, or China, or Venezuela or…. mold they wouldn’t have this bloody immigration problem!
Which makes me wonder who Russia, China, Venezuela are going to bomb next.
@ bj. Nice retort.
Those are loving bombs, filled with the purest democratic values money can buy.
Charles, unfortunately, it is the case that the USA is a fully fascist police state. They have the most draconian, racist, harsh, justice system in the world. The police, as can be seen from the huge number of black people killed by them – or summarily executed I should say – are totally fascist – and are proud to be so. There are, on estimate over half a million, if not more people, in prison who are clearly not guilty – something which is slowly being addressed by Innocent projects. Just look recently at the young black man who was arrested by the police for, quite frankly, something they couldn’t even quantify at the time, and an officer got caught on tape punching him in the face. This is a common occurrence on the part of the police. This is a country for God’s sake that called the survivors of Parkland School shooting who then became an active anti-gun group with a good deal of influence, ‘crisis actors’ and more abusive insults than that – all to protect the NRA. I could go on and on but one thing the USA is is a fascists police state – with the CIA and FBI having large groups of people who question the Government narrative under surveillance. It is a country where, if you are black and have a previous conviction – even if that was 30-40 years earlier – you are denied the right to vote in elections – only if you are black note. It is a country that still operates a covert apartheid policy with there being separate organisations for black people such as Chambers of Commerce and others. It is a country that has high school proms that are segregated into one for black and one for whites. I could go on and on. The people who would risk everything to go there are brainwashed by the American Dream – when they get there I think you will find they are either completely disillusioned or they indulge in a life of crime and corruption in order to get rich and gain power. Give me Russia, Venezuela or China any day of the week – at least they are more transparent about their Governments.
” It is a country that has high school proms that are segregated into one for black and one for whites.”
I actually had to google this. Unbelievable.
There’s a whole new generation of these brainwashed idiots to worry about.
As arrogant as they’re stupid:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ikWyNJobKuc
London is a dangerous place regarding the liberty of speech. They muted Assange as well as Skripals.
Christopher Steele also left UK. Snowden was smart enough to flee to Russia.
Snowden didn’t flee to Russia. He was stranded while changing flights in Russia, by US revocation of his passport, while attempting to fly to South America.
Why would Cuba obey US officials’ orders (which Fidel Castro denied)? There were no direct flights from Moscow to Ecuador, Nicaragua, Bolivia, or Venezuela, which had all offered asylum, but there were flights to Havana and he’d been booked on to one of them. It wasn’t a US government trick with paperwork that kept him in Russia. What’s wrong with fleeing to Russia anyway?
I’m sorry, I didn’t follow news on Snowden at that time. I know he lives in Russia, not arrested or restricted, he has access to lowyers, his parents and his girlfriend visited him, so I supposed he simply intended to flee to Russia from the beginning.
Tatyana, no apology necessary. Sorry if I seemed terse; I try to keep things brief because there are so many comments.
Are you saying Snowden is lying? He has repeatedly stated that he was trying to reach Latin America, and was stranded in Russia by the US revoking his passport.
I’m making a point about fact. I’m not making an ethical point about Russia; are you?
And who tipped off Putin beforehand so that a KGB trustee was there ready to meet him in Moscow?
Most probably the US informed the Russian authorities. There would have been no point in the US revoking Snowden’s passport unless they informed foreign border authorities. The US certainly didn’t want Snowden to reach a safe haven:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Edward_snowden#Morales_plane_incident
You’re forever making implications with rhetorical questions RD; if you have evidence, post it. This time you’re suggesting Assange handed Snowden to Russia, but how could Assange have known that Snowden’s passport had been revoked? Stop cooking up conspiracy theories.
Apart from enough of us storming the embassy and taking him into safe custody (I can dream aloud can’t I? ) all that is left is for him to walk out, head held high, and say bring it on. At least the lies from Martinned will be exposed and may finally shut him up. Will bookies give me odds on him not being extradited to the US?
Yes perhaps he should, then the politicized witch hunt will be so obvious that fewer and fewer people will support it.
Storm the embassy? You couldn’t even get any of our loudmouths to attend yesterday’s peaceful pro-Palestinan demonstration.
I take that personally.
Do you really think everyone of the people here on this forum lives in or around London or even in England?
Yes you do. That shows your narrow-mindedness, once again.
It’s as bad as the British media class, who are divided into two groups – those who think north London is the centre of the universe, and those who think north London _is_ the universe.
I’d go further. They don’t mean Walthamstow or Tottenham! 🙂
It would have to have been Harding. Shame on him and shame on Viner and the ‘Guardian’, a once fine newspaper.
Revealed: Ecuador
spent millions on
spy operation for
Julian Assange
The Guardian 16 hours ago
How Julian
Assange became
an unwelcome
guest in Ecuador’s …
The Guardian16 hours ago
Why does Ecuador
want Assange out
of its London
embassy?
The Guardian 16 hours ago
The banality of evil.
Sharp ears, good questions. One comment though, there is nothing, absolutely nothing, banal about evil. It is proactive, purposeful and designed to cause maximum hurt, damage and psychological and physical trauma.
The real question is whether reading figures are going up or not.
Paradoxically, the more outrageous a headline, the more clickthrus you may generate. So writing rubbish may in fact be good for traffic. James Delingpole has made a living from that…targeting the puerile emotionally pre-adolescent far right tribes….maybe Luke Harding is doing the same with another crowd of idiots?
But I would be interested in seeing how Neocon Guardian finances itself.
Has anybody subscribed to its appeals at the foot of every article? I know I haven’t.
Ecuador silenced Arrange on the basis of a bogus story on a notorious neocon fake-news site. It’s a site that specializes in creating and distributing false stories about Russian interference in the internal politics of European countries.
https://theintercept.com/2018/04/20/how-fake-news-and-western-propaganda-about-russian-interference-in-catalonia-coerced-ecuador-to-silence-julian-assange/
Such sites have become the Guardian’s close allies in propagating for war and smearing anybody who dares opposes war.
Thanks for that link; a fascinating and well researched article.
Some details in the Guardian’s reports seem to clearly be black propaganda, such as the 80% of $280m spent on Assange in 2017. More generally I am listening to this debate and trying not to jump to conclusions
But I am still uneasy about Assange having been visited by Farage and that he may have been a back channel between Trump’s people and Putin’s
JohnW
“But I am still uneasy about Assange having been visited by Farage and that he may have been a back channel between Trump’s people and Putin’s”
You are uneasy that a person have met Farage? And who believes Assange have “back channels” with Trump/Putin. Why spread this nonsense even in 2018?
Look at the people Farage associates with and then tries to hide his association with – Dana Rohrabacher and Cambridge Analytica as examples. He was embarrassed to have been discovered to have visited Assange. If it had been a matter of principle he would have had no problem in talking about it, but clearly he has.
In about June 2017 there was a lot of discussion on whether Farage via Assange had been the conduit for the Clinton emails just before the 2016 US presidential election. Since you have no clear knowledge and only make assumptions you cannot describe a theory as nonsense. There are falsehoods stated both against and in defence of Assange.
JohnW
I dont get it, why is it such a problem if he met Farage? And now you bring up Rohrbacher? Why is he so bad now?
And what about Cambridge Analytica?
Of course the russia-gate is nonsense.
You dont bring up theories, you level nonsense accusations.
@JohnW
From my, russian, point of view, it is strange to see how easily western society is distracted from the main idea.
Reported on Nuland’s leaked call – you concentrate on her f** the EU, not on US putting people into Ukrainian government.
Reported on Clinton e-mails – you concentrate on ‘russian hackers’ and not on Clinton’s lies.
Reported on Skripals – you concentrate on ‘russian assasination’ and not on the case itself.
Reported on Assage silenceing – you concentrate on his possible ‘russian ties’.
Reported on Trump’s moving US embassy to Jerusalem – you concentrate on Israeli’s shooting at Palestinians.
Reported on Snowden’s whistleblowing – will you concentrate on Prizm? On total surveillance? Or on his current disposition in Russia?
Tatyana I find your posts on here really refreshing. You are absolutely right of course – it is one of the key characteristics of the British Nation that the truth is universally circled around, denied, deviated from, smoke-screened and perverted rather than actually acknowledge it. In my previous career I found that when I had long-standing really really complex cases the reason there had been no progress after many years of work was because nobody wanted to get to the truth and the heart of the matter that needed to be addressed – it was deemed to be too difficult as you would have to roll your sleeves up, take a lot of flak and get your hands dirty to sort it out. There was and still is no will to do the work that is required rather, it is easier, less effective and certainly less cost effective to circle around the truth and deal with the minor periphery issues. I have only one negative comment and that is that we were right to focus on the massacre of the Palestinians by the IDF (on Netanyahoos instructions) as it was an international act of terrorism (yet another one) on the part of the Israeli Government and was directly linked to the opening of the USA Embassy in Jerusalem.
The trouble with that JohnW, is that as a good person you hate that trump is president, and you like many are desperate to believe the Russians put him there, and it only need to be exposed for his premiership to collapse and Liberalism can be revived.
I’m affraid this view, the one touted in the mainstream(who insidentally in the US haven’t had such a profitable era in many years, as the head of CBS stated “trump maybe ban for America, but he’s great for CBS”) is artificial it’s based on the erroneous idea that democrats would be better even though the last 8 years was proof otherwise.
The fact is Trump won the election because people voted for him and voted in the right states. Clinton refused to visit some swing states and she insulted half the electorate, just as Romney did before, it’s is the surest way to lose an election, even if you may have a point!
It seems clear to me that the Wikileaks Podesta release wasn’t orchestrated by Russia but by the same people behind the vast distributed propaganda network the NSA/CIA maintains.
Russia was clearly cultivating leverage over Hillary Clinton via the Uranium One scheme (i.e. Russia wanted Hillary Clinton to win the presidency) and once this became known evidence was leaked/hacked through Wikileaks (just like how Hillary Clinton leaked State Department cables through Wikileaks to destabilise ME countries) to prevent her winning.
The immense surge in distributed computational propaganda that accompanied the Podesta release gave the whole thing away.
I mean seriously? Alex Jones gets behind a presidential candidate? With Infowars being such an obvious US military operation (all Infowars stories lead to the same conclusion – government is evil – all non client governments being enemy no. 1. I bet Infowars originated from the Tavistock Institute, ha).
In conclusion, the empire of chaos pulled out the big guns to prevent it from being taken over by Russia and is now in terminal decline relying on client governments to stir up trouble so that the dollar flows don’t start contracting again.
Farage is an alcoholic fool.
There is no way the Russians would use him for anything important.
A good rule of thumb about how much the Guardian is lying (and knows it is lying) in articles is whether or not the piece is open to comments.
The Guardian is nothing but a CIA / MI5/6. GCHQ propaganda sheet these days.
Collyns (in Lima) does care about the Gaza infant and children. Polish up your halo Dan!
https://twitter.com/yachay_dc
Why the knife into Assange? Outside his usual remit of caring, sharing Dan and his interest in social affairs.
http://www.yachayproductions.com/
@ John A No facility for comments on today’s ‘Why does Ecuador want Assange out of its London embassy? ‘
I really hate the vivid yellow band at the bottom of their pages appealing for money. Have you seen the print version? Silly little tabloid with full page advertising on every LH page – phones and tablets – oled TVs – waitrose food – blah blah and a snip for £2.00 £2.70 on Saturdays. The inserts annoy too.
Circulation 148,169 Reach! mega millions Ha! Really?
https://www.newsworks.org.uk/the-guardian
PS I don’t buy. Read in a caff.
Beats me why the owners/ editors of the Grad think the country needs another right-wing rag of an Establishment mouthpiece.
It was ~ 400,000 when I bought and read it in the 1970s.
Can’t stand it now. They have no good writers anymore.
Freedland has too much influence I guess.
“I have no wish to try and understand these people.”
I understand that lack of desire but we all do try anyway from time to time.
Don’t doubt it: the CIA, NSA etc. hate whistle blowers like Assange or Snowden. Before the could plausibly pretend to be the “good guys” defending Freedom, now they are exposed as an aggressive Orwellian apparatus trying to clamp down on as much of this globe as they can. This is mission impossible and they know it, but it is a great excuse to get even more US taxpayer money and the US Senate and Congress are easily subdued now. It is Edgar J. Hoover on 21st century steroids. Just ask president Trump.
Wikileaks have announced they are suing the Guardian:
https://twitter.com/wikileaks/status/996454996014223363
After the Cold War the CIA was left with a surfeit of agents, many were given great CVs and planted in the media. Some like “toupe” man reached the top and have left a solid network behind. The jet black deception should have been a dead give away long time back, but the forces of falsehood have achieved critical mass in the media. Black is white and white is black the hoipolloi and deplorables are too busy slaving away to pay rent that takes up 50% of their net pay after tax. The only solution is a labour government, but from £800b the cons have taken the National Debt to £2000b as of today, in ONLY 9 years, there is no money for labour to spend.
Who is “toupé man”?
Dan Collyns has altered his wording. The paragraph Craig Murray quoted now reads:
“Sweden dropped its investigation into alleged sexual offences in May 2017, saying “all possibilities to conduct the investigation were exhausted”. However, he remains subject to arrest in the UK for jumping bail. Even his one-time champion Rafael Correa, who was president of Ecuador from 2007 to 2017, recently told journalists in Madrid that Assange’s “days were numbered”. Correa said Moreno, his former protege with whom he is now bitterly at odds, would “throw [Assange] out of the embassy at the first pressure from the United States”.”
Why don’t you edit it back?
It’s not a rhetorical question. Which page is that?
Thank you Craig for all you are doing giving a voice to those excluded from the public discourse. There are regrettably few like you with a public platform.
Craig Murray,
” I have no wish to try and understand these people.”
I am not suggesting you should change your mind, but if you do, the book this short video introduces, will almost certainly explain them very well. So far I have not had the stomach to read much of it.
“Political Ponerology: A Science on the Nature of Evil Adjusted for Political Purposes”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0v7PJmKKsfM
Tony
It’s such a densely written book that it took ages just to get about a third of the way through, and then I found there were too many other things I wanted to read. You also need a decent dictionary to hand, unless you’re an outstanding wordsmith yourself, which makes for even harder work getting though it.
I found it terribly edited. “Explainer” footnotes all over the place that massively detracted from the text and it’s credibility (grandfatherly to end times urgent). Its a book I wanted to be able to recommend to everyone but in the end couldn’t to anyone (who hadn’t got there on their own anyway). Crying out for a fifty page matter of fact rewrite (think Bernay’s Propaganda). All cruft removed. Stuff about the manuscript and heroic effort of the author and fellow researchers left out–too early in the journey for target audience. Perhaps someone in Craig’s audience has the skills/abilities publisher relations for such a project? Would be happy to contribute what I could, 1k say. Note this would be quite different from Zimbardo’s book, and the other pop sci (I have had the chance to look at–not all), as I guess anyone who reads original will realise.
I’d forgotten about the interminable references and footnotes. By the time I’d laboured through the tortuous language, flowery and expansive extraction of even the smallest sub-points and minor asides, whatever the actual point was became subsumed in a mass of supplementary material of questionable immediate relevance. Every paragraph became an unwelcome effort, and it was a struggle to see how this would fit in with the thrust of the argument – if one could even remember what that was by this stage.
Dumbing-down is a blight on civilisation, for sure – but if someone wanted to bury a point, this is surely – and literally – a textbook example of how to do it.
Thanks for this recommendation. This book gets a favourable review from Philip Zimbardo, author of The Lucifer Effect, and sounds worth reading. It is online in .pdf format here. I’m printing it out as I type.
That link gets a 404.
Corrected link:
http://www.survivorshandbook.com/wp-content/articles/political-ponerology.pdf
Thanks!
What a ridiculous piece from the BBC: “Nine charts which tell you all you need to know about North Korea“. This tells you far more about the BBC, the West in general, and the
specialismintellectual limitations of its analysts, than it does about Korea or North Korea. It’s from last September but it is linked to from today’s piece by Karishma Vaswani, the BBC’s Asia business correspondent. Her article is entitled “Kim is in this (the US-NK talks) for economic guarantees”. I have no doubt that that ridiculous statement represents the conclusions of the British Foreign Office’s finest.The nine points the BBC offer for what constitutes “all you need to know” about NK are as follows:
* dynasties (basically they are saying NK is dynastic and SK is democratic – no understanding is shown of Korean culture and the role of ancestors; reference is made to the greater instability in SK, which is an important fact, but no analysis is made or conclusions drawn),
* mobile phones (yawn – the idea that there is an “inferiority complex” in relation to the South is the opposite of the truth; the NK rulers view their own regime as more racially pure because unlike the South it did not invite the US in when Japan left; if you don’t understand that, you don’t understand much about NK)
* NK’s roads are bad (someone really isn’t getting it – does Halliburton build roads or something?)
* Coal is king in the north (the infographic compares coal exports with exports of circuit boards – yes, you’ve made the point that NK is economically unlike SK)
* the Koreas used to be closely matched (there is only one Korea; the fact that the two GDPs have scissored since the 1970s is of importance for those who understand it, but if you think it means that SK has surpassed NK you are only looking at the surface)
* military might (the traditional infographic counts up the numbers in the different armed services, and also the tanks, aircraft, etc. – but without consideration of actual dispositions and therefore with no mention of hackers, of Room 39, or of the precarity of the city of Seoul)
* South Koreans live longer (so what?)
* South Koreans are taller (so what?)
* North Koreas have more babies (so what? the only interesting piece of info here is the use of fertility treatment in NK, which makes me want to know what the treatment is)
Basically this article was written by someone who has little understanding of strategy or of Korean culture. Probably every time the person who wrote it sees a foreigner, they think the foreigner wants to be just like them. British expats! Save me from them! Here, friends, is the imperialist notion of “development” – the “wise teaching” that “inferior” races move towards achieving their nature by following and getting “help” from “superior” ones. “Development” is just a user-friendly word for the “white man’s burden”. Trust the BBC’s Asia business correspondent not to have a clue about, well, much other than whatever she needs to know about business in Asia as viewed from the point of view of western and pro-western big business.
” * South Koreans live longer (so what?)
* South Koreans are taller (so what?) ”
It means they have access to better healthcare and nutrition, that’s what.
Kempe, what about having more babies then? Following your logics, South Koreans can’t afford having more babies? Or, opposite, they have access to better… what?
Better educated populations generally have fewer children; it’s also possible that North Koreans don’t have access to effective contraception or poor family planning, The infant mortality rate in NK is also much higher, 19.5 per 1,000 live births compared with just 2.8/1,000 in the South so I suppose they need a higher birth rate.
I see, thanks. It is not what we think here in Russia about babies.
Most often it is question of how many kids you can feed and educate. 3 families of 34 in my son’s class have 3 kids; most have 2; 5 or 6 families have only 1 kid.
Tatyana, my four UK grandparents (born either just before or just after 1900) were one of nine, nine, six and six. One of my great grandfathers was one of 13. My father was an only child and my mother was one of three. I was one of two.
Traditionally you gave birth to more children as childhood mortality was higher. As child health improved, family sized decreased, but in many nations it lags by one generation, so you get a population surge.
Family sizes have decreased all over Europe since 1900, nothing unique to Korea….
Or they have access to markets; i.e. are not suffering from sanctions.
Bj, as usual, an excellent point and probably the correct one that answers the question.
”all you need to know” —- ”Dynasty vs Democracy”
UK head of state has been a dynasty during it’s entire existence ever since it was formed in 1801, and long before they changed their name to ‘Windsor’ in 1917.
and those servile flag waving crowds cheering the british royal family that the BBC like to show really don’t look much different to the crowd cheering in North Korea.
Except that nobody is obliged to turn out for the British royals.
There isn’t any proof that North Koreans are ‘obliged’ to turn out though is there?
I get the impression the newspapers these days are proofread by MI5.
It may not be literally so, but I mean that seriously.
Sent them a complaint about the lie re failing to question Assange.. They replied and have changed the online article.
What was their reply Ben?
Luke challenges you to a duel.
A duel over a jerky Skype connection, I surmise.
I don’t think that will help Luke.
Upon taking office, (as soon as he no longer needed Correa) Lenin Moreno immediately declared war on Correa’s ten years in office. Moreno’s cynicism has been breathtaking I explained here in a piece for FAIR a few months.
https://fair.org/home/western-media-hail-ecuadors-cynical-president-moreno/
Imagine Corbyn getting elected and then ditching the Labour manifesto in favor of the Tory’s.
Here is an interview I just did with a former minister in Correa’s government discussing other aspects of Moreno’s betrayal.
https://www.counterpunch.org/2018/05/15/ecuador-under-lenin-moreno-an-interview-with-andres-arauz/
Since it was published it Moreno has moved even further right through the appointment of a right wing economic minister.
Joe, it sounds as though there has been some very clever CIA/USA manoeuvrings here – presenting him as one thing to get elected and as soon as goal achieved, he shows his true colours. Can’t imagine the people of Ecuador are going to take this lying down. Clearly a rigged election by the CIA/USA using a covert strategy.
The US are trying to do this across much of South America. They aoready succeeded in Brazil…
‘How Exquisite Ecuador is emphasising quality supply for niche UK buyers’:
http://www.producebusinessuk.com/supply/stories/2016/01/08/how-exquisite-ecuador-is-emphasising-quality-supply-for-niche-uk-buyers
A boycott of Ecuadorean produce should get a good following, as so many people are so sickened by the treatment of Assange.
What a slime-ball Moreno has turned out to be; bit like Bliar, getting into power under false colours, then raising Uncle Sam’s ‘Jolly Roger’.
1. Nationalism and religion are the two biggest non-biological killers in human history. Both are ideological phenomena and, as such, extremely powerful and hard to combat. (The concept of ideology is an extremely complex one, involving as it does aspects of both psychology and semiology. Furthermore, it is subject, as are all areas of knowledge, to the rival methodologies of materialism and idealism, the two basic philosophical positions. For materialists/leftists, the place to start is the work of Louis Althusser, the direct philosophical successor of Marx – not easy reading, but essential).
2. So, nations are ideological constructs: https://www.versobooks.com/books/2259-imagined-communities. It is therefore no surprise that ‘nationalism’ is largely a right-wing phenomenon, but with two important exceptions: firstly, the anti-colonial struggles that have taken place since WW2 and, secondly, ‘movements’ such as Brexit that have railed against several core features of neo-liberalism: open borders for capital, goods and labour, the centralisation of political power, legislation for markets and against community ownership, etc.
3. These ‘progressive’ tendencies of nationalism have very short shelf-lives. In the case of the post-WW2 national liberation movements, successful outcomes, even under the banner of Communism, have stalled when faced with the reality of integrating with, or at least surviving in, a Capitalist world order. In the case of Brexit, the ‘progressive’ period is even shorter, in effect limited to the act of leaving the EU itself. This is because there are contradictory class interests supporting the ‘Leave’ campaign: a right-wing that want the elimination of all protections afforded the working class by EU regulations and a left-wing who want progress towards a Socialist Britain free of the neo-liberal EU. (The reason that Corbyn cannot come out and unambiguously admit support for the latter is twofold: firstly, working-class labour support seems to be split between the skilled (who largely support EU membership because of the globalised nature of, for example, the arms industry and the threat that ‘no deal’ poses to these industries in the UK) and the semi-/unskilled (whose conditions of existence are threatened by an unlimited influx of cheap labour); secondly, by a labour-voting but politically ignorant and narcissistic ‘youth’ generation who, whilst putatively ‘progressive’ and ‘left-wing’, are nothing of the sort: “snowflakes”).
4. The only case that can be made for Scottish and/or Catalan independence is an ‘anti-colonial’ one. Neither could survive as economically-independent entities in a ruthlessly neo-liberal, ‘traditional’ world, let alone one in which the Capitalist mode of production is facing the existential threat of AI – machines/robots cannot produce surplus value. So, ‘independent’ within the EU it would be (if even accepted as members, which is improbable), but at least they would be ‘free’ of exploitation by their ‘colonial overlords’. Work that one out if you can!
5. Finally to the subject of today’s post. Approached from a Communist perspective, JA’s situation vis-a-vis Spain/Ecuador and the events in Gaza both stem from engagement in nationalist ‘narratives’. There are no winners in such. Just as the shit creeks of identity politics (another beauty brought to you courtesy of ideology) led people to think that, for example, because Obama was black he would be if not ‘progressive’ then, at least, not reactionary, so the very engagement is such narratives condemns one to internecine class warfare, exactly what the Capitalist elite want. Well done!
And your point is? ( Not wanting to sound offensive but struggling to see where you are going)
But point 4 is a but dogdy
“Neither could survive as economically-independent entities in a ruthlessly neo-liberal, ‘traditional’ world, let alone one in which the Capitalist mode of production is facing the existential threat of AI – machines/robots cannot produce surplus value.”
Catalonia is one of the most industrial / wealth generating area’s of Spain and Scotland has a wealth of natural resources not counting tourism, food and drink etc…
Even with AI threat ( in the 80’s weren’t robots and automated assembly lines going to take all the jobs?)
These industries would generate tax reveune even if fully automated, so bar forgeign intervention, these Catalonia and Scotland could exist as economicly safe as Portugal does (Catalonia) and as Norway does ( Scotland)
1. “And your point is?”
Fundamentally, that basing one’s analysis/criticism of any political conjuncture on either nationalistic or religious foundations is, with extremely rare and specific exceptions, reactionary. That would apply, in the former, to both the Scotland-UK and Catalan-Spain situations and, in the latter, to both the Catholic-Protestant and Jew-Muslim situations in N. Ireland and the Middle East respectively.
2. Nationalism, religion and the myriad ‘flavours’ of identity politics perform the extremely important ideological function of masking the objective, threatening and underlying class relations of Capitalism and ‘presenting’ instead false oppositions between subjective, safe (for Capitalism) non-class fractions: Scot and Anglo-Saxon, Jew and Muslim, black and white, etc.
3. Mechanisation/robotics become an existential threat to the Capitalist mode of production at the point at which AI can replace ALL human labour-power in the production process, from extraction of raw material to delivery of the finished product. This has not been achieved yet, but is perhaps only decades away. Any production process so organised cannot produce surplus value in the form of profit.
4. Since Scotland has had its economy ‘unbalanced’ by its integration within the UK for centuries, it is now dependent upon an extremely narrow range of activities for the bulk of its income: oil and gas, whisky, tourism, the biological sciences and…? Others will know the situation in the Catalan region. I do not wish either region ill (I live in NE Scotland), but economic reality has no mercy for nationalistic fervour.
5. The Palestinian/Israeli situation is heartbreaking but, short of introducing a large dose of LSD into the region’s drinking water or spreading high-grade radioactive waste over the area and inviting the religious fanatics to remain and meet ‘God’ imminently while the sensible move away to pastures new, a solution seems unlikely.
Thanks for the beautifully articulated reply Morton
just to make sure I am understanding you correctly, I will summarise your points as I read them, please feel free to correct me if I have mis-understood, I will then reply to them after!
1. – Nationalism and religion are bad, thus any viewpoints\analysis\arguments from people who are viewed to be Nationalistic/ or religious are probably going to be flawed?
2. – Nationalism and Religion are used by capitalist societies to cover up/mask/distract from Class systems
3.- AI will be used in all forms of economic production in a way that automation or robotics couldn’t on its own (basically needed someone to think for it in non-standard situations , or ones that hadn’t been programmed for..)
4. – Scotland has been too integrated with the UK (plus Catalonia / Spain) to work independently and an group of people’s will for political independence will be always been beaten by the fact they can be economically independent
5. – Middle East has always been at war and a solution in these times seems unlikley
OK my responses!
1. A lot of bad has come out of nationalism and religion, but I find it hard to tar all nationalistic or religious groups with the same brush. has nothing bad ever came out of non-nationalistic/non-religious groups? by that argument Communism would be perfect, but we all know that wasn’t the case, Human nature is such that we will divide ourselves down any-line/ divide we can find and fight each other, does matter what those groups are, religious, national, tribal, music (mods and rockers?) football, anything!!
2. Class systems have appeared in other societies and have been one of the main divides (Caste system in South Asian Countries,), so not always a mask, but will agree with you that these divides do get used to keep class system in order
3. I see your where you are coming from but I think that threat is greatly overestimated, AI is not as nearly advanced as is being made out, and even if it does become usable, will take a long time to iron out bugs and build up trust in the systems before it gets widely adopted, but watch the military, they will deploy it first, but I think the current media buzz around AI is to attract more investment into AI companies that they need to actually develop it.
4. Sorry but I gave examples of similar nations that are economically viable, Norway very similar to Scotland, was also integrated with larger neighbour (Sweden) and they some of the highest quality of life, punch above their weight on international political scene and have sovereign Wealth fund, thank to oil reserves, Scotland has a lot more other resources as well as Oil than Norway so why can’t Scotland be viable? Portugal I imagine will have similar sectors to Catalonia (imagine Catalonia to be better off actually) and was also semi-economically integrated with the UK for large parts of its history and also bankrupted itself trying to keep its oversea’s colonies in the 1970’s and as far as I can tell bar some economic issues lately, it’s still a 1st world nation.
5. Agree with you, People have been fighting in the middle east since history began! it’s geography , you have a land that connects Europe, Africa and Asia, so people will mix from those area’s and fight, also some will mix and share idea’s so it’s not all bad, but unless you do the mass population movements done in Europe at the end of WW2, won’t be resolved, so intotal agreement with you, but also not sure what that point has to do with JA
cheers 🙂
You need to re-read that book, Morton.
Had a look at the real thing just now. They have certainly gone to town on Julian, poor man. What evil. A photo on the front page and the three pieces I linked to earlier. Disgusting.
I was right on the advert content. Today EE and VW were prominent.
Don’t understand the acronyms but these are the rates for advertising, DPS Double Page Spread? ROP =?
Type Name Currency Value
Display DPS, ROP, Colour GBP 32400
Display Page, ROP, Colour GBP 18000
Their coverage of the Carillion scandal is thorough. The HoC report comes after the horses have bolted and gone off with the money of course. What a rip off by the gangsters-in-charge especially KPMG and the rest of the accountancy spivs who kept signing the accounts off. They all get a mention!
Jon Trickett has it in one.
@jon_trickett · 2h2 hours ago
Bosses sucked up wealth from workers at #Carillion. Then a cosy club of consultants took a cut, complicit in the firm’s failing.
Outsourcers&consultants are unaccountable. Their excesses endangered jobs+services.
It’s clear. The outsourcing game’s over.
https://twitter.com/jon_trickett/status/996686225560961024
He links to this by Rob Davies
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2018/may/16/recklessness-hubris-and-greed-carillion-slammed-by-mps
He is Shadow Lord President of the Council. ‘ The Lord President of the Council is the fourth of the Great Officers of State of the United Kingdom, ranking below the Lord High Treasurer but above the Lord Privy Seal. The Lord President usually attends and is responsible for presiding over meetings of the Privy Council, presenting business for the monarch’s approval. In the modern era, the holder is by convention always a member of one of the Houses of Parliament, and the office is normally a Cabinet post.’ A joke. We need a revolution to sweep this nonsense away.
ROP = run of page ie the ad goes where the paper wants it to go.