MAY 22, 2019
Julian Assange is a dick. It’s
important you understand that.
Assange and WikiLeaks revealed
the American military’s war crimes, the American government’s corruption and
the American corporate media’s pathetic servile flattery to the power elite.
So, if you’re a member of our ruling class, you would view those as textbook
examples of dickery.
In a moment I’m going to list
all the ways Julian Assange changed the world by being a dick.
In an evolved and fully
realized society, the oligarchy would see Assange as a dangerous criminal
(which they do), and the average working men and women would view him as
justice personified (which they don’t). We would celebrate him even as the mass
media told us to hope for his downfall—like a Batman or a Robin Hood or an Ozzy
Osbourne (the early years, not the cleaning-dog-turds-off-his-carpet years).
But we are not evolved and
this is not Gotham City and average Americans don’t root for the truth. Many
Americans cheer for Assange’s imprisonment. They believe the corporate
plutocratic talking points and yearn for the days when we no longer have to
hear about our country’s crimes against humanity or our bankers’ crimes against
the economy. Subconsciously they must believe that a life in which we’re
tirelessly exploited by rich villains and know all about it thanks to the
exhaustive efforts of an eccentric Australian is worse than one in which we’re
tirelessly exploited by rich villains yet know nothing about it.
“Ignorance is bliss” is the
meditative mantra of the United States of America.
Julian Assange has been
arrested and is now locked away in British custody. The U.S. government wants
to extradite him, regardless of the official
version, for the crime of revealing our government’s crimes. Nearly every
government on our third rock from the sun despises the man for bringing
transparency to the process of ruling the unwashed masses. (The level of wash
has, however, increased thanks to aggressive marketing campaigns from a variety
of shampoo brands.)
It is politically inconvenient
at this time for the screaming corporate news to remind our entire citizenry
what exactly WikiLeaks has done for us. So you won’t see the following list of
WikiLeaks’ accomplishments anywhere on your corporate airwaves—in the same way
the mainstream media did not begin every report about Chelsea Manning’s trial
with a rundown of the war crimes she helped reveal.
And Chelsea Manning’s most
famous leak is arguably also WikiLeaks’ most famous leak, so it’ll top this
list:
1) That would be the
notorious Collateral
Murder video, showing U.S. air crew gunning down unarmed Iraqi
civilians with an enthusiasm that couldn’t be matched by an eight year-old
winning a five-foot-tall stuffed animal at the county fair. They murdered
between 12 and 18 innocent people, two of them Reuters journalists.
Zero people have been arrested
for the collateral murders. Yet Julian Assange has been arrested for
revealing them.
2) WikiLeaks brought us the Guantanamo Bay “Camp Delta
Standard Operating Procedures”—showing that many of the prisoners held on
the U.S. military detention facility were completely innocent, and that some
were hidden from Red Cross officials. (Because when you’re torturing innocent
people, you kinda want to do that in peace and quiet, away from prying eyes.
It’s very easy to get distracted, and then you lose your place and have to
start all over again.)
None of the soldiers torturing
innocent people at Gitmo have been arrested for it. Yet Julian Assange has
been arrested for revealing it.
3) Not content with revealing
only war crimes, WikiLeaks in 2008 came out with the
secret bibles of Scientology, which showed that aliens, um, run the world
or … aliens are inside all of us or … aliens give us indigestion. I can’t
really remember.
But no one has ever been
arrested for perpetrating that nutbag cult. Yet Julian Assange has for
revealing it.
Many people believe WikiLeaks
has unveiled only crimes of the American government, but that’s completely
false. The U.S. corporate media doesn’t want average Americans to understand
that WikiLeaks has upped the level of transparency around the world.
4–9) WikiLeaks posted videos
of Tibetan dissidents in China fighting back, videos which were not allowed to
be viewed in China. They revealed the Peru oil scandal, and that Russia was
spying on its citizens’ cell phones, and the Minton Report on toxic dumping in
Africa, and the Syria Files—showing the inner workings of the Syrian
government. And WikiLeaks displayed to the global audience a secret Australian
supreme court gag order that stopped the Australian press from reporting on a
huge bribery scandal that involved the central bank and international leaders.
Assange is hated by
governments around the world. As much as they may like transparency, when it
comes to other countries (specifically the United States), they don’t want their
own particular pile of shit on full display. It’s kinda like when most
people laugh heartily after an up-skirt photo of a celebrity is published in the
tabloids, but at the same time, none of us want up-skirt photos of us all
over the web. (I know I don’t because I haven’t shaved up there since Carter
was in office.)
As far as I know, none of the
political figures involved in these scandals have gone to prison for
participating in them. Yet Julian Assange has for revealing them.
10) Let’s not
forget the
Iraq War logs—hundreds of thousands of documents relating to America’s
illegal invasion of Iraq, which we called a “war,” but I think a war needs to
have two sides. Iraq’s elite Republican guard turned out to be three guys and a
donkey … and the donkey didn’t even have good aim.
So far as I can tell, no one
committing the war crimes evidenced in the Iraq War logs has been locked up for
them. Yet Julian Assange has for revealing them.
11) WikiLeaks showed us the
highly secretive Bilderberg
Group meeting reports. The Bilderberg Group is made up of incredibly
powerful men and women who get together and decide how to rule over all of us
street people, all the while sitting on thrones made from the bones of the
babies of nonbelievers. They’re often accused of being lizard people, but
really they’re just regular ol’ sociopaths with lizard skin they purchased from
a plastic surgeon in Malibu for half a million dollars.
I don’t think anyone from the
Bilderberg Group is being tortured in solitary confinement right now. Yet
Julian Assange is for revealing who they are.
12) The Barclays
Bank tax avoidance scheme netted Barclays one billion pounds a year.
While it was ordered to pay
500 million pounds in lost taxes, no one was arrested for that theft from
citizens. Yet Julian Assange was for revealing it.
13) The Afghan War Diaries
consisted of 92,000 documents related to our destruction of Afghanistan. They
detailed friendly fire incidents and civilian casualties. According
to WikiLeaks, the diaries showed that “When reporting their own activities
U.S. Units are inclined to classify civilian kills as insurgent kills, downplay
the number of people killed or otherwise make excuses for themselves.”
It’s tough to read this
without being floored at the comedy routine that our military actions have
become. I picture this scenario happening every day in Afghanistan:
U.S. Soldier #1: This guy we
just killed was an insurgent.
U.S. Soldier #2: How do you know?
U.S. Soldier #1: Because we killed him.
U.S. Soldier #2: Why’d we kill him?
U.S. Soldier #1: Because he’s an insurgent.
U.S. Soldier #2: How do you know?
U.S. Soldier #1: Because we killed him.
U.S. Soldier #2: How do you know?
U.S. Soldier #1: Because we killed him.
U.S. Soldier #2: Why’d we kill him?
U.S. Soldier #1: Because he’s an insurgent.
U.S. Soldier #2: How do you know?
U.S. Soldier #1: Because we killed him.
(Repeat until lightheaded.)
I am unaware of anyone locked
away for these war crimes. Yet Julian Assange is locked away—for revealing
them.
14) WikiLeaks also unveiled
hundreds of thousands of U.S.
State Department cables that showed more clearly than ever how our
secretive government rules its empire with little to no input from the American
people. Among many other things, the cables revealed Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton ordered diplomats to spy on French, British, Russian and Chinese
delegations at the U.N. Security Council. It also showed that Arab nations
urged the U.S. to strike Iran, and much more.
Our ruling elite of
course view this as a massive breach of national security. That’s understandable.
But that world view comes into play only if you think the elites are the only
ones who should know how our nation is run. To answer this question for
yourself, do the following experiment. Pull up a photo of Donald Trump—a really
close-up image of his blister-colored, bulbous face. Now, look at it intensely
for five minutes. … After you’ve done that, tell me you want the ruling elite
to be the only ones who know what the fuck is going on. Go ahead and
try it—I’ll wait.
Ostensibly, the concept of our
government was that the ruling class would be accountable to us, the average
Americans. To you and me. To the workers and the number crunchers. To the
single moms and the cashiers and the street sweepers and the fluffers on the
porn sets. We’re supposed to vote based on our knowledge of how our government
is functioning. But if the entirety of our representatives’ criminal behavior
is labeled top secret for national security purposes, then we aren’t really an
informed populace, are we?
So for all that was unveiled
in the State Department cables, no one has been locked up. But Julian
Assange has been for revealing them.
15) The
Stratfor emails—this was millions of emails that showed how a private
intelligence agency was used by its U.S. corporate and government clients to
target activists and protesters.
No one at Stratfor is
currently locked away. But Julian Assange is for revealing the truth.
16) Then there’s the trade
deals. TPP, TISA and TTIP—all three amount to one of the largest attempts at
corporate takeover ever conceived. All three were more secretive than Donald
Trump’s taxes. Government officials and corporate lawyers and lobbyists wrote
every word in private. Not even Congress saw the Trans-Pacific Partnership
until very late in the process. The only organization to show the American
citizens (and European citizens) some of those documents before they were made
into law? WikiLeaks.
WikiLeaks made
us aware of the corporate restraints that were about to be placed on
us, and that’s what allowed activists to pressure Trump to pull out of the TPP.
None of those secretive
corporate titans are imprisoned for their attempted power grab, but Julian
Assange is for revealing it.
17) The
DNC emails. I’ll explain for those of you who have been living in a cave
that is itself inside a yellow-and-blue-makes-green sealed Tupperware
container. The Democratic National Committee’s emails gave us proof concerning
just how rigged the Democratic primaries really are. They proved the media was
in bed with Hillary Clinton’s campaign. They even showed that Obama’s entire
first-term cabinet was selected by Citibank. Yes, Citibank. (I would find it
less offensive if his cabinet had been decided by a rabid raccoon, or the pus
oozing out of Darth Vader’s face or Vince McMahon’s concussed frontal lobe.)
Whatever election integrity
movement exists right now, it owes a lot to these revelations by WikiLeaks.
After being sued over this matter, the DNC’s lawyers admitted
in court that the DNC has no obligation to have a fair primary
election. It’s their right to rig it.
But don’t try to get angry
about this, because if you do, the CIA has a myriad ways to fuck up your life.
18) In 2017 WikiLeaks posted
a trove
of CIA documents called “Vault 7.” It detailed their capabilities,
including remotely taking over cars, smart TVs, web browsers and smartphones.
After I found out about that,
for a solid two weeks I thought, “Screw it. I’m going full Amish. One hundred
percent. Let’s see the CIA hack my butter churn. Are they going to use backdoor
software to get inside my rustic wooden bow-saw? Even if they could, what are
they going to listen to—my conversation about how mee bobblin fraa redd up for
rutschin’ ’round. Say no more! Schmunzla wunderbar!”
So is anybody at the CIA
chained up for violating our privacy in every way possible? No, but Julian
Assange is for revealing it.
By thrusting the truth upon
the people of earth, WikiLeaks helped create movements worldwide like the Arab Spring
and Occupy. And don’t forget, at first WikiLeaks and Assange were celebrated
for their amazing work. In 2011 even Amnesty International hailed WikiLeaks as
one of the Arab Spring catalysts. The
Guardian said: “The year 2010 may well be remembered as a watershed year
when activists and journalists used new technology to speak truth to power and,
in so doing, pushed for greater respect for human rights. … It is also the year
when repressive governments faced the real possibility that their days were
numbered.”
So why have so many outlets
and people turned against Assange and WikiLeaks? Because it turned out he
wasn’t revealing only repressive Arab regimes. He also revealed U.S.-backed
coups and war crimes around the world. He exposed the criminality and villainy
of the American ruling elite.
Nothing published on WikiLeaks
has ever been proven untrue. Compare that record to CNN, MSNBC, Fox News or any
mainstream outlet. Assange has been nominated for multiple Nobel Peace Prizes,
and nearly every respected media outlet has used source material from WikiLeaks
in their reporting. Yet after all this and after seven years in captivity, the
man who laid bare our criminal leaders and showed each one of us our chains is
not receiving parades and accolades. He and those who helped him reveal the
truth are the only ones endlessly punished.
We are all Julian Assange. As
long as he’s imprisoned, we can never be free.
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