Alternative media circles have
been buzzing for the last two days ever since news
broke about the arrest of Grayzone journalist Max
Blumenthal, who was reportedly jailed for two days after a SWAT-style police
team showed up threatening to break his door down last Friday.
Blumenthal is charged with
simple assault alleged to have taken place five months ago during the notorious
standoff when the US government was working to remove the official
Venezuelan government from its DC embassy and replace it with diplomats from
the Guaido-led puppet government it was attempting to force into power.
Dissident journalists, including Blumenthal, stationed themselves in the
embassy in opposition to the illegal eviction and to document the behavior of
the evictors. Blumenthal calls the assault charge “a 100 percent false,
fabricated, bogus, untrue, and malicious lie.”
I watched the news
of the embassy standoff with much interest, largely because the obnoxious, oafish behavior of
the anti-Maduro counter-protesters on the scene were a perfect reflection of
the obnoxious, oafish behavior I’d experienced from anti-Maduro accounts
online. I’ve argued with every major political faction in America at one point
or another, and some of them can be downright vile, but I’ve never run
into such an intellectually dishonest, crude, nasty group of people in my three
years on this job as those who’ve been cheering on the Trump administration’s
regime change agenda in Venezuela. There’s not a doubt in my mind that someone
from this unscrupulous, shady group would be capable of making false
allegations against a dissident journalist who disagreed with them.
“According to an individual
familiar with the case, the warrant for Blumenthal’s arrest was initially
rejected,” Grayzone reports.
“Strangely, this false charge was revived months later without the defendant’s
knowledge.”
Strangely indeed.
I was arrested on Friday on a
COMPLETELY FALSE charge manufactured by the Venezuelan opposition related to
their siege of the embassy in DC. I spent 2 days in jail, was shackled for
extended periods & was denied my right to call a lawyer. Here's the facts: https://thegrayzone.com/2019/10/28/this-charge-is-one-hundred-percent-false-grayzone-editor-max-blumenthal-arrested-months-after-reporting-on-venezuelan-opposition-violence/ …
Strange as it is, alternative
media figures are the only people talking about an opposition journalist being
arrested on highly suspicious grounds in a highly suspicious way. Mainstream
media reporters have been completely ignoring this story.
“Arrest and caging of
opposition US journalist Max Blumenthal reminds me (and others I know) of the
worst of Russia,” tweeted journalist
Mark Ames. “Except there, when oppo journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested, most
big-name Russian journalists—including Putin-friendly—publicly supported
Golunov. Here—silence.”
This silence is unsurprising
at this point, because this same media class has for years been either mute or
vocally favorable on the persecution of another dissident journalist, Julian
Assange. Ambitious young journalists are made well aware that the very easiest
way to demonstrate your loyalty to the media-owning plutocratic establishment
is to participate in the relentless
smear campaign against the WikiLeaks founder which has worked its way
into virtually all political sectors of the western world, and the very easiest
way to lose standing within the plutocratic media is to defend him.
There’s a popular quote that a
German pastor wrote after the second World War that goes,
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—
and there was no one left to speak for me.”
It’s a good quote, and, understandably,
people have been invoking it for the steadily
escalating war on oppositional journalism we’ve been witnessing
throughout the western empire. Cries of “First they came for Assange” and
“First they came for the journalists” are common in circles which value the
existence of a free press which is capable of holding power to account, the
argument being that if you let them come for journalists like Assange and
Blumenthal, it’s only a matter of time before they come for you, too.
Only one problem: it isn’t
true.
Arrest & caging of
opposition US journalist @MaxBlumenthal
reminds me (and others I know) of the worst of Russia. Except there, when oppo
journalist Ivan Golunov was arrested, most big-name Russian
journalists—including Putin-friendly—publicly supported Golunov.
Here—silence.
Here—silence.
It isn’t true that if you
allow authority to come after dissident journalists they’ll necessarily end up
coming after you. That’s only true if you intend at some point to publish
something that those in power don’t want you to publish. If you’ve closed the
door to the possibility of your ever doing that, then you know that there is no
risk to you, so there’s no need to defend dissident journalists when their
reporting sees them targeted for legal persecution by the powerful. Which is
exactly what mainstream reporters who fail to defend Assange and Blumenthal are
telling us about themselves: they’ve closed that door and chosen the side of
power, come what may.
This is where the silence
comes from. It isn’t that those who work in mainstream news media lack an understanding
that at some point power structures may shift and you’ll want to report facts
that are inconvenient for the powerful without fear of imprisonment; these
people all watched Donald Trump get elected. They already know that things can
take a very dark turn in the future for where power is located, and they’ve
already decided they don’t care and will always side with the powerful going
forward. If the election of Donald Trump wasn’t enough to show these people
that it’s a good idea to make sure the press can continue to hold power to
account in the future, then nothing will. They’re not ignorant, they’re
subservient. They’ve made a lifelong commitment to continue to worship at the
altar of power, no matter what form that power takes.
If we were to re-write the
“First they came” poem to describe the current war on dissident journalism
we’re seeing in 2019, it would go more like this:
First they came for Assange,
and I did not speak out—
Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever usetting the powerful.
Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever usetting the powerful.
Then they came for Blumental,
and I did not speak out—
Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever usetting the powerful.
Because I was a mainstream western journalist with no intention of ever usetting the powerful.
Then they came for all the
other dissident journalists, and I did not speak out—
Because I will never be a dissident journalist.
Because I will never be a dissident journalist.
They never came for me—
Because I have chosen to serve power.
Because I have chosen to serve power.
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