The Guardian has published an editorial titled "The Guardian view
on extraditing Julian Assange: don’t do it", subtitled "The US case
against the WikiLeaks founder is an assault on press freedom and the public’s
right to know". The publication's editorial board argues that
since the Swedish investigation has once again been dropped, the
time is now to oppose US extradition for the WikiLeaks founder.
"Sweden’s decision
to drop an investigation into a rape allegation against Julian
Assange has both illuminated the situation of the WikiLeaks founder and made it
more pressing," the editorial board writes.
Oh okay, now the
issue is illuminated and pressing. Not two months ago, when Assange's
ridiculous bail sentence ended and he was still kept in prison explicitly and exclusively because of the US extradition
request. Not six months ago, when the US government slammed Assange
with 17 charges under the Espionage Act for publishing the
Chelsea Manning leaks. Not seven months ago, when Assange was forcibly pried
from the Ecuadorian embassy and slapped with the US extradition request. Not any time
between his April arrest and his taking political asylum seven years ago, which
the Ecuadorian government explicitly granted him because it believed there was a
credible threat of US extradition. Not nine years ago when
WikiLeaks was warning that the US government was scheming to extradite
Assange and prosecute him under the Espionage Act.
Nope, no, any of those times
would have been far too early for The Guardian to begin opposing US
extradition for Assange with any degree of lucidity. They had to wait until
Assange was already locked up in Belmarsh Prison and limping into extradition
hearings supervised by looming US government officials. They had to
wait until years and years of virulent mass media smear campaigns had killed off
public support for Assange so he could be extradited with little or no
grassroots backlash. And they had to wait until they themselves had finished
participating in those smear campaigns.
There is, needless to say, no
hint or suggestion in the Mueller Report that Paul Manafort visited Julian
Assange ever in his life, let alone 3 times in the Ecuadorian Embassy during
the election. It would obviously be there if it happened. How can the @guardian not
retract this?? pic.twitter.com/5ory1w0mfj
— Glenn Greenwald
(@ggreenwald) April 18, 2019
This is after all the
same Guardian which published the transparently ridiculous and completely invalidated report that Trump lackey Paul
Manafort had met secretly with Assange at the embassy, not once but multiple
times. Not one shred of evidence has ever been produced to substantiate this
claim despite the embassy being one of the most heavily surveilled buildings on
the planet at the time, and the Robert Mueller investigation, whose expansive
scope would obviously have included such meetings, reported absolutely nothing
to corroborate it. It was a bogus story which all accused parties have forcefully denied.
This is the same Guardian which ran an article last year titled "The only barrier
to Julian Assange leaving Ecuador’s embassy is pride", arguing that
Assange looked ridiculous for remaining in the embassy because "The
WikiLeaks founder is unlikely to face prosecution in the US". The article
was authored by the odious James Ball, who deleted a tweet not
long ago complaining about the existence of UN special rapporteurs after one of
them concluded that Assange is a victim of psychological torture. Ball's
article begins, "According to Debrett’s, the arbiters of etiquette since
1769: 'Visitors, like fish, stink in three days.' Given this, it’s difficult to
imagine what Ecuador’s London embassy smells like, more than five-and-a-half years
after Julian Assange moved himself into the confines of the small
flat in Knightsbridge, just across the road from Harrods."
This is the same Guardian which published an article titled "Definition of
paranoia: supporters of Julian Assange", arguing that Assange defenders
are crazy conspiracy theorists for believing the US would try to extradite
Assange because "Britain has a notoriously lax extradition treaty with the
United States", because "why would they bother to imprison him when
he is making such a good job of discrediting himself?", and "because
there is no extradition request."
This is the same Guardian which published a ludicrous report about Assange potentially receiving
documents as part of a strange Nigel Farage/Donald Trump/Russia conspiracy, a
claim based primarily on vague analysis by a single anonymous source described
as a “highly placed contact with links to US intelligence”. The same Guardian which
just flushed standard journalistic protocol down the toilet by reporting on
Assange's "ties to the Kremlin" (not a thing) without even bothering to use the word
"alleged", not once, but twice. The same Guardian which has been advancing
many more virulent smears as documented in this article by The Canary titled "Guilty by
innuendo: the Guardian campaign against Julian Assange that breaks all the
rules".
A look at how sleazeball
journalists at the Guardian tried to 'Russiagate' Assange https://t.co/fzfDr4q02O
— Defend Assange Campaign
(@DefendAssange) March 25, 2019
You can see, then, how
ridiculous it is for an outlet like The Guardian to now attempt to
wash its hands of Assange's plight with a self-righteous denunciation of the
Trump administration's extradition request from its editorial board. This
outlet has actively and forcefully paved the road to the situation in which
Assange now finds himself by manufacturing consent for an agenda which the
public would otherwise have found appalling and ferociously
objectionable. Guardian editors don't get to pretend that they are in
some way separate from what's being done to Assange. They created what's
being done to Assange.
You see this dynamic at play
all too often from outlets, organizations and individuals who portray
themselves as liberal, progressive, or in some way oppositional to
authoritarianism. They happily advance propaganda narratives against governments
and individuals targeted by establishment power structures, whether that's
Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, Assad, Maduro, Morales, Assange or whomever, but when
it comes time for that establishment to actually implement the evil agenda it's
been pushing for, they wash their hands of it and decry what's being done as
though they've always opposed it.
But they haven't opposed it.
They've actively facilitated it. If you help promote smears and propaganda
against a target of the empire, then you're just as culpable for what happens
to that target as the empire itself. Because you actively participated in
making it happen.
The deployment of a bomb or
missile doesn't begin when a pilot pushes a button, it begins when propaganda
narratives used to promote those operations start circulating in public
attention. If you help circulate war propaganda, you're as complicit as the one
who pushes the button. The imprisonment of a journalist for exposing US war
crimes doesn't begin when the Trump administration extradites him to America,
it begins when propagandistic smear campaigns begin circulating to kill public
opposition to his imprisonment. If you helped promote that smear campaign,
you're just as responsible for what happens to him as the goon squad in Trump's
Department of Justice.
Really great talk by @RonPaulInstitut's
Daniel McAdams titled "How Not To Be a CIA Propagandist" on the
importance of never facilitating propaganda narratives against governments
targeted for regime change, even if you disagree with their ideology.https://t.co/22W785ahh0
— Caitlin
Johnstone (@caitoz) November 11, 2019
Before they launch missiles,
they launch narratives. Before they drop bombs, they drop ideas. Before they
invade, they propagandize. Before the killing, there is manipulation. Before
the evil, there is propaganda. Narrative control is the front line of all
imperialist agendas, and it is therefore the front line of all anti-imperialist
efforts. When you forcefully oppose these agendas, that matters, because you're
keeping the public from being propagandized into consenting to them. When you
forcefully facilitate those agendas, that matters, because you're actively
paving the way for them.
Claiming you oppose an
imperialist agenda while helping to advance its propaganda and smear campaigns
in any way is a nonsensical and contradictory position. You cannot facilitate
imperialism and simultaneously claim to oppose it.
They work so hard to
manufacture our consent because they need that consent. If they
operate without the consent of the governed, the public will quickly lose trust
in their institutions, and at that point it's not long before revolution begins
to simmer. So don't give them your consent. And for God's sake don't do anything
that helps manufacture it in others.
Words matter. Work with them
responsibly.
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