Let's Be Absolutely Clear What's At Stake In The Assange Case

"For this reason, this isn’t just about journalism: we really are collectively deciding the fate of our species with our response to the prospect of Assange's extradition."
#WeAreAllAssange
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/lets-be-abso…
When it comes to human behavior, things only change for the better when there is a lucid and unobstructed perception of what's going on.
Whether you're talking about individuals or humanity in its entirety, the story of human progress has always been a story of moving from blindness to seeing. From unawareness to awareness. From the lights in the room being off to the lights being switched on.
There is no progress without clear seeing. We cannot move in the direction of health and harmony if we cannot lucidly perceive the ways in which we are still sick and dysfunctional. We can't move forward if we're unaware of the specific ways in which we are stuck in place.
The struggle for our species, which is really the struggle for our very survival, is therefore between the many who desire truth and the few who desire confusion. We've got numbers and truth on our side, but they have power, wealth, and a remarkable knack for manipulation.
We see this struggle playing out in many ways. Between propaganda and truth. Between internet censorship and free speech. Between government secrecy and freedom of information. Between the campaign to imprison Assange for exposing US war crimes, and the campaign to free him.
On Monday January 4th a UK judge will be ruling on whether or not to allow the process of Assange's extradition to the United States to move forward. It's important for opponents of this extradition to be aware that the fight will not end at this time:
So as we prepare for the next stage in this fight, it's important for us to be perfectly clear what's at stake here.
If the US succeeds in normalizing the legality of extraditing any journalist who exposes it, there will be a worldwide cooling effect on natsec journalism which will greatly impede humanity's ability to form a lucid and unobstructed understanding of what's going on in the world.
There is no legal case in the world right now where the struggle for lucid and unobstructed seeing has so much on the line. So this isn’t just about journalism: we really are collectively deciding the fate of our species with our response to the prospect of Assange's extradition.
Are we going to allow the most powerful government on the planet to set a legal precedent which allows it to obstruct truth around the entire world? Or are we going to oppose this tooth and claw?
Are we going to allow power to remain corrupt and unaccountable? Or are we going to insist on our right to know what's going on?

Are we going to let them keep the lights off? Or are we going to turn them on?
Are we going to let the bastards lock us into an omnicidal, ecocidal status quo as they drive us toward extinction and dystopia? Or are we going to move toward the kind of lucid and unobstructed perception of our situation which will allow us to progress into a healthy world?
These are the questions that we are in the process of answering together. I hope we can get everyone to very seriously consider what they want their own answer to be.

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More from @caitoz

3 Jan
People keep predicting coups, mass arrests and unprecedented upheavals in the US government because the mass media is acting very strange, which creates the illusion that the US government itself is acting very strange. Meanwhile the empire marches on completely uninterrupted.
What people are misperceiving is that it isn't the US government that's changing, it's the international world order. The US is approaching post-primacy and is unleashing tons of propaganda to roll out international agendas to prevent this, hence the bizarre behavior.
The information ecosystem looks wild, so America-fixated Americans get the mistaken impression that it's their government that is wild. Meanwhile great care is taken to maintain stability in the hub of the global empire, so all these prophecies of upheaval keep shooting blanks.
Read 4 tweets
2 Jan
The frenetic mass media propaganda campaign against Julian Assange was easily the creepiest and most Orwellian thing I've ever witnessed. And now it is silent. It did its job and then disappeared, before the public could really notice what was happening. It's absolutely stunning.
You wouldn't know it now, but between late 2016 and Assange's arrest this site was full of blue-checkmarked narrative managers falling all over each other to be the first to come up with the day's hottest smear painting a heroic journalist as a villain. Day after day after day.
Smearing Assange was one of the easiest ways for an aspiring journalist to show current and prospective employers that you're on the side of the empire. It was a soft target you could kick to signal that you'll say whatever the Pentagon wants so you can climb the media ladder.
Read 10 tweets
1 Jan
Our society is asking itself a very, very important question of the Assange case. The question we're asking is this:

“Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”

Our answer to this question will determine the future of our species.

#WeAreAllAssange
Make no mistake, this question is all the Assange case is and has ever been about.

“Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?”

Do not let the narrative managers twist it into being about anything other than this, because it isn't. This is the question.
Do we want truth, or lies?

Do we want light, or darkness?

Do we want freedom, or slavery?

Do we want the right to know what the powerful are doing, or do we want to give them a private space to abuse us in?

Should journalists be jailed for exposing US war crimes? Yes or no?
Read 4 tweets
31 Dec 20
America Keeps Claiming Governments It Hates Are Paying Bounties On US Troops In Afghanistan

"This brings the total number of governments against which this exact accusation has been made to three: China, Iran, and Russia."
caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/america-keep…
We're now getting mass media reports that yet another country the US government doesn't like has been trying to kill US troops in Afghanistan, with the accusation this time being leveled at China. China joins Russia and Iran in being targeted with this exact unproven narrative.
The report by @axios is already being circulated into public consciousness by mass media outlets like CNN.
edition.cnn.com/2020/12/30/pol…
Read 15 tweets
31 Dec 20
I'll skip ahead a few months: Bounties have been paid on American soldiers in Afghanistan by China, Russia, Iran, Venezuela, North Korea, Syria, Hezbollah, WikiLeaks, antiwar activists, and Jimmy Dore.
Now it's China. A few months ago it was Iran.
edition.cnn.com/2020/08/17/pol…
Before that it was Russia, which we later learned was an unsubstantiated nothing.
Read 5 tweets
30 Dec 20
Western propaganda hasn't gotten less advanced since the Iraq invasion, it has gotten more advanced. The Russiagate psyop and the smear campaigns against Assange and Corbyn make this abundantly clear. You need to be MORE critical of western narratives than with Iraq, not less.
Manipulating public thought at mass scale is a science. Scientific fields don't magically become less sophisticated over time, they become more sophisticated. Every time they run a new mass-scale manipulation, whether it succeeds or fails, they learn from it. And they evolve.
The idea that the lies and propaganda that led to the Iraq invasion were a one-off fluke is itself the product of propaganda.
Read 5 tweets

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