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.
The smear campaign pervaded every political faction in every part of the US-centralized power alliance. Where they couldn't get away with smearing him they circulated rightist psyops about Trump and Assange secretly working together and the extradition actually helping Assange.
The overwhelming majority of mainstream opinions about Assange are the result not of his work or the life he's lived, but of a concerted propaganda campaign which took place between late 2016 and Assange's arrest in April 2019. People just aren't aware they've been propagandized.
Yes, much of the groundwork for this smear campaign was done years earlier. All the liberals who were upset about Clinton's loss eagerly lapped up previous smears about sexual assault etc that were resurrected and recirculated with virulent aggression.
The smear campaign went silent so quickly because it is now impossible to paint yourself as a brave up-punching journalist while smearing someone who is being openly prosecuted for journalism. So they've slinked off into the shadows, hoping we'll forget what they did.
Let's not.
God. Thank you. Yes, that's a shining example of what the mass media culture was like during that period.
Baraitser's frightening ruling supported virtually every US prosecutorial argument that was made during the extradition trial, no matter how absurd and Orwellian. judiciary.uk/judgments/usa-…
In the end though, Baraitser ruled against extradition. Not because allowing the extradition of journalists under the Espionage Act poses a threat to press freedoms worldwide. Not to prevent a global chilling effect on natsec journalism about the world's most powerful government.
UPDATE: Judge ordered no extradition for Assange, and orders him released from Belmarsh Prison, both due to suicide risk concerns. The US has confirmed that it will appeal extradition ruling. He's still jailed, court is in recess and then they'll discuss possible bail or release.
It's likely they'll keep him jailed until after the US appeals the ruling, as Medhurst explains. We're definitely not out of the woods yet. But getting out of Belmarsh is excellent.
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.
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.
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.