{"id":21138,"date":"2019-04-17T17:36:01","date_gmt":"2019-04-17T17:36:01","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/?p=21138"},"modified":"2019-04-24T18:10:38","modified_gmt":"2019-04-24T18:10:38","slug":"an-existential-threat-to-independent-media","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/watchmanmedia.org\/?p=21138","title":{"rendered":"An Existential Threat to Independent Media"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"I\u2019d almost ceased writing commentary except for occasional notes on my philosophy blog<\/a>.<\/span> Most of what I\u2019d been writing seemed to fall on deaf ears, and I was weary of it.<\/p>\n

Plus, the need to start a business<\/a> <\/span>to ensure my small family\u2019s financial survival has consumed a good bit of my time for over a year now.<\/p>\n

The Julian Assange takedown last Thursday brought me up short. Even though I\u2019d seen in coming.<\/p>\n

What I see now is an existential threat to independent publishing and alternative media of whatever sort.<\/p>\n

Should it turn out that the British can arrest, and the U.S. can extradite, an Australian citizen, web publisher, and journalist for violating U.S. secrecy laws from well outside U.S. borders, this will establish a precedent that should send chills up and down the spine of every truth-teller in the world, everywhere.<\/p>\n

Nothing justifies extraditing Assange to the U.S., unless the long arm of the U.S. government became the arm of a world government while I wasn\u2019t looking.<\/p>\n

Everybody knows the basics: Assange started WikiLeaks in 2006, and by 2010 the site was making waves as the major outlet for information the Deep Establishment<\/span><\/a> did not want known.<\/p>\n

It should be emphasized that WikiLeaks released material received from then-Bradley (now Chelsea*) Manning implicating U.S. troops in Iraq in what might have been judged to be war crimes if they\u2019d been committed by anyone other than the U.S. or Israel (good WikiLeaks timeline and details here<\/a><\/span>).<\/p>\n

Manning did seven years in prison as a de facto<\/em> political prisoner before then-President Obama commuted his sentence, which had originally been for 35 years.<\/p>\n

In 2016, WikiLeaks released the DNC and Podesta emails which became one of the bulwarks of the Russian collusion narrative \u2014 a narrative now dead in the water.<\/p>\n

Assange denied, and continues to deny, that his source was Russian intelligence.<\/p>\n

Direct physical evidence refutes the common claim that the DNC server was hacked, as opposed to illicitly accessed and the emails downloaded onto a thumb drive by someone on the inside (here<\/span><\/a> and here<\/span><\/a>).<\/p>\n

This evidence has been ignored. But never mind that now.<\/p>\n

Assange appears to have been \u201ctargeted for termination\u201d (so to speak) back in 2010.<\/p>\n

I do not know if he was somehow set up in Sweden, or if the allegation of sexual assault was simply fabricated. Either is possible. What I doubt is that he\u2019d make himself vulnerable by doing something so breathtakingly stupid.<\/p>\n

The timing is suspicious: WikiLeaks released the video of the Apache helicopter assault just months before as well as other info on torture of Iraqi prisoners of war by U.S. troops, the level of civilian casualties in both Iraq and Afghanistan, etc.<\/p>\n

So my working assumption is that the Swedish allegation is a hoax. Anyone paying even the slightest<\/em> attention over the past decade knows that such hoaxes happen<\/span><\/a>.<\/span><\/p>\n

Assange knew he had incurred the ire of powerful people based in the U.S. He figured they wanted him. Obama was their current bought-and-paid-for lackey. So he defied the British and took refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy where he was given asylum. Ecuador\u2019s then-president Rafael Correa was sympathetic, and even eventually granted him Ecuadorian citizenship.<\/p>\n

A converted office became Assange\u2019s home for the next six years and ten months, as his passport had been revoked and there was no physical means of getting him out of the U.K.<\/p>\n

In early 2017, Ecuador underwent a change of leadership. New president Len\u00edn Moreno, far more U.S.-friendly, saw the Assange situation as a \u201cstone in his shoe<\/span><\/a>.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Assange\u2019s Embassy life soured. His Internet access was cut, and visits by supporters were curtailed. For all practical purposes, he was in solitary confinement \u2014 which many have concluded is a form of torture<\/a>.<\/span> Apparently his personal habits and living conditions went downhill. Ecuador accused him of violating the terms of their agreement and withdrew his asylum.<\/p>\n

This freed the U.K. to move against him. To them, he\u2019d skipped bail when seeking asylum with Ecuador. The U.S. had bigger fish to fry. The reason he\u2019d sought asylum, after all, was not fear of the Swedish allegation but his certainty it was a cover for a planned U.S. extradition.<\/p>\n

On Thursday morning, April 11, it went down.<\/p>\n

The man they removed had visibly deteriorated. Watch for yourself.<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n

Assange is in custody in the U.K. Now what?<\/p>\n

The U.S. accuses him and Chelsea Manning of trying to hack the password of a federal computer. There are indications of other charges, as of this writing undisclosed.<\/p>\n

Manning is again locked up for refusing to testify in a secret hearing before a grand jury investigating Assange. This preceded Assange\u2019s April 11 arrest by less than a month \u2014 a dead giveaway something was up.<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll see if Assange is brought forcibly to the U.S., given a show trial, and thrown into a deep dark hole.<\/p>\n

Or found dead with at least two bullet holes in the back of his head, and authorities rule it a \u201csuicide.\u201d<\/p>\n

The larger question: are we about to see the murder of independent journalism \u2014 alternative media \u2014 before our eyes?<\/p>\n

The Deep Establishment cold war against alternative media began on November 24, 2016<\/a><\/span>, and did its share of damage. With this war carried forward by Google, Facebook, and other leviathans of Big Tech in bed with the Deep Establishment, the drop in traffic to alternative sites (including this one) was noticeable.<\/p>\n

But so far, independent media has survived!<\/p>\n

Truth always does, one way or another!<\/p>\n

Alternatives to official outlets continue to be \u201cstones in the shoes\u201d of those who would take us into their techno-feudal<\/a><\/span> future.<\/p>\n

Such voices have been annoyances to authoritarian power since the Gutenberg Press was invented, and since Martin Luther distributed copies of his 95 Theses in Wittenberg and started the Protestant Reformation \u2014 showing what one dissenting and highly resourceful voice could accomplish.<\/p>\n

For the past 12-and-a-half years, the most resourceful dissenting voice has belonged to Julian Assange.<\/p>\n

Hence the incentive to make an example of him.<\/p>\n

If he ends up incarcerated for a long period of time, or dies suspiciously in custody, it will strike fear in the hearts of independent thinkers, writers, and publishers everywhere.<\/p>\n

Keep in mind: Assange is not a U.S. citizen, has never been to the U.S., wanted nothing to do with the U.S. beyond exposing the malfeasance of its war machine. We see how Assange\u2019s case could serve as a precedent: journalists and writers anywhere in the world can be set up, arrested, and extradited if those in power deem them a threat.<\/p>\n

The number of truly independent truth-tellers has dwindled over the years. Those I know of would fit in my front room.<\/p>\n

The journalism profession as a whole \u2014 like academia \u2014 sold out long ago. All one has to do to see the level of shilling is turn on CNN or MSNBC or any major network, possibly except Fox News some of the time. As for the latter, folks like Sean Hannity and Tucker Carlson have suffered personal attacks in this era of hoked up accusations of \u201csexual misconduct\u201d and bogus allegations of \u201cracism.\u201d<\/p>\n

If Julian Assange comes to a bad end, mass media and social media will get worse. We\u2019ll see mainstream \u201cnews\u201d descend even further into a insipid mixture of feel-good trivia, blatant propaganda, and mindless entertainment. We\u2019ll see more and more reportage conducted in the Twitterverse, where character limits preclude deep thought.<\/p>\n

What we won\u2019t see is another WikiLeaks to expose the powerful and challenge dominant narratives.<\/p>\n

It will be extremely interesting to watch what Donald Trump does. What we\u2019ve seen so far isn\u2019t encouraging.<\/p>\n

Candidate Trump told his supporters, \u201cI love WikiLeaks!\u201d and \u201cWikiLeaks is incredible!\u201d<\/p>\n

President Trump, upon being informed of Assange\u2019s arrest, replied timidly that \u201cI know nothing about WikiLeaks, it\u2019s not my thing\u2026.\u201d<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t take my word for it.<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Has Trump become just one more lackey with a selective memory?<\/p>\n

We\u2019ll find out, probably before the 2020 election, whether Trump has been sufficiently compromised that the struggle against Deep Establishment globalism directed from the City of London and within the U.S. corporate-state complex is, for all practical purposes, over, at least in the U.S.<\/p>\n

So that the march to techno-feudalism<\/a><\/span> can get back to business as usual in the 2020s.<\/p>\n

It won\u2019t be easy \u2014 for the techno-feudal globalists.<\/p>\n

For resistance exists not just on Main Street, U.S., but right there in the U.K. (Brexit!), in France (the Yellow Vests), and in Hungary and Poland where voters have put anti-globalists in their presidencies. Greece has been crushed by \u201causterity\u201d; Italy is disintegrating.<\/p>\n

EU-type systems simply don\u2019t work! Unless you\u2019re a center banker, financier, or other corporate-state globalist interested only in money and power: the telos of the materialist worldview<\/span><\/a> that has dominated the European mind (and power centers) for over two centuries now, and has increasingly come to dominate the U.S. mind.<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know what Julian Assange\u2019s personal worldview is. I don\u2019t know if he\u2019s given the matter much thought. I am sure God has used him, and is using other truth-tellers.<\/p>\n

The prophet Isaiah said (1:9): \u201cUnless the Lord of Hosts had left to us a very small remnant, we would have become like Sodom, we would have been made like Gomorrah.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Lord of Hosts clearly left us a Remnant, and it is alive throughout the world!<\/p>\n

It was never God\u2019s plan for humanity to create a functional world regime, which may be one of the reasons the EU has turned into an utter disaster.<\/p>\n

Read the account of the Tower of Babel (Gen. 11:1-9).<\/p>\n

Globalism may win a few battles here and there, but in the end, it cannot win the war.<\/p>\n

Although because of our sins, ranging from the de facto<\/em> apostasy of mainline churches to the U.S.\u2019s truly horrendous crimes (think: 63 million unborn babies and counting!), we may be in for a very rough ride before the Lord returns to set things right!<\/p>\n

*It should go without saying that Bradley\/Chelsea Manning\u2019s \u201cgender dysphoria\u201d is neither here nor there so far as this matters discussed here are concerned. Gender confusion does not preclude knowledge of right vs. wrong. What he\/she did back in 2010 was highly courageous, even if it resulted in severe punishment, including life-threatening periods of solitary confinement. This is what we ought to expect from the military wing of a society based on authority structures instead of freedom.<\/p>\n

Copyright \u00a9 2019, Steven Yates News With Views.com<\/span><\/a>-All rights reserved.<\/p>\n

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