Sorry, I have not yet entirely read this article (kinda tl;dr, with my
train in less than one hour ...), but it looks worthwhile enough with
Julian A. on the verge of being kicked out of the Ecuadorian Embassy
with nowhere to go but ...?
My opinions on the persona of Assange are sufficiently known, yet it
should never be forgotten that he, not alone, but surely by virtue of
his, err, 'personality', shifted the lines in world politics to an
absolutely unbelievable degree, for which the 'David against Goliath'
metaphor is only a (very) pale moniker. And now I believe he should be
looked at and treated as a human being, one of us, our brother ('in ...'
- what ever you may believe).
Let him go, let him be free, and let him have some rest.
Cheers from Torino,
p+2D!
original to:
https://original.antiwar.com/nozomi_hayase/2018/08/26/unity-for-assanges-plight-is-necessary-to-build-a-movement-for-democracy/
Unity for Assange’s Plight Is Necessary To Build a Movement for
Democracy
by Nozomi Hayase Posted on August 27, 2018
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains in solitary confinement inside
the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was granted asylum in 2012
against the threat of extradition to the United States for his
publishing activities. In recent months, Ecuador’s President Lenin
Moreno, under pressure from the U.S. began threatening to evict this
political refugee.
In response to this dire situation, people across the political spectrum
began to form solidarity through #Unify4J, an online platform to
organize a social media movement in support of Assange. Among those
include prominent Trump’s supporters. In the midst of Trump
administration’s draconian measures on immigrants and empowerment of
white supremacist groups, the idea of working with Trump’s key allies
triggered reaction among the left. Recently, Classconscious.org, an
outlet spearheading global civic action for Assange’s freedom,
scrutinized the idea of uniting with ultra-right forces that back Trump
and urged the movement to draw a line.
Strife around the same issue arose from the former associate and early
proponents of WikiLeaks. Barrett Brown, an award-winning journalist,
previously imprisoned for charges relating to a Stratfor hack, has been
one of the strong voices in support of the whistleblowing site. He
described how he has long stood up for the organization’s mission of
transparency at great risk to himself, yet in recent months he became
upset about what he perceived to be Assange’s alliance with fascists and
radical right supremacist groups.
Brown, who recently launched the project Pursuance, an open source
software that allows individuals to share information and organize, has
ramped up criticism toward Assange in his most vulnerable time. This
created the conflict with the Courage Foundation, an organization that
provides assistance for whistleblowers. Courage was co-founded by
Assange and it has both WikiLeaks and Brown as beneficiaries. According
to the article on the Daily Beast, three of Courage’s trustees
reportedly instructed Courage’s respected director Naomi Colvin to cut
off Brown as some kind of retaliation against his hostile remarks toward
Assange. This led to the unfortunate resignation of Colvin, who was
forced to walk out from the organization as a matter of principle for
her opposition to exclude anyone based on political speech.
Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a former member of Iceland’s Parliament, who now
joined the board of Pursuance, responded to this alleged retaliation
against Brown. Jónsdóttir, who worked for WikiLeaks in the 2010
publication of the Collateral Murder video, recently tweeted her
thoughts on her old colleague: "It’s beyond sad to watch the hubris of
one man being able to do so much damage and alienate people who risked
everything for the cause. WikiLeaks is now far closer to alt right
groups then digital rights groups, by choice of its overlord."
The divisiveness that has grown among progressives around the advocacy
of WikiLeaks brings extreme alarm. It weakens any kind of efforts to
resist government and corporate oppression. Finding a way to overcome
this force becomes now important, not only for Assange’s freedom, but
also for creating a viable movement for democracy.
Innovation on the Internet
So, where does this divisiveness really come from? Since its mainstream
recognition in 2010, WikiLeaks was accused of many things in different
places and by various groups of people. WikiLeaks once tweeted: "In
Russia, Julian Assange is a MI6 agent; In US, a Russian agent; In Iran,
a Mossad agent; In Saudi, an Iranian agent; In Libya, a CIA agent. World
wide establishments accuse those who expose them of being the enemy of
the people." The latest accusation became ‘WikiLeaks, as an agent of
fascism!’
The latest accusation became ‘WikiLeaks, as an agent of fascism!’ Yet,
the organization cannot be pigeonholed into these labels. Needless to
say, none of these characterizations are accurate. WikiLeaks is a 100%
publicly funded transnational journalistic organization that is not
bound to any nation, corporation or political parties. This borderless
existence comes to challenge our preconceived notion of journalism based
on a model that operates within the confinement of the nation-state.
WikiLeaks can be best looked at as an innovation of journalism on the
Internet. Just as many inventions of the past, it brought disruption to
the system and became controversial. Think of Johannes Gutenberg and his
invention of the printing press. The spread of the printing press made
it possible for people to read the Bible and democratization of
knowledge enabled by his technology has brought the decline of Church’s
authority.
In a similar way, Assange together with mathematicians, activists and
journalists all around the world, invented a new form of journalism that
is much more effective in revealing corruption of governments and
institutions. With a pristine record of accuracy, it published more
classified information than all media combined, exposing human right
abuses, government spying, torture and war crimes on a scale that was
unprecedented.
Birth of this global Fourth Estate was a game changer. It radically
altered the media landscape. Just as scientists and inventors of the
past who were imprisoned for their unconventional beliefs and
discoveries, Assange has been persecuted for the breakthrough of this
innovation. In the 17th century, Galileo’s thought that provided the
evidence about the Earth revolving around the Sun was met with
condemnation by the orthodoxy of the Church. In these contemporary
times, WikiLeaks and its idea of transparency for the powerful seem to
have become a heresy that is regarded as a punishable offense by the
state.
Ethos of cypherpunks
Without understanding the essence of this new invention, people’s
attitudes toward WikiLeaks swing back and forth. Whether it is
capitalism or socialism, Democrats or Republicans, many demand WikiLeaks
to demonstrate its allegiance to their political ideology and support
their preferred candidate. They conflate the invention with the
inventor, becoming obsessed with Assange.
One publication put him in a category of a leftist, while another turns
him into a right winger. People speculate and get overly attached to
Assange’s political views. Ultimately, the opinion of this inventor does
not and should not matter. In the same way that people don’t have to
know who invented electricity to have a light or a combustion engine to
drive a car, everyone can benefit from this new journalism and use it to
enrich society at large.
Yet, for those who still feel the need to know, Assange’s thoughts are
not shaped by a conventional political dichotomy of left and right. The
ideas that conceived WikiLeaks originated from the philosophy of
cypherpunks, an electronic mailing list that advocates privacy through
the use of strong cryptography.
The motto of this loosely tied network that became active since the late
1980’s is depicted with the expression "cypherpunks write code". Adam
Back, a cryptographer who was cited in Bitcoin’s white paper described
it as a particular mindset to make changes through creating
alternatives, rather than engaging in typical political efforts of
petitions and protests. Back noted how pressuring politicians and
promoting issues through the press tends to be slow and creates an
uphill battle. He pointed out how instead of appealing to authority for
change, people can simply "deploy technology and help people do what
they consider to be their legal right", and then society will later
catch up to reflect these values.
Assange describing himself as part of cypherpunks that came from a
different tradition than libertarians in California, articulated their
unique efforts to balance power between the individual and the state. He
said, "By writing our own software and disseminating it far and wide we
liberated cryptography, democratized it and spread it through the
frontiers of the new internet." Being true to this ethos of cypherpunks,
Assange deployed the technology of a secure drop box that runs on Tor, a
free software that routes Internet traffic to enable the anonymous
submission of material.
Liberating the First Amendment
The creation of WikiLeaks brought a major upgrade to the existing model
of free speech. In the U.S. where tradition of freedom of speech began,
in its inception, the First Amendment right was not able to fully embody
its potent creative power. The idea of democracy, a government
established under the rule of people, expressed in the preamble of the
Constitution "we the people" remained an ideal. A move toward its
fulfillment came from below by those who opposed the ratification of the
1787 Constitution that lacked the guarantee of individual liberties. The
anti-federalists demanded that the Bill of Rights was necessary in order
to restrict governmental power and their efforts made it possible for
freedom of expression to be codified into law.
The First Amendment reads;
"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."
Establishment of Bill of Rights as a vital part of checks and balances
of power was revolutionary. Yet these rights that were meant to provide
protection of individuals from government’s overarching power were
granted and regulated by central authority. In the structure of the
constitutional republic, the unaccounted power of the Founding Fathers
was kept unchecked. This created a loophole that makes the system
vulnerable to commercial interests. Big business gained power by
exploiting this weakness in security of the system and hijacked the
government. Transnational corporations that have no allegiance to any
country began using national governments and their system of
representative democracy as instruments to control the populace and
advance their own agendas.
With privatization of public airwaves and consolidation of media, an
oligarchic class put the First Amendment under its proprietary control,
restricting user access and setting terms and conditions for their use.
In this dictatorial form of governance, journalists and editors are
installed as an arbitrator of truth to manage and monitor public
opinion. Through a creed of objectivity, they justify censoring any
dissenting thoughts that challenge government official lines crafted by
the corporate masters. This was evidenced by the 2013 documentary film
Mediastan that exposed the former New York Times executive editor Bill
Keller’s cozy relationship with the US government, the military and the
CIA.
It was in this context of corporate dictatorship that Assange used
cryptography as a nonviolent democratic weapon to revolt. From its
onset, the US Constitution framed by white property owners with their
imperfection manifested in slavery, genocide of natives and denial of
women’s rights corrupted the source code of equality written in the
Declaration of Independence. Now, over 200 years later, Australian born
computer programmer and journalist aimed to restore this original code
of democracy through building a publishing platform online that is run
on free software.
With the creation of WikiLeaks, Assange liberated the First Amendment
from this archaic system of national governance. Significance of this
invention is that it decentralized the function of free press, extending
the First Amendment protection that has been exclusively preserved for
the profession of journalists to ordinary people. Now, through this
innovative anonymous submission system, anyone in the world with
Internet connection can communicate with people around the globe about
the fraud and wrongdoing of any governments or institutions. Without
fear of retaliation, people can now transcend boundaries of nation-state
to form association with one another and redress their grievances.
With scientific journalism at its core, this new media of the Internet
replaced the source of legitimacy from the profession’s creed of
objectivity to the actual documents themselves that are authenticated.
Access to full achieves in a searchable format empowered everyday people
all over the world. They can now engage in their own history as it is
happening and use information to create social change.
Claiming creative power within
The US government under Obama began a war against the First Amendment,
trying to stop this WikiLeaks’ mission to bring free speech to the
world. In this battle now being carried on by the new President Trump,
Assange, as a lightning rod got inflamed with mainstream media hype of
Russia Gate, demonizing the organization’s role in the 2016 US election.
Without any solid evidence, Democrats throw around opinions, blaming
Assange for the victory of Trump. They accuse the organization as
collaborating with a fascist, when in fact the release of John Podesta
emails exposed the Democratic establishment as actively aiding Trump
candidacy with their strategy to elevate "pied piper" GOP candidates.
Some of Assange’s former allies also got caught up with the heat that
fixates public gaze on his personality. By expressing disdain toward
Assange’s flaws and what appeared to be their personal grudges against
him that should be reconciled individually, they plunge themselves into
the orgy of identity politics. While they are fully entitled to their
opinion and criticism about his character, the timing and the way it was
voiced when he can’t respond is concerning. This only adds fuel to the
establishment’s character assassination of this political prisoner, who
was placed under surveillance cameras and intense media scrutiny to the
level that no one in the world are made to endure.
In facing the struggles of the racial injustice in the civil rights era,
Martin Luther King Jr. recognized the similar force of divisiveness that
could destroy the movement. In a sermon delivered in 1957 in Montgomery,
Alabama, King identified it as hatred and described how it "distorts the
personality of the hater." He noted how this hatred has created
"something of a civil war" inside people that divides them against one
another. He reminded all about a redemptive power of love that could
"save our world and our civilization":
"Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal
to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its
great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems.
Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you
seek to defeat the system."
Just like cypherpunks who tap into the creative power within to bring
change, this veteran leader of a civil rights movement knew that in
order to abolish unjust laws of racism, we must first become that change
by embodying universal brotherhood within ourselves. He understood that
the blacks’ fight against their oppressors to claim their rights lock
all into a perpetuating power struggle and how the levers of control
that they use to try to defeat opponents will be used against them to
deny their rights. For this, King insisted all to adopt the principle of
"love your enemies" and lay down a sharp sword that cut through both
ways.
Reign of the heart
This radical love that embraces even one’s opponents is the heart that
accepts all existence, giving all a right to express themselves equally.
This heart that does not favor certain opinions as good and judge others
as bad is the cornerstone of our democracy. The function of the First
Amendment is to connect us to this silent pulse of the heart, placing it
at a center of society to preserve the liberty of all people.
In the interview conducted by an award winning filmmaker John Pilger,
renowned political analyst Noam Chomsky once said, "If we don’t believe
in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it
at all". Democracy dies when we deny speech of those whom we oppose and
our collective heart suffocates, with each individual not being able to
speak freely. Tyranny triumphs the rule of law when we can’t breathe
through diverse opinions and perspectives to inspire one another to form
a court of public opinion.
WikiLeaks enabled the true function of the First Amendment. As a
countenance of democracy, this revolutionary journalism protects people
against suppression of speech by allowing all voices including views
that are unpopular and marginalized. This can illuminate what liberals
consider WikiLeaks’ troubling appearance of associating with Trump Jr.
and speaking up for conspiracy theorists like a Infowars radio host Alex
Jones, when he got censored by Silicon Valley tech giants.
In the article "No, Julian Assange Is Not a Fascist", Gary Lord who
writes political commentary has cut though the corporate media headlines
that twist WikiLeaks’ professional contact with President Trump’s son.
By presenting their Twitter direct messages in a full context, he
dismantled the widely held myth that Assange supports Trump and
WikiLeaks helped his campaign. What is revealed in these exchanges was
WikiLeaks asking Trump’s son to help them publish his father’s tax
returns (which was ignored), while refusing inquiries of both Cambridge
Analytica and Trump Jr., regarding the upcoming publications. Lord
summed up the nature of their interaction as WikiLeaks just doing the
things that any good journalistic organization would do.
In Trump cabinet’s aggressive pursuit to criminalize journalism, Assange
is now seized in the embassy, deprived of sunlight and health care,
being cut off from the outside world. As the fate of press freedom looks
grim, cynicism and apathy spread with many of his colleagues in
mainstream media turning away from his predicament and spectators
lamenting this tragedy from afar. The fact is, it is not Assange who has
created damage and alienated people as critics say. Rather, it is our
lack of understanding of true meaning of free speech that brings damage
to efforts of those who risked everything for democracy and has
condemned Assange to profound solitude.
Efforts to free Julian Assange challenges us all to uphold this right to
free speech, with moral courage to love our enemies. When politics wins,
democracy loses. Only through our united front built upon our feeling of
truth, can we bring the reign of the heart that can dismantle the levers
of control and realize universal ideals that all men and women are
created equal.
Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is an essayist and author of WikiLeaks, the Global
Fourth Estate: History Is Happening (Libertarian Books, 2018). Find her
on twitter @nozomimagine.
Read more by Nozomi Hayase
Assange’s Freedom, Democracy’s Last Line of Defense – July 26th, 2018
WikiLeaks, Bitcoin, and the Revolutionary Movement of Peacemakers –
October 25th, 2017
Moral Injury of War: The Invisible Wound of Empire – July 4th, 2017
WikiLeaks Vault 7 Reveals CIA Cyberwar and the Real Battleground of
Democracy – March 16th, 2017
WikiLeaks: 10 Years of Pushing the Boundaries of Free Speech – October
6th, 2016
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