As a military officer, I was trained to strictly observe security protocols. So when I first heard of WikiLeaks and Julian Assange, I was instinctively critical. But upon reading his released documents, I saw how Julian gave people accurate insights into the inner workings of their own government.
Government “of the People” cannot flourish beneath a suffocating cloak of secrecy. And secrecy is often aimed, not at protecting us from enemies abroad, but at deceiving us about the dark machinations of our own government. The most consequential secrets are those used to conceal steps taken to establish predicates for future wars – unwarranted conflicts that seem to roll off an endless assembly line. No-fly zones, bombings, sanctions, false flags, blockades, mercenaries, bloodthirsty terrorists have all become stock in trade. Sanctions destabilize our targets through hunger and suffering. We terrorize and blow body parts into the streets like calling cards. Regime change is the end game; coups and assassinations are fair play.
Before Assange, those who “broke the code” and detected the Deep State’s patterns of misbehavior were labeled “conspiracy theorists” or worse. But with the advent of WikiLeaks, original, unchallenged source documents have proven our arguments, and revealed the truth to citizens.
Trump’s election sent violent shock waves through the Deep State. People had been warned they could not elect this person – but they had ignored the instructions. That was not supposed to happen – and could not be permitted to happen again. The People demonstrated that the mainstream media had lost its tight grip on the national conversation. National intelligence was being revealed and shared. Generations of subtle censorship had folded under an onslaught of uncensored communications among families, friends, and interest groups. Social media – a new and frightening paradigm challenged the elite’s grip on the levers of power. After Trump, restoring barriers to free speech and communications became a global imperative.
Today, we see intense, coordinated efforts to re-impose effective information control in America and globally. Facebook, Twitter, Google, YouTube, PayPal, and other high-tech titans rush to hire censors and adopt restrictive policies that block controversial voices from reaching global audiences. Big Brother is back in town.
Julian Assange and WikiLeaks are among the censors’ prized targets. They have disrupted Big Media censorship. Assassinating Assange is not out of the question. He is that important.
I realize that Julian Assange is controversial, but I’d be pleased if some courageous nation granted him permanent asylum. Let him continue giving citizens an honest peek at the inner workings of their governments. That seems to be our best hope for peace.
Senator Richard H. Black represents the 13th District of Virginia. He is a Colonel US Army (ret.); Former Chief, Criminal Law Division, Office of the Judge Advocate General, the Pentagon; Associate, Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. Visit his website.
Once again no mention of the think tanks that are funded by billionaires who fund the white papers that government abides by.
When you commoditize everything it includes foreign policy. We live in a plutocracy that has perpetrated a slow motion bloodless coup upon the country and now uses our government as an auction house in which the highest bidder gets to exploit anyone around the world in the global protection racket of the elites.
“We live in a plutocracy that has perpetrated a slow motion bloodless coup upon the country and now uses our government as an auction house in which the highest bidder gets to exploit anyone around the world in the global protection racket of the elites.”
True.
Of course, so does pretty much everyone else on the planet.
“Whataboutism” = “Of course, so does pretty much everyone else on the planet”
I don’t know the answer to the plutocracy. But excusing it as commonplace surely isn’t it.
I’m not “excusing” it. I’m pointing out that it is not some kind of unique, previously unknown phenomenon. It’s what the state is.
Plutocracy is, according to Thomas, “What the state is.” No. Democracies do not begin as Plutocracies. They grow into Plutocracies when unregulated economic competition produces obscene wealth inequality, the latter practically begging the super rich to corrupt the nation’s politics to earn even greater wealth. Highly regulated democracies can avoid the scourge of plutocrats.
The only way to produce obscene wealth inequality is through regulation.
I’m happy that you are a man of faith, Thomas. But I’d rather decide such things on the basis of history and comparative studies, i.e., facts. Under-regulated markets; Haiti, Russia, the US (Pre-FDR and post Reagan), all gangster economies under the control of plutocrats.
“Under-regulated” presumes some optimal amount of regulation.
As for other gangster economies under the control of plutocrats, are you asserting that North Korea, Venezuela, China, and Cuba are “under-regulated?”
He stated his definition of “not under-regulated” in his post: USA from the New Deal through 1988.
As for what I think the ideal amount of regulation is, it’s difficult to be precise, but I know it’s somewhere above zero and well below that of the countries on your list.
The disagreement between redsocs and myself is fundamental.
I agree with Marx that the state is the executive committee of the ruling class. I disagree with Marx that it can be otherwise, e.g. that a classless society can emerge from his projected revolution and dictatorship of the proletariat.
So long as the state exists, plutocracy will be the result, and regulation will be a major tool in creating and maintaining that plutocracy.
It’s not an accident that the rule of the Military Industrial Complex followed the New Deal.
I can think of many countries with far fewer impediments to democracy than the USA has. No other “democracy” has the system which makes it almost impossible to have a competent candidate elected as POTUS. The partisan choice of judges at all levels and the ease of gerrymandering add to the lack of fairness for the majority.
A bold statement for a standing senator to make. Respect. I would head for Bolivia. Evo may be the last uncorrupted leader in the Western Hemisphere.
Thank you so much for writing this Sen. Black. I wish more law makers and military officers would offer their support.
Thank you, Senator Black.
Yes, thank you.
If I come to believe that someone or some organizational source is telling the truth to me about my government, I could care less the nature or identity of the truth teller.
Was Assange tricked into violating that Swedish law? Yes, that is possible.
I have always been curious why that law existed.
I asked a colleague who was a Swede once what to make of that law. She pointed out that it does not apply to legally married couples. If it did and all couples obeyed there would not be a next generation of Swedes. If all couples violated then that next generation would be conceived by crime.
The law has nothing to do with morals because both protected and unprotected sex outside marriage should be considered immoral. That is not the case.
She thought that a major reason for the passage of that law was to combat the spread of sexually transmitted diseases such as HIV.
She agreed that considering every male who disobeyed a rapist is insane. It would be analogous to consider me to be a bank robber every time I enter my bank to cash a check.
One of – perhaps the only Republican to call it right on Syria.
We need this man in the White House!
I am absolutely delighted and amazed that an intelligent, thoughtful, fair person has actually been elected to the US Senate, and in Virginia, no less!!!!
The right of people to know what their government is doing in their name seems a normal wish, but in the “land of the free” is controversial.