"The wealthy, not only by private fraud but also by common laws, do every day pluck and snatch away from the people some part of their daily living. Therefore, when I consider and weigh in my mind these commonwealths which nowadays do flourish, I perceive nothing but a certain conspiracy of rich men in procuring their own commodities under the name and authority of the commonwealth.

They invent and devise all means and crafts, first how to keep safely without fear of losing that which they have unjustly gathered together, and next how to hire and abuse the work and labor of the people for as little money and effort as possible."

Thomas More, Utopia

Thursday, December 23, 2010

Julian Assange speaks

It's always important for the accused to be given the opportunity to speak on the charges against them for reasons that should be self-evident. The case of Julian Assange is of particular importance because he and, by extension, the organization he founded, Wikileaks, is under extraordinary pressure from the world's hyper-power and its many client states around the globe. Unless you've been in a coma over the past few weeks you should by now be aware that Wikileaks has snatched the sheets off of indecent activities that the powerful would prefer to remain concealed. Many talk of the importance of "speaking truth to power" which is absurd on its face when one considers the fact that power already knows the truth and certainly doesn't need to hear it from us. No, power much prefers that the truth and its implications be concealed from us and requires only our obedience. Wikileaks, to its credit, explodes this paradigm and therefore must be destroyed. The mission of Wikileaks is to allow the Great Unwashed access to the unfiltered truth of what their governments and other powerful institutions do behind closed doors and without accountability. One cannot hope to make informed decisions without access to accurate information i.e the truth, a fact well understood by those who seek to dominate the many. Wilileaks has defied the world's most powerful institutions and the people who control them in the face of ferocious reaction under the principle that the public has the right to know what decisions are being made in their name---a responsibility long abdicated by a servile, corporate media.

There are consequences for this kind of courage. As the face of Wikileaks Assange is a natural target so the rape allegations against him in Sweden have come as little surprise [I'd have bet on child-molestation]. The clumsy "investigation" that led to the charges against him have been well documented and discussed elsewhere so I won't further contribute to what I consider to be a distraction [swallowed whole-hog by much of the Left] from the actions of the US government abroad. Below is, to my knowledge, the only sit-down interview Assange has given since his release. Unsurprisingly, no platform has been offered him in the mainstream media outlets who have spared no expense in moving the conversation away from US power.