RT and Wikileaks – coordinated effort to silence alt. news sources?
In a slow-developing situation, the last few days has seen the two of the most high-profile anti-establishment media voices in the UK – Wikileaks and RT – come under some form of covert attack.
Over the weekend Wikileaks official twitter account suggested, and then confirmed, that the Ecuadorian Embassy in London had cut Julian Assange’s internet access:
Julian Assange’s internet link has been intentionally severed by a state party. We have activated the appropriate contingency plans.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) October 17, 2016
We can confirm Ecuador cut off Assange’s internet access Saturday, 5pm GMT, shortly after publication of Clinton’s Goldman Sachs speechs.
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) 17 October 2016
The sudden social-media silence, in conjunction with some unusual coded tweets sent the night before, fuelled speculation that Assange had been killed, or that Ecuador had caved and handed him over to the Americans. Neither of which appear to be the case.
Meanwhile, RTUK have had their UK-based bank accounts frozen by NatWest, a move the Treasury denies any all knowledge of.
Whether deliberate or not, the disruption to these anti-establishment voices will be most welcome during the run up to the election. Wikileaks is in middle of its progressively stronger leaks of DNC internal e-mails, a subject RTUK is giving much more airtime than any American or British media outlet. Couple that with the FBI’s publishing some of their (heavily redacted) documents pertaining to Clinton’s e-mail, and the court decision finding that the British government illegally spied on their citizens for years, and you can see this would be a very handy time to have the alt-media quieted down a notch.
While still too early to say this is a coordinated effort, it’s definitely a strange coincidence and situation that bears watching. Independent or in conjunction both acts are quite obvious attacks on free speech, and both suggest that a major crackdown may soon be in the offing.
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Of course comments are disabled on the Guardian article/attack on RT having its assets frozen, wouldn’t expect any less.
*This post is meant for bevin, who brought up Glen Ford. I can’t seem to make OG notice me. This will be my 3rd try. Are we dealing with gatekeepers, namely people who hinder others with political views that they regard as wrong? They can exist, invisibly, within any organization.
Ah yes, The Black Agenda Report. I tried repeatedly to register to the site and participate in the discussions, to no avail. Repeated emails to staff were not replied to. Finally, I shot one to Glen Ford. He just brushed me off. He said he’d pass my email on to the appropriate department or something like that. Nothing at all came of it. Otherwise, Yes, BAR is a great resource. But these instances of progressive leaders showing disdain for regular people, for no good reason, puts me off. After discovering (relatively recently) that the RT website finally had a half decent discussion system, I was more than a little dismayed when, yesterday, I found them censoring me. And not lightly. I mentioned it in the forum (It survived) and another commenter named Orange Sword pointed out to me that the problem lay with the Israelis who RT tapped to run their discussion forums. I’m surprised that that post survived. Ishay Green and Nadav Shoval are the creators of Spot.IM, the discussion software readers on the RT website must now deal with. I hate to say it, but I’m sure that most of those participants on RT don’t have much to say and aren’t being attacked by the screening process. How else to explain the widespread and lavish praise that forum participants have for poor, besieged RT. I assume that everyone here knows about the attack by the UK, no doubt with uncle Sam’s blessing, on RT. UK officials are denying that they are the source, but as Sergei Lavrov said, in so many words, Nice try! (http://bit.ly/2dytXVU)
I had quite a few posts disappeared by this site yesterday. OS told me that the Jewish owners (Wikileaks says they are based in Israel, while a DDG search turns up info that places them in NY. Whatever.) And I don’t know or care that they are Jewish, except that Israel is a country where much of, or most of, the population has been ruined intellectually and spiritually. The censorship in evidence on the RT website as a result of employing Spot.IM is the problem I have with these guys. OS suggested that words like ‘hell’ and ‘Jews’ will be flagged. And what other words, because how would we know? And ‘if’ their excuse is that they want to protect the religious sensibilities of Jewish people, That doesn’t cut it. And it’s awfully convenient, if the real goal is to kill free and open discussion, by all, of important issues, which RT does talk about.
See my blog post titled “Irony And An Iron Grip.” – http://bit.ly/2er8gG9
Glen Ford puts it well in the current Black Agenda Report:
“Black Agenda Report executive editor Glen Ford challenged those who maintain that progressives are obligated to support Hillary Clinton for president to counter a “fascist” threat from Donald Trump. “I’d like to know how Donald Trump is supposed to build fascism when the ruling class is mostly with the Democrats this election season,” said Ford. “If you are worried about 21st century fascism, you need to check out the tent where the ruling class congregates — and that’s Hillary’s tent. Most of all, if you’re looking for fascists, go to the sound of the war drums” — which are also pounding in Hillary’s tent…
Clinton’s record could not be clearer. At home she was an author of Mass Incarceration, mandatory minimum sentences and abolition of the welfare system (responsible for appalling suffering and the institutionalised injustice of the new Jim Crow). Abroad from Somalia to Bosnia, from Honduras to Haiti, from Libya to Syria her bloodstained fingerprints are in evidence.
Wall Street is failing and will do everything, including risking a nuclear war, to attempt to staunch the tide of history which is eroding the foundations, economic and geo-political of its empire. Clinton, who worships power and violence, is Wall St’s candidate and her mission is to employ every means available to prevent the inevitable-absent world war- establishment of a Eurasian economic system founded not on sea power but on the ancient trade routes from the Pacific to the North Sea.
To endorse a candidate openly calling for confrontations with Russia, Iran and China and the destruction of states like Syria and Libya, is madness. To do so because “She’s OK with Gay Marriage” or endorsed by the crooks in the Congressional Black Caucus or is a woman is pathetic.
Glen Ford’s quote ends “…which are also pounding in Hillary’s tent…” He is not responsible for what follows- Hillary is.
and she was considered the “sensible” candidate? madness!
Reblogged this on Worldtruth.
I am puzzled as to why no one is connecting this to Max Keiser’s show on saturday, wholly devoted to the RBS/GRG scandal. He has covered this story for years so I don’t know why payback came so late really. It was also stated in the show that msm were at last going to give it an airing though haven’t seen anything.
https://www.rt.com/shows/keiser-report/362856-episode-max-keiser-980/
Max and Stacy are joined by Joel Benjamin, local authority debt audit campaigner with Debt Resistance UK, and Nigel Henderson, who lost his hotel business to RBS’s restructuring division, to talk of the ‘stunned commoners’ in awe (at the brazenness) of the Royal… Bank of Scotland. Nigel recounts his own encounter with RBS’s smash and grab unit which saw him lose his hotel in Scotland. They discuss the tens of billions in fines the bank, taxpayer-owned RBS, faces from US authorities for the bank’s role in the mortgage backed securities fraud and whether or not there will be anything left for compensation of the thousands of small and medium sized enterprises destroyed in the UK
*NatWest is part of RBS
One aspect of an act is to read the reaction to it and use that information.
If anything being said about this can be trusted it is that nothing can be trusted – but that doesn’t mean distrust – so much as misplaced trust that needs realigning with the trustworthy.
What is trustworthy guidance to a dishonest follower? There is none.
The insanity of investing in lies or even wishes is that of being diverted from and divided in one’s own will.
Anyone can be doing anything through almost anything – its your imagination and the witnesses you call forth accordingly. The publicity FOR RT and Wikileaks is evident though the form it took was a seeming threat to them.
All sorts of forms carry different meanings or agenda according to their use – and ultimately what you choose to use them for – as your result or fruit of your involvement.
I read this, this morning. It may be too deep to listen to in a politically polarised arena:
“The distraction of the ego SEEMS to interfere with your learning, but it HAS no power to distract unless you GIVE it the power. The ego’s voice is an hallucination. You cannot expect the EGO to say “I am not real.” Hallucinations ARE inaccurate perceptions of reality. But you are NOT asked to dispel them alone. You are merely asked to evaluate them in terms of their results TO YOU. If you DO NOT WANT THEM on the basis of LOSS OF PEACE, they will be removed from your mind FOR you. Every response to the ego is a call to war, and war DOES deprive you of peace. Yet in this war THERE IS NO OPPONENT. THIS is the reinterpretation of reality which you must make to secure peace, and the ONLY one you need ever make. Those whom you PERCEIVE as opponents are PART of your peace, which YOU are giving up by attacking them”. ( A Course in Miracles)
The persistent triggering of the call to war is the confinement to the fight or flight chemistry such as to become an addictive identity operating against the restoration of natural balance and communication. All polarised sides of any conflict operate the same mindset – whether they recognize their ‘enemy’ (or fear and hatred) defines them or not.
If it were our task to guide an insanely fragmented mind to recognize its wholeness – how would we go about it?
I recognize there is such a movement in life but it does not operate through coercion and deceit – but does illuminate that these are associated with loss of peace – in other words – dissonance, conflict, joylessness and compulsive thought and behaviour.
I see the world conditions are making the stark nature of our choice conscious – so that we cannot make it without a conscious recognition of making it. The choice for insanity – the devil we (think we) know is becoming more obviously insane instead of seemingly wholly justified opposition to something even more feared.
I see this is all about trust – for where we choose to place it is where we accept and define ourself to be. Honesty cannot be allowed within a misplaced trust – excepting token gestures of limited sacrifice. If we trust no one but our ‘own thinking’ are we honestly in any kind of relationship or communication – or set in posture of war?
Growing trust with others requires honesty or indeed a congruency of word and deed. But first we have to find it for ourselves – and that’s where trouble abroad keeps the mind elsewhere.
Sorry binra, but I don’t see how this works. Yes, people have subtle mind processes and they adopt hostile positions towards others — either as a self-protection mechanism or as a means of achieving a selfish end. But so what? I can be as trusting as I like to a Bush, Rumsfeld or a Cheney and they are still going to abuse me and anyone who stands in their way.
We don’t need a Kumbya moment. That didn’t save the Occupy Movement from being dismantled against their will by the powers that be. What we do need is a public awareness of when they are being conned by lying politicians, and a sense of outrage about that. And for that we need the ammunition of true facts propagated widely. We also need better governance mechanisms that limit the damage that corrupt politicians can do.
A ‘trust’ lead solution is no solution in my view. Not when we are dealing with guns, money and unscrupulous people.
If integrity or truth or honesty have any meaning to you – then you have to add trust to that list.
You’re understanding of trust is not at all mine. I trust my own honesty by bringing that present as willingness for relationship – but extending an honesty of presence is not ‘trusting’ or buying anyone’s presentation – it is being in a position to feel their presence and whether and in what way communication may occur.
Corruption of the mind means that the qualities of life are substituted for, by false currency.
In any case one is always giving trust to something – perhaps your own thinking – or your own fears and any number of shifting perceptions and reactions – and most likely from what you say to a sense of safety in distrust which is the general result of an inversion of consciousness where everything is backwards.
I watched some of the first presidential debate. Clinton felt hollow, frightened and trained to perform under orders. Trump felt more reachable but over confident in his personal ‘power’, driven by personal agenda that didn’t convey any sense of representing the people supporting him so much as using the issues that ‘mainstream’ have cultivated through denial or disregard and provocation. The stage is set as a false framing. The Clintons are hardly representing US interests. Trump claims to be – but says anything and means what exactly? A wildcard for change – but change can be not at all the change hoped for.
Assange : To what degree is anything influential allowed to negatively influence multi trillion dollar interests?
JFK wasn’t. Manipulating the crowd is working their minds. A psy-op world to be farmed, trained, and harvested – or an education by which to awaken from false currency and share in the appreciation of the true. I set my learning goals from a foundation in in trust – but the extension of a true sense of worth has nothing to do with whether another recognizes or accepts it now. But is as natural to its uncovering as cynicism is to its obscuring.
binra seems to paid by the syllable!
the word be shouldn’t be implied, but is!
Self-honesty and trust are two facets of one thing. You are free to interpret me through your current filters, but your completely do not understand that trust is the bedrock of individual and cultural order. Sure, you can place you trust in fear and lies, but you will then see nothing true – including your own needs. Such is the nature of the social political breakdown of culture. You don’t feel any call to open a deeper honesty because you get all the ‘morality’ you need from hating, opposing and negatively idolising neo con puppets.
The things you say we need all require people to trust honesty and the change that it brings about – which has to master its outrage or it is simply used by those who cultivate and provoke it in order to create division, polarity and further breakdown of order. Righteous reaction is the false flagged fool who is worked to bring about his own destruction. The call to a true rightness (sanity) of being is quite another matter, but the cynical (self-hating) hack says ‘that has no effect, cant work, is naive, weak and giving power to the enemy. The mind-fucked always diagnose themselves aptly in their accusations of others.
True facts are lost to lies when framed as ammunition. The lie that truth can be possessed or used for war is the way all truth is lost or sacrificed to war and that is the core pattern of the false sense of self; that the truth is denied or sacrificed to the masking lie, that must ‘survive’ as if it is You.
I am not writing to save the world from evil powers but to awaken with those who are willing to recognize their truth and stop feeding the ‘troll’ of hate, division and death as if it can be targeted on others without coming home.
I have never received any payment for writing.
All attempts to persuade in order to achieve ‘impact’ operate the same mind-control. It really doesn’t matter what clothes, colour or country. Honesty doesn’t need PR – that’s a deceit.
I feel that this will be learned the hard way, is any movement for a true cultural renewal is not merely food to be subverted, weaponised and marketised by hate agenda.
I have no problem with that we find hate in our heart at the way we treat each other now and back through the generations. I seek to bear to bring the terror to light rather than project and displace it on symptoms that can themselves be a cover story for a deeper agenda.
People are very inclined to give trust to anything that ‘protects them’ from hateful feelings. Hence the insanely hateful society masking in moral superiority based on evil and grievance – that is therefore the predicate from which all such power is gotten.
The one thing – for me – which disqualifies H. Clinton from gaining the keys to the White House was the video clip of her celebrating the death of Qaddafi. She clearly revelled in it, even though she must have known that he died as a result of being repeatedly bayoneted rectally. What kind of mindset does she possess? Is it the right kind of mindset for a US President? I think not. Not that Trump is probably any better. The people of the US have ended up with a couple of tough old turkeys on their plates – neither one is in the least appetising.
Indeed, the video of Clinton laughing and glibly saying “we came, we saw, he died” reveals the true nature of this repulsive, opportunistic scumbag (net worth 300 million btw). Also revealing, in a private Goldman Sachs speech (for a mere $200,000) she is quoted as saying “the uber wealthy corporate class should occupy top government positions because, erm, they have so much money that they can’t be bought off or bribed”. Clinton is easily as bad if not worse than GW Bush.
Was that the same speech in which she had no understanding of the American middle and working class due to her affluent life-style? Is that the right sort of person to deal with the US’s domestic problems?
Trump – at least – tries to look as though he has some understanding of the concerns of “ordinary” Americans.
Still, there is hardly anything to recommend either candidate.
The only satisfied person after November 8th will be Netanyahu, as his candidate will have won!
I heard that quote as well, i.e. the ‘well, I’m so well off I can no longer actually relate to the issues of working class Americans’. She’s trying to suck up to the Goldman Sachs bunch, you see, she’s one of them–not some Elizabeth Warren equality and democracy type. Not sure if it was the same speech. I think these quotes have been collected from several of her exclusive Goldman Sachs speeches. Basically it’s lose-lose with Trump vs. Clinton. Both multi-millionaires (like most congressmen for that matter), both living in the millionaire oligarch reality bubble which as Clinton admits makes it impossible for her to relate to everyday Americans. The worship of money over all other human values pretty much sums up both candidates, and the USA for that matter.
that’s the winston churchill idea of the rich man living on his massive plot of land, allowing people to do stuff! unless they piss you off, then destroy them!
Keeping in mind Hillary and Bill Clinton’s close friendship with global central bank mogul Rothschild, in particular her close relationship with Lynn Rothschild, plus the fact Gaddafi was pioneering a new monetary system (no Rothschild banks) for the entire African continent, and people can understand why Libya was bombed back to the stone age.
Oh there are likely millions who tut tut at that but take would take on the exact same distortion of joy in hate at her own treatment in a like manner.
In order to behave as we have, we must hold definitions and beliefs that make such seem necessary or desirable.
The nature of the Quddafi death – real or believed true – was a direct message to other leaders. The Clinton failure to reach the WH was presented as a shock defeat. But how much is insider dealing that works the herd including its managers, to serve deeper agenda?
Elitist domination and control. In fact full spectrum global control, through all agencies, proxies and points of influence for I do not see the US as more than an asset. Insane? Yes of course, but for those who ‘sold their Souls’ to gain it, there is no ‘sanity’ but power and so they are hollow instruments of an ancient hate.
Hatred of life – except as dominated and controlled. Of course its a dead end. It comes from a dead beginning.
When I googled ‘RT Bank accounts’ yesterday, RT’s own article came on the 3rd page of results, even after many small blogs. Maybe it was just my personal settings or something but seemed a little weird.
Is Assange still alive or what? There is much confusion regarding this, but until we can see Assange in person, from the embassy balcony window, we won’t know his status.
Pay no attention to the photo of Assange with a Kelly Kolisnik, as those pics are several months old.
Assange ventured into dangerous territory, publishing truths about the Clinton mob, who don’t appreciate someone trying to get out the truth about Hillary.
Here’s hoping he keeps releasing ever more incriminating evidence against Clinton, and that it gets so bad she finally has to drop out. Ah, yes….what a wonderful thought :-)))))
“but until we can see Assange in person, from the embassy balcony window, we won’t know his status”.
I’m not sure that’s such a good idea, given that Clinton has already suggested that “why don’t we just ‘drone’ him”(or words to that effect) She’s feeling the heat, and she’s getting really ‘ugly’…….
Aside from the state victimisation of Mr Assange, this action actually maintains the focus upon Wikileaks and more importantly, for Mr Assange, his continued incarceration. As for RT, given the ‘honest’ nature of banking does this really impact it’s position negatively? Overall it is increasingly difficult to ascertain true alternative news sources.
The problem is that for RT to operate in Britain, it needs a British bank account to bank its income and other revenues, pay salaries to its British employees and meet its operating costs. Using a bank account in a foreign country could create transaction costs associated with crossing borders that are unnecessary.
A British bank account is also needed for RT Britain to meet its obligations as a taxpayer; the British tax authorities would suspect RT Britain of trying to avoid paying the taxes it should pay if RT Britain put its income in an offshore bank account in a country where corporate tax rates are lower than those in Britain.
A solution would be for RT Britain to park its monies with a UK subsidiary of a Russian or Chinese bank but it would probably be only temporary as Theresa May’s government might one day force all Russian and Chinese banks to leave the UK by refusing to allow them to renew their licences to operate there.
Theresa May is never going to chase the Chinese banks out. The Brits were positively desperate to participate in China’s new Asian Infrastructure and Investment Bank (AIIB). If they ban Chinese banking in the UK, the UK would get kicked out AIIB.
….and don’t forget, London is the Banking Capital of the World, and “The City” answers to NO ONE………
Why do so many people endlessly refer to Clinton as ‘Hillary’ compared to Trump who’s just ‘Trump’? This level of familiarity is revealing and a tad absurd as they all can’t have met this woman let alone be on a first name basis with her, surely?
Well, like the Bushes were George H and George W, rather than simply Bush, to differentiate her from Bill would be the simplest explanation.
Well, at the risk of stating the blindingly obvious, might it merely be because there are two Clintons in public life but only one Trump?
There are several well-known Clinton’s. Bill comes to mind and many are now familiar with Chelsea. There is basically one Trump. In any case, what does it matter? All you really know is that one is a WAR CRIMINAL and the other is a businessman who has killed no one. For the most part, I call her a pig, but Hillary is the more common name used here. Both fit.
The problem is that both Hillary Clinton and Bill Clinton are so deeply steeped in their corruption, greed and arrogance, and have such long histories of carrying out or enabling ethically dubious or outrageous activities, that differentiating who is responsible for which set of war crimes and various conflicts of interest is necessary. It’s not as if we’re dealing with a Jekyll and Hyde couple; we’re dealing with Mr and Mrs Hyde instead.
Certainly understand your revulsion on the smarmy, cozy first name basis. Some of it may come from Hillary Clinton supporters and media scribes, but also to avoid confusing with Bill Clinton. Like someone else said here there are 2 Clintons, very sorry to say. Well what can I say but as the old saying goes “all things must pass”, and one can hope that the Clinton era passes much sooner than later 🙂
Personally, I just call her Hellary.
“Hellary”…………..”The Hilderbeast”……….”The Klintonator”………”Killary”………I’m sure there are others…….http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DIkxQMxjmEU
The British state owned banking sector swings into action against RT, and no explanation given. No surprise there given the meeting between Kerry and Johnson in London the other day. We are witnessing an increased media blackout in the form of censoring alternative voices/ opinions. Johnson called for “no” to Europe but now “yes” to Washington and NATO all of which shows he never had any stomach for British independence.
After calling for exit from the stranglehold of the EU we now witness Johnson as the advocate of crazed Russo-phobia borrowed straight from the lexicon of Washington’s beltway. So much for the independent Britain he promised. Blaming Russia for war crimes in Syria is a baseless lie and we know it. Why do we know it? Well with such lack of evidence to back up his claims to the House of Commons we are starkly reminded of his vacuous Brexit thinking. This is the man who helped lead the UK out of Europe, but then it emerged that his commitment to that was just a sham.
So we have the corporate media in the pocket of the state apparatus and the banking sector. The whole idea of an independent financial sector is exposed as a lie in the UK. Since the bail out of the banks like RBS and Natwest [eight years ago] the British public has been further duped into believing the Thatcherite lie that the private sector is independent from the state and somehow remains so.
Expect more of this crackdown as a totalitarian backlash to a failing Western economic system being challenged by an emerging Eastern model.
It is of concern to see RBS shutting bank accounts of RT -seems an obvious political move. But if the Kremlin does fund RT – then it will be funded elsewhere. Have no fear. The Assange thing I think is coincidental. As to Boris Jonson -some people think he hides a brilliant brain under a mask of tomfoolery. But he is just a different kind of fool and highly dangerous -as Brexit proves. Russia is undoubtedly responsible for some War Crimes in Syria. Putin is a tough, corrupt, politically astute, but ultimately insecure & ageing autocrat, with a lust for wealth, who is hiding his sense of inadequacy under a carapace of alpha maledom – but from whom the Russian people largely gain their self esteem. The West would have served its citizens better by treating Putin and Russia with a little more respect in foreign relations over the past few years , then we might not be in such a position as we are with them now. The USA have also bombed civilians – a crime, but once too often despite their claims of target error and CD. RT Today is a useful balance to domestic news channels and has the sharply intelligent egoist Galloway on it . I find the rather strident female voices all with the same stilted American accent as if they had gone through some Moscow language school for TV presenters, hugely irritating. Not much depth really there. RT does a lot of shouting, particularly by some of the male hosts of current affairs shows, and there is always a smoothing gloss on reporting on Russia/Ukraine etc. It is fun nonetheless in small doses and certainly broadens out news to cover aspects of stories and issues that are not covered by MSM here -in particular the BBC whose editorial policy is trivial and hugely slanted by neglect, selection and framing. ( An example of trivia -Jean Alexander aka Hilda Ogden top news story on 15th -5 minutes, ITV, whose programme Coronation Street was, placed it as a brief headline and dealt with it last on bulletins. Of course pretty well everything on Corbyn has been highly charged, wickedly slanted and wrong on the BBC. ITV has been sometimes more balanced. ITV has much better balanced foreign news reports these days, although generally all domestic channels are poor. Cathy Newman on C4 anyone? Almost a clone of Laura Cyborg of the BBC. I have sometimes wondered about the pro-Russia slant on this Off Guardian site? Am I wrong? But generally I thinkk Vaska is a brave pioneer and we need her. I was grateful when I wrote one article on New Labour and Corbyn on this site and it appeared , eventually.
If Putin were corrupt and egoistical I would imagine he would simply have been flattered and bought off by the Empire, just like Yeltsin was.
any examples?
again, how is putin corrupt? and he’s 66 years old!
Interesting to note that Johnson was actually born in the US (in New York) and not in the UK.
He claimed UK nationality through his parents.
He must have divided loyalties, I imagine.
His grandparents were high-up in the Turkish government too.
He might even be a secret Donmeh [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/D%C3%B6nmeh] – who knows?
All I do know is that he is completely untrustworthy in anything he says or does.
For me, there’s too much ideology underpinning this ‘analysis.’ I’m mostly a fan of Assange and Wikileaks but there are some disturbing charges that can rightly be laid at his door.
Ecuador cut off Assange’s internet. This is entirely appropriate given that his current political activity violates his political asylum status. It’s one thing to make political remarks; it’s another thing altogether to actively interfere in the domestic politics and election processes of another country (the US). America is Ecuador’s largest trading partner and they have their own legitimate interests to consider. Their generosity to Assange is not limitless and they have acted within their rights here.
I’m also a Putin fan on most things (especially Syria). But there are a number of well informed US bloggers who believe Assange is working with Putin to interfere in the US elections in support of Trump. Remember, Putin has been supporting the fascist Le Pen movement in France.
And before people come back with the stories about “evil Hillary” understand this — the email claims against her are bollocks. Hyped, ill-informed nonsense. And even though I am loath to accept it, there appears to be some evidence that the Russians may have been behind the hacking of DNC materials. There is no confusion that Assange’s timely release of Wikileaks materials against Hillary is intended to influence the US elections. And that’s an abuse of his asylum status.
I hope people understand that Julian Assange has been working directly with Roger Stone, Donald Trump’s unofficial adviser and close confidante, and a legendary ‘rat-fucker’ with a history of campaign shenanigans going back to the Nixon years. Roger Stone was questioned at a public meeting in August in regard to an “October Surprise” emerging from Assange against Hillary Clinton.
That was in August. Stone and Assange have been working together a little more closely than Stone is prepared to admit here. But you get the picture.
Not all of those leaked emails are worthless.
One in particular is very important. The one found at this link:
https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
The thing is, it is not one that ‘gets’ clinton really, so it is being ignored. But in it, this email contains this sentence:
“We need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”
A direct admission Qatar and Saudi Arabia are funding ISIS.
Given the amount of arms both the UK and US are selling to both countries, this should have been headline news everywhere on release. Because it did not fall into the narrative of the US election, in that it did not show either candidate in a bad light, its being ignored.
It, quite literally, changes the way mainstream should be viewing the middle east conflicts as a whole, including Yemen. Its always had plausible deniability before when it comes to Saudi, now it does not.
There is zero hard evidence that the Russians are involved in this. Nada. Assange has been exposing war crimes and other aspects of US Policy for years. These emails are a legitimate find. None of them are phony and they show that Clinton and her campaign are nothing but a bunch of criminals.
Firstly, what ideology do you think is underpinning my “analysis”? I’m honestly interested to know.
Secondly, what disturbing charges can be “laid at” Assange’s door?
Third, whether or not Ecuador had a good reason for cutting off JA’s internet is not really the point (they may have), rather the point is that it comes at a politically convenient time. They could have done it at anypoint in the last 4 years…why now?
Your well-informed bloggers can believe whatever they want, there’s no evidence to support that, and Assange and Putin have no history of working together. Wikileaks has leaked Russian memos and such before now.
Not exactly true, La Pen’s party borrowed money from a Russian bank. That’s hardly the same thing. There’s nothing to say Putin had anything to do with it.
The “claims” against Hillary are that she illegally kept state files on a private server. This is true. No one is denying it. That mean’s she is guilty of a) negligence (at best) and b) lying about it. That raises questions about WHY she did this, given the Clinton’s political past, it’s not hard to think the server may have been used to hide illicit practices. We’ll never know for sure…because Hillary’s lawyers illegally deleted huge numbers of e-mails that were under a congressional subpoena. The IT guy then used bleachbit to wipe the drives clean.
What evidence would that be? They have not released any such evidence.
Blogger Joseph Cannon has discussed, dissected and rejected the email arguments against Hillary here. See also here.
Yeah, she stored emails on her private server. But the bottom line is that there was nothing marked as classified on her private server e-mails, either sent or received. You can read all the arguments about the retrospective (and questionable) classification of a number of the emails by the FBI but the fact remains they were not classified at the time. That’s either sent or received by her.
Kit, I like your work and I’m in agreement with you on most things about the corporate/Zionist/militarist alliance. But I have seen the Republican “hate Clinton” machine for twenty years and how it has infected the media. I don’t like Hillary’s foreign policies at all. But most of the other Republican generated stuff against her doesn’t stand up afaics.
Her emails reveal no more or less than what has been accepted Washington foreign war policy wisdom and direction for the last 8 years of Obama at least, and it has been supported by a raft of neocons and Republicans. So she’s an establishment figure through and through. But I’m not at all convinced on the emails stuff.
Damien,
You say “nothing was marked as classified on her private server emails”. I have read on Pat Langs’ blog Sic Semper Tyrannis that the classification headings were stripped off some emails before being sent. Do you know anything about that? Thanks,
Doug
In that quote Clinton was calling for restraints on Saudi funding. Both she and VP Joe Biden have made similar public admissions elsewhere about the jihadist financing roles of Saudi Arabia and Qatar.
The US implicit support for ISIS is well documented. There was a 2012 US Defense Dept report which said that unless the US took action to control the flow of weapons and finance into Syria then a separate Islamic State would emerge in the Syria-Iraq border region.
A detailed Brookings Institution Report of Dec 2013 (“Why Private Gulf Financing for Syria’s Extremist Rebels Risks Igniting Sectarian Conflict at Home”) which identified to anyone who cared to read, that the Gulf States had paid “hundreds of millions” of dollars towards ISIS, al Qaeda and other jihadist groups operating in 2012-13, much of it spent on weapons. That was all in the public domain.
A 23 Jan 2016 account in the New York Times by Mark Mazzetti and Matt Apuzzo described in detail how the US organized the attack on Syria while the Saudis provided the financing at what they say was a rate of several billion dollars per year. While the report included only from 2013 onward we know that the CIA provided weapons and fighters from Libya into Syria from late 2011 onwards.
The US use of jihadists in the Middle East can — formally, at least — be traced back to 2007. US journalist Seymour Hersh reported in the New Yorker magazine in 2007 (“The Redirection”) that the Bush administration had formed an explicit covert policy agreement with Saudi Arabia and Israel to arm and fund Sunni jihadists in order to overthrow the governments of Lebanon, Syria, and later Iran. For example, the Saudi official controlling the Sunni jihadist forces in Syria until recently was Prince Bandar who before that was the Saudi Ambassador to Washington and close friend of George Bush. So this is an explicit Middle East policy of the US and Saudi governments that has run for some years — even before Hillary Clinton was Sec.State.
So Stone says he has “communicated with” Assange, which you a) accept as single-source fact and b) translate to mean “working with”. I have now communicated with you. Am I working with you?
The only way that releasing genuine information can be construed as “interfering” with an election is if the assumption is that an election is properly conducted in an atmosphere of ignorance.
And the only evidence I’ve seen of Russian involvement is the echoing assertion that Russians are involved.
This Damien person is clearly a troll who tries to hide his neocon support of Hillary Clinton by claiming to be a fan of Assange / Wikileaks and Putin before proceeding to denigrate them by suggesting that they have been working together without any proof whatsoever.
As for his assertion that Hillary Clinton was calling for restraining Saudi and Qatari funding of ISIS, in the email that Nogginthenog linked to, the Klintonator did no such thing. That email was addressed to her by her campaign manager John Podesta. He is the one acknowledging that the US knew that the KSA and Qatar were financing ISIS all along, with the implication that the US had always known where ISIS were getting their money from but done nothing about cutting off their sources.
Go and read my other multiple posts at OG — here and here.
I’m a good faith poster and people are entitled to hold opposing views. I wish people well,
” It’s one thing to make political remarks; it’s another thing altogether to actively interfere in the domestic politics and election processes of another country (the US).”
What non-sense is this? By your logic, anyone who publishes an exposé of any candidate must be “interfering” with an election. Well, what about all those news outlets that were hyping Trump’s ‘pussygate’ video day after day? Weren’t they also “interfering” with the election? What’s good for the goose is good for the gander, you know.
No one ever accused the US of being transparent or of allowing a transparent media.
Once the NeoCon/Zionists that have the USA by the throat, can eliminate the alternative media on the Internet, there’ll be no stopping them……..
That leaves syrianperspective, sputnik, fars, sana, fortruss, and dozens of others. Thye’d have to shut down the net, but then their own propaganda gets snuffed.
I hope you’re right. I have to admit to a low level of Cyber Comprehension…….
Think you’ve hit the nail on the head there.
But then there is this Chomsky quote (can’t recall the original one) which sais that what force is for tyranny is indoctrination for democracy (I have not checked myself, but maybe you can find the exact quote in this long essay: https://chomsky.info/199107__/)
I think that this news of Assange and RT gives one the feeling that we will soon get rid of the whole idea of democracy and that it will be replaced with tyranny. Indoctrination is bad enough. But force is even worse. However… fear is a bad advisor. Who sais that the news on Assange and RT shows that indoctrination will be replaced with force?