When Julian Assange was disgracefully arrested in 2019, he shouted, as he was dragged out of the Ecuadorean Embassy with his hands shackled to his feet, “RESIST.” His and Wikileaks‘ story is a good illustration of why resistance is so necessary, timely, and urgent.
Assange and Wikileaks: an existential threat
Approximately a decade before this 2019 arrest, Assange had become an acclaimed journalist and activist, having successfully pushed knowledge of US war crimes into the mass media and public consciousness. This was largely through his work as editor-in-chief of Wikileaks, the crypto-journalism organisation which managed and published the incriminating data.
The following months and years were marked by escalating tensions between the US and Assange, with Wikileaks gaining more and more credibility and influence as a media organisation and information source.
The viciousness of the counter-strategic effort by the US really gained pace after Wikileaks published a mountain of diplomatic cables, effectively shifting the geopolitical balance of power in a way which embarrassed and emasculated the US.
Assange was from that point an existential threat to the US, to be eliminated by any means necessary.
The dynamic after ‘cablegate’ was decidedly harsher and more oppressive. It saw the beginning of a ruthless pursuit of Assange with the intention to bring him into a custody which would serve as a smokescreen for extradition to the US.
Both the UK and US found time, as well as vast resources better invested in schools, libraries, and hospitals, to corner Assange into a trap.
Ecuador: complicit in the attack
Having absconded from house arrest to seek asylum in the Ecuadorean Embassy, a huge, expensive surveillance operation was set up in the vicinity to make it impossible for Assange to leave either the building, or the country.
The period after he was granted sanctuary in the embassy was defined by a concerted attack on the part of the establishment, swamping the discourse around him with trivialities and red herrings intended to bury the most salient fact of the situation, his status as an asylum seeker, protected by international law.
From January 2018 Assange was an Ecuadorean citizen, until unfortunately being stripped of this status and rendered stateless by way of machinations of an unsympathetic right-wing government in Ecuador, bribed with IMF and Goldman Sachs loans – blood money to trade him. This was made possible by a shady bilateral relationship between the US and Ecuador, which spelled the end for Assange’s asylum bid, completely trashing Ecuador’s hitherto impeccable example on human rights.
Just one year after being granted citizenship in Ecuador, the hope for a liberated Assange was damned. In the build up to his arrest the Ecuadorean administration initiated a rapid erosion of his living conditions and quality of life, staffing the embassy with subservient diplomats working in the interests of the US.
He was eventually ejected into the hands of the UK “justice” system, a corruptible power working at the behest of the US dictatorship.
The 21st century empire
The US national security regime, which grabbed power in the atmosphere of fear and panic after 9/11, exerts extraterritorial control over seemingly self-determining nations, in spite of their supposed judicial sovereignty.
There is a clear issue with the proceedings of the longstanding, ongoing extradition case in the UK, insofar as the judge is operating as an adjudicator whilst having a conflict of interest, as her husband’s professional misconduct was reported on by Wikileaks.
The bulwark imperial states, of which the UK and US are the poster boys, have long been committed to augmenting their partnership. Unfortunately they are not a force for good, despite their shallow rhetoric. They have coordinated in a way that decidedly undermines and renders obsolete basic constitutional principles, human rights norms, and fundamental civil liberties.
This sickening agenda is one aspect of an agenda for world domination, based on US supremacy, a historical trend oft left undiscussed due to the negative perception of “conspiracy theories.” There are, however, peer reviewed studies and academic texts that study the political mechanics of what can be called a “new world order.”
This development has been followed by a nascent, burgeoning political consciousness and sense of resistance amongst some citizens, harbouring bold aspirations to disestablish the institutions of empire.
Resistance is a must when democracy is a fugitive
Perceiving that neither political parties, nor elections, nor mainstream media serve the public interest, rather working together to rig the system and augment the status quo, these digital denizens share their dissent online and educate themselves through peer-to-peer dissemination of knowledge and information.
Beginning its life as a vibrant democratic community based on a lively exchange of ideas, the internet has sadly transformed into an empire, dominated by shadowy Silicon Valley corporations who police the parameters of legitimate opinion and operate with an interface fusing it with government and military agencies.
Unfortunately this is the socially acceptable model of internet publishing and all the worst tech companies have metastasized into a digital leviathan. An example of how they are rendered legitimate is how Facebook successfully launched the “publisher” defence in court, a legal refuge denied to Wikileaks.
Facebook, with near total impunity, was complicit in its use as a tool for perception management during elections and plebiscites by agencies such as Cambridge Analytica, deleterious to democracy and tantamount to treason.
Wikileaks on the other hand is a benevolent and politically impartial repository of information, with an unassailable reputation for 100% accuracy. It empowers citizens to transform society for the better by helping them to establish informed judgments and thus make them more likely to make rational decisions. If this is the enemy, the fifth column, and harbinger of terror and social decay, then there must be a powerful feat of optics being perpetrated by the true criminals in this saga.
Democracy is a fugitive whose redemption is overdue, repressed precisely because of its power.
Featured image via the Canary
This post was originally published on Canary.
