CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—[dropcap]J[/dropcap]ulian Assange started a leak outlet on the premise that corrupt and unaccountable power is a problem in our world, and that problem can be fought with the light of truth. Corrupt and unaccountable power responded by detaining, silencing and smearing him. His persecution has proved his own thesis about the world absolutely correct.

PATRICK COCKBURN—The WikiLeaks revelations in 2010 and in 2016 are the present-day equivalent of the release by Daniel Ellsberg in 1971 of the Pentagon Papers, unmasking the true history of the US engagement in the Vietnam War. They are, in fact, of even greater significance because they are more wide-ranging and provide an entry point into the world as the US government really sees it.

DIEGO SANTIAGO DIEZ—What a shame that he turned from the heartland and the working class to New York City and their various gangster classes! Indeed, he could have taken his New York City, Italian-American, chip-on-his-shoulder viewpoint and brought some insights to different cultures and ideologies within America and planet Earth, but because he is a US liberal and anti-socialist he preferred self-worship, identity politics and non-evolution.

Says MSNBC (a prominent member of the Democrat/Deep State media pack): “U.S. Intelligence Officials have briefed President Trump and Bernie Sanders revealing Russia is actively meddling in the 2020 election, helping their respective campaigns. After hearing the information, Trump lashed out on his staff, getting rid of the current DNI, and appointing Trump “loyalist” German Ambassador Richard Grenell. MSNBC Chief Legal Correspondent analyzes the difference in Trump and Sanders response to 2020 meddling, highlight Trump lashed out as his staff, while Sanders rebuked Putin for ‘interfering in American elections.'”

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Humans are not difficult to manipulate. I am not difficult to manipulate. You are not difficult to manipulate. If you don’t appreciate this fact, you make yourself even easier to manipulate. It’s not difficult to mock the people who’ve been manipulated into supporting Bloomberg. What is difficult is coming to terms with the fact that you yourself, and indeed your entire species, have many glitches in your cognitive processes which can be, have been, and will continue to be exploited by adept manipulators.

JOHN PILGER—Deception has been a feature. When Prime Minister Robert Menzies sent Australian soldiers to Vietnam in the 1960s, he described them as a training team, requested by a beleaguered government in Saigon. It was a lie. A senior official of the Department of External Affairs wrote secretly that “although we have stressed the fact publicly that our assistance was given in response to an invitation by the government of South Vietnam”, the order came from Washington.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—The premise that everything will be fine once Trump is gone isn’t one people generally say out loud. They don’t even usually think it. But the fact that so many Democrats who were fine with the way their nation was being run on January 19 2017 suddenly became furiously critical of it on January 20th tells you that this assumption is at play. And the relentlessly Trump-centric liberal news media has only reinforced this unexamined assumption.

After  the end of SARS, in August 2003, my colleague Wen Chihua, and Wang Yan  of the Anhui Branch, went to Anhui, straight to the rural area of  Zongyang County, Anqing City, and interviewed a person who was injured  when blood samples were taken. Farmer, and a village doctor. Later, the  investigation report of the three of us was published in the 38th issue  of the “Week” Weekly, published on September 26, 2003, entitled  “Harvard Gene Project Investigation: A Poaching of Chinese Genes”. At  the same time, Wen Chihua and I co-authored an investigation report in  English.

TED RALL—Bernie has no one but himself to blame for this potential electoral albatross. As Paul Krugman of The New York Times points out, the independent senator from Vermont is not really a socialist: “He doesn’t want to nationalize our major industries and replace markets with central planning.” He is a New Deal Democrat indistinguishable from old liberal figures like Hubert Humphrey and George McGovern. The economic model Sanders wants to establish isn’t the USSR or even Yugoslavia, but the Scandinavian countries with their superior safety nets and enlightened penal systems. Capitalism as we know it would continue, albeit with reduced overall cruelty.