CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—Baraitser’s frightening ruling supported virtually every US prosecutorial argument that was made during the extradition trial, no matter how absurd and Orwellian. This includes quoting from a long-discredited CNN report alleging without evidence that Assange made the embassy a “command post” for election interference, saying the right to free speech does not give anyone “unfettered discretion” to disclose any document they wish, dismissing arguments from the defense that UK law prohibits extradition for political offenses, parroting the false claim that Assange’s attempt to help protect his source Chelsea Manning while she was exfiltrating documents she already had access to was not normal journalistic behavior, saying US intelligence might have had legitimate reasons to spy on Assange in the Ecuadorian embassy, and claiming Assange’s rights would be protected by the US legal system if he were extradited.
Default Editor Patrice de Bergeracpas
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CENK & TYT Smear Assange And Repeat CIA Propaganda
4 minutes readJimmy Dore denounces the cowardly betrayal of alternative journalism by Cenk Uygur, head of the Young Turks, and in particular Julian Assange, a man horribly persecuted by the reigning oligarchy for revealing the empire’s ugly political and war crimes. Jimmy spares no words in his public flogging of Uygur, who is now one more CIA asset repeating the agency’s dangerous falsehoods.
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SPIRALS OF BECOMING: THE SEARCH FOR A DIALECTICAL SPIRAL IN THE INDIVIDUAL LIFE CYCLE
44 minutes readBRUCE LERRO—As a young social revolutionary, I made my way through a fair amount of the anarchist and Marxist literature and one of the descriptions that intrigued me most was Marx and Engels’ description of social evolution. They depicted it as a spiral. Rather than a linear or cyclic way of showing social movement, they presented it in the form of thesis-antithesis and synthesis. The thesis phase was within primitive egalitarian societies. Then there was a long antithesis in which social classes formed – slave societies, feudal societies and then capitalism. Out of this came a crisis which could result in a synthesis – first socialism, then communism. What I liked about the synthesis was that it was not just a compromise between thesis and antithesis. Rather, it twisted its way up to another dimension, a qualitative leap in which there is a partial return to the thesis but on a higher level. Synthetic communism was a return to primitive communism but on a higher level, an egalitarian level, but with abundant material conditions informed by the surplus created by capitalism.
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The way of life of the Russian ethnic group was originally communal in nature with its own peculiar culture. The social organisation of Russian society is based on the institution of a community with traditional moral values and the priority of protecting public rather than personal interests, wherein society, in turn, must protect the interests of the individual. A person was evaluated on the basis of their personal contribution and usefulness to the common cause. I.e., a collectivist civilisational code was laid in Russian society, defining each individual in terms of usefulness for society as a whole. Hence the craving of the Russian people for justice and a social state.
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W J ASTORE—The question is: What will Democrats do with this (very weak) majority? Or, as Greg Laxer put it here, “BUT…do the Dems have sufficient internal discipline to pass any legislation remotely progressive or to seat a SCOTUS nominee deemed controversial?” Good question.
Of course, it’s not just about “internal discipline.” Joe Biden, a mealy-mouthed corporatist, is on the record as saying that nothing will fundamentally change under his administration. I don’t see him or Nancy Pelosi or Chuck Schumer pushing for a progressive agenda. These “leaders” are DINOs, Democrats in name only, and it will be interesting to see if Biden & Co. even come through on their promise to elevate relief checks from $600 to $2000.