CITIZENS COUNTER-PROPAGANDA

MoA—The Obama administration, not known for reluctance to go after whistleblowers, had already weighed the ‘conspired’ case and decided against prosecuting it.It is thus likely that the case, as unsealed now, is only a pretext to extradite Assange from Britain. The real case will only get unsealed if and when Assange is in U.S. custody.National security reporter William Arkin, who left NBC News over its warmongering, is likely right when he writes that the issue behind this is Wikileaks’ publishing of the CIA’s hacking tools known as Vault 7.

RICHARD GREEMAN—After five months of constant presence at traffic circles, toll-booths and hazardous Saturday marches,  the massive, self-organized social movement known as the Yellow Vests has just held its second nationwide “Assembly of Assemblies.” Hundreds of autonomous Yellow Vest activist groups from all over France each chose two delegates (one woman, one man) to gather in the port city of St. Nazaire for weekend of deliberation (April 5-7).After weeks of skirmishing with the municipal authorities, the local Yellow Vests were able to host 700 delegates at the St. Nazaire “House of the People,” and the three-day series of general meetings and working groups went off without a hitch in an atmosphere of good-fellowship. A sign on the wall proclaimed: “No one has the solution, but everybody has a piece of it.”

TRNN’s editor in chief Paul Jay interviews Col. Lawrence Wilkerson (Ret.) on the gradual takeover of the US by the plutocratic elites, the treacherous nature of the duopoly, and the plot against Venezuela, led, among other prominent parties, by the Koch brothers.

ERIC SCHECHTER—The fact that we are ruled by the rich wouldn’t be so bad if they were actually unified, like in conspiracy theories such as the Illuminati. At least then the handful of people at the top would say to each other, “we few who secretly own this world should take steps to preserve it, so that we and our children can continue to live in luxury on our ill-gotten gains.” No such luck. They are not unified. Each one of them would gladly stab another in the back and steal his stuff if given the opportunity. Each one of them is saying to himself, “I just want to make a quick buck; I’ll leave it to someone else to clean up the mess.” And so the mess keeps getting worse. In particular, the oil companies (like the tobacco companies) knowingly lied for decades about the ill effects of their product.