NEOCONS & NEOLIBERALS

JOHN SPRITZLER— Yes, a revolution to remove the plutocracy from power and create an egalitarian society without oppression will involve some violence, inevitably. But if a revolution is ever going to succeed in the United States it will be because a huge revolutionary movement develops and it gains the support of a critical mass of members of the military, so that when ordered to attack the movement those soldiers refuse and use their weapons to defend the movement from those who would attack it violently. This is what happened in the February, 1917 revolution in Russia that led to the Czar abdicating. A similar thing happened in Iran, which is why the Shah, even though he thought he had the largest military force in the region, had to flee the country. A revolution most certainly does not mean half the population shooting the other half.

CAITLIN JOHNSTONE—“The arrest and espionage charges against Assange was just the beginning, as many in the media, even those who hate Assange, feared,”  tweeted Consortium News editor-in-chief Joe Lauria in response to the News Corp raid. “The home of a mainstream Australian journalist was raided Wed. morning by police because of a story she worked on.”

“Shameful news from Australia as the police raid journalists’ offices and homes,” tweeted legendary Australian journalist John Pilger. “One warrant allows them to ‘add, copy, delete or alter’ computer files at the ABC. The assault on Julian Assange was a clear warning to all of us: it was only the beginning.”

“I am 64-years-old, I was at the demonstration of May 1st 2019 with my 45-year-old son, his father, and some friends. We waited quietly near the Vavin subway for the departure of the procession in order to join it when we saw in the distance the fumes of tear gas and the movements of crowds.

Wanting to seek shelter, we went away as far as we could and suddenly a violent police charge pushed the crowd and we found ourselves stuck in the middle of a cloud of tear gas, the canisters flying all over.

My son went to an open shop, a tobacconist, where a few people had taken refuge, thus removing us from the trap of the crowd and passing behind the cordon of police officers who were in full charge and pushed the protesters…”

PATRICK COCKBURN—Jeremy Corbyn is correct to say that the affair is all about “the extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan.” But, within hours of Assange’s detention, it was clear that nobody much cared about innocent people dying in the streets of Baghdad or in the villages of Afghanistan and Assange has already become a political weapon in the poisonous political confrontation over Brexit with Corbyn’s support for Assange enabling Conservatives to claim that he is a security risk.Lost in this dog-fight is what Assange and WikiLeaks really achieved and why it was of great importance in establishing the truth about wars being fought on our behalf in which hundreds of thousands of people have been killed.