WHISTLEBLOWERS AND LEAKS

P. GREANVILLE—Let’s get something straight: As Jimmy and Glenn discuss in these video chats, the rise of Internet censorship was initiated by the Democrats and their media shills—in their effort to protect the corporate plutocracy they serve—and not so much by the social media owners themselves,  despite the latter’s well known libertarian positions. The corporate media—notes Glenn—have now literally a legion of trolls patrolling the Internet, their chief task being to call out, shame and denounce genuine progressive voices, wherever they may be found fighting in defense of peace, the rights of oppressed peoples such as Palestinians, or to expose the fake politics and news disseminated by the establishment journos engaged in silencing true dissenting speech. To repeat: This cynical plague exists in all mainstream media now, from the august corridors of the New York Times and CBS, NBC, etc., to CNN, MSNBC, NPR, VOX and the rest of the so-called “respectable media”. 

ALEXANDER RUBINSTEIN—After former Ecuadorian President Rafel Correa, who originally granted Assange his asylum, tweeted a picture of a document showing that Moreno’s government was “auditing” Assange’s asylum and his naturalization in Ecuador — which prevents him from being extradited — WikiLeaks (which has never gotten a story wrong) asserted that a bailout for the country from the International Monetary Fund was conditioned on its “handing over Assange and dropping environmental claims against Chevron” for its pollution of the Amazon.

DAVE LINDORFF—Since Assange seven years ago accepted an asylum offer from Ecuador and its then president Rafael Correa to avoid being extradited by to the US, jumping bail and escaping into the safety of the Ecuadorian Embassy, a shameless campaign by the US government and a complicit mainstream US and UK media to denigrate him, portray him as a sex offender, and deny that he is a journalism, has been underway.As well, during his seven years holed up in the tiny Ecuadorian Embassy, which is actually just one floor of an apartment building in a swanky part of London, the US brought intense pressure, including economic threats, against Ecuador trying to get the little Latin American nation to revoke the asylum offer granted to Assange by Correa.

ED CURTIN—Little seems to change over the years, doesn’t it? The killers go on killing, from Golgotha in ancient Jerusalem to Hitler’s Germany to Vietnam and Iraq and on to Palestine and Syria today. Why bother with the list. History is a litany of bloodbaths. Where does it all go, this blood? Does the good earth soak it up?But in all the darkness, certain lonely voices of resistance have kept the lighted chain of faith alive. You stand in that line, a living embodiment of a faithful non-violent warrior. So does Julian.

ED CURTIN—The fact that Robert Kennedy was shot from the back and not the front where Sirhan was standing immediately brings to mind the Zapruder film that shows that JFK was killed from the front right and not from the 6th floor rear where Oswald was allegedly shooting from. That unexpected film evidence was hidden from the public for many years, but when it was finally seen, the case for a government conspiracy was solidified.While no such video evidence has surfaced in the RFK case, the LAPD made sure that no photographic evidence contradicting the official lies would be seen. As Lisa Pease writes:Less than two months after the assassination, the LAPD took the extraordinary step of burning some 2,400 photos from the case in Los Angeles County General’s medical waste incinerator. Why destroy thousands of photos in an incinerator if there was nothing to hide?