Julian Assange en het instorten van de rechtsorde door de onterechte vervolging van deze gelauwerde journalist

Julian Assange, de oprichter van Wikileaks zit nu al ruim 2 jaar in isolatiefolter, en het kan niet genoeg gezegd worden: eenzame opsluiting is een uiterst smerige en barbaarse manier van martelen...... Assange zit gevangen daar hij geheime documenten openbaarde die hem door klokkenluiders werden toegespeeld, zoals ook de video over de aanval van een VS helikopter in Irak waarbij 16 onschuldige burgers en 2 journalisten van Reuters werden vermoord........ Dit zijn feiten die de hele wereld zou moeten weten en het is te zot voor woorden dat men dergelijke oorlogsmisdaden onder het tapijt wil houden...... Meer dan schandalig ook dat de zogenaamde collega journalisten meegingen in de leugen van de geheime diensten en de VS overheid, dat dit staatsgeheimen zijn die mensen in levensgevaar hebben gebracht...... 

Dat laatste is een heel vette leugen en zonder dat de 'journalisten' e.e.a. onderzochten hebben zij op verklaring van een overheid en diens geheime diensten, bekend staand om hun smerige leugens, ook deze vuile leugen uitgevent aan hun klanten (lezers, luisteraars en/of kijkers) en doen dat schandelijk genoeg nog steeds...... Je weet wel, dezelfde journalisten die schreeuwen om censuur op de sociale media, dit daar men op die media alleen maar fake news (nepnieuws) zou verspreiden....... (terwijl ze zelf niet anders doen dan vooral veel nepnieuws verspreiden.....) De echte reden is dat men met lede ogen ziet dat steeds meer mensen zich afwenden van de reguliere media, daar ze in de gaten hebben gekregen dat men hen bij die media een rad voor ogen draait en dat een behoorlijk deel van de alternatieve media worden bevolkt door journalisten die hun werk wel onafhankelijk doen en niet klakkeloos overnemen wat hun overheid, geheime diensten en hun bazen hen voorschotelen dan wel verwachten waar men wel of niet over bericht.......

Als een journalist in Rusland, China of Iran gegevens van klokkenluiders zou openbaren en deze journalist zou worden gevangengezet, zou de wereld te klein zijn voor de hypocriete verontwaardiging van westerse politici en de westerse reguliere (massa-) media...... Ook in een andere zaak is de verontwaardiging uitermate belachelijk en hypocriet >> Navalny, een fascist en bewezen misdadiger, die door het westen werd gebombardeerd tot heilige en oppositieleider (terwijl hij bij landelijke verkiezingen goed is voor 2 à 3% van de stemmen) en waar men Rusland, waarvoor men het liefst de naam Putin gebruikt, beschuldigt hem te hebben vergiftigd met novitsjok (een aantal van de reguliere westerse media stellen zelfs dat hij al 2 keer is vergiftigd met deze uiterst dodelijke stof)....... 

Het voorgaande terwijl elke vergiftiging met novitsjok zonder meer dodelijk is!!* Niet voor niets ook dat het westen Rusland weigerde mee te laten werken aan het onderzoek naar de aard van de vergiftiging, zoals men dat eerder deed met het onderzoek naar 'de vergiftiging van de Skripals met novitsjok....' Het onderzoek in die zaak werd gedaan door de OPCW een organisatie die samenwerkt met de VN en een organisatie waarvan Rusland NB lid is......** (de OPCW ofwel: de Organisatie voor het Verbod op Chemische Wapens >> Engels: Organisation for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons)

Terug naar Julian Assange: het is een schande dat deze gelauwerde onderzoeksjournalist gevangenzit en wordt gefolterd door eenzame opsluiting en dat alleen omdat hij zijn werk deed, werk dat van levensbelang is voor een echte democratie....... Het is dan ook duidelijk dat alle westerse politici en journalisten die hem veroordelen lak hebben aan democratie en spreken en handelen alsof we in een dictatuur leven.......

Vorige week donderdag was er een benefit voor Assange in New York, waar ook Chris Hedges sprak en hij heeft daar geen woord te veel of te weinig gezegd, zo stelt hij dat met de langdurige campagne tegen Assange de rechtsorde ernstig geweld wordt aangedaan en dat dit de weg is richting een 'omgekeerd totalitarisme', een vorm van totalitarisme waarin het volk de fictie wordt voorgehouden dat de kapitalistische democratie en alles wat daarbij komt kijken in stand wordt gehouden....... Lees het volgende artikel dat de toespraak van Chris Hedges bevat, waarin ook de video te zien is met zijn toespraak. Het artikel werd eerder op Scheer Post gepubliceerd, ik nam het over van Information Clearing House (onder het artikel kan je klikken voor o.a. een vertaling in 'Dutch', dit neemt wel enkele tientallen seconden tijd in beslag): 

Assange & the Collapse of the Rule of Law

By Chris Hedges

Chris Hedges gave this talk at a rally Thursday night in New York City in support of Julian Assange. John and Gabriel Shipton, Julian’s father and brother, also spoke at the event, which was held at The People’s Forum.

 

June 13, 2021 "Information Clearing House" - - "Scheer Post" - A society that prohibits the capacity to speak in truth extinguishes the capacity to live in justice.

 

This why we are here tonight. Yes, all of us who know and admire Julian decry his prolonged suffering and the suffering of his family. Yes, we demand that the many wrongs and injustices that have been visited upon him be ended. Yes, we honor him up for his courage and his integrity. But the battle for Julian’s liberty has always been much more than the persecution of a publisher. It is the most important battle for press freedom of our era. And if we lose this battle, it will be devastating, not only for Julian and his family, but for us.

Tyrannies invert the rule of law. They turn the law into an instrument of injustice. They cloak their crimes in a faux legality. They use the decorum of the courts and trials, to mask their criminality. Those, such as Julian, who expose that criminality to the public are dangerous, for without the pretext of legitimacy the tyranny loses credibility and has nothing left in its arsenal but fear, coercion and violence.

The long campaign against Julian and WikiLeaks is a window into the collapse of the rule of law, the rise of what the political philosopher Sheldon Wolin calls our system of inverted totalitarianism, a form of totalitarianism that maintains the fictions of the old capitalist democracy, including its institutions, iconography, patriotic symbols and rhetoric, but internally has surrendered total control to the dictates of global corporations.

I was in the London courtroom when Julian was being tried by Judge Vanessa Baraitser, an updated version of the Queen of Hearts in Alice-in Wonderland demanding the sentence before pronouncing the verdict. It was judicial farce. There was no legal basis to hold Julian in prison. There was no legal basis to try him, an Australian citizen, under the U.S. Espionage Act. The CIA spied on Julian in the embassy through a Spanish company, UC Global, contracted to provide embassy security. This spying included recording the privileged conversations between Julian and his lawyers as they discussed his defense. This fact alone invalidated the trial. Julian is being held in a high security prison so the state can, as Nils Melzer, the UN Special Rapporteur on Torture, has testified, continue the degrading abuse and torture it hopes will lead to his psychological if not physical disintegration.

The U.S. government directed, as Craig Murray so eloquently documented, the London prosecutor James Lewis. Lewis presented these directives to Baraitser. Baraitser adopted them as her legal decision. It was judicial pantomime. Lewis and the judge insisted they were not attempting to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press while they busily set up the legal framework to criminalize journalists and muzzle the press. And that is why the court worked so hard to mask the proceedings from the public, limiting access to the courtroom to a handful of observers and making it hard and at times impossible to access the trial online. It was a tawdry show trial, not an example of the best of English jurisprudence but the Lubyanka.

Story continues after video. Watch Hedges’ speech:

Now, I know many of us here tonight would like to think of ourselves as radicals, maybe even revolutionaries. But what we are demanding on the political spectrum is in fact conservative, it is the restoration of the rule of law. It is simple and basic. It should not, in a functioning democracy, be incendiary. But living in truth in a despotic system is the supreme act of defiance. This truth terrifies those in power.

The architects of imperialism, the masters of war, the corporate-controlled legislative, judicial and executive branches of government and their obsequious courtiers in the media, are illegitimate. Say this simple truth and you are banished, as many of us have been, to the margins of the media landscape. Prove this truth, as Julian, Chelsea Manning, Jeremy Hammond and Edward Snowden have by allowing us to peer into the inner workings of power, and you are hunted down and persecuted.

Shortly after WikiLeaks released the Iraq War Logs in October 2010, which documented numerous US war crimes—including video images of the gunning down of two Reuters journalists and 10 other unarmed civilians in the Collateral Murder video, the routine torture of Iraqi prisoners, the covering up of thousands of civilian deaths and the killing of nearly 700 civilians that had approached too closely to U.S. checkpoints—the towering civil rights attorneys Len Weinglass and my good friend Michael Ratner, who I would later accompany to meet Julian in the Ecuadoran Embassy, met with Julian in a studio apartment in Central London. Julian’s personal bank cards had been blocked. Three encrypted laptops with documents detailing US war crimes had disappeared from his luggage in route to London. Swedish police were fabricating a case against him in a move, Ratner warned, that was about extraditing Julian to the United States.

“WikiLeaks and you personally are facing a battle that is both legal and political,” Weinglass told Assange. “As we learned in the Pentagon Papers case, the US government doesn’t like the truth coming out. And it doesn’t like to be humiliated. No matter if it’s Nixon or Bush or Obama, Republican or Democrat in the White House. The US government will try to stop you from publishing its ugly secrets. And if they have to destroy you and the First Amendment and the rights of publishers with you, they are willing to do it. We believe they are going to come after WikiLeaks and you, Julian, as the publisher.”

“Come after me for what?” asked Julian.

“Espionage,” Weinglass continued. “They’re going to charge Bradley Manning with treason under the Espionage Act of 1917. We don’t think it applies to him because he’s a whistleblower, not a spy. And we don’t think it applies to you either because you are a publisher. But they are going to try to force Manning into implicating you as his collaborator.”

“Come after me for what?

That is the question.

They came after Julian not for his vices, but his virtues.

They came after Julian because he exposed the more than 15,000 unreported deaths of Iraqi civilians; because he exposed the torture and abuse of some 800 men and boys, aged between 14 and 89, at Guantánamo; because he exposed that Hillary Clinton in 2009 ordered US diplomats to spy on UN Secretary General Ban Ki Moon and other UN representatives from China, France, Russia, and the UK, spying that included obtaining DNA, iris scans, fingerprints, and personal passwords, part of the long pattern of illegal surveillance that included the eavesdropping on UN Secretary General Kofi Annan in the weeks before the US-led invasion of Iraq in 2003; because he exposed that Barack Obama, Hillary Clinton and the CIA orchestrated the June 2009 military coup in Honduras that overthrew the democratically elected president Manuel Zelaya, replacing it with a murderous and corrupt military regime; because he exposed that George W. Bush, Barack Obama and General David Petraeus prosecuted a war in Iraq that under post-Nuremberg laws is defined as a criminal war of aggression, a war crime, that they authorized hundreds of targeted assassinations, including those of U.S. citizens in Yemen, and that they secretly launched missile, bomb, and drone attacks on Yemen, killing scores of civilians; because he exposed that Goldman Sachs paid Hillary Clinton $657,000 to give talks, a sum so large it can only be considered a bribe, and that she privately assured corporate leaders she would do their bidding while promising the public financial regulation and reform; because he exposed the internal campaign to discredit and destroy British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn by members of his own party; because he exposed how the hacking tools used by the CIA and the National Security Agency permits the wholesale government surveillance of our televisions, computers, smartphones and anti-virus software, allowing the government to record and store our conversations, images and private text messages, even from encrypted apps.

Julian exposed the truth. He exposed it over and over and over until there was no question of the endemic illegality, corruption and mendacity that defines the global ruling elite. And for these truths they came after Julian, as they have come after all who dared rip back the veil on power. “Red Rosa now has vanished too. …” Bertolt Brecht wrote after the German socialist Rosa Luxemburg was murdered. “She told the poor what life is about, And so the rich have rubbed her out.”

We have undergone a corporate coup, where the poor and working men and women are reduced to joblessness and hunger, where war, financial speculation and internal surveillance are the only real business of the state, where even habeas corpus no longer exists, where we, as citizens, are nothing more than commodities to corporate systems of power, ones to be used, fleeced and discarded. To refuse to fight back, to reach out and help the weak, the oppressed and the suffering, to save the planet from ecocide, to decry the domestic and international crimes of the ruling class, to demand justice, to live in truth, is to bear the mark of Cain. Those in power must feel our wrath, and this means constant acts of mass civil disobedience, it means constant acts of social and political disruption, for this organized power from below is the only power that will save us and the only power that will free Julian. Politics is a game of fear. It is our moral and civic duty to make those in power very, very afraid.

The criminal ruling class has all of us locked in its death grip. It cannot be reformed. It has abolished the rule of law. It obscures and falsifies the truth. It seeks the consolidation of its obscene wealth and power. And so, to quote the Queen of Hearts, metaphorically of course, I say, “Off with their heads.”

Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

See also Jeremy Corbyn among 24 MPs urging Joe Biden to drop Assange extradition bid

====================================== 

*  Zie o.a.: 'Novitsjok Skripal sprookje? Lees dit bericht!' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!) voorts zie:

'Novitsjok onzin: de feiten doen er niet meer toe als Rusland maar hangt voor de 'vergiftiging van Navalny'' en zie:

'Duitse regering stelt dat Navalny is vergiftigd met novitsjok' (en zie de links in dat bericht)

** Zie: 'Rusland mag niet deelnemen aan onderzoek naar 'aanslag met novitsjok' op Skripal' (en zie de links in dat bericht!!) en zie: 

'Rusland schuldig verklaard voor aanslag op Skripal, echter onafhankelijke controle van 'het bewijsmateriaal' wordt geweigerd......'

'Skripal: GB klaagt 2 Russen aan voor vergiftiging middels een sci-fi techniek: de 2 waren tegelijk op 1 plek, waar 1 Rus te zien was....... ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha! ha!'

------------------------------------------------------------

Zie wat beteft Julian Assange: ''Klokkenluidersbescherming' in VS: Obama en Biden lieten journalisten en redacties afluisteren om klokkenluiders te pakken' (en zie de links in dat bericht naar meer artikelen over o.a. Julian Assange en opperschoft Navalny)

'Het verschil tussen totalitaire regimes en 'vrije democratieën' flinterdun en soms zelfs niet bestaand....'

'Antony Blinken (VS minister BuZa) leest de wereld de les over persvrijheid terwijl zijn eigen regering deze zwaar geweld aandoet' (waarvan Assange wel het grootste voorbeeld is!!)

'Julian Assange bijna 2 jaar lang in isolatiefolter voor het openbaren van oorlogsmisdaden.......' (een bericht van 1 april 2021, ofwel intussen zit meer dan 2 jaar in isolatiefolter.......)

'Joe Bidens bescherming van de moorddadige Saoedische despoten legt andermaal de werkelijke VS buitenlandpolitiek bloot en die is niet gericht op vrede of democratie' (maar wel hypocriet kritiek hebben op de Saoedische moord op journalist Khashoggi, terwijl Biden onderzoeksjournalist Julian Assange wil laten wegrotten in de cel......)

'Navalny gebombardeerd tot oppositieleider, of hoe men Rusland geheel hypocriet blijft demoniseren' (Navalny, een fascist en wat een verschil in westerse behandeling vergeleken met Julian Assange.....) (en zie de links in dat bericht)

'Navalny slachtoffer? Assange is het echte slachtoffer!!'

'Navalny wordt geprezen terwijl Assange wordt gemarteld'

'Assange (nog) niet uitgeleverd aan de VS tegen een hoge prijs: het verpletteren van de persvrijheid'

'Julian Assange (brekend nieuws) moet vast blijven zitten in isolatiefolter' 

'Julian Assange (brekend nieuws) mag niet worden uitgeleverd aan de VS!!!'

'The Assange Extradition Ruling Is A Relief, But It Isn’t Justice'

'Een uitlevering van Julian Assange aan de VS zal een definitief einde maken aan de persvrijheid en dat wereldwijd'

'Never Forget How The MSM Smeared Assange: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix'

The Kafkaesque Imprisonment of Julian Assange Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom and Tyranny'

'Trump: pardon voor oorlogsmisdadigers maar niet voor Julian Assange of Edward Snowden'

'Pardon Julian Assange Now!'

'10 jaar geleden werden de Irak oorlogs-logboeken van de VS vrijgegeven, voor de oorlogsmisdaden daarin vermeld moeten niet de daders Bush en Blair boeten, maar journalist Julian Assange' (en zie de links in dat bericht naar artikelen over het o.a. bevoorraden van ISIS door de VS!!)

'Niet alleen Assange staat terecht, maar ook echte journalistiek en degenen die de klok luiden over oorlogsmisdaden, corruptie en andere smerige zaken'

Prosecution of Julian Assange part of Donald Trump’s 'war on journalism', court hears

Assange hearing adjourned as prosecution lawyer is tested for COVID-19 

'Het proces tegen Assange: een verslag van de voormalige Britse ambassadeur Craig Murray' (!!!!)

'Liveblog: Julian Assange Under Threat - Defend Wikileaks'

'Het martelen van onderzoeksjournalist Julian Assange: een interview met Andrew Fowler'

'YouTube verwijdert in aanloop naar presidentsverkiezingen video's met info verkregen middels hacken, censuur door VS techreuzen' (o.a. censuur op info van Wikileaks....)

'Labourpolitici in oorlog met elkaar: de antisemitisme leugen tegen Jeremy Corbyn die hem de verkiezingen kostte' (met o.a. aandacht voor Assange en zie de links in dat bericht over de verkiezingen in GB) 

'Internationale Dag van de Persvrijheid: ARD hekelt geheel hypocriet Turkije zonder ook maar één woord te besteden aan Julian Assange'  

'Assange: geen uitlevering maar directe invrijheidstelling!' 

'Het meest gecensureerde nieuws van deze eeuw: het proces tegen journalist Julian Assange' (!!!!)

'Julian Assange het slachtoffer van de grootste persbreidel in deze eeuw'

'Julian Assange moet onmiddellijk vrijgelaten worden!' 

'Assange in de gevangenis: Zweden laat voor de derde keer de aanklacht wegens verkrachting vallen'

'Julian Assange blijft in de gevangenis na uitzitten straf en dat voor het doen van zijn werk'

'Vervolging van drone klokkenluider Hale moet worden gestopt'

'Snowden vindt het ongelofelijk dat de media VS politici niet aanspreken op totaal verschillende reacties n.a.v. 'klokkenluiden''

'Trump administratie klaagt weer een klokkenluider aan voor spionage' 
 

'Sweden drops investigation into bogus sexual misconduct allegations against Julian Assange'(!!!!)

'Stop de isolatie van Julian Assange!'

'Julian Assange: Speciaal VN rapporteur martelen heeft grote twijfels bij onafhankelijkheid rechter' (!!!!)

'VN rapport: Assange is gedemoniseerd en psychisch gemarteld'
'1984 het boek van George Orwell: niet langer fictie.......'

'Het westen vervolgt journalist Assange, Rusland laat journalist vrij na onrust over diens gevangenschap' (en nog hadden de reguliere media een grote bek over Rusland, media die niet anders hebben gedaan dan collega Assange besmeuren.....)

'CNN met nog smeriger lastercampagne tegen Julian Assange'

'Belangrijk account voor de verdediging Julian Assange geblokkeerd door Twitter' (!!!!)

'VN rapport: Assange is gedemoniseerd en psychisch gemarteld'

'Media wakker geschrokken en ontwaken in Assange nachtmerrie'

'Julian Assange weer vervolgd wegens 'verkrachting', waarvoor het Zweedse OM eerder geen bewijs kon vinden......'

'Dag van Persvrijheid: Assange wordt zoveel mogelijk uitermate hypocriet gemeden door de pers'

'Julian Assange (brekend nieuws) veroordeeld tot 50 weken gevangenisstraf......'

'Chelsea Manning blijft voor onbepaalde tijd in de gevangenis'

'Julian Assanges vervolging is de genadeklap voor klokkenluiders en (echte) journalisten' (zie ook de iets oudere links in dat bericht)

'Julian Assange gedemoniseerd door media die hem zouden moeten steunen, waren ze bevolkt geweest door echte journalisten........'

'WhiteHouse: US, Ecuador Coordinating About Future Of Assange Asylum'

'De prijs op het hoofd van Julian Assange: 1 miljard dollar.....'

'Assange kan niet voor spionage worden vervolgd, immers hij is journalist >> aldus Daniel Ellsberg (Pentagon Papers) in een video' (!!!!)

'Assange is journalist en zou alleen daarom al niet mogen worden vervolgd, een artikel o.a. voor de huidige 'journalisten' van de reguliere media en de gebruikers van die media'

De werkelijke machthebbers in de VS, waar Bernie Sanders geen deel van uit mag maken

Chris Hedges heeft een artikel geschreven waarin hij waarschuwt voor de macht van de oligarchen/plutocraten, ofwel de super welgestelde miljardairs. Hij betoogt dat de belangen van de welgestelden niet de belangen zijn van het gewone volk en zegt hetzelfde over de waarheid en het leven van de welgestelden, ook deze 2 zaken zijn bepaald niet hetzelfde als die voor de grote onderlaag.

Om de macht van de oligarchen te bestendigen hebben ze legers van advocaten tot hun beschikking, dit nog naast het in de zak hebben van publicisten, politici, rechters, academici en journalisten, alles om hun belangen te beschermen......

Hedges betoogt dat deze plutocraten voorts het neoliberalisme en de volgende zaken gebruiken om hun macht te bewaren: 

• het verplaatsen van industrie naar lagelonenlanden
• het vernietigen van vakbonden
• het verlagen of zelfs opheffen van belastingen
• vrije handel
• globalisering (daar ben ik het overigens niet mee eens)
• een totale veiligheidsstaat (dus zoveel mogelijk cameratoezicht, inbreken op computers van de alternatieve media en hun aanhang, plus de computers van milieugroepen en hun activisten, daarnaast het totaal teniet doen van het recht op privacy)
• eindeloze oorlogen (goed voor het bedrijfsleven en oliemaatschappijen)
• bezuinigingen, die altijd weer de grote onderlaag het hardst treffen..... 

Verder heeft dit geteisem bijna de gehele voedselvoorziening in handen, dus de: -doodsindustrie die men intensieve veeteelt noemt, -de gentech zadenbedrijven en hun kankerverwekkend gif, plus -bedrijven die palmolie- en soja produceren, waarvoor de laatste oerwouden op onze kleine aarde worden gekapt en verbrand......*  

Alle aangehaalde zaken worden aan het grote publiek gepresenteerd als waren het natuurlijke processen en wetten waar nu eenmaal niet aan is te ontkomen.... In werkelijkheid zorgen deze zaken ervoor dat de fundamenten onder de democratie worden ondermijnd en dat er geen of amper maatregelen worden getroffen tegen de klimaatverandering en de enorme luchtvervuiling, die zelfs een eind aan de mensheid kunnen maken...... 

Het zal je niet verbazen dat deze plutocraten een uiterst belangrijk onderdeel vormen van wat men 'Deep State' noemt, de werkelijke machthebbers van vooral de westerse wereld....... (als men over Deep State spreekt, heeft men het meestal sover de VS, echter het is in de rest van het westen niet veel anders....)

Deze plutocraten (of oligarchen) willen overal over spreken behalve over klassen, immers dan zouden ze wel heel snel door de mand vallen en zou het gewone volk opstandig maken..... Hedges haalt een uitspraak aan van Aristoteles, die stelde dat wanneer de oligarchen de macht hebben gegrepen, de maatschappij nog 2 mogelijkheden rest: tirannie accepteren of kiezen voor een revolutie....

In een kort verslag beschrijft Hedges het beleid dat Roosevelt voerde en waar de welgestelden zelfs 91% belasting betaalden, dit was nog het geval in de 50er jaren, terwijl ze nu praktisch geen belasting meer betalen.... (vergeleken met het enorme kapitaal dat ze bij elkaar hebben geroofd, in het merendeel van de gevallen figuurlijk en letterlijk over de rug van arbeiders.....) De Trump administratie heeft er zelfs voor gezorgd dat de superwelgestelden er nog verder op vooruit zijn gegaan, o.a. door belastingverlagingen....... (VVD leugenaar Rutte heeft hier eenzelfde beleid gevoerd en doet dit nog steeds, al is het met minder succes dan in de VS......)

Gezien het voorgaande is het geen verrassing dat deze topgraaiers Bernie Sanders vrezen, immers hij zal op zeker deze miljardairs aanpakken. Niet vreemd ook dat Sanders al een paar jaar lang wordt afgemaakt in de media, voor zo'n 90% in handen van deze oligarchen, waar de laatste 10% in handen is van investeringsmaatschappijen, die al evenzeer geen belang hebben bij een presidentschap van Sanders.....

De top van de Democratische partij zet ook alles op alles om te voorkomen dat Sanders aan het bewind komt, precies zoals de Republikeinen dit vrezen. Er is dan ook amper verschil wat de top van de Democraten wensen in vergelijking met de Republikeinen, beiden hebben ze grote belangen in de financiële wereld, de farmaceutische industrie, de oliemaatschappijen en de wapenindustrie...... Beide partijen stonden en staan achter de illegale oorlogen die de VS is begonnen en voor het meer dan belachelijk grote budget voor 'Defensie' (lees: oorlogsvoering)..... Hedges noemt nog een aantal zaken die door zowel de Demoraten als de Republikeinen worden gekoesterd, zoals de militarisering van de politie, en de eerder aangehaalde censurering van de sociale media en het inperken van de privacy.....

Deze zaak vertoont opvallende gelijkenissen met de Britse Labour politicus Jeremy Corbyn, die voor de laatste verkiezingen in Groot-Brittannie door de reguliere media daar, inclusief de zogenaamd onafhankelijke BBC, werd gedemoniseerd, zo erg dat men hem zelfs antisemiet noemde........ Als bij Sanders nu, werd ook Corbyn door de top van zijn eigen partij besmeurd......

Verder merkt Hedges op dat hij al in 2016 wist dat Sanders de voorverkiezingen en zeker de presidentsverkiezingen niet zou winnen en hetzelfde zegt hij over de huidige verkiezingen en zoals je wellicht weet, ik ben van hetzelfde overtuigd. Sanders moet en zal de verkiezingen verliezen, in 2016 gebeurde dit door de top van de Democratische Partij en dan m.n. Hillary Clinton die op een smerige manier de Democratische voorverkiezingen won en toen dat uitkwam werd Russiagate verzonnen, om de aandacht af te leiden van de mails die door een klokkenluider werden geopenbaard en waaruit bleek dat Clinton en haar team een smerig spel hebben gespeeld met Sanders..... De klokkenluider was een lid van haar campagneteam, t.w. Seth Rich die vanwege frustraties over het misdadige gedrag van Clinton e.e.a. naar buiten bracht.....**

Het artikel van Hedges werd geplaatst op Information ClearingHouse (onder het volgende artikel kan je klikken voor een Nederlandse [Dutch] vertaling, dit neemt wel enige tijd in beslag):

Class: The Little Word the Elites Want You to Forget

By Chris Hedges

March 03, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - Aristotle, Niccolò Machiavelli, Alexis de Tocqueville, Adam Smith and Karl Marx grounded their philosophies in the understanding that there is a natural antagonism between the rich and the rest of us. The interests of the rich are not our interests. The truths of the rich are not our truths. The lives of the rich are not our lives. Great wealth not only breeds contempt for those who do not have it but it empowers oligarchs to pay armies of lawyers, publicists, politicians, judges, academics and journalists to censure and control public debate and stifle dissent. Neoliberalism, deindustrialization, the destruction of labor unions, slashing and even eliminating the taxes of the rich and corporations, free trade, globalization, the surveillance state, endless war and austerity — the ideologies or tools used by the oligarchs to further their own interests — are presented to the public as natural law, the mechanisms for social and economic progress, even as the oligarchs dynamite the foundations of a liberal democracy and exacerbate a climate crisis that threatens to extinguish human life.

The oligarchs are happy to talk about race. They are happy to talk about sexual identity and gender. They are happy to talk about patriotism. They are happy to talk about religion. They are happy to talk about immigration. They are happy to talk about abortion. They are happy to talk about gun control. They are happy to talk about cultural degeneracy or cultural freedom. They are not happy to talk about class. Race, gender, religion, abortion, immigration, gun control, culture and patriotism are issues used to divide the public, to turn neighbor against neighbor, to fuel virulent hatreds and antagonisms. The culture wars give the oligarchs, both Democrats and Republicans, the cover to continue the pillage. There are few substantial differences between the two ruling political parties in the United States. This is why oligarchs like Donald Trump and Michael Bloomberg can switch effortlessly from one party to the other. Once oligarchs seize power, Aristotle wrote, a society must either accept tyranny or choose revolution.

The United States stood on the cusp of revolution — a fact President Franklin Roosevelt acknowledged in his private correspondence — amid the breakdown of capitalism in the 1930s. Roosevelt responded by aggressively curbing the power of the oligarchs. The federal government dealt with massive unemployment by creating 12 million jobs through the Works Progress Administration (WPA), making the government the largest employer in the country. It legalized unions, many of which had been outlawed, and through the National Labor Relations Act empowered organizing. It approved banking regulations, including the Emergency Banking Act, the Banking Act and the Securities Act, all in 1933, to prevent another stock market crash. The Federal Emergency Relief Administration provided the equivalent in today’s money of $9.88 billion for relief operations in cities and states. The Democratic president heavily taxed the rich and corporations. (The Republican administration of Dwight Eisenhower in the 1950s was still taxing the highest earners at 91%.) Roosevelt’s administration instituted programs such as Social Security and a public pension program. It provided financial assistance to tenant farmers and migrant workers. It funded arts and culture. It created the United States Housing Authority and instituted the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, which established the minimum wage and set a limit on mandatory work hours. This heavy government intervention lifted the country out of the Great Depression. It also made Roosevelt, who was elected to an unprecedented fourth term, and the Democratic Party wildly popular among working and middle-class families. 
The Democratic Party, should it resurrect such policies, would win every election in a landslide.

But the New Deal was the bête noire of the oligarchs. They began to undo Roosevelt’s New Deal even before World War II broke out at the end of 1941. They gradually dismantled the regulations and programs that had not only saved capitalism but arguably democracy itself. 
We now live in an oligarchic state. The oligarchs control politics, the economy, culture, education and the press. Donald Trump may be a narcissist and a con artist, but he savages the oligarchic elite in his long-winded speeches to the delight of his crowds. He, like Bernie Sanders, speaks about the forbidden topic — class. But Trump, though an embarrassment to the oligarchs, does not, like Sanders, pose a genuine threat to them. 
Trump will, like all demagogues, incite violence against the vulnerable, widen the cultural and social divides and consolidate tyranny, but he will leave the rich alone. It is Sanders whom the oligarchs fear and hate.

The Democratic Party elites will use any mechanism, no matter how nefarious and undemocratic, to prevent Sanders from obtaining the nomination. The New York Times interviewed 93 of the more than 700 superdelegates, appointed by the party and permitted to vote in the second round if no candidate receives the required 1,991 delegates to win in the first round. Most of those interviewed said they would seek to prevent Sanders from being the nominee if he did not have a majority of delegates in the first count, even if it required drafting someone who did not run in the primaries — Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio was mentioned — and even if it led to Sanders’ supporters abandoning the party in disgust. If Sanders fails to obtain 1,991 delegates before the convention, which appears likely, it seems nearly certain he will be blocked by the party from becoming the Democratic candidate. The damage done to the Democratic Party, if this happens, will be catastrophic. It will also all but ensure that Trump wins a second term.

As I wrote in my Feb. 17 column, “The New Rules of the Games,” “Sanders’ democratic socialism is essentially that of a New Deal Democrat. His political views would be part of the mainstream in France or Germany, where democratic socialism is an accepted part of the political landscape and is routinely challenged as too accommodationist by communists and radical socialists. Sanders calls for an end to our foreign wars, a reduction of the military budget, for ‘Medicare for All,’ abolishing the death penalty, eliminating mandatory minimum sentences and private prisons, a return of Glass-Steagall, raising taxes on the wealthy, increasing the minimum wage to $15 an hour, canceling student debt, eliminating the Electoral College, banning fracking and breaking up agribusinesses. This does not qualify as a revolutionary agenda.”

“Sanders, unlike many more radical socialists, does not propose nationalizing the banks and the fossil fuel and arms industries,” I continued. “He does not call for the criminal prosecution of the financial elites who trashed the global economy or the politicians and generals who lied to launch preemptive wars, defined under international law as criminal wars of aggression, which have devastated much of the Middle East, resulted in hundreds of thousands of dead and millions of refugees and displaced people, and cost the nation between $5 trillion and $7 trillion. He does not call for worker ownership of factories and businesses. He does not promise to halt the government’s wholesale surveillance of the public. He does not intend to punish corporations that have moved manufacturing overseas. Most importantly, he believes, as I do not, that the political system, including the Democratic Party, can be reformed from within. He does not support sustained mass civil disobedience to bring the system down, the only hope we have of halting the climate emergency that threatens to doom the human race. On the political spectrum, he is, at best, an enlightened moderate.”

The Democratic Party leaders are acutely aware that in a functioning democracy, one where the rich do not buy elections and send lobbyists to Washington and state capitals to write laws and legislation, one where the danger of oligarchic rule is understood and part of the national debate, they would be out of a job.

The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the pharmaceutical and insurance industries. The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the defense contractors. The Democrats, like the Republicans, serve the interests of the fossil fuel industry. The Democrats, along with the Republicans, authorized $738 billion for our bloated military in fiscal 2020. The Democrats, like the Republicans, do not oppose the endless wars in the Middle East. The Democrats, like the Republicans, took from us our civil liberties, including the right to privacy, freedom from wholesale government surveillance, and due process. The Democrats, like the Republicans, legalized unlimited funding from the rich and corporations to transform our electoral process into a system of legalized bribery. 
The Democrats, like the Republicans, militarized our police and built a system of mass incarceration that has 25% of the world’s prisoners, although the United States has only 5% of the world’s population. The Democrats, like the Republicans, are the political face of the oligarchy.

The leaders of the Democratic Party — the Clintons, Nancy Pelosi, Chuck Schumer, Tom Perez — would rather implode the party and the democratic state than surrender their positions of privilege. The Democratic Party is not a bulwark against despotism. It is the guarantor of despotism. It is a full partner in the class project. Its lies, deceit, betrayal of working men and women and empowering of corporate pillage made a demagogue like Trump possible. Any threat to the class project, even the tepid one that would be offered by Sanders as the party’s nominee, will see the Democratic elites unite with the Republicans to keep Trump in power.

What will we do if the oligarchs in the Democratic Party once again steal the nomination from Sanders? Will we finally abandon a system that has always been gamed against us? 
Will we turn on the oligarchic state to build parallel, popular institutions to protect ourselves and to pit power against power? Will we organize unions, third parties and militant movements that speak in the language of class warfare? Will we form community development organizations that provide local currencies, public banks and food cooperatives? Will we carry out strikes and sustained civil disobedience to wrest power back from the oligarchs to save ourselves and our planet?

In 2016 I did not believe that the Democratic elites would permit Sanders to be the nominee and feared, correctly, they would use him after the convention to herd his followers into the voting booths for Hillary Clinton. I do not believe this animus against Sanders has changed in 2020. The theft this time may be more naked, and for this reason more revealing of the forces involved. If all this plays out as I expect and if those on the left continue to put their faith and energy into the Democratic Party, they are not simply willfully naive but complicit in their own enslavement. No successful political movement will be built within the embrace of the Democratic Party, nor will such a movement be built in one election cycle. The struggle to end oligarchic rule will be hard and bitter. It will take time. It will require self-sacrifice, including sustained protest and going to jail. It will be rooted in class warfare. The oligarchs will stop at nothing to crush it. Open, nonviolent revolt against the oligarchic state is our only hope. Oligarchic rule must be destroyed. If we fail, our democracy, and finally our species, will become extinct.

Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years.

https://www.truthdig.com/author/chris_hedges/

Click for Spanish, German, Dutch, Danish, French, translation- Note- Translation may take a moment to load.

======================================
*  Palmolie dat tegenwoordig in heel veel levensmiddelen is verwerkt, olie die slecht is voor het lichaam, maar ja deze plutocraten hebben schijt aan de volksgezondheid, terwijl ze ook die 'tak van industire' in handen hebben en hoe meer chronische en dodelijke ziekten, hoe beter het is voor de farmaceuten en de geprivatiseerde gezondheidszorg.....  

** Seth Rich werd vermoord, kort nadat hij mails van Clinton had gelekt naar WikiLeaks..... Volgens de politie een roofmoord, terwijl hij werd gevonden met al zijn zichtbare sieraden en zijn portefeuille, waaruit geen geld was ontvreemd........

Voor meer berichten over Deep State, S. Rich, Hillary Clinton, WikiLeaks, Sanders en/of Jeremy Corbyn, klik op het betreffende label, direct onder dit bericht.

Voorwaarts christen fascisten: de invloed van christelijk rechts op de VS politiek

Chris Hedges heeft op Information Clearing House een artikel geschreven over 'de politiek' van de christelijke kerk, een politiek die eerst was gericht op het toelaten van alle christenen, ook de volgers van christelijk rechts die juist in tegenstelling tot die politiek niet openstaan voor dialoog en tolerantie....... Christenen die niet openstaan voor zaken genoemd in het nieuwe testament van de bijbel, zoals het liefhebben van de medemens en hulp bieden aan de mensen die in ellende verkeren, bijvoorbeeld het afstaan van je bed aan vluchtelingen en mensen die worden vervolgd, waarmee uiteraard ook wordt bedoeld dat je je medemens op alle mogelijke manieren moet helpen, zelfs het bezoeken van gevangenen valt onder die 'noemer.....'

De 'mainstream' christelijke kerk, zeker in de VS, staat achter: -de illegale oorlogen die de VS voert, -de doodstraf (wat een verschil met wat jezus volgens het nieuwe testament zou hebben gezegd >> je andere wang toekeren als je wordt geslagen), -het groot en doodmartelen van dieren in de intensieve veehouderij (dieren zijn volgens christenen NB 'gods schepping'), -het leegplunderen bodemschatten en van de zeeën, -het verbranden van fossiele brandstoffen ook al gaat de aarde (alweer 'gods schepping') daardoor naar de gallemiezen en overlijden er grote aantallen mensen alleen al aan de langdurige inademing van auto-uitstoot, om nog maar te zwijgen over de grote aantalllen mensen die zijn omgekomen door de gevolgen van de klimaatverandering, die volgens veel christenen niet eens plaatsvindt...., -het uitbuiten van werknemers in verre buitenlanden, enz. enz. Stuk voor stuk zaken die zeker in het nieuwe testament worden beoordeeld als onchristelijk......

Lees het uitstekende artikel van Chris Hedges en geeft het door, ook hier denken christenen dat alles wat hun god hen heeft verboden tot de taken van de moderne christelijke mens behoren:

Onward, Christian Fascists

By Chris Hedges

 

January 01, 2020 "Information Clearing House" - The greatest moral failing of the liberal Christian church was its refusal, justified in the name of tolerance and dialogue, to denounce the followers of the Christian right as heretics. By tolerating the intolerant it ceded religious legitimacy to an array of con artists, charlatans and demagogues and their cultish supporters. It stood by as the core Gospel message—concern for the poor and the oppressed—was perverted into a magical world where God and Jesus showered believers with material wealth and power. The white race, especially in the United States, became God’s chosen agent. Imperialism and war became divine instruments for purging the world of infidels and barbarians, evil itself. Capitalism, because God blessed the righteous with wealth and power and condemned the immoral to poverty and suffering, became shorn of its inherent cruelty and exploitation. The iconography and symbols of American nationalism became intertwined with the iconography and symbols of the Christian faith. The mega-pastors, narcissists who rule despotic, cult-like fiefdoms, make millions of dollars by using this heretical belief system to prey on the mounting despair and desperation of their congregations, victims of neoliberalism and deindustrialization. These believers find in Donald Trump a reflection of themselves, a champion of the unfettered greed, cult of masculinity, lust for violence, white supremacy, bigotry, American chauvinism, religious intolerance, anger, racism and conspiracy theories that define the central beliefs of the Christian right. When I wrote “American Fascists: The Christian Right and the War on America” I was deadly serious about the term “fascists.”

The evangelical magazine Christianity Today, by stating the obvious about Trump, that he is immoral and should be removed from office, became the latest recipient of the Christian right’s vicious and hypocritical backlash. Nearly 200 evangelical leaders, including former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former Rep. Michele Bachmann, Jerry Falwell Jr. and Ralph Reed, signed a joint letter denouncing the Christianity Today editorial, written by the magazine’s president, Timothy Dalrymple, and outgoing Editor Mark Galli.

Evangelical Christians who criticize Trump are as swiftly disappeared from the ranks as Republican politicians who criticize Trump. Trump received 80% of the white evangelical vote in the 2016 presidential election, and in a poll this month 90% of Republicans said they opposed impeachment and ouster of the president. Among Republicans who identify as white evangelical Protestants, that number rises to 99%.

Tens of millions of Americans live hermetically sealed inside the vast media and educational edifice controlled by Christian fascists. In this world, miracles are real, Satan, allied with secular humanists and Muslims, is seeking to destroy America, and Trump is God’s anointed vessel to build the Christian nation and cement into place a government that instills “biblical values.” These “biblical values” include banning abortion, protecting the traditional family, turning the Ten Commandments into secular law, crushing “infidels,” especially Muslims, indoctrinating children in schools with “biblical” teachings and thwarting sexual license, which includes any sexual relationship other than in a marriage between a man and a woman. Trump is routinely compared by evangelical leaders to the biblical king Cyrus, who rebuilt the temple in Jerusalem and restored the Jews to the city.

Trump has filled his own ideological void with Christian fascism. He has elevated members of the Christian right to prominent positions, including Mike Pence to the vice presidency, Mike Pompeo to secretary of state, Betsy DeVos to secretary of education, Ben Carson to secretary of housing and urban development, William Barr to attorney general, Neil Gorsuch and Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and the televangelist Paula White to his Faith and Opportunities Initiative. More importantly, Trump has handed the Christian right veto and appointment power over key positions in government, especially in the federal courts. 
He has installed 133 district court judges out of 677 total, 50 appeals court judges out of 179 total, and two U.S. Supreme Court justices out of nine. Almost all of these judges were, in effect, selected by the Federalist Society and the Christian right. Many of the extremists who make up the judicial appointees have been rated as unqualified by the American Bar Association, the country’s largest nonpartisan coalition of lawyers. Trump has moved to ban Muslim immigrants and rolled back civil rights legislation. He has made war on reproductive rights by restricting abortion and defunding Planned Parenthood. He has stripped away LGBTQ rights. He has ripped down the firewall between church and state by revoking the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits churches, which are tax-exempt, from endorsing political candidates. His appointees throughout the government routinely use biblical strictures to justify an array of policy decisions including environmental deregulation, war, tax cuts and the replacement of public schools with charter schools, an action that permits the transfer of federal education funds to private “Christian” schools.

I studied ethics at Harvard Divinity School with James Luther Adams, who had been in Germany in 1935 and 1936. Adams witnessed the rise there of the so-called Christian Church, which was pro-Nazi. He warned us about the disturbing parallels between the German Christian Church and the Christian right. Adolf Hitler was in the eyes of the German Christian Church a volk messiah and an instrument of God—a view similar to the one held today about Trump by many of his white evangelical supporters. Those demonized for Germany’s economic collapse, especially Jews and communists, were agents of Satan. 
Fascism, Adams told us, always cloaked itself in a nation’s most cherished symbols and rhetoric. Fascism would come to America not in the guise of stiff-armed, marching brownshirts and Nazi swastikas but in mass recitations of the Pledge of Allegiance, the biblical sanctification of the state and the sacralization of American militarism. Adams was the first person I heard label the extremists of the Christian right as fascists. Liberals, he warned, as in Nazi Germany, were blind to the tragic dimension of history and radical evil. They would not react until it was too late.

Trump’s legacy will be the empowerment of the Christian fascists. They are what comes next. For decades they have been organizing to take power. They have built infrastructures and organizations, including lobbying groups, schools and universities as well as media platforms, to prepare. They have seeded their cadre into the political system. We on the left, meanwhile, have seen our institutions and organizations destroyed or corrupted by corporate power.

The Christian fascists, as in all totalitarian movements, need a crisis, manufactured or real, in order to seize power. This crisis may be financial. It could be triggered by a catastrophic terrorist attack. Or it could be the result of a societal breakdown from our climate emergency. The Christian fascists are poised to take advantage of the chaos, or perceived chaos. They have their own version of the brownshirts, the for-hire mercenary armies and private contractors amassed by Christian fascists such as Erik Prince, the brother of Betsy DeVos. The Christian fascists have seized control of significant portions of the judiciary and legislative branches of government. FRC Action, the legislative affiliate of the Family Research Council, gives 245 members of Congress a perfect 100% for votes that support the agenda of the Christian right. The Family Research Council, which has called on its followers to pray that God will vanquish the “demonic forces” behind Trump’s impeachment, is identified by the Southern Poverty Law Center as a hate group because of its campaigns to discriminate against the LGBTQ community.

The ideology of the Christian fascists panders in our decline to the primitive yearnings for the vengeance, new glory and moral renewal that are found among those pushed aside by deindustrialization and austerity. Reason, facts and verifiable truth are impotent weapons against this belief system. The Christian right is a “crisis cult.” Crisis cults arise in most collapsing societies. They promise, through magic, to recover the lost grandeur and power of a mythologized past. This magical thinking banishes doubt, anxiety and feelings of disempowerment. Traditional social hierarchies and rules, including an unapologetic white, male supremacy, will be restored. Rituals and behaviors including an unquestioning submission to authority and acts of violence to cleanse the society of evil will vanquish malevolent forces.

The Christian fascists propagate their magical thinking through a selective literalism in addressing the Bible. They hold up as sacrosanct biblical passages that buttress their ideology and ignore, or grossly misinterpret, the ones that do not. They live in a binary universe. They see themselves as eternal victims, oppressed by dark and sinister groups seeking their annihilation. They alone know the will of God. They alone can fulfill God’s will. 
They seek total cultural and political domination. The secular, reality-based world, one where Satan, miracles, destiny, angels and magic do not exist, destroyed their lives and communities. That world took away their jobs and their futures. It ripped apart the social bonds that once gave them purpose, dignity and hope. In their despair they often struggled with alcohol, drug and gambling addictions. They endured familial breakdown, divorce, evictions, unemployment and domestic and sexual violence. The only thing that saved them was their conversion, the realization that God had a plan for them and would protect them. 
These believers were pushed by a callous, heartless corporate society and rapacious oligarchy into the arms of charlatans. All who speak to them in the calm, rational language of fact and evidence are hated and ultimately feared, for they seek to force believers back into “the culture of death” that nearly destroyed them.

We can blunt the rise of this Christian fascism only by reintegrating exploited and abused Americans into society, giving them jobs with stable, sustainable incomes, relieving their crushing personal debts, rebuilding their communities and transforming our failed democracy into one in which everyone has agency and a voice. We must impart to them hope, not only for themselves but for their children.

Christian fascism is an emotional life raft for tens of millions. It is impervious to the education, dialogue and discourse the liberal class naively believes can blunt or domesticate the movement. The Christian fascists, by choice, have severed themselves from rational thought. We will not placate or disarm this movement, bent on our destruction, by attempting to claim that we too have Christian “values.” This appeal only strengthens the legitimacy of the Christian fascists and weakens our own. We will transform American society to a socialist system that provides meaning, dignity and hope to all citizens, that cares and nurtures the most vulnerable among us, or we will become the victims of the Christian fascists we created.

Chris Hedges, spent nearly two decades as a foreign correspondent in Central America, the Middle East, Africa and the Balkans. He has reported from more than 50 countries and has worked for The Christian Science Monitor, National Public Radio, The Dallas Morning News and The New York Times, for which he was a foreign correspondent for 15 years. https://www.truthdig.com/author/chris_hedges/

Note To ICH Community

We ask that you assist us in dissemination of the article published by ICH to your social media accounts and post links to the article from other websites.

Thank you for your support.

Peace and joy