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The Kafkaesque Imprisonment of Julian Assange Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom and Tyranny
The Kafkaesque Imprisonment of Julian Assange Exposes U.S. Myths About Freedom and Tyranny
The real measure of how free is a society is not how its mainstream, well-behaved ruling class servants are treated, but the fate of its actual dissidents.
Persecution is not typically doled out to those who recite mainstream pieties, or refrain from posing meaningful threats to those who wield institutional power, or obediently stay within the lines of permissible speech and activism imposed by the ruling class.
Those who render themselves acquiescent and harmless that way will — in every society, including the most repressive — usually be free of reprisals. They will not be censored or jailed. They will be permitted to live their lives largely unmolested by authorities, while many will be well-rewarded for this servitude. Such individuals will see themselves as free because, in a sense, they are: they are free to submit, conform and acquiesce. And if they do so, they will not even realize, or at least not care, and may even regard as justifiable, that those who refuse this Orwellian bargain they have embraced (“freedom” in exchange for submission) are crushed with unlimited force.
Those who do not seek to meaningfully dissent or subvert power will usually deny — because they do not perceive — that such dissent and subversion are, in fact, rigorously prohibited. They will continue to believe blissfully that the society in which they live guarantees core civic freedoms — of speech, of press, of assembly, of due process — because they have rendered their own speech and activism, if it exists at all, so innocuous that nobody with the capacity to do so would bother to try to curtail it…
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“There’s No Such Thing As ISIS”: Journalist Destroys West’s Terror Narrative, Warns Of Crackdown On “Dissidents”
“There’s No Such Thing As ISIS”: Journalist Destroys West’s Terror Narrative, Warns Of Crackdown On “Dissidents”
While condemning the attacks and branding the perpetrators “savages”, he was also quick to note that Syria has been dealing with this brand of terrorism for nearly five years straight. In what amounted to an “I told you so” moment, Assad also said the following: “We said, don’t take what is happening in Syria lightly. Unfortunately, European officials did not listen.”
Assad also took the opportunity to once again suggest that the West’s sponsorship of the regional powers who support (both explicitly and implicitly) Sunni extremism in Syria is the root cause of the problem although the language he used was a bit less harsh than that which he employed in September (presumably because he was trying not to inflame tensions less than 24 hours after the Paris massacre). Here’s what he said: “The question that is being asked throughout France today is, was France’s policy over the past five years the right one? The answer is no.”
Presumably, Assad was referencing the West’s support for the various militant groups seeking to oust his government. Those groups, including ISIS, have received money, guns, and training at various times from the CIA, from Turkey, from Saudi Arabia, and from Qatar. The situation on the ground is of course so fluid that it’s nearly impossible to keep track of where the guns, money, and fighters end up, meaning that even those observers who shun conspiracy theories would be hard pressed to contend that the US has not at least indirectly armed and trained ISIS.
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Gambia leader blames dissidents for coup bid – Africa – Al Jazeera English
Gambia leader blames dissidents for coup bid – Africa – Al Jazeera English.
Gambia’s president has blamed unidentified foreign dissidents and “terrorists” for an assault on his presidential palace and insists the army remains loyal.
Yahya Jammeh’s remarks came two days after an apparent coup attempt by a group of soldiers while he was abroad was foiled.
“It is an attack by dissidents based in the US, Germany and UK,” Jammeh said in a televised address on Thursday.
“This was not a coup. This was an attack by a terrorist group backed by some powers that I would not name.”
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