The things that informed me most were my experiences in fighting for freedom of the press, freedom to communicate knowledge – which, in the end, is freedom from ignorance. Secondly, [were] my experiences in understanding how the military-intelligence complex works at a practical level. I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination.
I just got back from a trip, and in the mail was a Rolling Stone magazine. So typical, it is part pop culture, trying to stay in touch with young people and at the same time wanting to connect with older generations too. So on the cover is David Bowie (John Lennon has the week off), and inside is a full length interview with Julian Assange. Oh yeah – did I also say that Rolling Stone* is one of the few publications in the United States that does actual journalism?**
I set the magazine by my chair, but elected not to read the interview last night as I did not want to become agitated before sleepy time. I read it this morning. I’m not agitated. It’s more depressing than infuriating. The power of the United States National Security State (NSS) is so impressive that it cannot be well-described. It is felt via Assange and Bradley Manning as ominous, far-reaching and oppressive. We are not a free country. I knew that, but did not feel the weight of the oppression in totality until I read his words.
It’s one thing to see him destroyed – he knows that what he was told by a “Western intelligence source,” that he is “fucked,” is true. Whether he is nabbed by Karl Rove’s buddy Carl Bildt in Sweden, or whether the US brings him home via British extradition laws, he’ll likely never experience freedom again. Obama*** intends to fry him, and he has at his disposal the full weight of the military-industrial complex. Companies that have attempted to help him lose clients, individuals lose their jobs. The US media is assassinating his character – there are over twenty million links to him and “rape” now on the Google. MasterCard, Visa and PayPal have conspired against him and yet there are no legal proceedings against the companies in their conspiracy against him – not a good sign. There is complicity, top to bottom, among the corporate, military, media and government wings of the NSS.
Assange is just a man, and he knows that. He knows that journalism is more important than him, and so seems resigned to his personal fate even as he is optimistic about he larger movement he founded. I read his words knowing that there is no “left” in the US that will help him; that no “journalist” will try to help him. I understand that the NSS has tentacles that reach out to every news outlet every politician to keep them in line. Assange estimates that there are over four million people in the US with national security clearance – that is, more than the population of New Zealand, whose job is not to defend us but rather to spy on us. The US public is, as Chomsky reminds us, the “domestic enemy.” If we are kept ignorant we are rendered impotent. He tells those few remaining journalists to use the old-fashioned ways. No electronic devices … “we are now in a situation where countries are recording billions of hours of conversations, and proudly proclaiming that you don’t have to select which telephone call you’re intercepting, because you intercept every telephone call.”
In the Bradley Manning case, Obama is trying to expand the bounds of what is considered “espionage.” Manning may or may not be compos mentis, as his psychological torture was severe. But Obama is using that case as a means to establish a legal precedent that for a journalist merely to ask an inside source for information is a criminal offense. Sy Hersh is known to have a wide array of people inside the Pentagon who are willing to talk to him – Hersh will be imprisoned if he continues to do this. That is Obama’s goal.
I’ve linked to the interview above, and it is open to the public so there is no need to cite Assange here. But one phrase that he uses sticks with me – we have a right to be “free of ignorance.” That is at the bottom of this – Americans are ignorant, even smart Americans. The “journalists” who anchor the Sunday talk shows, supposedly our best, are extraordinarily ignorant fools. People I’ve met through this blog who think that Bradley Manning has committed some real offense are ignorant even if not fools. Ignorance is the prime quality of American life. I know maybe three people who are aware of the true state of American politics. There are thousands of people using the Internet to smuggle information to us. (Ergo, PIPA and SOFA – they are trying to bring the Internet under control of the NSS.)
Smugglers of truth are now targeted. Assange and Manning will never breathe free again. Others must step in to fill their shoes, and if history is a lesson, they will. It is not America now on the front lines in the battle for human freedom. Our day came and went.
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*Rolling Stone is a powerful tool in that it reaches youth with a subversive message, luring them in with pop culture and hitting them with real journalism at once. An odd feature of American culture – our best journalism is in a pop culture magazine, our best television news on basic cable comedy shows.
**The goal of “journalism” is, as I define it, to investigate activities of the powerful and report back to us. American journalists are taught in their famous schools that they are to report in an unbiased fashion each (of only two) sides of every story without personal opinion or involvement. The fact that most of them do not have strong opinions is testimony to their eunuch states of mind.
***Use of the word “Obama” is shorthand for “the executive branch.” Obama himself has little control over that branch, much less the military over which he is supposedly CnC.
Piece of Mindful 