[Peace-discuss] Notes

[C. G. Estabrook]

These are great. Thanks.

Leigh’s cooking supper Friday (no frozen pizza) - come if you can! 



> On Nov 7, 2019, at 5:59 PM, J.B. Nicholson via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net> wrote:
> 
> Have a good show, guys. Here are some notes on things to consider talking about.
> 
> -J
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Health: "Vaping is even more addictive than cigarettes" -- Judith Grisel, former nicotine addict and author
> 
> https://www.theguardian.com/society/2019/oct/10/breaking-up-with-my-juul-why-quitting-vaping-is-harder-than-quitting-cigarettes
> 
> Kari Paul recently wrote an op-ed for The Guardian. She says she has "decided to quit using her Juul e-cigarette amid reports of users with lung problems"
> 
>> Nicotine is one of the world’s most addictive chemicals. Even smoking
>> just one cigarette a month induces addiction in more than 30% of users,
>> a 2002 study from Medical School found. Another study found 97% of
>> people who smoked three or more cigarettes became addicted. The number
>> of teens using vapes daily increased by 80% in 2018.
>> “It’s almost a guaranteed addiction,” Judith Grisel, a former nicotine
>> addict herself and author of Never Enough: the Neuroscience of
>> Addiction, said. “It’s very compelling because the brain adapts to it so
>> quickly, in a way that isn’t true with opiates or alcohol. Some people
>> can drink alcohol without developing a problem, not everyone who takes
>> opiates recreationally has a problem, but pretty much everyone likes the
>> feeling of nicotine.”
>> Vaping is even more addictive than cigarettes, Grisel said, and Juul is
>> more addictive than other brands of vapes. In 2015, when Juul was
>> introduced to the market, the most popular e-cigarettes had only between
>> 1% and 2.4% nicotine. Juul debuted pods with 5% nicotine.
>> “The delivery of nicotine in vapes is even quicker than cigarettes,
>> which is hard to do,” Grisel said. “That’s the biggest factor in
>> addictive liability if it’s the same chemical: the speed with which you
>> get the hit.”
>> Juul says it selected the 5% nicotine concentration in its products in
>> the US “to provide adult smokers with a viable, satisfying alternative
>> to combustible cigarettes”.
>> The company said it also offers 3% strength products and that far higher
>> nicotine concentrations in products other than Juul were available when
>> the company launched in 2015.
>> The function of Juul makes it difficult to quit as well. Its discrete
>> puffs of smoke and small size make using it much easier, and quitting it
>> much harder. When I Juuled, I didn’t take smoke breaks – I had grown
>> accustomed to puffing away all day at my desk, and even more on
>> stressful deadlines. I was often Juuling in my pajamas the last thing
>> before bed and the first thing when I woke up. I Juuled on bike rides,
>> on plane bathrooms, and at the office. Once I repeatedly hit my Juul on
>> a kayak as I floated through the rivers of northern California, storing
>> the device in my swimsuit top.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Democrats/Medicare for All: Don't worry -- there's no chance Speaker Pelosi will bring a Medicare for All bill to the floor for a vote. So stop looking to the Democrats to be your passport to Medicare for All.
> 
> https://www.commondreams.org/news/2019/11/01/not-big-fan-medicare-all-pelosi-attacks-plan-backed-leading-2020-democrats-majority --
> 
>> House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said in an interview Friday that she is "not a big fan of Medicare for All" despite support for the ambitious proposal among the majority of her caucus, three-quarters of Democratic voters, and two leading 2020 Democratic presidential candidates.
>> "It is expensive," Pelosi told Bloomberg, without mentioning that
>> studies show Medicare for All would save the U.S. trillions of dollars
>> while providing comprehensive coverage to all.
>> "Medicare for All doesn't cost money. It saves money by eliminating the
>> for-profit waste in the insurance system and ending the rip-off of
>> paying the highest drug prices in the world." —Alex Lawson, Social
>> Security Works
>> "Who pays is very important," continued Pelosi. "What are the benefits
>> that come in there? So I would think that hopefully as we emerge into
>> the election year, the mantra would be more 'Healthcare for All
>> Americans.'"
>> The Speaker added that "there is a comfort level that some people have
>> with their current private insurance that they have, and if that is to
>> be phased out, let's talk about it."
>> [...]
>> In a statement applauding Warren's proposal, Social Security Works
>> executive director Alex Lawson said "Medicare for All doesn't cost
>> money."
>> "It saves money by eliminating the for-profit waste in the insurance
>> system and ending the rip-off of paying the highest drug prices in the
>> world," said Lawson. "That's why 'how will you pay for it?' has always
>> been a completely false premise."
>> Contrary to Pelosi's suggestion that Medicare for All could damage
>> Democrats' chances in the 2020 election, recent polling (pdf) by Data
>> for Progress showed "supporting Medicare for All would not hurt" the
>> Democratic presidential nominee in a race against President Donald
>> Trump.
>> "We tested a Democrat running on Medicare for All against Trump. Six
>> times. With three different vendors," Data for Progress co-founder Sean
>> McElwee said Friday. "Every time the Medicare for All Democrat wins,
>> usually by double-digits."
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Labor: 3-day weekends, every weekend? Sounds like it's more productive and beneficial to the worker as well.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JYrLsnEgSTw -- The Real News' Greg Wilpert interview with Richard Wolff
> https://therealnews.com/stories/microsofts-reduced-workweek-increased-productivity-40 -- The Real News' Greg Wilpert interview with Richard Wolff transcript
> 
> https://mspoweruser.com/microsoft-4-day-workweek/
> 
>> In August this year, Microsoft Japan ran an experiment where for one
>> month they had a 3 day weekend, taken Friday off. This was paid leave
>> and did not impact the worker’s usual vacation allocation.
>> [...]
>> Workers were happier and took  25.4 percent fewer days off during the
>> month.
>> There were also savings from spending less time at work.  23.1 percent
>> less electricity was used and 58.7 percent fewer pages were printed.
>> More importantly from a bottom-line standpoint, however, productivity
>> went up 39.9%, as fewer and shorter meetings were held, often virtually
>> rather than in person.
>> In the end, the project had 92.1 percent employee approval, suggesting
>> workers were happy with getting more done in less time.
>> The trial involved 2,300 employees, and Microsoft is looking to repeat
>> it next summer.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> War: Pentagon says veteran suicide "surpasses the number of lives lost during the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to date [and] The total number lost in the past decade totals more than the number of deaths incurred during the Vietnam War"
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVmNd24l3M -- "Watching the Hawks" report
> https://www.rand.org/pubs/testimonies/CT510.html -- report with video (testimony presented before the House Oversight and Reform Subcommittee on National Security on May 8, 2019) and link to PDF
> https://www.rand.org/content/dam/rand/pubs/testimonies/CT500/CT510/RAND_CT510.pdf -- PDF of report
> 
> From the report (page 3):
> 
>> Suicide is the tenth leading cause of death in the United States, and
>> over the past 30 years, America’s suicide rate has increased by 30
>> percent. Suicide is a national public health crisis, not just a veteran problem. Yet the number of veterans and service members lost to
>> suicide in just one year now surpasses the number of lives lost during
>> the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq to date. The total number lost in
>> the past decade totals more than the number of deaths incurred during
>> the Vietnam War.
> 
> The "Watching the Hawks" report includes an interview with Rory Riley-Topping, described as a "veterans' advocate". Riley-Topping said:
> 
>> Any servicemember goes through what they call a 'service enlistment'
>> exam. And I hear from veterans that I speak to all the time that they're
>> not very thorough. So that's a challenge. So in addition to, perhaps,
>> having people who are a little bit older, perhaps we also need to screen
>> them a little bit better and have people who, perhaps, are otherwise
>> struggling with depression or are prone to it to have time to cope with
>> that and deal with that. In terms of the age issue [...] in an
>> all-volunteer force I think right now they are often times -- the Army
>> didn't meet its recruiting goal last year -- so that's another issue and
>> a lot of times they're taking people into the military that would not
>> have otherwise been accepted into service.
> 
> Riley-Topping used the phrase "all-volunteer force" a few times in the interview. This phrase doesn't acknowledge the economic pressure on applicants to enlist. An enlistment offer of a paid college scholarship in exchange for joining the military is very tempting for poor applicants who otherwise couldn't afford college tuition.
> 
> It's not clear how much time applicants ought to be given to "cope with and deal with" depression; depression can be lifelong, not something that can be eliminated like a headache.
> 
> This never comes up in the interview which is remarkably supportive of Riley-Toppings' way of framing the issue. If our social goal were to help Americans lead better lives, a guaranteed annual income and gratis (free) college education would be better steps to take than slightly changing military admission policy or lowering recruiting goals.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Environment: Air quality index tops out measuring New Delhi's pollution at 999 -- the pollution is worse but the meter can't go any higher.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVmNd24l3M -- "Watching the Hawks" report
> https://www.forbes.com/sites/brucelee/2019/11/03/delhis-air-pollution-is-so-bad-that-it-is-an-emergency/ -- "Delhi’s Air Pollution Is So Bad That It Is An Emergency"
> 
>> This tweet
>> (https://twitter.com/iamabhimanyut/status/1190961695734284288) mentioned
>> an air quality index (AQI) of over 1000:
>> Abhimanyu Thakur: Delhi -NCR draped in air pollution. Its exceeding over
>> 1000 AQI, from one end to another end of delhi. #DelhiAirEmergency
>> #DelhiPollution #DelhiBachao
>> That would mean the air quality is way above the hazardous threshold
>> according to the following scale provided by the Air Now U.S. government
>> website:
>> "Good" AQI is 0 to 50: satisfactory, and little or no risk.
>> "Moderate" AQI is 51 to 100: acceptable. May be moderate health concern
>> for very small number of people (e.g., those unusually sensitive to
>> ozone may experience respiratory symptoms).
>> "Unhealthy for Sensitive Groups" AQI is 101 to 150. General public not
>> likely to be affected. But people with lung disease, older adults, and
>> children at greater risk from ozone exposure. People with heart and lung
>> disease, older adults and children at greater risk from particles in the
>> air.
>> "Unhealthy" AQI is 151 to 200. Potential adverse health effects for
>> everyone and serious ones for those more sensitive.
>> "Very Unhealthy" AQI is 201 to 300. Health alert. Everyone may have more
>> serious health effects.
>> "Hazardous" AQI greater than 300. Emergency conditions.
>> The AQI may not really be over 1000 in Delhi. It’s just that the air
>> quality is so bad that it may be exceeding the ability of many meters to
>> read the levels per this tweet
>> (https://twitter.com/varun_jhaveri/status/1190887202319790080):
>> Varun Jhaveri: I think we are heading towards Delhi recording the most
>> polluted day in the history of world!! Most of the Delhi areas are
>> showing an AQI of 999 because the meters can't record above that. This
>> is a DISASTER! #DelhiAirEmergency
> 
> [see picture of computer map with signposts reading "999" at many locations including New Delhi and surrounding areas at https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIbhl5YXYAAtCqZ.jpg]
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Environment: Now Canadian cities are getting leaded water.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YnzsaarcNtU -- RT news report
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jHVmNd24l3M -- "Watching the Hawks" report
> https://globalnews.ca/news/6120639/drinking-water-lead-levels-prince-rupert/ --
> 
>> Reporters from the University of British Columbia, as part of an investigation by a national consortium of universities and media companies, including Concordia University’s Institute for Investigative Journalism, Global News and Star Vancouver, tested water samples from Peterson’s kitchen in December. An accredited lab measured 15.6 parts per billion (ppb) of lead in her water — three times Health Canada’s guideline.
> 
> [...]
> 
>> Eighty-four per cent of the 25 homes sampled in Prince Rupert for this investigation exceeded the federal guideline for lead in drinking water.
>> Coastal B.C.’s rainy climate can produce naturally acidic surface water. Left untreated, it can corrode pipes and plumbing, leaching metals into drinking water.
>> Despite federal guidelines recommending corrosion control and monitoring, some municipalities aren’t taking steps to combat corrosive water or testing for lead at the tap in private homes. Residents are being left in the dark about the safety of their water.
>> For years, that was the case in Prince Rupert.
> 
> CTV News Saskatoon adds
> 
> https://saskatoon.ctvnews.ca/high-lead-levels-found-in-saskatchewan-drinking-water-1.4669520 or https://archive.md/bTWFN
> 
>> Saskatoon, Regina and Moose Jaw are among a group of Canadian cities
>> where high levels of lead were found in tap water, according to a new
>> study.
>> The investigation, conducted by more than 120 journalists from nine
>> universities and 10 media groups including the Associated Press, the
>> Saskatoon StarPhoenix, and the Institute for Investigative Journalism at
>> Concordia University, tested water from hundreds of homes and reviewed
>> thousands of undisclosed results.
>> "What we found is that Montreal, Gatineau, Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw,
>> and Prince Rupert had lead levels comparable or higher than those of
>> Flint, Michigan during its 2015 lead crisis," Patti Sonntag, the
>> institute's director said in a news release.
>> About one-third of tests exceeded the Canadian guidelines of 5 parts per
>> billion. Some of the highest levels were recorded in Saskatchewan.
>> Prolonged exposure to high amounts of lead over months or years can
>> result in lead poisoning, which can cause serious health effects,
>> particularly among young children.
>> In Canada, there is no national mandate to test drinking water and
>> agencies that conduct tests have no obligation to inform residents.
>> Provinces set their own rules for water testing and lead pipe
>> replacements.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Propaganda/War: Former ISIS leader Al Baghdadi (not his real name) was promoted by the U.S.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XPROkzJ52HA -- Redacted Tonight's report on the man whose recent murder is the subject of much recent corporate media reportage. Corporate media doesn't cover that this is the 6th or 7th time his death has been announced (as Lee Camp pointed out "The seventh time's the charm"). This alleged murder won't stop ISIS and won't make much of a difference to anything, really, but it's worth noting that the U.S. made him the man he was by chatting him up a lot much like:
> 
>> Naomi Karavanni: [...] Zarqawi [the founder of ISIS] who also was a
>> nobody until the US military led a $24 million propaganda campaign
>> against him [shows picture of [1] and quotes "U.S. propaganda efforts in
>> Iraq in 2004 cost $24 million, but that included extensive building of
>> offices and residences for troops involved, as well as radio broadcasts
>> and distribution of thousands of leaflets with Zarqawi's face on them
>> [in Iraq]"]
> [1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2006/04/10/military-plays-up-role-of-zarqawi-span-classbankheadjordanian-painted-as-foreign-threat-to-iraqs-stabilityspan/9dbb8dca-12a1-4a78-9a33-d373d7cccfab/
> 
> Karavanni also reminds us of the ineffectiveness of the US torture program and how torture didn't help us find Osama bin Laden. In each of Baghdadi and bin Laden's cases, someone looking for a hefty monetary reward provided the location of a wanted man.
> 
> The New York Times in https://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/18/magazine/what-do-we-really-know-about-osama-bin-ladens-death.html discussed Seymour Hersh's journalism:
> 
>> Hersh’s most consequential claim was about how bin Laden was found in
>> the first place. It was not years of painstaking intelligence-gathering,
>> he wrote, that led the United States to the courier and, ultimately, to
>> bin Laden. Instead, the location was revealed by a ‘‘walk-in’’ — a
>> retired Pakistani intelligence officer who was after the $25 million
>> reward that the United States had promised anyone who helped locate him.
>> For that matter, bin Laden was hardly ‘‘in hiding’’ at all; his compound
>> in Abbottabad was actually a safe house, maintained by the Pakistani
>> intelligence service. When the United States confronted Pakistani
>> intelligence officials with this information, Hersh wrote, they
>> eventually acknowledged it was true and even conceded to provide a DNA
>> sample to prove it.
>> According to Hersh’s version, then, the daring raid wasn’t especially daring. The Pakistanis allowed the U.S. helicopters into their airspace and cleared out the guards at the compound before the SEALs arrived. Hersh’s sources told him the United States and Pakistani intelligence officials agreed that Obama would wait a week before announcing that
>> bin Laden had been killed in a ‘‘drone strike somewhere in the mountains
>> on the Pakistan/Afghanistan border.’’ But the president was forced to
>> go public right away, because the crash and subsequent destruction of
>> the Black Hawk — among the rare facts in the official story that Hersh
>> does not dispute — were going to make it impossible to keep the
>> operation under wraps.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Snowden: "What do you do when the most powerful institutions in society have become the least accountable to society? I think that's the question our generation exists to answer."
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a1kpI-XnCOs -- In terms of technology: I think there's a lot of education needed to properly answer this question. The public still doesn't understand software freedom because they've never been taught to know what software freedom is (it's the freedom to run, inspect, share, and modify published computer software) or why they should care about software freedom.
> 
> Snowden makes a number of great points in this talk, one of them is:
> 
>> The General Data Protection Regulation [UK regulation aiming to increase
>> privacy and respect people's ability to get data from firms regarding
>> what the firm knows about that individual] misplaces the problem -- the
>> problem isn't data protection, the problem is data collection.
>> Regulating the protection of data presumes that the collection of data
>> in the first place was proper; that it was appropriate, that it doesn't
>> present a threat or danger, that it's okay to spy on everybody all the
>> time whether they're your customers or whether they're your citizens so
>> long as it never leaks.
> 
> Snowden's words are comparable with what other insightful people have said about the danger of unlimited data collection such as Richard Stallman who has long objected to Facebook:
> 
> From https://stallman.org/facebook2.html
> 
>> The US Federal Trade Commission ruled that Facebook's violation of its
>> stated privacy policies was illegal[1].
>> It is proper to make Facebook keep its promises, but this does not go
>> far enough to make Facebook acceptable to use. It does not limit
>> Facebook's data collection — for instance, it doesn't stop Facebook from
>> collecting of data about browsing through "Like" buttons. It only limits
>> what Facebook can do with that data, and certainly does not stop
>> Facebook from handing it over to Big Brother under the U SAP AT RIOT
>> act.
> 
> [1] http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/nov/29/facebook-ftc-privacy-settlement
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Assange: TRNN's Greg Wilpert interviewed John Pilger about Assange and Manning -- both prisoners of conscience who aren't recognized as such by Amnesty International -- and, to their credit, The Real News covered it.
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ekfNGMeofbM -- video (15m02s)
> https://therealnews.com/stories/julian-assange-extradition-process-charade -- transcript
> 
> TRNN has horrible politics on Russiagate (TRNN is a Russiagator and their pro-Russiagate views caused the Izzy-award-winning Aaron Mate to leave TRNN). But this didn't stop Greg Wilpert from running this story covering John Pilger. You've probably seen Wilpert before as he expertly covers Latin American affairs including the ongoing US coup attempts against Venezuela.
> 
>> GREG WILPERT: Welcome to The Real News Network. I’m Greg Wilpert in
>> Arlington, Virginia.
>> Julian Assange recently lost a court bid to have his upcoming February
>> 2020 extradition hearing postponed. The hearing about the postponement
>> took place on October 21, and according to observers who were present,
>> he could barely speak in coherent sentences. Reacting to the hearing, UN
>> Human Rights Rapporteur Nils Melzer warned last Friday that Assange
>> continues to show symptoms of psychological torture. Melzer had visited
>> Assange in May when he conducted an extensive review of his physical and
>> psychological condition. In his statement on Friday, Melzer said,
>> “Despite the medical urgency of my first appeal, and the seriousness of
>> the alleged violations, the U.K. has not undertaken any measures of
>> investigation, prevention, and redress required under international
>> law.”
>> In addition to the concerns about Assange’s treatment at Belmarsh Prison
>> outside of London, many have also raised concerns about the impartiality
>> of the proceedings against him. Assange was jailed last April when the
>> Ecuadorian Embassy, where he had been given political asylum, allowed
>> the police to arrest him. He then received a 50-week sentence for having
>> skipped jail in 2012. The Trump Administration has since then requested
>> Assange’s extradition on 17 charges of espionage for which he could
>> receive a 170-year prison sentence in the United States.
>> Joining me now to discuss the latest developments in the case of Julian
>> Assange is John Pilger. He has been observing the Assange case very
>> closely and was present at the October 21 court hearing. He is an
>> award-winning journalist and documentary filmmaker. His most recent film
>> is The Coming War on China. Thanks for joining us again, John.
>> JOHN PILGER: Very welcome.
>> GREG WILPERT: Let’s start with Assange’s condition. As I said, you were
>> there at the last hearing. What was your perception of his condition,
>> and how he presented himself?
>> JOHN PILGER: Well, I was at the last hearing, and I saw Julian about a
>> week before that, so I’ve seen him up close on a number of occasions
>> recently. I think I can agree with Nils Melzer’s assessment. It’s very
>> difficult to tell. His physical condition has changed dramatically. He’s
>> lost about 15 kilos in weight. To see him in court struggling to say his
>> name, and his date of birth, was really very moving. I’ve seen that when
>> I visited Julian in Belmarsh Prison where he struggles at first, and
>> then collects himself. I’m always impressed by the sheer resilience of
>> the man, because as Melzer says, absolutely nothing has been done to
>> change the conditions imposed on him by the prison regime. Nothing has
>> been done by the British authorities.
>> This was almost underlined by the contemptuous way that this court
>> hearing recently was conducted by this judge, by this magistrate. There
>> was a sense among all of us who were there that the whole charade, and
>> it seemed a charade, was preordained. You had sitting in front of us, on
>> a long table, four Americans who were from the U.S. Embassy here in
>> London, and one of the prosecution team was scurrying backwards and
>> forwards to get instructions from them. The judge could see this, and
>> she allowed it. It was just absolutely outrageous.
>> When Julian did try to speak, and to say that basically he was being
>> denied the very tools with which to prepare his case, he was denied the
>> right to call his American lawyer. He was denied the right to have any
>> kind of word process or laptop. He was denied certain documents. As he
>> said, “I’m even denied my own writings,” as he called it. That is, his
>> own notes and manuscripts. This hasn’t changed at all, and of course the
>> effect of that on his morale, to say the least, has been very
>> significant, and that showed in the court.
>> GREG WILPERT: Yeah. I want to dig a little bit deeper on that issue
>> about the fairness of this trial. Craig Murray who is a blogger, and was
>> also at the last hearing, wrote about a number of issues, which you also
>> mentioned. He specifically mentions district judge, Vanessa Baraitser,
>> and one of the things that she did was completely dismiss Assange’s
>> request for determination whether the extradition proceedings are even
>> legal. That is, he cites according to U.K. law, “Extradition shall not
>> be granted if the offense for which extradition is requested is a
>> political offense.” Now, what do you think of this issue? Is Assange’s
>> offense political, and what do you say about the judge’s reaction to
>> that request?
>> JOHN PILGER: I know his lawyer Gareth Peirce very well, and she’s not a
>> person to really be angered as such. But I saw her before and after the
>> hearing, and she was quite angry about the fact as she said, “Here we
>> have an extradition hearing, based on a treaty between the United States
>> and Britain, and there is a section in that treaty that said,” as you’ve
>> just mentioned, “No one can be extradited if the,” and I paraphrase, if
>> the so-called offense is in any way political. Well under law, it’s not
>> a matter of opinion. They are political. All but one of the charges
>> concocted in Virginia are based on the 1917 Espionage Act, which was a
>> political piece of legislation used to chase off the conscientious
>> objectors during the first World War.
>> It’s political. There is no charge. There is no basis, no foundation,
>> for allowing these extradition proceedings to go forward, and almost
>> perversely the judge seemed to, if not acknowledged that in her contempt
>> for the proceedings. Whenever Julian Assange spoke, she feigned a
>> disinterest, a boredom, and whenever his lawyers spoke, the same thing.
>> Whenever the prosecutor spoke, she was attentive. The theatrics of this
>> hearing were quite remarkable. I’ve never seen anything like it. Then
>> very hurriedly, when Julian Assange’s lawyer requested a delay in when
>> the case actually starts from February, they said, “We’re not going to
>> be ready in February,” and she dismissed that out of hand.
>> Not only that, she said that the extradition case would be held in a
>> court that is in fact adjoining Belmarsh prison. It’s almost part of the
>> prison. It’s a long way out of London. So you have, if not a secret
>> trial, but a trial in which, or an extradition hearing in which very few
>> seats are available to the public. It’s a very difficult place to get
>> to. So every obstacle has been put in the way of Assange getting a fair
>> hearing. And I can only repeat, this is a publisher and a journalist
>> convicted of nothing, charged with nothing in Britain, whose only crime
>> is journalism. That may sound like a slogan, but it’s true. They want
>> him for exposing the kind of outrageous war crimes, Iraq, Afghanistan,
>> that journalists are supposed to do.
>> GREG WILPERT: Right. Finally, I want to ask you also about the support
>> that Assange seems to have been getting or not getting. It seems that
>> the media organizations that benefited tremendously from Assange’s work,
>> are hardly mentioning his case, let alone supporting him. Also, human
>> rights groups such as Amnesty International have urged the U.K. not to
>> extradite Julian, but they haven’t elevated the case. I just looked it
>> up. They haven’t elevated it to the status of a campaign as they do for
>> political prisoners normally. How do you explain this lack of concern
>> among the media and human rights groups for Assange’s situation?
>> JOHN PILGER: Because so many human rights groups are deeply political,
>> Amnesty International never made Chelsea Manning a prisoner of
>> conscience. A really disgraceful thing. Chelsea Manning, who was
>> effectively tortured in prison, and they haven’t, as you say, they
>> haven’t elevated Julian’s case. Why? Well, they’re an extension. They’re
>> an extension of an establishment that is now almost systematically
>> coming down on any form of real dissent. In the last five, six years,
>> the last gaps, the last bolt holes, the last spaces in the mainstream
>> media for journalists, from average journalists for the likes Assange,
>> not only Assange, for the likes of people like even myself and others,
>> have closed.
>> The mainstream media, certainly in Britain, always held open those
>> spaces. They’ve closed, and there is generally I would think a fear,
>> right throughout the media, a fear about opposing the state on something
>> like the Assange case. You see the way the whole obsession with Russia
>> has consumed the media with so many nonsensical stories. The hostility,
>> the animosity towards Julian. My own theory is that his work shamed so
>> many journalists. He does what journalists ought to have done, and don’t
>> do any more. He’s done the job of a journalist. That can only explain
>> it. I mean when you take a newspaper like The Guardian, which published
>> originally the WikiLeaks revelations about Iraq and Afghanistan, they
>> turned on Julian Assange in the most vicious way.
>> They exploited him for one thing. A number of their journalists did
>> extremely well with their books, and Hollywood scripts, and so on, but
>> they turned on him personally. It was one of the most unedifying sights
>> I think I’ve ever seen in journalism. The same thing happened in the New
>> York Times. Again, I can only surmise the reason for that. It’s that he
>> shames them. We have a desert of journalism at the moment. There are a
>> few who still do their jobs; who still stand up against establishment
>> power; who still are not frightened. But there’re so few now, and Julian
>> Assange is totally fearless in that. He knew that he was going to run
>> into a great deal of trouble with the state in Britain, the state in the
>> United States–but he went ahead anyway. That’s a true journalist.
>> GREG WILPERT: Well, we’re going to have to leave it there for now, but
>> of course we’re going to continue to follow his case as we have been
>> since the beginning. I was speaking to John Pilger, award-winning
>> journalist and documentary filmmaker. Thanks again, John, for having
>> joined us today.
>> JOHN PILGER: Very welcome, Greg.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> WikiLeaks/Assange: Corporate media (including UK media) still won't cover Assange show trials so his torture is more likely to proceed unnoticed.
> 
> https://newint.org/features/2019/10/31/journalists-must-pay-attention-julian-assange
> 
>> The UK media has long adopted a cynical attitude towards Julian Assange,
>> but recent footage of the Wikileaks publisher’s recent court appearance
>> is prompting many to have second thoughts.
>> 
>> In the latest clip to find its way on to the internet we see Assange
>> squinting, sealed within the tiny compartment of a Serco prison van
>> leaving Westminster Magistrates’ Court on 21 October, trying to adjust
>> to the bright lights shone directly into his eyes at close range.
>> Several hours earlier, a large and loud crowd of supporters had
>> intercepted another Serco van, but all the chanting, cheering and
>> solidarity was in vain  – Assange’s transport was delayed several hours
>> until almost everyone had left.
>> 
>> Assange looked despondent. His lawyers had requested a routine
>> postponement of his main extradition hearing, which was refused,
>> apparently after the prosecution took instructions from US
>> representatives during a 10 minute recess. His lawyers also requested
>> the magistrate schedule time for arguments about the political nature of
>> the charges against Assange, given that the UK-US Extradition Treaty
>> stipulates that if the offence is political, extradition must not
>> proceed.
>> 
>> The fact that for several years Assange’s meetings with lawyers were
>> filmed and streamed live to the CIA was also raised as a critical issue.
>> But to no avail. The magistrate provided a little more time for
>> pre-trial presentation of evidence, but warned that the main hearing
>> would take place as scheduled, in February 2020, and at London’s
>> Belmarsh Prison.
>> 
>> According to eyewitnesses, Assange appeared disoriented and distressed
>> in court, exhibiting the physical and psychological symptoms of someone
>> arbitrarily detained for nine years. UN rapporteur on torture Nils
>> Melzer has put it thus: ‘The evidence is overwhelming and clear… Mr
>> Assange has been deliberately exposed, for a period of several years, to
>> progressively severe forms of cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or
>> punishment, the cumulative effects of which can only be described as
>> psychological torture.’
>> 
>> Assange completed his sentence in Belmarsh maximum security prison for
>> bail violations on 23 September – thus completing his punishment for
>> applying for and receiving political asylum. For many years, we heard
>> that Julian was in the Ecuadorian Embassy to avoid allegations of sexual
>> misconduct in Sweden, despite the fact that no country on earth gives
>> asylum to non-citizens to avoid sexual misconduct allegations. As
>> subsequent events have demonstrated, Assange’s fears were more than
>> justified.
>> 
>> Assange broke bail conditions in order to seek asylum from the scenario
>> he now faces: life in prison for publishing. Ecuador granted that asylum
>> because the US obviously intended to prosecute Assange for publishing.
>> This was confirmed shortly after his expulsion from their London
>> embassy, a moment for which the US was poised and ready.
>> 
>> Assange also received asylum because he was ‘without the support of the
>> country of which he is a citizen’  – Australia. While a cross party
>> ‘Bring Julian Assange Home Parliamentary Group’ has recently been
>> established in Australia, for the time being his own government remains
>> mute.
>> 
>> The indictments for which Assange is now imprisoned have nothing to do
>> with Sweden, Russia, Trump or his cat. They are a straightforward
>> attempt to prosecute a publisher for committing acts of journalism:
>> specifically the releases of 2010-11 on Guantanamo Bay, the wars in
>> Afghanistan and Iraq, and Cablegate. These are the most significant
>> series of public-interest disclosures of our times.
>> 
>> The US Justice Department’s case will hinge on whether it can
>> successfully redefine national-security journalism as a form of
>> espionage. Assange is the first publisher ever to be charged under the
>> Espionage Act, under which it is not possible to mount a public interest
>> defence.
>> 
>> Even those who have spent years demonizing Assange have balked at this
>> lunge of extraterritorial executive power by the US government. The New
>> York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, and the
>> Guardian have expressed grave concern about the charges he faces. UK
>> Special Envoy on Media Freedom Amal Clooney stated at the June Global
>> Conference for Media Freedom, the charges ‘criminalize common practices
>> in journalism’, which the American Civil Liberties Union has warned,
>> ‘establish a dangerous precedent that can be used to target all news
>> organizations that hold the government accountable by publishing its
>> secrets’.
>> 
>> The indictments for which Assange is now imprisoned have nothing to do
>> with Sweden, Russia, Trump or his cat. They are a straightforward
>> attempt to prosecute a publisher for committing acts of journalism
>> 
>> Some have tried to claim Assange is not a journalist, but it’s difficult
>> to argue with the US Army’s Counterintelligence Centre’s description of
>> WikiLeaks as a ‘news organization,’ and Assange as a ‘writer’ and
>> ‘journalist’ that had ‘show[n] journalist responsibility to the
>> newsworthiness or fair use of the classified document’. Or with the
>> Australian Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance, the union representing
>> journalists and publishers, of which Assange has been a member since
>> 2009, carrying a journalist’s card.
>> 
>> For his work, he was presented with the Walkley Award for Most
>> Outstanding Contribution to Journalism in 2011, the Martha Gellhorn
>> Prize for Journalism, the Economist’s New Media Award, the Amnesty
>> International New Media Award and a dozen others. Even the High Court of
>> the United Kingdom in its ruling of 2 November 2011, described Julian
>> Assange as ‘…a journalist, well known through his operation of
>> WikiLeaks’ in its opening line.
>> 
>> For this journalism, he is held, alone for more than 20 hours a day in a
>> cell on the health ward of Belmarsh, only just able to receive documents
>> from his lawyers. Years of unsympathetic and hostile treatment from his
>> peers have left him almost as alone in the public realm as he is now in
>> Belmarsh. And yet it is on this man, resilient but much weakened after a
>> decade of unrelenting pressure, that the future of the freedom to
>> report, and to read, rests.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Democrats/who gets to be a "whistleblower": If you're a so-called whistleblower speaking in defense of power (like the CIA recently did) you're a so-called "whistleblower" or "savvy official" and Sen. Chuck Schumer will defend the secrecy of your identity. But not if you whisleblow against power (proper whistleblowing).
> 
> https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ZVb4R3OeAM -- RT's report.
> 
> jbn: Consider what Caitlin Johnstone told us https://medium.com/@caityjohnstone/msm-defends-cias-whistleblower-ignores-actual-whistleblowers-5fbe577d988d
> 
>> [E]ven to call this spook a “whistleblower” is ridiculous on its face.
>> You don’t get to call someone from the US intelligence community a
>> whistleblower unless they are actually whistleblowing on the US
>> intelligence community. That’s not a thing. A CIA officer who exposes
>> information about government officials is an operative performing an
>> operation unless proven otherwise, because that’s what the CIA does; it
>> liberally leaks information wherever it’s convenient for CIA agendas
>> while withholding all other information behind a veil of government
>> secrecy.
>> A CIA officer who exposes information about CIA wrongdoings without the
>> CIA’s permission is a whistleblower. A CIA officer who exposes
>> information about someone else is just a spook doing spook things. You
>> can recognize the latter by the way the mass media supports, applauds
>> and employs them. You can recognize the former by the way they have been
>> persecuted, imprisoned, and/or died under mysterious circumstances.
> 
> RT's report illustrates this point -- here's Sen. Schumer on the CIA operative (sometimes referred to as a "savvy official" in corporate media):
> 
>> Sen. Chuck Schumer: The calls to make public the whistleblower's
>> identity are despicable. [...] Whistleblowers should be protected.
>> Period. Period.
> But when the subject was Edward Snowden Schumer said:
> 
>> Sen. Chuck Schumer: And each day that Snowden is allowed to roam free is
>> another twist of the knife.
> RT told us:
> 
>> RT: As a damning report from an intelligence watchdog shows [The
>> Intelligence Community Inspector General Office] the CIA and NSA win 189
>> our of 190 cases of whistleblower complaints. I'd send you the link [to
>> the report] but the report was shut down.
> The (recommendable) RT report adds examples from other real whistleblowers who were smeared -- former US intelligence analyst Richard Barlow who blew the whistle on the US selling banned nuclear technology to Pakistan, former US Marine Franz Gayl who blew the whistle about how to reduce US troop lives lost in Iraq to improvised explosive devices with a swap of patrol vehicles used, and former US State Dept. employee Peter Van Buren who blew the whistle on State Dept. mismanagement and waste in Iraq -- all were whistleblowing against the US.
> 
> -J
> 
> _______________________________________________
> Peace-discuss mailing list
> Peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net
> https://lists.chambana.net/mailman/listinfo/peace-discuss