View source for Document:The Assange Case Invalidates US Criticisms Of Russia: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix

{{Document
|title=The Assange Case Invalidates US Criticisms Of Russia: Notes From The Edge Of The Narrative Matrix
|type=Article
|source_name=Caitlin's Newsletter
|source_URL=https://caitlinjohnstone.substack.com/p/the-assange-case-invalidates-us-criticisms?s=r
|authors=Caitlin Johnstone
|publication_date=14 April 2022
|subjects=Julian Assange, 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Imran Khan, Volodymyr Zelensky
|image=Caitlin Assange.png
|image_width=300px
|image_caption=A [[Julian Assange|journalist]] who exposed [[US]] [[war crimes]] 
|description=Just the fact that the [[US]] and [[UK]] are imprisoning a [[Julian Assange|journalist]] for exposing the [[war crimes]] of a [[war criminal]] [[George W. Bush|president]] — just that one fact by itself — completely invalidates all criticisms of [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|Russia]] from [[Washington]] and its allies.
}}
{{QB|If you've been following the news about [[2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine|Ukraine]] but still don't understand that it's the single most aggressively narrative managed and [[psyop]]-intensive war in human history, there is a 100 percent chance you believe false things about what's happening there.}}
{{QB|It's not a question of '''''if''''' the [[US]] played a role in [[Imran Khan]]'s removal but how and to what extent.<ref>''[https://multipolarista.com/2022/04/13/us-coup-pakistan-imran-khan-foreign-policy/ "US-backed coup in Pakistan overthrows PM Imran Khan over his independent foreign policy"]''</ref>}}
{{QB|We're about to see a judge sign off on [[Julian Assange]]'s extradition to the [[United States]] for exposing the empire's [[war crimes]] while that same empire blasts us all in the face with an unprecedented war propaganda campaign about rescuing [[Ukraine]]'s freedom and democracy.<ref>''[https://www.firstpost.com/world/london-court-to-issue-warrant-on-julian-assanges-extradition-to-us-on-april-20-10511892.html "London court to issue warrant on Julian Assange's extradition to US on 20 April"]''</ref>

"[[Russia]] must be held accountable for its [[war crimes]]," said the empire while imprisoning a journalist for trying to hold it accountable for [[war crimes]].

Just the fact that the [[US]] and [[UK]] are imprisoning a journalist for exposing the [[war crimes]] of a [[war criminal]] president—just that one fact by itself—completely invalidates all criticisms of [[Russia]] from [[Washington]] and its allies.

Fun little factoid: if you subtract all the narratives being used to justify it, the [[Assange]] case looks exactly the same as the world's most powerful government imprisoning a journalist for telling the truth.}}
{{QB|"Again: if this is not a [[proxy war]], then there has never been a [[proxy war]]."<ref>''[https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1513609935153922050 "Again: if this is not a proxy war, then there has never been a proxy war"]''</ref>}}
{{QB|"Opinion" segments and articles in mainstream news media exist not to give you an idea of what opinions are out there but to define what opinions are permissible. The front page teaches you what to think, the opinion section teaches you '''''how''''' to think.}}
{{QB|Once you figure out that corporations are part of the government it becomes clear what [[corporate media]] [[propaganda]] and corporate [[internet censorship]] really are.}}
{{QB|The [[Russiagate]] [[psyop]] got "liberals" okay with internet censorship, [[cold war]] brinkmanship, and being lied to by the mass media day after day for the greater good, and now the US empire just so happens to be ramping up all three of those things to facilitate agendas against [[Russia]].}}
{{QB|Public consent for Silicon Valley censorship has been used to justify a wider and wider radius of speech suppression to the point that we're now seeing the hammer dropped on people whose only crime is criticising the most dangerous agendas of the world's most powerful government.

Many of us warned from the beginning that protocols to silence figures like [[Alex Jones]] would be expanded to include things like anti-imperialists being purged ''en masse'' for their political speech.<ref>''[https://caityjohnstone.medium.com/in-a-corporatist-system-of-government-corporate-censorship-is-state-censorship-eb8a8b486577 "In A Corporatist System Of Government, Corporate Censorship Is State Censorship"]''</ref> The only ones who disputed this are idiots who now regret their position and those who wanted to suppress dissent all along. 

Are you listening now, assholes? Do you still think our opposition to this was about "supporting [[Alex Jones]]," or do you now see that it was always about resisting government-tied monopolistic megacorporations being given the authority to censor worldwide speech for the US empire?}}
{{QB|"In order to avoid a ''Twitter'' ban I would like to once again affirm that [[Russia]] is 1000% guilty of any and all possible war crimes real or imagined and pledge my eternal loyalty to the Immaculate Heart of [[President Zelensky]]. Slava Ukraini! Slava Biden! Slava Pentagon! Slava CIA!"<ref>''[https://twitter.com/caitoz/status/1514253485726138374 "Caitlin Johnstone's pledge of eternal loyalty to the Immaculate Heart of President Zelensky"]''</ref>}}
[[File:Prez_Zelensky.png|300px|center|thumb|[[Caitlin Johnstone]]'s "pledge of eternal loyalty to the Immaculate Heart of [[President Zelensky]]"]]
{{QB|Free speech is important not because it's nice to be able to say what you want, but because it creates a check on the powerful. The ability to freely share ideas and information is what makes it possible to bring attention to problems, change minds, stir the zeitgeist, and organise mass resistance.

For this reason there should be no speech restrictions on the platforms where people have come to congregate to share ideas and information besides illegal activities like child pornography. Not because it makes Johnny Proudboy sad if he can't speak, but to put a check on power. 

That's why it's a moot point whether censorship on those giant platforms technically violates free speech laws or not; it violates the spirit behind the very reason those legal speech protections were created in the first place, namely to move power from the government to the people. And for this spirit to be upheld it's necessary that '''''all''''' ideas and information are allowed to be shared freely, not just some of them. Because there's no institution you could trust as an official arbiter of what ideas and information are valid without creating a power imbalance.

People should be allowed to scrutinise any and all narratives of the powerful. They should be allowed to share unauthorised ideas and information. They should even be allowed to lie, because otherwise the only people allowed to lie will be the powerful. Democratising information sharing is democratising power.}}
{{QB|Remember after [[9/11]] when [[Republican]]s got it into their heads that you need to torture people all the time to prevent [[terrorism]], and then a TV series started on ''Fox'' where the hero tortures people all the time to stop terrorists? Propaganda was way more ham-fisted back then.}}
{{QB|Oh yeah well what about the [[Russia|RUSSIAN]] empire, huh?? What about [[China|CHINESE]] imperialism? What about the [[Iran|IRANIAN]] unipolar world hegemon? How come you never criticise [[Cuba|CUBA]] for circling the planet with hundreds of military bases?? What about [[Venezuela|VENEZUELAN]] nuclear brinkmanship, you hypocrite?}}
{{QB|My haters are a fun mix of uninformed imperialists who think I'm crazy for saying the [[US]] is trying to rule the world and informed imperialists who think I'm naive for saying the [[US]] shouldn't try to rule the world.}}
{{QB|Never let anyone shame you for focusing your criticisms on the world's most powerful and destructive government. It's not strange and suspicious that you do that, it's strange and suspicious that more people don't.}}
{{QB|Humanity will either extinguish itself in a cataclysm of its own making or awaken from its delusion-based conditioning and become a conscious species. And whichever one happens, all our partisan bickering and sectarian spats will look pretty ridiculous in retrospect when it does.}}

==References==
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