Month: February 2016

The Assange case exposes the common trumping of justice by power and politics

In the contemporary world very few things make me at all proud of being Australian. However, the fact that Julian Assange is a country man of mine and from the state where I live, is one of those few. For years he and Wikileaks, the organisation he founded, have strived to expose gross wrongdoing and corruption on the part of governments, worldwide. Unfortunately, such wrongdoing and corruption is the norm rather than the exception. Unsurprisingly, the targets of these attacks use any and all methods to strike back.

The very recent UN judgement that Assange’s predicament is a form of detention, unfair, unreasonable and a violation of human rights cannot but be seen as a substantive vindication of the justice of his cause. His fear of being extradited to the USA and receiving a massive judicial punishment for his whistle blowing activities can hardly be viewed as unreasonable or unfounded. One of the Wikileaks informants, Bradley Manning, is currently serving a massively lengthy jail sentence in that country.

The fact that the United Kingdom and Sweden are currently ignoring this UN judgement is also less than surprising. Both countries (as is Australia for that matter) are heavily leveraged by the USA’s power base and situation. They simply dare not challenge the government of the USA on this question as they would have too much to lose. Additionally, I can’t imagine any governments that would enjoy their secrets being exposed by Wikileaks. Corruption and abuse of power is so much the norm that it is probably the major reason that humanity is rather quickly descending into a gloomy and miserable future. The USA may be bad enough but the governments of Russia and China are probably much worse. Undoubtedly, they would be hot on Assange’s trail if he had managed to expose their darkest malfeasances. If that had been the case he may not have even been alive now.

It is becoming obvious that, around the world, ordinary honest people are becoming increasingly marginalised and finding it more difficult to simply survive. Fewer and fewer champions of any semblance of decency are to be found.

Organisations such as Anonymous, appear to be largely noble minded rather than self-serving. All over the world, most politicians are commonly viewed as feeding at the trough at our expense. The few admirable ones seem to support the adage that the exception proves the rule. Of course, part of the human condition involves imperfection and inconsistency. Politicians may sometimes act for the common good and then return to the old habits. Also, the better world leaders are often constrained by the undesirable powers behind them. It may well be the case that personally, Barrack Obama, would like to publicly abandon any pursuit of Assange. However, this is simply not possible. Obama hasn’t thus far safeguarded his improvements to the US health system and has made almost no headway in gun control. Mind you, fear of governments and politicians has probably contributed to the resistance about changes to the Second Amendment.

Despite his outrageous and populist statements Donald Trump has done very well so far in the presidential race. In all likelihood this success comes down to two facts. Firstly, he is NOT a politician (so far). Secondly, he is using his own money to fund his campaign.

In a non-politically correct world Julian Assange might be accused of having attractive females representing him as legal counsel.

Since this is a politically correct word, except in so far as justice and honesty are concerned, Jennifer Robinson’s looks are entirely irrelevant to the whole Assange question. Likewise, any other female spokespersons who act on his behalf cannot be considered on any other grounds than their integrity and ability.

In all probability the old allegations of sexual misconduct originating from the Swedish Prosecutor’s office are anything but fair and reasonable. Increasingly the entire Assange case looks like a case of a corrupt and powerful Goliath attempting to squash a little ‘David’.

The whole Assange case and its ramifications for World powers exposes the most alarming of situations. Although terrorist organisations such as ISIS, ISIL, Daish, Islamic State or whatever they call themselves are quite apparently grossly barbaric and driven by a lunatic ideology, they have one thing going for them. The blindingly obvious corruption of the majority of governments around the world, and particularly over the Middle East, fuels support for any entity that is standing and fighting these governments. Under current circumstances any organisation challenging the world status quo would receive wide support amongst the impressionable young particularly. Given ISIS’s skilful use of social media as a way of sidestepping the world’s power base their hitherto success in attracting foreign fighters is hardly surprising.

Bombs and warfare alone will not put Syria, Libya, Iraq and much of the world back in order. To regain public support and belief the world powers must reform their own houses first. Chasing Julian Assange and other whistle blowers to the ends of the earth is hardly the way to do this!