The case for pardoning Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald is not as enigmatic as it seems.
“The most essential journalism of every era is precisely that which a government attempts to silence. These prosecutions demonstrate that they are ready to stop the presses—if they can,” said Edward Snowden, a now famous whistleblower who most unjustly is forced to live in exile. A worthwhile read on the subject is the book by Barton Gellman, entitled “Edward Snowden and the American Surveillance State”.
Editorial by Micheal John
On getting it right. “If you see something wrong and tattled you had better be right.” But they were right, and for that should be pardoned with thanks and apologies.
“How does society keep in check what it suspects of government creepiness? By protecting people like Assange, Snowden, and Greenwald,” comments Katie Alsop, a senior director of The RINJ Foundation which has told FPM.news it sees the sexual assault charges against Assange as an extradition hoax.
“Donald Trump is a lot like you and me”, one of his fans has written to FPM.news many times. Considering that advice with as much of an open mind as possible, one does not readily accept that logic. Why?
Trump is clearly not so bright as most people. He says he believes in a thing, then acts in discord with his own stated belief. That is not very bright. Because of his dad’s money and his personality disorder he has no compunction to do the things necessary to earn the goals he wishes to achieve, but he has the money and the sociopathic charm to compel others to make things happen for him, like Michael Cohen for example. Eventually his ill-doers are prosecuted but Trump seems to draw upon a wealth of American fall-down sycophants in the waiting room. They are out there.
Watch as Glenn Greenwald explains to Fox News’ Tucker Carlson why Trump should pardon the men who blew the whistle on the control freaks who managed the Obama Administration
Trump’s radar is consistent with that of the public and the three men, Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald.
1.) Trump says he believes that the Generals at the Pentagon and many of their minions at the Pentagon and around Washington DC are willing stooges for the US Defence Industrial Base (DIB). Thus certain interfaces at the White House encourage military actions and wars in order to enhance the flow of military expendables like combat gear, uniforms, toilet paper, fuel, underwear, oil, soap, bombs, funerals, grenades, drones, missiles, bullets and more.
“Bang. Stuff gone. Buy some more, get a commission, do it again,” thinks Trump. Of course Trump is correct. Cut the teary-eyed nonsense about the serving men and women. Trump is not talking about them. He is angry at the DIB.
2.) Trump says he does not trust the intelligence community and continually derides members of that enormous American cult of sociopaths, analysts and spooks. Furthering the annoyances, Trump often meets with people like Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong-un without the presence of observers leaving the intelligence community in conniptions. Add to that the fact that Trump openly spills the beans on what very little he comprehends from intelligence briefings and the deal is sealed—they don’t like each other. Trump indicates a tremendous disdain for the NSA, CIA, FBI, DHS, and all spooks etc.
Trump’s Radar is bang on. The President is dead right on both counts.
There’s no wonder that Trump’s fans are zealously in love with the guy. Who in the past truly put a muzzle on these jokers who see goblins in every corner and demand bigger budgets and more wars for defeating their goblins?
Hours ago I wrote about the COVID-19 pandemic’s impact on the United States. It is essentially out of control. Trump says, “It is what it is”. Is he right about that? Pray for a miracle?
Very little that Trump can do will change much about the path of SARS-CoV-2. That’s because his approach until now is outright bananas. If he finally told Americans to wear a mask and wash their hands it might be good but the skies full of smoke from the burning of everything West Coast will likely have people wearing masks anyway, and do Americans wash anything? I stood in a long checkout line at a Walmart in Fort Worth and it did not seem like it. Sniff. And hundreds of thousands of soldiers, sailors and airmen with their support personnel and families sure are spreading preventable sexually transmitted infections around the world, and killing Asian civilians like Jennifer Laude.
Also some of the 160,000 USA troops wandering around the world with $billions worth of killing gear are now spreading the American “G”-strain of the SARS-CoV-2 virus everywhere.
Trump is right again. American soldiers need to come home. It’s a win-win for everyone.
But if Trump is true to his own self he would commend Julian Assange, Edward Snowden and Glenn Greenwald to the world plus pardon them, dropping all charges and animosities.
Edward Snowden, Julian Assange, and Glenn Greenwald, just like Trump, got it right.
Things were not according to Hoyle in the Obama Administration and probably Obama just didn’t know and thus believed lies from the officials in charge, or the alternatives may also be true. In any case, these men took action and told the public what they had seen with their eyes. The public needs those eyes.
Yes Assange, Snowden, and Greenwald kicked the bejeebers out of the Obama Administration and its wrongdoings with the material they shed to the world. What was released to the world including the murders in Iraq is mind numbing.
Well, you always suspected government was a bit creepy so now you know. How does society keep that in check? By protecting people like Assange, Snowden, and Greenwald.
Bad conduct of the oppressed does not qualify as an excuse for the original oppression
Assange, Snowden, and Greenwald followed their moral compass. What they may have done since their unjust oppression is part of the process of responding to oppression. Oppressed people can sometimes become as roguish as their oppressors in their own right.
Supporting that theory, look to the antics of the Mosul Underground Resistance which according to some accounts and perhaps confirmed by the apparent fears of the resistance practitioners today, may not have been ‘According to Hoyle’ (“Strictly according to the rules,” said Edmond Hoyle). Allegedly walking up to the front door of a stolen automobile, at a traffic governance, a nice vehicle driven by an Islamic State thief, rapist and murderer, pulling the door open to unequivocally confirm identity and then blasting a nearly half inch round into that kidnapper/killer’s noggin isn’t exactly a thing described in any of Edmond Hoyle’s notes so it is not likely allowed under the ‘rules’. Yes, it was war. And yes, oppressed people can sometimes act badly, even if the cause is righteous.
Hence Julian Assange’s hiding out for years in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London was not a malfeasance or admission of guilt, it was the act of an oppressed person trying to survive.
“Trump Has Created a Global Playbook to Attack Those Revealing Uncomfortable Truths,” is an op-ed piece that Snowden wrote in late January for the Washington Post.
It is a worthwhile read but the premise may not be true. If Trump pardons these three men, as I think he is likely inclined to do very quickly to steal the notion from Biden, Snowden’s essay is wrong about Trump and FPM.news‘s theory is correct: Trump is more on the side of the public than he is on the government-side. Maybe after four-years, President Donald Trump has figured out how to be a President for the people and that is what half the population seems to like about his rough-around-the-edges approach. Let’s wait a bit and see.
Edward Snowden in exile, the extraordinary whistleblower who tattled on Obama. “The legal theory used by the Brazilian prosecutors—that journalists who publish leaked documents are engaged in a criminal ‘conspiracy’ with the sources who provide those documents—is virtually identical to the one advanced in the Trump Administration’s indictment of Julian Assange in a new application of the historically dubious Espionage Act.” Photo Art/Cropping/Enhancement: Rosa Yamamoto / Feminine-Perspective Magazine
Feminine-Perspective:
How does society keep governments creepiness in check? By protecting people like Assange, Snowden, and Greenwald.
File photo: London (United Kingdom), August 18, 2014, Foreign Minister Ricardo Patiño and Julian Assange offered a press conference with the presence of international media. Photo Credit: David G Silvers. Chancellery of Ecuador.
Julian Assange
Photo Credit: Ruptly YouTube Video
Photo Capture, Crop, Art: Rosa Yamamoto FPM.news