<nettime> Nozomi Hayase: Unity for Assange’s Plight Is Necessary To Build a Movement for Democracy (AntiWar)

[Patrice Riemens <patrice@xs4all.nl>]

Sorry, I have not yet entirely read this article (kinda tl;dr, with my 
train in less than one hour ...), but it looks worthwhile enough with 
Julian A. on the verge of being kicked out of the Ecuadorian Embassy 
with nowhere to go but ...?

My opinions on the persona of Assange are sufficiently known, yet it 
should never be forgotten that he, not alone, but  surely by virtue of 
his, err, 'personality', shifted the lines in world politics to an 
absolutely unbelievable degree, for which the 'David against Goliath' 
metaphor is only a (very) pale moniker. And now I believe he should be 
looked at and treated as a human being, one of us, our brother ('in ...' 
- what ever you may believe).

Let him go, let him be free, and let him have some rest.

Cheers from Torino,
p+2D!



original to:
https://original.antiwar.com/nozomi_hayase/2018/08/26/unity-for-assanges-plight-is-necessary-to-build-a-movement-for-democracy/

Unity for Assange’s Plight Is Necessary To Build a Movement for 
Democracy
by Nozomi Hayase Posted on August 27, 2018


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange remains in solitary confinement inside 
the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, where he was granted asylum in 2012 
against the threat of extradition to the United States for his 
publishing activities. In recent months, Ecuador’s President Lenin 
Moreno, under pressure from the U.S. began threatening to evict this 
political refugee.

In response to this dire situation, people across the political spectrum 
began to form solidarity through #Unify4J, an online platform to 
organize a social media movement in support of Assange. Among those 
include prominent Trump’s supporters. In the midst of Trump 
administration’s draconian measures on immigrants and empowerment of 
white supremacist groups, the idea of working with Trump’s key allies 
triggered reaction among the left. Recently, Classconscious.org, an 
outlet spearheading global civic action for Assange’s freedom, 
scrutinized the idea of uniting with ultra-right forces that back Trump 
and urged the movement to draw a line.

Strife around the same issue arose from the former associate and early 
proponents of WikiLeaks. Barrett Brown, an award-winning journalist, 
previously imprisoned for charges relating to a Stratfor hack, has been 
one of the strong voices in support of the whistleblowing site. He 
described how he has long stood up for the organization’s mission of 
transparency at great risk to himself, yet in recent months he became 
upset about what he perceived to be Assange’s alliance with fascists and 
radical right supremacist groups.

Brown, who recently launched the project Pursuance, an open source 
software that allows individuals to share information and organize, has 
ramped up criticism toward Assange in his most vulnerable time. This 
created the conflict with the Courage Foundation, an organization that 
provides assistance for whistleblowers. Courage was co-founded by 
Assange and it has both WikiLeaks and Brown as beneficiaries. According 
to the article on the Daily Beast, three of Courage’s trustees 
reportedly instructed Courage’s respected director Naomi Colvin to cut 
off Brown as some kind of retaliation against his hostile remarks toward 
Assange. This led to the unfortunate resignation of Colvin, who was 
forced to walk out from the organization as a matter of principle for 
her opposition to exclude anyone based on political speech.

Birgitta Jónsdóttir, a former member of Iceland’s Parliament, who now 
joined the board of Pursuance, responded to this alleged retaliation 
against Brown. Jónsdóttir, who worked for WikiLeaks in the 2010 
publication of the Collateral Murder video, recently tweeted her 
thoughts on her old colleague: "It’s beyond sad to watch the hubris of 
one man being able to do so much damage and alienate people who risked 
everything for the cause. WikiLeaks is now far closer to alt right 
groups then digital rights groups, by choice of its overlord."

The divisiveness that has grown among progressives around the advocacy 
of WikiLeaks brings extreme alarm. It weakens any kind of efforts to 
resist government and corporate oppression. Finding a way to overcome 
this force becomes now important, not only for Assange’s freedom, but 
also for creating a viable movement for democracy.

Innovation on the Internet

So, where does this divisiveness really come from? Since its mainstream 
recognition in 2010, WikiLeaks was accused of many things in different 
places and by various groups of people. WikiLeaks once tweeted: "In 
Russia, Julian Assange is a MI6 agent; In US, a Russian agent; In Iran, 
a Mossad agent; In Saudi, an Iranian agent; In Libya, a CIA agent. World 
wide establishments accuse those who expose them of being the enemy of 
the people." The latest accusation became ‘WikiLeaks, as an agent of 
fascism!’

The latest accusation became ‘WikiLeaks, as an agent of fascism!’ Yet, 
the organization cannot be pigeonholed into these labels. Needless to 
say, none of these characterizations are accurate. WikiLeaks is a 100% 
publicly funded transnational journalistic organization that is not 
bound to any nation, corporation or political parties. This borderless 
existence comes to challenge our preconceived notion of journalism based 
on a model that operates within the confinement of the nation-state. 
WikiLeaks can be best looked at as an innovation of journalism on the 
Internet. Just as many inventions of the past, it brought disruption to 
the system and became controversial. Think of Johannes Gutenberg and his 
invention of the printing press. The spread of the printing press made 
it possible for people to read the Bible and democratization of 
knowledge enabled by his technology has brought the decline of Church’s 
authority.

In a similar way, Assange together with mathematicians, activists and 
journalists all around the world, invented a new form of journalism that 
is much more effective in revealing corruption of governments and 
institutions. With a pristine record of accuracy, it published more 
classified information than all media combined, exposing human right 
abuses, government spying, torture and war crimes on a scale that was 
unprecedented.

Birth of this global Fourth Estate was a game changer. It radically 
altered the media landscape. Just as scientists and inventors of the 
past who were imprisoned for their unconventional beliefs and 
discoveries, Assange has been persecuted for the breakthrough of this 
innovation. In the 17th century, Galileo’s thought that provided the 
evidence about the Earth revolving around the Sun was met with 
condemnation by the orthodoxy of the Church. In these contemporary 
times, WikiLeaks and its idea of transparency for the powerful seem to 
have become a heresy that is regarded as a punishable offense by the 
state.

Ethos of cypherpunks

Without understanding the essence of this new invention, people’s 
attitudes toward WikiLeaks swing back and forth. Whether it is 
capitalism or socialism, Democrats or Republicans, many demand WikiLeaks 
to demonstrate its allegiance to their political ideology and support 
their preferred candidate. They conflate the invention with the 
inventor, becoming obsessed with Assange.

One publication put him in a category of a leftist, while another turns 
him into a right winger. People speculate and get overly attached to 
Assange’s political views. Ultimately, the opinion of this inventor does 
not and should not matter. In the same way that people don’t have to 
know who invented electricity to have a light or a combustion engine to 
drive a car, everyone can benefit from this new journalism and use it to 
enrich society at large.

Yet, for those who still feel the need to know, Assange’s thoughts are 
not shaped by a conventional political dichotomy of left and right. The 
ideas that conceived WikiLeaks originated from the philosophy of 
cypherpunks, an electronic mailing list that advocates privacy through 
the use of strong cryptography.

The motto of this loosely tied network that became active since the late 
1980’s is depicted with the expression "cypherpunks write code". Adam 
Back, a cryptographer who was cited in Bitcoin’s white paper described 
it as a particular mindset to make changes through creating 
alternatives, rather than engaging in typical political efforts of 
petitions and protests. Back noted how pressuring politicians and 
promoting issues through the press tends to be slow and creates an 
uphill battle. He pointed out how instead of appealing to authority for 
change, people can simply "deploy technology and help people do what 
they consider to be their legal right", and then society will later 
catch up to reflect these values.

Assange describing himself as part of cypherpunks that came from a 
different tradition than libertarians in California, articulated their 
unique efforts to balance power between the individual and the state. He 
said, "By writing our own software and disseminating it far and wide we 
liberated cryptography, democratized it and spread it through the 
frontiers of the new internet." Being true to this ethos of cypherpunks, 
Assange deployed the technology of a secure drop box that runs on Tor, a 
free software that routes Internet traffic to enable the anonymous 
submission of material.

Liberating the First Amendment

The creation of WikiLeaks brought a major upgrade to the existing model 
of free speech. In the U.S. where tradition of freedom of speech began, 
in its inception, the First Amendment right was not able to fully embody 
its potent creative power. The idea of democracy, a government 
established under the rule of people, expressed in the preamble of the 
Constitution "we the people" remained an ideal. A move toward its 
fulfillment came from below by those who opposed the ratification of the 
1787 Constitution that lacked the guarantee of individual liberties. The 
anti-federalists demanded that the Bill of Rights was necessary in order 
to restrict governmental power and their efforts made it possible for 
freedom of expression to be codified into law.

The First Amendment reads;

"Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or 
prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of 
speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to 
assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

Establishment of Bill of Rights as a vital part of checks and balances 
of power was revolutionary. Yet these rights that were meant to provide 
protection of individuals from government’s overarching power were 
granted and regulated by central authority. In the structure of the 
constitutional republic, the unaccounted power of the Founding Fathers 
was kept unchecked. This created a loophole that makes the system 
vulnerable to commercial interests. Big business gained power by 
exploiting this weakness in security of the system and hijacked the 
government. Transnational corporations that have no allegiance to any 
country began using national governments and their system of 
representative democracy as instruments to control the populace and 
advance their own agendas.

With privatization of public airwaves and consolidation of media, an 
oligarchic class put the First Amendment under its proprietary control, 
restricting user access and setting terms and conditions for their use. 
In this dictatorial form of governance, journalists and editors are 
installed as an arbitrator of truth to manage and monitor public 
opinion. Through a creed of objectivity, they justify censoring any 
dissenting thoughts that challenge government official lines crafted by 
the corporate masters. This was evidenced by the 2013 documentary film 
Mediastan that exposed the former New York Times executive editor Bill 
Keller’s cozy relationship with the US government, the military and the 
CIA.

It was in this context of corporate dictatorship that Assange used 
cryptography as a nonviolent democratic weapon to revolt. From its 
onset, the US Constitution framed by white property owners with their 
imperfection manifested in slavery, genocide of natives and denial of 
women’s rights corrupted the source code of equality written in the 
Declaration of Independence. Now, over 200 years later, Australian born 
computer programmer and journalist aimed to restore this original code 
of democracy through building a publishing platform online that is run 
on free software.

With the creation of WikiLeaks, Assange liberated the First Amendment 
from this archaic system of national governance. Significance of this 
invention is that it decentralized the function of free press, extending 
the First Amendment protection that has been exclusively preserved for 
the profession of journalists to ordinary people. Now, through this 
innovative anonymous submission system, anyone in the world with 
Internet connection can communicate with people around the globe about 
the fraud and wrongdoing of any governments or institutions. Without 
fear of retaliation, people can now transcend boundaries of nation-state 
to form association with one another and redress their grievances.

With scientific journalism at its core, this new media of the Internet 
replaced the source of legitimacy from the profession’s creed of 
objectivity to the actual documents themselves that are authenticated. 
Access to full achieves in a searchable format empowered everyday people 
all over the world. They can now engage in their own history as it is 
happening and use information to create social change.

Claiming creative power within

The US government under Obama began a war against the First Amendment, 
trying to stop this WikiLeaks’ mission to bring free speech to the 
world. In this battle now being carried on by the new President Trump, 
Assange, as a lightning rod got inflamed with mainstream media hype of 
Russia Gate, demonizing the organization’s role in the 2016 US election. 
Without any solid evidence, Democrats throw around opinions, blaming 
Assange for the victory of Trump. They accuse the organization as 
collaborating with a fascist, when in fact the release of John Podesta 
emails exposed the Democratic establishment as actively aiding Trump 
candidacy with their strategy to elevate "pied piper" GOP candidates.

Some of Assange’s former allies also got caught up with the heat that 
fixates public gaze on his personality. By expressing disdain toward 
Assange’s flaws and what appeared to be their personal grudges against 
him that should be reconciled individually, they plunge themselves into 
the orgy of identity politics. While they are fully entitled to their 
opinion and criticism about his character, the timing and the way it was 
voiced when he can’t respond is concerning. This only adds fuel to the 
establishment’s character assassination of this political prisoner, who 
was placed under surveillance cameras and intense media scrutiny to the 
level that no one in the world are made to endure.

In facing the struggles of the racial injustice in the civil rights era, 
Martin Luther King Jr. recognized the similar force of divisiveness that 
could destroy the movement. In a sermon delivered in 1957 in Montgomery, 
Alabama, King identified it as hatred and described how it "distorts the 
personality of the hater." He noted how this hatred has created 
"something of a civil war" inside people that divides them against one 
another. He reminded all about a redemptive power of love that could 
"save our world and our civilization":

"Love is creative, understanding goodwill for all men. It is the refusal 
to defeat any individual. When you rise to the level of love, of its 
great beauty and power, you seek only to defeat evil systems. 
Individuals who happen to be caught up in that system, you love, but you 
seek to defeat the system."

Just like cypherpunks who tap into the creative power within to bring 
change, this veteran leader of a civil rights movement knew that in 
order to abolish unjust laws of racism, we must first become that change 
by embodying universal brotherhood within ourselves. He understood that 
the blacks’ fight against their oppressors to claim their rights lock 
all into a perpetuating power struggle and how the levers of control 
that they use to try to defeat opponents will be used against them to 
deny their rights. For this, King insisted all to adopt the principle of 
"love your enemies" and lay down a sharp sword that cut through both 
ways.

Reign of the heart

This radical love that embraces even one’s opponents is the heart that 
accepts all existence, giving all a right to express themselves equally. 
This heart that does not favor certain opinions as good and judge others 
as bad is the cornerstone of our democracy. The function of the First 
Amendment is to connect us to this silent pulse of the heart, placing it 
at a center of society to preserve the liberty of all people.

In the interview conducted by an award winning filmmaker John Pilger, 
renowned political analyst Noam Chomsky once said, "If we don’t believe 
in freedom of expression for people we despise, we don’t believe in it 
at all". Democracy dies when we deny speech of those whom we oppose and 
our collective heart suffocates, with each individual not being able to 
speak freely. Tyranny triumphs the rule of law when we can’t breathe 
through diverse opinions and perspectives to inspire one another to form 
a court of public opinion.

WikiLeaks enabled the true function of the First Amendment. As a 
countenance of democracy, this revolutionary journalism protects people 
against suppression of speech by allowing all voices including views 
that are unpopular and marginalized. This can illuminate what liberals 
consider WikiLeaks’ troubling appearance of associating with Trump Jr. 
and speaking up for conspiracy theorists like a Infowars radio host Alex 
Jones, when he got censored by Silicon Valley tech giants.

In the article "No, Julian Assange Is Not a Fascist", Gary Lord who 
writes political commentary has cut though the corporate media headlines 
that twist WikiLeaks’ professional contact with President Trump’s son. 
By presenting their Twitter direct messages in a full context, he 
dismantled the widely held myth that Assange supports Trump and 
WikiLeaks helped his campaign. What is revealed in these exchanges was 
WikiLeaks asking Trump’s son to help them publish his father’s tax 
returns (which was ignored), while refusing inquiries of both Cambridge 
Analytica and Trump Jr., regarding the upcoming publications. Lord 
summed up the nature of their interaction as WikiLeaks just doing the 
things that any good journalistic organization would do.

In Trump cabinet’s aggressive pursuit to criminalize journalism, Assange 
is now seized in the embassy, deprived of sunlight and health care, 
being cut off from the outside world. As the fate of press freedom looks 
grim, cynicism and apathy spread with many of his colleagues in 
mainstream media turning away from his predicament and spectators 
lamenting this tragedy from afar. The fact is, it is not Assange who has 
created damage and alienated people as critics say. Rather, it is our 
lack of understanding of true meaning of free speech that brings damage 
to efforts of those who risked everything for democracy and has 
condemned Assange to profound solitude.

Efforts to free Julian Assange challenges us all to uphold this right to 
free speech, with moral courage to love our enemies. When politics wins, 
democracy loses. Only through our united front built upon our feeling of 
truth, can we bring the reign of the heart that can dismantle the levers 
of control and realize universal ideals that all men and women are 
created equal.

Nozomi Hayase, Ph.D., is an essayist and author of WikiLeaks, the Global 
Fourth Estate: History Is Happening (Libertarian Books, 2018). Find her 
on twitter @nozomimagine.

Read more by Nozomi Hayase
Assange’s Freedom, Democracy’s Last Line of Defense – July 26th, 2018
WikiLeaks, Bitcoin, and the Revolutionary Movement of Peacemakers – 
October 25th, 2017
Moral Injury of War: The Invisible Wound of Empire – July 4th, 2017
WikiLeaks Vault 7 Reveals CIA Cyberwar and the Real Battleground of 
Democracy – March 16th, 2017
WikiLeaks: 10 Years of Pushing the Boundaries of Free Speech – October 
6th, 2016
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