August 15, 2016


News and Views

For Manafort/Ukraine matter go to “Early Report” published at 12:31 today.


http://www.popularmechanics.com/science/news/a22327/skeleton-teenager-zeus/

Ancient Bones Found On Greek Mountaintop May Confirm Chilling Legend
The find gives credence to the idea that human sacrifice was part of ancient Greek culture.
By Associated Press and NICHOLAS PAPHITIS
AUG 14, 2016

Photograph -- This undated photo released Wednesday Aug. 10, 2016, provided by the Greek Culture Ministry, shows the 11th century B.C. skeleton of a teenager excavated recently at Mount Lykaion in the southern Peloponnese region of Greece, the mountaintop sanctuary …. AP


Archaeologists have made a sinister discovery at the top of a Greek mountain which might corroborate one of the darkest legends of antiquity.

Excavations this summer on Mount Lykaion, once worshipped as the birthplace of the god Zeus, uncovered the 3,000-year-old skeleton of a teenager amid a mound of ashes built up over a millennium from sacrificed animals.

Greece's Culture Ministry said Wednesday that the skeleton, probably of an adolescent boy, was found in the heart of the 30-meter (100-foot) broad ash altar, next to a man-made stone platform.

Excavators say it's too early to speculate on the nature of the teenager's death but the discovery is remarkable because the remote Mount Lykaion was for centuries associated with the most nefarious of Greek cults: Ancient writers — including Plato — linked it with human sacrifice to Zeus, a practice which has very rarely been confirmed by archaeologists anywhere in the Greek world and never on mainland Greece.

According to legend, a boy was sacrificed with the animals and all the meat was cooked and eaten together. Whoever ate the human part would become a wolf for nine years.

"Several ancient literary sources mention rumors that human sacrifice took place at the altar, but up until a few weeks ago there has been no trace whatsoever of human bones discovered at the site," said excavator David Gilman Romano, professor of Greek archaeology at the University of Arizona.

"Whether it's a sacrifice or not, this is a sacrificial altar ... so it's not a place where you would bury an individual. It's not a cemetery," Romano told The Associated Press. A very unusual detail, he said, was that the upper part of the skull was missing, while the body was laid among two lines of stones on an east-west axis, with stone slabs covering the pelvis.

The mountaintop in the Peloponnese region is the earliest known site where Zeus was worshipped, and even without the possible human sacrifice element it was a place of massive slaughter. From at least the 16th century B.C. until just after the time of Alexander the Great, tens of thousands of animals were killed there in the god's honor.

Human presence at the site goes back more than 5,000 years. There's no sign yet that the cult is as old as that, but it's unclear why people should otherwise choose to settle on the barren, exposed summit.

Zeus was a sky and weather god who later became the leader of the classical Greek pantheon.

Pottery found with the human remains dates them to the 11th century B.C., right at the end of the Mycenaean era, whose heroes were immortalized in Greek myth and Homer's epics, and several of whose palaces have been excavated.

So far, only about 7 percent of the altar has been excavated, between 2007-2010 and again this year.

"We have a number of years of future excavation to go," Romano said. "We don't know if we are going to find more human burials or not."



Any of you who like to read about blood curdling things for fun will probably be familiar with the word “lycanthrope.” You will also undoubtedly notice the spelling similarities between that word and “King Lycaon, mount lykaion. The ancient Celts believed in “shape changers,” and there was a reference to one also in the Odyssey. The idea of turning into a wolf is probably much older than that, too, because in a photograph of one of the several painted caves in Portugal and France I saw two images of a creature with an animal head and human legs. That was probably a shaman dressed as an animal while performing a ceremony or magical ritual. Those cave drawings have been considered to go back to around 30,000 BC. Ideas don’t exactly die. “Fairy tales” and other ancient literature handed down from mother to child beside the campfire contain elements of “history,” religion, and magic. There is nothing more interesting to me than these subjects. See below two more web articles that are pertinent to the subject.



http://www.werewolves.com/mount-lykaions-curse/

Mount Lykaion’s Curse

Lycaon Hey guys, it’s time again for another ancient werewolf tale. This time we are going way back to ancient Greece. The time of vengeful and fearful gods and goddesses, a time of ghastly curses and harsh revenge.

Our tale today takes us to the mysterious top of Mount Lykaion, a remote spot in Arcadia in the Peloponnesus peninsula. This place is home to many a rumor and story; the lower slopes of the mountain were covered in thick forests which were home to deadly wolves, the upper slopes were bare and rocky and were believed to be a place where dark rituals took place. But I digress, our story is from the Roman poet Ovid (43 BCE – c. 18 AD). It is the tale of King Lycaon.

King Lycaon ruled this mountain top and is one night visited by the feared god Zeus. Zeus convinces the people of Arcadia that he is in fact a divine being, the true god himself, but Lycaon doesn’t believe it is Zeus and he decides to kill this stranger. Lycaon isn’t able to kill the god so instead he murders a prisoner and cooks his flesh, serving it as a meal to his unwelcome guest. When Zeus finds out he has been eating human flesh he is filled with uncontrollable rage and burns the palace to the ground, and then turns Lycaon into a wolf. This transformation would last 9 years, after which Lycaon would turn back into a man, unless he ate human flesh while in wolf form. If he had eaten human meat then he was stuck in wolf form forever.

Now this is just one version of the story, a Greek traveler named Pausanias records a different version of the tale. He said that Lycaon goes to Mount Lykaion, where Zeus was born. There at the temple of the gods, King Lycaon offers a human baby as a sacrifice.

Zeus does not accept this sacrifice and as a punishment he turns Lycaon into a wolf. Ever since, anyone who leaves a sacrifice at temple Zeus Lycaeus also turns into a werewolf. But if the person stays away from human flesh for 9 years they will turn back into a man. King Lycaon never becomes a man again.

There are many arguments between scholars over these stories. Many have different views on it and believe different versions of it. Either way, it’s a damn good ancient story. How many of you werewolf fans are planning a trip to Arcadia now? Haha.

Side note: There are many different spellings/versions for these names – King Lycaon, King Lykaon. Mount Lykaion, Mount Lycaeus, Mount Lykaon…etc.

– Moonlight

moonlight
One of the writers for werewolves.com, as well as vampires.com.



http://www.werewolves.com/clinical-lycanthropy/

Clinical Lycanthropy

Clinical Lycanthropy is a mental illness (specifically, a psychiatric syndrome) that involves a strong delusional belief in the afflicted person that they have transformed into an animal, often a wolf. The syndrome is diagnosed by either a lucid patient indicating that he or she has at one time transformed into an animal, or by observing certain animal behaviors in the patient that would indicate a belief that he or she is currently transformed into some animal. The belief is caused by a form of psychosis or dementia, and causes the person to whole-heartedly believe that they have become a certain animal.

The only observable change will be in their behavior – they will indeed act like whatever animal they believe to have been turned into. Clinical Lycanthropy differs from the mythology of werewolves in that the afflicted person does not actually appear to have transformed into anything physically. They may only act differently, expressing animal behaviors such as how an animal moves or makes noise. The syndrome is so rare that very few modern examples are available for study (under 40 cases in record), and so the causes of the condition are not very well understood at this point in time.

The term lycanthropy is derived from Greek mythology and the story of King Lycaon, who supposedly fed human flesh to the god Zeus and was then punished by being turned into a wolf. Werewolf myths have persisted through our history, probably in most part due to cases of lycanthropy. On the other hand, there may also be a cultural basis for the wolf being the most frequent form of animal delusion. It appears that lycanthropy feeds the werewolf myth while the werewolf myth has a hand in determining exactly what animal form a person’s delusion will end up taking.

“Admin”


For your further informational reading I suggest the excellent history of stories and art -- which really do sound like rabies, by the symptoms given, which was gleaned from folk literature and ancient history around the world down through time. The book does have a good deal to say about mythological creatures like vampires and werewolves, and descriptions of the symptoms which do resemble rabies from the excessive salivation, the “fear of water,” to the “fury.” There is a very good case for the terrible illness rabies as the source of all, or most at any rate, of these beliefs, although the article above about the mental illness termed “lycanthropy” probably is another persistent real life source of the stories.

I got my copy of this exhaustive and well-researched book on the subject, used, from Amazon, for only $8.99. I have read every word in it with fascination. See below:

“Rabid: A Cultural History of the World’s Most Diabolical Virus,” by Bill Wasik and Monica Murphy, Copyright 2012, Published in Penguin (paperback) 2013.



Sad, shocking, obscene lack of professionalism

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/massachusetts-grandmother-locked-inside-dialysis-clinic-after-staff-leaves/

86-year-old Mass. woman forgotten, locked inside dialysis clinic
CBS NEWS
August 15, 2016, 10:10 AM

Photograph -- Maureen Perry was apparently forgotten and locked inside a dialysis center CBS BOSTON


METHUEN, Mass. -- A woman somehow ended up locked inside a dialysis clinic for hours Saturday after the staff had gone home, apparently forgetting about her.

"She's shaken, but got her all cleaned up put her in bed," Pam Crosby said after getting off the phone with her mother's rehab facility. It was a welcome update about a beloved woman, 86-year old Maureen Perry, reports CBS Boston.

Hours earlier, her granddaughter, Erica Crosby, stood outside of a dialysis center and took a photo of her. The elderly woman was alone, apparently forgotten and locked inside.

"At first, I was enraged, then concerned, and then disgusted," said Erica Crosby. "I couldn't believe it."

Perry was in the Fresenius Dialysis Clinic on Merrimack Street in Methuen that closed three hours earlier. She is temporarily bedridden and at a rehab facility, to which an ambulance transports her. The rehab center alerted the family Saturday that she had yet to return.

"It's about 5:15 and we haven't heard from any place, and your grandmother isn't back yet," said Crosby about the phone call.

The ambulance company told the family the dialysis facility was locked up when its people arrived, so the family decided to drive there.

"I called 911 and I said, 'I can't believe I am about to report this, but my grandmother is locked in the dialysis center,'" said Crosby.

Methuen firefighters transported Perry to her rehab facility.

Crosby is a nurse and cannot wrap her head around someone forgetting her grandmother.

"I am in healthcare and this is disgusting, absolutely disgusting," said Crosby. "Someone needs to be held accountable for this. This is absolutely not okay."

Fresenius Medical Care provided a statement to CBS Boston on Sunday.

"Our patients' care and safety are our top priorities. This is an issue of great concern and we are looking into the matter," a company spokesman said.

Methuen police said they contacted the state Department of Elder Affairs, but the agency declined to investigate saying it wasn't a neglect or abuse case. They also notified the state Department of Health.



“Not neglect or abuse????” Not abuse, I agree, but what could be more neglectful that this? An eighty-year old woman left to call out for help with no one to hear her, and possibly to lie in her own waste. This is one of the worst stories I’ve run across since doing this blog. I do want to get news later of who is responsible. It makes me feel like crying.

"’Our patients' care and safety are our top priorities. This is an issue of great concern and we are looking into the matter,’ a company spokesman said.” The statements of the business owner, or Chief of police, or whatever always sounds like this, almost word for word, except in the case of police shootings, it always also says “I feared for my life.”

I think this nurse, Erica Crosby, who knows how things should always be done in medical situations, will surely sue and put that clinic out of business. It isn’t just a matter of money, but of criminal negligence. Even if the clinic does survive, there will be more about this in the news, I feel sure.



http://www.refinery29.com/2016/08/120006/bernie-sanders-vacation-home-photos#slide

See Bernie Sanders' Serene Vacation Home In Vermont
LILLI PETERSEN
AUG 13, 2016 4:00 PM

Bernie Sanders is pretty gracious in defeat, but, by god, he planned on having a new house by the end of this year — and now, he does.

Instead of a move to the White House, the former Democratic presidential hopeful just purchased an adorable vacation home on Lake Champlain Island in Vermont, according to Trulia.

The property, which was built in 1920, cost the politician over half a million dollars. The house and attached guest quarters boasts four bedrooms and two-and-three-quarters bathrooms, making it a good communal space for whatever guests Sanders might want to share it with. The patios have what look to be great views out over the lake, ideal for quiet evenings debating the nature of economic inequality and the rising cost of college tuition.

The house is Sanders’ third property — he also owns a home in Burlington, VT, as well as one in Washington, D.C., close to Capitol Hill. Whatever their charms might be, they lack the rustic appeal of a quiet cabin on a lake. And democratic socialism or no, we don't think Sanders is planning to share this one. Ahead, see Sanders’ new spot to call his own.

BEGIN SLIDESHOW.
BERNIE SANDERS | HOME | LIFESTYLE | LIVING | NEWS | VACATION | BERNIE SANDERS VACATION HOME VERMONT



“The patios have what look to be great views out over the lake, ideal for quiet evenings debating the nature of economic inequality and the rising cost of college tuition. And democratic socialism or no, we don't think Sanders is planning to share this one.” …. This is a very cute article. He has been an ardent and eloquent soldier for the betterment of life in the USA. He’s a hero. He deserves pleasures.



http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/presidential-campaign/291320-it-might-be-the-end-of-trump-but-real-story-of

It might be the end of Trump, but real story of campaign was always Sanders
By Mark Weisbrot, contributor
August 12, 2016, 05:51 pm


Donald Trump is finished, he is toast; as many of us predicted, he never had a chance to be president. He's a one-trick pony, and the theatrics that won him first place in the circus that is the Republican primary are about as useful as a third nostril in the general election.

But there are so many obvious reasons for his inevitable implosion that it would overcrowd this page to even mention them here. He's now down to a 12.5 percent chance of winning, by Nate Silver's estimate at FiveThirtyEight.
Just a few weeks ago, Michael Moore was among those who said that Trump would win. But Moore got the important things right: the anthropology and social psychology of Trump supporters, for example, and most importantly the direction of change at the present moment:

Don't get me wrong. I have great hope for the country I live in. Things are better. The left has won the cultural wars. Gays and lesbians can get married. A majority of Americans now take the liberal position on just about every polling question posed to them: Equal pay for women — check. Abortion should be legal — check. Stronger environmental laws — check. More gun control — check. Legalize marijuana — check. A huge shift has taken place — just ask the socialist who won 22 states this year.

He could have added much more on the economic front: inequality has become a major political issue for the first time since probably the 1930s. Perhaps most importantly, the Federal Reserve — which pretty much determines the level of unemployment in the United States and had for decades felt free to ignore its legal mandate to pursue full employment — now finds itself under unprecedented political pressure not to throw people out of work by raising interest rates.

Real social movements such as Black Lives Matter and Fight for $15 have risen up and forced the mass media and politicians to take their demands seriously.

Amidst all the morbid fascination with Trump, it is easy to miss that the historic significance of this presidential race has been, and remains, Sen. Bernie Sanders's (I-Vt.) Democratic primary campaign.

Even on the left, there are many who see Trump as a harbinger of a dark era in front of us. Of course, his appeal to racism and anti-immigrant sentiment has been ugly and menacing. But this is not 1968, when a right-wing backlash against the civil rights, anti-war and other movements elected Richard Nixon and set the stage for a rightward drift that would continue for decades. Or 1980, when Ronald Reagan succeeded in institutionalizing and accelerating this right-wing political offensive, thus changing the world, including the Democratic Party, so much that the Bill Clinton presidency would build on his legacy.

By contrast, in 2016, we have witnessed Hillary Clinton adopting most of the program of her defeated opponent, including opposition to the Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPP) — an abomination that has the most broad and fervid support imaginable among this country’s most powerful corporate and "national security" elite.

That is the real indicator of the direction in which the country is going, and Trump’s brief "strutting and fretting his hour upon the stage," as Shakespeare wrote, will have no lasting impact. By contrast, Sanders has announced the formation of Our Revolution, which plans to continue organizing around the issues that he raised in his presidential campaign, as well as recruiting political candidates "from school board to the U.S. Senate."

In another promising move launched with the help of high-level staffers from Sanders's campaign, the group Brand New Congress plans to recruit, fundraise and help elect a new crop of candidates for the House of Representatives in 2018, organized around a progressive political agenda.

This will be the legacy of the 2016 presidential race, long after Trump has taken his "very nice, long vacation."

Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington. He is also the author of the new book "Failed: What the 'Experts' Got Wrong About the Global Economy" (Oxford University Press, 2015).



“He's a one-trick pony, and the theatrics that won him first place in the circus that is the Republican primary are about as useful as a third nostril in the general election.” A third nostril. How grotesque an image. I can tell that this writer really, really doesn’t like Trump at all. Good. I don’t want to say I hate Trump, but I do fear him if he were to be elected, and it did look as though he might. I myself did suggest that someone might put a little cyanide in his coffee a couple of weeks ago. Of course, that’s as bad as Trump’s advocating or at any rate openly suggesting that one of his followers might take one of his Second Amendment firearms and shoot Hillary. Then the slimy SOB called the comment “sarcasm.” He’s despicable.



http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/presidential-races/291412-wall-street-journal-trump-faces-moment-of-truth

Wall Street Journal: Trump faces ‘moment of truth’
By The Hill staff
August 14, 2016, 08:27 pm

In a scathing editorial published Sunday evening, The Wall Street Journal declared that Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s “window for a turnaround is closing.”

The paper’s editorial board declared the GOP nominee “has alienated his party and he isn’t running a competent campaign.”

It points to Trump’s poor polling numbers in swing states, as well as his lack of organization and ground game.

“Those who sold Mr. Trump to GOP voters as the man who could defeat Hillary Clinton now face a moment of truth,” the editorial board wrote, name-checking top Trump allies Newt Gingrich, Chris Christie, Rudy Giuliani and campaign manager Paul Manafort.

“If they can’t get Mr. Trump to change his act by Labor Day, the GOP will have no choice but to write off the nominee as hopeless and focus on salvaging the Senate and House and other down-ballot races,” the editorial board continued.

“As for Mr. Trump, he needs to stop blaming everyone else and decide if he wants to behave like someone who wants to be President—or turn the nomination over to Mike Pence.”

Earlier Sunday, Manafort pushed back on talk that the campaign is in a state of disarray after a week in which the billionaire called President Obama the founder of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria and made what many took as a threat against Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton.

And despite a report that the Republican National Committee is considering cutting off support and funds to Trump to focus on congressional races, RNC strategist Sean Spicer told The Hill. ”There are no discussions” in that vein.



I’d like to see some new polls on Trump’s popularity now, after his grotesquely "playful" threat of death to Hillary, the Manafort connection to the Russian war on Ukraine, and more. Surely even the blue collar white men won’t still be on his side????



MORE FROM ASSANGE:


http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/8/julian_assange_on_the_green_partys

INDEPENDENT GLOBAL NEWS
Julian Assange on the Green Party's Rising Popularity & the November Election: "Anything is Possible"
AUGUST 08, 2016


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke via video stream to the Green Party convention in Houston, Texas, over the weekend about the Green Party’s rising popularity ahead of the November general election. This comes as CNN’s Poll of Polls shows Stein polling at 5 percent—five times more than the 1 percent of the national vote she won in 2012.

TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now! We are "Breaking with Convention: War, Peace and the Presidency." I’m Amy Goodman. We continue our coverage of the Green Party convention in Houston with the party’s 2004 presidential candidate, David Cobb, interviewing WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

JULIAN ASSANGE: It is a remarkable moment in U.S. politics. For the Greens, it’s—I mean, the Greens, if they pursue this campaign, as they do seem to be doing so, can and, I believe, probably will produce a very solid bloc after. And I think that’s really heartening. It’s a horrific vision—I mean, who’s going to be U.S. president, next U.S. president, is a horrific vision. I was asked this question: Did I prefer Clinton or Trump? And, I mean, the answer is: Well, you’re asking do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea. I mean, it’s a very sad situation.

But I think, given the reality has always been that the presidency pretty quickly merges with the bureaucracy that is around it, because bureaucracy is enormous, and the corporate lobbyists are enormous compared to the political parties, that actually it could be a net positive to have a president, in the form of Hillary or Trump, probably—who knows? You never know what happens in a campaign. Maybe Jill Stein will be president. Maybe Gary Johnson will be president. No, I’m serious. You never know. Like, it’s—who knows what happens during a campaign? Anything is possible, and you have to be ready for that. But if it is Hillary Clinton or Donald Trump, then that’s a very adverse environment. But the nature of those—I like things to look like what they are. I think Hillary Clinton, in her statements, demeanor and associations and track record, looks like the power that she actually does represent. Similarly with Donald Trump, maybe even—maybe even Donald Trump even looks more like what the power he’ll end up representing than he does actually represent it. But that’s a situation that generates resistance and accountability, and that is what really checks the behavior of government over time. It is the various pressures that exist on the presidency. That’s what checks their behavior. So, these are two characters that are the most unpopular pair of presidential candidates in U.S. history. And going into the presidency, they are going to continue to generate oversight and resistance, which will not only create a fertile field for Gary Johnson and Jill Stein to grow their support, but will create a very fertile field to understand and hold government to account.

DAVID COBB: So take a note, Greens and Americans everywhere, it is social movements that will actually bring corporate America to heel. Julian, Greens—

JULIAN ASSANGE: That’s right, and—that’s right, and a few whistleblowers.

DAVID COBB: Yes. I stand corrected.

JULIAN ASSANGE: I mean, I’m here in the United—well, I’m here in Ecuador in the United Kingdom with a pending U.S. prosecution. It’s very strange. I’ve become quite a multijurisdictional creature. But the Corbyn phenomenon in the U.K. really does show that something important, very important, is happening. There is a political moment in the English-speaking world that the Greens should and, it looks like, are seizing upon. It’s a very important moment.

DAVID COBB: I do think that North Americans need to have a little more humility as we look to our sisters and brothers in the Global South, who have been fighting empire for 500 years. They have a more acute understanding of actually social movements and the electoral arm of their social movements, so we should be humble and learn that lesson.



“I mean, the Greens, if they pursue this campaign, as they do seem to be doing so, can and, I believe, probably will produce a very solid bloc after. …. I was asked this question: Did I prefer Clinton or Trump? And, I mean, the answer is: Well, you’re asking do I prefer cholera or gonorrhea. I mean, it’s a very sad situation. …. Maybe Jill Stein will be president. Maybe Gary Johnson will be president. No, I’m serious. You never know. Like, it’s—who knows what happens during a campaign? Anything is possible, and you have to be ready for that. …. But that’s a situation that generates resistance and accountability, and that is what really checks the behavior of government over time. It is the various pressures that exist on the presidency. …. , it is social movements that will actually bring corporate America to heel. Julian, Greens— JULIAN ASSANGE: That’s right, and—that’s right, and a few whistleblowers. …. But the Corbyn phenomenon in the U.K. really does show that something important, very important, is happening. There is a political moment in the English-speaking world that the Greens should and, it looks like, are seizing upon. It’s a very important moment. …. I do think that North Americans need to have a little more humility as we look to our sisters and brothers in the Global South, who have been fighting empire for 500 years. They have a more acute understanding of actually social movements and the electoral arm of their social movements, so we should be humble and learn that lesson.”


Julian Assange is a very interesting and intelligent person. He’s also one of the good guys, in there with Bill Maher and Bernie Sanders. They’re not just intelligent, they’re very decent people and “sharp,” like a very good lawyer. I’m so glad I happened upon democracynow.org.

I hope he’s right about the Green Party’s coming ascendancy. I had formerly put all my eggs into the Democratic basket, but after what happened to Sanders and what I have learned from recent research about WHY and HOW that happened, I am only glad that my eyes have been opened. I want to remain politically active, but leaning more toward the Democratic Socialist and Green directions.

We don’t need two very, very powerful parties, but three or four related but not identical groups like those I see in articles about European and British elections. That way there is an actual CHOICE when I vote. Democrats simply don’t give that umbrella coverage that they used to, or at any rate which I THOUGHT they did. I’m like Paul after he was struck blind. Now I can see.

It’s high time we stepped away from the old conformities that ruled us as long as I can remember, and toward a true democracy which is responsive to certain needs: poverty, the rapidly degrading physical environment including the CO2 crisis, the elimination of class based justice, better electoral rules mandated from the Federal level, a higher level of college degrees and personal scholarship among American adults, better public schools for all rather than just for those who can pay tuition, better healthcare and nutrition, short term or long term mental health treatment whenever it is needed, always a warm, dry place to live, etc. We have come to a point in this country that is too much like Charles Dickens’ London. The totally greedy and money centered society in which we live is disgusting to me. I want a change.



http://www.democracynow.org/2016/8/8/wikileaks_julian_assange_attacks_against_jill

INDEPENDENT GLOBAL NEWS
WikiLeaks' Julian Assange: Attacks Against Jill Stein Are "Going to Go Through the Roof"
AUGUST 08, 2016


WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange spoke via video stream to the Green Party convention in Houston, Texas, about the corporate control of information during the 2016 election. He also predicted that attacks against Green Party nominee Dr. Jill Stein would surge ahead of November’s election.

TRANSCRIPT
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.

DAVID COBB: Julian, Greens, like most Americans, are civil libertarians at heart. We believe in personal privacy. We believe in internet freedom, even as we call for complete public transparency and accountability. My question to you is: What can we do as individuals to protect ourselves, and what can we do to help build the movement for keeping the internet free and open, so we, the people, can talk to ourselves?

JULIAN ASSANGE: All right, great question. Well, first of all, have coherency in your own movement. I mean, you have to have coherency to be able to understand your own view of the world and the attacks that are occurring, which—let me tell you that I’ve just seen that the attacks have started to ramp up on Jill Stein. They are going to go through the roof. I’ve had attacks from what is effectively the Clinton threat machine. They’re now post-convention. You guys are going to be post-convention. Those attacks are going to be ferocious. But you’ll see from that and learn lessons from that about how the media works and how one can defend your principles and ideas in the face of that kind of media corruption.

So, to defend civil liberties and the internet, the first thing is to practice it. That’s the number one thing. That’s what we do. We defend the First Amendment and similar constitutional amendments in other states by practicing them. We have won every single court case that we have been involved in over the last 10 years. And that any right that is not fought for through practice and defense is very, very quickly lost. It is just a piece of paper unless you actually fight for it and practice for it.

Then there’s a range of technical measures and some good people, researchers, trying to push out those technical measures. WikiLeaks tweets about that. Edward Snowden tweets about what some of those technical measures are. Support those people who are engaged in trying to engineer, in a practical sense, how to protect people’s privacy. And the other is to support the various groups that are doing it and to build the ideological understanding that it is an important thing, because—let’s go back and look at Google.

Google is very different, in an important way, from Lockheed Martin. Yes, Google is building drones. Yes, Lockheed Martin was and is building F-16s. But Google also controls how we communicate with each other. So, Google is, in a sense, like HIV. It doesn’t—it’s not just something that afflicts your arm; it afflicts your ability to understand and fight the infection. That’s true of all media, libraries, communication services, etc. They’re involved in that part of society that we use to understand ourselves, and that is the freedom of communication. So, the freedom of communication, in some sense, is the fundamental right, because it is the enabling right that allows us to speak to each other to understand the importance of all our other rights. And so, when the freedom of communication is degraded or maligned, when whistleblowers are prosecuted, when one organization starts to develop a monopoly on the internet and interfere with our communication, then all our rights suffer, because this fundamental enabling right is degraded.

As the editor of WikiLeaks, I have gone through a lot of battles. I have seen corrupt mainstream media outlets try to not report initially on some of our materials, spin them in other directions—that’s happened just recently. And I have also seen good journalists, embedded in those institutions, fighting to be accurate and truthful. There are good people even in bad institutions. Most of our sources are good people wanting to do good things, within the U.S. military or intelligence or political parties.

So, my strong advice is to understand, first of all, the necessity to be very skeptical of the traditional media apparatus, which is ultimately owned by some of the largest industrial conglomerates in the world, that’s firmly connected to other points of power; work around it; become your own media in practice, in small ways, in big ways; to keep—to keep your principles and sense of clarity on principles.

What the Clinton campaign is doing at the moment is trying to say, "Well, OK, yes, maybe we’re connected to arms dealers and to Saudi Arabia, and, yes, maybe we subverted the integrity of the Democratic primaries, etc., etc., but you will just have to swallow that. You will just have to swallow that, or else you will get Donald Trump." That’s a form of extortion. And—well, it is. It is a form of extortion. And—

DAVID COBB: You have elicited applause, Julian.

JULIAN ASSANGE: And you can’t—you can’t permit—it’s very important not to allow the political process to suffer from extortion, or even yourself to be susceptible to extortion. One says one has certain principles. If these principles are not followed, then there is a price to be paid. And that creates a standard and a general deterrent. And I think it is important for those people who feel that their principles have been violated, in the way that the Democratic primary process has been run, or how Chelsea Manning has been imprisoned for 35 years and tortured, or the Espionage Act crackdowns, or many other things, to go, "OK, well, there’s a cost to violating principles," even if—even if there’s also a cost to yourself, even if you don’t like the risk, which seems to be getting very small, but the risk that Donald Trump becomes president, that one has to have a line somewhere. Otherwise, as each election cycle proceeds, you are pushed further and further into the corner.

AMY GOODMAN: That’s WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaking at the Green Party convention in Houston via video stream from the Ecuadorean Embassy in London, where he’s been holed up for more than four years. He was speaking with the Green Party’s David Cobb. For transcript, podcast, more, go to democracynow.org. Special thanks to John Hamilton.



After reading this second interview with Assange, I am not only impressed with him for founding an organization based on exposing corrupting influences to the light of day, but as a truly Progressive thinker in a murky political environment and an excellent spokesperson for his views. I am going to focus on Jill Stein tomorrow if I can, based on another of his interviews. I looked for specific criticisms made against her and found a few, but tomorrow I’ll look for more. I’m trying to figure out in my own mind whether there is anything so seriously wrong with her that I will feel strongly disinclined to link up with the Greens. I know I want to leave the Democratic Party after November, but why not just become an Independent as Bernie has always been until this election. The most discouraging thing to me is the simple fact that the Greens just don’t have many members, but I’ve heard they have become stronger since the Dems so vilely dissed Bernie. Lots of dissident Dems are migrating their way. Besides, Stein isn’t the only member of the Green Party, and their self-described goals and beliefs as voiced on the Net jibe almost exactly with mine. I also strongly suspect that most people are like me. They haven’t dug until they found water on the reasons to either go Green or Go Dem, so hopefully I can go at it until I find something that convinces me one way or another. Of course, I trust Bernie to such a degree that I’m tempted to wait and hope that he will point to a new party or movement, such as the following:



http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/presidential/20160608_Reuters_Report_tagreuterscom2016newsmlKCN0YU10R_Sanders_plants_seeds_for_a_lasting_U_S__progressive_movement.html?amphtml=y

Sanders plants seeds for a lasting U.S. progressive movement
By John Whitesides, Reuters
Updated: Wednesday, June 8, 2016, 6:06 AM



http://www.4wheeledlefty.com/2016/08/13/bernie-sanders-progressive-movement-future/#.V7JB8Gf6sW4

Crippled Politics
Bernie Sanders and the Progressive Movement of the Future
Lessons from a campaign that outperformed expectations but still came up short.
Source: Why Bernie Sanders Lost, and How the Next Progressive Challenger Can Win

Even though Bernie Sanders may have lost the primary election to Hillary Clinton, his accomplishments as a truly progressive candidate must not be lost. However, one thing that he succeeded in doing was to drag the Democratic Party more towards the left where it belonged. It caused the Democratic Party to remember its liberal roots; something that they had forgotten about a long time ago. Once upon a time, the Democratic Party was supposed to advocate for and represent the middle class, and poor. They had become just another political party that was mostly pro-business; something they were never intended to be.

Another accomplishment of the Bernie Sanders campaign was that it got more people involved in voting and politics than ever before. Most people in this country have become so disillusioned and disaffected by our current political process and status quo that they began to believe that their vote mattered for very little if anything. Bernie Sanders finally succeeded in waking people up to the entire political process. People started to get excited about the first political candidate to whom they could relate. They can easily see that Bernie Sanders had their best interests at heart.

One of the things that I wonder about is whether Bernie Sanders thought he could win the presidency, or was he trying to force the Democrats into becoming the party that once had been. I suspect both may be true. Bernie Sanders and his campaign may have thought that they could not win the nomination. His consistent message about the various issues plaguing this country was like a constant drumbeat that could not be ignored.

Even though this particular article downplays the fact that Bernie Sanders’ campaign was intentionally sabotaged by the Democratic Party establishment, who were pushing for Hillary Clinton from the beginning. To me, the emails released by WikiLeaks the day before Debbie Wasserman Schultz resigned as chair of the Democratic Party, pretty much proves that sabotage by the Democratic Party status quo did exist.

However, I still plan on voting for Hillary Clinton because the alternative is almost unthinkable. Donald Trump would be a disaster to this entire country. For that reason, I will support Hillary Clinton and I would encourage other followers of Senator Bernie Sanders to do likewise. After the election is over, I will probably return to the Green party. The only thing that might stop me from doing that would be if the Democratic party actually started representing the middle-class and poor once again.



I couldn't agree on this whole set of subjects more than I do with this "4wheeled" writer. What he says is right on, and the way he says it is thrilling, especially, "The only thing that might stop me from doing that would be if the Democratic party actually started representing the middle-class and poor once again." I didn't leave the Democratic Party. They left me.