Update: Dec. 17, 2010 1:03 PM.
Assange defends himself & Wikileaks while US mainstream Media still trying to paint him as a villain for leaking the Diploamatic Cables and they still take seriously the bogus rape charges.
Today Show interview of Julian Assange via Huffington Post
Julian Assange Interview: WikiLeaks Founder On 'Today' Show via Huffington Post , Dec. 17, 2010
The Today show interviewed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on Friday after his release from prison on bail Thursday afternoon. During the interview, he described his recent court appearances as "not the beginning of the end, rather it is merely the end of the beginning."
Assange confirmed that he has heard there will be espionage charges filed against him in the U.S., and denied knowing Bradley Manning, the U.S. Army intelligence analyst accused of providing WikiLeaks with information. The U.S. is allegedly putting together a case against Assange on conspiracy charges.
The beleaguered founder also spoke about the rape charges filed against him in Sweden, for which he was recently imprisoned in England. He called the allegations a "very successful smear campaign," but said that the public was beginning to question the story. Assange is currently fighting extradition to Sweden, arguing that he has seen no evidence in the case.
Despite spending over a week "in the basement of a Victorian prison," as Assange put it, the Internet activist remained defiant and seemed confident throughout the interview.
Watch the entire exchange:
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Where as once signs were posted by various businesses preventing targeted ethnic, religious or racial groups such as Catholics, Irish, Jews, blacks , Hispanics, Asians they now target Muslims without much fear of a backlash because everyday the government and Media and the xenophobic uberconservatives tell them that Muslims in America and in Europe are a real and present danger.
Our society it appears needs an "Other" to hate and fear to prove that we are in some way more civilized, more advanced and better than the "Other".Such prejudice and bigotry is a distraction from reality which may be unpalatable. Such prejudice and bigotry is part of the demonization of those who are not like ourselves. The elites play on such fears and prejudice as scapegoats for whatever problems are facing society as a whole or difficulties facing a specific group which in some way feels threatened. So for instance a high employment rate is due to the newer immigrants or is a matter of social policies such as preferential hiring ie as a corrective to past injustices or caused by attempts for instance at gender equality . Demonization is also encouraged in order to further justify unnecessary foreign wars . It is easier to kill individuals within a group or to marginalize or ethnically cleanse a society of those who are seen as a danger to the "homogeneity "or "purity" of a societyif they are seen as a little less than human as brutal , blood thirsty savages etc.
A Store Owner Posts a Sign ‘No Muslims Inside’ via Islamophobia Today, Dec. 10, 2010
Bargraph shows only 0.4 % of terrorist attacks in UK were by Islamic Terrorists.
Julian Assange Editor in Chief at Wikileaks in a police van.
The government and Media's distortion of the actual threat from Islamic terrorists tends to fuel prejudice against all Muslims as this billboard suggests.
A Store Owner Posts a Sign ‘No Muslims Inside’ via Islamophobia Today, Dec. 10, 2010
Islamophobia is embedded in our culture from pundits and bloggers constantly spewing hatred. This phobia trickles down to the normal, hardworking citizens who believe that this phobia, which is a hatred, is part of the norms.
The fuss over a sign in Alabama at an electronics store reading “BBQ PORK RESTURANT (sic) IS SAFEST NO MUSLIMS INSIDE” shocked its longtime owner who said he doesn’t understand why it’s such a big deal.
Electronic Repair Company owner Chuck Biddinger, who put up the sign last week, said he meant the message as a joke. After all, he said, it wasn’t even the most offensive one he had ever posted.
That award goes to a sign he posted last May that read “A dog is wiser than a woman – it does not bark at its master,” earned heat from domestic violence groups in Alabama.
“The women’s groups went ballistic,” he told the Daily News when he picked up the phone at his East Lake, Ala., shop.
Biddinger said to pacify them he put a public service announcement urging victims of domestic violence to call a hotline.
But he said this sign, which has garnered national attention, has gotten more positive reaction than negative – and he has no plans to apologize to anyone offended.
“I have gotten a few complaints about it, but for every one complaint about it I’ve had, 10 people tell me that they like it and support it,” he said.
He told local television station ABC 33/40 that while it was meant as a lighthearted joke, it was true.
“Muslims do not eat pork,” he told the television station. “It’s a known fact that Muslims have tried to commit crimes in this country.”
On Friday, Biddinger said he planned to take the sign down sometime soon, but hadn’t quite had the time to do it – and was still looking for something equally eye-catching. Signs outside his shop are changed every week, usually with jokes he receives via email chains.
Many of them are not politically correct. But the coverage of this one, he said, has been unbelievable.
“I never thought about that until it got picked up on the Internet and it went totally viral when I put this sign up,” he said.
When asked by The News if he understood why this sign might have gotten more attention than other racist or or sexist signs he may have posted, he replied, “No, ma’am.”
After all, he said, he wasn’t worried about people’s feelings.
“For the local area, if I offend a few Muslims, there will be a lot of people who support it,” he said.
Not to mention, all the coverage of his repair shop from the sign is good for business.
“I believe it’s a positive,” he said.
People interviewed by ABC 33/40 agreed, laughing at the words on the sign when a reporter showed it to them.
“I think it’s hilarious to me that they would feel that way,” one man said. “But I’m not offended about it at all.”
nmandell@nydailynews.com
"Information is the currency of democracy" -Thomas jefferson
JOHN PILGER - WIKILEAKS - "THE WAR YOU DONT SEE" TRAILER - ABC RADIO
Everyday there are knew revelations care of the 960 diplomatic cables released by Wikileaks and the mainstream Media in America is fearful or just don't care or are on the side of the elites in this matter. Millions of Americans are being intimidated and threatened in one way or another by Homeland Security insisting it may be in fact treasonous to even read the cables or an analysis of their content.
Before Wikileaks disclosed the so called "classified" diplomatic cables they were accessible to some 3 million government employees; so how secret are they.
What the media is doing is a bit of sleight of hand in which the focus is on Julian Assange & his organization Wikileaks rather than focusing on the actual content of the diplomatic cables which paint a rather ugly picture of America and its scheming , spying , condescending megalomaniacs who treat other nations as merely pawns in Corporate America's political games to further their own agendas from the soda companies Coke & Pepsi to Dupont and the Military Industrial Complex selling conventional weaponry and the not so conventional Napalm/ White phosphorus and Land Mines and cluster bombs all intended to kill indiscriminately with the maximum damage to people rather than hard targets or even insurgents .
The U.S. plan in Iraq and Afghanistan is similar to France in Algiers 1958-1964 before they were forced to leave with their heads bowed down in shame.
The French like the Americans used torture & death squads and indiscriminate killing of civilians intending to fill the populace with fear to terrorize them which would lead the Algerian indigenous peoples to give up their fight for Independence and Justice.
At that time France was being stubborn trying to keep the last of their colonies.
The British in the 1920s & 1930s to fight the Arabs seeking independence Britain used overwhelming brutal force. The so called honorable Brits committed massacres , assassinations, they too used torture and death squads ( like the Brown and Tan thugs in Ireland who were working for Britain under the control of people like Winston Churchill who used similar tactics in Arabia.) Churchill and others in command in Arabia pursued a scorched earth policy to maintain their power in Arabia. Massacring one village after another of men , women and children seemed acceptable to the British public as the US is doing now.
At the moment I am reading a great book about Arab history entitled The Arabs A History by Eugene Rogan (2009).Every page reveals new bits of information and great insights by the author. The book is written somewhat sympathetic to the Arabs whose world was invaded by the colonial powers from the 1700s to the present. From the Ottomans and Turks to British, French, Germans , Italians and now its America's turn to interfere with the present and future of a Sovereign People.
As this book and others point out they the Arabs and Muslims don't hate America for its freedoms or democracy -they hate all colonial powers who are out to fulfill their own strategic and materialistic goals which is to have access to cheap oil and other natural resources including a cheap half- starved desperate workforce. All of this is achieved not by democracy but by brutal force, intimidation , blockades, sanctions and acts of piracy (ie Gaza freedom Flotilla). The colonial powers decide whether or not a country is permitted to build up its own military even for self-defense ( ie as the Western Powers did by denying weapons to the Arabs when the state of Israel was formed or as they did in refusing to allow arms to be shipped to the Bosnian/Serbian Muslims allowing the Serbs to kill tens of thousands of their fellow citizens who happen to be Muslims)
Europol Report: All Terrorists are Muslims…Except the 99.6% that Aren’t 28 January 2010 by Danios at Loonwatch.com
the 2009 Europol report concludes:
Islamist terrorism is still perceived as being the biggest threat worldwide, despite the fact that the EU only faced one Islamist terrorist attack in 2008. This bomb attack took place in the UK…Separatist terrorism remains the terrorism area which affects the EU most. This includes Basque separatist terrorism in Spain and France, and Corsican terrorism in France…Past contacts between ETA and the FARC illustrate the fact that also separatist terrorist organizations seek cooperation partners outside the EU on the basis of common interests. In the UK, dissident Irish republican groups, principally the RIRA and the CIRA, and other paramilitary groups may continue to engage in crime and violence.
Perception is not reality. Due to the right wing’s influence and propaganda, people mistakenly think that Islamic terrorism is the greatest threat to the Western world. It is even a commonly held belief that Islamic terrorism poses an existential threat–that the very survival of the Western world is at stake. Of course, the reality is that there are other groups that engage in terrorism on a much larger scale, yet these terrorist incidents are minimized. Acts of terrorism committed by Muslims are purposefully sensationalized and focused upon, culminating in the idea that “(nearly) all terrorists are Muslims.”
Terrorism from Islamic extremists is certainly a cause for concern, but it need not be an issue that creates mass hysteria. Nor should it be allowed to be such a critical issue that we are willing to sacrifice our ideals or civil rights for fear of it.
WikiLeaks: Australian Intelligence Assessment Says AlQaeda Threat “Vastly Overstated” by Philip Dorling, Dec. 15, 2010 via Islamophobia Today
A SECRET Australian intelligence assessment has declared the al-Qaeda terrorist network a failure and claims its regional offshoot, Jemaah Islamiah, has been broken in Indonesia.
The head of Australia’s intelligence analysis agency, the Office of National Assessments, told US diplomats in October 2008 that al-Qaeda ”ultimately has failed to achieve the strategic leadership role it sought within the Islamic world”.
The assessment undercuts a key argument of the Gillard government to justify Australia’s continued commitment to the war in Afghanistan: that al-Qaeda could return to use the country as a terrorist training ground.
Australian intelligence officers instead blamed Taliban success in Afghanistan on the failings of the Afghan government and the involvement of Pakistan’s intelligence and security agencies.
Pressed by the US diplomats for an overall assessment of Islamist terrorist threats, the then ONA director-general, Peter Varghese, gave a strongly upbeat view.
He told the visiting head of the State Department’s Bureau of Intelligence and Research, Randall Fort, that terrorism was ”a good news story that is getting better, with the violent Islamist threat receding”.
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