<nettime> Shame of going against the tribe

[Morlock Elloi <morlockelloi@gmail.com>]

This resolved, for me, the mystery of disgust I had for the US 
'progressives', 'left' and 'democrats'. I always thought that they were 
far more sinister than the right, as they hijacked those who could do 
something, the well-spoken professors, artists, journalists, the nice 
educated people in khaki, turning the form into the value (the tanned 
POTUS spoke so well, while the present one is grabbing p*ssies, etc 
...), and castrating any possibility of the effect.
But their motivation was always a puzzle. What makes a supposedly 
sapient person with thinking tools drink that Kool Aid, and become a 
boot-licking mindless worm?
C. Johnstone figured it out: shame of going against the tribe.

Privately owned computerized human interaction exchanges (aka 'social 
media') certainly had a major hand in this. This never happened before, 
and, absent some new kind of cosmic rays, their existence is the only 
difference.
[ From
https://consortiumnews.com/2019/04/26/assanges-imprisonment-arguably-reveals-even-more-corruption-than-wikileaks-did/ 
]

Assange’s Imprisonment Arguably Reveals Even More Corruption Than 
WikiLeaks Did
April 26, 2019

By locking up Assange, the U.S, its allies and corporate media have 
inadvertently exposed themselves for what they are, and we’re now able 
to point that out for everyone to see, writes Caitlin Johnstone.
By Caitlin Johnstone

Consortium News has launched a new series titled “The Revelations of 
WikiLeaks”, geared toward helping readers come to a full appreciation of 
just how much useful information the outlet has made available to the 
world with its publications. Which is good, because there’s a whole lot 
of it. Understanding everything that WikiLeaks has done to shine light 
in areas that powerful people wish to keep dark makes it abundantly 
clear why powerful people would want to dedicate immense amounts of 
energy toward sabotaging it.
What’s even more interesting to me right now, though, is that if you 
think about it, the completely fraudulent arrest and imprisonment of 
Julian Assange arguably exposes more malfeasance by government and media 
powers than than what has been revealed in all WikiLeaks publications 
combined since its inception. And we can use that as a weapon in waking 
the world up to the dystopian manipulations of the powerful, in the same 
way we can use WikiLeaks publications.
Really, think about it. Thanks to WikiLeaks we know about a military 
cultural environment in the Iraq war that was toxic enough to give rise 
to U.S. servicemen merrily gunning down civilians, including two Reuters 
war correspondents, while whooping and exchanging verbal high-fives. We 
know that the CIA cultivated a massive cyber-arsenal which enables them 
to spy through smartphones and smart TVs, remotely hijack vehicles, and 
forge digital fingerprints on cyber-intrusions to make it look to 
forensic investigators as though hackers from another nation was 
responsible, and that they lost control of this arsenal.
 We know about the DNC’s agenda to undermine Bernie Sanders during the 
primary in violation of its charter, that Hillary Clinton told a group 
of Goldman Sachs executives that she understood the need to have “a 
public position and a private position,” and that Obama’s cabinet was 
basically selected for him by a Citigroup executive. We know that and a 
whole lot more, information which mainstream and alternative media 
reports use to this very day when constructing analyses of what’s going 
on in the world.
All of these things are of course hugely significant. But are they 
anywhere near as significant as the earth-shakingly scandalous 
revelation that the U.S. government and its allies conspired to imprison 
a journalist for reporting facts about the powerful? That the 
governments of America, Ecuador, the UK and Australia all worked in 
concert to arrange a series of bureaucratic technicalities which all 
aligned perfectly to create a situation that just so happens to look 
exactly the same as imprisoning a journalist for telling the truth?
The only thing which keeps this scandalous revelation from registering 
in the minds of the greater public with the magnitude it deserves is the 
fact that the mass media doesn’t treat it like the scandal that it so 
clearly is. If, for example, the mass media were treating this open act 
of tyranny with the same enthusiasm they treated the Democratic Party 
emails as they were published drop by drop in the lead-up to the 
presidential election, or the same enthusiasm they regarded the 
diplomatic cables or the “Collateral Murder” video, everyone would be up 
in arms at the fact that their government was acting in a way that is 
functionally indistinguishable from what’s done to journalists by the 
most totalitarian dictatorships in the world.
And that refusal of the mainstream media to run virtually anything but 
smear pieces is, in and of itself, a part of why this scandal is so 
breathtaking in its audacity. The legal precedent that they are 
attempting to set with the extradition, persecution and prosecution of 
Julian Assange for everyday acts of journalism will affect every 
journalist on the planet, working or retired, professional or citizen. 
This literally endangers the lives and freedom of every single person 
working in every single one of those outlets, and they are all either 
ignorantly cheering it on, or too scared to care. The CIA and Pentagon 
have weaponized public opinion by using the most advanced psychological 
weapons known to man, and although the main barrier to fighting his 
persecution is simply the social shame of going against the tribe, it’s 
effectively turned the press upon itself. The free press is gaslighting 
itself into total and absolute submission.
And we can see that this is happening. And we can point to it.

What I’m getting at with all this is that it’s important to keep in mind 
that the U.S.-centralized empire has given us information that can be 
used against it in devastating fashion if we’re clever. Even while 
Assange is locked behind bars, even while whistleblowers are being 
intimidated away from whistleblowing and journalists are being 
intimidated away from publishing leaks, we are being given information 
that we can circulate and attack the propaganda machine that’s keeping 
humanity docile and enslaved.
By locking up Assange, they’ve inadvertently exposed themselves for what 
they are, and we are now able to point at it for everyone to see. They 
reached too far out into the light and exposed their true face.
Never stop using this information to attack the promulgators and 
beneficiaries of disinformation. Never stop referring to the U.S. and UK 
as “a government which imprisons journalists for publishing inconvenient 
facts”. Never stop calling out the hypocrisy when westerners criticize 
other governments for locking up journalists. Never stop reminding 
people who pretend to care about the free press when Trump makes mean 
tweets about a CNN reporter that they are willfully ignoring a threat to 
the free press that is infinitely greater in this administration’s 
prosecution of Assange. This is what they are. If anyone denies it, 
engage them in debate and show everyone why they’re wrong.
We are still very much in this fight. Whenever they reach into the light 
to silence the truth, the light shines upon their face and burns them. 
They reach their arms into the light of truth, and their arms turn to 
dust. Whenever they try to fight truth head-on, they cannot help but 
show the world what they really are.
Never, ever stop reminding everyone of what has undeniably been revealed 
in the imprisonment of Julian Assange.
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