WIKILEAKS' JULIAN ASSANGE WINS PEACE PRIZE

Assange and his Sydney Peace Prize medal: Well deserved

Anyone above ground knows that the Nobel Peace Prize has become a pathetic joke.

Why? Well, take a look at some of these "winners": Henry Kissinger (mass murderer); Yasser Arafat, Shimon Peres and Yitzhak Rabin who shared the award in 1994 for all they did to bring "peace" between Israel and Palestine (absurd); Obama (huh?); Al Gore (c'mon, that's just silly); and on it goes.

There have been some worthy winners, like Mother Theresa, Amnesty International, and Albert Schweitzer, who said, many years ago: "Man has lost the capacity to foresee and to forestall, he will end by destroying the world."

There have also been glaring omissions: How Noam Chomsky hasn't been recognized by the Nobel noddies, I just don't know. But then, I have a similar attitude to awards as Woody Allen does: They're kind of dumb and meaningless most of the time.


Julian Assange Recognized

Still, for all of this, it was refreshing to hear that Julian Assange, he of Wikileaks fame, did snag a peace award this past week. He received the honor from the Sydney (Australia) Peace Foundation for "exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights."

Here's what foundation chief Stuart Rees had to say:

"For 14 years we've awarded the Sydney Peace Prize, but only on three occasions in 14 years have made an exception to the rule and awarded a gold medal for exceptional courage in pursuit of human rights.

"By challenging centuries-old practices of government secrecy and by championing people's right to know, WikiLeaks and Julian Assange have created the potential for a new order in journalism and in the free flow of information.

"Instead of demonizing an Australian citizen who has broken no law, the Australian government must stop shoring up Washington's efforts to behave like a totalitarian state. The treatment of alleged whistle-blower [U.S. Army Pvt.] Bradley Manning confirms a U.S. administration at odds with their commitment to universal human rights and intent on militaristic bullying."

And if you want to know the cred of the Sydney Peace Foundation award, the three previous winners for human rights are Nelson Mandela,the Dalai Lama, and Japanese Buddhist leader Daisaku Ikeda. Not a bloodthirsty megalomaniac among them.


Don't Let the Press Muddy the Waters

And, I say again, Assange's work with Wikileaks should not be looked at through the lens of the allegations of sexual assault he is currently faced with. That's a separate issue. He is innocent until proven guilty. If he is given a truly fair trial and found guilty, then he should be locked up. But his Wikileaks work has still reflected great courage and been a victory for truth and democracy.

The main point is, social change is not happening completely under the radar. Things are changing.

Empires crumble, despots fall, good can win out.

Best wishes,
Adrian

IF YOU FOUND THIS BLOG POST INTERESTING you might like to take a look at WIKILEAKS, IRAQ AND THE PRICE OF TRUTH.

GEORGE W. BUSH: STILL KING OF THE HYPOCRITES

George W. Bush: Moron, mass murderer, liar and coward.

I just read an AP news story titled "Bush nixes Denver visit, citing invite to Assange."

It read, in part:

DENVER – George W. Bush has canceled plans to visit Denver because WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was invited to attend one of the same events as the former president.

Bush planned to be at a Young Presidents Organization "Global Leadership Summit" Saturday but backed out when he learned Assange was invited.

Bush spokesman David Sherzer said Friday that Bush doesn't want to share a forum with someone who has "willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States."

"... willfully and repeatedly done great harm to the interests of the United States." Can anyone come up with a better definition of Bush's presidency? I guess if you threw in something about his willful and repeated harm to a long list of other nations, it would be a little more accurate.

It seems W. likes all his mass murder secrets kept locked away, like any self-respecting despot.

Best wishes,
Adrian

IF YOU FOUND THIS POST INTERESTING you might like to take a look at THE KEY FACTS ABOUT WIKILEAKS.

WIKILEAKS, IRAQ AND THE PRICE OF TRUTH

Wikileaks founder Julian Assange: prepared to wear a target to reveal the terrible truth.

The bile is piling up again.

The Pentagon/government has had enough of Wikileaks and its founder Julian Assange and they're firing every weapon in their propaganda arsenal.

I'd like to make just a few points on Wikileaks massive disgorging of approximately 400,000 government documents yesterday.


THE FALLOUT

As you probably know, the documents showed that civilian casualties in the Iraq invasion have been under-quoted by our government, that Abu Ghraib was an ongoing torture house, that the Iraqis who'd teamed up with us killed their own citizens while we looked the other way, etc etc etbloodycetra.

Firstly, it's worth noting the differences in how the media around the world reported this. I stress HOW as much as WHAT.

Overseas, the focus was generally on the war crimes and U.S. lies, and the stories reflected disgust. Here, in the mainstream mass media, nearly everything I read was padded much softer. And there was more focus on -- and TV head shaking over (Diane Sawyer, what a little actress!) -- Wikileaks and Assange.


THE RESPONSE

And so the smear and spin began here. Assange may be charged with rape in Sweden, the media told us. There's infighting and resignations at Wikileaks, the media reported. This latest exposing of documents puts out troops at risk, our officials were quoted as saying in nearly every initial article.

Okay, to answer those statements:

1/ If Assange is a rapist, lock him up. But that has nothing to do with the documents. He didn't forge them. They are real.

2/ Who cares?

3/ Aren't we intelligent enough to be told HOW this will endanger the troops (even without going into grand detail)? I truly suspect this argument is just a ruse. Clearly there is a lot of information that we, as citizens, SHOULD know and aren't told. If we WERE told, the population would see that the troops really do need to be made safe by bringing them home. But the government/corporations don't want that: It would be bad for business.


WHICH IS THE REAL CRIME?

Now, should Wikileaks be stealing government documents. Well, by the law of the land, no. But should our government be breaking international laws? Should it be keeping secrets about illegal activities? (Nixon got booted for a lot less than this!) In short, should it be doing all the things that the documents reveal?

No!

So, once again I say, not all rules are good rules. Not all laws are good laws. Wikileaks broke a law to reveal a much bigger evil.

We as a people in a purported democracy have a right to know A LOT MORE than our government tells us. And being treated like children who just aren't sophisticated enough to deal with it all is getting old. And it is elitism at its worst!

Our government needs to operate more openly. That doesn't include divulging tactics in legitimate, DEFENSIVE wars. But just about everything else.

Our media need to be taken back by the people. The fat cats who've stolen the airwaves and gobbled up the papers shape the perception we get of the world. THIS IS ONE OF THE TRUE PROBLEMS OF LIVING IN THE U.S. It's like living in a box with one selective hole punched in it that we can look out of.

We all must insist that the United Nations be restructured so that the U.S. doesn't have so much clout, and that THE U.N. be the judge of initiating military actions around the world and NOT America!

I also believe that if the U.S. engages in military invasions which are not supported by the U.N., then it is incumbent upon our military personnel to say "We won't go," en masse, and for the civilian population to support them completely.


CONCLUSION

Remember...

The people who run this country -- and much of the world -- the economic and political elites (and these two spheres overlap, of course), in tandem with our media and the PR industry, have a vested interest in keeping things as they are. They are not about to change a system that benefits them, and they are not about to talk the truth about it.

Bottom line: Our government's culpability justifies what Wikileaks has done.

It is the shame of our political and economic system that we have to steal the truth to get it.

Take care,
Adrian Zupp

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