The "Official Nick's BB" Trump Impeachment thread!

[3.14159]

Knock knock!
Who's there?
The whistleblower!
The whistleblower who?
The whistle-blowers identity is protected by Law you moron!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uoPT3Z6OSBY

[pietillidie]

The live witness intimidation was something to behold. As I say, bring in the white coats.

[David]

[watt price tully]

[pietillidie]

[3.14159]

[David]

^ Utter nonsense. The extradition case he is facing right now has been in the works since 2012, and probably would have been put together even sooner if they’d been able to get their hands on him in 2010. What’s more, he never should have had to "face up" to the allegations in the first place; he is not a US citizen and doesn’t fall into their jurisdiction. Even so, he did and does have a strong case, but none of that ever mattered a jot, because he’s facing a grand jury (which would, as Geoffrey Robertson puts it, "indict a ham sandwich"). It doesn’t matter what administration is in power in that scenario.

Snowden, too, could have faced "justice" under a Democratic administration, but he took the much more sensible route of fleeing the country and seeking asylum elsewhere. And while Obama did the right thing by pardoning Manning, it was only after she’d endured horrific conditions in prison and served 7 years of a 35 year sentence (she’s back in prison again now as a result of refusing to inform on Assange in front of the aforementioned grand jury, incidentally).

What’s most galling about all this is seeing nominal progressives lose their shit over Trump’s garden-variety political corruption (i.e. slightly more brazen and clumsy iterations of the same old backroom standover tactics, blackmail and foreign interference that have been a feature of American foreign policy since the end of the second world war) while shrugging at much more urgent whistleblowing: that is, exposure of corruption on a much wider and more systemic level, including war crimes, mass surveillance and multinational tax avoidance. To expose stuff like that from the inside (or, like Assange, by building impenetrable frameworks for classified information to be conveyed and published) takes incredible bravery and requires significant personal risk, and, in my view, such people are heroes. Anyone who genuinely cares about social progress – and realises that it requires a recalibration of power – should be able to recognise the urgency of that work, and the need to offer protection for such people. But I get the sense that many Democratic Party supporters have no interest in the bigger picture, and are content so long as their party and their guy wins.

Nothing could be a better representation of the individualisation of mainstream politics: Trump is a bad guy, so he – rather than the rot that he oversees – is seen as the problem, and removing him the ultimate solution. Meanwhile, the fact of the superpower he is in charge of intimidating and destroying the few brave enough to stand up to it is ignored (or even cheered on) because, again, Assange might not be such a nice guy, so **** him. It’s a shallow, impotent, cowardly politics, and one that, in my view, is thoroughly complicit in the crimes of empire.

[3.14159]

Why should you (or anyone) give a toss about the travails of one pasty-faced Australian when there are thousands of babies being killed in Yeman at the hands of Crown Prince MBS and over 16,000 soldiers murdered in Russias war with Ukraine?

Or is selective empathy the sole provence of the Greens?

[David]

You don’t get it, do you? Assange’s work has primarily revolved around exposing the lies that governments tell their citizens in order to make wars like that possible. The goal of extraditing and imprisoning Assange is not just to punish him in particular; it’s a message to anyone who would seek to expose US corruption to sit down, shut up and mind their own business, or else they’re next. That’s a huge victory for the war machine over the ordinary citizen. The fact that these global outrages are happening now is a symptom of that same power imbalance.

Speaking of the Greens, they have consistently spoken out against Saudi war crimes in Yemen. Do you know what your party’s policy is on Australia’s funding of that atrocity? Do you care?

https://newmatilda.com/2017/03/29/new-matilda-exclusive-alp-changes-stance-on-yemen-from-silence-to-waffly-garbage/

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/sep/05/australia-may-be-complicit-in-war-crimes-if-it-supports-saudi-led-coalition-in-yemen-un

[3.14159]

[Wokko]

[David]

[David]

[3.14159]

[Wokko]