Assange – Useful Idiot or Willing Dupe of the US Right and Putin’s Russia?

Recently there have been calls and pressure on the Biden Democratic administration, by supporters of Assange in Australia and the U.K., for him not to be deported and possibly pardoned (for charges brought by Trump administration), while many others contest his ‘journalism’ credentials, or at least how unhelpful his cause has been for journalism.

Convenient timing, as one observes how this also segues into criticism of Australia’s newish Labor government for not doing enough on his release, but ignores inactivity by both the former LNP conservative coalition government and the UK Conservative government, over many years to reach a solution; they didn’t even try?

Many supporters of Assange ignore salient facts of how he used Wikileaks, or at least went off piste on protocols when releasing material, links with Russia, Trump’s team, FoxNews, murder conspiracy theories and Assange’s vendetta towards Hilary Clinton, favouring Trump and the GOP.

Worse, many of the same supporters also share talking points with RWNJs, FoxNews/RT, Koch’s GOP Freedom Caucus, Trump, conspiracy theorists, pro Russian invasion, anti-vaxxer, anti-Covid science and related health measures.

For context, the experience of the same, including Assange cannot be compared to the risks that journalists, activists, politicians, NGOs and young people take in Russia, Turkey or elsewhere, where they are routinely censored, threatened, beaten, arrested, convicted, long gaol terms and simple murder or assassination. 

‘Mother Jones: ‘Denounce Julian Assange. Don’t Extradite Him.  

David Corn 17 December 2021

The prosecution of the conniving WikiLeaks founder poses a threat to American journalism. Julian Assange deserves condemnation. He doesn’t deserve extradition.

Last week, Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks who remains imprisoned in England, received bad news. A British judge ruled in favor of a US government request that Assange be extradited to the United States to face charges under the Espionage Act for having published classified diplomatic and military cables. This was a troubling development for anyone who cares about journalism and free speech.

The court decision was the latest turn in a long-running global legal battle. In April 2019, an indictment against Assange was unsealed in the United States. The charge was relatively minor: conspiracy to commit computer intrusion. The maximum possible sentence was five years imprisonment. It stemmed from his alleged effort in 2010 to help Chelsea Manning, then a US soldier, hack a classified database from which she obtained 750,000 secret military and State Department documents that she slipped to WikiLeaks. But weeks later the Trump administration further indicted Assange under the Espionage Act for having publicly posted the material WikiLeaks received from Manning. For that, he faces up to 170 years in prison.

This prosecution poses a serious threat to democracy. I’ll turn to that in a moment. But one PR problem with the case is that Assange is a highly unsympathetic character, for he is partly responsible for the damage done by Donald Trump during his presidency: 400,000 or more preventable deaths of Americans in the COVID-19 pandemic; the lack of action to address climate change; the promotion of disinformation and lies to incite a violent attack on the US Capitol; a tax cut that favored the wealthy and added to the national debt; right-wing appointments to the Supreme Court that could lead to the severe curtailing of reproductive rights for women; the spread of bigotry and racial hatred; the suppression of voting rights; cutbacks in government health programs; creeping (or galloping) authoritarianism; and so much more.

The United States has suffered greatly because of Assange. In 2016, he collaborated with the Russian attack on the US election to help Trump win. As has been detailed by several government investigations—including in special counsel Robert Mueller’s final report and in a bipartisan report issued by the Senate Intelligence Committee last year—after Russian intelligence teams hacked Democratic targets, they passed the stolen emails and documents to WikiLeaks, which then publicly disseminated the material.

The Senate report notes that Assange’s group “timed its document releases for maximum political impact.” That is, WikiLeaks wasn’t acting in a noble information-sharing manner. It sought to weaponize the information pilfered by Vladimir Putin’s operatives to cause harm to candidate Hillary Clinton, whom Assange and WikiLeaks had disparaged as a “sadistic sociopath” and a threat to the world. (“We believe it would be much better for [the] GOP to win,” WikiLeaks had tweeted.)

In disseminating the stolen information, WikiLeaks behaved more as a political hit squad than a media organization. For example, when the Washington Post on October 7, 2016, published the Access Hollywood video showing Trump bragging about grabbing women “by the pussy,” half an hour later WikiLeaks began releasing emails Russian hackers had swiped from John Podesta, the chair of Hillary Clinton’s campaign. This was a counterblow, an attempt to rescue Trump with a distraction. And to inflict the most pain it could on the Clinton campaign, WikiLeaks did not dump all the Podesta information at once (as it had done with its previous release of Democratic Party material at the start of the Democrats’ convention that July). Instead, the group doled out the documents in batches, almost daily, to ensure there would be a steady stream of negative Clinton stories for the final four weeks of the campaign. Assange and WikiLeaks were full partners with Putin in a plot aimed at electing Trump president.

And Assange tried to cover up Russia’s role in this perfidious operation. As the Senate report states:

Assange and WikiLeaks undertook efforts to obscure the source of the stolen emails, including through false narratives. Assange’s use of such disinformation suggests Assange possibly knew of and sought to hide Russian involvement. One narrative from Assange involved a conspiracy theory that Seth Rich, a DNC staffer killed in a botched robbery, was the source of the DNC email and had been murdered in response. On August 9 [2016], Assange gave an interview on Dutch television implying that Rich was the source of the DNC emails, and that day WikiLeaks announced that it would be issuing a reward for information about Rich’s murder. In a subsequent interview, Assange commented about the WikiLeaks interest in the Rich case as concerning “someone who’s potentially connected to our publication.” The Committee found that no credible evidence supports this narrative.

Assange was pushing a baseless and odious conspiracy theory (which caused tremendous distress for Rich’s family) that was also being championed by conspiracy nutter Alex Jones, Fox News’ Sean Hannity, and Russian intelligence. His apparent goal was to hide the Kremlin’s role in the pro-Trump/anti-Clinton hack-and-leak scheme that WikiLeaks was facilitating. This is not how a legitimate news organization functions. (By the way, the Senate report also issued this indictment of the Trump campaign: “The Trump Campaign publicly undermined the attribution of the hack-and-leak campaign to Russia and was indifferent to whether it and WikiLeaks were furthering a Russian election interference effort.” That is, Trump and his crew aided and abetted Moscow’s attack on the 2016 election.)

Assange and WikiLeaks connived and lied to help Trump vanquish Clinton. The Podesta information dumps were a steady drag on the Clinton campaign in the final stretch, often preventing it from gaining traction for its own messages and themes. These releases also served as a constant reminder to the public of her own email controversy—and as an effective setup for the last-minute revelation from then–FBI Director James Comey that the bureau might have unearthed missing or previously destroyed Clinton emails. (It hadn’t.)

Given how close the election ended up, the Russia-WikiLeaks operation was one of several factors that determined the outcome. Remove Putin’s hackers and Assange’s outfit from the picture, and Clinton probably would have won. (Ditto for Comey’s move, as well as for Clinton’s own decision not to do more in several swing states in the last week.) Assange can (proudly?) claim a degree of ownership of the election results. That means he also partly owns what came afterward. He and WikiLeaks opposed Clinton, they contended, because she was a warmonger. There is no way of telling whether she would have started any wars had she been president. But it’s a damn good bet that had she been in charge during the pandemic, far fewer Americans would have perished.

Assange ought to be punished—if only ostracized and widely denigrated—for his 2016 skullduggery. But the extradition case at hand does not address that. Focused on an earlier episode, it is an excessive use of legal force by the US government—first the Trump administration and now the Biden administration. The Obama administration considered charging Assange for releasing the Manning material under the Espionage Act—which was intended to be used against spies and their collaborators—but it was concerned about a negative impact on journalists. Obtaining and publishing classified documents—and asking sources to provide such material—is a common activity for many news organizations.

When Assange was indicted on these espionage charges, John Demers, then the head of the Justice Department’s National Security Division, said Assange was “no journalist.” Given Assange’s underhanded partnership with Russian intelligence, that may well be an accurate statement. But the actions for which he has been indicted under the Espionage Act are the actions of reporters. And media organizations are correct to worry about a precedent being established. (Most Espionage Act cases have involved government employees who leaked classified information.) As the New York Times reported at the time of the Assange indictment, “Notably, The New York Times, among many other news organizations, obtained precisely the same archives of documents from WikiLeaks, without authorization from the government—the act that most of the charges addressed… [I]t is not clear how that is legally different from publishing other classified information.”

Media outlets and free speech advocates have justifiably howled about this case. Kenneth Roth, the executive director of Human Rights Watch, noted, “The Assange prosecution threatens these basic elements of modern journalism and democratic accountability.” And the Committee to Protect Journalists last week issued this statement: “The U.S. Justice Department’s dogged pursuit of the WikiLeaks founder has set a harmful legal precedent for prosecuting reporters simply for interacting with their sources. The Biden administration pledged at its Summit for Democracy this week to support journalism. It could start by removing the threat of prosecution under the Espionage Act now hanging over the heads of investigative journalists everywhere.”

Considering all the devastation Assange enabled with his 2016 plot against America, it is tough to embrace him as a free-speech martyr. But those who care about accountability and excessive government power don’t always get to choose the battles that must be waged to preserve First Amendment freedoms. Assange mounted a damaging attack on the United States and facilitated a profound subversion of its political system. Still, his prosecution under the Espionage Act is another assault on American democracy.

Assange’s attorneys say they will appeal the decision, which calls for a lower court to send the case to the British home secretary for a decision on whether Assange ought to be extradited. Meanwhile, Assange will remain in Belmarsh Prison in London. He spent almost seven years in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, ducking extradition to Sweden for a sex crimes case, which was dropped in 2015; he was arrested in 2019 related to bail-skipping charges and the extradition warrant from the United States.

Assange did help put in the White House a wannabe authoritarian who demonized reporters and dangerously claimed the media was the “enemy of the people.” (And the ingrate paid Assange back by indicting him.) Yet now his personal fate is tied to the protection of First Amendment rights. The Biden administration ought to drop Espionage Act case against Assange—not for his sake, but for the rest of us.’

Degrowth and Steady State Economy or Eugenics for the Environment Debunked

In recent years with pressure on fossil fuels and the need to transition to renewable sources, now compounded by Russian invasion of Ukraine, has seen renewed promotion of ZPG Zero Population Growth with Herman Daly and Club of Rome inspired ‘steady-state economy’ and ‘degrowth’ as scientific theories; part of a crossover between nativist Tanton Network and libertarian Koch Network.

However, there is little if any evidence to show a direct correlation or causation of the simplistic presentation between economic growth and environmental degradation or carbon emissions; in fact there is contradictory evidence that shows many advanced economies which have grown while reducing carbon emissions.

Accordingly, why are these theories being developed and promoted in the first place?

There are multiple reasons including the citing of ‘population growth’ as an environmental hygiene issue, deflecting from fossil fuels and carbon emissions in the developed world, hence, the need for immigration restrictions on developing nation citizens as the solution, based upon the old pseudoscience of eugenics, masquerading as liberal and environmental.

The following recent article excerpts from Deutsche Welle explain further the contradictions and counter examples. 

‘Can degrowth stop climate change and end poverty?

A growing movement of researchers want to shrink rich economies to stop the planet from heating — but both supporters and critics are gambling on prosperity and climate stability for billions of people across the world.

It is one of the most daunting tasks humanity faces: stopping climate change and ending poverty at the same time.

But the best-laid plans to do so are dangerously speculative, a DW analysis shows. Betting on green growth risks overheating the planet, while degrowth in rich countries could worsen poverty elsewhere.

In 2015 world leaders promised to try and cap global warming at 1.5 degrees Celsius (2.7 Fahrenheit) by the end of the century — but temperatures are hurtling toward that threshold, which is likely to be crossed in a decade, and current policies are set to heat the planet 2.7 C instead. Sticking to even that level of heating assumes humanity will suck pollutants out of the atmosphere with costly technologies that are unproven at scale. 

Alarmed, some researchers want the countries most responsible for having warped the climate to abandon their pursuit of economic growth and use less energy — most of which comes from burning fossil fuels. But cheerleaders of degrowth lack the detailed modeling to show what these policies would mean for poverty across the world.

There is no academic literature at a global level to show removing that much carbon or degrowing economies works, said Yamina Saheb, a lead author of a review of climate solutions published by the UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in April 2022. “We don’t have the answers.”

Decoupling GDP growth from greenhouse gas pollution

Supporters of green growth — the pathway most world leaders are taking to tackle climate change — want to break the link between economic (GDP) growth and greenhouse gas emissions.

Bigger incomes are correlated with higher standards of living. As people get richer, they can afford healthier and happier lives.

But data for many economies around the world shows that more money means more pollution. The more things people buy, the more energy they use.

Most of that comes from burning fuels that clog the atmosphere with heat-trapping gas.

Humanity has begun to buck that trend.

For decades, countries like Germany and the UK have grown their economies while cutting their carbon pollution. Policymakers have shuttered coal plants, forced factories to work more efficiently and built wind turbines and solar panels that make clean electricity. 

An analysis published last year found 32 countries had decoupled GDP growth from greenhouse gas emissions. After accounting for emissions embodied in goods they imported from abroad, this fell to 23 countries.

But in big economies from Brazil to Indonesia, growth and pollution are still tightly linked.

The sluggish pace of change has led degrowth researchers to sound alarm bells. A 2020 review paper found decoupling rates were too low to hold global warming to 1.5 C. 

If governments were to cut emissions fast enough to get there, it would imply a drop in energy use so great that GDP would likely decline, too, said Lorenz Keysser, a researcher at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich who has published studies on degrowth. “It’s not a goal of degrowth to reduce GDP. It’s just an anticipated consequence — and one which needs to be prepared for.” 

Scientists lack research on degrowth and carbon dioxide removal

Green growth and degrowth supporters agree poor countries should grow richer so living standards can rise. Their dispute centers around whether the rich world — which has eaten more than its fair share of the carbon cake and refuses to divide the rest up equally — should be allowed to grow as well.

But scientists have no clear answers — because they lack in-depth modeling showing what degrowth policies would do to society. All 3000 scenarios for cutting emissions evaluated in the latest IPCC report assume countries will keep growing richer.

That has created a conundrum for scientists trying to show policy makers how they can keep global warming to 1.5 C even as energy demand rises and the carbon budget shrinks. The solution their models came up with is to overshoot the 1.5 C target before sucking CO2 out of the atmosphere and bringing temperatures back down later in the century.

This pathway — green growth followed by carbon dioxide removal — is baked into political commitments to reach net-zero emissions. Without relying on these technologies, the remaining carbon budget for hitting the 1.5 C target will be exhausted by about 2044 if countries cut emissions at a constant rate.

The IPCC report found that removing some amount of carbon dioxide is now unavoidable to counter emissions in sectors that are hard to clean up. But the technologies to do so are expensive and untested at the large scales used in the models. Some forms of carbon dioxide removal take up such vast amounts of land that many scientists are reluctant to bet on their widespread use.

Degrowing rich countries could slow fight against poverty

But calls to cut energy demand could make poverty worse, critics of degrowth counter. Protestors pushing for an end to growth often overlook the distinction that academics make between targeting rich countries and not poor ones.

In fact, the net result of degrowth in rich countries and growth in poor ones may be enough to make the global economy bigger. The answer depends on the scale of growth needed to bring people out of poverty.

“To get anywhere close to an end of poverty very large growth is needed, even in a future in which the inequality in the world would be reduced massively,” said Max Roser, an economist at the University of Oxford and director of the platform Our World in Data. An analysis he published last year found the world economy would need to grow five-fold for everybody to reach an income level of US$30 per day, which is roughly the poverty line in a rich country.

But focusing on growing the economy to end poverty is a poor way to achieve well-being, supporters of degrowth argue.

A 2021 study found world leaders could stop climate change at 1.5 C and raise living standards by consuming less energy. Providing people with enough energy for a decent standard of living – with good food, shelter, health, education and transport – would require one-fourth of the energy demand projected by 2050, the researchers found.

Such a proposal would upend big, energy-intensive economies but reduce pressure on the climate. It will be very difficult to stay within planetary boundaries if we take our inefficient way of delivering wellbeing in rich countries and continue to scale it up, said Jarmo Kikstra, a climate modeler at the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis and lead author of the study.

So far, calls for degrowth have been limited to activists and academics rather than policymakers in countries suffering most from climate change. They have demanded rich polluters cut emissions and pay for the destruction wrought by violent weather extremes — but have not demanded they consume less. 

Experts fear that cutting growth in rich countries could also hurt growth in poor ones. Stopping luxury consumption like fast-changing fashions and foreign holidays would be a blow to industries that form the engine of growth in countries from South Africa to Sri Lanka.

In response, degrowth researchers say they are trying not just to stop climate change but also fight for economic justice. Curbing growth in the rich world would need to happen alongside policies to support domestic industries in poor countries and end unequal trade relationships, they say, though they do not have models to show these effects.

The economic hit could be offset if the countries most responsible for climate change paid reparations in the form of money and patented technology needed to decarbonize, said Fadhel Kaboub, an economist at Denison University in the US who studies financial sovereignty in poor countries. “We’re really talking about a climate debt that needs to be paid.”

Yet even while scientists are undecided on the need for degrowth to stop climate change, they are clear that technological solutions alone are not enough.

In homes, for instance, improvements in efficiency have so far been matched by increases in living space. On roads, the pollution avoided by electrifying cars has been offset by the rise in heavier SUVs.

The latest IPCC report found policies to slash energy demand can cut emissions 40-70% by 2050 through measures like flying less, insulating homes and replacing meat in diets with plants. It highlighted the need for policies to increase sufficiency — meeting human needs within the boundaries of the remaining carbon budget — as well as continuing to improve technological efficiency.

“The choice today is between saying we need sufficiency policies right now … or continuing with incremental improvements,” Saheb said.

For more articles related to demography, economics, environment, GDP growth, limits to growth, population growth and white nationalism click through below:

Malthus on Population Growth, Economy, Environment, White Nationalism and Eugenics

Economic Growth of Transactions vs. Consumption of Resources

Greenwashing – Club of Rome – Limits to Growth – Astroturfing Fossil Fuels – The Guardian

Adam Smith – Classical Liberal Economics or Conservative Calvinist Christianity or White Christian Nationalism?

Buy Local – Not Global – Issues of Nationalist Trade Policies

Population, Environment and White Nationalists in Australia – US Links

Tactics Against Bipartisan Climate Change Policy in Australia – Limits to Growth?