Consortium News

It may be worse than McCarthyism, which was defeated by its own excesses. Today's information war against individuals and media who do not adhere to the Western-government-enforced narrative on Ukraine is part of a long history in the U.S. of officially crushing dissent. With the advances of technology for both surveillance and censorship, we might be in the most chilling atmosphere yet for thought control. Will it too be brought down by its own excesses? The First Amendment has not prevented the U.S. from suppressing speech throughout its history. Just eight years after the adoption of the Bill of Rights, press freedom had become a threat to John Adams, the second president, whose Federalist Party pushed through Congress the Alien and Sedition Laws. They criminalized criticism of the federal government: "To write, print, utter or publish, or cause it to be done, or assist in it, any false, scandalous, and malicious writing against the government of the United States, or either House of Congress, or the President, with intent to defame, or bring either into contempt or disrepute...” was banned. Congress did not renew the Act in 1801. Freedom of the press and speech next came significantly under attack in the lead up to the 1860-65 U.S. Civil War. Newspaper editors who campaigned for the abolition of slavery were attacked by mobs, sometimes directed by elected officials. In 1837 an editor was killed by a mob, one of whose organizers was the Illinois attorney general. During the war numerous editors and journalists were arrested in the North. "Throughout the war, newspaper reporters and editors were arrested without due process for opposing the draft, discouraging enlistments in the Union army, or even criticizing the income tax," according to the First Amendment Encyclopedia. While formal censorship was excluded from the 1917 Espionage Act by just one vote in the U.S. Senate, the 1918 Sedition Act was a two-paragraph amendment that was aimed at Americans who insulted the U.S. government, military or flag and who tried to criticize the draft, military industry or sale of war bonds. This law distilled the essence of enforced loyalty of the population to the symbols and military power of the state. It demolished the idea that America is exceptional as it showed the U.S. enforcing the same state-worship as most nations in history. The act, with similar federal laws, was used to convict at least 877 people in 1919 and 1920, most infamously the socialist presidential candidate Eugene V. Debs who was sentenced to 10 years in prison for publicly opposing the military draft in a June 1918 speech. Publications such as The Masses were also prosecuted. The Sedition Act was repealed by Congress in March 1921. During the First World War the peculiar American practice of renaming food to erase the enemy began. Sauerkraut became liberty cabbage. During the 2003 invasion of Iraq French fries became freedom fries, because France opposed the war. Today Dostoevsky and Tchaikovsky have been removed from concert programs and living Russian artists have been fired. The Red Scare under Sen. Joseph McCarthy in the 1950s was one of the worst periods of smearing and punishing Americans who were thought to be disloyal. Its end came with the excess of McCarthy trying to find communists in the U.S. army. In the 1971 Pentagon Papers case there was a rare ray of light for free speech, when Justice Hugo Black wrote: "In the First Amendment the Founding Fathers gave the free press the protection it must have to fulfill its essential role in our democracy. The press was to serve the governed, not the governors. The Government's power to censor the press was abolished so that the press would remain forever free to censure the Government.” The 2016 election and the Russiagate fiasco gave the Democrats in Congress an excuse to use social media companies as proxies to shut down speech it did not agree with. It also led to smearing of those who questioned...

Screening of UKRAINE ON FIRE in presence of the director Igor Lopatonok. Produced by and starring Oliver Stone, with the participation of the late Robert Parry, founding editor of Consortium News. Film starts at 1 hr 42 mins 46 secs.

Conviction upheld for Ghislaine Maxwell. Interview with Nick Bryant, publisher of the Epstein 'Little Black Book' and author of 'The Franklin Scandal'.

The West, led by the United States, declared economic war against Russia last month in response to the invasion of Ukraine, imposing perhaps the harshest sanctions against any nation in history. President Joe Biden has said that the aim of this economic warfare is to turn the Russian people against its government. Sanctions against Russia’s Central Bank were intended to destroy the value of the ruble. One U.S. dollar was worth 85 rubles on Feb. 24, the day of the invasion and soared to 154 per dollar on March 7. However the Russian currency strengthened to 101 this morning. Putin and other Russian leaders were personally sanctioned, as were Russia’s largest banks. Most Russian transactions are no longer allowed to be settled through the SWIFT international payment system. The German-Russian Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline was closed down and become bankrupt. The U.S. blocked imports of Russian oil, which was about 5 percent of U.S. supply. BP and Shell pulled out of Russian partnerships. European and U.S. airspace for Russian commercial liners was closed. Europe, which depends on Russia gas, is still importing it, and is so far rebuffing U.S. pressure to stop buying Russian oil. Other Russian commodities, such as wheat, fertilizer and metals have been cut off. A raft of voluntary sanctions followed: PayPal, Facebook, Twitter, Netflix and McDonalds have been shut down in Russia. Coca-cola has stopped sales to the country. U.S. news organizations have left, Russian artists in the West have been fired and even Russian cats are banned. It also gave an opportunity for U.S. cable providers to get RT America shut down. Other Russia media have been de-platformed and Russian government websites hacked. A Yale University professor has drawn up a list to shame U.S. companies that are still operating in Russia. The West's economic war and lethal aid to Ukraine are in lieu of a direct military confrontation with Russia, with all of the unimaginable consequences that could bring. But so far the sanctions do not seem to be working as planned. China has come to Moscow's rescue, buying more oil and other commodities from Russia. Beijing has allowed Russia to use its Union Pay banking system, replaced Russia’s use of SWIFT with China’s Interbank System (CIPS), and China and the Eurasia Economic Union (EAEU), which Russia is a part of, are designing a new monetary and financial system that would bypass the U.S. dollar, threatening it as the world’s reserve currency. That has led the U.S. to try to tie China to the war in Ukraine so that it can impose new sanctions on Beijing , perhaps similar to those on Russia. The United States is acting as though the whole world is the West and that this is the China of 30 years ago. In its effort to impose its unilateral rule on the world, while its domestic social problems mount, the U.S. has not only driven Russia and China closer together than ever, but it has now brought in India, Latin America, Africa and the Middle East into a new bloc with an economic power that exceeds the West. All of those regions have refused to sanction Russia and continue to trade with it. The U.S. has turned the majority of the world’s population against it. We might be witnessing the end of Western-dominated globalization and the birth of a divided world of two separate economic, financial and commercial systems. Cutting off trade and finance to Russia has already boomeranged on Western countries, driving up prices, especially at the pump and at the supermarket. Instead of prompting a popular uprising in Russia as a result of its sanctions, Russian President Vladimir Putin’s popularity has actually risen since the invasion. Adding China as a target of its economic war could drive the populations of the U.S. and Europe against their own governments instead. Joining us to discuss these issue are two leading economists, Prof. Michael Hudson, Professor of Economics at the University of Missouri–Kansas City and a researcher at...

GUESTS: Julian Hill MP, Lissa Johnson, Prof Bill Hogan, Dr Arthur Chesterfield-Evans, Prof Bill Hogan, Mary Kostakidis, Alison Broinowski, Professor Stuart Rees, John Pilger, Alexander Mercouris & Greg Barns.

Apologies for the audio dropout in Joe Lauria's introduction. This is what he said: "The Russian intervention in Ukraine is now one week old and the situation on the ground is subject to an information war that makes it hard to assess what is happening. Western media is saying that things are going badly for Russia, while Russian President Vladimir Putin says things are going according to plan. But what that plan is, is not entirely certain. Putin said the object of the intervention is to demilitarize and denazify Ukraine. How that is to be achieved is only slowly emerging. Western media reports say Russia is purposely targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure, which Russia denies. Video and photographic evidence appear to show destruction to civilian targets, but it is not clear if this was intentional or return fire to populated areas where Moscow says extremists are operating from. Russia says it has no intentions of occupying Ukraine, but it’s unclear how long Russia forces would have to remain to pacify the country. Will the continuing arming of Ukraine, and C.I.A. training of guerrilla units mean the U.S. is intending to bog Russia down in a quagmire? Is the U.S. intention to give Russia its “Vietnam”, the way the U.S. gave the Soviet Union its “Vietnam” in Afghanistan? There are open calls from Western capitals for regime change in Moscow. In the past week, the economic war against Russia has intensified, with the sanctioning of its central bank and the removal of many Russian banks from the SWIFT international banking system. What impact will the sanctions that have on the Russian and world economies? Meanwhile Western governments have shut down English-language Russian media, while the BBC continues to broadcast in Russia. The Moscow Times, critical of Putin, continues to publish, but the radio station Echo of Moscow has been shut down by Russian authorities. Our guests are Mark Sleboda, a former U.S. Navy nuclear engineer, political analyst and raido host. He joins us from Moscow. And Scott Ritter, a former U.S. Marines counterintelligence officer and U.N. weapons inspector. He is in upstate New York." With Scott Ritter, military analyst & former UN weapons inspector; and Mark Sleboda, political analyst in Moscow & radio host

GUESTS Scott Ritter : military analyst, former UN weapons inspector Tony Kevin : former Australian Ambassador to Poland & AU diplomat in Moscow Alexander Mercouris: legal and political analyst Mark Sleboda : political analyst in Moscow, radio host

Even the President of Ukraine itself told the U.S. to tone down its war hysteria, which seems intended to lure Russia into a trap. Alexander Mercouris and Scott Ritter join CN Live at 9 am EST Wednesday to discuss what's next for Ukraine, Russia and the United States.

With Doctors for Assange: Dr Jill Stein, Lissa Johnson and Prof Bill Hogan And legal analyst: Alexander Mercouris Read the Doctors for Assange Statement https://doctorsforassange.org/d4a-sta...

As a ruling by the High Court in London is imminent in the U.S. appeal seeking to overturn an order not to extradite imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange, we look at the High Court's options and examine the parallel history of the U.K. Official Secrets Act and the U.S. Espionage Act, under which Assange has been charged. Our guests are James Goodale, who was The New York Times counsel during the Pentagon Papers case, and CN legal analyst Alexander Mercouris. For additional information: https://consortiumnews.com/2021/04/11...

CN Live! S3E10 AFGHANISTAN: 20 Years of Disaster

"Doctors for Assange began writing to governments in late 2019 warning that Julian Assange was in a fragile state of health, and could die in prison. We have repeatedly called for his release on urgent medical grounds. Since then, medical experts who examined Julian Assange testified in court to the seriousness of his medical condition. They explained that he would not survive oppressive prison conditions, and his extradition to the United States was denied on those grounds. The High Court subsequently stood by the medical findings, and ruled that the medical evidence could not be challenged. Meanwhile, having won his case, Julian Assange remains in the very conditions that caused and perpetuated his precarious state of health in the first place. With appeals set to drag on for years, unless Julian Assange is released from prison, there is every reason to expect his condition to deteriorate, potentially dramatically so. Given the medical evidence that is openly on the table now, Doctors for Assange warns that Julian Assange may not survive the appeal process." GUESTS Dr. Bob Gill, MBChB, MRCGP, General Medical Practitioner; writer and producer of the film, 'The Great NHS Heist', United Kingdom Prof William Hogan, MD, Specialist in Internal Medicine; Professor of Biomedical Informatics, United States Dr. Lissa Johnson, PhD, Clinical Psychologist and writer, Australia Dr. Jill Stein, MD, Internist, Lexington, Massachusetts; Former instructor in Medicine, Harvard Medical School, two-time US presidential coandidate, United States Dr. Derek Summerfield, Honorary Senior Clinical Lecturer, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience, King’s College, University of London; Former Chief Psychiatrist at the Medical Foundation for Victims of Torture, United Kingdom Dr. Sue Wareham OAM (Order of Australia), MBBS, General Medical Practitioner (retired); Co-founder of ICAN, the International Campaign to Abolish Nuclear Weapons, which was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 2017, Australia SHOW LESS

Acclaimed journalist and filmmaker John Pilger on the changes that have come over Palestine since the making of his film ‘Palestine is Still the Issue’, released in 1974 & 2002. We will start by screening the film. The past two decades have seen an extreme turn to the right in Israeli politics with grave consequences for Palestine and its quest for independence, including four major Israeli attacks against Gaza. Pilger and Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, who appeared in the 2002 film, will discuss the worsening situation over the decades for Palestinians and where the future of Palestine and Israeli is headed. Pappé is the author of many books, including ‘The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine’, in which he documents that ethnic cleansing was a long-standing Zionist goal that was planned in detail by Ben-Gurion in the Red House headquarters outside Tel Aviv and included a much greater number of atrocities against Palestinians in the establishment of Israel in the late 1940s. Pappé says it was the start of a process of ethnic cleansing that continues until today. "Denied for almost six decades, had it happened today it could only have been called "ethnic cleansing". Decisively debunking the myth that the Palestinian population left of their own accord in the course of this war, Ilan Pappe offers impressive archival evidence to demonstrate that, from its very inception, a central plank in Israel's founding ideology was the forcible removal of the indigenous population. Indispensable for anyone interested in the current crisis in the Middle East

There have been two dramatic developments in the U.S. case against imprisoned WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange within the past two weeks. The Icelandic newsmagazine Stundin on June 26 revealed that a key U.S. witness in the indictment of Assange for conspiracy to commit computer intrusion had changed his story. And on Wednesday the High Court in London allowed the U.S. to appeal a Jan. 4 magistrate's decision against extraditing Assange to the U.S. because of his mental health and the harsh conditions of U.S. prisons, making him a threat for suicide. The High Court said, however, that the U.S. could not appeal the judgement of Assange's health but only that of U.S. prisons. The U.S. promised it would not put Assange under special measures of isolation if he were extradited and if convicted, would allow him to serve his sentence in Australia. The U.S. has a history of broken promises in such cases. For example, in the September 2020 Assange extradition hearing, lawyer Lindsay A. Lewis testified that the UK had imposed this condition for humanitarian reasons on Abu Hamsa, a prisoner who had lost both hands, but once on U.S. soil, Hamsa was placed in isolation. Joining us to discuss these two major developments will be WikiLeaks Editor-in-Chief Kristinn Hrafnsson; ex-Icelandic Interior Minister Ögmundur Jónasson (on how he resisted an FBI sting against Assange); Stundin journalist Bjartmar Oddur Þeyr Alexandersson (on his piece about Siggi Thordarson); Australian MP Julian Hill; Consortium News legal analyst Alexander Mercouris and radio host and CN columnist John Kiriakou, who was imprisoned for blowing the whistle on the CIA's torture program. Produced by Cathy Vogan, watch it here live with your hosts Elizabeth Vos and Joe Lauria at 9 am EDT; 1 pm in Iceland (GMT); 2 pm BST in the U.K. and 11 pm AEST in Australia

Guests: Alice Slater: Advisor to Nuclear Age Peace Foundation, Coordinating Committee, World Beyond War; Abel Tomlinson, nuclear activist. Presented by Elizabeth Vos.

New CN Live! host John Kiriakou invites Richard Becker, author of the book 'Palestine, Israel and the U.S. Empire' and West Coast Coordinator for the Act Now to Stop War and End Racism (ANSWER) Coalition, to discuss the situation in Gaza. Journalist Kevin Gosztola will update us on the plight of drone whistleblower Daniel Hale; and Rights Defense Center founder Paul Wright will talk about prison reform and sentencing reform in the era of Covid. Co hosted by Elizabeth Vos.

With Margaret Kimberley from 'Black Agenda Report' and Garland Nixon, political analyst, talk show host and former police officer. They will discuss what the Chauvin verdict means moving forward in the big picture and Democrats exploiting the situation for their political ends. Can racism be "ended" as politicians suggest? Is it enough to punish it just this time, or even intermittently? Can police forces really be reformed?

With Julian Hill MP, Senator Peter Whish-Wilson, former Senator Scott Ludlam, Andrew Wilkie MP & George Christensen MP

CN Live! interviews Prof. Richard Falk about his new memoir. Falk became prominent in America and internationally as both a public intellectual and citizen pilgrim. Falk built a life of progressive commitment, highlighted by visits to North Vietnam where he met PM Pham Von Dong, to Iran during the Islamic Revolution after meeting Khomeini in Paris, to South Africa where he met with Nelson Mandela at the height of the struggle against apartheid, and frequently to Palestine and Israel. His memoir is studded with encounters with well-known public figures in law, academia, political activism and even Hollywood. Falk mentored the thesis of Robert Mueller, taught David Petraeus. His publications and activism describe various encounters with embedded American militarism, especially as expressed by governmental resistance to responsible efforts to rid the world of nuclear weapons, and his United Nations efforts on behalf of the rights of the Palestinian people. In 2010 he was named Outstanding Public Scholar in Political Economy by the International Studies Association. He has been nominated annually for the Nobel Peace Prize since 2009. “This intimate and penetrating account of a remarkable life is rich in insights about topics ranging from the academic world to global affairs to prospects for a livable society. A gripping story, with many lessons for a troubled world.” NOAM CHOMSKY “Richard Falk is one of the few great public intellectuals and citizen pilgrims who has preserved his integrity and consistency in our dark and decadent times. This wise and powerful memoir is a gift that bestows us with a tear-soaked truth and blood-stained hope”. CORNEL WEST “Richard Falk’s Public Intellectual is a citizen pilgrims journey across the world , over nearly a century, contributing to peace in Vietnam, Iran, Palestine …Through his life and ideas he invites us to imagine and shape the ‘politics of impossibility ‘ to heal our ‘endangered planet’ and our fractured societies. Whether you are a peace activist or researcher, or you care about the earth and fellow human beings , Public Intellectual will enrich you intellectually and politically.” VANDANA SHIVA “Richard Falk recounts a life well spent trying to bend the arc of international law toward global justice. A Don Quixote tilting nobly at real dragons. His culminating vision of a better or even livable future—a ‘necessary utopia’—evokes with current urgency the slogan of Paris, May 1968: ‘Be realistic: demand the impossible.’” DANIEL ELLSBERG

John Pilger and Roger Waters discuss the outcome of today's bail hearing, in the wake of a ruling by UK judge, Vanessa Baraitser, not to extradite Julian Assange to the US and to discharge him. The prosecution announced that an appeal against the decision had been lodged, in response to which Judge Baraitser suggested he be kept in custody, pending that appeal. Mr Fitzgerald for the defense immediately raised the issue of bail, given the high risk to Mr Assange's health if he remains in Belmarsh. The judge today denied bail.