Assange's situation rips me apart. For me, he's symbolic of truth against evil. Although I cannot compare to his pain, but it is my pain, I've walked on the State's jagged glass, and I'm in a limbo awaiting prison for having exposed corruption. In my darkest moments, I felt that when Assange became completely lost, that the fight for justice was lost, that dystopia had gotten a tight grip, and that the little guy, meaning all of us, were screwed too. Assange, somehow, the tipping point. I know I'm not being logical but that's what impending emotional doom feels like for me. I need to know him free.
Without detracting from your major point, the current Julian Assange manipulation, I started to think of the problems of the world and in double quick time , came up with a lot of areas of concern and looked for a thread. Thought I may have missed something. You know of course that JFK's daughter, US Ambassador to Australia, is saying that there could be a way, playing games with Blinken who said the opposite just a week ago. Sounds like the US playing games. No one should know the government she works for better than Caroline Kennedy. Hope she remembers what they are capable of. She owes them NOTHING.
I felt that with time allowing, a moment or two right now could be allocated to listing current troublespots and to see if there is any obvious common thread……..
This means forgetting Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos bombings, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Chile, assassinations, and on.
Niger wants to end its colonial subservience to France, who says 'no sir, you are still under our control’, and, naturally, the US supports France.
Syria. Occupied by the piratical and totally criminal US troops playing the 'Syria is bad’ game, stealing all the oil and creating havoc.
Australia, the Pacific plaything of the USA, forward nuclear base against China; big money for Biden and his military masters for submarines, with a dangerously low manipulated US $ / Australian $ exchange rate, a source of metals ready to be mined and exploited by its “friends” in Biden's America; the US playing tough guy as to "who’s the big boss” by using Julian Assange’s possible release to play mind games with a very pathetic Australian government.
The US / Saudi / UK / Israel / war in Yemen, thankfully solved by China, Millions starving after the US blocked the ports.
Iran and Saudi talking again, thanks again to China.
Shovelling bucket loads of US taxpayers dollars into supporting their masters, the self-styled “ chosen people” in Israel in their apartheid display and murderous activities in Palestine. “We own America” their catch cry. What an embarrassment, 9 million controlling 330 million.
Creating problems in Venezuela who just happen to have the largest reserves of oil in the world where the USA has not too many years of supply left.
An on-going arrogance towards Cuba since the 1960’s, using their favourite sport, “sanctions", used at some time in every part of the world.
After assassinating a senior general in Iran, adding sanctions every week.
The overthrow in Libya. Oil, perhaps? A failed state.
Humiliating retreats from Afghanistan, another failed state.
World's largest heroin marketers a la CIA. Known throughout the world.
Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib
750 military bases around the globe, using military pressure as influence on a daily basis
US sanctions on Russia, China.
US expanding their way into South East Asia
US surrounding China as target #1.
Exerting presssure on all the NATO puppets through threats and weapon sales.
Sorry. Beaten by time and space, although only part way through………. but can anyone see any common thread as to the problems in this world?
Until the 330 million rise up, the 9 million will continue to affect the 8 billion, but more the 5.2 billion that aren't India and China.
I add Serbia and the 'Stan' countries to my immediate USA worry list.
To be evenhanded, I also fear my country having a new version of the 2021 riots, this time never-ending because corruption has ensured 50% unemployment. I fear when China has severe drought and exercises power over the source waters they control that flow to other countries.
I consider my father to have lived in a golden age but mine looks pretty bright compared to the generation behind me.
I desperately want truth to power to affect a better world.
I've read your other post and perhaps it's a sensible idea to start keeping an eye out for each other since anyone of us could just disappear into the modern day gulag and never be seen or heard from again - We're all Assanges now.
Mike Hampton: I've been saying it is wrong for years as I write letters to politicians and bureaucrats. They ignore me. Some say they wish they could delete my emails and letters before reading them.
The first thing the security state does to destroy someone is to frame them for sex crimes--usually pedophilia
I’m not sure people realize that the state can download twisted porn onto anyone’s hard drive the same way Apple, for example, downloads systems upgrades etc
Standard Operating Procedure. I wasn't charged cause it was 100% fictitious but they used propaganda, mostly Facebook groups, to associate me with being a stooge for the opposition, killing jobs, a missing child, child abuse, and, vaguely, a murder. A continual upping of the screws. I exposed the politicians behind the campaign but they were given court orders against me. The climate led to an assassination, and a cover-up of the cause of others dead. Truth don't matter when the Court works for whoever is in charge. But my little government's power is nothing compared to the USA's! The weight on Assange and his family and colleagues - unimaginable that they still stand.
When folks stop holding on to their idea of a 'good government', which literally translates as 'good mind control', we can all be free.
I like Assange as much as the next person, but is he only good at uncovering corruption? Why did he stop at a certain point- what about Admiralty Law? He could have won in court by claiming nothing, staying silent until the time was right and walking away free years ago.
We own nothing and never have, we're here for a 'lived experience'; the Vatican is the Holy See- they claim the Whole Sea. The 'Sea Peoples' have been in charge for the whole of the Kali Yuga; we're at the edge of the old world, we're currently sliding sideways- fully tapped out- in to the new.
Exposing the Vatican(/and their friends) behind the worlds problems will upset the christian apple cart and the timing must be right.
The saviour is within the individual. Christianity is esoteric, which means interior, hidden or veiled.
The big mistake is thinking government is a "Them" instead of an "Us". When the State sells Public property, or privatises a water or power company that's disintegrated due to corruption, we fail to realise that it's our property that we're losing. The "Us" and "Them" mentality prevents enragement, thus possible action is reduced to whining.
Yeah a plea deal - say you're guilty and will take 50 years in prison instead of 350. What a fucking country, or assembly of maniacal political idiots dancing around in an ever widening ritual circle of death that will eventually encompass all of us. We must take back our humanity and throw the ghouls out. Everyone associated in this mockery of justice must be discredited, then indicted for their crimes.
The Vatican is the death cult. They've been at it for a thousand years. Billions of people worship (warship) an external saviour; government, J.Christ, Assange etc., without looking in to their own state of mind and correcting that first.
As long as this is the way things are, the ship is going dowwwn...
The whole concept of a plea deal is insane. I’m a lawyer and this shit is taught to us in the same way all levels of education teach shit to us — which is in a way that makes it really difficult to realize that most of what we’re taught is based upon an untrue presumption about what’s “good” or “bad” and the objectively Right Way to do function as a society. So what we end up questioning are inconsequential bc they’re based on that totally false presumption. A lot of lawyers around my age (34) are starting to realize how our entire education was based on a lie (an education that is very effective in preventing us from questioning the rationale for the way the entire profession is set up). Shit like the horror of the mere existence of bail has only recently become clear to me. I’m very excited to see how the entire legal profession changes over the next decade. Sorry for the grammar and whether or not this makes sense. I’ll just own up that I’m high and hope for the best.
Plea deals in general are a sign of our broken and horrific so called criminal justice system
Tens of thousands of innocent people are rotting on n prisons for crimes they did not commit after being extorted by the state by threats of lengthy imprisonment for failing to cop a plea
If every accused person in the United Staes refused plea deals and insisted instead on a trial by jury the entire justice system would seize up and collapse
YES. I’m in NY and the shit that is happening at jails like Rikers is so indescribably inhumane. And they HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME. If they had money for bail they’d be at home. It’s shit like that that has made it impossible to justify participating in the system as it exists. The judges in NY are “elected” and that could be less true. They’re chosen through a system of cronyism that’s do deeply ingrained that it’s beyond repair. The US Supreme Court ruled NYS judicial elections as unconstitutional in 2008 and nothing has changed. I believe people should only follow just laws and when entire systems are based on injustices then it’s time to stop operating within the system. I think a constitutional convention would be the way to do that
Do people realize that the USA has more people in prison literally, than any other nation in earth
NOT proportionally LITERALLY
We, with a population of roughly 350 million have more people rotting in horrible inhuman conditions in prison than China, which has a population of over 1.4 billion people!
How is that even possible?
It’s against the law to treat animals the way we treat prisoners
Guilty or innocent they are still human beings for God’s sake
Yes. And the existence of the death penalty in this country is inhumane and a violation of basic human rights. But the US goes totally ignored by any international tribune
Stephanie, I sense that your cause which is mine too is one of presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswami’s “back to Founding Principles” causes.
Eg the basis for him insisting that the managerial/bureaucratic/woke class be cut to size. And how it can be done via executive order.
Let’s collaborate. It happens to accord tightly with (and is a subset of) my principal course -- confirm and reverse the factors that fell #SpiceTradeAsia region. Reflect on chain of destruction leading to fall of natural, embodied, decentralized, egalitarian and current currency in Min 20 of https://youtu.be/NuZujx-LMfg
I took a class called counterterrorism which I still have the textbook for. And I honestly want to scan every single page and post it somewhere. I’m embarrassed that I treated anything relating to this degree as real
Yes! Self licking ice cream cone. Exactly. The shit in the textbook that constitutes fact is almost hilarious. It’s why any attempts to enact new domestic terrorism laws have to be stopped immediately
I’ve used the same reasoning about the need for empathy, peace, cooperation, stopping war. The very twisted rebuttals include that this is the way of history, the US is the bully for good, and the US only makes missteps when questioned about millions killed and displaced. Twisted and sociopathic.
I think the only way to take down Empire is a people’s revolution from within, or a coalition of nations to say enough is enough, and start breaking the hegemon by first attacking the US dollar world reserve currency. Then the US will no longer be able to produce money out of thin air. Hard times ahead.
The Guardian. Breaks the Snowden story. Then behind the attacks on Assange. Slipped a spy who claims MI5 connections into WikiLeaks, James Ball. Who now writes propaganda stories telling readers that working out and choosing healthy lifestyles is the pipeline to Fascism. If you're into wellness and question western medicine, Big Pharma you'll be led to question everything and discover everything you've been told by government and media is a lie. Which is Fascism, of course:
That guy has this background. It's all propaganda. Questioning authority = Fascism. Says a lying spook flunky clapping like a seal for his circus trainers:
(use your browser's keyword search for James Ball to get to this quote, is one of the last few returns, but there's a whole lot of other history and background WikiLeaks told us about this Guardian propagandist a decade ago.)
"WikiLeaks staff suspected Ball was passing information from WikiLeaks onto others: rival media organisations or government agencies. WikiLeaks discovered that Ball had told a colleague he had a job interview with the UK intelligence service MI5 and had interned at the UK Home Office. WikiLeaks also discovered Ball was attending secret meetings with the Guardian journalist David Leigh - his former college professor at City University, and a vocal opponent of WikiLeaks.
While Assange was in prison it was discovered that someone had accessed the Sunshine Press press contacts account using an email client, and had mirrored its archive. Ball had briefly been given access to the account. Documents from the account subsequently appeared in the Guardian. Physical documents went missing, and Ball's behaviour became erratic.
Therefore a second, special non-disclosure agreement was devised for Ball, to test his reaction. After being asked to sign it at WikiLeaks' Norfolk office, Ball became anxious and asked to postpone signing it while he considered it. He then left for London.
It later became obvious to WikiLeaks staff that, showing malicious forethought, Ball had stolen what he thought was WikiLeaks' copy of his original NDA (which would have given him both copies). However the document that James Ball stole was not WikiLeaks' copy of the agreement. Ball had left his NDA out on a desk and it had been filed for security reasons. He had stolen his own copy of the NDA. The other copy had already been removed to a secure location, and is still in WikiLeaks' possession.
Ball became unavailable for work, and stopped returning calls. He lied about his whereabouts, and invented reasons why he could not return, which were confirmed to be untrue by a mutual third party. After several weeks, it became clear that he had cashed in his favours to David Leigh, in return for which he was given a post at the Guardian and the first credit in David Leigh's book.
Ball pursued career advancement at the Guardian by placing himself at the service of The Guardian's institutional vendetta against WikiLeaks, publishing numerous deceitful attacks on WikiLeaks over the last two and a half years, all of which rely on heavily embellishing his role as a freelancer working as a junior intern at WikiLeaks.
During the short time he worked for WikiLeaks he insisted on being called "a journalist working with WikiLeaks" or "a freelancer working for them". Some time after leaving, Ball reimagined his role at WikiLeaks for career advantage, changing his title in order to misrepresent himself to others as a "former spokesperson." James Ball was never a spokesperson for WikiLeaks. Alex Gibney did not secure an interview with WikiLeaks' actual spokesperson, Kristinn Hrafnsson.
Ball has consistently maintained that he never signed the WikiLeaks NDA, and has felt secure enough to lie in print and on camera because he believed he had destroyed the evidence, having stolen the NDA.
Although he lies straight to camera in "We Steal Secrets" about the NDA, in January 2013 Ball admitted that he did sign the WikiLeaks NDA, after having been challenged about it by WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson. In admitting this, he lied again, claiming that he had never denied signing a WikiLeaks NDA. The evidence to the contrary is in the film itself."
They justify that as ethical, under their preferred ethics system - Utilitarianism. Ethical deceit to achieve a declared greater good. As they define greater good.
The field of ethics is filled with rationalizing and justifying harms inflicted on others. Only a few of the many systems are actually what most outside academia would consider ethical.
Self-driving cars. That's an area of technological development now that the subject of ethics is hugely important to. What system of ethics is governing the decisions a self-driving vehicle makes?
When a moving car comes in conflict with another vehicle, a person, cyclist, debris in a road where impact is imminent and unavoidable without impacting another risk nearby what are its instructions?
Will the self-driving car sacrifice itself and its occupants before hitting another? Will it depend on the number of people in the car or at risk outside the car? Will the age of all at risk matter? Is a child's life to be protected more than a 40 year old? If the 40 year old has prominence in some field will that make a difference? Are any of those at risk considered nobility of some kind, while others are considered dregs?
Humans driving cars don't know many of those answers in practice and often will choose self-preservation. Though some will sacrifice themselves seeing children or elderly as more vulnerable and to be protected. But self-driving vehicles may have access to identity data on those around them, Bluetooth/RF chips may be implanted and readable.
Who lives, who dies? Real world ethics being programmed into technology is coming at us fast whether we want it or not. What system of ethics prevails? Utilitarianism? Virtue? Will aristocrats and those with status be more protected, their lives deemed more worthy?
To say no-one is to be sacrificed for any justification is easy to say. Real world, unavoidable encounters mixed with emerging technologies that automate life and death decisions like driving entails make blanket statements unrealistic. We could always ban the technology. But I don't see that happening.
But to the extent that we do have control over our own decisions, we must make it a practice within our own lives.
Every action we make ripples out to the ends of the universe. And in the end, all we really control is our own choices. We must trust that we are affecting.
Allen Dulles - longtime friend and colleague of Prescott Bush. Aka Hitler's Banker. Who shielded German war industrialists Thyssen family money made killing Americans, charged with trading with the enemy. Dulles made charges go away, Bush walked away with a family fortune in blood momey.
GHWB entered CIA service after WWII and his phony naval aviator hero story attempt to clear the family's traitorous name. Eventually was assigned to Ft Worth office, on scene in Dallas as JFK was assassinated. Many suspect his involvement. Gerald Ford assigned Warren Commission chief investigator, a Mueller of his time. Lone gunmen lie stood.
Bush became Nixon's UN Ambassador, dumped Taiwan in favor of CCP China. Then first US Ambassador to CCP China. Same time Kissinger got Klaus Schwab's WEF gig started. The New World Order he spoke of during first Gulf War, a Fascist dream of his father Prescott, foundation was made then. When Ford became president - his cleanup of the JFK hit reward - he named GHWB his CIA Director. Who set in motion the hiring policies that allowed declared Communist John Brennan to enter the agency, eventually becoming Obama's Director who weaponized the CIA against Americans and political opponents.
Not to mention little George W Bush's continuation of the family pursuit of Fascism with 911 attack he approved to justify passage of Patriot Act destruction of US Constitution protection of liberty, forever wars of occupation training for biggest mission of all planned for US occupation suppressing freedom and liberty proponents.
Fascist/Communist/Marxist/Oligarchy, system of authoritarianism is irrelevant distinction to them all. Just as long as notions of individual liberty and freedom is eradicated from the global community. All just useful ideological shields of legitimacy for global criminal syndicates.
This is inconsistent with the idea that the Western ruling class have engaged in a multi-generational endeavor to produce exactly the state of subjection that these people are.
They are preserving the system in which slavery can exist, and the middle class are devoted (if sometimes restive) foot soldiers for them.
jamenta: Hope is a weak force. You don't plan your strategy on hope. You don't fly an airplane to an airport and hope you have enough fuel for the landing.
You plan. You make sure there is extra fuel on the plane in case something goes wrong.
Just an obvious point: people are not airplanes. To compare the two in any way other than flight characteristics is the logic fallacy of false equivalence (aka comparing apples to oranges).
That said, though I recognize the value of “hope” in human psychology, my default value with regard to survival is to first get the physics right. So I agree with you. Still, when I board an aircraft, part of my brain sure hopes there were no fatal design flaws (Boeing 777), that none of the maintenance crew was hungover or high, and that the pilots don’t make bonehead mistakes. If we could quantify it, that’s a whole lotta hope mixed in with my reliance on physics.
Sometimes two people with apparently opposite views are both correct. That’s not a contradiction. It’s just because they are not arguing about the same things.
Between those two choices, I’d rather be the logician who reminds you that limiting questions to only a few answers when many other answers are possible commits the fallacy of false dilemma.
Sometimes all you have is hope. People will unload snark on it -- "Hope is for the hopeless" and so on -- but if it's all you have, then it's all you have, and you have to go with it. And as for plans, I don't really see any plans around here.
Starry Gordon: If hope is all you have then I agree, use hope to keep you going. But if you are young and strong it is time to make a plan. The system is crashing. The ship is sinking. Build yourself a life raft on the ship.
If I were young today, I would learn as many skills as possible and move to the countryside. I'd have a plan to survive without the system.
I'm sorry to say I no longer seem to fall into the young and strong class, being 83. Since my 20s, I've been through several iterations of the countryside strategy (as have several of my friends and acquaintances) so in principle I agree with your suggested survival recommendation, but it seems to be very, very difficult to keep people together. I don't really understand it.
Starry Gordon: I'm 71 and in 1971 I was 19 and a couple of my friends were fleeing the draft lottery. I was lucky and had a high draft number but my friends were unlucky.
So we went up to South Dakota and all lived in a big yellow farmhouse. It worked for awhile but the women, the hippie women,...
It all broke up eventually. Plus someone stole our cash crop in the middle of the night.
So yeah, it is very difficult to keep people together.
And they don’t understand that voting for "the lesser of two evils" is still voting for evil. When I mentioned this to my American acquaintances, they just shrug their shoulders.
"If a political commentator isn’t routinely drawing outraged responses from both Republicans and Democrats, they’re not talking about the world’s problems accurately and authentically enough."
Political commentators should routinely tick off every person in the establishment. They should make the Ds and Rs livid every time they open their mouths or pick up a pen to write or else they're not true journalists like Julian Assange. He hasn't committed any crime save journalism, and the warmongers and other evil-doers don't want him free. But that shouldn't stop us from demanding his release. #FreeAssange
Plea deals are a crime in themselves used by prosecutors to fill American prisons which are privatized for profit institutions requiring a steady flow of bodies to fill cells. It is no coincidence the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Even though innocent, many prisoners will plead guilty and get a plea deal rather than risk being found guilty and sentenced to a much longer term.
The hypocrisy of the US executive is ridiculous. They "hold" Julian in solitary confinement in the UK without charge then demand his extradition to face charges in the US courts. Now they suggest an Alford plea could reduce his sentence (note: he hasn't been tried or convicted yet) but he must come to the US because an Alford plea has no jurisdiction outside US territory! The DOJ could just drop the charges and everyone could go home however US legal eagles are salivating at the prospect of collecting enormous legal fees once Julian is in their clutches.
Right on! You know of Damien Echols' case from the 1990s? They accused this guy of rape and murder of three little boys just because he wore black and listened to metal, zero DNA, zero evidence. They kept him in prison for 18 years, I believe, and then offered him an Alford Plea to save face after they'd already ruined his life. These bastards will never admit their guilt or let us hold them to account. I have no idea where these comments about a possible plea deal came from in the Assange case as the DOJ are giving zero indications they might be interested in dropping the case.
I think it's possible that the Democrats are beginning to worry about 2024. To most Americans, Assange is probably not a big deal, but his case does resonate with the PMC and the bigdeals may fear that, given their other problems like blowing 150 billion dollars in Ukraine for nothing, the citizenry may become annoyed. Also, a trial, should one somehow come about, could have embarassing consequences.
I hope you're right but I think it will take a miracle to set Assange free. He did something nobody before him has done to threaten the political elite so seriously and at this point, I'm starting to think they want to kill him physically and mentally by keeping him incarcerated in a legal limbo forever. I hope I'm wrong but I've never heard of or witnessed such an evil vindictive persecution of an individual, who's done nothing wrong at that.
They would if they were afraid he'd tell something that would really implicate someone big. Epstein could and likely would, that's why he "committed suicide".
Absolutely! They would have already done it but my point was that they want to do it incrementally through the process and keeping him locked up without any clear view whether/when he will be released, which might drive him crazy and/or eventually kill him. But I hope your earlier prediction that a U.S. trial would be particularly damning convinces them to finally drop this case.
Assange's situation rips me apart. For me, he's symbolic of truth against evil. Although I cannot compare to his pain, but it is my pain, I've walked on the State's jagged glass, and I'm in a limbo awaiting prison for having exposed corruption. In my darkest moments, I felt that when Assange became completely lost, that the fight for justice was lost, that dystopia had gotten a tight grip, and that the little guy, meaning all of us, were screwed too. Assange, somehow, the tipping point. I know I'm not being logical but that's what impending emotional doom feels like for me. I need to know him free.
If Julian Assange isn't free....none of us are.
You said it better than me.
All good brother....
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Edaz7CUAZg8
"And there are people still in darkness,
And they just can't see the light.
If you don't say it's wrong then that says it right..."
Good for you, Mike
Without detracting from your major point, the current Julian Assange manipulation, I started to think of the problems of the world and in double quick time , came up with a lot of areas of concern and looked for a thread. Thought I may have missed something. You know of course that JFK's daughter, US Ambassador to Australia, is saying that there could be a way, playing games with Blinken who said the opposite just a week ago. Sounds like the US playing games. No one should know the government she works for better than Caroline Kennedy. Hope she remembers what they are capable of. She owes them NOTHING.
I felt that with time allowing, a moment or two right now could be allocated to listing current troublespots and to see if there is any obvious common thread……..
This means forgetting Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos bombings, Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan, Chile, assassinations, and on.
Niger wants to end its colonial subservience to France, who says 'no sir, you are still under our control’, and, naturally, the US supports France.
Syria. Occupied by the piratical and totally criminal US troops playing the 'Syria is bad’ game, stealing all the oil and creating havoc.
Australia, the Pacific plaything of the USA, forward nuclear base against China; big money for Biden and his military masters for submarines, with a dangerously low manipulated US $ / Australian $ exchange rate, a source of metals ready to be mined and exploited by its “friends” in Biden's America; the US playing tough guy as to "who’s the big boss” by using Julian Assange’s possible release to play mind games with a very pathetic Australian government.
The US / Saudi / UK / Israel / war in Yemen, thankfully solved by China, Millions starving after the US blocked the ports.
Iran and Saudi talking again, thanks again to China.
Shovelling bucket loads of US taxpayers dollars into supporting their masters, the self-styled “ chosen people” in Israel in their apartheid display and murderous activities in Palestine. “We own America” their catch cry. What an embarrassment, 9 million controlling 330 million.
Creating problems in Venezuela who just happen to have the largest reserves of oil in the world where the USA has not too many years of supply left.
An on-going arrogance towards Cuba since the 1960’s, using their favourite sport, “sanctions", used at some time in every part of the world.
After assassinating a senior general in Iran, adding sanctions every week.
The overthrow in Libya. Oil, perhaps? A failed state.
Humiliating retreats from Afghanistan, another failed state.
World's largest heroin marketers a la CIA. Known throughout the world.
Guantanamo Bay and Abu Ghraib
750 military bases around the globe, using military pressure as influence on a daily basis
US sanctions on Russia, China.
US expanding their way into South East Asia
US surrounding China as target #1.
Exerting presssure on all the NATO puppets through threats and weapon sales.
Sorry. Beaten by time and space, although only part way through………. but can anyone see any common thread as to the problems in this world?
Anything obvious? Anything “exceptional”?
Libya was because gadaffi was planing to sell oil for euros, trying to break the Petro dollar system
Ditto for saddam Husein
Now we have to stop China from paying for oil with RMB
If the petro dollar system fails the entire western economy starting with USA plunges into chaos and ruin
It’s NEVER about humanity
It’s all about the money no matter the cost in human suffering
Sure, your comment is exceptional :)
Until the 330 million rise up, the 9 million will continue to affect the 8 billion, but more the 5.2 billion that aren't India and China.
I add Serbia and the 'Stan' countries to my immediate USA worry list.
To be evenhanded, I also fear my country having a new version of the 2021 riots, this time never-ending because corruption has ensured 50% unemployment. I fear when China has severe drought and exercises power over the source waters they control that flow to other countries.
I consider my father to have lived in a golden age but mine looks pretty bright compared to the generation behind me.
I desperately want truth to power to affect a better world.
I've read your other post and perhaps it's a sensible idea to start keeping an eye out for each other since anyone of us could just disappear into the modern day gulag and never be seen or heard from again - We're all Assanges now.
Unfortunately, I don't see a good outcome. But Assange free would give me a smile. I treasure smiles.
Mike Hampton: I've been saying it is wrong for years as I write letters to politicians and bureaucrats. They ignore me. Some say they wish they could delete my emails and letters before reading them.
And yet, what else can I do?
Join a local community organisation and make your suburb a better place. No partisan politics, just improving your relationship with your neighbours.
First they accused him of sexual deviance and rape
When that failed to gain traction the systematically turned up the screws
The first thing the security state does to destroy someone is to frame them for sex crimes--usually pedophilia
I’m not sure people realize that the state can download twisted porn onto anyone’s hard drive the same way Apple, for example, downloads systems upgrades etc
I haven't seen the "kiddie porn found on his hard drive" gambit for quite some time. Maybe it became too cliche.
Meanwhile every billionaire, politician, and their dogs was seen hanging around Jeffrey Epstein
Who tied a sheet around his neck, jumped off the top bunk in his cell and broke his neck?!!
While all the guards and cameras were off
It would be hilarious if it were not so sick and sad
They used it on Scott Ritter when he refused to play ball on WMD in Iraq
They used a variation of it on Assange when he was accused of raping two women in Sweden if I recall correctly
They insinuated Pee Tapes of Trump
It just sick
They're moving that function to the server side, as they did with Paul Krugman.
Standard Operating Procedure. I wasn't charged cause it was 100% fictitious but they used propaganda, mostly Facebook groups, to associate me with being a stooge for the opposition, killing jobs, a missing child, child abuse, and, vaguely, a murder. A continual upping of the screws. I exposed the politicians behind the campaign but they were given court orders against me. The climate led to an assassination, and a cover-up of the cause of others dead. Truth don't matter when the Court works for whoever is in charge. But my little government's power is nothing compared to the USA's! The weight on Assange and his family and colleagues - unimaginable that they still stand.
We all do.
Mike Hampton: I sent $20 to Assange in Belmarsh Prison a year or so ago. No idea if Julian got the cash.
Once you or I or anyone enters the Pit, it is very hard to get out.
Kudos to you too.
Yep, the Pit has spikes at the bottom, vaseline walls and a black hole for a ceiling.
When folks stop holding on to their idea of a 'good government', which literally translates as 'good mind control', we can all be free.
I like Assange as much as the next person, but is he only good at uncovering corruption? Why did he stop at a certain point- what about Admiralty Law? He could have won in court by claiming nothing, staying silent until the time was right and walking away free years ago.
We own nothing and never have, we're here for a 'lived experience'; the Vatican is the Holy See- they claim the Whole Sea. The 'Sea Peoples' have been in charge for the whole of the Kali Yuga; we're at the edge of the old world, we're currently sliding sideways- fully tapped out- in to the new.
Exposing the Vatican(/and their friends) behind the worlds problems will upset the christian apple cart and the timing must be right.
The saviour is within the individual. Christianity is esoteric, which means interior, hidden or veiled.
Revelation is the unveiling of the truth.
The big mistake is thinking government is a "Them" instead of an "Us". When the State sells Public property, or privatises a water or power company that's disintegrated due to corruption, we fail to realise that it's our property that we're losing. The "Us" and "Them" mentality prevents enragement, thus possible action is reduced to whining.
Was it ever 'our property' to begin with?
Who is warrior nun?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g4yWWywix_s
I'll leave 'Warrior Nun' to sort out the bad priests.
Ever notice that the corporate business of the US is truly 'us'?
Thanks for pointing that out...
Warrior Nun looks typical.
The .. "those who can not be mentioned" and the Vatican work together. They are always, forever externalising an internal process.
Everything in the warrior nun show is a process that actually happens. It's pretty funny what they've done. They've inverted freakin' EVERYTHING.
'Warrior Nun' was a joke, not a recommendation. Buffy did it better.
What we think is ours may be more important than any legal definition. Then the big question is what we will do to keep it.
I haven't watched tv in 25 years, Buffy makes little sense either I'm afraid. A vampire slayer.
What we think is "ours" is our soul. There is nothing else we own, we just use stuff while we're here.
And most people don't even own their own soul- they gave it up to the covid clowns for the illusion of safety.
Illusion being the operative word.
Thank you, but I never meant to distract from Assange. Donate to his lawyers.
Good on you!
Yeah a plea deal - say you're guilty and will take 50 years in prison instead of 350. What a fucking country, or assembly of maniacal political idiots dancing around in an ever widening ritual circle of death that will eventually encompass all of us. We must take back our humanity and throw the ghouls out. Everyone associated in this mockery of justice must be discredited, then indicted for their crimes.
Death cult.
The Vatican is the death cult. They've been at it for a thousand years. Billions of people worship (warship) an external saviour; government, J.Christ, Assange etc., without looking in to their own state of mind and correcting that first.
As long as this is the way things are, the ship is going dowwwn...
That’s what J. Krishnamurti always said. He was most radikal and illuminating.
The whole concept of a plea deal is insane. I’m a lawyer and this shit is taught to us in the same way all levels of education teach shit to us — which is in a way that makes it really difficult to realize that most of what we’re taught is based upon an untrue presumption about what’s “good” or “bad” and the objectively Right Way to do function as a society. So what we end up questioning are inconsequential bc they’re based on that totally false presumption. A lot of lawyers around my age (34) are starting to realize how our entire education was based on a lie (an education that is very effective in preventing us from questioning the rationale for the way the entire profession is set up). Shit like the horror of the mere existence of bail has only recently become clear to me. I’m very excited to see how the entire legal profession changes over the next decade. Sorry for the grammar and whether or not this makes sense. I’ll just own up that I’m high and hope for the best.
Plea deals in general are a sign of our broken and horrific so called criminal justice system
Tens of thousands of innocent people are rotting on n prisons for crimes they did not commit after being extorted by the state by threats of lengthy imprisonment for failing to cop a plea
If every accused person in the United Staes refused plea deals and insisted instead on a trial by jury the entire justice system would seize up and collapse
Whatever happened to presumption of innocence???
YES. I’m in NY and the shit that is happening at jails like Rikers is so indescribably inhumane. And they HAVE NOT BEEN CHARGED WITH A CRIME. If they had money for bail they’d be at home. It’s shit like that that has made it impossible to justify participating in the system as it exists. The judges in NY are “elected” and that could be less true. They’re chosen through a system of cronyism that’s do deeply ingrained that it’s beyond repair. The US Supreme Court ruled NYS judicial elections as unconstitutional in 2008 and nothing has changed. I believe people should only follow just laws and when entire systems are based on injustices then it’s time to stop operating within the system. I think a constitutional convention would be the way to do that
It’s so sickening and heartbreaking
Do people realize that the USA has more people in prison literally, than any other nation in earth
NOT proportionally LITERALLY
We, with a population of roughly 350 million have more people rotting in horrible inhuman conditions in prison than China, which has a population of over 1.4 billion people!
How is that even possible?
It’s against the law to treat animals the way we treat prisoners
Guilty or innocent they are still human beings for God’s sake
Yes. And the existence of the death penalty in this country is inhumane and a violation of basic human rights. But the US goes totally ignored by any international tribune
Stephanie, I sense that your cause which is mine too is one of presidential candidate, Vivek Ramaswami’s “back to Founding Principles” causes.
Eg the basis for him insisting that the managerial/bureaucratic/woke class be cut to size. And how it can be done via executive order.
Let’s collaborate. It happens to accord tightly with (and is a subset of) my principal course -- confirm and reverse the factors that fell #SpiceTradeAsia region. Reflect on chain of destruction leading to fall of natural, embodied, decentralized, egalitarian and current currency in Min 20 of https://youtu.be/NuZujx-LMfg
Stephanie Kass: I like your comments. Words on paper do not change people.
Find facts @ factcheck.lol
I took a class called counterterrorism which I still have the textbook for. And I honestly want to scan every single page and post it somewhere. I’m embarrassed that I treated anything relating to this degree as real
Yes! Self licking ice cream cone. Exactly. The shit in the textbook that constitutes fact is almost hilarious. It’s why any attempts to enact new domestic terrorism laws have to be stopped immediately
Can you give us the ISBN? People can search the free libraries for it.
yes! I hope this is available -- ISBN is 978-1-4224-2501-5
I’ve used the same reasoning about the need for empathy, peace, cooperation, stopping war. The very twisted rebuttals include that this is the way of history, the US is the bully for good, and the US only makes missteps when questioned about millions killed and displaced. Twisted and sociopathic.
I think the only way to take down Empire is a people’s revolution from within, or a coalition of nations to say enough is enough, and start breaking the hegemon by first attacking the US dollar world reserve currency. Then the US will no longer be able to produce money out of thin air. Hard times ahead.
The Guardian. Breaks the Snowden story. Then behind the attacks on Assange. Slipped a spy who claims MI5 connections into WikiLeaks, James Ball. Who now writes propaganda stories telling readers that working out and choosing healthy lifestyles is the pipeline to Fascism. If you're into wellness and question western medicine, Big Pharma you'll be led to question everything and discover everything you've been told by government and media is a lie. Which is Fascism, of course:
https://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2023/aug/02/everything-youve-been-told-is-a-lie-inside-the-wellness-to-facism-pipeline
That guy has this background. It's all propaganda. Questioning authority = Fascism. Says a lying spook flunky clapping like a seal for his circus trainers:
https://wikileaks.org/IMG/html/gibney-transcript.html
(use your browser's keyword search for James Ball to get to this quote, is one of the last few returns, but there's a whole lot of other history and background WikiLeaks told us about this Guardian propagandist a decade ago.)
"WikiLeaks staff suspected Ball was passing information from WikiLeaks onto others: rival media organisations or government agencies. WikiLeaks discovered that Ball had told a colleague he had a job interview with the UK intelligence service MI5 and had interned at the UK Home Office. WikiLeaks also discovered Ball was attending secret meetings with the Guardian journalist David Leigh - his former college professor at City University, and a vocal opponent of WikiLeaks.
While Assange was in prison it was discovered that someone had accessed the Sunshine Press press contacts account using an email client, and had mirrored its archive. Ball had briefly been given access to the account. Documents from the account subsequently appeared in the Guardian. Physical documents went missing, and Ball's behaviour became erratic.
Therefore a second, special non-disclosure agreement was devised for Ball, to test his reaction. After being asked to sign it at WikiLeaks' Norfolk office, Ball became anxious and asked to postpone signing it while he considered it. He then left for London.
It later became obvious to WikiLeaks staff that, showing malicious forethought, Ball had stolen what he thought was WikiLeaks' copy of his original NDA (which would have given him both copies). However the document that James Ball stole was not WikiLeaks' copy of the agreement. Ball had left his NDA out on a desk and it had been filed for security reasons. He had stolen his own copy of the NDA. The other copy had already been removed to a secure location, and is still in WikiLeaks' possession.
Ball became unavailable for work, and stopped returning calls. He lied about his whereabouts, and invented reasons why he could not return, which were confirmed to be untrue by a mutual third party. After several weeks, it became clear that he had cashed in his favours to David Leigh, in return for which he was given a post at the Guardian and the first credit in David Leigh's book.
Ball pursued career advancement at the Guardian by placing himself at the service of The Guardian's institutional vendetta against WikiLeaks, publishing numerous deceitful attacks on WikiLeaks over the last two and a half years, all of which rely on heavily embellishing his role as a freelancer working as a junior intern at WikiLeaks.
During the short time he worked for WikiLeaks he insisted on being called "a journalist working with WikiLeaks" or "a freelancer working for them". Some time after leaving, Ball reimagined his role at WikiLeaks for career advantage, changing his title in order to misrepresent himself to others as a "former spokesperson." James Ball was never a spokesperson for WikiLeaks. Alex Gibney did not secure an interview with WikiLeaks' actual spokesperson, Kristinn Hrafnsson.
Ball has consistently maintained that he never signed the WikiLeaks NDA, and has felt secure enough to lie in print and on camera because he believed he had destroyed the evidence, having stolen the NDA.
Although he lies straight to camera in "We Steal Secrets" about the NDA, in January 2013 Ball admitted that he did sign the WikiLeaks NDA, after having been challenged about it by WikiLeaks lawyer Jennifer Robinson. In admitting this, he lied again, claiming that he had never denied signing a WikiLeaks NDA. The evidence to the contrary is in the film itself."
One of the most duplicitous concepts in all of humanity is that "the end justifies the means."
And that is usually what they have to keep a secret.
Because it is NEVER TRUE that the end justifies the means.
They justify that as ethical, under their preferred ethics system - Utilitarianism. Ethical deceit to achieve a declared greater good. As they define greater good.
The field of ethics is filled with rationalizing and justifying harms inflicted on others. Only a few of the many systems are actually what most outside academia would consider ethical.
Philosophy itself is nothing more than a discourse on perpetual slavery.
I believe our best work is to move in the direction of the ultimate recognition of the importance of each and every individual.
No-one is less than. No-one is to be sacrificed for any justification.
Self-driving cars. That's an area of technological development now that the subject of ethics is hugely important to. What system of ethics is governing the decisions a self-driving vehicle makes?
When a moving car comes in conflict with another vehicle, a person, cyclist, debris in a road where impact is imminent and unavoidable without impacting another risk nearby what are its instructions?
Will the self-driving car sacrifice itself and its occupants before hitting another? Will it depend on the number of people in the car or at risk outside the car? Will the age of all at risk matter? Is a child's life to be protected more than a 40 year old? If the 40 year old has prominence in some field will that make a difference? Are any of those at risk considered nobility of some kind, while others are considered dregs?
Humans driving cars don't know many of those answers in practice and often will choose self-preservation. Though some will sacrifice themselves seeing children or elderly as more vulnerable and to be protected. But self-driving vehicles may have access to identity data on those around them, Bluetooth/RF chips may be implanted and readable.
Who lives, who dies? Real world ethics being programmed into technology is coming at us fast whether we want it or not. What system of ethics prevails? Utilitarianism? Virtue? Will aristocrats and those with status be more protected, their lives deemed more worthy?
To say no-one is to be sacrificed for any justification is easy to say. Real world, unavoidable encounters mixed with emerging technologies that automate life and death decisions like driving entails make blanket statements unrealistic. We could always ban the technology. But I don't see that happening.
I agree - easy to say, harder to do in practice.
But to the extent that we do have control over our own decisions, we must make it a practice within our own lives.
Every action we make ripples out to the ends of the universe. And in the end, all we really control is our own choices. We must trust that we are affecting.
Protestantism already is that. Why does the middle class think that the problem with their systems is that they aren't totalitarian enough?
Actually, no. The correct phrase is, “do the ends justify any means.”
Cuz the ends always justify the means: want to live? Eat, breath.
Alexander Scipio; NO! "do the ends justify any means" is bullshit! If you believe that you may as well be an animal.
You’ll need to take that up with any professor of logic. Cuz you’re just wrong.
Alexander Scipio: I have no idea what the hell you are talking about.
I’m not surprised.
Alexander Scipio: Use a noun!
The end now justifies the news? Caitlin is right on the money.
Since 1947 the United States has killed and tortured more innocent people than ALL the other nations on earth combined
Millions! Millions in Viet Nam alone
2M in Vietnam
2M in Korea
1M in s Asia...
The first time I visited Viet Nam (2007) I realized THERE WERE NO OLD PEOPLE!!!
Virtually no one older than sixties at most
Took me a bit to realize that an entire generation or two was wiped out by the US Military
Free fire zones
Search and destroy
Operation Rolling Thunder
Etc etc etc
Genocide
Well that’s the date I assign to the death of our constitutional republic which was replaced by the national security state
Truman signed the National Security Act into law in 1947
One of the special gifts contained in that act was the e stood the Central Intelligence Agency
Allen Dulles the first director
That, to me, was the beginning of the end
Allen Dulles - longtime friend and colleague of Prescott Bush. Aka Hitler's Banker. Who shielded German war industrialists Thyssen family money made killing Americans, charged with trading with the enemy. Dulles made charges go away, Bush walked away with a family fortune in blood momey.
GHWB entered CIA service after WWII and his phony naval aviator hero story attempt to clear the family's traitorous name. Eventually was assigned to Ft Worth office, on scene in Dallas as JFK was assassinated. Many suspect his involvement. Gerald Ford assigned Warren Commission chief investigator, a Mueller of his time. Lone gunmen lie stood.
Bush became Nixon's UN Ambassador, dumped Taiwan in favor of CCP China. Then first US Ambassador to CCP China. Same time Kissinger got Klaus Schwab's WEF gig started. The New World Order he spoke of during first Gulf War, a Fascist dream of his father Prescott, foundation was made then. When Ford became president - his cleanup of the JFK hit reward - he named GHWB his CIA Director. Who set in motion the hiring policies that allowed declared Communist John Brennan to enter the agency, eventually becoming Obama's Director who weaponized the CIA against Americans and political opponents.
Not to mention little George W Bush's continuation of the family pursuit of Fascism with 911 attack he approved to justify passage of Patriot Act destruction of US Constitution protection of liberty, forever wars of occupation training for biggest mission of all planned for US occupation suppressing freedom and liberty proponents.
Fascist/Communist/Marxist/Oligarchy, system of authoritarianism is irrelevant distinction to them all. Just as long as notions of individual liberty and freedom is eradicated from the global community. All just useful ideological shields of legitimacy for global criminal syndicates.
Beautiful, as usual. And my first thought, too. For what?
This is inconsistent with the idea that the Western ruling class have engaged in a multi-generational endeavor to produce exactly the state of subjection that these people are.
They are preserving the system in which slavery can exist, and the middle class are devoted (if sometimes restive) foot soldiers for them.
“Hope” is the thing with feathers -
That perches in the soul -
And sings the tune without the words -
And never stops - at all -
.
And sweetest - in the Gale - is heard -
And sore must be the storm -
That could abash the little Bird
That kept so many warm -
.
I’ve heard it in the chillest land -
And on the strangest Sea -
Yet - never - in Extremity,
It asked a crumb - of me.
.
~ED #314
jamenta: Hope is a weak force. You don't plan your strategy on hope. You don't fly an airplane to an airport and hope you have enough fuel for the landing.
You plan. You make sure there is extra fuel on the plane in case something goes wrong.
Hope isn't a plan.
Just an obvious point: people are not airplanes. To compare the two in any way other than flight characteristics is the logic fallacy of false equivalence (aka comparing apples to oranges).
That said, though I recognize the value of “hope” in human psychology, my default value with regard to survival is to first get the physics right. So I agree with you. Still, when I board an aircraft, part of my brain sure hopes there were no fatal design flaws (Boeing 777), that none of the maintenance crew was hungover or high, and that the pilots don’t make bonehead mistakes. If we could quantify it, that’s a whole lotta hope mixed in with my reliance on physics.
Sometimes two people with apparently opposite views are both correct. That’s not a contradiction. It’s just because they are not arguing about the same things.
JackSirius: I used the airplane analogy because I was an aircraft mechanic for 25 years. I've also been an airline passenger.
In the first case as a mechanic, I always needed a plan to fix or rebuild aircraft.
In the second case as a passenger, I would just hope for the best (though I would not fly in bad weather.)
Pilots also need a plan to fly the plane. They can't rely on hope.
So yes, we are both right.
But which person do you want to be in life? The passenger or the pilot/mechanic?
Between those two choices, I’d rather be the logician who reminds you that limiting questions to only a few answers when many other answers are possible commits the fallacy of false dilemma.
Jack Sirius: I suppose you could just not get on the airplane. But I was using the airplane as an analogy of being alive.
But yeah, the third way is don't reproduce and don't play the game.
Sometimes all you have is hope. People will unload snark on it -- "Hope is for the hopeless" and so on -- but if it's all you have, then it's all you have, and you have to go with it. And as for plans, I don't really see any plans around here.
Starry Gordon: If hope is all you have then I agree, use hope to keep you going. But if you are young and strong it is time to make a plan. The system is crashing. The ship is sinking. Build yourself a life raft on the ship.
If I were young today, I would learn as many skills as possible and move to the countryside. I'd have a plan to survive without the system.
I'm sorry to say I no longer seem to fall into the young and strong class, being 83. Since my 20s, I've been through several iterations of the countryside strategy (as have several of my friends and acquaintances) so in principle I agree with your suggested survival recommendation, but it seems to be very, very difficult to keep people together. I don't really understand it.
Starry Gordon: I'm 71 and in 1971 I was 19 and a couple of my friends were fleeing the draft lottery. I was lucky and had a high draft number but my friends were unlucky.
So we went up to South Dakota and all lived in a big yellow farmhouse. It worked for awhile but the women, the hippie women,...
It all broke up eventually. Plus someone stole our cash crop in the middle of the night.
So yeah, it is very difficult to keep people together.
Nothing but precious pathetic moaning. Hope asks us to submit to emotional manipulation and so do you state-worshipping religious zealots.
As long as people stick with lesser evil voting, evil will grow. Look at the growth of evil in the last twenty years. How much further can this go?
And they don’t understand that voting for "the lesser of two evils" is still voting for evil. When I mentioned this to my American acquaintances, they just shrug their shoulders.
Brainwashed zombies. If only they would stay away from the zombie cucumber....
Patrick Powers: That "zombie cucumber" ran my life for decades.
They want a voice in evil. How precious of them.
"If a political commentator isn’t routinely drawing outraged responses from both Republicans and Democrats, they’re not talking about the world’s problems accurately and authentically enough."
Political commentators should routinely tick off every person in the establishment. They should make the Ds and Rs livid every time they open their mouths or pick up a pen to write or else they're not true journalists like Julian Assange. He hasn't committed any crime save journalism, and the warmongers and other evil-doers don't want him free. But that shouldn't stop us from demanding his release. #FreeAssange
Plea deals are a crime in themselves used by prosecutors to fill American prisons which are privatized for profit institutions requiring a steady flow of bodies to fill cells. It is no coincidence the US has the highest incarceration rate in the world.
Even though innocent, many prisoners will plead guilty and get a plea deal rather than risk being found guilty and sentenced to a much longer term.
Talking about the military threat from China or Russia is literally insane
Russia has, I believe, ONE military base outside its own borders
Ditto for China
The US has something like 800!!! Military bases outside of its borders around the world
Madness!
The hypocrisy of the US executive is ridiculous. They "hold" Julian in solitary confinement in the UK without charge then demand his extradition to face charges in the US courts. Now they suggest an Alford plea could reduce his sentence (note: he hasn't been tried or convicted yet) but he must come to the US because an Alford plea has no jurisdiction outside US territory! The DOJ could just drop the charges and everyone could go home however US legal eagles are salivating at the prospect of collecting enormous legal fees once Julian is in their clutches.
The Patriot Act (the most oxymoronically named bill in US HISTORY) removes ALL the protections in the bill of rights
It’s thousands of pages long and it just “happened” to have been written and ready for passage like the same week as the 911 attacks
Are you and I the only ones who realize this? Apparently Obama the constitutional scholar didn't.
Right on! You know of Damien Echols' case from the 1990s? They accused this guy of rape and murder of three little boys just because he wore black and listened to metal, zero DNA, zero evidence. They kept him in prison for 18 years, I believe, and then offered him an Alford Plea to save face after they'd already ruined his life. These bastards will never admit their guilt or let us hold them to account. I have no idea where these comments about a possible plea deal came from in the Assange case as the DOJ are giving zero indications they might be interested in dropping the case.
I think it's possible that the Democrats are beginning to worry about 2024. To most Americans, Assange is probably not a big deal, but his case does resonate with the PMC and the bigdeals may fear that, given their other problems like blowing 150 billion dollars in Ukraine for nothing, the citizenry may become annoyed. Also, a trial, should one somehow come about, could have embarassing consequences.
I hope you're right but I think it will take a miracle to set Assange free. He did something nobody before him has done to threaten the political elite so seriously and at this point, I'm starting to think they want to kill him physically and mentally by keeping him incarcerated in a legal limbo forever. I hope I'm wrong but I've never heard of or witnessed such an evil vindictive persecution of an individual, who's done nothing wrong at that.
I would think if they were going to kill him they would have done it by now. On the other hand, they are sort of insane.
They would if they were afraid he'd tell something that would really implicate someone big. Epstein could and likely would, that's why he "committed suicide".
Absolutely! They would have already done it but my point was that they want to do it incrementally through the process and keeping him locked up without any clear view whether/when he will be released, which might drive him crazy and/or eventually kill him. But I hope your earlier prediction that a U.S. trial would be particularly damning convinces them to finally drop this case.