The people who proudly frame Assange, intentionally making claims they know to be false so as to ‘punish’ (or scare) Ecuadorian officials close to Assange

Pence and Moreno agree to facilitate the extradition of the asylee

OYCOTT the Guardian has been a thing or a meme or a hashtag for a number of years if not decades, but I only really started bycotting the publication (entirely) back in November after it had libeled Assange one more time — the last straw. It wasn’t the first time and it’s clear what they’re hoping to achieve, even at the expense of the publication’s (yes, as a whole) reputation.

I took a break from following and covering Assange affairs — and by extension Wikileaks — about a month ago. I changed my mind after the media had once again brought up Trump Jr. and Roger Stone, exploiting the fact that they were contacted/responded to around the time of the US election in 2016. It was a mistake to respond to them as those eager enough would distort any form of contact, establishing that as a “connection” or “collusion”. Each time RT or Sputnik contacted me (several times each) I did not even respond. They invited me to TV interviews, but I know how guilt by association works, so I very rarely take photos with anyone or appear on other people’s platforms (it gets one stigmatised).

At the moment there’s an unfortunately effective effort to isolate Wikileaks and discourage people from associating with it (let alone consider submitting leaks to it). But yet worse is the fact that Assange quite likely lives in the embassy (the Ecuadorian Embassy in London) on “borrowed time”. Seeing how the press constantly libels him for purely political purposes has taught me what I need to know about averting bad publicity.

I used to communicate with Julian Assange and I have a good/amicable relationship with his mother. She is a passionate supporter of her son’s work, but it breaks her heart to see him broken physical, emotionally and perhaps (ultimately) mentally.

When the media connects Wikileaks to Russia it conveniently overlooks all the Russia-hostile tweets from Wikileaks and even the Russian leaks. It likes to mention RT, noting that some series with Wikileaks staff in it was licensed to RT about a decade ago (it had appeared elsewhere too, not just RT). When the media connects Wikileaks to Trump it typically boils down to Trump operatives who falsely claimed to be associated with/connected to Assange. They’re liars, frauds, and crooks. Their appalling character is a liability to Wikileaks, but they enjoy all the media attention. It adds value to them.

My guess is that within a year or two there won’t be much left of Wikileaks (new material) and Assange will be somewhere in the US, likely behind bars because fair trial is not possible. Exposing the rich and powerful isn’t easy. Wikileaks will always be proof of that. It shows what happens when one becomes affective at lawfully challenging/exposing empire (nonviolently too).