Assange T-shirts and the US’s Newspeak

Man, the world we live in now works in nanoseconds. Up-to-the-minute ~~Julius~~ Julian Assange T-shirts are available for ordering here. He has barely been jailed and T-shirts saying “Free ~~Julius~~ Julian Assange” are already available. (My favourite is still “~~Julius~~ Julian Assange is my homeboy”.) Sure, no doubt the T-shirt was available well in advance in anticipation of Assange getting jailed, which only happened today as I write this, but, of course it goes to show that in any democracy entrepreneurs seize the market opportunities.

But surely that big bully, Uncle Sam, needs to be as fast as the T-shirt and cap marketers in learning to clean up his Newspeak used in stated policies. Here I am referring to the government’s public announcements, specifically to the US Department of State website. I am deeply cynical about world politics and politicians in general. But even my breath was taken away by the sheer hypocrisy used on this web gazette. While the US bays for the blood of Assange and seeks to shut down all WikiLeak servers the Department of State announces this:

“The United States is pleased to announce that it will host Unesco’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from May 1 — May 3 … The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21^st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.” (Emphasis in bold mine) Pukeworthy hypocrisy. But I suppose I am being naive about the US needing to re-word stated policies such as the one above.

The Department of State has no intention of altering the Newspeak — which is always slippery anyway — as the tyrant state has defined Assange as a terrorist, not as a citizen or legal individual, and the tyrant state decides who terrorists are. Of course, it follows then that the US’s stated policy, including the Unesco event, of “commitment to support and expand press freedom” will be no such thing, just another smokescreen. And they don’t mind letting us, the hoi polloi, know it is a smokescreen because there is nothing (they believe) anyone can do about it.

I have spoken a bit about smokescreens in this and the previous article. What I am seeing is the stars and stripes despot subverting the WikiLeaks to their own uses, which is a far more productive outcome than re-hashing the Newspeak on their websites. For example, as I wrote in a comment on the thread of my last blog, WikiLeaks has now released a list of crucial sites around the world: “The secret list exposes what US embassies consider to be the most ‘critical infrastructure’ on the planet, including power stations, pipelines, undersea cable landings, and vaccination plants” and American officials confirm this. Um … so the US spokespersons promptly AGREE with WikiLeaks these ARE the critical sites … thus helpfully confirming the hit list for terrorists? Yeah right. That’s just exploiting the “in the interests of protecting the nation(s) and threat to innocent lives” anti-anarchy myth. Nice try, Mr Assange et al, very nice try so far. But the tyrant is still laughing.