I'm trying to decide if this line of thinking is scary or wondrous.
https://www.transcend.org/tms/2019/05/assange-and-beyond-pra...
.. sorry to say, my prediction came true.
“[Julian Assange] is presently under close observation in prison hospital because he has suffered ‘severe transient psychotic episodes.’ My source(s) indicate these episodes occurred after two sessions of coercive interrogation at the hands of UK and US officials. The source(s) stated the HUMINT interrogators used psychotropic drugs in the course of the sessions.”
Also, what benefit would that have? If the people who Assange truly speaks to are already claiming that he's going to be brainwashed, who does his brainwashing influence? Is there a large group of Wikileaks fence sitters who are arguing that "I'd believe him if he were just a little more mainstream"?
This is assuming the less conflict is the desired result. It seems that having conflict leads to greater voter support of taxes being spent to protect against that conflict and to adoption of more authoritarian policies.
There is also far more instances of conspiracy theories being true than just MKUltra, some of which serve to fill in the gap.
As for the why him... why would they have gotten a CIA agent tied up into the whole mess to begin with?
Yes, I particularly enjoy the ones about aliens - some conspiracy theories being true doesn't mean others are as well - each must be judged on it's own merits, and not as a group.
> As for the why him... why would they have gotten a CIA agent tied up into the whole mess to begin with?
Who are you referring to with the CIA agent? And let's be honest, he trades in classified documents - why wouldn't intelligence be involved with him?
I still don't understand what value brainwashing him would have - assuming he's not already compromised by some other power in this clandestine game of cat and mouse that apparently exists below the mainstream medias reckoning, why would we believe he is in fact one of the good guys?
Just like the people of the UK don't know what is being done, in the name of their ruler, in sites such as Belmarsh.
Those who find this incredible, might want to look - for themselves - at Belmarsh's long history of being a used as a programming site. The idea of Assange becoming the subject of mind control procedures in Belmarsh is, unfortunately, not un-realistic. The UK and its master, the USA, has a long history of these kinds of activities in cases where it is politically expedient .. if this is unreal to you, I suggest you have a milquetoast view of the intelligence community. Read the Wikileaks.
Yes, read the Wikileaks. Investigate for yourself and move outside the comfortable safety bubble of mainstream mediathink, which makes such acts 'too incredible to be true'.
It starts with Wikileaks, but ends with effective use of political power by the American people to ensure these heinous acts are revealed to the world. That is, entirely, the point of Assange in the first place - that Americans are being swindled by their governments secrecy into being complicit in crimes against humanity and war crimes.
Or, is your standard "we have been told we are all the good guys, so - no matter what 'mah Russians' have to say about it - we are the good guys"?
The exact same sort of obfuscation that you claim is being used to pull the wool over the mainstream could be being used on those who see the "truth", couldn't it? If the message was modified to appeal to your ideals, why is Wikileaks a source that's in any way more trustworthy than the mainstream?
The people of America, are.
Wikileaks are also not the only ones reporting on all of these acts. Certainly, one must seek multiple sources.
Read the Wikileaks - START there.
But then follow up with Amnesty International, AirWars.org, and any one of a number of other non-state/non-corporate organs of Americas military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex.
>why is Wikileaks a source that's in any way more trustworthy than the mainstream?
"Mainstream" American media is owned by the military-industrial-pharmaceutical complex, who stand to profit greatly from media coverup of its crimes.
It doesn't take much work to discover that truth.
EDIT: Where has Wikileaks ever lied? It has only ever released the facts. Its up to you whether you like those facts, or not .. of course, that depends if you have the temerity to face up to the criminal behaviour that Wikileaks has exposed ..
Wikileaks itself likes to say nothing they have published has been disputed as being incorrect. Since 2006 they have never published a retraction/correction and Wikileaks claims that no one has proven a factual inaccuracy in any of the documents they published. I don't know of any factual inaccuracies myself, but if you know of any I would be interested to hear about it. I think most can agree that this is uncommon in most media (mainstream or otherwise).
Another weaker argument is the incredible lengths various governments have gone to suppress Wikileaks. The demonization of Wikileaks (especially in the media) is sometimes cited as a reason to trust its publications. The argument goes that because Wikileaks is attacked by such powerful and arguably corrupt institutions that Wikileaks must be a perceived threat to these institutions. On its face, this argument is much weaker than the previous one. Censorship of InfoWars makes the comparison you made seem quite apt in this regard. Another counterargument to this point is that apparent opposition can be purely theatrical similar to professional wrestling. Lenin's quote on controlled opposition is appropriate in this context.
This is an extremely weak argument. Various governments have gone through great lengths to suppress neo nazi propoanda but that's not because the neo nazis are actually speaking truth to power. Just because you are the underdog doesn't make you the hero.
More importantly, the argument begs the question: Who's to say that the US government is corrupt? Wikileaks is to say. How do we know that Wikileaks is telling the truth? Because the US government wants them gone. Why does the US government want Wikileaks gone? Because it is corrupt.
"Wikileaks itself likes to say nothing they have published has been disputed as being incorrect"
How would you fact-check Wikileaks? The majority of what they publish is leaked documents. The issue with those is not veracity but authenticity. Are all of the documents on Wikileaks authentic? Maybe but how would you know? You'd have to trace the source of the various leaks and Wikileaks doesn't usually share that.
"Since 2006 they have never published a retraction/correction and Wikileaks claims that no one has proven a factual inaccuracy in any of the documents they published."
This doesn't speak to their favor in my mind. Newspapers publish retractions not to cover for lies but to correct mistakes. Nearly everyone makes mistakes. If a newspaper doesn't publish any retractions ever, it's not because they have an amazing track record of journalistic excellence, but because they are unwilling to admit to their mistakes and makes them less trustworthy not more.
Wikileaks is not a newspaper and what they publish is not so much factual claims as simply leaked material as they receive it, so talking about factual claims in Wikileaks material doesn't really make much sense anyway.
"Wikileaks claims that no one has proven a factual inaccuracy in any of the documents they published."
What does this really mean? They published thousands of US diplomatic cables. Does Wikileaks really mean to claim that no US diplomat ever made a mistake or lied in any of those cables? I doubt it. Are they only talking about secret programs that they revealed? How could we verify that? This has the quality of forcing one to disprove a conspiracy theory. What's their standard of proof? Can you prove the Freemasons don't control the US government?
EDIT: Just because you don't like what they have released, doesn't mean it is factually incorrect. It is factually correct, based on real evidence, that the United States of America has committed war crimes for which it has not prosecuted the perpetrators. It is factually correct that America has been involved in the destruction of sovereign states all over the globe.
It is factually correct that Clinton is duplicitous.
Just because you don't like these facts, doesn't mean that Wikileaks cannot be trusted.
Ask yourself this question: why is it so hard for you to consider that Wikileaks never lied to you? Who has convinced you that it is an organization that cannot be trusted?
You might not like the truth, but that doesn't excuse you from investigating it for yourself, especially when its in your name as an American that these crimes are being committed ..
And yet, you seem to.