Good Friday, Julian Assange and Bradley Manning

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Some 2000 years ago a man was crucified who only did good throughout his life. Christians world-wide choose a Friday (different every year) to remember the suffering of Jesus, who was crucified; a very nasty, painful, torturous and lengthy death. Although innocent of any crime he was persecuted for the influence he had on others simply by teaching some basic truths. It was at a time when the Roman Empire occupied Judaea. Jerusalem had become a city of shame, where usurious money-changers were desecrating the temple with shady transactions that further impoverished the poor. Jesus overturned their tables banning them from the temple because they had transformed God's house into a 'den of thieves'. This act was brought to people's attention and gained Jesus many more followers but it was also brought to the attention of Jewish leaders: Scribes and Pharisees, who plotted secretly to have him slain.

As well as being popular for teaching honesty, integrity and non-violence it was a time when the Jewish nation was looking for a Messiah, whose coming was foretold by numerous old testament prophets. By large numbers of people Jesus was seen to be that Messiah, but the Jewish hierarchy saw his popularity and honesty and straight-talking as a threat, and they were looking for a military king to liberate them from the Roman yoke. The judiciary could find no wrong in Jesus. Nonetheless the Jewish leaders preferred to have a  murderer released than a good man. For an easy life Pontius Pilate, governor of the region, allowed the Jewish nation to crucify an innocent man.

Today there is a parallel in the way Jesus was treated to the way Julian Assange and Bradley Manning are being treated. That is not to say that Julian Assange or Bradley Manning is a new Messiah, though God knows the world could do with one. Assange is nevertheless seen as a threat to the Israeli-influenced US-empire, which occupies most of the world in one way or another. Like Jesus he tells the truth. He releases accurate information while the government prefers to brainwash the majority with lies and misinformation, at the same time as it denigrates people like Assange and Manning.

The money-lenders today are bankers. Again when banks are in difficulty because of the shady deals they have done in the past it is the poor taxpayer who picks up the bill. Bankers are rewarded with bonuses like those in the temple. The big money-lenders are the Rothschilds and Rockefellers and they are in control. They are worried by people like Assange, because, if the truth gets out about bad banking practices they will not have the same influence they have now and their house-of-cards money-empires are in danger of collapse. They are so worried about Assange and his influence that they have already stopped money transactions to Wikileaks. Can you see the parallel? What is more, a large number of people, like Professor Tom Flanagan, of Manitoba university, have called for the assassination of Julian Assange. Can you see the parallel? Today they do not just release a murderer like, Barabbas, but mass-murderers like Tony Blair, Jack Straw, George W. Bush and whole host of others who freely walk the globe and, even worse, are lauded as pillars of society.

2000 years ago a calendar was created which gave mankind a new chance. What has changed? I warn you, do not continue to follow the wrong leaders. They are damned by their own actions. Stand up for people like Julian Assange and Bradley Manning. Anyone who opposes good people is part of the global imperialist plot. Anyone who supports bad people is part of that same imperialist plot. Do not be like Pontius Pilate, Professor Tom Flanagan, Tony Blair or George W. Bush calling for the death of anyone just to pursue their greedy aims. Do not be like the moneylenders: the Rothschilds and Rockefellers whose wicked practices filter through the whole banking system. Pick the people you support wisely.

DO NOT MAKE THE SAME MISTAKE TWICE.

Adnan Latif - rest in peace

Follow @JohnPlatinumG Six days ago Adnan Latif became the eighth prisoner to die in Guantanamo Bay, a torture camp of the United States of America, where people are held without charge, with very little hope of freedom, and no hope whatsoever if they come, as Latif did, from the Republic of Yemen. Until this week any person, including US citizens, could be held indefinitely without trial in any US penal institution, not just Guantanamo Bay for which excuses have been found due to it not being on US soil. Thanks to a number of major writers, including Pulitzer prize-winning journalist, Chris Hedges, and philosopher and historian, Noam Chomsky, the permanent detention act signed off 'reluctantly' by Barack Obama has been judged to contravene the first amendment by district judge Katherine B. Forrest. This, however, will not bring Latif back to life.

It is doubtful that the US government will try again to establish this in law since the statute was condemned by judge Forrest for its vagueness. In other words they cannot find any justifiable words to describe the grounds for indefinite detention: thank God. Nevertheless they will still find measures, delaying measures like those which have failed to bring Bradley Manning to trial since his arrest and detention in May, 2010, and now postponed till February or March 2013. And all that time these young lives are wasted in prison while war-criminals like Tony Blair and George Bush are free to wallow in the oil riches stolen from the Middle-Eastern and North African countries they invaded for that purpose. These same countries are among those from which some of the US detainees were arrested before being subjected to rendition and torture in complicit outposts around the world. Then as a final insult to humanity they were banged up with no hope of release in Guantanamo Bay. Welcome to the United States.

Five years ago Marc Falcoff, Adnan's lawyer, wrote about Latif and other poets in Guantanamo Bay and included a few lines from his poem about the hunger strikers, of which he was one.

They are artists of torture,
They are artists of pain and fatigue,
They are artists of insults
and humiliation.
Where is the world to save us
from torture?
Where is the world to save us
from the fire and sadness?
Where is the world to save
the hunger strikers?

Adnan Latif was in his thirties, a young man, who should have had a bright future. Instead he has been abused and tortured, until death released him, by a country that thinks of itself as the greatest democracy in the world. He spent one third of his short life in Guantanamo Bay. Theresa May has fought relentlessly to send UK citizens, Babar Ahmad and Talha Ahsan, another poet who happens to suffer from Asperger's Syndrome, to this 'greatest democracy in the world'.

Rough, tough, I've had enough justice

Follow @JohnPlatinumG The law-courts of the world should be dismantled and anarchy should rule!

There is an excellent argument for anarchy ruling since the legal institutions of the world are there simply to protect the interests of one section of society - the super-rich, neo-con, Zionist elite. Good people are in western prisons because of this injudicious system of law.

Bradley Manning, who allegedly leaked the footage of US military operatives opening fire on and killing  unarmed civilians, is in prison for allegedly revealing the truth to the world. Babar Ahmed, beaten up by British police, has been in prison for 8 years and now faces extradition to the most corrupt country on God's earth. Julian Assange, to whom the whole world should be thankful for his Wikileaks - the only source of accurate information - is now in danger of being extradited to Sweden on trumped-up charges. Sweden will sell him to their Yankee masters to try and plug the leak in Wikileaks and gag Assange himself.

We pay these overfed judges huge amounts of taxpayers money to make it as difficult as possible for honest people. Take the Assange case just heard in a British court. In the laugh-a-minute report from this case, Assange versus the Swedish Prosecution Authority, which finds in favour of the latter, there is the following paragraph:

“Everyone arrested or detained in accordance with the provisions of
paragraph 1(c) of this article shall be brought promptly before a
judge or other officer authorised by law to exercise judicial power
and shall be entitled to trial within a reasonable time…”


So how has this kind of justice been applied to Babar Ahmed in this country, and Bradley Manning in the US?

First ever post

Follow @JohnPlatinumG (It is remarkable how easy it was to set this blog up. And it was free! So thank you blogger.com since I spent good money on software which was virtually unusable without a degree in web-page design. The web-design software responsible, WebPlusX4, was also unstable, so I removed it from my computer.)

This first ever post coincides with the publication of a poem of mine at Poetry24 called 'The Devil's Own' which was inspired by the video of a little Iraqi girl whose family was murdered by US marines in revenge for a roadside bomb which was nothing to do with them, or any of the other families killed by the marines. To begin with it was denied that the marines had anything to do with these civilian deaths, and that shrapnel from the roadside bomb had killed the families, while others were allegedly killed in crossfire. When it could no longer be denied guilt was admitted. A trial, farce might be a better word, exonerated these soldiers.

At the same time Bradley Manning has been held in a US military prison since May 2010 for allegedly leaking the truth about US war-crimes. My brain will not let me rationalise the release of war-criminals and the detention of an honest man. Am I missing something?