USA becoming a third world country

[miriam_e]

It is so sad that a country that has been a shining light for justice and freedom has fallen so far. Steadily evil efforts are underway to incarcerate Julian Assange without trial.

Exposing high-level corruption has always been a dangerous, but essential job. If nobody will do this then corruption continues to fester and spread until everything rots. Julian Assange took extraordinary efforts, with the help of the editors of several top US and international newspapers, to only publish material that would not put the innocent in harm's way or compromise national security, focussing instead on exposing corruption and crimes against humanity. For this care the USA is seeking to have him obliterated.

They could adhere to their own laws but the government there has effectively chosen to become outlaws. They want to silence Julian Assange and protect the corrupt no matter what the cost to their own society.

As for the weak-willed, gutless wonders who run Australia... wake up! Julian Assange is an Australian citizen and is protected under our laws. What he did for Wikileaks was not illegal. Our prime minister needs to retract her lie. Our Attorney General has confirmed that it was not illegal.

We need to stop the witch-hunt. Punish the criminals who were exposed; don't punish the messenger who brought them to light! If Wikileaks documents were acted upon in the proper way the world might have been spared some of the devastation of the economic crash. Certainly a lot of harm in warzones could have been averted, and perhaps these fake wars could even have been brought to an end.

It is frustrating that USA is becoming a mere shadow of what was once a great society -- one that stood for justice. Now it is becoming a third world nation, with all the corruption and misuse of power that entails. Such a pity.

Watch the video and sign the petition: http://www.getup.org.au/free-speech

Try to fix what has been so badly broken.
 

Comments

[twwells]

The problems with the US so-called judicial system are system-wide. While there are still a few good cops, prosecutors, and judges, the vast majority are only interested in doing as they please. I don't have an opinion on the legality of what's happening with Assange because I haven't studied the issue in any detail. I do have an opinion on what was done to me. In brief, "Due process, what's that?" I posted a bit about that on my WordPress blog in the category An Illegal Prosecution.

The problems with the US government go well beyond its pretend justice; the whole government is rapidly becoming fascist. Society is rapidly splitting into two parts: the poor and the middle class, and those in government or with connections to the government. The former get poor and dependent; the latter get away with (often literal) murder.

[miriam_e]

I recently read Sam Harris' wonderful book "Lying". One of the things it touches upon is how courts and lawyers often try to "simplify" their work and encourage clients to lie in order to window-dress their cases. In fact lawyers and clients are expected to lie nowadays. This is not healthy for society as a whole and can be damaging for the individuals involved, as your case shows. From what you say, if you'd been able to resist your lawyer's inducement to lie (difficult to do as they are supposed to be experts who are representing us) then you might have been let off or at least been open to a much lesser charge.

[twwells]

My lawyer simply lied to me in order to induce me to plead guilty. Had he not done so, it's possible that the prosecutor would have dropped the charges. However, there were no lesser charges for me to plead guilty to; the only other alternative was trial. I very likely would have won at trial; the government's case was really weak. I've got a post in the works about the case but it'll take awhile to finish.