#someone on the patreon wanted this as a standalone clip but i think a transcript of this rant goes further tbh

[starblaster]

"There was never any support back then, when these leaks came out. There was never any support, you know, it was completely blacklisted. And there's always been, like you say, a convenient reason to disparage Assange and WikiLeaks, either because of shifting goalposts [...] about the meaning of journalism and, you know, whether or not he's publishing or a "journalist" [...] or his own political views or gossip about his personal life [...] And all of it, all of that shit, all it does is do the work of state power to de-legitimate WikiLeaks and turn Assange into a pariah, which has happened. You know, none of it has anything to do with the fact, and I keep repeating, that every single thing he has published is true! The same cannot be said about anybody at MSNBC, The New York Times, Fox News, CNN, or The Washington Post. So, apparently, there is no solidarity for political prisoners of the state.

But this is what fucking gets me! None of these cowards are going to be persecuted, none of them. All of these people that are shaking in their boots — like Chris Hayes [...] — you're fine! Who's going to persecute you, the fucking government that you parrot the lines of? The government that you continue to let have advance notice of the story that you're saying, in case there's anything they wouldn't like you to publish? The 'anonymous' intelligence sources you continue to give cover to? The bullshit partisan hackery you spit out night after night after night? What state secrets are you revealing? What actual journalistic work are you doing? This is why we call journalists scum [on TrueAnon]. Motherfucker, you are the mouthpiece of the state! The government needs you to sell their lies. You are the one who obfuscates power, you aren't expendable, you are the one who is necessary. You aren't going anywhere, you fucking tool.

And these assholes, the ones who guarantee their prime time TV slots by molding their views and their voice[s] into what the networks and their corporate overlords and the bankers and the U.S. government [...] want you to hear, these are not the people who will be persecuted. No, they get promotions. They get awards, they get celebrated, they get retweeted, and liked, and byline and byline and byline; they climb the ranks and they shape the shit that is now permanently lodged in your fucking brain that they pathetically sell to you as 'the news' and you've pathetically convinced yourself is the truth.

No, the people who get persecuted are anyone who dares question the United States war machine, who dares reveal: any of the coups, the assassinations, the inner workings of the security apparatus, the well-funded networks of fucking so-called democratic political power, the abuse that millions suffer at the hands of the U.S. military and all the paid-off NGOs, the corporations, the warlords, the cartels; the sexual abuse, the rape, the murder, the towns that we bomb to oblivion, the countries that we sell off to the highest bidder, and all the governments that we demolish. Like, what we do every day, every day, every day. Those are the people that will be persecuted.

People like Chris Hayes have fucking secured their spot. They're not going to be attacked, he is not going to be arrested. And now they sit back and fucking feign concern for Assange; "Oh, what this means, for the free press! Oh, no! What this means!"

This has nothing to do with Assange or WikiLeaks or anything WikiLeaks has revealed! This is about the media's precious industry which is dying, ironically, because of the very corporations that they continue to cover for, that are eating the news rooms alive. And you know what? The public is right to fucking despise you [journalists]. They are right to despise you for the obvious bootlicking and all your brazen career-ism, for years of covering up all the lies and all the obfuscation of how real power operates in this country; selling the wars and the PR campaigns of the State Department and running fucking interference for the bankers and all the politicians bought off by the bankers who stole all the jobs and all the homes and all the fucking futures out from under the world.

How many bloggers, who are now calling themselves aspiring journalists — or, I guess, what you'd now call "professional opinion-havers" — how many out there look up to Chris Hayes or the Chris Hayeses of the world and their career arc? How many stare longingly at the fucking New York Times op-ed page, at the shiny bylines and the prestige publishers, at the fucking social power that comes with the fawning adulation of their peers jealous of their little positions in the clout hierarchy of the media machine? How many of these content producers, editors, self-appointed political taste-makers, take-havers, tweeters — and, guess what, yes, fucking podcasters — how many of them just want these precious fucking spots? Like, what would they do? What would they do? What do you think the would do? What do you think they would sell you to get one of those spots? Do they even fucking realize when they do it?

But how many of them, now, actually look to [Julian Assange]? How many of them will even fucking publicly support the guy who is literally, currently, being tortured — who will die of starvation, or maybe madness, or maybe he'll just simply be kicked in the fucking skull in the damp basement of a supermax prison in the middle of fucking nowhere — because he dared to temporarily embarrass our highest-ranking officials and mildly inconvenience the functionaries of the American empire's unstoppable machine?

Who are you gonna fucking look to?"

Liz Franczak TrueAnon, "Episode 106: #FreeAssange" October 8, 2020