Wednesday, April 05, 2017

Julian Assange Dodges a Bullet in Ecuadorean Presidential Election

They just concluded a presidential election in Ecuador. Julian Assange was granted political asylum by the outgoing president, but the British, being loyal stooges of the U.S., refused to allow him safe passage to Ecuador, so he's been trapped in the Ecuadorean embassy in London for years, surrounded by British police and secret police outside, like a treed animal.

The British want to extradict him to Sweden, not to face charges- contrary to false media reporting, no charges have ever been filed against him- but to be interrogated a second time concerning sexual (mis)behavior. (Failure to use a condom during intercourse.) The Swedes have adamantly refused to question him in Britain. In Sweden he will be automatically locked up in jail during this process. (And you thought Sweden was liberal! Sweden helped the CIA kidnap two Egyptians from Sweden to send them to Egypt for torturing.)

The current vice president, Lenin Moreno, won the election, luckily for Assange, because the rightwing candidate, a rich reactionary banker dog named Guillermo Lasso, vowed to throw Julian Assange out of the Ecuadorean embassy in London into the eager clutches of the British police, from when he would be shipped straight to a Swedish jail cell. 9As I said, NOT because he'd been convicted of a crime, NOT EVEN because he was so much as CHARGED with a crime, but for "investigation." Investigation of not using a condom.)

Banker Lasso, having lost 51-49%, is crying fraud. The BBC says he "is disputing the results and alleging fraud." Unlike what they kept saying about Trump's accusation that Obama wiretapped him, the  BBC DIDN'T say "without evidence," about Lasso's baseless sour grapes/sore loser charge.

Typically, the reactionary attacks the legitimacy of the result. As far as reactionaries are concerned, ONLY THEY have a right to rule. Guillermo accused his predecessor of trying to install an illegitimate government. "Illegitimate" means following policies that reactionaries don't like.

Lasso has called his mobs into the streets to protest the "fraud." Needless to say, if they get violent and have to be suppressed, the U.S. will denounce the "brutal repression" of the government. It will cloak rightwing violence inthe fine verbal garb of free speech, freedom of assembly, human rights, blah blah blah. Same shit it pulled in Ukraine, where fascist mobs were setting policemen on fire and trying to storm government buildings, and Obama demanded that the security forces be ordered to retreat!

Meanwhile, the U.S. blinds and maims Dakota Access pipeline protesters in North Dakota.

The cynicism of U.S. elites is truly vile.


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