By Pepe Escobar and cross-posted with Consortium News
He is being punished not for stealing fire – but for exposing power under the light of truth and provoking the god of Exceptionalism.
Police ejecting Julian Assange from Ecuadorian embassy in London, April 11, 2019. (YouTube)
This is the tale of an Ancient Greek tragedy reenacted in AngloAmerica.
Amid thundering silence and nearly universal indifference, chained, immobile, invisible, a squalid Prometheus was transferred from the gallows for a show trial in a faux Gothic court built on the site of a medieval prison.
Kratos, impersonating Strength, and Bia, impersonating Violence, had duly chained Prometheus, not to a mountain in the Caucasus, but to solitary confinement in a high-security prison, subject to relentless psychological torture. All along the Western watchtowers, no Hephaestus volunteered to forge in his smithy a degree of reluctance or even a sliver of pity.
Prometheus is being punished not for stealing fire – but for exposing power under the light of truth, thus provoking the unbounded ire of Zeus The Exceptionalist, who’s only able to stage his crimes under multiple veils of secrecy.
Prometheus pierced the myth of secrecy – which envelops Zeus’s ability to control the human spectrum. And that is anathema.
“Prometheus Being Chained by Vulcan,” 1623 oil painting by Dirck van Baburen. (Vulcan Rijksmuseum, Wikimedia Commons)
For years, debased, hack stenographers worked relentlessly to depict Prometheus as a lowly trickster and inconsequential forger.
Abandoned, smeared, demonized, Prometheus was comforted by only a small chorus of Oceanids – Craig Murray, John Pilger, Daniel Ellsberg, Wiki warriors, Consortium writers. Prometheus was denied even the basic tools to organize a defense that might at least rattle Zeus’s cognitive dissonant narrative.
Oceanus, the Titan father of the Oceanids, could not possibly urge Prometheus to appease Zeus.
Fleetingly, Prometheus might have revealed to the chorus that exposing secrecy was not what best suited his heart’s content. His plight might also, in the long run, revive popular attachment to the civilizing arts.
One day, Prometheus was visited by Io, a human maiden. He may have forecasted she would engage in no future travels, and she would bear him two offspring. And he may have foreseen that one of their descendants – an unnamed epigone of Heracles – many generations hence, would release him, figuratively, from his torment.
Zeus and his prosecutorial minions don’t have much of a case against Prometheus, apart from possession and dissemination of classified Exceptional information.
Still it was eventually up to Hermes — the messenger of the Gods, and significantly, the conduit of News — to be sent down by Zeus in uncontrollable anger to demand that Prometheus admits he was guilty of trying to overthrow the rules-based order established by the Supreme Exceptional.
CBC TV covering Assange expulsion from Ecuadorian embassy in London. (YouTube)
This is what’s being ritualized at the current show trial, which was never about Justice.
Prometheus won’t be tamed. In his mind, he will be relieving Tennyson’s Ulysses: “to strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.”
So Zeus may finally strike him with the thunderbolt of Exceptionalism, and Prometheus will be hurled into the abyss.
Prometheus’s theft of the secrecy of power, though, is irreversible. His fate will certainly prompt the late entrance of Pandora and her jar of evils – complete with unforeseen consequences.
Whatever the verdict reached in that 17th century court, it’s far from certain that Prometheus will enter History just as a mere object of blame for human folly.
Because now the heart of the matter is that the mask of Zeus has fallen.
Prometheus stole fire to give it to mankind. Fire may have been the first technology to offset the weakness and ignorance of the naked ape. The Titan who suffers and evokes pity from powerless sympathizers. Wonderful analogy. Ben trovato, Pepe!
I have another analogy. I see Assange as a modern Thomas a’ Becket with the King’s plotters as: Blair, Cheney, Pompeo, Biden, Struck, Bush, Obama, Brennan, Trump, Dearlove and Lady Emma Arbuthnot (the Judge). The friends are few but include Judge Koeltl, Chelsea Manning and Snowden plus all journalists of conscience. There is also a special section for the cowards who include various current prime ministers. A 2 min video …
http://www.cowdisley.com/videos/Assange.mp4
The server for that link is not available … sorry but you can view it here
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xQDu_9J6A24
I love It! A great read. Assange fits the role of the Homerian hero so well. Not sure about those whom you refer to as Zeus… ..
Zeus represents fury but also strength. He is petty but also heroic and most definitely male. We would be lucky if we had Zeus. Instead we have thugs & hermaphrodites ruling over us…
Thank you, Pepe, for writing about the myth-sized hero Julian Assange.
He sought to bring truth to the people and it appears that they have stamped him down.
By not rescuing him from his tormenters.
The awful truth is that we don’t know how to rescue him.
We cannot even rescue ourselves.
We are reduced to witnessing this awful travesty of every shred of decency that our society is *supposed* to hold.
I am thankful that Julian encountered a superior woman who presented him with two beautiful sons and also to be a human being of unquestioned loyalty for him to keep foremost in his mind. Possibly to fortify it against assaults and mental torture.
What is being done to Julian in plain sight is unspeakable.
Top journalists of my personal acquaintance at the NYT don’t give a rat’s ass about Assange.
It is shocking. By the new political math he is beyond the pale of any sort of justice.
Katherine
“The awful truth is that we don’t know how to rescue him”
And that, Katherine, for me, is also the horror at the back of the nightmare.
I hate to read about this, because of a rage and fury, but also the sense of helplessness it induces in me. And I”‘ve never accepted that helplessness, not all my life. But now – I have no choice. Perhaps that’s why they do it, at base. To induce that feeling of utter helplessness in us.
I’ve felt it watching the appalling horror being inflicted on the people of Palestine by the unutterably evil Occupying Forces.
I hits me watching the US backed strafing and destruction of the people of Yemen.
We all know it. We know that the US in the primary evil in the world today. We watch it threaten sovereign nations, invade using it’s NGO’s, it’s propaganda, and in the very poor and totally helpless – the only victim it will use force against, since like all cowardly bullies, it darent try against a strong adversary, the bombs and Armed Forces – and yet, we, and the world, stand silently by, and say nothing.
Because, incredible as it may seem, we are watching a spoilt, indulged, mentally defective child, strutting around harming left , right and centre —– and it seems we have no idea how to stop it.
We truly, from individuals like you and I, to mighty nations and powerful and leaders — have no idea how to stop it.
I believe what you are referring to is known as “The Revelation of the Method,” a term of psyop art in which the perpetrator commits the act against the victim in the open and often slowly, knowing full well that any resistance is futile, in order to render the audience into stunned hopelessness and perceived helplessness, not just for this singular act but to poison the well of resistance in general.
You hit the ugly truth of these monsters squarely Casey. Thank you for your clear insight.
“ it seems we have no idea how to stop it. “
The concept of weness generally facilitates the deflection of some by holograms/spectacles.
Binary “thinking” facilitates enemy-of-the-peopleness, thereby limiting learning from all.
Encouragement of binary “thinking” posits that there-is-alternativeness within linear systems, facilitating “representative democracy” and other virtual realities, including the justice/law and could be/should be conflations.
In interaction these states facilitate holograms/spectacles of deflection after which some we-the-people-hold-these-truths-to-be-self-evident chase, whilst others not so engaged learn from all, including but not restricted to Mr. Navalny.
“The awful truth is that we don’t know how to rescue him”
Australia’s most important and famous citizen rots in a pommie jail waiting for pindo justice.
It’s enough to make a blokes blood boil with frustration.
The jelly blubbers in Canberra are afraid to mention his name.
Who will ever forget that footage of the slaughtered journos from the helicopter?
Who would doubt that this was repeated countless times across MENA?
Criminal bastards.
This scene brings me an old tragic similarity which may convey equal devastating feelings to everyone witnessing outside.
It was 52 years ago, in LA. Candidate Bob Kennedy was shot and killed in front of a big hotel by
a bloody fanatic or something resembling. it.
I remember the next morning, and it was the NYT, if memory does nt fail , the paper headlined in black, front page, gigantic letters one single word: SHAME.
Shock, shiver and SHAME.|
Though to no avail, it would be TOO much to expect the London Times or
any of its modern on line substitutes have the mere guts to react the same way to the DEATH sentence a mock trial is gonna commit against this hero.
A good piece. I’ve had my issues with Escobar – but credit should be given where it’s clearly due.
The horror of the entire of the Julien Assange and Wikileaks case does, for me, encapsulate the whole. Just as an artist, perhaps, seeks the one vision, the one aspect which will tell the entire story; just as Schwaller de Lubicz found untold depths in the symbolism which Dynastic Egypt had, and we have always lacked – the entire case sums up and illuminates everything about what the AngloSaxon English Speaking Empire is.
Dont worry about detailing the many lies and two faced behaviour the Empire has shown, over dictators of the world, from Hitler to Pol Pot and on.
Forget about the betrayal of using an artform – cinema – to tell a massive story of betrayal of the truth of a Great War and the nation who lost 25 million poeple, each one a single, valuable life, to defeat a great Evil.
A waste of time to detail the 50 nations invaded in one form or another, their values stolen and they cast into poverty and despair.
Just tell the tale of Julian Assange, the mighty hero, who fought a principle and for which, just as light dispels dark loving cockroaches – was hated for that light.
LIke Prometheus, Assange brought, not the heat of fire, but the light of fire. He used it to cast a light on those who work in darkness – and all those who fail to support his fight are themselves living in darkness.
Sadly, few even realise it until it’s too late.
This Assange persecution does indeed unveil the cowardice of all of us who stand by and watch this incredible injustice without reacting to it with the total fury and rejection it deserves, and do everything we can to destroy the evil people responsible for doing this. For various versions of this atrocity await all who dare to openly oppose this evil government of soulless monsters. And in the end these death worshiping folk will destroy this entire beautiful world and all who live in it.
Yesterday our spineless Morrison government sent diplomatic aid to rescue two Australian journalists who were in China and about to be booted out. Every effort was taken to get them from the clutches of ‘evil China’. They had to be rescued because these journalists reveal all the ‘truth about China’s shocking human rights abuses’.
Yet our govt never lifted a finger to help Julian Assange. Yesterday the press had hardly a word about Julian Assange and the abuse of his human rights and torture as he goes through a sham hearing with every due process denied by the so called ‘judge’. The hearing outcome is already determined and Assange will swing because he revealed war crimes.
Assange is truly a hero shining a light of truth.
Assange is a true hero indeed and the “true blue” Ozzies are always there to oblige the boss. How about the horror in Melbourn, Babushka?
As usual, thank you PE. Not sure what we’d do without your illuminating overviews of the current events. Jan Hus, who was burned at the stake in 1415 for refusing to recant his teachings against the church corruption also comes to mind. But Prometheus analogy is brilliant.
Brilliant, Mr. Escobar. Thanks.
Julian is not as street savvy as Snowden, who knew very well what his fate would have been if he hung around in a western country which, almost without any exception, remains as political lackey of the empire. Julian was in a position to be fully aware of the risk.
Another absolute corker from the master international journalist, Pepe Escobar.
“He is being punished not for stealing fire – but for exposing power under the light of truth and provoking the god of Exceptionalism. This is the tale of an Ancient Greek tragedy reenacted in AngloAmerica.” …
Look at each one of those “I’m just doing my job” Nazi/fascist losers (image 1) aiding the plutocratic distortion of our common justice system and rule of law in order to persecute an innocent man (until proven guilty by a random panel of his peers). Talents of silver in buckets of martyrs’ blood, indeed.
The only thought I can add is perhaps the names ‘Manning’ and ‘Snowden’ could have appeared somewhere. However, as is this is a real work of art (in the 4th Way Gurdjieffian sense).
Well done, Pepe, you have confirmed your rightful place in the 21st century journalist’s Pantheon with this one — and may the whoring stenographers be cursed for their absurd pretenses at being a peer of you and the few other giants of words (and media) to stand up and defend the Australian, Julian Assange in his time of maximum need! May God help this good man.
[apologies to legitimate sex workers, but my level of English requires it be used in this case.]
The are some minor rumblings in higher places down-under, but I would not get any major hopes up.
https://www.watoday.com.au/national/julian-assange-s-new-friend-bob-carr-fights-his-us-extradition-20200908-p55tiv.html
In China and Russia, many people know from personal experience, that in war everybody you know dies. Most people know family members and their friends died.
In america and the rest of the anglo world, most people know, that people from elsewhere who talk funny die. And the hero will rescue everybody who deserves plus a few who do not. He will get the girl, too.
This leads people who likely know better to neglect their escape route. And their friends and bystanders to mourn their fate.
The Power of this world is entirely corrupted for a purpose. Be not fooled by any means. Antichrist knows his time is short and the Destroyer is at the gate. I don’t personally know Mr. Assange and I AM not , at all, interested in the mockery the rule of law is. Mock trials are for fearful monkeys whose god is their belly for world power. Truth hurts. I have Zero Faith in the KJV. Because of the bad actions of The Church.
I challenge those who admire Assange to consider the possibilty that you are the ones who render him a martyre.
This Prometheus was cooperating with the NYT and the Economist, globalist outlets from the beginning.
Before that he was, probably unknowingly, being groomed to be an agent for cognitive infiltration, his oligarchic handlers treating him with silk gloves after his hacking escapades, thereby fooling him to believe he was invulnerable.
Later this made him walk into the danger without anticipating the risks.
Those who recruite agents know how to manipulate people emotionally.
His background made him attractive for that kind of grooming.
Are you sure you are helping him by maintaining the obviously faulty interpretation of him being real opposition fighting the big guys?
Isnt it obvious that he was used by the empire all along and that they tricked him into his current predicamment and that he needs to be saved from having been hijacked in this manner?
Critics early on suggested that the elites aimed to use him as an excuse for much more stringent control over the internet.
And that did indeed happen.
Critics also suggested that the elites aimed to make a martyre out of him to set an example.
So is it wise to take him seriously or is it better to see him as the groomed victim that he is?
Vallid points made, Peter. Illusion, delusion, distraction, destruction, smoke and mirrors. Darkness. Look here, no there, under here, no up there. Keep people confused and hopefully ,too fearful to stand against the power.
Even if you are right, that he was a “groomed victim”, how does that make what the Empire is doing any more acceptable? Assanges’ plight any better?
I’ve listened to Julian speaking, I’ve read a fair bit of his work – and he knew his enemy inside out. He predicted what would happen to him and it is, down to the nail. He was a highly intelligent informed man and not one to be made of fool of by the drooling orcs of Empire.
He knew his enemy and his likely fate, but he went ahead anyway.
He is no “victim” in my opinion, he is indeed a courageous warrior for what he believed to be right, and should be seen in that light.
These are all valid points(, except for Your not mentioning the shameful part played by Sweden, herr Grefström!)
However, the point here is that the North Atlanticists flaunt their power to kidnap, imprison, torture and dissappear folks with impunity. This is what needs to be stopped.
I remember the days when Time of London (pre-Murdoch) used to carry little inserts: “Prisoners of Conscience” with vignettes of Anatoly Scharansky, or Yelena Banner, or Andrei Sakharov……….but now not one single British newspaper covers the political prisoner Julian Assange.
I do wonder how it works – a telephone call ? a nod and a wink ? How do all these newspapers print the same propaganda and ignore the same real news ? Maybe Udo Ulfkotte’s book will explain how Presstitutes function and Operation Mockingbird finances media ?
Anyway, Assange is poisoned and no coverage – Navalny gets a magic carpet ride to the German capital and a so-called Bundeswehr laboratory (part of LMU University in Munich) recycles the fax from Porton Down……and yet no-one…..noone can ever produce blood samples to prove assertions with intact chain of custody
The term “British Justice” is clearly an oxymoron
Again….All I can do is Stand Firm. The court of law is no place to seek Justice. Assange ,like myself ,felt that his testimony was factual and believable. He counted the cost as every warrior should.
Assange is total establishment controlled media darling. Real whistleblowers are more likely to be slandered, vilified and dragged through the mud, or, even more likely, passed over in complete silence and blacked out. In extreme cases, they can be kidnapped, renditioned or liquidated (Gary Webb).
In July 2010, Assange told Matthew Bell of the Belfast Telegraph:
“I’m constantly annoyed that people are distracted by false conspiracies such as 9/11,” instant
Assange’s Wikileaks document dump triggered numerous destabilizations and coups d’état across the globe. Not one US, British, or Israeli covert operation or politician was seriously damaged by this material. The list of those impacted instead bears a striking resemblance to the CIA enemies’ list: the largest group of targets were Arab leaders slated for immediate ouster in the wave of “Arab Spring.”
Here we find Ben Ali of Tunisia, Qaddafi of Libya, Mubarak of Egypt, Saleh of Yemen, and Assad of Syria. The US wanted to replace Maliki with Allawi as prime minister of Iraq, so the former was targeted, as was the increasingly independent Karzai of Afghanistan. Perennial targets of the CIA included Rodriguez Kirchner of Argentina, Berlusconi of Italy, and Putin of Russia. Berlusconi soon fell victim to a coup organized through the European Central Bank, while his friend Putin was able to stave off a feeble attempt at color revolution in early 2012. Mildly satiric jabs at figures like Merkel of Germany and Sarkozy of France were included primarily as camouflage.
Assange thus had a hand in preparing one of the largest destabilization campaigns mounted by Anglo-American intelligence since 1968, or perhaps even 1848.
Holywood productions happen before our eyes, “the world’s a stage”. Trust not even you own eyes. Conspiracy is Not a theory ,it’s part of the plot. Be bold! Be brave! Stand?!? Sure, sure , uh ,okay ,okay… But we will skew your narrative. Even if it takes Ten Generations to eradicate it altogether. Look what we did to christ…. Don’t tell us what do, sir. OK…What do you suppose they will do to Us when We weary their Law Courts? By the Way, I AM not a Protester/Protestant. I AM a defender of Justice.