Why They Always Try to Shoot the Messenger (When the Message Harms Profits)
A matter of economics
Days ago Illawarra Mercury's Ben Langford published this article about the barrister of Julian Assange, Jen Robinson. She is the colleague of a barrister who temporarily worked for my wife and I.
Jen Robinson has a new adventure coming, after working for a political prisoner in Timor and then for the founder of Wikileaks:
The British taxpayers paid over 50 million pounds in vain... to besiege, then release, Assange. Who was ever held accountable for this waste? Who profited from it? That money that got spent was clearly not worth it, Assange should have been released to Australia back in 2011 or 2012, not 2024.
Some local gossip site currently notes "the sale of a Newtown property formerly sold by the father of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in a bid to raise funds to help free his son a decade ago."
And states paid as well.
They spent a lot of money, not just on British police. The US Government paid lawyers for well over a decade to harass the messenger, who merely released valuable information for people who had leaked it to him.
The system may have wised up since. Based on my wife's recollection (I've not checked the transcript, but we have them), the Judge in our case said either that the case filed against us was a waste of the court's time or a waste of the court's money. We could not agree more. Accordingly, she shortened the case from the expected 5 days to less than two and we got to go home early on a Friday to feed the birds and our fish (they were already hungry).
This month we are talking to national politicians who are definitely interested in this matter. Britain is ranked 20th worldwide in the "2025 Press Freedom Index" of RSF. We want to keep it that way or improve it. Assange and Robinson are Australians and Australia is ranked 29th. When I spoke to them (or rather, they spoke to me first) I sensed their sincerity and they inspired me. They did the right thing.
Both Assange and his barrister (Robinson) were subjected to attacks in the mainstream media (Robinson remarked to me about that). The media owners envied and even reviled them. They despise transparency. They have no mercy on women, they're going to attack anything or anyone that stands in their way.
Assange caused considerable financial damage to corrupt officials, criminal bankers, rogue businessmen, and all sorts of people who would be better off dead than alive. That's why they tried to shoot him, the messenger, and the US Government also planned to torture him before his death (the plan is a verified fact; it got leaked). They got to torture him regardless.
That's how the world works. Either people get used to it or they try to do something to correct it (corruption never ends). █