Dear Fellow Americans –

I never thought I’d write a letter like this, but we’re living in very different times. This is my cry for help.

My name is Nathan DeGrave, and as a non violent participant at the Jan 6th rally, I’ve spent the last 9 months detained as a political prisoner in pod C2B at the DC DOC…otherwise known as DC’s Gitmo.

The conditions here for Jan 6ers have been inhumane. In fact, some inmates are even begging to be transferred to GUANTANAMO BAY, where even THEY have more acceptable standards.

Class action LAWSUITS are being filed against this prison; and even the ACLU has gotten involved. Senators Matt Gaetz and Marjorie Taylor Greene have since attempted to gain access to this facility and inspect the conditions of the jail, only to be denied.

The vile filth of what has become our daily life is being illegally HIDDEN from the members of OUR OWN CONGRESS.

So…let me tell you about what me and many of the other Jan 6ers have been experiencing in DC’s Gitmo. It is my hope that with MEDIA EXPOSURE and the awareness of the American public, that SOMETHING may be done and this never happens to anyone ever again.

OUR CONDITIONS

For the first 120 days in DC’s Gitmo, Jan 6ers experienced DAILY LOCKDOWNS for 23-24 HOURS before being allowed to leave our small 120 sq. ft cell. The PHYSICAL and MENTAL ANGUISH that results from this kind of SEVERE ISOLATION has caused many people to go on a RAPID mental decline.

As a result, a large percentage of us are HEAVILY MEDICATED with anti-anxiety and anti-depressant drugs, which helps to cope with the psychological and mental ABUSE we endure.

Many times, the little rec we DO receive is STRIPPED AWAY if our cell isn’t up to the standards of the guard on duty. This changes from day to day. Jan 6ers have lost rec time and out of cell activity ANY TIME news interviews about the jail are aired on TV, people speak up about our conditions, or rallies are held in our name. We’ll probably have a lockdown upon the publishing of this letter. So I have already warned those I know in advance..

Masks are WEAPONIZED and used against us, even though we NEVER leave the facility. Officers have walked in with the SOLE INTENTION of needing to write 20-30 disciplinary reports against Jan 6ers, which adversely effects our chances of release and causes loss of privileges, phone time and commissary. Masks need to be covering both the nose and mouth AT ALL TIMES or we are threatened and locked down in our cells. Jan 6ers are always respectful to the employees around us, but C.Os maintain the need to invent reasons for discipline.

PRIVILEGED LEGAL DOCUMENTS have been CONFISCATED and gone missing from various cells, and HIGHLY SENSITIVE discovery (video evidence under attorney/client privilege) is watched by employees during our legal calls.

Jordan Mink, for example, had all discovery TAKEN by ERT officers on August 23rd despite the objection of his attorney. They handcuffed him, searched his room, and then proceeded to take all video evidence in his possession. Additionally, legal visits take 2-3 WEEKS or more to be scheduled, leaving little time to discuss our defense and prepare for trial.

The EXTREME medical neglect in this facility has caused a variety of adverse illnesses and disease. Some show signs of scurvy. And some even have Covid like symptoms, but medical personnel have refused to treat it.

Christopher Worrell, for example, is an inmate with Cancer, who also broke his hand in prison and requires surgery. Both have been completely ignored. Federal judge Royce Lamberth got to the point where on October 12th, he filed contempt of court charges against the warden of the DC DOC, claiming that Worrell’s civil rights have been violated, and demanding the U.S attorney general inquire further about his and other possible violations.

Another inmate, Peter Stager, WAITED FOUR MONTHS to receive his CPAP breathing machine, and has needed an MRI since spring, which has also been ignored by staff.

The harsh, unlivable conditions of our unit has caused health hazards that defy Department of Health regulations. And on at least five occasions, RAW SEWAGE has overflowed our unit, causing human fecal matter to flood the floors and rooms. That’s also in addition to the MOLD on cell walls, as well as the rusty pipes, and DIRTY WATER that flows from these sinks. White rags TURN BROWN when exposed to the water from our faucets.

We are undergoing SEVERE NUTRITIONAL DEFICIENCIES and STARVATION. For breakfast this morning, I received a tray of flavorless paste, two slices of bread, and a slice of bologna. Lunches usually consist of rice and beans, but we’ll get cold chicken/beef patties if we are lucky. For dinner, we are sometimes fed a diet of cheese sandwiches, and bologna and cheese 4 to 5 times per week.

Without commissary, people like myself are FORCED TO STARVE. I suffer from HEADACHES and NAUSEA on an almost REGULAR BASIS from the malnutrition and constant hunger I am subjected to. I have lost ALMOST 15 POUNDS since I’ve been detained.

Our rights to personal hygiene are also totally neglected. Razors are PROHIBITED, and inmates are forced to either go unshaved, and grow long beards, or use a razor free cream that BURNS and IRRITATES the skin. But many other jails have allowed the use of razors without incident. Haircuts are also PROHIBITED from unvaccinated inmates. For me, it’s been nearly 9 months. I look VIRTUALLY UNRECOGNIZABLE in the condition I’m in. I fear even my family would not recognize me.

Contact with the outside world, from legal visits to seeing loved ones is HIGHLY RESTRICTED. After in-person visits, legal or otherwise, we are forced to undergo humiliating STRIP SEARCHES, despite ALL visitors being thoroughly checked for contraband. If it’s a legal visit, we are placed in a 14 day quarantine, with no out of cell time; EVEN IF your attorney is VACCINATED and tests NEGATIVE for Covid. Visits with friends or family members, for unvaccinated inmates, are NEVER ALLOWED.

As a result, many people have skipped critical meetings with their council, and NEVER get an opportunity to see friends or family. VIDEO VISITATION, while available to the rest of the jail, is RESTRICTED in the Jan 6 pod. Mail is delayed for MONTHS, and phone calls are limited to a MAXIMUM of pre approved 12 numbers. If there’s anyone else in our extended family or otherwise we’d like to call, we’re pretty much out of luck.

RELIGIOUS SERVICES, protected by the 1st amendment, are NOT provided to Jan 6ers. Neither are in person classes or other activities available to the rest of the jail. An inmate named Ryan Samsel, instead attempted to organize his own bible study inside the pod, until he was viciously BEATEN and LEFT FOR DEAD by correctional officers. He suffered a broken eye socket and brain damage as a result of the vicious attack. He’s now permanently blind in one eye. On another occasion, Scott Fairlamb was confronted by an officer in the middle of the night, and his life was threatened, once the officer’s body cam was disabled. Many, like myself, are afraid they could be the next victim.

And last but not least, we experience racism from many guards on a daily basis, being the ONLY WHITE REPUBLICANS in the entire jail. The false narrative is has been passed around the jail and to corrections officers that we are “white supremacists” (we are NOT). The inmate population is predominantly black, so we are at risk being here because of this false narrative. The guards are mostly liberal migrants from Africa who have been conditioned to hate us, and hate America. Jan 6ers have been mocked, beaten and ridiculed by guards for singing the National Anthem. The Corrections Officers despise our politics and the love we have for this country. At one point, an officer even yelled “FUCK AMERICA!”, and threatened to lock us down FOR A WEEK if we attempted to sing the National Anthem again.

THE TRUTH ABOUT MY STORY

Finally, I feel like I should touch briefly on the government and prosecutor’s portrayal of who I am as a person.

No, I am not a terrorist, extremist or any of the other names I’ve been called by the government. More than anything, I am a red blooded patriot and I love this country more than anything.

I am being unfairly prosecuted and definitely overcharged. I never assaulted anyone, destroyed property, or stolen anything. I walked through wide open doors to enter the Capitol, along with my camera crew hoping to get the rally on video. I was never even armed at any point inside the Capitol.

Our goal was to make a documentary, and get likes and shares on social media. Yes I wore a costume (that the prosecutor refers to as paramilitary gear and body armor) but it was for the movie and was nothing of the sort.

And yet, 9 months later here I sit, with 10 years worth of charges and no hope for a future. The surveillance footage shows absolutely no signs of assault, and despite attempts by media companies to get it released to the public, the government has denied it.

I think that’s because they are fully aware that this footage is questionable at worst, and exonerates me at best. Please don’t be fooled by the media. I am a loving and peaceful person with no history of violence.

This weaponized DOJ and their blatant resentment of my respect for President Donald Trump is putting me in a situation that makes me feel helpless in my current situation.

HOW YOU CAN HELP

Despite me and other Jan 6ers experiencing these unthinkable conditions, all of us remain POSITIVE and HOPEFUL that, in the end, JUSTICE WILL PREVAIL. We maintain a LOVE for this country and the Constitution like no other. The only thing keeping us going is our undying patriotism, the camaraderie between one another and our faith in God.

Please…SHARE THIS LETTER with EVERYONE you know: friends and family, senators, representatives, political organizers, civil rights groups and media outlets.

The truth HAS to get out. And the jail MUST PAY for what they are doing to this country’s citizens.

As a result of this unlawful detainment the last 9 months, I have lost everything. The successful business I spent 13 years of my life working on, my apartment in Las Vegas, social media accounts with a lifetime of memories…you name it.

The government has essentially CANCELLED ME. Not only that, but following the arrest, my best friend of 12 years robbed my apartment, stole my cat, and hacked my personal Instagram with 100,000+ followers.

Since then, I often go between feelings of hopefulness and moments of depression. I wonder if I can ever recover from this, but I have to remind myself to never give up.

There are major medical complications I now struggle with as a result of the jail’s neglect of my health since being here.

If there is any way I hope to recover, my only hope are the ones who are reading this. I was on top of the world once upon a time, and that life seems now only like a distant memory.

If there’s anything you can do to help, I would appreciate anything at all. Inmates here are being extorted with lack of nutrition, forcing me to spend most of what’s left on commissary which I can no longer afford.

I need desperate help with my legal expenses and just help staying alive in here with commissary and all the expenses I still have on the outside as my livelihood and life has been stripped away from me. Thank you for any her you can afford, even if it is a few dollars it goes a long way in here.

Sincerely and with love,

Nathaniel DeGrave

 

Read more:

https://www.unz.com/aanglin/a-letter-from-the-dc-gulag/

 

 

FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW √√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√√

For more than a decade, the US government and its allies have sought to destroy Julian Assange. They have smeared him and his work, hounded him with spurious charges and imprisoned him. causing his mental and physical health to collapse. 

Thanks to a recent investigative report from Yahoo! News, we now know that this campaign of persecution included explicit discussions within the CIA about the possibility of kidnapping or assassinating him. According to a former senior counterintelligence official, discussion of plans to kidnap or kill Assange took place “at the highest levels” of the Trump administration, and “[t]here seemed to be no boundaries” as to what was considered.

The US government has had Assange in its sights since the 2010 release of the Afghan war logs and Iraq war logs. Assange and his organisation, WikiLeaks, have exposed the crimes of the US empire in the Middle East and beyond. The empire now wants revenge, and to make an example of him for anyone else considering speaking out. 

For the CIA, the ongoing release of the “Vault 7” documents, which began in 2017, prompted an escalation of this campaign of persecution. The Vault 7 documents, the largest leaks in CIA history, contain sensitive information on the CIA’s hacking and electronic spying tools, detailing the agency’s ability to hack into various consumer electronic devices. This includes turning smart TVs into listening devices and hijacking the vehicle control systems of modern cars and trucks. 

In the wake of these revelations, Trump’s then newly appointed CIA director, Mike Pompeo, sought to reclassify WikiLeaks from a journalistic outfit to a hostile spy agency. He declared in his first public statements in the role of CIA director in April 2017: “It’s time to call out WikiLeaks for what it really is: a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia”. This new public designation of WikiLeaks accompanied the internal discussions of the possibility of kidnapping or assassinating Assange. 

It also accompanied a renewed attempt to extradite Assange to the US. While the Yahoo! News report shows that options like poisoning had been considered, it has ultimately been this campaign of legal persecution that has been the preferred way to destroy Assange. For close to a decade, Assange has been imprisoned in one way or another. From 2012 to 2019, he was trapped inside the Ecuadorian embassy in London, where he sought and received political asylum to avoid a justifiably feared extradition to the US. The six and a half years which he spent in the embassy were considered by the United Nations working group on arbitrary detention to be a form of arbitrary confinement. 

According the Nils Melzer, the United Nations special rapporteur on torture, during Assange’s imprisonment in the embassy, he was a political prisoner subjected to psychological torture. In a September 2020 interview, Melzer describes how “inside the embassy [Assange] was constantly surveilled, deprived of his privacy, exposed to death threats, isolated, humiliated and demonised”. Two separate medical experts who examined Assange in May 2019 found that he “showed typical signs of prolonged exposure to psychological torture”.

In April 2019, Assange’s citizenship and protection were revoked by the Ecuadorian government. He was subsequently dragged from the embassy by British police and has since been held in prison by British authorities. Despite this nearly decade-long imprisonment, the only crime which Assange has been convicted of is an administrative charge: bail infringement for charges that have now been dropped. For this minor offence, Assange was sentenced to 50 weeks in a maximum security prison. 

This sentence has been well and truly served. Due to good behaviour, the sentence was cut down to 25 weeks, which means that since September 2019 Assange has been held in a maximum security prison in order to facilitate ongoing attempts to extradite him to the US. In late 2017, US prosecutors secretly filed criminal charges against Assange of conspiring with celebrated whistleblower Chelsea Manning to gain access to a government computer in 2010. These charges were revealed on 11 April 2019, at the same time as Assange was arrested by British authorities. US prosecutors later added 17 further charges. If extradited and convicted in the US, Assange faces up to 175 years in prison. 

Despite the British courts ruling against Assange’s extradition in January of this year, his legal persecution continues. Ongoing attempts by the US to appeal this ruling have become a basis for the indefinite imprisonment of Assange. In late October, the British High Court held a two-day hearing to consider the US government’s appeal. A decision is expected in the coming weeks.

The January ruling against extradition was on the basis of Assange’s mental health, and that the harsh conditions of the US prison system would unreasonably increase the risk of Assange committing suicide. The US government is appealing on the basis that this decision wrongly assessed the risk. In the appeal, representative for the US government James Lewis has made much of a series of “assurances” given by the US that Assange will not be subjected to harsh measures such as super-maximum security prison or “special administrative measures” which restrict contact with the outside world.

As Assange’s defence pointed out, revelations of CIA assassination plots make these assurances laughable. And as a report on the proceedings in the Dissenter noted, “In spite of the assurance related to [special administration measures], Lewis still told the judges the US government must be allowed to hold Assange in these restrictive conditions if they fear he could be responsible for a ‘breach’ of ‘national security’. Otherwise, he would have a ‘blank check to do whatever he liked’.”

Regardless of the decision, the court cases are only beginning. If the appeal is successful, the case will go back to a lower court for a new decision, while whoever loses this current appeal can also apply for a further, final appeal in the UK’s supreme court. These proceedings could take years.

The ongoing attempts to extradite Assange constitute the most important political trial of the century. It is not just Assange on trial, but the entire idea of a free press and the ability of journalists to report on the war crimes of empire. Apart from the initial charges relating to conspiracy, the other 17 charges relate to the publication and release of secret government documents, something that has generally been standard practice for serious journalists and news outlets. These charges, begun by the Trump administration but continued by current US President Joe Biden, put into legal form the reclassification by Pompeo of WikiLeaks from journalism to “a non-state hostile intelligence service”. To criminalise this reporting in an era of growing imperial tensions is a disturbing precedent.

This trial, let alone the revelations of assassination plots against a journalist hailing from Australia, should have the media here up in arms. After years of prevarication, most liberal editorials have now come out against the espionage charges and the Australian government’s apparent lack of concern about them, worried by the precedent set for journalism. But the response by the media should match the extremity of the outrages against free reporting that are being carried out by the most powerful governments in the world. Instead, there has been a generally muted response.

Assange embarrassed the US government. Over many years, he has revealed its secrets and many crimes. His work has shown, in shocking detail, the violence and brutality that are a daily part of the US empire’s operations. For these crimes, crimes of telling the truth, he has faced a relentless campaign of persecution and the possibility of life in jail. It is our duty to stand in solidarity with him. 

 

Read more: https://redflag.org.au/article/plot-destroy-julian-assange

 

See also: 

save the world from madness: FREE JULIAN ASSANGE NOW !...

 

Free Julian Assange Nowwwwwwwwwwww!!!!

 

Elites Buy Us Off with Trivial Protections – While They Raid the Common Wealth  BY JONATHAN COOK

 

 

In these posts I try to highlight how our social, cultural and political structures are rigged to reflect the interests of an economic elite and maintain their power. Because the forces that shape those structures are largely invisible – we mainly notice the people and buildings inside these structures – the way power operates can be difficult to describe and to understand.

To use a familiar analogy, we are like a fish that cannot see the water in which it is submerged. Water completely orders its life: how it swims, that it swims, the limits of where it can swim, and so on.

Power orders our lives similarly. The difference is that the way power is organised in our societies is not natural – “the normal order of things” – in the way water is for a fish. A wealth elite engineers our environment to perpetuate itself and sustain the power structures on which it depends.

 

My latest: Power needs to be rid of Sanders, just as it earlier rid itself of Corbyn, because they are not chained to the current power paradigm. By refusing to serve the power-cult like most politicians, they threaten to shine a light on its true nature https://t.co/Um9t170547

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 25, 2020

 

 

It is because we are largely blind to this engineered environment that we don’t get out of bed each morning determined to overthrow our governments for maintaining financial systems that tax nurses and teachers at a higher rate than they do transnational corporations; or that protect private, usually inherited, wealth parked offshore; or that reward corporations for “externalising” their costs – that is, offloading them in ways that destroy the environment and the future of our children.

Resignation – our assumption that this is just the way things are – is made possible only because every day we face endless propaganda: in our schools, in our places of higher education, in the workplace, and most especially from the so-called “mainstream” – code for billionaire-owned or state-run – media.

Our minds are battered each day into submission, so much so that fairly quickly our childhood exuberance, curiosity and wonder, and our sense of fairness and justice, is crushed into a soulless technocrat’s ideas of order, efficiency and pragmatism. We are sidetracked into, at best, debates about how we can improve the status quo, rather than whether the status quo works or, even more usefully, whether the status quo is dangerous and eco-cidal.

 

A pandemic caused either by our pillage of natural habitats or by our meddling with viruses. And a solution to the pandemic that further ravages nature with our plastic waste.

Our species seems to be in a death spiral https://t.co/2PCogq9F7q

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) November 9, 2021

 

 

Ideological capture

The propaganda system tightly constrains our understanding of political and ideological realities to make them dependent on the economic priorities of the ultra-rich. We become unconscious lobbyists for the lawless and immoral activities of corporations and billionaires.

This ideological capture was neatly illustrated by one liberal analyst who bewailed the danger posed by those who seek to challenge the status quo:

 

If you want to replace the current system of capitalism with something else, who is going to make your jeans, iPhones and run Twitter?

 

The layers of ideological protection around this system – the degree to which our intellectual and cultural life is entirely captured by the billionaire class – was highlighted, inadvertently as ever, in an exclusive report this week in the Guardian.

Under the headline “Watchdog stopped ministers breaching neutrality code in top BBC and BFI hires”, we get an insight into how our “watchdogs” operate – not primarily to protect our interests from high-level corruption, but to preserve the existing system of power by preventing it from being discredited.

The Guardian report is based on the response from the Office of the Commissioner for Public Appointments to a Freedom of Information request. That response reveals that Peter Riddell, who served until last month as the Commissioner overseeing public appointments, blocked efforts by the government of Boris Johnson to rig the system to make it even easier for Tory party donors and cronies to head the UK’s most important public bodies.

Image of democracy

Riddell was appointed to the Commissioner’s position in 2012 by the Conservative government of David Cameron.

Riddell is a former journalist, and one, it should be noted, who is about as establishment as they come. He worked his way up through the economic elite’s house journal, the Financial Times, for 20 years. Then he joined the Times, the political elite’s house journal, where he spent a further two decades, first as a political commentator and then as assistant editor.

Riddell was an early member of the secretive Gibson inquiry that was supposed to investigate British complicity in the US-led torture and rendition programme. The inquiry, with its tightly delimited remit, didn’t even manage to reach the level of a whitewash. It failed to get to grips with the most pressing issues around systemic law-breaking by the UK and US, and what modest findings it did reach were quietly shelved by Cameron’s government.

Riddell has also held senior roles at the Hansard Society and the Institute for Government, both elite institutions concerned with strengthening the substance and image of parliamentary democracy in the UK to avert growing criticism of its glaring deficiencies.

So Riddell – who was honoured by the Queen in 2012 as a Commander of the British Empire (CBE) for his services to journalism – is very much integrated into the establishment that runs the country for its own benefit. But he is also on the wing of it that is most anxious about the masses getting restless if the failures inherent in a system designed to uphold the establishment’s power become too apparent.

Carefully selected

Riddell’s ostensible job as Commissioner for Public Appointments is to assess whether appointments to the bodies that control or regulate public life in the UK are being properly conducted – from the BBC to the various regulatory Of-bodies, cultural institutions like the British Film Institute, the commission that regulates charities, the health and safety executive, museums and galleries, and education oversight bodies like the Office for Students.

Riddell was an ideal person for the job, as Cameron doubtless understood, because he cares deeply about the image of elite institutions.

 

The candidates for these public bodies – including, of course, Riddell himself – have already been carefully filtered for ideological sympathy to elite goals. The vast majority, like Riddell, have attended private schools and/or gone on to elite universities such as Oxbridge. Like Riddell, they have then typically served in the status-quo adoring, advocacy-trained elite professions, as lawyers or journalists, or they have spent decades working in the various temples to late-stage capitalism, such as banks, investment firms and fund management companies.

Traditionally, the ideological pluralism represented by those appointed to public bodies has varied from a moderate, gently reformist identification with turbo-charged capitalism (neoliberalism) to a complete, dog-eat-dog identification with neoliberalism. Riddell is on the more moderate wing of that already narrow spectrum.

The appointments system has always been heavily rigged – as one would expect – to maintain class privilege. Cliques have no incentive to invite in outsiders, those who might disrupt the financial and ideological gravy train the elite has been growing fat on. The appointments system, by its very nature, is deeply conservative.

Crony appointments

Any challenges to the status quo come not from the left – or so rarely from the left that they can be quickly snuffed out with corporate media-led propaganda-vilification campaigns, as happened with Jeremy Corbyn – but from the right. Which is why the system has a consistent tendency to shift rightwards, even as reality moves leftwards, in the sense that the failure of financial institutions and the collapse of environmental support systems become ever harder to conceal or ignore.

That is the context for understanding the “exposure” of Riddell’s concerns about “interference” by Boris Johnson’s government in the appointments system.

The system Riddell oversees is supposed to ensure that one member – and one member only – of the selection panels that decide who will head the bodies influencing our cultural, intellectual and environmental spaces is “independent”.

The charade of this should be obvious. Riddell’s job is to make sure that, even though the rest of the panel deciding, for example, who gets to run the BBC can be packed with Boris Johnson’s cronies, one member of the panel must be “a non-political senior independent panel member”. They even have an acronym for this sticking plaster: a SIPM.

What does “independent” mean in this case? Only that these solitary figures on the appointments panels should not be “politically active” in public – perhaps to encourage us to imagine that, in secret, there are lots of socialist bankers and hedge fund managers who pick the people who head our most important public bodies. And that, unlike the other panellists, the “independent” one should have some minimal technical understanding of the principles of making public appointments.

In other words, Riddell’s role is to make sure there is one person like him on these selection panels – a moderate apostle for neoliberalism – rather than only dog-at-dog cheerleaders for neoliberalism. And the reason is as cynical as it looks: that it benefits the system that not too many overtly dog-eat-dog candidates get appointed to our most important, visible and cherished public bodies.

Feeble rules

Riddell earnt his place as Commissioner for Public Appointments after a lifetime of working to salvage the image of establishment structures – persuading us that inherently corrupt institutions are basically respectable and well-meaning.

The Guardian fulfils the same role. In its report on the public appointments system, it highlights a supposed battle to maintain the system’s already non-existent integrity – as though Riddell serves as a check on government power over regulatory bodies in the same way the Guardian claims to act as a check on the rest of the billionaire-owned corporate media.

In reality, both are trying to stop real scrutiny of out-of-control power structures that are ultimately destroying economic health and environmental health on a global scale.

The Guardian report summarises Riddell’s actions in its introductory paragraph:

 

A watchdog had to prevent ministers breaching a strict code on political neutrality and independence during the search for new chairs for the BBC and the British Film Institute (BFI), the Guardian can reveal.

 

What does this “prevention” amount to in practice? In the main cases cited, Riddell insisted on one member of the appointments board not being someone who trumpets their allegiance to Boris Johnson’s brand of politics.

Riddell compares the Johnson government’s rule-breaking with the situation under Johnson’s predecessor: the much blander, rightwing Conservative leader, Theresa May. He says of her: “May was, as you would expect, rather correct [enforced the “senior independent panel member” rule] and she was concerned with getting good people to do things. She was quite robust on that.”

This is what we are supposed to be excited about? This is what we are supposed to champion as proper regulation? And given how low expectations are – from Riddell, from the Guardian and from us the public – the Johnson government’s efforts to break this feeble rule are presented as some kind of special threat to good governance.

 

Human warehousing

Riddell and his principles of good governance actually make no substantial difference to the appointments process he is supposed to oversee – as is apparent from the results.

Even though Riddell insisted on an “independent” member on the panel that picked the chair of the BBC, the winner was Richard Sharp, a major donor to the Tory party and former adviser to Johnson’s Chancellor, the billionaire former banker Rishi Sunak. Sharp’s business ventures include funding a firm accused of “human warehousing” – stuffing benefit recipients into “rabbit hutch” flats to profit from a Conservative government scheme.

 

New BBC chair Richard Sharp is not only a major donor to the Conservative party but he helped to fund a firm accused of 'human warehousing', stuffing benefit recipients into 'rabbit hutch' flats to profit from a Conservative government scheme https://t.co/nR4wOeZozv

— Jonathan Cook (@Jonathan_K_Cook) February 26, 2021

 

 

The man appointed – under Riddell’s ultimate oversight – to head the Office for Students, which regulates higher education in England, is James Wharton. He is a senior figure drawn from the inherently corrupt world of corporate lobbying whose only qualifications for the job are that he is a Conservative peer and served as Johnson’s campaign manager.

The problem here is not the one Riddell or the Guardian are peddling. Johnson’s government is indeed a threat but not in the way they are highlighting. There is no system of transparent, honest governance and regulation Johnson is undermining and that Riddell and the Guardian are seeking to protect.

 

Through his clownish incompetence, Johnson is threatening to expose the system’s corruption by making it even more corrupt – so corrupt, in fact, that its corruption can no longer be concealed from the public. Johnson is threatening to make a system designed to covertly maintain elite privilege explicitly do so. He threatens to discredit it, to bring it into disrepute.

To make us, like the fish, aware of the water all around us.

Sticking plaster

The Guardian and Riddell are waging a battle – one presented as critically important – to ensure that the sticking plaster continues to stick.

We are being sidelined into trivial debates about upholding rules over panels having one, solitary “independent” member. That “independent” panellist, let us note, has no influence over the shortlist of candidates. He or she has no meaningful influence over who gets picked. And more importantly still, the “independent” panellist is not even independent – they are selected, as were Ridell and the editor of the Guardian, precisely because they have spent a lifetime identifying with establishment priorities.

Riddell personifies the only permitted struggles going in our political, cultural and economic spaces.

 

 

Read more:

https://www.unz.com/jcook/elites-buy-us-off-with-trivial-protections-while-they-raid-the-common-wealth/