Note: There is an article in today’s edition of The Australian by Julian Assange that is worth reading.
Julian Assange, the editor in chief of WikiLeaks, turned himself in at a London courthouse earlier today, based on an international extradition warrant. In a hearing today, he was denied bail because he is considered to be a flight risk, and is now in custody. Assange is accused by Swedish authorities of one count of unlawful coercion, two counts of sexual molestation and one count of rape. He denies the charges, which many have suggested are politically driven — they seem to involve actual events featuring sex without condoms.
Swedish investigators told AOL News that Assange was not wanted for rape per se, but for something else that they call “sex by surprise,” or what it described as a “condom malfunction.” [Note, I am developing this angle in the comments area, below.]
The Cablegate story, of which Wikileaks is at the center, involving the release of hundreds of cables circulated among United States diplomats, has rearranged not just the landscape of both journalism and government the past nine days. It is an event so huge that it’s difficult to see it for what it is.
On the scale of world events, it is the equivalent of tectonic movement, or of the planet itself shifting its alignment or orbit. The astrology and other factors suggest this will be an event with far-reaching implications and is a defining moment of the 21st century. In a sense, it is the first real answer to the cataclysm of the Sept. 11 attacks and their aftermath.
The Guardian reported this morning that “WikiLeaks have condemned the arrest as an attack on media freedom. Sources claim that the group currently has no plans to publish an insurance encryption code that will release the remaining, unpublished classified cables. In his online chat with the Guardian last Friday, Assange suggested the code would be released if ‘something happens to us’.”
Before reading the chart, let’s consider the context: what is being called Cablegate is the most significant thing to affect government and journalism for many decades — certainly, the most significant since the Pentagon Papers and the Watergate investigation. But I think it’s bigger than the two multiplied by one another. Assange has turned the ‘national security state’ that has towered above the world since Sept. 11 inside-out. He has revealed the lies that are perpetuating the wars that have killed hundreds of thousands of people. Then, the one-world government responds by accusing him of alleged crimes that occurred in his most private moments. This is a highly unusual legal proceeding, and I doubt if this type of international legal instrument has ever been used against a person for the allegations described. Indeed, remember that the United States military let even Osama bin Laden, supposedly the most wanted man in the world, go free at the battle of Tora Bora in late 2001.
The chart for Assange turning himself in is shown above. As you can see, it’s complex chart, with many planets clustered in the 12th house — the house of secret matters, right above the horizon. The Sun has just crossed a point called the Great Attractor, and is lurking just inside of the 12th house, suggesting that the size and scope of the matter at hand is enormous. Other factors (including the pending Mercury retrograde that begins Friday) suggest that this will be an extremely complex judicial proceeding, though Assange himself may be free, presumably on bail, in what seems like a stroke of fortune. [Note, as of 10:25 am, MSNBC is reporting that Assange was denied bail. “If anyone looks through the details of the case in Sweden, this should not have happened,” said John Pilger, renowned documentary filmmaker a supporter who is on-scene in London. “He has made some very powerful enemies.”]
Notice that the rising degree is 5+ Capricorn. Amidst the cluster of many planets and points, that is also the exact degree of Mercury and of the Moon. This is a triple conjunction of three fast-moving things that happens once only and lasts for about four minutes. It would be difficult to plan such a conjunction; it is a pure synchronicity. When three points occupy one degree, one thing we can do is see what the degree symbol is, in the Sabian symbol reference. It is a degree of crossing a transition and also of the need for completion — two factors that are prominent in the situation the chart is describing.
The symbol for the degree is, “Ten logs under an archway leading to darker woods.” Dane Rudhyar delineates the degree: “The need to complete any undertaking before seeking entrance to whatever is to be found beyond.” He explains, “Number 10 is a symbol of completion; it symbolizes even more the revelation of a new series of activities just ahead. Yet unless the concluded series is brought to some degree of fulfillment, nothing truly significant is likely to be accomplished by a restless reaching out toward the as-yet unknown.”
Indeed.
Note that just above that ascendant is Pluto, veiled from view (the 12th, while above the horizon, is the place where things and issues hide — one of those interesting paradoxes of astrology). So inside this is, as we might expect, something potent and hidden. It’s more than something merely personal or interpersonal, as Pluto represents the millions, the deepest issues and matters of soul.
The ruler of that Capricorn ascendant is Saturn. We find Saturn in the 9th house — the house of the higher courts, where the paperwork originated. Saturn is intercepted in Libra in the 9th house, meaning that Libra has no house cusps — as if it’s floating in the 9th without an anchor. There is a matter inside the matter.
While Assange is being extradited on a fast-tracked European arrest warrant, what’s the betting that an extradition warrant is currently being prepared by the US given that Eric Holder, the U.S, attorney general, is holding a grand jury into WikiLeaks?
The 9th house has Virgo on the cusp; its ruler is Mercury. That is interesting, because for one thing Mercury is so highlighted in this chart, and for another, because Mercury stations retrograde on Friday. This whole matter may fall apart like the bungle that it is, and certainly it’s due to change directions radically, on short notice.
The Guardian today noted that Internet guru Clay Shirky has an interesting post on WikiLeaks and how America’s pursuit of the site opens it up to the charge of hypocrisy: “The leaders of Myanmar and Belarus, or Thailand and Russia, can now rightly say to us: ‘You went after WikiLeaks’ domain name, their hosting provider, and even denied your citizens the ability to register protest through donations, all without a warrant and all targeting overseas entities, simply because you decided you don’t like the site. If that’s the way governments get to behave, we can live with that’.”
Novelist Umberto Eco wrote, “Let’s turn to the more profound significance of what has occurred. Formerly, back in the days of Orwell, every power could be conceived of as a Big Brother watching over its subjects’ every move. The Orwellian prophecy came completely true once the powers that be could monitor every phone call made by the citizen, every hotel he stayed in, every toll road he took and so on and so forth. The citizen became the total victim of the watchful eye of the state. But when it transpires, as it has now, that even the crypts of state secrets are not beyond the hacker’s grasp, the surveillance ceases to work only one-way and becomes circular. The state has its eye on every citizen, but every citizen, or at least every hacker – the citizens’ self-appointed avenger – can pry into the state’s every secret.”
I would add that pursuing Assange, a political figure, for sex crimes — which are said to involve sex that the ‘victims’ openly say started consensual and then somehow (on paper, anyway) ended up non-consensual — is a chilling revelation about how sex crimes statues can be abused. It’s also a reminder that in modern day ‘rules for radicals’, and the rules for people involved in any form of deep activism: know who you have sex with. Know their agenda and if possible their connections, and be assured that the encounter is coming from a place of goodwill. Employing seductresses as spies goes back to the days of the Old Testament and before.
While the international courts are busy prosecuting what they claim is rape, let’s see some warrants for warlords in Darfur.
I keep looking for it but not seeing it. Has anyone else noticed that the “system” didn’t really step up their attack on Assange until he promised leaks about the banks?
It was ok to leak about the defense issues or diplomatic issues but when he mentioned banks….he was talking about leaking about the MONEY. MONEY is more important to those in power than any lives ever are. When you threaten to screw with someone’s money, that’s when they come after you with Interpol (for a small alleged sex mishap? Really?) and all the big guns they can muster. That’s when they throw you in prison and issue death threats. That’s when they try to really hush you up.
It is always about the MONEY; especially with Americans.
I hope Wikileaks will somehow continue to operate. I am pretty interested in seeing the promised banking documents. Assange has pissed off a lot of very powerful people but I hope he somehow prevails. The charges are an obvious ploy to discredit him in the public eye. The question is, why is Sweden bringing the charges, anybody have any ideas on that?
From a reader…
http://my.firedoglake.com/kirkmurphy/2010/12/04/assanges-chief-accuser-has-her-own-history-with-us-funded-anti-castro-groups-one-of-which-has-cia-ties/
Small world, isnt it? Julian Assange is the human face of Wikileaks the organization thats enabled whistle-blowers to reveal hideous war crimes and expose much of Americas foreign policy to the world.
He just happens to meet a Swedish woman who just happens to have been publishing her work in a well-funded anti-Castro group that just happens to have links with a group led by a man at least one journalist describes as an agent of the CIA: the violent secret arm of Americas foreign policy.
And she just happens to have been expelled from Cuba, which just happens to be the global symbol of successful defiance of American foreign policy.
And despite her work in Sweden upholding the human right of gender equity in Cuba she just happens to end up associating with a group openly supported by an admitted CIA agent who himself committed mass murder when he actively participated in the terrorist bombing of a jetliner carrying a Cuban sports team an act that was of a piece with Americas secret foreign policy of violent attacks against Cuban state interests.
And now she just happens after admittedly consensual sex to have gone to Swedish authorities to report the sex ended without a condom which just happens to be the pretext for Interpol to issue a Red Notice informing the worlds police forces of charges against Julian Assange.
Who just happens to be the man Americas political class the people who run Americas foreign policy have been trying to silence. And who happens to be the man some of them have been calling to have murdered.
With a lust for vengeance like that, one could be forgiven for concluding theyve just happened to have taken a page from Annas revenge manual.
“All hail the Aries Point, whatever the fuck that might be.” Amen
I hope Assange lives and has a fulfilling life, not a life based on fear but one where we the people have responded to this overwhelming need to care for one of our own.
Open letter about Assange’s rights as an Australian citizen to our Prime Minister on the Australian government-owned media channel – Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC). Includes signatures from Noam Chomsky and John Pilger.
It’s all about democratic principles and the rules of law:
http://www.abc.net.au/unleashed/41914.html
How do you like your truth? Stirred and shaken with an olive?
Another computer hacker falling foul of the US:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gary_Mckinnon
Most of what I have seen in the cables that have been made public so far are things that I would say that any informed reader of the media would be aware of in some form or other so … what is that the powers that be are really afraid that Assange has got hold of in all those 250,000 or so cables?
Hmm. So, okay, it might have been deliberate, on someone’s part.
Interesting.
And here’s something else completely boggling:
http://www.state.gov/r/pa/prs/ps/2010/12/152465.htm
U.S. to Host World Press Freedom Day in 2011
Press Statement
Philip J. Crowley
Assistant Secretary, Bureau of Public Affairs
Washington, DC
December 7, 2010
The United States is pleased to announce that it will host UNESCO’s World Press Freedom Day event in 2011, from May 1 – May 3 in Washington, D.C. UNESCO is the only UN agency with the mandate to promote freedom of expression and its corollary, freedom of the press.
The theme for next year’s commemoration will be 21st Century Media: New Frontiers, New Barriers. The United States places technology and innovation at the forefront of its diplomatic and development efforts. New media has empowered citizens around the world to report on their circumstances, express opinions on world events, and exchange information in environments sometimes hostile to such exercises of individuals’ right to freedom of expression. At the same time, we are concerned about the determination of some governments to censor and silence individuals, and to restrict the free flow of information. We mark events such as World Press Freedom Day in the context of our enduring commitment to support and expand press freedom and the free flow of information in this digital age.
Re Swiss banks, remember — that’s where the Nazis kept their gold and wealth. The Swiss are supposed to be “neutral” about that kind of thing.
I was once having sex with a woman and the condom split.
Then a week later it happened again. That made twice — till then, it had happened just two other times in my life. I counted this as a statistically significant increase worth investigating.
So I said to her, let’s say you had sex 100 times. How many times would the condom break?
She said, about 50.
Half the time! And you can fill a condom with a pound of water. So I figured out that if she contracted her PC muscle exactly on the inward stroke, a heck of a muscle as it is built for childbirth, the condom just splits. She was not doing this “deliberately” though I learned she had a knack for lying about birth control. But it’s really, really easy to “split a condom” if the one who controls the friction factor wants to.
I am just shaking my head here. He used a condom but it split? And this was deliberate on his part?
I suppose if the condom had not split they would have found some other statute, like, shedding hairs in the bathroom?
good grief with mustard on a stick.
Definitely this is part of the raising vibration, the exposing of bullshit, the cleaning out of the pipes of how the world and its inhabitants cognize our existence. And what and who we respect and why.
Love seeing the comparison between who gets to use Visa/MasterCard and who does not, thanks to whoever published that one.
I am celebrating this entire series of events.
I think the Aries Point is Gaia’s dan tien, aka belly button. With the tropical zodiac the points in space corresponding to equinoxes and solstices also correspond directly with circles around Gaia’s middle. I think there’s some kind of resonance with the planet herself when other vibrating bodies cross points in space tuned into Gaia’s equator and tropics.
They’re putting Julian Assange in prison. They want to incarcerate Assange for revealing how those in power have set out to place us all in virtual prison.
— Punishment by incarceration places prisoners exactly where the government is now asserting the right to place all of us: incommunicado with all contacts both inside and outside the wire “monitored and recorded,” as the telephone voice reminds us every time he calls. Prisoners have no contact whatsoever that is not so monitored: they have no access to computers or internet or cell phones or any other electronic communication, all their mail is opened, read, and copied, and their only telephone access is on monitored prison phones (through companies that charge insane fees – e.g., an $11 fee just for the connection, plus $4.50/minute for the call – from which the prisons get a nice fat kickback).
— At the same time, prisoners are kept behind an impenetrable wall of secrecy, where guards & warders can and do inflict with total impunity absolutely anything from electroshock and isolation and sensory deprivation to beatings, torture, withholding of food, medications, exercise, air & other essentials, chemical and drug treatments without inmates’ knowledge or consent, medical experimentation ditto, etc. In going after Assange, government asserts the right to treat all of us, as well as the rest of the world, with the same impunity behind the same wall of secrecy.
— One of the first things you must learn in order to survive in prison is to trust nobody, absolutely nobody, no exceptions, because the fundamental operating principle of prisons is the snitch system. In this system, any individual can earn “privileges” — i.e., privileges as basic as shoes or food or less time in the hole, or access to drugs or tobacco, or sexual favors from guards, etc. — by snitching on other inmates with real or invented reports of infractions that can be used at any time to throw you in the hole for periods of days to years, with no way to know or confront your accuser and no recourse. (In the hole – solitary confinement – you lose your limited mail and phone privileges as well as all access to reading material or tv or other access to the outside). Because the prisons operate behind a wall of secrecy with no oversight or any check on their behavior, your chances of survival rest on your ability to confide in no one, to blend into the crowd, and attract no attention that could inspire others to snitch on you.
— In this manner, the prison system makes monsters of both staff and inmates, and when you’re walking with monsters you have to act like a monster yourself or be torn apart. The difficulty is to remember it’s only an act and be able somehow to preserve who you are behind it.
— Of course another thing the prison does is deprive you of any legitimate way to have sex and thereby turns the very idea of sex into a weapon for control and punishment. Combine this with the snitch system, and you have the exact method by which Assange has been snared.
http://www.alternet.org/module/printversion/149100
“Assange’s London attorney, Mark Stephens, told AOL News today that Swedish prosecutors told him that Assange is wanted not for allegations of rape, as previously reported, but for something called “sex by surprise,” which he said involves a fine of 5,000 kronor or about $715. “Whatever ‘sex by surprise’ is, it’s only a offense in Sweden — not in the U.K. or the U.S. or even Ibiza,” Stephens said. “I feel as if I’m in a surreal Swedish movie being threatened by bizarre trolls. The prosecutor has not asked to see Julian, never asked to interview him, and he hasn’t been charged with anything. He’s been told he’s wanted for questioning, but he doesn’t know the nature of the allegations against him.”
Details of one event that led to Assange’s arrest were described in the Daily Mail in August. This is a page to bookmark. There must be other articles — including from the local press, at the time. Anybody read Swedish?
and right at this very moment 12:13 EST, I cannot get onto the Guardian site……..
Just saw this: Assange has been denied bail and is behind bars.
http://www.cbc.ca/world/story/2010/12/07/wikileaks-assange-uk-lawyer.html
Fe, I’m with you. I’m experiencing a sense of peace and purpose here. I’m breathing deeply and contentedly, letting my lungs fill with life and hope, right alongside Julian Assange.
What he did today, by turning himself in, shows he is more an “evolutionary” hero and less a revolutionary one. I’m sensing the courage of his convictions and I am attempting to find the same within myself.
If he can face the music, so can I; so can we all.
eric:
Funny. I don’t feel nervous, scared or angry. I don’t feel anxious. In fact, I have an interesting sense of peace around what’s happening — like we are beginning to see the outlines and features of thosde shadowy figures who wanted to keep us all in the dark.
The more we know the less they can ultimately get away with.
After the Gulf spill I thought we were headed down — all of us. Now instead I feel like we are stopped from taking the sewers to escape and going back through the freshwater flows.
Timing, Mr. Assange, timing. Somehow I guess he sensed we were headed towards the dark end too, particularly after the midterms, and the timing was right to prevent further global catastrophe. Glad to be awake and alive in this century at this time.
“‘4.14pm: Charles Arthur, the Guardian’s technology editor, points out that while MasterCard and Visa have cut WikiLeaks off you can still use those cards to donate to overtly racist organisations such as the Knights Party, which is supported by the Ku Klux Klan.
The Ku Klux Klan website directs users to a site called Christian Concepts. It takes Visa and MasterCard donations for users willing to state that they are “white and not of racially mixed descent. I am not married to a non-white. I do not date non-whites nor do I have non-white dependents. I believe in the ideals of western Christian civilisation and profess my belief in Jesus Christ as the son of God.” ”
“Live” updates from The Guardian.
I think another obvious question here is the double standard…it’s okay for Cheyney and Scotter Libby…but not for Julian Assange. Even worse…the disparity in motive between the former and the latter.
If Holder attempts to extradite Assange to the U.S., then I suggest we redouble efforts to hold Cheyney and Libby culpable.
a deep sense of excitement. i am so proud of julian assange for being that human who faces things and gives the world no choice but to do the same, with all the repurcussions. i so agree with you, eric, that this IS about raising the vibration. we are really moving now. can we embrace the shake-ups? can we go past the fear, feel the rage at our keepers, and dance in the streets?
BTW, re: some of transiting asteroids…
“America” is currently retrograde at 29 Gemini 59, conjunct the Aries Point — re-triggering the summer’s World Axis cross — and opposing Mars. (America is also in a separating conjunction with the South Node; it looks like the exact conjunction at 4 Cancer was sometime in the last 10 days of October.)
“Damocles” (http://planetwaves.net/astrologynews/1568600106.html) is exactly conjunct the-buck-stops-here Nessus (http://planetwaves.net/nextworld/content/planets/2009/02/23/nessus/) at 17 Aquarius (isn’t that President Obama’s Ascendant?).
“Kassandra,” the ignored truthteller, is at 22 Sagittarius 24, conjunct Pallas and sextile the Neptune-Chiron conjunction, but also square Juno, who represents the disenfranchised. The Kassandra-Pallas conjunction is also conjunct the Wikileaks natal Pluto.
“Pandora” is retrograde at 15 Cancer 58, square Saturn. No explanation necessary.
If the keywords for “Pholus” (http://planetwaves.net/smallworlds/contents/planets/pholus.html) really are proving in practice to be “small cause, big effect,” then his conjunction to the Sun in this chart feels encouraging to me. I hope it’s good synchronicity.
I want to address the argument I’m hearing by a guest on MSNBC of all places that Assange is not a journalist. When I was banned from the SUNY New Paltz campus and responded by suing the State of New York in federal court, the state’s entire extremely lame defense consisted of asserting that I was not a journalist. It was a difficult (actually, hilarious) case for them to make, since I had spent my adult entire life as a journalist till that time — and it was an irrelevant argument because whether I was or wasn’t “a journalist” didn’t affect my civil rights status as one entitled to be there, to report the news or to tell the truth. There is no definition of “journalist” that is consistent as a legal or literary concept, but since Assange is working with The New York Times and The Guardian and edits an outlet that distributes and analyzes primary source documents, that certainly waddles and quacks enough like a journalist for most people, and for the jury.
I am also hearing arguments that he’s not a “responsible journalist” because he’s releasing confidential documents, when this is the very substance of investigative reporting and has been since the genre was invented. Woodward and Bernstein used confidential documents and inside sources, and Daniel Ellsberg released much higher level top-secret documents. (My mentors trained me thus: when you get a confidential document, first go straight to a copy machine, make a lot of copies and give them to a bunch of people you trust. Then write about it.) What is different today is that we expect the press to do nothing about anything, merely to carry water for the government and the corporations, which is usually true — which is one reason why this situation is so stunning. We have been hearing about Paris Hilton and Michael Jackson while empire has waged these fraudulent wars that Assange (and his media partners) is revealing and exposing.
Now suddenly we have media outlets around the world more or less focused on the issue of what these documents reveal; and that begs the questions of why the media has ignored all of this for so long, what else the government is doing, and why the holy heck we don’t know about it.
I am aware that there are arguments being made by various spiritual camps to the contrary, but I would propose that this series of events is a direct result and catalyst in the process of raising the planetary vibration. Part of raising the vibration, of healing, of self-awareness, whether you’re in gestalt therapy or Freudian psychoanalysis or a 12-step program, is dealing with the truth.
For a generation, we have acted like we are “not ready” for any semblance of the truth. Give us more Paris Hilton! Now, we have entered a new phase of world history.
All hail the Aries Point, whatever the fuck that might be. 🙂
Kristina. If you hadn’t said it, that the Stieg Larsson’s novels are uncannily close to what’s going down with “Cablegate”, I was just about to repeat it. When I read those books during the summer I adopted Lisbeth and Stieg as my new personal heroes. How I wish the author was alive to see what is unfolding.
Keep the faith people, and go out and get the trilogy — you won’t regret it.
(and not from that online bookstore….’k? Your local bookseller needs your money.)
😉
P.S. There is a reason that LSD became illegal. And it wasn’t that hard of a case for the government to make with its citizens, most of whom wouldn’t consider taking LSD anyway. “It’s dangerous, you can become a vegetable, it’s addictive, you might do horrible things on it, yadda yadda.”
However if this ball keeps rolling (not just Wikileaks, but the trend to which Eco speaks), how in the hell is the U.S. going to maintain its patina of democracy, while limiting our access to the information it so desperately wants to keep from us? Particularly when you consider that most of the country is now wired on one, if not several, digital devices keeping us connected to a steady stream of information, to which we are basically addicted.
Hmm – really interesting to think about.
“While the international courts are busy prosecuting what they claim is rape, let’s see some warrants for warlords in Darfur.” Damn right.
I am heartened to see that lots of journalists are taking up the gauntlet thrown down by Assange. I was contemplating over the w/e that journalism was finally experiencing a much needed and vital wake up call. I think of Uranian energy as the “paddles” applied to heart-attack victims who have flatlined, and it zaps them in one big intense volt of energy, “kechunging” them back to life, hopefully to begin afresh with a revamped sense of purpose.
That revamped sense of purpose is what Len inspired us all to do, right, in today’s post downstream? For us all to go about restructuring our daily lives under the auspices of Saturn and Pluto, and make them wholly authentic and ethical, but all the more so, to have our foundation, both inner and outer, firmed and at the ready for channeling Uranus, zapping in the moment, the exact here and now, to propel us fearlessly into the fray.
Today’s oracle has it spot on:
“Stick close to the neighborhood for the time being. Your whole community is at a threshold point, and you seem to be called to take that step with others, likely serve as a catalyst. Step back and take it in; step forward in your time.”
Wow. This unfolding drama IS a bit like Stieg Larsson’s novels, as another reader commented recently.
It took some guts for Assange to turn himself in – now he’s in the hands of the machine. Perhaps he should be glad that he’s facing charges by the Swedes. This is going to be tried by the Swedish court, right?
My mom said the very thing that Shirky said: the U.S. government has torn down the walls of what separates us (in terms of freedom of speech) from many countries around the world. Sure, the government has undermined freedom of speech for a looong time, but this is just so obvious and in your face. I still am pretty shocked they made that move.
Thanks for your quick chart assessment. I particularly appreciated Umberto Eco’s comment about the tables turning re: hackers (and part of what makes the Wikileaks story so interestingly parallel to the Larsson novels – funny how they became so popular right around the time that Wikileaks rose in prominence).
Perhaps the Internet is the new LSD. Breaking open people’s consciousness and cracking the truth open. :-))
Thank you Eric for all of this information. I have been following this entire ordeal through your articles. The ‘unbelievable’ is here and it’s a treat to be able to read your take on it.