In Sweden, where the "sex by surprise" charges derive from a woman suspected of having ties to the CIA, the maximum fine for the crime of eschewing a rubber is $750.

And for this Sweden issues an international arrest warrant, and Assange is held without bail? Rub the sleep from your eyes, folks. Julian Assange is in jail because his media organization threatens the status quo and reveals greed's insidious effects on states around the globe. The myth of America as the "good guy" has become illusion.

Yet mainstream journalists continue to report on the allegations "objectively," as if honoring that storyline will impress the Pulitzer committee.

Maybe they are on to something. For even the exalted Columbia University ducked when the U.S. State Department swiped its powerful arm in its direction, warning students not to support WikiLeaks on Twitter or Facebook if they ever wanted to work for the U.S. government. Days after spreading that warning to its student body, the school declared its support for free expression. But its original kneejerk revealed its true lack of regard for democracy.

So, too, did Amazon, PayPal, and Twitter when they cowed to government coercion to shut down WikiLeaks -- muscle that the feds rarely flex against corporations in the public's favor, points out Death&Taxes: "The U.S. puts pressure on major corporations only when it wants to. Keep this in mind the next time you’re contemplating why Wall Street bonuses are back to pre-crisis levels while you’re figuring out how to pay your rent and student loan debt in the face of your pay cut or salary freeze."

Mastercard and Visa also caved to government pressure to help destroy Wikileaks, no doubt obligated to return the favor of U.S. diplomats who negotiated who worked to "ensure the payment card companies were not 'adversely affected'" by new Russian laws, according to diplomatic cables released today by WikiLeaks to The Guardian.

The unvarnished truth about the men who run these billion-dollar corporations is they are in it for their own gain -- not ours. After all, democracy and capitalism are two different things; just look at China, whose government we can no longer pretend to be different from our own.

War has broken out between the people and the government. At stake: the right of citizens to challenge those who hold power in our name but betray the democratic values for which they allege to risk our soldiers' lives.

Pick a side.

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