Noam Chomsky, Max Blumenthal, my people!
Miriam
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Subject: [blind-democracy] NY Free Julian Assange Rally Registers Broad Support
https://socialistaction.org/2020/04/06/ny-free-julian-assange-rally-registers-broad-support/
NY Free Julian Assange Rally Registers Broad Support Socialist Action / 18
hours ago
Free Julian Assange event in NYC. (Photo: Marty Goodman) By MARTY GOODMAN
Feb. 15 was the first large event in New York City calling for freedom for
Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, who faces 175 years imprisonment under the
Espionage Act of 1917 for exposing U.S. war crimes, torture, and human rights
abuse. The size and enthusiasm of the event shows support for Assange and free
speech rights is growing.
The NY Assange panel included many well-known free-speech and justice advocates
and attracted over 200 to the campus of the City University of NY Law School
(CUNY). Sponsors were the Courage Foundation, a national whistleblower defense
group; the National Lawyers Guild, and FAIR, a media watchdog organization.
Endorsing was the very active NYC Free Assange Committee.
Speakers at the CUNY panel were Jim Goodale, who provided a unique perspective
on the responsibilities of journalism as the former General Counsel for the New
York Times during the release of the Pentagon Papers; Glen Ford, Executive
Director, Black Agenda Report; Renata Avila, international lawyer, public and
legal advocate for Assange; and Max Blumenthal, a journalist at The Grayzone.
Video interviews for the program were projected onto a screen, which featured
Daniel Ellsberg, the Pentagon Papers whistleblower on Vietnam and Cambodia and
MIT Professor Emeritus Noam Chomsky, linguist and political philosopher.
Alice Walker addressed the audience via a live telephone hook-up. (see
you-tube+Joe+Friendly for videos of this and other NY Assange events)
Daniel Ellsberg told the audience, “Julian Assange is now the first to ever
actually have been indicted as a journalist and that will mean essentially that
we won’t have a free press.”
Noam Chomsky compared the persecution of Assange to the war waged by fascist
dictator Mussolini against Leftist writer Antonio Gramsci, whose court
prosecutor famously said, “We must stop this brain from working.”
Said Chomsky, “Assange faces that and possibly even worse. If the notion
freedom of the press means anything this is a textbook example of an effort to
undermine it.”
Said Alice Walker, who visited Assange in the Ecuadoran Embassy, “This is a man
of character. We should continue with all our might to get him out of
incarceration to reconnect him with his father and his children.
This is incredibly vital and crucial to our freedom of speech.”
Panelist Glen Ford helped put it all in context, “U.S. imperialism is
unprecedented in world history in claiming the power, the right to police the
world and to imprison and kill anyone that opposes its global supremacy.
Assange and WikiLeaks were put at the top of the Empire’s hit list. Assange
became the Empire’s public enemy number one.”
During the Q&A period links were made between journalist Assange and journalist
Mumia Abu-Jamal, framed-up by racist Philly cops on a murder charge in 1982
and, like Assange, Mumia’s health was brutally ignored by prison authorities.
Also discussed was whistle-blower Edward Snowden, forced to flee the U.S. for
Russia; the case of Black Liberation Army member Assata Shakur, who fled to
Cuba in 1984, and the jailing and murder of members of the Black Panther Party.
Feb. 24 was Assange’s first day of trial in the UK and a global day of protest
in more than 25 cities. In New York the NYC Free Assange Committee held a
midday rally at the UK Consulate in Mid-town Manhattan.
About 75 attended.
Speaking at the demonstration was civil rights lawyer and co-author of the
indispensable book, “In Defense of Julian Assange,” Margaret Kunstler. Said
Kunstler, “Delivering real journalism is a risky undertaking with uncertain
rewards. Truth has become a revolutionary thing. Assange is accused of
espionage and faces a show trial under a a law that has a lugubrious record
(the Espionage Act-MG)….Everyone who has ever been tried under the law has been
found guilty. There is no defense. WikiLeaks and Julian Assange are under the
threat of extinction but our rights are threatened too.”
Speaker Ben Norton, journalist at Grayzone, told the mid-town crowd, “WikiLeaks
has enriched our understanding of the crimes of this government that claims to
act in our interest but of course it doesn’t and we have their own US State
Department cables that prove it. When US politicians from both the Republican
and Democratic parties go on TV and say Julian Assange is a spy, Julian Assange
is responsible for whatever accusations they smear him with, that is a lie
because Julian Assange has done the noble duty that the vast majority of
journalists refused to do.”
Other speakers at the rally included Michael Smith, a member of the National
Lawyers Guild (NLG) and co-author of “Who Killed Che?”; Kim Ives, editor of
“Haiti Liberté” newspaper; Marty Goodman of Socialist Action and others.
Check-in with NYC Free Assange on Facebook or email NYCFreeAssange@xxxxxxxxx
for details on future events.
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April 6, 2020 in Uncategorized.
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Thomas Paine
“One good schoolmaster is of more use than a hundred priests.”
― Thomas Paine, The Age of Reason
