The ruling by the High Court in London permitting Julian Assange to appeal his extradition order leaves him languishing in precarious health in a high-security prison. That is the point.
Perhaps Julian's wife could write an open appeal asking everyone in UK to keep a vigil outside of Belmarsh and other ways maintain a steady pulse of pressure and attention, also outside UK embassy in DC.
Thank you for coming back to Julian again and again and keeping him and all he has given us alive in us so that we may hold him in our hearts and prayers that he be released from the unspeakably brutal cruelty he is enduring, most especially the terrible isolation.
You write that Julian committed the empire's greatest sin of exposing 'it' as a criminal enterprise with his act of free speech, but I think that is not his greatest sin. It is more personal (on the part of the perpetrators). It is not Julian they are torturing with such cruelty - they have no idea who Julian Assange is. This man whose integrity, courage and love motivated the actions he took for the sake of us all, from values and ideals beyond their understanding, is an Existential Threat to the very existence of these damaged and distorted shells of human beings. They hate him because he reminds them of what they once were long long long ago and the isolated cold empty unfeeling brittle shells filled with impotent rage they now have become, and they are furiously trying to destroy/disappear him just as their spirits were destroyed/disappeared. Just as they are attempting to disappear the people of Gaza. No different. Same crime. He and Gaza are beautiful clear mirrors, so filled with light that they cannot look into them without seeing their own living death with their own eyes. So they try to bury them in darkness.
But Julian Assange and the Palestinians and the light they hold for our precious Earth are not disappearing. They and all they represent are in fact growing all around this world, especially among the youth. Because of Julian's noble and self-sacrificing actions, and friends such as yourself and his wife becoming his voice in the world, and likewise for the Palestinians, there are ever increasing peoples of conscience awakening and coming together to join this unrelenting fight you invoke with each compassionate, unflinching account you write.
Not sure what happened with your comment here on CH substack site - I have found that commenting can be problematic for some strange reason but choose to give CH a monthly donation anyway to support his work. Commenting at CN - something I gave up on a couple of years ago - they would not print any comment I made - I contacted them about it and stated I'd give them money regardless as their site offers first-rate commentary - but, I do find it offensive that I am not welcome there but they do take my donations. I always appreciate your comments BW.
Oh Chris, the ICC has done the ONLY thing it COULD DO. Find that Genocide is a crime after all. Imagine if they had succumbed to the whims of Sen. Lindsey Graham or House Speaker Mike Johnson or member of the Republican Party that threaten them over a Genocide ruling???
Sen Lindsey Graham "If they (ICC) can do this to Israel they can come after us next"??? Really, you think so. You know for "aiingd and abetting" a genocide? Imagine that.
What was Sen. Lindsey Graham and Mike Johnson going to do if the court had ruled otherwise?? Round up college kids and put them in a concentration camp???
Chris Hedges said that the Republican Right are "fascist" and thus it looks to be true, since they seem to be telling Americans out one side of their mouth "you can NOT have an abortion" however "it is totally okay to kill all those Palestinian children (animals) in Gaza or the West Bank."
Do Republicans just like telling people what to do, but actually don't seem to care about people at all. It is exactly what the Bible tells us about the Pharisees:
"There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?
Jesus would not kill the people of Gaza, only the Christan Right would do that or tell you it was right to do that (kill the people of Gaza.}
That of on course is not to say that Biden and his Administration are not equally guilty, or that they too should be charged with war crimes same as Senator Lindsey Graham or Mike Johnson.
We can't keep electing these people and expect change. This has GOT to be the year to elect third party people. AIPAC lobbyist appears to be a "murder for money" pact that is legal. WHY?
Bill Wolfe's brief recent comment, about putting pressure on Biden seems to make sense, which means his longer comment, having been taken down, doesn't make sense, and needs some formal explanation. Chris's post about Assange was powerful, but it failed to communicate a plan for making our voices heard in regard to this lengthy brutal imprisonment.
Chris, this is the Comment that I submitted to your alma mater ('TIMES') re. Jamelle's great column today (5/24) --- the week of EXPOSURE:
Janelle, I’m sitting here crying and feeling guilty that I didn’t do as much as I could have in “selling my car” — as was his crying scene in “Schindler’s List”.
But, at least from now, it’s only been a few decades since the crime of ultimate INEQUALITY, has finally been recognized and is beginning to be treated in what I would call “The (former) Quiet American” EMPIRE.
Thank’s to “these ‘TIMES’ they are a-changing’ to the progressive “path in the woods” — which the ‘TIMES’ has started bravely walking on this week of America’s Memorial Weekend.
Faux-Emperor Trump is virtually ‘dead’, and the insane ‘PROJECT 2025’ has now been exposed by the ‘TIMES’ itself — turn DUMP TRUMP over, and take him off the grill!
What America truly needs, above all else, is a new second OSS Pacific “DEER TEAM” as Col. Patti created at the end of WWII — to stop WW3.
Perhaps Julian's wife could write an open appeal asking everyone in UK to keep a vigil outside of Belmarsh and other ways maintain a steady pulse of pressure and attention, also outside UK embassy in DC.
The pressure needs to shift to Biden and demand that the indictment be withdrawn.
Thank you, Chris, for this thorough and truthful essay and for exposing the rank corruption and lies that pervade our society.
Anyone out there have an address for sending Julian a card? It’s a small gesture, but if it has a chance of helping at all, it’s the least I can do.
We must continue to pray for all the many political prisoners in our midst. 🙏🏻🙏🏻🙏🏻
Thank you for coming back to Julian again and again and keeping him and all he has given us alive in us so that we may hold him in our hearts and prayers that he be released from the unspeakably brutal cruelty he is enduring, most especially the terrible isolation.
You write that Julian committed the empire's greatest sin of exposing 'it' as a criminal enterprise with his act of free speech, but I think that is not his greatest sin. It is more personal (on the part of the perpetrators). It is not Julian they are torturing with such cruelty - they have no idea who Julian Assange is. This man whose integrity, courage and love motivated the actions he took for the sake of us all, from values and ideals beyond their understanding, is an Existential Threat to the very existence of these damaged and distorted shells of human beings. They hate him because he reminds them of what they once were long long long ago and the isolated cold empty unfeeling brittle shells filled with impotent rage they now have become, and they are furiously trying to destroy/disappear him just as their spirits were destroyed/disappeared. Just as they are attempting to disappear the people of Gaza. No different. Same crime. He and Gaza are beautiful clear mirrors, so filled with light that they cannot look into them without seeing their own living death with their own eyes. So they try to bury them in darkness.
But Julian Assange and the Palestinians and the light they hold for our precious Earth are not disappearing. They and all they represent are in fact growing all around this world, especially among the youth. Because of Julian's noble and self-sacrificing actions, and friends such as yourself and his wife becoming his voice in the world, and likewise for the Palestinians, there are ever increasing peoples of conscience awakening and coming together to join this unrelenting fight you invoke with each compassionate, unflinching account you write.
My greatest thanks.
Thank you. 🙏🏽
Wow. My comments were taken down! Here? By Hedges? Unreal.
I got the same reaction by Joe Lauria at Consortium News.
My comments were factual, respectful, and supported by several US Supreme Court cases and law review articles and ACLU and NLG legal positions.
How could that happen?
Not sure what happened with your comment here on CH substack site - I have found that commenting can be problematic for some strange reason but choose to give CH a monthly donation anyway to support his work. Commenting at CN - something I gave up on a couple of years ago - they would not print any comment I made - I contacted them about it and stated I'd give them money regardless as their site offers first-rate commentary - but, I do find it offensive that I am not welcome there but they do take my donations. I always appreciate your comments BW.
Oh Chris, the ICC has done the ONLY thing it COULD DO. Find that Genocide is a crime after all. Imagine if they had succumbed to the whims of Sen. Lindsey Graham or House Speaker Mike Johnson or member of the Republican Party that threaten them over a Genocide ruling???
Sen Lindsey Graham "If they (ICC) can do this to Israel they can come after us next"??? Really, you think so. You know for "aiingd and abetting" a genocide? Imagine that.
What was Sen. Lindsey Graham and Mike Johnson going to do if the court had ruled otherwise?? Round up college kids and put them in a concentration camp???
Chris Hedges said that the Republican Right are "fascist" and thus it looks to be true, since they seem to be telling Americans out one side of their mouth "you can NOT have an abortion" however "it is totally okay to kill all those Palestinian children (animals) in Gaza or the West Bank."
Do Republicans just like telling people what to do, but actually don't seem to care about people at all. It is exactly what the Bible tells us about the Pharisees:
"There was a landowner who planted a vineyard. He put a wall around it, dug a winepress in it and built a watchtower. Then he rented the vineyard to some farmers and moved to another place. When the harvest time approached, he sent his servants to the tenants to collect his fruit.
“The tenants seized his servants; they beat one, killed another, and stoned a third. 36 Then he sent other servants to them, more than the first time, and the tenants treated them the same way. Last of all, he sent his son to them. ‘They will respect my son,’ he said.
“But when the tenants saw the son, they said to each other, ‘This is the heir. Come, let’s kill him and take his inheritance.’ So they took him and threw him out of the vineyard and killed him.
“Therefore, when the owner of the vineyard comes, what will he do to those tenants?
Jesus would not kill the people of Gaza, only the Christan Right would do that or tell you it was right to do that (kill the people of Gaza.}
That of on course is not to say that Biden and his Administration are not equally guilty, or that they too should be charged with war crimes same as Senator Lindsey Graham or Mike Johnson.
We can't keep electing these people and expect change. This has GOT to be the year to elect third party people. AIPAC lobbyist appears to be a "murder for money" pact that is legal. WHY?
Freedom of speech is what is allowed by the Empire.
Bill Wolfe's brief recent comment, about putting pressure on Biden seems to make sense, which means his longer comment, having been taken down, doesn't make sense, and needs some formal explanation. Chris's post about Assange was powerful, but it failed to communicate a plan for making our voices heard in regard to this lengthy brutal imprisonment.
Chris, this is the Comment that I submitted to your alma mater ('TIMES') re. Jamelle's great column today (5/24) --- the week of EXPOSURE:
Janelle, I’m sitting here crying and feeling guilty that I didn’t do as much as I could have in “selling my car” — as was his crying scene in “Schindler’s List”.
But, at least from now, it’s only been a few decades since the crime of ultimate INEQUALITY, has finally been recognized and is beginning to be treated in what I would call “The (former) Quiet American” EMPIRE.
Thank’s to “these ‘TIMES’ they are a-changing’ to the progressive “path in the woods” — which the ‘TIMES’ has started bravely walking on this week of America’s Memorial Weekend.
Faux-Emperor Trump is virtually ‘dead’, and the insane ‘PROJECT 2025’ has now been exposed by the ‘TIMES’ itself — turn DUMP TRUMP over, and take him off the grill!
What America truly needs, above all else, is a new second OSS Pacific “DEER TEAM” as Col. Patti created at the end of WWII — to stop WW3.
Sincerely,
Alan MacDonald
28 Alewive Court
Wells, Maine 04090
207-651-2227