Watch Friday’s broadcast here on Consortium News that discussed the latest news on WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.
The WikiLeaks publisher continues to resist pressure to leave the Ecuador Embassy and be sent to the U.S. for prosecution, even as he has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize and Donald Trump’s lawyer says he should not be charged with any crime.
Julian Assange’s is an historic test-case for press freedom.
Guests that appeared to discuss the latest news about Julian Assange and issues related to WikiLeaks included Bill Binney, former NSA technical director; Brian Becker, radio host of “Loud and Clear;” Ray McGovern, former CIA analyst; activist Kevin Zeese; author and activist David Swanson.
Past participants have included academics, journalists, politicians and activists, including Daniel Ellsberg, Chris Hedges, John Kiriakou, George Galloway, Craig Murray, Francis Boyle, former U.S. Senator Mike Gravel, Andrew Fowler, Caitlin Johnstone, Tim Black, Jimmy Dore, Lee Camp, Margaret Kimberley, Vivian Kubrick and more.
CN Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria conducted the interviews and moderated the discussion. The Unity4J online vigil was broadcast live at unity4j.com, on YouTube, on Periscope.
Now a weekly event, the vigil has moved to a new time slot to accommodate participants and viewers around the world. It will air every Friday from 4pm to 7pm in the U.S. Eastern time zone; from 9 pm
to midnight in the UK; from 10 pm to 1 am in continental Europe; from 11 pm to 2 am in the Middle East and Africa; from midnight to 3 am in Moscow, Istanbul and Baghdad; from 8 am to 11 a.m. on Saturday in Australia and from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturday in New Zealand.
Because we lost the stream during the program, the recording is in two parts. You can watch Part Two here live. Part One is below:
Finally found time to watch this. Thanks so much for having so many great people help get the word out about Julian’s ongoing persecution and the state of our so-called democracy. It is a little distracting to have such a big gap between the audio and the video. I don’t know enough about hi-tech these days to know if there is any way to fix it.
First off, Lawrence Wilkerson is not someone I would promote. He tries to change history on which side he really is. He never had the courage to be on the side of the 99% and served the 1% and the War mongers all the way till he could guarantee his own retirement. He should be denied any words on who’s to blame in the whole 1% vs 99% debacle. If you need any proof of that watch the DemocracyNow segment at 9:45 onward, listen to what Norman Solomon had to say to him.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iDnMopHZWzI
There’s a clear elitism inside so called progressive activism and it’s getting tired and old to liste to the people who use activists as promoters of their own objectives, but don’t care to listen to new ideas, and search for them. It’s always the usual suspects that are given the mic, to rant ad nauseam about the facts that are well aware to the masses of activists who have supported, resisted, obeyed calls to assemble and share the news, petitions, calls to actions by these elitist writers. The fact is that they have no concrete solutions to unite a very atomised and deeply fragmented population of activists, other than preaching the same old facts, luring exhausted activists/promoting their websites, their books. If they all are so instrumental for change, why is it that after Bush and Cheney we got more of the same, wars, and middle class obliteration?
Apathy happens when individuals are bombarded by too many stimuli, that they can’t process anymore. When these elitist authors will stop preaching to the choir, and research or investigate unconventional approaches to unity and empowerment, they may have to accept the fact, that it may not be them, who have the formulas to global empowerment, but unexpected citizens, maybe not even US citizens (!) or platforms by rather unknown agents of change of the so called resistance.
“We all have a responsibility,” says the text at the entry text before the video conference.. Well you speakers have a responsibility too, you know, to give a voice to ALL ingenious and creative ideas to strategize in a Post-OWS world. It’s time you did some research and pushed other voices, other than your owns.
The next trend, in case you have missed it, is the outrage of the common man and woman, asking inside the 99%: why on Earth do we have 2.6 Million NGOs, 3.3 Trillions in NGOs Assets, and 30 million people employed in the NGO sector, (9.2% of Americans), to have such pathetic resistance to the power structures. Despite all of them, all the millions of courageous folks who volunteer on your orgs and stand in the front lines of gas cans and rubber bullets, you can’t possibly argue that you need more ears, or that those, whose emails you fill with calls to actions, need to do more resisting!
So what is the so-called tipping point to allow Assange to walk free? Giuliana says he can’t be arrested(?). What’s the charge? Hasn’t all that been adjudicated in the US (PentagonPapers)?
Julian is a martyr for free press he should be honored not locked up
I don’t think Assange should be charged. I think many American politicians are angry because they have been exposed as being dishonest. Assange should be honoured not charged.
I found the link to the Vigil on Twitter and came back here to post it and now I find it here too. It wasn’t here a few moments ago. LOL
Darn, missed it again. The 4 p.m. – 7 p.m. time frame is tough : (
Where’s the link? I’m in the UK
Very few people seem to care, but here again is a link to the Free Julian Assange petition at the White House:
https://petitions.whitehouse.gov/petition/free-julian-assange-2
Bravo to all involved! Bravo to Assange!
Bravo to Binney, Becker, McKinney, Lauria, McGovern
There are still brave, honest, people willing to fight the fight, willing to stand up the pestilence and plague that is our society, our govt, that is our main stream press!
As an example of what could possibly turn things to a somewhat positive lite, (I know it will never happen ), I attach a link of what congress could do (fantasy but what the heck):
https://washingtonsblog.com/2019/01/things-congress-could-do-for-peace-from-easiest-to-hardest.html
Excellent listing of good constructive alternatives in your link. I wish I could be more optimistic that even some of them will happen. Maybe millennials & some middle-class voters will get tired of the debt falling on them and vote for candidates that spend money on them rather than the military? I don’t know… the late 60’s/early 70’s was the only ‘pro-peace’ era I’ve lived through and that was significantly different from current conditions in that 1.) there was a stronger economy for most voters & 2.) there were weekly US war casualties which —- after 5 or 6 years —- the US middle class decided they didn’t want to lose any more of their kids in an irrelevant war. And I think the 1920’s & 30’s were reportedly anti-war, but that was on the heels of the horrors of WWI, and apparently it takes traumatic scenarios to ‘alert’ a diverted populace…