Growing the Choir

A Roundtable on Assange and Truth

Published: 2023-08-08

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Introduction

The title is derived from a recent "Live on the Fly" Randy Credico radio show broadcast on WBAI (one of the Pacifica stations). [See Sources.]

During the discussion Roger Waters asks how they can increase awareness of Julian Assange's persecution, which for him manifests as growing the choir. In contrast to the USA's persecution of a publisher for publishing the truth, it is also doing nothing to assist a citizen, Gonzalo Lira, who was recently re-arrested in Ukraine where he was held in pre-trial detention for political speech. Lira declared that he was attempting to flee to Hungary to avoid trial where he expected conviction and thus a likely, long term incarceration for said speech, but was apprehended. The government of the "land of the free" seems to have no problem with this. The 'roundtable' term in the subtitle is a hat tip to the programs Lira used to publish on Youtube.

Live on the Fly

Randy Credico assembled another array a intelligent and largely aged guests for a strategy meeting on how in God's name can we get Assange out of prison?

Randy begins with Roger Waters (musician/activist from Pink Floyd) who is joined by Craig Murray (former UK diplomat and US/NATO torture whistleblower), Alicia Castro (former Argentinian ambassador to the UK), John Shipton (Assange's father) and finally Ray McGovern (ex-CIA analyst and founding member of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity) all of whom are friends of Julian Assange and have been campaigning for his release for years. The two hour discussion roams across a wide span of topics related to Julian's incarceration and the relationship between the unwashed masses and the ruling class.

Springing amongst these topics are remembrances of meetings with Assange, or previous activities towards the cause of his freedom. The action is philosophically recast as a struggle for the truth, for the populace to be able to make informed decisions in their role as democratic citizens.

The issue of the increasing censorship of the dominant media platforms (Youtube, Twitter etc.) also emerges, particularly by Mr. Murray as the conversation turns to tactics (use of social media) and allies (youth). Interestingly, while the term of propaganda came up on occassion, the current mechansim for narrative control was absent from the discussion. The ideological "disinformation" fighting brigades from the DHS' "Disinformation Governance Board" to Stanford’s Election Integrity Project, Newsguard, the Global Disinformation Index and others are the vehicles enforcing the censorship via back-channel access to the social media gatekeepers.

Earlier in the discussion, Craig had mentioned that following Judge Swift’s 3 double-spaced page rejection of the 120 page submission for a cross-appeal by Assange’s legal team he had lost his confidence in the independence of the British Judiciary. Upon John's entrance he informed the group that his mother's family was Irish and that he and the Irish diaspora have a naturally jaundiced view of the British legal system. He continued, framing the convict exports to populate (and invade) Australia as a slave workforce which was selected by this "judiciary". Not so long after, McGovern enters declaring (in his delightful Irish brogue) "I knew you were Irish ...".

Randy asked John about his son and recent events. US Secretary of State Blinkenlights had recently visited Australia and declared that Julian had endangered people’s lives, a tired old lie vanquished by testimony by the US DoD at Chelsea (then Bradley) Manning’s court-martial over a decade ago. Given that Blinkenlights is currently pressuring other countries to maintain support for the US/NATO led war in Ukraine the usually erudite Shipton was unable to martial the verbs to express his outrage. Needless to say, the lack of self awareness by the Secretary of State during a visit to Australia where 88% of the population want Assange returned to their shores barely requires comment.

Earlier Alicia had related her meeting with Julian in 2012 at the start of her tenure as ambassador. Meetings at the Ecuadorian embassy had continued with many an interesting visitor from reporter to politician to artist or designer, all of whom were offended by the incarceration and believed that it would be short lived. They took every opportunity to alleviate his confinement with various celebrations, Christmas and the like, and the 100th day of his confinement. Time however, moved more quickly, a topic which re-emerged later in the discussion.

Since 2010 when Wikileaks released the Collateral Murder video Roger has been playing a section of it at every one of this concerts. Randy asked about how that had been received, especially in Europe. Roger related that some view it as "a scene from war, and that wars are all around us". They dont recognize the specifics of the video or the war.

Ray's entrance shifted focus towards the US and its role in the world, especially following 9/11 and the 20 years of the "War on [of] Terror" during which Brown University's Costs of War project has tallied well over 5 million killed and far more displaced.

As the discussion returned to strategy Craig remarked on recent visits to Universities in which he addressed people of the age of 19. He recognized that they were not even born when the large scale popular resistance to the US (plus allies, including UK and Australia) illegal invasion of Iraq in 2003 occurred. The hollowing out of an anti-war movement in the “West” and particularly the US was noted, though that it occurred largely under President Obama who continued the forever wars was not.

Every guest was at least 70 years of age, with Roger declaring he'll be 80 in September. They can feel their years and see utility is seeking assistance from younger comrades. They will not give up. Truth is worth the effort.

For Craig, its almost existential, a part of his being. So it seems for all of them, from my slightly younger vantage point.

Sources

Live on the Fly, Craig Murray joins Roger Waters, John Shipton, Alicia Castro, Ray McGovern on Randy Credico's Live on the Fly, Craig Murray, 2023-08-06

• Direct MP3

Ukraine Rearrests American Blogger Trying To Enter Hungary For Asylum, Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge, 2023-08-03

WikiLeaks: Collateral Murder (Iraq, 2007), Wikileaks, People Over Politics, republished 2012-08-08

Culture

Love Is Da Shit, Spearhead, Michael Franti, uploaded 2015-10-15

Live, love and endure.

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