Today, the Plan Forum, hosted by Tether Operations Limited (Tether), the technology company supporting the blockchain-enabled platform that powers the largest stablecoin by market capitalization (USD) and the City of Lugano, announced new headlining expert speakers for its upcoming conference. The Forum will feature blockchain industry leaders along with influential experts in global financial markets and the Bitcoin ecosystem at the Palazzo dei Congressi in Lugano on October 28th and 29th.

Joining the already stellar list of speakers to discuss how Bitcoin is disrupting the world on both social and economic levels as well as the important topic of individual freedoms is Stella Assange, lawyer and wife of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange; Gabriel Shipton, film producer and brother of Julian Assange; Milena Mayorga, ambassador of El Salvador to the United States; Fadi Elsalameen, Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Bitcoin Policy Institute; and Farida Bemba Nabourema, human rights activist and founder of the Faure Must Go movement in Togo.

In addition to exciting speakers and panels, participants can look forward to a unique virtual reality experience following the footsteps of Julian Assange and an opportunity to reflect on freedom of speech. Participants will virtually navigate the places where Assange has lived for the past 10 years: from Ecuadors embassy in the United Kingdom, to the Belmarsh maximum security prison in London where Assange is currently detained.

Thanks to the Assange family, there will also be a preview of the documentary film that Shipton produced. Titled Ithaka, an intimate portrait of the struggle of Julians father, John, to free his son.

The Plan forum in Lugano will feature keynote speeches, interviews and panel discussions and offers a unique opportunity for dialogue with key experts in the field and networking with other participants. The panels and conversations will focus on the complex Bitcoin ecosystem and an in-depth look at its different components: bitcoin is a word used globally to define a digital currency that can be bought, kept or exchanged; whereas Bitcoin also defines the technological protocol that allows digital transactions to take place.

The Bitcoin ecosystem is based on certain fundamental principles that will be explored in depth during the forum: the right to privacy, inclusion and freedom (individual freedom, freedom of speech and financial freedom). Lugano thus promotes an open dialogue in line with the Swiss tradition of supporting individual freedoms. A commitment, therefore, also by the institutions that guarantee these freedoms.

Confirmed and already announced speakers include cypherpunk and computer scientist Nick Szabo; Adam Back, CEO of Blockstream; Jameson Lopp, CTO of CASA; Max Keiser and Stacy Herbert, co-founders of El Zonte Capital; and Peter McCormack, host of What Bitcoin Did Podcast and president of Real Bedford FC; Paolo Ardoino, CTO of Bitfinex/Tether; Samson Mow, architect of the Bitcoin bond; Prince Philip Karageorgevitch of Serbia and Yugoslavia; Jimmy Song, Bitcoin developer and expert; Frank Chaparro, publisher of The Block; John Carvalho, CEO of Synonym; Indira Kempis, Mexican senator; Sandeep Nailwal, Co-founder of Polygon; and more.

Program information, speakers and registration to the Plan Forum can be found at the official website.

Lugano Plan is a joint initiative of the City of Lugano and Tether dedicated to the integration of Bitcoin technology in Lugano, from small economic transactions at local businesses to the payment of taxes in cryptocurrencies.

Lugano is the economic capital of southern Switzerland, strategically located between the metropolitan areas of Milan and Zurich. Set in an exceptional natural environment and scenic landscapes, Ticinos garden city is a sought-after tourist destination and a great place to live and work. Lugano is home to a major financial center as well as hubs of pharmaceuticals, commodities trading and fashion activities and more recently has developed an ecosystem for technological innovation and blockchain. A university city since 1996, Lugano boasts globally competitive research institutes and infrastructures, including the Dalle Molle Institute for Artificial Intelligence (IDSIA) and the Swiss National Supercomputing Center.

Among the safest cities in Switzerland, Lugano, in addition to a pleasant Mediterranean climate, offers business-friendly legislation and excellent infrastructure combined with the political stability typical of Switzerland.

Tether is the preeminent stablecoin and a pioneer for financial freedom and innovation. Created in October 2014, Tether has grown to become the most traded cryptocurrency, surpassing that of all rival offerings combined. Tether is disrupting the legacy financial system by offering a more modern approach to money by introducing fiat currency-digital cash to bitcoin, Ethereum, EOS, Liquid Network, Omni, Tron, Algorand, and Solana blockchains, as well as smart contract platform, Avalanche, Tether makes a significant contribution to a more connected ecosystem. Tether combines digital currency benefits, such as instant global transactions, with traditional currency benefits, such as price stability. With a commitment to transparency and compliance, Tether is a fast and low-cost way to transact with money.

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Stella Assange and Farida Bemba Nabourema to join line-up of speakers at Plan Forum in Lugano on October 28th and 29th - The Cryptonomist

A young Italian woman is the latest street installation activist to protest the medias silence regarding the inhumane treatment of Julian Assange by the UK and the U.S. Her installation in a square in Como lambastes the two self-styled democracies for acting exactly like authoritarian regimes.

What is it like to try to live what Julian Assange is living, incarcerated as he is in Londons Belmarsh prison since April 11, 2019 for having had the audacity to make public the secret war crimes, environmental crimes and human rights crimes of the United States and the United Kingdom? A young woman from Como has decided to reenact Assanges dramatic condition albeit in the open air and only for a limited time with a street installation in a central square of the Northern Italian town of Como. She hopes that passersbys will be led to put themselves into Julians shoes and thus better comprehend the conditions under which he is trying to survive.

It is now well over 1,220 days, in fact, that Assange has been imprisoned, in solitary confinement, in a cell that measures three meters by two (roughly 7 feet by 10 feet),

All this without there ever having been a conviction against him (except for a minor misdemeanor, no longer applicable). An incarceration which is therefore absolutely arbitrary just like in the worst authoritarian regimes from which the very UK and US claim to distance themselves but, in this case, dont.

It is a legal monstrosity that cries out for vengeance. And to cry out her rage, the young woman from Como has decided to enact in public what it means to be in a cell like Julians.

Every Saturday afternoon for the next eight months, Lorena Corrias will draw on the pavement of Piazza Verdi, in front of Comos Social Theatre, the outline of a 7X10 foot cell with a poster of Assange covering a space the size of the Belmarsh cot and will sit there from 4 to 6 p.m. (during summer), getting up only to distribute leaflets to passersby. The municipality has allowed her to occupy the 64 square feet of city property until March 25, 2023. She began enacting her protest on August 6, wearing for the occasion an orange jumpsuit reminiscent of that worn by prisoners in Guantanamo. (Belmarsh prison is, in fact, often called the British Guantanamo.)

Lorena took inspiration for her unusual protest from a young woman in Berlin, Raja Valeska, who, for the past one hundred days, has already been sitting inside a 7X10 foot cell drawn on the pavement in front of the Brandenburg Gate or in front of other busy places in the German capital. The Comit Free Assange Belgium is also carrying out a similar initiative: the Belgian activists are already at their 174th street installation in Brussels where they create, using road barriers, a 7X10 foot cell in which to lock themselves as a form of protest.

The outrage felt by people all over the world toward the persecution of Julian Assange is growing by the day. For them, Julians judicial prosecution is by no means legitimate; it is brutal revenge, pure and simple, disguised as a criminal case of spying, and they intend to denounce it as such by all means possible.

But while my street installation aims above all to save Julians life, absolutely in peril in Belmarsh prison, it also has other purposes, Lorena explains. It is a battle cry for all of us, because our democracy itself is at stake. To equate investigative journalism with spying, as the United States wants to do in demanding Julians extradition from the United Kingdom, is to kill investigative journalism, kill freedom of the press and, therefore, put an end to our #RightToKnow what our rulers are doing in our name especially the illegalities they carry out and then cover up as classified state secrets, so they can go unpunished. Anyone who unconvers them is labeled a spy and sent to jail, just like in the worse authoritarian regimes.

I realize, Lorena concludes, that not everyone has the vocation or the willingness to do a demonstrative action such as the one I have undertaken here in Como. Not everyone feels the need that I felt to really do something concrete for Julian. But everyone can, in their own city, support Julians cause with simple but effective actions. For example, by buying and reading Nils Melzers book, The Trial of Julian Assange, or, for those who know Italian, Stefania Maurizis book Il potere segreto: perch vogliono distruggere Julian Assange e WikiLeaks. and then by talking about them with family and friends. Or by participating in demonstrations organized by groups such as Free Assange Italia, Italians for Assange, Committee for the Liberation of Julian Assange or Free Assange Reggio Emilia.

Or by participating in mega events such as the 24hAssange marathon, a streamed event to be held on October 15. You can simply listen to it and get others to listen to it with you; or you can participate actively by expressing your point of view just write to 24hassange@proton.me to reserve a space in the marathon schedule.

If one really wants to defend a man who has made a great sacrifice for us all, and if, at the same time, we want to defend our #RightToKnow, well, there is no shortage of opportunities. For example, Free Assange Italia, the group I just mentioned and with which I am super active now, offers several initiatives to participate in, depending on ones inclinations and availability: http://freeassangeitalia.it/ciao

But who is Lorena Corrias?

A graduate in Sciences of Tourism from the University of Insubria in 2007 and now an office worker, Lorena had never been an activist in her life before she saw Riccardo Iaconas TV program, Julian Assange, journalism on trial (Presa Diretta on 8/30/2021 viewable on RaiPlay).

The broadcast prompted her to seek out the pro-Assange committee closest to her, in her case Milan, and on July 2 of this year, Lorena received her baptism of fire outside the Milanese British Consulate during a rally held there to celebrate Assanges 51st birthday. Overcoming shyness, she took the microphone in hand and delivered her first public speech, absolutely spontaneous here it is, shortened:

Ever since I was a child, I have always hated injustice, especially when it was committed by the strong against the weak. Inequality has always bothered me and, even as I grew up, this hatred for injustice has never abided. And in the case of Julian Assange, we are talking about a colossal injustice! Only, at the time, I didnt know anything about it.

Then I saw the TV program about Assange presented by Riccardo Iacona, which I encourage everyone to watch. I was shocked to discover that today there is a hero who put his future and his life on the line bravely and without any ulterior motives to enable us to know the truth. Because only by knowing the truth can we make informed decisions.

I do not want to live in a world where everything is passed over in silence.

I dont want to live in a world where Julian Assange is in prison, or worse, one where Julian dies in prison.

But most of all, I do not want to live in a world without Julian Assange! We need him!

Let me thank AnnaMaria Deidda, who has offered me logistical support during my campaign for Julian, and also Sara Giagnoni who has always been by my side.

The original article can be found here

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Are the US and the UK authoritarian regimes? Julian Assange's supporters think so - PRESSENZA International News Agency

Pink Floyd co-founder Roger Waters made headlines this week when he weighed in on the Russia-Ukraine conflict and the political status of Taiwan.

The 78-year-old musician also labeled Joe Biden a war criminal during an interview with CNN's Michael Smerconish.

"He's fueling the fire in the Ukraine, for a start," the rocker said, adding: "That is a huge crime. Why won't the United States of America encourage [Volodymyr] Zelensky, [Ukraine's] president, to negotiate, obviating the need for this horrific, horrendous war?"

Waters went on to tell Smerconish that he should "try and figure out what the United States would do if the Chinese were putting nuclear-armed missiles into Mexico or Canada."

Smerconish interjected saying that "the Chinese are too busy encircling Taiwan as we speak."

That prompted Waters to respond: "They're not encircling Taiwan! Taiwan is part of China. And that's been absolutely accepted by the whole of the international community since 1948 and if you don't know that, you're not reading enough. Go and read about it."

Waters is best known for being a member of Pink Floyd but in addition to his career in music, the guitarist has long been an activist and a vocal supporter of a number of causes such as Israel and Palestine. He has also not shied away from criticizing politicians he disagrees with,including Brazil's Jair Bolsonaro and Donald Trump.

In 2021, Waters condemned Israel over the evictions of Palestinians in occupied East Jerusalem's Sheikh Jarrah neighborhood, but he has been vocal about the conflict for many years.

Last year, he tweeted a video addressing Joe Biden and defined Israel as "an apartheid state."

In 2011, Waters penned a piece for The Guardian opposing the Israeli West Bank barrier.

Waters has been a spokesperson for Millennium Promise, a nonprofit organization fighting poverty and malaria, since 2007.

"The basic idea is to tackle all the things that cause extreme poverty at once in simple, cost-effective ways," Rogers wrote in a 2007 CNN op-ed about the initiative.

The English rocker was a vocal opponent of Brexit, and when the U.K. voted to leave the European Union in 2016 he told Rolling Stone: "I thought we were better than that. I was wrong."

Waters was critical of Donald Trump and condemned the former president's plans to build a wall on the Mexico-U.S. border.

But before this can happen, there will first need to be an awakening against these far-right policies," Waters told Agence France-Presse in 2017. "The sewers are engorged by greedy and powerful men as I speak to you."

Waters was also critical of Brazil's far-right president Jair Bolsonaro, and in 2018 when he was running for office, the musician included the politician's name in a list of "neo-fascists" during a concert in So Paolo.

According to The Guardian, the message on screen at the concert read: "Neo-fascism is on the rise," and it also included the names of Trump, Nigel Farage, Viktor Orban and Marine Le Pen.

Waters attend a rally outside London's Home Office calling for the release of WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange in 2019.

The musician is also a staunch supporter of Jeremy Corbyn, the former leader of the U.K. Labour Party.

In 2019, he signed an open letteralong with a host of other celebritiesahead of a general election calling Corbyn a "life-long committed anti-racist" and claiming that "no political party or political leader has done more to address [antisemitism] than Jeremy Corbyn and the Labour Party."

See the article here:
Pink Floyd's Roger Waters: Every Political Issue He's Weighed In On - Newsweek

Surplus-Enjoyment: A Guide for the Non-Perplexed

Slavoj Zizek

Bloomsbury Academic, pp. 384, 20

Slavoj Zizek is a Slovenian graphomaniac who infuriates some of the worlds most annoying people, and might for this reason alone be cherished. He once enjoyed a high degree of pop-philosophical notoriety, being blamed by pundits who had clearly never read his books for the scourge of pomo relativism that threatened to undermine the moral clarity of those who deemed it an excellent wheeze to invade Iraq. Such was his leftish celebrity a decade ago that he shared a stage with Julian Assange and was forced to deny rumours that he was having an affair with Lady Gaga. My friends said, Youre stupid. You should have said: No comment.

Since then his fame has somewhat waned, perhaps because he doesnt do social media (which is a shame, since he would be a Trumpian master of the form). But that hasnt prevented him from continuing to emit an obscene (a favourite word of his) quantity of books. The long-term Zizek observer already knows that one doesnt exactly read a new book by him so much as tune in again to the ceaselessly babbling stream of his comic-philosophical free association. And so it is here: the bracing mash-up of his beloved Hegel with Marx, perverse yet enjoyably plausible interpretations of Hollywood movies and disquisitions on contemporary politics and culture wars.

There is also the usual amount of Lacanian theory, which to some might seem like a version of Scientology for continental philosophers, a sort of intellectual Ponzi scheme in which adepts prove their belonging via the repetition of absurdities, though the psychoanalytic framework more generally does issue in pungent diagnoses of modern sacred cows. Does the predominant ecological discourse, he asks, not address us as a priori guilty, indebted to Mother Nature, under the constant pressure of the ecological superego?

In any case, Zizeks value as a thinker and gadfly lies precisely in his refusal to submit to boring (another favourite word) empiricism and his joy in insulting the left as well as the right. To those who claim to be on the right side of history he counterposes a gloomy poetry: History is not on our side, it tends towards our collective suicide. As an old-fashioned Marxian materialist, he pounces on the curious contradictions of modern leftist nostrums:

The basic characteristic of todays subjectivity is the weird combination of the free subject who experiences himself as ultimately responsible for his fate and the subject who grounds the authority of his speech on his status of a victim of circumstances beyond his control... The notion of subject as a victim involves the extreme narcissistic perspective: every encounter with the Other appears as a potential threat to the subjects precarious imaginary balance.

Indeed, to the extent that he is a communist, he is one with a notably conservative pessimism about the human animal, its envy and its perversions. Glossing Oedipus at Colonus, he concludes with miserable glee: Our being born is already a kind of failure.

What does Zizek enjoy? He likes anarchic challenges to the status quo, such as the Wall Street Bets online forum of amateur investors that caused a massive bubble and then crash in the share price of the ailing US retailer Gamestop in 2021. He even finds something to enjoy in the carnival atmosphere of the storming of the Capitol by Trumpists because the liberals who were outraged, or so he argues mischievously, were outraged only because the wrong kind of people were doing it. Our philosopher thrills to such events because they subvert the system by over-identifying with it or, rather, by universalising it and thereby bringing out its latent absurdity.

This, too, is what Zizek aims to do with modern ideological conflicts. From Hegel he takes the basic lesson that a critique should always be a critique of critique itself, proceeding dialectically to a sort of plague-on-both-your-houses synthesis. This is, for example, how he proceeds in an interestingly tortured chapter on modern gender identities. Meanwhile, he sees the resurgent Taliban and the Covid vaccine sceptics as twin poles of a dead-end reaction to modernity, which can only be overcome by protecting a space for the public exercise of reason. Fans will wonder in alarm: is Zizek turning into Habermas?

Well, he could never be as dull a writer. He is a great caller of things stupid, which is a skill too little practised in a world dedicated to avoiding offence. But he also has genuine enthusiasms that constantly surprise the reader, such as a brilliant few pages on Shostakovich and, later, on the film Joker. As with many of the high priests of postmodernism (e.g. Derrida), Zizek is at heart really a close reader and a seriously inventive one.

See the article here:
Slavoj Zizek: the philosopher who annoys all the right people - The Spectator

Time is running out to save the life of Julian Assange, who doctors warn only has months left to live, writes Dr Binoy Kampmark.

THEY REALLY DO want to kill him. Perhaps it is high time that his detractors and sceptics, proven wrong essentially from the outset, admit that the U.S. imperium, along with its client states, is willing to see WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange perish in prison.

The locality and venue, for the purposes of this exercise, are not relevant. Like the Inquisition, the Catholic Church was never keen on soiling its hands, preferring the employ of non-church figures to torture its victims.

In the context of Assange, Britain has been a willing gaoler from the start, guided by the good offices of Washington and none too keen in seeing this spiller of secrets released into the world. Bail has been repeatedly and inexcusably refused, despite the threats posed by COVID-19, the publishers own deteriorating health and restrictions upon access, at regular intervals, to legal advice from his team.

Just as some banks are deemed too large to fail, Assange is considered too large a target to escape. Let loose again, he might do what he does best: reveal government venalities in war and peace and prove the social contract a gross deception and mockery of our sensibilities.

The UK legal system has been the ideal forum to execute the wishes of Washington. Each legal branch that has examined the extradition case has assiduously avoided the bigger picture: the attack on press freedom; exposing war crimes; illegal surveillance of a political asylee in an embassy compound; the breaches of privacy and legal confidentiality; the encroachments upon family life; the evidence on proposed abduction and assassination; the questionable conflicts of interest by some judicial members; and the collusion of State authorities.

Instead, the courts, from the outside, have taken a blade to cut away the meatiest, most solid of arguments, focusing on a sliver that would be, in due course, defeated. The sole decision that favoured Assange only did so by essentially regarding him as an individual whose mental fragility would compromise him in a U.S. prison facility.

In such a case, suicide would be virtually impossible to prevent. District Judge Vanessa Baraitser, who made the ruling, thought little of the publishers credentials, heartily agreeing with the prosecution that no journalist would have ever exposed the names of informants. (This farcical interpretation was rebutted convincingly in the Old Bailey trial proceedings.)

The rest has been a grotesque show of gargantuan proportions, with the High Court and the Supreme Court showing themselves to be political dunces or, which is not much better, dupes. Believing a number of diplomatic assurances by U.S. prosecutors on Assanges post-extradition fate, made after the original trial, seemed awfully close to a form of legal match-fixing. We all know that court cases and the law can be analogised as betting and having a punt, the outcome never clear till it arrives, but this was positively ludicrous.

To anyone following the trial and knowing the feeble nature of reassurances made by a State power, especially one with the heft of the United States, promises about more commodious accommodation, not being subject to brutal special administrative measures and also being allowed to apply for a return to Australia to serve the balance of the term was pure, stenchy balderdash.

Amnesty International is unequivocal on this point: diplomatic assurances are used by governments to circumvent various human rights conventions and the very fact that they are sought to begin with creates its own dangers:

The mere fact that States need to seek diplomatic assurances against torture and other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment (other ill-treatment) is indicative of a risk of torture.

The U.S. prosecuting authorities have even gone so far as to weaken their own position, making their undertakings conditional. Typically, they shift the focus back on Assange, suggesting that he might influence matters by his own mischievous conduct. All in all, nothing said was binding and the glue holding the promises together might, at any given moment, dissolve.

Admirably, Assange continues to have some fiercely dedicated followers who wish him well and wish him out. Independent Australian MP Andrew Wilkie has the sort of certitude that can pulverise the attitudes of bleak sceptics, though even he must nurse a few doubts. In his address to supporters of Assange in Canberra, delivered on the lawns of the Australian Parliament, he was confident that keeping the pressure up would eventually lead to justice for the publisher.

In a crisp summation, Wilkie distilled the case:

The U.S. wants to get even and for so long the UK and Australia have been happy to go along for the ride because theyve put bilateral relationships with Washington ahead of the rights of a decent man.

Keep maintaining the rage, he urged his audience.

The matter is considered so urgent that Australian Doctors For Assange has warned that death may be peeking around the corner.

Spokesman Dr Robert Marr expressed his concern:

Medical examinations of Julian Assange in Belmarsh prison in the UK have revealed that he is suffering from severe life-threatening cardiovascular and stress-related medical conditions, including having a mini-stroke as a result of his imprisonment and psychological torture.

The organisation has written to U.S. Ambassador Caroline Kennedy

...requesting she urgently ask President Biden to stop the U.S. persecution of Australian citizen Julian Assange for merely publishing information provided to him and stop the U.S. attempt to extradite him from the UK.

From the Australian perspective, we can already see that there is a go-slow, cautious approach to Assanges fate, which also serves the lethal agenda being pursued by the U.S. prosecutors. Despite a change of the guard in Canberra, the status quo on power relations between the two countries remains unaltered.

Everyone, bar Assange, seems to have time to wait. But in terms of life and health, the time in question is almost done.

Dr Binoy Kampmark was a Cambridge Scholar and is a lecturer at RMIT University. You can follow Dr Kampmark on Twitter @BKampmark.

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Penal assassination: The gradual effort to kill Julian Assange - Independent Australia

On July 10, the Socialist Equality Party (SEP) in Australia held a well-attended online meeting demanding freedom for WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange. The meeting was called after British Home Secretary Priti Patel announced that she had approved Assanges extradition to the US, where he faces life imprisonment for exposing American war crimes, pending a final possible legal appeal.

The speakers, SEP (Australia) National Secretary Cheryl Crisp, WSWS writer Oscar Grenfell and Eric London, a leading member of the SEP in the US, indicted all the governments involved in Assanges decade-long persecution. They placed the attacks against him in the context of the new wars against Russia and China being hatched by the US and its allies and the deepening crisis of global capitalism.

Each explained that Assanges liberty requires the development of a movement of the working class as the only constituency that defends democratic rights and can end imperialist war. In that context, the meeting, attended by more than 200 people, passed the following resolution:

This meeting condemns the persecution of Julian Assange by the American, British, Australian and Swedish governments for exposing the war crimes of the US and its allies. We demand that the Australian government end its collaboration with the legal travesty to railroad Assange into the US courts and instead use all its diplomatic and other powers to secure his immediate and unconditional release.

The meeting can be watched in full here.

Several attendees spoke to the WSWS.

Josh, a Masters student in Melbourne, raised the broader situation within which Assange is under attack: Facing the immense global problems of our current age necessitates a coordinated global response, he said. These global problems are the result of strong capitalist and imperialist institutional structures that have pillaged global resources at the expense of working people, indigenous sovereignty, and future generations.

Socialist Equality pursues the mechanisms to fight these problems and it cannot be achieved without the radical journalism of organisations such as WikiLeaks. The persecution of Julian Assange is a threat against all journalists and the future of proper investigative journalism.

Assange has received minimal support relative to other journalists who have been imprisoned abroad. His treatment over the last 12 years speaks volumes to the ongoing capitulation of these Western powers to the imperialist USA agenda. Assange's work with Wikileaks exposed a plethora of systemic war crimes committed by the USA and its allies.

The conversation of whether Assange and his team at Wikileaks followed 'proper' journalistic protocols purposefully deflects from the content that was contained within. The entire process is planned inertia and supportive of the western war industrial complex and USA-focused geopolitical aims.

Wikileaks' reports on these global atrocities were a watershed moment. These reports have changed the world, emboldened people to come together and oppose injustice and question power and our place in it. Our support of Julian Assange is also a means of supporting those journalists of the future, to give them the knowledge and security that their work critiquing powerful institutions holds real material value in creating a better world for all.

Neil, the former owner of a transport and car repair business in Melbourne, attended his first SEP meeting.

He explained: 'If people found out the truth then the war in Ukraine could have been avoided altogether, but America wants to fight Russia. If Ukraine joins NATO you can kiss Russia goodbye. Now they have the Swiss on the other side, plus Ukraine would make Russia pretty much surrounded.

'What if Russia goes to Cuba and puts nuclear weapons there? The US wouldn't be happy, but that's what the US is doing to Russia. Not saying Putin is a nice guy but the US doesn't want this war to stop. They see him and China as a threat. The US government love the Ukrainians? I don't believe that, they don't love anyone except themselves.

'America is spending trillions on war, yet their people are homeless in their own country. The war in Ukraine was all America's fault, but who is suffering? The Ukrainians and Russians. America aren't putting troops there but they are giving them weapons and making money from it.

'Labor and Liberal are the same, I used to believe in Labor more but now I don't believe in them whatsoever because they both just follow America's footsteps.

'Assange exposed a lot of governments, and it's not just America who is worried about him, so is England, and Australia. That's why they are keeping him in, because if he's out he will keep exposing. The mainstream media, including the Australian Broadcasting Corporation, is hiding a lot; they only tell us what they want to.

'Democracy has gone out the door. If there was democracy Assange would never have gone to jail. England is killing him slowly.'

Rosie, a health worker from rural Western Australia, stated: Ive always felt that Edward Snowden and Julian Assange were scapegoats. To prevent the populace from having a certain idea of what things are really like, they have to shut these people up.

I think the way forward is about trying to find justice for Julian, who told the truth even when nobody could hear what the real truth is.

The things that he has printed and laid out in Wikileaks,I think we have a right to know, by the way.

The picture Im getting is that whichever side get into power, they have been trying to condemn Julian Assange. Why even now, look at Labor Prime Minister Anthony Albanese. Oh sure, Labor got in. But Albanese is doing the same thing as the former Liberal government. Hes going, Oh well, you know were just going to wash our hands of it. Im thinking, Assange is an Australian citizen, what are you doing?

Christopher, who works in Road Traffic Management in Melbourne, said: It was a privilege to attend the meeting you held. Way back when Julian Assange first started up WikiLeaks, the fact that he was trying to raise awareness of what is going on in the world: wars, corruption, drew me to support him. If people dont stand up against tyranny they could be seen to be supporting it. The US has been embarrassed by the war crimes that he exposed. They dont want their dirty laundry aired.

This is an attack on Julian Assange but its also an attack on free speech. The US has refused to sign the Geneva Convention which would make it liable to be prosecuted for war crimes. The attack on Assange is being used as a warning against any journalist, including future journalists, to be careful as to what they bring to the attention of the general public. I am disappointed at the almost deafening silence of fellow journalists and governments, including the Australian government, over Assanges persecution.

Speakers had outlined the recent attack on Dr David Berger by the Australia Health Practitioners Regulatory Authority. Berger has been censured, instructed that he must undertake a special education program and threatened with deregistration.

These attacks have been levelled because the widely-respected doctor has condemned the let it rip COVID policies of Australian governments and championed the scientifically-based policies required to eliminate transmission and end the pandemic.

Christopher said: In the meeting, when the topic turned to Dr Berger, I did for a minute think, where is this headed, are we going off track? Are we here to discuss Assange or COVID? But I stuck with it and then it became very apparent, very clear the connection between silencing Assange and the silencing of Dr Berger. Information is power. There does need to be a campaign of information.

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Australian workers and youth speak out: If there was democracy Assange would never have gone to jail - WSWS

Photograph Source: Shona/Reikilass CC BY 2.0

Ive been in England since late June, taking part in a variety of events, including a commemoration of Julian Assanges 51st birthday,in front of Belmarsh Prisonin London, where he is held in a cage.

From some vantage points, there may be little relationship between the commemoration of a labor struggle involving farmworkers in 1830s Dorset that I sang at last weekend, and the imprisonment of a journalist in present-day London. But for all of the folks I know who have had their eyes on this connection for one reason or other, the parallels are veritably shouting for our attention.

In 1834, six hungry farmworkers who became known as theTolpuddle Martyrs swore a secret oath, that they would organize nonviolently to better the conditions of the farmworkers of Dorset, who lived wretched lives under the thumb of the Squire, the landowner, who was also the judge for the sham trial the men were subjected to. They were sentenced to transportation to the miserable, 111-day journey to the other side of the world, to split rocks beneath the blazing sun in Australia for seven years, a form of torture that many did not survive.

By 1834, forming a union had been legal under British law for a few years. But swearing a secret oath was another matter entirely, at least according to the Squires court.

Around the country back then, people mobilized, seeing the stark injustice in the case of these farmworkers in Tolpuddle, and further seeing that if they could be charged with swearing a secret oath and sent to Australia, then this could potentially happen to anyone trying to form a union anywhere in the country. Although the families of the transported farmworkers were denied assistance from the state, supporters around the country looked after them well, and due to their ongoing mobilization the men were eventually pardoned, and brought back to England at the states expense in 1836.

In 2019, an award-winning journalist and editor named Julian Assange was forcibly removed from the Ecuadorian Embassy by British police and taken to the supermaximum Belmarsh Prison on the outskirts of London, to be held without bail in solitary confinement, prevented from almost all communication with the outside world, to face extradition to the United States, whose Justice Department is pursuing charges against Assange under the 1917 Espionage Act, for exposing US war crimes in Iraq which had been classified, of course, and so Assange was thus exposing state secrets, punishable under the long-ignored Espionage Act with decades and centuries in prison.

In recent years, since all of Assanges worst predictions about the intents of the US government in his case have been proven accurate, support for his freedom and against his extradition to the US has been growing everywhere, including all over the UK. More and more people are realizing that if Assange can be silenced and put away for the rest of his life for the laws he has ostensibly broken, then the same thing could be done to any other journalist who does their job well. Journalists work with confidential sources and expose state secrets all the time, and are frequently awarded for this sort of thing including recently, with journalists in Russia and the Philippines receiving the Nobel.

The notion of continuing to imprison Julian Assange because he exposed state secrets illegal under this draconian law that hasnt been used in a century, that is blatantly in contradiction with all notions of press freedom increasingly terrifies journalists and anyone else who may currently be waking up to the fact that if they can prosecute Assange under the Espionage Act then they could just as easily prosecute the editor of the Guardian, the New York Times, Der Spiegel, El Pais, or any number of other journalistic outlets that have undoubtedly violated all of the same laws Assange has allegedly violated.

Saying that its legal to form a union, but its illegal to take a secret oath declaring that you have done so, is obviously troubling, and people up and down this island could see that back in 1834.

Saying its OK to be a journalist, but if you do any investigations that turn up secret information and you publish any of it anywhere you may face the rest of your life in a supermax prison somewhere in the United States, is similarly contradictory, and increasing numbers of people can clearly see that today.

If those attending the Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival last weekend might be a bit of a bellwether of progressive opinion in Britain today, which I think they very well could be, then the circumstantial evidence was everywhere. The table for the Julian Assange Defense Committee always had people at it, buying books and talking with those of us behind the table. Marching through town with the Free Julian Assange banner elicited nothing but supportive chants, shouts, and applause along with Jeremy Corbyn joining us to hold the banner and march with us for a couple minutes. (Though apparently not long enough for anyone to take a decent picture.)

As a microcosm of the British left, those involved with this very labor movement-oriented festival are a collection of people with much that both unites and divides them. The evidence of the ongoing rift within the left around what I would emphatically characterize as completely false accusations of antisemitism of various Labor Party members is not hard to find. Neither is it hard to find the divide around how to react to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. But wherever someone stands on these matters, at least in these circles, support for Assanges freedom and opposition to his extradition to the US seems universal.

So broad is the support for Julian Assange, in fact, that for some it can be challenging, because his support does not come only from well-behaved leftists, but from lots of other folks as well, such as the folks who were putting me up in Dorset for the weekend, who I first came into contact with because of our mutual support for Assange. As the former treasurer for the Libertarian Party, my host and I have lots of political differences, but none when it comes to press freedom or Assanges freedom.

A groundswell of support for the wrongly-accused Tolpuddle Martyrs got them pardoned and returned to England within two years. A similar groundswell of support for this wrongly accused, imprisoned journalist over the past few years has so far not achieved his freedom. But the injustice involved in both cases could not be more outrageous, or obvious.

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Singing in the Shadow of Belmarsh - CounterPunch.org - CounterPunch

Australias COVID-19 crisis passed another terrible milestone last week: over 11,000 people have now died, up from just 2,200 at the end of 2021.

An inverse political law has emerged. The more catastrophic the pandemicas a direct result of the profit-driven live with the virus campaignthe more the Australian capitalist class demands the ending of public health precautions. And the more the trade unions enforce this deadly offensive.

So too, the greater become efforts to silence denunciations of the let it rip disaster. That is demonstrated by Twitters locking of the Socialist Equality Party (Australia)s account over a video defending Dr David Berger and two other victimised zero-COVID campaigners, Lisa Dias and David OSullivan, as well as Julian Assange, persecuted for exposing US and allied war crimes.

This pattern has become more blatant in recent days as the Labor government presides over a mounting wave of infections, hospitalisations, deaths and long-COVID affliction.

Because of the axing of virtually all safety measures by governments, Labor and Liberal-National alike, since the end of last year, total cases have soared from 400,000 to a staggering nine million, and the highly transmissible BA.4 and BA.5 variants are now fuelling a new Omicron tsunami.

More than 324,000 new infections were reported last week and 450 deaths. Daily death and hospitalisation numbers are reaching the record highs suffered in January. On Saturday, the daily number of deaths hit 102.

Public hospitals are being overwhelmed. Their workers are under intolerable strain and patients are in great danger. The number of hospital beds occupied by COVID-19 patients has almost doubled from fewer than 3,000 in June to 5,437, above the previous peak of 5,390 on January 25.

At a press conference last week, Health Minister Mark Butler and the countrys Chief Medical Officer Paul Kelly admitted that millions more Australians would be infected over the coming weeks. Yet they opposed the reintroduction of any public safety measures.

As far as the ruling class and its political servants are concerned, nothing must be done to protect the population, especially working-class households, that will in any way affect the full reopening of workplaces and business operations in order to drive up profits.

That message was spelt out most vehemently by the Australian in an editorial on July 20. Governments must stand firm against any push for a return to mandatory Covid-19 controls on schools and workplaces, it declared.

This was another test for Prime Minister Anthony Albaneses government. In fact, the Murdoch medias national flagship berated the government for backing down on terminating the small one-off $750 payments to infected workers who have to take time off work.

Citizens must be allowed to determine their own level of risk, the editorial demanded. This invocation of individual responsibility not only denies the necessity for a societal response to the COVID disaster. People are systematically being kept in the dark about the level of risk. Governments and the media are burying the infection toll, scrapping testing and tracing, covering up the serious effects of the coronavirus and trying to silence health experts.

The editorial even denounced the state Labor government in Victoria for recommending, but not requiring, that schoolchildren wear masks in classrooms. This was a backward step. It was all the more reprehensible because the government had revived the excuse of following health advice after flatly rejecting it earlier.

That was a reference to Victorian Health Minister Mary-Anne Thomas boasting the previous week that following the opportunity to consult with business leaders, she dismissed the state chief health officers recommendation to reintroduce an indoor mask mandate.

The Australian Financial Reviews July 23 editorial reinforced the dictates of business. It insisted there was no caseand no supportfor a return to lockdowns. Even this omicron resurgence simply does not warrant it.

Blithely, the financial newspaper claimed: The health system is not collapsing. In reality, more than 10,000 health workers are isolating because of infection. There are massive staff shortages and exhausting extended shifts and workloads. Patients face life-threatening delays in treatment.

The stench of eugenics wafted from the editorial. COVID-19 has become a silent killer that largely stalks the old, like the heart disease thats all around us, it stated. In other words, the deaths of older peopleno longer wanted as workers and a burden on the health and pensions systemsare of little or no concern.

Above all, there must be no going back to working from home, because fragmented and atomised workforces are not effective in the long run.

Cynically, the AFR noted: The current daily average virus death toll of 60 would have caused waves of panicback in the time of daily press conferences by premiers. Now these individual tragedies pass with little public notice or drama.

What the AFR derides as panic, is the widespread, continuing and absolutely justified popular concern over all the unnecessary deaths throughout the pandemic. What has changed this year is that the governments and the corporate media have deliberately shut down reporting on the deaths.

Previous official pretences of condolences have been dropped. Hundreds of loved ones now die every week without even a mention, let alone any acknowledgement of their lives. They have been made nameless and invisible.

On cue, the Labor government has followed its instructions. Asked last Thursday why he opposed reintroducing mask mandates, Albanese alleged there were low levels of compliance with existing mandates, including on public transport, where no enforcement is occurring.

His government, like its Liberal-National predecessor, is trying to blame working people for the disastrous conditions that governments, the media and the corporate elite have consciously created.

The unions are helping Labor suppress workers demands for protection. Having enforced returns to workplaces and schools throughout the pandemic, they moved last week to stifle opposition to employers threats of disciplinary action or dismissal against workers who want to work from home for their safety.

Health Services Union national president Gerard Hayes sided openly with Albanese, who said last week that working from home was a decision for employers, not workers or public health orders. Working from home would damage the economy, Hayes declared, while claiming, without evidence, that it would hurt mental health and the vaccination program.

That is in line with the role of all the health unions. They have confined their members to one-off strikes and protests despite the refusal of the state and federal governments to meet their crucial demands for more staff, safe patient-to-staff ratios and wage rises to cope with the cost of living crisis.

Hayes opposed a suggestion from the Finance Sector Union (FSU) that industrial agreements should allow workers to negotiate work from home arrangements with their bosses. This suggestion itself left the issue up to the requirements of the management, while offering a safety valve to head off the hostility of workers to being exposed to unsafe offices and other workplaces.

Supporting the FSU call, Australian Council of Trade Unions secretary Sally McManus underscored the unions pro-business agenda. She said working from home would boost productivity, while reducing stress and living expenses, such as petrol. At the same time, she backed employer objections that face-to-face contact was important for their operations. I dont think its good to have a one-size fits all (approach) there should be options for it, McManus said.

Workers and young people cannot leave their health and lives in the hands of the ruling class, its governments and the unions, which are all intent on protecting corporate profits, regardless of the human cost.

To oppose this policy of mass infection, and fight for the measures that can eliminate COVID-19, they need to form rank-and-file committees in workplaces, schools and neighbourhoods, to take matters into their own hands. This struggle requires a socialist perspective, based on the defence of lives and livelihoods, not the fortunes of the super-rich.

Join the SEP campaign against anti-democratic electoral laws!

The working class must have a political voice, which the Australian ruling class is seeking to stifle with this legislation.

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Australian ruling class demands governments stand firm against safety measures as COVID-19 toll explodes - WSWS

Roger Waters, the renowned musician and activist, co-founder of the group Pink Floyd and its creative driving force from 1968 to 1984, is currently touring his concert and multimedia installation This Is Not a Drill across North America. At least one million people are expected to attend the performances.

The tour, which made a stop in Detroit on July 23, uses Waters extensive artistic catalog to condemn the ruthlessness of the ruling elite in the US and around the world. Virtually every song is directed toward pressing issues of our time: imperialist war, fascism, the poison of nationalism, the plight of refugees, the victims of state oppression, global poverty, social inequality, the attack on democratic rights and the danger of nuclear annihilation.

Such an event, so unusual and important, demands special consideration, above all, because it raises to a high and pressing level, in the actual experience of large numbers of people, the issue of the problem between art and politics in a period of unprecedented crisis.

The concert in Detroit was a remarkable musical, visual and intellectual experience. This Is Not a Drill incorporates many of the memorable songs from Pink Floyds catalog while Waters was still at the helm but never becomes a nostalgia tour. Waters, in fact, does not want anyone to forget about their troubles for a while. His main concern throughout the evening was ensuring that the songs corresponded to ongoing social and political developments.

A lesser-known song from Waters solo work, The Powers That Be (1987), is performed in thunderous fashion against footage of police shootings and military bombings. The imagery culminates in a textual memorial to nearly two dozen victims of police violence in the US and other countries. The angry protests of the audience increased with each death notice.

On the searing 1992 anti-war song The Bravery of Being Out of Range, Waters incorporates images of each US president since Ronald Reagan with descriptions of their murderous foreign policies and superimposes the words War Criminal on every one. As for Joe Biden, Waters notes that he is Just Getting Started. At the crescendo of the songwhich has the memorable refrain Old timer, who are you gonna kill next?a sudden red audio-visual blast envelops the audience, intended to provide a sense of what it must be like to be shot at by a military drone or aircraft.

At the end of the nightmarish 1972 song Run Like Hell, the animated imagery transforms into video footage of a US military helicopter firing missiles on a residential neighborhood. The text explains this was actual footage of 10 civilians and journalists killed in Iraq in 2007. It adds that the video was courageously leaked by Chelsea Manning and courageously published by Julian Assange. The installation is then emblazoned with the words Free Julian Assange and Lock Up The Killers, generating some of the loudest cheers of the evening.

The performance ends on a high and disturbing note, richly drawn out. Waters band first performs a medley of songs from the legendary 1972 Dark Side of the Moon albumUs and Them, Any Colour You Like and Brain Damage. The steadily rising chorus of each is set to gradually multiplying images, eventually hundreds of them, of people from around the world. These are portraits of a wide range of human beings adolescent victims of wars, industrial workers, mothers, sick children, the homeless. It is a humane and unifying imagery, which climaxes in a giant panorama at the conclusion of Brain Damage. It is a reminder from Waters of how much there is to lose in the world.

This medley was immediately followed by the lesser-known but powerful Two Suns in the Sunset (1983). Waters introduces the song with references to the current dangers of nuclear war, clearly pointing to the US-NATO instigated war against Russia in Ukraine, involving the worlds largest nuclear-armed powers. The initial pastoral and brightly animated imagery of an individual driving in the countryside frighteningly changes character. We realize that the brightness emanates from a nuclear bombs mushroom cloud, which incinerates large masses of people in the visuals.

The conventional wisdom, pumped out by innumerable literary and music journals, taught at every art and drama college, has it that art and politics, like oil and water, had better not be mixed. Various cautionary examples from the past are regularly produced to intimidate young artists, to impress upon them the folly of social engagement. But, even more generally, the prevailing notion is that the aesthetic element is a thing existing in and of itself, a value that has little or nothing to do with the lives and concerns of the great masses of people, as though the artist who creates an aesthetic form and the audience who enjoys it are empty machines, one for creating form and the other for appreciating it.

If the artist, the official version goes, has strong views, he or she had better keep them to him or herself. And many artists and musicians, sadly, live up to these notions. But Waters is not one of them. The entire concert tour is a deliberate and conscious refutation of such ideas. An opening message on the multimedia installation spells this out: If youre one of those I love Pink Floyd, but I cant stand Rogers politics people, you might do well to fuck off to the bar right now. How appropriate and eloquent! In reality, how could art in our time of unparalleled turmoil and suffering be significant if it did not possess the element of protest? What would it be saying to its audience? The artist who accepts the false dichotomy between art and politics, who knows his or her proper place, will end up not meaning much to anyone and will certainly not endure.

The powers that be recognize the danger. Though This Is Not a Drill has received some favorable news coverage, there is an obvious lack of reporting on it in the mainstream press. Waters recently denounced the Toronto media, after it refused to provide any significant coverage of his two-night performance in that city. The critics prefer their music without the angry unpleasantness.

The decision to ignore Waters performances in Toronto has to be connected with his opposition to the US-NATO war against Russia in Ukraine. The musician has taken a principled stand on the conflict. While firmly opposing the reactionary Russian invasion, Waters commented that a long drawn-out insurgency in Ukraine would be great for the gangster hawks in Washington. Its what they dream of.

It is impossible not to be moved by Waters socially engaged, historically informed musical performance, by the fusion of serious art work and incisive political analysis. Waters is not presenting a systematically-developed political perspective, much less the program of a particular tendency. What finds expression in This is Not a Drill is deep outrage against injustice, against war, against official hypocrisy and lies.

Waters at 78, possessing the energy and spirit of an individual half his age, is not conducting a nostalgia tour. Other performers his age continue to travel and play their old hits, presumably earning a living. The vast majority of themparticularly those whose art was rooted in the anti-Vietnam War and civil rights struggles of the 1960slost their anger decades ago. They made their social and artistic peace with society. They have to continue performing their original material, because they have nothing new and important to say. Worst of all, they may even have a Kennedy Center Honor, that wide rainbow-colored ribbon of shame, hung around their necks by US presidents whose hands are drenched with blood.

Waters, on the other hand, is not a legend, i.e., a relic. He remains a living, working, thinking artist. He is still engaged, still pressing forward. His work is a response of a serious artist to the conditions of his time.

The three-hour performance was a tour de force, which involves the participation of master musicians. Waters proves in practice at every performance on this tour the truth of Leon Trotskys proposition that a protest against reality always forms part of a really creative piece of work and that every new tendency in artand such an installation-concert must be considered a new tendencyhas begun with rebellion.

Waters is a serious and, therefore, unflinchingly honest artist, bold in his conceptions about the world. His striking artistry and his opposition to the existing social system are interwoven, they nourish one another. This is not an artificial leftism grafted on a contrived and superficial radicalism that is careful to avoid stepping over the accepted limits. Waters absorbed rebellion into his bone and marrow a very long time ago, and he continues to live and breathe it. He inspires the audience to think critically, to feel outrage against that which exists, and to believe that a new and better world can and must be brought into being.

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Roger Waters in concert: Art and politics in a time of crisis - WSWS

Julian Assange is a strange inkblot test for official Australia. For the official secrets culture of Canberra, Assange is so confronting as to be incomprehensible.

Since WikiLeaks burst on the world, official Canberra hasnt wanted to find meaning in Assange or grapple with his Australian identity. Much simpler to damn and ignore.

The rest of Australia has had a dozen years to form an Assange view. But in Canberra the secrets culture means that no real Assange answer comes. Canberra still lives the horror of Cablegate in 2010, when Wikileaks began releasing secret cables from 274 US diplomatic missions.

The paradox, as Phillip Adams dryly observes, is that Australia gave birth to the two most powerful media figures in the world: Rupert Murdoch and Julian Assange. Both creating global empires from provincial beginnings. Both seen as dangerous, problematic. Both blamed for changing the course of history.

Murdoch and Assange share the outsider perspective of Australia. Both have had a significant impact on the United States the way America understands itself and the way the world thinks about America. Both are interlopers who shook the established media order. Murdoch did his first revolution in Australia, then in Britain, and now in the United States where hes become an American citizen. Long gone from Australia, Assange fights extradition to America.

In the United States, Assange might well be cleared by a court because of the Constitutions First Amendment and its guarantee of freedom of the press and freedom of speech.

In Australia, by contrast, this Australian citizen would be in jail. Theres no ifs or buts about the way the official secrets culture would deal with a heretic like Assange. Itd be little use to argue for press freedom or, indeed, that WikiLeaks largely released material that was embarrassing to governments and militaries but has been of little lasting security harm.

In Australia, the High Court could find only an implied right of free speech in the constitution in 1992, and even that implied right has been questioned as not settled law.

The hesitation about free speech is the twin of Canberras secrets culture. See that culture as defined by one of the capitals longest-serving journalists, Jack Waterford, former editor of The Canberra Times, who argues the primary purpose of laws against leaking has been to conceal bureaucratic incompetence and double dealing, and hypocrisy, political cupidity and criminality by Australian politicians, soldiers and intelligence officers.

In official Canberra, the default setting is secrecy. The internal struggle and argument is always about how much should be made public. The culture loves the TOP SECRET stamp and then asserts the need to enforce absolute secrecy. As Waterford notes: No modern common law state has laws so draconian, and court processes defying almost every principle of natural justice. It is what we have come to when the guardians are allowed to be their own guardians.

In ending the Commonwealth prosecution of the Canberra lawyer Bernard Collaery over the release of classified information about spying on East Timor, the attorney-general, Mark Dreyfus, opted for justice not secrecy. But it was a rare moment for an Australian politician to look beyond the mystique of the TOP SECRET label.

The enduring Canberra truth about the Collaery case was the four years the system spent pursuing the prosecution to serve the secrecy taboo.

Canberras secrets culture struggles with the way that US First Amendment norms have shaped journalism here and in much of the world. The long-established freedoms of the US become contested, implied rights in Australia. No wonder Canberra has a hard time comprehending Assange. In this town, the secrecy obsession feeds on security fears. This prompted a remarkable moment in Australian journalism in 2019 when major newspapersblacked out their front pagesto protest at theculture of secrecy. Raiding journalists both Australian and Chinese is one element of how Australia seeks security.

This official culture is challenged on many levels by the Enlightenment-on-steroids force of the First Amendment, one of the most revolutionary bits of political/legal language ever laid down by statute a key marker of the US as the most successful-ever revolutionary state.

Back in 2011, I wrote a column about Wikileaks and the US First Amendment:

If Julian Assange ends up before a US court, the bludgeon aimed at his head will be the WW1-inspired blunt instrument, the 1917 Espionage Act. His best shield will be the protection of free speech and the press in the First Amendment. The US would try to nail Assange for enabling the mass leakage of secrets. Assange would claim the protection of being a publisher, no different to the New York Times.

That column about Assange as journalist/publisher was picked up by US academics creating an encyclopedia on the First Amendment. The argument that Assange was doing First Amendment work to reveal dark secrets will grow ever louder in the struggle over his threatened extradition from Britain to the US to face the clearly preposterous sentence of 175 years in prison for espionage.

The preposterous line is from Philip Johnston, assistant editor of Londons The Telegraph, that newspaper bulwark of Toryism and John Bull Britishness. Things are stirring in Britain when even The Telegraph worries about a proxy vendetta against an irksome exposer of nefarious state activities, as Johnston writes:

There is an unmistakeable sense that Assange is being punished because he took the lid off some of the appalling activities of the US military to stop similar investigations in future. The British governments acquiescence in this enterprise is worrying and came before the publication of a British Bill of Rights which is due to enshrine a commitment to free speech as one of its central provisions.

So, centuries after America got a Bill of Rights, Britain contemplates something similar. Take your pick whether thats a radical or conservative move. Nothing similar is in view in Australia.

Australias government has been mute about Assange because hes such a challenge to its official secrets culture. And because Assange so discomfited its great ally, the US. Not least of that discomfit is that Assange challenges America using its own magnificent First Amendment values.

If Prime Minister Anthony Albanese acts on his belief that enough is enough in the Assange case, hell have to do more than persuade Washington. Hell also have to push against the norms and nostrums of Canberra.

Graeme Dobell was made a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs in 2011 for his distinguished contribution to journalism through his reporting on politics and international affairs. He has been a journalist since 1971.

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