THE HANDSTAND |
DECEMBER2010
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http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/97.php
Dear friends,
The massive campaign of intimidation against WikiLeaks is
sending a chill through free press advocates everywhere.
Legal experts say WikiLeaks has likely broken no laws.
Yet top US politicians have called it a terrorist group
and commentators have urged assassination of its staff.
The organization has come under massive government and
corporate attack, but WikiLeaks is only publishing
information provided by a whistleblower. And it has
partnered with the world's leading newspapers (NYT,
Guardian, Spiegel etc) to carefully vet the information
it publishes.
The massive extra-judicial intimidation of WikiLeaks is
an attack on democracy. We urgently need a public outcry
for freedom of the press and expression. Sign the
petition to stop the crackdown and forward this email to
everyone -- let's get to 1 million voices and take out
full page ads in US newspapers this week!
http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/97.php
WikiLeaks isn't acting alone -- it's partnered with the
top newspapers in the world (New York Times, The Guardian,
Der Spiegel, etc) to carefully review 250,000 US
diplomatic cables and remove any information that it is
irresponsible to publish. Only 800 cables have been
published so far. Past WikiLeaks publications have
exposed government-backed torture, the murder of innocent
civilians in Iraq and Afgha nistan, and corporate
corruption.
The US government is currently pursuing all legal avenues
it has to stop WikiLeaks from publishing more cables, but
the laws of democracies protect freedom of the press. The
US and other governments may not like the laws that
protect our freedom of expression, but that's exactly why
it's so important that we have them, and why only a
democratic process can change them.
Reasonable people can disagree on whether WikiLeaks and
the leading newspapers it's partnered with are releasing
more information than the public should see. Whether the
releases undermine diplomatic confidentiality and whether
that's a good thing. Whether WikiLeaks founder Julian
Assange has the personal character of a hero or a villain.
But none of this justifies a vicious campaign of
intimidation to silence a legal media outlet by
governments and corporations. Click below to join the
call to stop the crackdown:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/wikileaks_petition/97.php
Ever wonder why the media so rarely gives the full story
of what happens behind the scenes? This is why - because
when they do, governments can be vicious in their
response. And when that happens, it's up to the public to
stand up for our democratic rights to a free press and
freedom of expression. Never has there been a more vital
time for us to do so.
With hope,
Ricken, Emma, Alex, Alice, Maria Paz and the rest of the
Avaaz team.
LETTER FROM FRANK SCOTT
whether the petition is enough or
not, those who cannot retaliate by jamming computer
sites of the opposition and its servants or who do
not wish to respond violently to a nonviolent attempt at
serious social change can do no better than let
established power know how many feel the way they do and
how strongly they support wikileaks and what resistance
there is to this assault on assange...a petition
can help make that clear...
and please let us not forget the source of most of
thse cables and messages, service man bradley
manning who has been in prison for months and faces even
more danger than assange...he does not yet have a
worldwide network of support , certainly not to the
extent of assange... he is a member of the global working
class majority which does not have anywhere n ear the
clout, financial or intellectual, of the formally
educated professional class minority, a relative
elite , including its small sector of
anti-establishment people...
given material reality and all its contradictions and
denials of humane sanity ,we are always in danger
of being forced all the way through the looking glass and
into a lewis carroll blunder-land of total insanity,
and this seems to be one of those times when well meaning
people depart from anything but conspiratorial
plots almost beyond comprehension and about as secret as
the mysteries of universal founding, and this while the
wikileaks episode should make us aware that there is no
way - absolutely no way! - to keep secrets anymore, so
long as people rise up and demand that be the case...
meanwhile, i will not hang by my lip waiting to hear
about the cable-diplomatic message-communication between
mossad-bush-cheney - and mother theresa? - ab out the 9/11
conspiracy plot of all conspiracy plots, still without a
whistle blower, still without a leak, still without a
confession from a contrite, conscience tortureded villain
or scapegoat these many years after hundreds - at the
very least! - had to have been involved in and had
knowledge of such a fantastic plot to murder thousands of
their own people...bradley manning was moved to take his
heroic action by seeing and participating in horrors of
war he could not tolerate any longer...where is the
bradley manning for 9/11? there isn't one, because the
fables, myths and conjectures come from people sitting in
front of keyboards , video screens or printed pages...experience
is the best teacher ...support wikileaks and especally
bradley manning...whatever their politics, their
practical experience and ours is what counts for more
than our theories about them...
will we ever face material reality and
change it , and not rely on immaterial co njecture
to simply theorize about it? now is as good a time
as ever to start looking at facts and stop creating
fiction to account for them ...
fs
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