KEVIN REED—There is no doubt that international public access to this kind of independent reporting is of great concern to the military-intelligence state behind the persecution of Assange and Manning. It is the exposure of these important facts that is behind the ongoing online censorship of socialist and oppositional websites that has been identified by the World Socialist Web Site going back to the spring and summer of 2017.
GODFREE ROBERTS—The censorship scene in China could hardly be more different. For two thousand years the Chief Censor has been a public intellectual and the incumbent, Wang Huning, is typical. He’s the most famous intellectual in a nation of intellectual-worshippers. His Master’s thesis, From Bodin to Maritain: On Sovereignty Theories Developed by the Western Bourgeoisie, won wide acclaim and millions watched him twice lead Fudan University to victory in the international Intercollegiate Debating Championships.
RAMIN MAZAHERI—It seems amusing and hypocritical that a book about socialism is only being sold on Amazon, which is perhaps the most cutthroat capitalist corporation today. All I can say is: we tried. Amazon has bought up so many parts of the modern publishing industry, like CreateSpace, that there simply are no real options for us. We are looking, though.Bottom line: the most common phrase heard among leftist authors is, “just get the ideas out there”, because leftist ideas are so harshly repressed in the West, both formally and informally. And it’s not like we’re in this for the money.
FRANK SCOTT—The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, Fort Knox Foundation and other responsible caches of individual global wealth are in crisis meetings to deal with this new problem of people demanding a fairer shake from the system of minority rule, often called democracy in places with elections allowed to the commoners so long as they vote for representatives of that minority rule.