In his intro, Lee dissects the scandalous way in which mainstream media trivialise news, assign top billing to banalities such as sports and political gossip, and generally squander mass communications, a precious resource at a moment when our planet is dying. And then he gets to interview Danny Haiphong, a leading young radical intellectual and historian affiliated with Black Agenda Report.
WJ ASTORE—Like Russia, China has a single aircraft carrier, though there are plans to build one or two more. Even if China does, the U.S. will still maintain an enormous lead on its “great-power” rivals. Some rivalry!The U.S. Navy currently has eleven fleet aircraft carriers, with two new ones under construction and a further two on order. Indeed, to make space for all these new carriers, the Navy has plans to retire CVN-75, Harry S Truman, 20 years early, an idea even Congress finds silly.
MINTPRESS NEWS—London Judge Michael Snow has found Assange guilty of breaching his bail at Westminster Magistrates’ Court after Assange appeared in a courtroom packed with supporters. Assange faces a sentence of up to one year for the conviction and has serious charges pending in the United States.Assange’s defense hinges on the fact that he cannot expect a fair trial in British courts as the U.K.’s intends to “secure his delivery” to the United States.The U.S. Justice Department charged WikiLeaks founder Assange with conspiring with Chelsea Manning to break into classified government computers on Thursday after Assange was taken into custody in London in connection with a U.S. extradition request, as well as for breaching U.K. bail conditions in 2012. His lawyer has previously said that Assange planned to fight any U.S. charges against him.
TEODROSE FIKRE—Many within the US and UK government and the broader media-political establishment have cunningly noted that Assange was free to leave anytime. Their duplicity was revealed this afternoon in London, Assange was never free to leave because he knew he would be arrested on sight the minute he left the Ecuador compound. Where is the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), where is Human Rights Watch, where are the people who cry crocodile tears for journalists who are killed by tin pot dictators as Julian Assange is being tormented and silenced by the American and British governments in real time? This entire episode is showing the world that we are being served by public serpents who pretend to care about justice when they are really accomplices of the invisible hands who are bleeding our planet.
JEFF J. BROWN—Interviewing Ed Curtin on the anniversary of Martin Luther King’s 1967 “he signed his own death warrant” speech, Beyond Vietnam: a Time to Break the Silence, and his cold blooded assassination at the hands of the US government exactly 365 days later, was a meaningful, memorable time. After hanging up, I felt better about my global point of view and the future of humanity, against all the odds. He told me that in two months, he is being pushed out of his 20-year professorship at Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts. This school and its students will be greatly diminished by his involuntary departure.