Journalist Julian Assange is Free at last

So good to hear  that after being deprived of his freedom for 14 years Julian Assange is  finally free and which  is  a  huge win for  truth and accountability. It  serves  to  remind  me  that  we  should  never  give  up  and  the fact  is  he wasn’t imprisoned for his own crimes, but for exposing  US war crimes  and  human  rights  abuses  in the Middle East and beyond. 

One of the many things Julian Assange was persecuted for was revealing that the US military held children as young as 13 in Guantanamo Bay.  One of the teenagers the US held there, Talal Zahrani, was later found dead in his cell.

Julian is  flying to a Pacific island for a court hearing after agreeing a US plea deal that will see him plead guilty to a criminal charge and go free. The WikiLeaks founder was granted bail by the High Court and released from Belmarsh Prison on Monday following negotiations with US authorities.  Court papers filed by the US Justice Department show Assange is scheduled to appear in federal court to plead guilty to an Espionage Act charge of conspiring to unlawfully obtain and disseminate classified national defence information.  

He will return to his home country of Australia after his plea and sentencing, scheduled for Wednesday morning local time in the Mariana Islands, a US commonwealth in the Western Pacific.  A chartered plane carrying Assange left Stansted Airport on Monday before landing at a Bangkok airport for refuelling at around noon local time (6am BST) on Tuesday. 

His wife Stella Assange told the PA news agency he is paying $500,000 for the flight to Australia. His father John Shipton said his freedom had “lifted a huge burden” from his family.  In a statement posted on X, the official WikiLeaks account said Assange left the maximum security prison on Monday “after having spent 1901 days there”. 

The statement continued: “He was granted bail by the High Court in London and was released at Stansted airport during the afternoon, where he boarded a plane and departed the UK.  “This is the result of a global campaign that spanned grass-roots organisers, press freedom campaigners, legislators and leaders from across the political spectrum, all the way to the United Nations.

“This created the space for a long period of negotiations with the US Department of Justice, leading to a deal that has not yet been formally finalised.”  Video posted to X by WikiLeaks showed Assange, seated and dressed casually in jeans and a shirt, discussing the text on a sheet of paper. He is then shown walking up steps onto a Vista Jet aircraft.

Julian  spent  the  $500k for his flight out of the UK to avoid landing on the American homeland after he was released from prison. Assange will instead be landing on a remote U.S. island where he will plead guilty to the charges. The island is the U.S. territory of Saipan in the Northern Mariana Islands, about 1,800 miles from Australia.  

“He has to front up to charges that have been brought under U.S. law," said a professor at the University of Sydney's law school.  Assange will have the U.S. federal court hearing on Wednesday morning on the remote island.

 Julians s immense sacrifice was for all of us who care about truth and freedom and an end to wars. Julian exposed the crimes of the powerful. His incarceration and  persecution was, and always will be a grotesque miscarriage of justice.Since his arrest Assange which has overshadowed his life for 14 years, including seven in the Ecuadorian embassy and five in HMP Belmarsh. in London he  has  been deliberately exposed to inhuman and degrading treatment that could be described as psychological torture.

Assange’s alleged crimes dated back to 2010, when the organization he founded, WikiLeaks, transmitted documents to media outlets including Le Monde, The Guardian and The New York Times. WikiLeaks published material about many countries, but it was the US, during the administration of former President Donald Trump, that decided to charge Julian in 2019 with 17 counts of breaching the Espionage Act.

US lawyers had argued he conspired with whusrleblower Chelsea Manning, a former army intelligence analyst, who spent seven years in prison for leaking material to WikiLeaks. She was freed when President Barack Obama commuted her sentence in 2017.

The documents, which were provided to WikiLeaks by Chelsea Manning, included 250,000 US diplomatic cables and US army reports about military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan, and exposed cases of torture, abduction and disappearances.  The publication of these documents by media outlets was clearly in the public interest, and not an act of espionage. Julian shoumd  never  have  been  charhed  in  the  first  place.

Among the many Wikileaks revelations was the Collateral Murder footage from Iraq, in which a US Apache helicopter opens fire. Reuters journalists Saeed Chmagh and Namir Noor-Eldeen were gunned down, several others were killed while the US pilots laughed. 

The shocking thing is that when this footage came out, shooting at civilians was shocking and horrifying to the world. Israel has been doing this with impunity for the last 8  months  with US backing, nothing's changed the footage is everywhere on social media  yet the  mainstream media is silent on genocide.

We wait for a comment on the freedom of Julian Assange from the coward Keir Starmer that tried every trick in the book to deny Assange his freedom. We won't hold our breath.  Never  forget  eother  that the Guardian and Observer were the key media assets mobilised in the information war against Julian Assange.  They profited from his bravery then threw him to the wolves.  Never forget. They are the liberal wing of the British establishment.

Julian is owed a lifetime of repayment for every ghastly hour he spent unjustly persecuted and sequestered.His immense sacrifice was for all of us who care about truth and freedom and an end to wars.Twenty years ago, GeorgeBush and TonyBlair brazenly launched an illegal war in Iraq, leading to the senseless slaughter of a million innocent lives. Julian Assange courageously exposed their heinous war crimes.

Thanks to  all for working so hard, for fighting  relentlessly for this great man's freedom. Thank you for never giving up on him. The world has just become a little brighter. For all those who care about freedom of speech now  is the  time to celebrate, Thank you Julian, for your enormous sacrifice. We honor you, we love you. Now let's arrest the real war criminals!

  URGENT: Emergency appeal for donations to cover massive USD 520,000 debt for jet.

 Every contribution counts.

https://www.crowdfunder.co.uk/p/free-julian-assange?utm_source=freeassange.org&utm_medium=widget&utm_content=pledge&utm_campaign=Free%20Julian%20Assange

"Every time we witness an injustice and do not act, we train our character to be passive in its presence and thereby eventually lose all ability to defend ourselves and those we love" -  Julian Assange

Refugee Week 2024 : Our Home

It's Refugee Week a nationwide programme of arts, cultural and educational events that celebrate the  positive contribution which celebrates  the  rich contributions, creativity, and resilience of refugees and people seeking sanctuary.  Established in the UK in 1998, the annual festival aligns with World Refugee Day which is celebrated globally on 20 June.

Refugee Week started  as a direct reaction to hostility in the media and society in general towards refugees and asylum seekers, to try and look  beyond the stereotypical ‘refugee’ label and work  to counter this negative climate, defending the importance of sanctuary and the benefits it can bring to both refugees and host communities. 

Fearmongers talk up the threat of terrorism, but most of the people risking their lives to get to Europe are fleeing the horrors of war. Demagogues thunder that asylum seekers just want to steal jobs or bleed the welfare system dry, but study after study shows that immigration brings net benefits to societies over the long-term. 

The aims of Refugee Week are: 

1. To encourage a diverse range of events to be held throughout the UK, which facilitate positive encounters between refugees and the general public in order to encourage greater understanding and overcome hostility.

2.To showcase the talent and expertise that refugees bring with them to the UK. To explore new and creative ways of addressing the relevant issues and reach beyond the refugee sector. 

3.To provide information which educates and raises awareness of the reality of refugee experiences 

The ultimate aim is to create better understanding between different communities and to encourage successful integration, enabling refugees to live in safety and continue making a valuable contribution. Refugees are a real, current and a terrible problem that we have in our world but will only  get worse as war continues to devastate and uproot people ,and forced displacement has surged to historic new levels. 

The latest annual assessment from the United Nations high commissioner for refugees (UNHCR) said a sharp rise in the number of people forcibly displaced during 2023 had brought the total to a record high of more than 117 million. 

Widespread violence meant that the 8.8 million people forcibly displaced in 2023 – nearly the same as the UK capital’s population – eclipsed the previous record, set the year before, after a series of year-on-year increases over the past 12 years. 

In total, 1.5% of the world’s population is now forcibly displaced – nearly double the proportion of a decade ago.with the United Nations refugee agency estimating there are 120 million refugees worldwide  due to new conflicts erupting in Palestine and Sudan.https://www.unhcr.org/global-trends-report-2023

Many refugees and asylum seekers face severe difficulties once they arrive in the UK. Unable to work or support themselves, many struggle for basics such as food and shelter. Some of the key issues they encounter are the possibility of detention, living in destitution and contending with negative stereotypes.Most of those who are granted asylum are given leave to remain for only five years, making it difficult for them to make decisions about their future, including finding work and making definite plans for their life in the UK while it remains unsafe for them to return to the country they escaped from. 

As fellow humans we have a responsibility to respond to their specific needs in times of crisis. Many of these asylum seekers come to us as a last resort, having exhausted all alternatives, with nowhere else to turn. We should also remember  all those suffering abuse in detention centres and those facing repatriation despite the dangers that they face. 

Refugee Week is an umbrella festival, with events held by a wide range of arts, voluntary, faith and refugee community organisations, schools, student groups and more. Past events have included arts festivals, exhibitions, film screenings, theatre and dance performances, concerts, football tournaments and public talks, as well as creative and educational activities in schools.

Through Refugee Week  the aim is  to provide an important opportunity for asylum seekers and refugees to be seen, listened to and valued.

This year’s Refugee Week theme is ‘Our Home’. From the places we gather to share meals to our collective home, planet earth: everyone is invited to celebrate what our Our Home means to them.

Home can be a place of refuge, a feeling or a state of mind. It can be found in smells, tastes and sounds. From the clothes we wear to the words we grew up with. It’s in food, music and arts. It’s in our cultures and in our landscapes.

Home can be more than one place and finding it can be a journey, as it is for so many of us who have to leave our countries and rebuild our lives. Sometimes we can find home in a single person. Other times it’s in a whole community.And often, it’s in a single gesture of care and welcome. 

What would happen if this Refugee Week we extended our warmth and hospitality beyond our own homes and made entire neighbourhoods more welcoming? Simple acts like having a chat, walking together, or sending a message of welcome can help everyone feel like they belong.

Together, we can work in solidarity to ensure all our neighbours, new and familiar, have safe and welcoming homes. 

Our home is also global. We are interconnected; we share the earth’s resources, climate and its challenges. As I speak, millions of people are being displaced from their homes because of the climate crisis. But, exchanging knowledge, both new and traditional, can help us in practical ways to build hope for the future. 

None of us would want to be without a home, and those who are forced to leave theirs deserve our compassion and help. ‘Home’ should be a place of liberation wherever that may be in the world. I fundamentally believe in a world where everyone is free to move but no one is forced to move. That means the right to choose your home. For many displaced people, they can’t choose their home: their home has been taken away. Together, this Refugee Week let’s practice our solidarity and make Our Home a more welcoming, safe and sustainable place for all. 

This year, Refugee Week takes place during the General Election 2024. The irony of this has not been lost on me. It is something of a juxtaposition to narrow our focus to simply ‘celebrate’ refugees when migrants’, including refugee, rights are being increasingly weaponised in cross-party political campaigns. 

The government has impaled itself on a ‘stop the boats’ policy over which it has no control. The Reform Party (with no prospect of having to implement it) is hammering the ‘zero asylum’ stakes home. Punitive deterrence does not work and has never worked in any field – health, education, crime or immigration. Its sole purpose is cruelty, and every failure inflates the cruelty. Only if the level of cruelty and illegality – i.e. drowning at sea, lifetime incarceration for arrivals or refoulement (returning to a risk of violence or persecution) – is sufficient to shift the UK’s reputation amongst refugees from a ‘safe’ to an ‘unsafe’ country, will asylum seekers cease to come to the UK. The required level of cruelty to achieve this cognitive and reputational shift should be beyond contemplation for a civilised nation. 

And it is so unnecessary. Channel crossings will continue regardless of government policy and asylum applications will have to be managed – humanely and promptly. The next UK government should just get on with it, put an end to the current cruelty and let communities do what they do best – welcoming people.

Moreover, Refugee Week 2024 should require reflection given the numerous ongoing humanitarian crises and genocides happening across the world that are deliberately and inadvertently creating refugees.We must continue to offer our love,solidarity, tolerance, warm welcome and friendship  to refugees who daily have to struggle, many of whom left feeling traumatised and marginalised.The Rwanda deportation plan has also shown us how much work we have to do. We need to be there for people stuck in this hostile system- to show up for each other and build community. 

Furthermore since last October, Israel has destroyed homes, schools, hospitals and whole towns in Gaza. The official death toll is over 36000, but tens of thousands more are presumed killed, lying beneath the rubble. This operation, like many before it, has one purpose: to drive the remaining Palestinians from their land.

In Refugee Week 2024, we  must  continue to rally to demand an end not just to the current genocide, but to the decades-long occupation that has made an entire people refugees in their own land. 

Simple Acts are everyday actions we can all do to stand with refugees and make new connections in our communities. By simply taking part in and learning about Refugee Week, you’ll be part of a movement of people everywhere taking small steps to create a big change.

In light of the ongoing attacks on Gaza and the widespread and multiple experiences of displacement, this week’s Simple Acts countdown spotlights Palestinian authors and voices. Here are some  recommendations for podcasts, books and articles. https://refugeeweek.org.uk/discover-a-story-palestine/

Pantomine Time

It's General Election time

The debates have started,

In this circus of democracy

As politicians spit out their ideology,

While so out of  touch with reality

With no signs of visible credibility,

Sunak is a prick, Starmer is a liar 

I really bloody cant trust either, 

Neither have an ounce of charisma

Or the slightest whiff of integrity,

Really give me the shudders

Offering no glimpse of hope,

Just wanting to steal your votes 

After delivering false promises, 

These masters of division

Poisoning the populace.

With their selfish ambition,

Really think we're all  rather dense, 

At least  provide a form of comic relief

Releasing their politics of pantomine ,

I'd urge you not to vote for any of them

Offering unsolemn words and parasitism,

Down with this corrupt government

Reject Farage's fascist clowns too

They truly are rotten and dangerous,

With  aim to seperate and divide

And  usher in a culture of despair,

As deep discontent rages all around

Vote if you must for people of conscious, 

Green or indie, Workers party or Plaid Cymru

Not for forces supporting genocide and tyranny,  

Our society and system really is very broken

We  need to use our loafs to fix it all,

What is actually needed is a revolution

Delivering progression, not repetition.

The Power of Love

Jim Dine/The Black and Red Heart 2013

The Love of love

the Power Of Love

is so acceptable  

can heal so many things 

I will never reject it  

releases ecstatic emotions

reasons to care 

maybe i'm old fashoned 

but without it I'm lost 

like music is an addiction 

costs nothing at all 

in times of confusion 

delivers comfort 

can soothe us all

be aware though 

like the weather

can be difficult 

if not respected 

can tear us apart 

but if gracefully accepted 

wherever you from 

will make life easier

you just need to

trust its energy 

it's pulsating force 

can mend and taper 

the most shattered of hearts.

Beware the narcissists !

A narcissist is a  person who has an excessive interest in or admiration of themselves. "narcissists who think the world revolves around them"  There  are  plenty in  the news  at the moment,  take Nigel Farage, Keir Starmer, Rishi Sunak, Tommy Robinson,, Donald  Trump  for  example.All narcissists  who are pretty transparent in their grandiosity.  Others are less so. 

For the narcissist, being talked about is all that brings them joy. They do not care if you're talking with admiration or derision.  It's all the same -- they are the focus, the news of the day, the centre of the universe. Daily  using  the media to massage their over  inflated ego,  the  fact is they love nothing more than basking in the limelight. They take acting to a new level.  

Remember that with a narcissist it is always about them and what they are going through.  It is pointless caring about them because they will never care back. They will talk to you when it suits them and then discard you and feel nothing.  They don't care if they cause you pain. Befriend a narcissist and be prepared for the fallout because it will invariably happen.  

These attention seeking predators  are very good at fooling as they are very clever at manipulation. They can offer  empathy  and really seem to  care,  with  their ability to charm people in order to have their needs met, while always seeking power over others. They will release a cloak of kindness and will go way out of their way to expect others to react to them as though they are the caring, generous, people they want to seem like .

You  will trust them, even love some.  and all  will seems  fine, and you will  confide with, and tell them  your deepest  thoughts,  not  being  aware you have been infiltrated, and that any slight  disagreement or dare to question ,will see  them try to  break you into pieces, by accusing you of things you never did. and  attempt  to  destroy, by spreading lies that are directly opposite of who you are.

Then they  will  simply toss you  away not  giving the  slightest damn  about you, as  you try  to  recover from  the  damage inflicted. It  can  take time, to  heal,  but healing you must,  can  be  difficult as sometimes, you have people you love in common .

The world  however  fortunately remains full  of compassionate people,  empaths, just wanting to create a life filled with love, beauty and happiness, unity,  sadly the narcissists, who I  do acknowledge  have  deep  rooted  problems of  their  own,  then  come along and shatter, like all  this is nothing .Do they even understand what they destroy? Or do they destroy what they don’t understand?  

Many of  this  type  will naturally seek political careers. But they‘re incapable of caring about others, and will never do what is good for a country  and it’s citizens. Their only goal is to manipulate others for personal gain.

Narcissists always think everyone else but them is wrong. Even when society pushes back on them, it’s society that is wrong.  Political Zionism is a form of psychopathic narcissism. “We are the chosen people, we can destroy anything that comes in our path. If you call us out: you are evil or complicit with evil. We can do no wrong and don’t you dare try to call us out for it.”

Don't  deify political figures. They are all - right and left - corrupt narcissists who don't give two shits about normal people. Tribalism has created political celebrity culture (and cults of personality etc) and it's destructive. Our political system is now full of no conviction arrogant, selfish, opportunistic, greedy, fools who have no business running a country,  just  sociopathic narcissists only after power to line own and mates’ pockets!

These parasitic political narcissists are so dislocated from the functional reality of the UK, it is beyond parody, as they destroy healthcare , create  division, deny, distract, deflect, scapegoat. We need this subsection of society firmly voted out,  we  need kindness and love, we need to  find a hubris of  humanity. to remind us  all,  It's not  about them. 

Lets keep following concepts,  that create unity,  shared values, mutual aid,  kindness, compassion,  the common good our collective purpose, values that create joy and  positivity, against forces of  war,  injustice, contrition,  hegemony  and  division, try  and reject all  authoritarian practices, seek to liberate and empower all people equally. Build a future of  respect,  peace, love and understanding. Keep up the good  fight. 

Keys to Reality

We follow moments, the end of  rainbows, feel sadness as the world slowly decays and destruction fills our  eyes, we  witness  genocide,  depths of despair , hanging thickly in the air, so we try to sleep, drift on delicate petals of dream, seeking grace, keep  on waiting for the sound of daybreak, the rambling  rhythm's of  resistance, trying  to release love on  the  turning of  every  tide, finding choruses of  unity, sources  of respite, containing  light, poetry, magic potions that  ignite, as we  travel forwards,  replacing thorny scales, leaving negativitity scattered, somewhere that can't be found  again, while sun and moon, a perfect pair, playing yin and yang,  keep on shining  brightly, yesterday's darkness tossed  away, the  hawks of  fear,  no longer  near,  our songs we keep on singing and releasing, never missing a step or a beat. with  easy dance steps, mother earth  feels us healing, hears us overcoming wars, spinning  wildly beneath our feet, carries on sustaining, insistent like the flowers that  always bloom, talking, allowing happiness to unfold, releasing  the tension, breathing in and breathing out, providing enough kindling to burn through gloom. with  her gentle waves moves us safely away  from  the cliffs, to find  salvation, beyond the edges of  madness, sharing symphonic waves of peace, not bound by locks or chains, abandoning  everything that's not true, honest, or fair, despite anger  and  frustration, following blossoming  brooks of  evolution, a future that's unwritten, finding enough scraps of  nourishment with which to survive another day.