Julian Assange's arrest an 'unprecedented' threat to press freedom, advocates warn

In  dramatic scenes Australian Wikileaks founder, whistleblower and international journalist Julian Assange  was arrested on Thursday  morning at the Ecuadorian embassy after the Lenin Moreno administration removed his political asylum. Previously Assange had diplomatic asylum and had lived at the embassy since 2012, eventually gaining Ecuadorian citizenship after efforts by Sweden to have him extradited on allegations of sexual assault. Assange has vigorously denied the charges, insisting they were part of a plot by political enemies to silence him. We should however be  forever mindful though of those who have sought some form of justice, when they feel they have been wronged despite the fame or infamy of those that they happen to accuse.
 Assange originally.sought refuge in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London fearing not extradition to Sweden but to the US over his role as founder and public face of Wikileaks. Rafael Correa, Ecuador’s former president, has since called Moreno a “traitor”:
 RT affiliate Ruptly captured his arrest as several UK police officers dragged him out of the embassy into a police van. In the video, Julian Assange can be heard screaming, “The UK must resist this attempt by the Trump administration” as he was hauled into the van.

Shortly after, the U.S. government confirmed that Assange has been charged with computer hacking crimes for trying to illegally access "secret" materials on a U.S. government computer. The charge is officially listed as "conspiracy to commit computer intrusion."
The indictment accuses Assange of trying to access the secret material "with reason to believe that such information so obtained could be used to the injury of the United States and the advantage of any foreign nation."
The charges are aimed at the theft of information rather than the publication of material.
Those materials included thousands of US military and diplomatic files exposing controversial US military actions in Iraq and Afghanistan.Those actions included evidence of torture, a video of a US Army helicopter attack that killed two journalists in Baghdad in 2007, and the large numbers of civilian deaths that resulted from US combat action.
They also  relate to materials released by former Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, now known as Chelsea Manning, who was convicted in 2013 of leaking classified government and military documents to WikiLeaks. She had worked as an intelligence analyst in Iraq and was arrested in 2010.The US government alleges that Assange tried to provide direct assistance to Manning in her efforts to access some of documents by cracking an encrypted password. Manning had part of the password, but needed help unlocking the rest of it. The charges say she provided copies of the Linux system to Assange, though in the documents made public so far, it does not appear he was successful in decrypting the rest.Manning was jailed again last month for refusing to testify to a grand jury investigating WikiLeaks. U.S. District Judge Claude Hilton ordered Manning to jail for contempt of court in March after a brief hearing in which Manning confirmed she had no intention of testifying. All the while, Assange was secluded in the Ecuador embassy.
Assange is currently being held at London police station where he will await an appearance at the Westminster Magistrates’ Court, on May 2 t prison video link , in relation to the extradition WikiLeaks has consistently highlighted that its founder and former editor Julian Assange has been arbitrarily detained 8+ years without charge by the UK Govt (6+ years within the Ecuador Embassy in London)  and 2 years house arrest.
Members of the legal team for Julian Assange have described the US charges against him as an "unprecedented" threat to press freedom. His lawyer Jennifer Robinson said all journalists and media organisations are put at risk by the development.Another member of Assange's legal team, Barry Pollack, said he believes the US charges could chill press freedom because of the criminalisation of interactions between journalists and whistleblowers. ,
Academics and campaigners  have condemned large chunks of the indictment that they said went head-to-head with basic activities of journalism protected by the first amendment of the US constitution. They said these sections of the charges rang alarm bells that should reverberate around the world.
Yochai Benkler, a Harvard law professor who wrote the first major legal study of the legal implications of prosecuting WikiLeaks, said the charge sheet contained some “very dangerous elements that pose significant risk to national security reporting. Sections of the indictment are vastly overbroad and could have a significant chilling effect – they ought to be rejected.”
Carrie Decell, staff attorney with the Knight First Amendment Institute at Columbia University, said the charges “risk having a chill on journalism”. She added that the tone of the indictment and the public release from the Department of Justice that went with it suggested that the US government desired precisely that effect.
“Many of the allegations fall absolutely within the first amendment’s protections of journalistic activity. That’s very troubling to us.”
The arrest marks a dramatic twist in the trajectory of Assange’s career, an arc that has seen him hailed at times as a heroic free speech advocate, a villain to others, who when he decided to uncover the mass secrets of global war crimes, espionage and dirty corporate deals, had to fight his own instinct to keep these secrets unexposed so as to protect himself. He knew that he could spend his entire life in prison, and ironically a  few weeks ago through a leak  people were alerted that the US was gearing up to give Julian  the final blow. A secret plan was hatched  to have Julian extradited - and his struggle terminated.
Now a European country, the United Kingdom, has given in to pressure from Donald Trump, and has handed Julian over. This amounts to nothing less than a coordinated crackdown on a journalist and activist: and this is part of the authoritarian shift that is taking place world-wide – from the US to Turkey, from Hungary to Brazil, and now from Ecuador to the UK.
The brave actions of whistleblowers strengthen transparency and democracy but Julian is now in custody for breaching bail conditions imposed over a warrant that was rescinded. Anyone else would be fined and released. Except that Julian Assange’s persecution is all about challenging our right to know about the crimes governments commit in our name.
Assange has long said Wikileaks is a journalistic endeavor protected  by freedom of the press laws. In 2017, a UK, tribunal recognised Wikileaks as a "media organisation." Wikileaks under his stewardship has become a thorn in the side for governments, particularly Western governments, revealing the ugly truth of crimes committed by US forces in Iraq, the West’s role in the destabilization of Ukraine in 2014, the destruction of Libya  etc.
If Assange is convicted  or extradicted  we will inch slowly away from being an open society, and the only people who will benefit are the ones who really have something to hide, and they are the ones we should be worrying about the most. Numerous people and organisations have since reacted with alarm on news of Assange's arrest.Here are a selection.

NUJ reaction: Julian Assange arrest

Following UK police forcibly removing the WikiLeaks founder, Julian Assange, from the Ecuadorian embassy in London and arresting him, Seamus Dooley, NUJ assistant general secretary, said:
“The NUJ is shocked and concerned by the actions of the authorities today in relation to Julian Assange. His lawyer has confirmed he has been arrested not just for breach of bail conditions but also in relation to a US extradition request. The UK should not be acting on behalf of the Trump administration in this case. The NUJ recognises the inherent link between and importance of leaked confidential documents and journalism reporting in the public interest. It should be remembered that in April 2010 WikiLeaks released Collateral Murder, a video showing a 2007 US Apache helicopter attack upon individuals in Baghdad, more than 23 people were killed including two Reuters journalists. The manner in which Assange is treated will be of great significance to the practice of journalism.”
 
Freedom of the Press Foundation

said: “Whether or not you like Assange, the charge against him is a serious press freedom threat and should be vigorously protested by all those who care about the first amendment.”

And at Parliament Diane Abbott, Shadow Home Secretary spoke eloquently about the importance of whistleblowers, the contributions of WikiLeaks in revealing war crimes and that her side of the House would be very concerned about a US extradition for Julian Assange. Ms Abbott heaped praise on the activist for exposing activities relating to “illegal war, mass murder murder of civilians and corruption on a grand scale”.

And Leader of the Labour Party Jeremy Corbyn backed her words in Parliament with an unequivocal statement of support  calling on the government to oppose the extradition of Wikileaks co-founder Julian Assange to the US.
The Labour leader suggested that Assange – who faces charges of conspiring to break into a classified government computer – could be sent to the US for “exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan”.

https://twitter.com/jeremycorbyn/status/1116424423953903616

The extradition of Julian Assange to the US for exposing evidence of atrocities in Iraq and Afghanistan should be opposed by the British government.

Whistleblower Edward Snowden also called it “a dark moment for press freedom”.

Freedom of the press is under attack; first, it’s WikiLeaks, but overall this could set a precedent for journalists all over the world.We should not forget Assange for what WikiLeaks has exposed, and we must oppose the attempts to gag him. In the aftermath of his  arrest,  what happens next could pose a serious threat on journalism and the  future of free speech in general.
Julian Assange, as was Chelsea Manning, as will be Edward Snowden if he dares set foot outside Russia, is being punished for exposing  the thin veil of freedom, human rights  and civil liberties.They lied about Iraq, they lied about Libya, they lied about Syria, and they lie every day about the murky relationships between governments and corporations.

Here is a link to a RT article We are all Julian Assange

https://www.rt.com/op-ed/456239-assange-arrest-police-extradition/

and this from John Pilger The Assange Arrest is a Warning from History

https://defend.wikileaks.org/2019/04/13/the-assange-arrest-is-a-warning-from-history/

and here is Jonathan Cook's take on events

https://www.jonathan-cook.net/blog/2019-04-11/julian-assange-lies-arrest/

So far, an open letter to U.S. President Donald Trump on behalf of Assange published by Defend WikiLeaks calling to close the Grand Jury investigation and drop any charges planned against any member of WikiLeaks has received 4,560 signatures of everyone from journalists, and academics, to activists in Assange’s defense.Please also consider signing the following petitions,

https://i.diem25.org/petitions/1?show=form

https://www.change.org/p/don-t-hand-assange-over-to-the-u-s

https://www.change.org/p/free-julian-assange-before-it-s-too-late-stop-the-extradition

https://www.codepink.org/assange?utm_campaign=assange&utm_medium=email&utm_source=codepink

Bertrand Russell ( 18/5/1872 - 2/2/1970) - Neither Misery Nor Folly

" Neither misery nor folly seems to me any part of the inevitable lot of man. And I am convinced that intelligence, patience, and eloquence can, sooner or lateer, lead the human race out of its self-imposed tortures provided it does not exterminate itself meanwhile.
   On the basis of this belief, I have had always a certain degree of optimism, although, as I have grown older, the optimism has grown more sober and the happy issue more distant. But I remain completely incapable of agreeing with those who accept fatalistically the view that man is born to trouble. The causes of unhappiness in the past and in the present are not difficult to ascertain. There have been poverty, pestilence, and famine, which were due to man's inadequate mastery of nature. There have been wars, oppressions and tortures which have been due to men's hostility to their fellow men. And there have been morbid miseries fostered by gloomy creeds, which have led men into profound inner discords that made all outward prosperity of no avail. All these are unnecessary. In regard to all of them, means are known by which they can be overcome. In the modern world, if communities are unhappy, it is because they choose to be so. Or, to speak more precisely, because they have ignorances, habits, beliefs, and passions, which are dearer to them than happiness or even life. I find many men in our dangerous age who seem to be in love with misery and death who grow angry when hopes are suggested to them."

Reprinted from
Portraits from Memory
1958, pages 53-54 

Time I think for us to wake up, as for our leaders
their simply taking the piss.

Remembering Deir Yassin

 

As the Israeli election takes place on April 9, 2019  the Palestnian people will  mark the 71st year since since two extremist, underground, paramilitary groups, the Irgun (National Military Organisation) and the Lehi (Fighters for the Freedom of Israel, also known as the Stern Gang), both of which were aligned with the right-wing Zionist movement; they have been described as “Jewish terrorist” groups attacked in the early hours of the morning Deir Yassin, a village at the western entrance of Jerusalem containing 750 Palestinian residents. By the time  the villagers realized the intensity of the terrorist attack, hundreds were already dead, the Zionist militia  murdered over 250 - 360 Palestinian villagers in cold blood wounding  many others. Many of the bodies were tossed  in the village well,  and 159 captured women and children  were paraded  through the Jewish sectors of Jerusalem.
Two days after the massacre, Jacques de Reynier, head of the International Committee of the Red Cross delegation in Palestine, visited Deir Yassin. In his personal memoirs, published in 1950, he recalled seeing the bodies of over 200 dead men, women and children: “[One body was] a woman who must have been eight months pregnant, hit in the stomach, with powder burns on her dress indicating she’d been shot point-blank.”

On 14 April, Assistant Inspector-General Richard Catling of the British Palestine Police, conducted interviews with female survivors of the massacre taking refuge in the nearby Palestinian town of Silwan. In a subsequent report he concluded that there was “no doubt” that the Jewish groups had committed numerous sexual atrocities against the villagers.

“Many young schoolgirls were raped and later slaughtered. Old women were also molested. One story is current concerning a case in which a young girl was literally torn in two. Many infants were also butchered and killed. I also saw one old woman who gave her age as one hundred and four who had been severely beaten about the head with rifle butts.”

What happened in Deir Yassin prepared the ground for the ethnic cleansing of 70% of the Palestinian people. The same ethnic cleansing that occurred then is unfortunately going on today. In 1948 they used direct massacres, but today they use airstrikes in Gaza and shoot innocent young Palestinians in the West Bank. Yassin was not an isolated incident; such a heartbreaking tragedy was flagrantly carried out in conjunction with “Plan Dalet.” Based on a policy of ethnic cleansing and terror, “Plan Dalet” was implemented by the Haganah to force Palestinians to flee their homes and to destroy their villages with the deliberate intent of establishing the State of Israel on Palestinian soil.
The massacre took place against the backdrop of the bitter conflict that preceded the end of the British Mandate in Palestine. Just months before, in November 1947, the UN had proposed the division of Palestine into an Arab state and a Jewish state, with Jerusalem administrated independently of either side by an international body. The Arabs rejected the UN proposal and the conflict became even more intense.
The village  lay outside of the area assigned by the United Nations to the 'Jewish State'. It had a peaceful reputation, the Deir Yassin villagers had signed a non aggression pact with the leaders of the adjacent Jewish Quarter, Giv'at Shaul and had even refused military personnel from the Arab Liberation Army from using the village as a base.An Israeli psychiatric hospital now lies on the ruins of Deir Yassin, the remainder of which was bulldozed in the 1980s to make way for new settlements  and incorporated as a neighbourhood of Jerusalem. These streets shamefully carry the names of the Irgun militiamen who carried out the massacre.A year later the settlement  Kafar Shaul was founded on this site. In the 1980's the remains of Dier Yassin wwere bulldozed to make room for new settlements. The streets of these new neighbourhoods were named after members of the Irgun family.For Palestinians and their supporters, the massacre is a symbol. that marks  their deep sense  of dispossession.News of the indiscriminate killings sparked terror among Palestinians, causing many to flee from their towns and villages in the face of Jewish advances.It is remembered as the pivotal onset of the 1948 Nabka. Deir Yassin is the "other shoe that fell," sparking over 750,000 to flee from their homes, 80 percent of the population at that time, from their homes so that Israel, a colonialist settler state, could be created on their land.Over two million scattered in a far-flung diaspora today, in what remains at the heart of the Israel/Palestine conflict.
The massacre at Deir Yassin is what many historians and commentators have described as a relentless effort to destroy Palestine as a nation, acting as a reminder of the inhumanity and brutality at the heart of the ongoing occupation and refugee crisis.in what many historians and commentators have described as a relentless effort to destroy Palestine as a nation. Seventy one years it still remains an important reminder of Israel’s systematic measures of displacement, destruction, dispossession, and dehumanization.In keeping with Simon Wiesenthal's observation that "Hope lives when people remember," the suffering of the Jews has been rightly acknowledged and memorialised. But there are few memorials for Palestinians who died in 1948 and since. Their history, in which the massacre at Deir Yassin is a very significant event, has been largely buried and forgotten. And yet, like the descendants of the victims in Armenia (1915-17), in the Soviet Union (1929-53), in Nazi Germany (1933-45), in China (1949-52, 1957-60, and 1966-76), and in Cambodia (1975-79), the descendants of Palestinians want the world to remember what they suffered, what they lost and why they died. The calculated efforts by Israel to completely erase the history, narrative and physical presence of the Palestinian people will not be simply ignored or forgotten. It also serves to ask ourselves the question what  turns a victim into an abuser,a bully that keeps blaming its victims? And over the years we've been taught many things, that invasion was not invasion, occupation was not occupation, apartheid was not apartheid,ethnic cleansing was not ethnic cleansing,and that land theft was not land theft and Palestine was not Palestine.
But many years later the Palestinian peoples collective voice can still be heard from the refugee camps of Lebanon, Jordan and Syria, to the towns of the West Bank and Gaza, to the ghettos inside the Israeli green line. This determination and resilience has earned them respect and support of an increasing number of people around the world. Despite the humiliation and pain of their  occupation, you can't kill their  indomitable spirit and struggle.

 Phil Monsour featuring Rafeef Ziadah - Ghosts of Deir Yassin

  The writing on the hands are the names of the original villages in Palestine that these people were ethnically cleansed

Ghosts of Deir Yassin
They pretend that it’s forgotten
But somewhere small flowers grow
On the weathered stones of destroyed homes
Somewhere the light’s still in the window
You see that we are rising our day is surely coming
No longer in the shadows
Of the ghosts of Deir Yassin
They change the names on the signs
But it’s in our hearts these words are written
Of the children who don’t know their homes
They will walk the streets from which they are forbidden
You see that we are rising our day is surely coming
No longer in the shadows
Of the ghosts of Deir Yassin

Six years after Margaret Thatcher's death, time to bury her legacy once for all

 

Six years after Margaret Thtacher's death Grantham’s most infamous daughter many of us are still unable to forgive her for the devastation she wrought to our communities, the damage  she caused to our industries, our whole way of life. She fought against the miners, not giving a hoot, or  an inch of compromise, then   put her sights on our welfare state, whilst leaving an entire generation to be thrown on the scrapheap.
Her whole twisted ideology  was to try and tear up the post 1945 consensus and privatise our public services, sell of our nationalised industries, whilst smashing up Trade Union rights, embarking on a systematic  path of of destruction. Carving up the land, shifting  the balance of social economic wealth between the rich and poor, very much  detrimental  to the latter.
Being kind, she was just a sower of destruction,  not  an ounce of compassion within her, a creator of mass unemployment too, a fosterer of division with her cruel policies. A liar too, about Hillsborough, who also bombed retreating ships.While systematically eroding the notion of a welfare state that cares for people from cradle to grave, Thatcher boosted the coercive power of the state. This was most obvious in the Miners’ Strike, during which she characterised the miners as ‘the enemy within’ and sanctioned massive police brutality against pit communities, and an approach to Northern Ireland which demonised resistance to the British imperialist state and bolstered discrimination against Catholics. She also let Republican prisoners starve to death in northern Ireland’s jails,
Thatcher left behind a record of cruelty and ruthlessness not only in Britain but also in such far-flung places as El Salvador, Grenada, Argentina, South Africa. In these places and more she unleashed British military power against peoples fighting for justice and dignity, or she backed the violence of the U.S. government in doing the same. Thatcher forged a close political and military alliance with the U.S. under presidents Reagan and Bush Sr, and while she shafting all and sundry she still managed to be friends with right wing dictators like Pinochet and P.W Botha.
I can never forgive her. She remains one of the most divisive figures to have emerged, responsible froo creating misery ad suffering to millions, while selling of what belonged to the people.
She is still hated and always will be, despite her pulse stopping, her  awful legacy lives  on, in the toxicity that is carried on by Theresa May's rotten tory party, still here spreading the same stinking doctrine. The scars and pain she caused remain as the rich get richer and the poor, poorer.
The witch might be dead, but the stench of Thatcherism still unfortunately, fills the air, her dark legacy still daily spread,  her political heirs are trying to extend the damage she did in ways she only dreamed of with the same destructive policies impacting on the lives of millions of working class and poor people.It is surely time I think, that we bury her awful legacy, once and for all.

Hubert Humphrey once said  that “the moral test of government is how that government treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the elderly; and those who are in the shadows of life, the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”

IMMORTAL: Mourning, Martyrs & Murals: an anthology.

 

This beautiful book arrived in the post this morning, which is dedicated to to  YPJ volunteer Anna Campbell  who was killed during the assault on Afrin  by Turkish forces  in March last year. It is also in memory of other international volunteers who have been killed fighting alongside the YPG.
In April 2017, Anna Campbell made the journey to Rojava the Kurdish region of Syria, to join the Kurdish struggle against fascism. She was inspired by the revolution because of the politics of direct democracy, feminism and environmentalism and fought with the YPJ (Women’s Protection Units), Women’s liberation, direct democracy and the environment are central to the Kurdish movement and echoed Anna’s own politics. Eleven months later in March 2018, she was killed alongside Sara Merdin and Serhilden by Turkish Forces while defending Afrin,  resisting the illegal invasion by the Turkish state which has cost hundreds of innocent lives. Their bodies were never recovered. Here is a link to a post I wrote at the time of her death. https://teifidancer-teifidancer.blogspot.com/2018/03/anna-campbell-death-of-freedom-fighter.html A year later, several hundred people protested and blocked roads Bristol in her memory and in solidarity with the progressive revolution in Rojava, northern Syria.

To commemorate the first year after Anna, Sara and Serhilden’s deaths,  IMMORTAL: Mourning, Martyrs & Murals: an anthology, is a powerful collection of prose, poetry, photos and art that is both a moving tribute to Anna and a message that speaks to anyone suffering from the grief of losing a friend or family member too early. Throughout the demo, the chant “Anna is with us. We fight on” rang through the crowd. And this sentiment is echoed throughout the book. One of the first pieces in the book states:
But we are here because we are determined to make sure that her legacy is one of taking action. It is not enough to believe in an ideal. Everyone is responsible for taking action. You have to build the world you want to live in and fight to defend it.
It concludes: The fire within her that moved her to go and fight has now been lit within all of us and while it burns she will live on with it.

The Following originally published by Freedom News.

Anna’s loved ones have collaborated on this project as a counter-move to the pervading media narrative. The book battles with the emotions and experiences of those trying to move forward through grief in the midst of media hysteria and political turmoil. It explores the anger, pain, and guilt faced by those left behind; and scrutinises the meaning of comradeship, friendship, and family.
Whilst instigated by comrades of Anna’s, this book includes texts and images relating to Haukur Hilmarsson. Haukur, an Icelandic revolutionary, was killed in Afrin just one month before Anna in February 2018. Opening the book out to contributions relating to Haukur intends to illustrate the connections beyond family and friendship found through the shared experience of traumatic bereavement; it’s about mutuality and commonality found in the threads of everyday struggle.

We will never forget those who struggled until the last moment to defend people, their land and their ideas

The publication was printed by Calverts Printers Cooperative, meaning each book is of a high quality and made from ethically sourced materials. Being a cooperative, the workers are paid a fair wage for their labour.
Buy IMMORTAL: Mourning, Martyrs & Murals: an anthology here.
Preview the project here.

They still need to make a lot of money back to cover their costs, so please support this  important book and help keep the fire of Anna Campbell alive, who ignited in us an inspiration for a better world for generations to come. We may be worlds apart, but its our responsibility to  keep fighting for human rights. The struggle continues! Support the Kurdistan Solidarity Campaign.

World of echo ( dedicated to Arthur Russell 21/5/51- 4/3/92)

Spent the morning revisiting the work of Arthur Russell 
inspired me to write the following words.

World of echo

It should not be a crime to be sad
eternities music at least releases a smile,
deep but unbroken, love returns
moving round in everlasting circles,
catching our revolving reflections.

Melancholia always has a place
flickering in the day with grace,
making noises of sustainment
generating light to break the pain,
before escape becomes infinite.

Alpha is past, Omega is future
lovers breeze continues to serenade,
garnered from a myriad of stars
to kiss and awaken sources within,
a world of echo will keep on calling.

Sparks of Memory.

Memories of the past, in times of strife
The breath of Nye Bevan bought alive,
The ghost of Dic Penderyn, the hosts of Rebecca
In a pitch black night, fiercely unbroken,
The faithful still gathering that storms cannot fade
History remembered, struggle as hope,
Stitches of time, clothed in rebellious man
Dreams bought alive, surviving clear and true,
In books of precious thought, giving hope in darkness
Ideological treasures for eternity, to set minds free,
Sparks of imagination, withstanding the tests of time
Beams of reason,glowing like tempests on the eternal sea.

Anne Waldman (2/4/45) - Poet of Consciousness

Internationally recognised  and acclaimed poet Anne Waldman is 74 years young today. A prominent figure in the beat poetry generation. She has been an active member  of the 'Outrider' experimental poetry community, a culture she has helped create  and nurture for over four decades as writer, editor, teacher, performer, feminist magpie scholar, infrastructure curator,  and cultural/ political activist of immense passion.
Born in Millville, New Jersey, Waldman only lived in New Jersey very briefly She grew up  on Macdougal Street in the heart of Greenwich Village where she still lives, on Beat Poetry and jazz, influences that have strongly persisted in her work, along with the second generation of the New York School. Her practice of Tibetan Buddhism has also deeply influenced her work.
The Late Allen Ginsberg, with whom she co-founded the Jack Kerouac School of Diembodied Poetics at the Naropa Institute in Boulder, Colorado, called her his 'spiritual wife.'
In 1976, Waldman and Ginsberg were featured in Bob Dylan's film, Renaldo and Clara. They worked on the film while traveling through New England and Canada with the Rolling Thunder Revue, a concert tour that made impromptu stops, entertaining enthusiastic crowds with poetry and music. Waldman, Ginsberg, and Dylan were joined on these caravans by musicians such as Joan Baez, Joni Mitchell, Eric Anderson, and Joe Cocker. Waldman reveled in the experience, and she often thought of recreating the poetry caravan.
Waldman married Reed Bye in 1980, and their son, Edwin Ambrose Bye was born on October 21, 1980. The birth of her son proved to be an "inspiring turning point" for Waldman, and she became interested in and committed to the survival of the planet. Her child, she said, became her teacher. Waldman and Ambrose Bye perform frequently, and the two have created Fast Speaking Music and have produced multiple albums together.
For nearly half a century she has channelled her passions and experiences into poetry, urging us toward civic and political responsibility, long has she been committed to the survival of the planet, working actively for social change, and was arrested in the 1970s with Daniel Ellsberg & Allen Ginsberg protesting the site of Rocky Flats which was bringing plutonium onto property 10 miles from Boulder for the manufacture of “triggers” for nuclear warheads.  She has been a vocal proponent for feminist, environmental, and human rights causes; an active participant in Poets Against the War; and she has helped organize protests in New York and Washington, D.C.
She is recipient  of the Shelley Memorial Award from  the Poetry Society of America and is the author of over 40 books of poetry. She is also editor of The Beat Book (Shambhala Publications) and co-editor of The Angel Hair Anthology (Granary Books), Civil Disobediences: Poetics and Politics in Action (Coffee House) and Beats at Naropa (Coffee House, 2009), with previously unpublished work by Allen Ginsberg, Gary Snyder, Diane diPrima, Joanne Kyger and William Burroughs, among others.
Her latest book that came out last year was Trickster Feminism an edgy, visionary collection that meditates on gender, existence, passion and activism, uniting  feminist history, Buddhist lore, contemporary politics, quantum physics, and more in a text of protest and upheaval.
She sees her poetry performances as  'a ritualised event in time'. She is conceptual, visionary, prophetic, and living icon for future generations, carrying on the Beat tradition. Long may she continue to inspire, hold on to her premise of imaginative consciousness, remaining vibrant and unpredictable.Her powerful genuine poetry to be felt. Happy birthday Anne Waldman.

Fossil Fuel - Anne Waldman and Ambrose Bye

The Lie

Art begins with a lie
     The seperation is you plus me plus what we make
           Look intolightbulb blink, sun's in your eye

I want a rare sky
     vantage point free from misconception
    Art begins with a lie

Nothing to lose, spontaneous rise
     of reflection, paint the picture
          of a lightbulb, or eye the sun

How to fuel the world, then die
     Distance yourself from artfulness
         How? Art begins with a lie

The audience wants to cry
   when the actors are real & passionate
       Look into footlight, then feed back to eye

You fluctuate in an artful body
    You try to imitate the world's glory
        Art begins with a lie
             That's the story, sharp speck in the eye.

From: Helping the Dreamer:Selected Poems, 1966-1988

Holy 21st Century 

Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Is the composite world holy? Holy phonemes holy neurons!
Holy the 5 senses! Holy the aggregates of being!
Holy impermanence! Holy the inter-connectedness of all beings!
Karma of atrocities holy and un-holy!
Is 21st century endless continuation of 20th century war holy?
Environmental degradation continuation
Of 20th century environmental degradation holy?
Every Woman’s a holy dakini! Matriot acts holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy! Holy!
Holy! Holy! Holy!
Body parts blown over the charnel ground holy!
Eyes ears nose hands mouth holy!
Manipulated Bible holy? Koran holy? Anarchist tracts holy? Fatwas holy?
Geneva Convention holy? Holy Contract with America,
come on citizens, is that holy?
Star Wars’ “Rods from Hod” holy? Daisy cutters holy?
Thermobaric version of the Hellfire Missile that can turn corners
and blast into caves holy?
Allen’s Ginsberg’s “Mysterious rivers of tears under the sheets” holy!
Holy Kerouac’s “tender reward!”
Holy Baghdad! Holy Dharamsala! Holy Columbine!
Holy Kabul! Holy Israel/Palestine! Holy Bosnia! Holy Rwanda!
Holy Manahatta Isle! Holy Trade Center! Holy East Timor!
Holy Justice! Holy forgiveness! Holy Truth! Holy Accountability!
Baghram holy? Guantánamo holy? Abu Ghraib unholy!
All hooded torture un-holy! All bodily sadistic harm un-holy!
All the hate un-holy! Big lies unholy! All the rape un-holy!
Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy! Unholy!
Holy rap! Holy hip hop! Holy klezmer! Holy Afro-pop!
Holy jazz! Holy gamelan!
Holy pneumatic drills boring into the depths of Brooklyn!
Holy old slave graves!
False the military recruitment centers
Knocking on tenement doors get a fresh martyr for!
Holy Creeley! Holy Lucia Berlin! Holy Jackson MacLow!
Holy Brakhage! Holy Carl Rakosi! Holy Philip Lamantia!
Holy Steve Lacy, blowing his saxophone in heaven!
Cloning holy? Stem cells holy?
Amphetamine holy? Un-holy the polarized universe!
Holy the unfettered Universe!
Holy Negative Capability! Holy No Ideas But In Things!
Holy Projective Verse! Holy Modal Structures!
Banish grief & greed
o compassionate green-skinned savioress of the Mind
HOLY OM TARA HOLY TUTTH TARA HOLY TURE SOHA

Anne Waldman - Battery

Here she reads her poem "Battery" as part of Dear Poet, the Academy of American Poets educational project for National Poetry Month 2017

Anne Waldman - Reading from Manatee/Humanity

Anne Waldman: Poetry in Performance

Join her here and listen to some of here shamanic and subversive poems
at a reading at Eastern Illinois University 2009.

Support the Kurdish Hunger Strikers

There will be a major march next  Sunday in solidarity with Kurdish  hunger strikers.
https://www.facebook.com/events/837556986578942/

Imam Sis  a well known activist in Newport, South Wales . currently living at the Kurdish Community Centre, who has lived in the UK for 14 years after coming to the UK as a political refugee. He has now exceeded 100 days of hunger strike, aince 17 December 2018, the longest in British history, and is surviving on only vitamin tablets, salty water, and a glass of lemonade a day. Read his article in the Independent  http://bit.do/eM8is

" As a Kurd, my commitment to a world of justice, equality and demoracy forced me to leave Turkey and beome a politial refugee in  the United Kingdom fifteen years ago. I have been living in Newport, Wales since 2014, where I am actively involved in struggles for coexistane and equality."

Imam Sis  on hunger strike since 17 December, 2018

7,000 more Kurds are now on indefinite hunger strike in the prisons of Turkey, in Kurdistan, Europe and North America demanding that Turkey abide by the European Convention of Human Rights ( to which it is a signatory) and allow imprisoned  Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Ocalan , access to lawyers and family visits.

Jailed by Turkey since 1999, Ocalan is the recognised leader of the Kurdish liberation movement. Since 2011, his lawyers have been unable to met with him.The isolation of  Abdullah Ocalan is contrary to Turkey’s own constitution and to international human rights law.Solitary confinement is commonly regarded as a form of torture, one that Öcalan has had to endure since his arrest in 1999. Ocalan’s ideas have inspired a major movement for grassroots, multi-ethnic secular democracy, and the respect in which he is held makes him key to a peaceful settlement for the Kurds in Turkey – an ideal for which he has strived repeatedly over the last two decades. Despite his continuing imprisonment he has made the whole world acknowledge the Kurds, with hundreds of thousands of people from various countries around the world  speaking about Ocalan’s ideas..

  Abdullah Ocalan

Ocalan is in his 20th year of imprisonment by Turkey and is being denied access to his family and to his lawyers. Ocalan’s importance, together with the lack of international action, has forced the Kurds to take the desperate step of mass indefinite hunger strikes. Leyla Guven, a democratically elected member of Turkey’s parliament for the left-wing, Kurdish-led People’s Democratic party (HDP), launched an indefinite hunger strike on November 7 from Amed Prison, where she was held jailed by Turkey’s regime. She has been joined by over 250 other political prisoners in Turkish jails and also by Kurdish activists around the world, including 14 at the seat of the European parliament in Strasbourg.

Leyla Guven

The Council of Europe, of which Turkey is a member, regards Isolation as a torture and a crime against humanity, but they need to act on their words. The European Committee for the Prevention of Torture has yet to meet their criteria or serve their duties. This all proves that even today, Kurds are still not only denied their ethnic status, but also counted as not being worthwhile humans and all fundamental human rights are denied. The European Court of Human Rights must take action against Turkey on many counts, and the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture must fulfil its role and visit Ocalan in prison. At the same time, the EU and UK must end their friendly engagement with Turkey, and European countries, including the UK, must stop selling Turkey weapons that will be used to suppress dissidents and minorities at home and attack Kurdish areas across the border.

Earlier this month Wales became the first parliament in the world to declare solidarity with the demands  of hunger strikers passing a Plaid Cymru motion https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-politics-47646773?fbclid=IwAR2sNgZdwbxhI4kxcGRKURneJMdhdxnQY0xOgUNTdyJU-MsQ3aD8gyPG0lI

This  weekend Jeremy Corbyn and Diane Abbot meet with friends of Imam Sis and members of  the  Kurdish  community and speaking at a rally in Newport, Mr Corbyn highlighted the calls for lawyers to be allowed to visit Mr Ocalan- a key demand  of Kurdisg hunger strikers. Read more here https://freedomforocalan.org/jeremy-corbyn-calls-for-lawyers-to-be-allowed-to-visit-ocalan/?fbclid=IwAR0kJP11-rWBZJxTfmbWV-gG5rC7e5GCwAS-YmaHRBUzYEwRCSHV3DLDEHQ

Ask your MP to sign this EDM, https://edm.parliament.uk/early-day-motion/52440/hunger-strike-by-leyla-g%C3%BCven-mp; to raise the issue of Ocalan’s illegal isolation publicly wherever possible; to demand that the Foreign Minister puts pressure on Turkey to comply with its obligations to end the isolation of Ocalan and to restart the peace talks; and to demand that the UK stops selling Turkey weapons. It is the Foreign Minister, Jeremy Hunt, who is the UK representative on the Council of Europe, so they should specifically ask him to get the European institutions to back their words with actions and make Turkey comply with their own constitution and European human rights conventions.

The Human Rights of the Kurdish people in all nations they reside,should be respected and they are also entitled to preserve their language and cultural heritage which would be possible through autonomy. We should continue to demand that the Turkish government  be responsive to prisoners on hunger strike in Turkey demands.
It is important that the international community stands in support of theKurdish hunger strikers and their campaign for rights, equality and an end to Turkish repression.The ending of the isolation of Abdullah Öcalan is necessary not only for a resolution to the ‘Kurdish Question,’ for peace in the Middle-East, but for the whole world. For solutions to large challenges that we will all face this century, Abdullah Öcalan’s safety and ideas are of critical importance.
Your voice will make a difference.Please sign the  following change.org petition calling on the European Committee for the Prevention of Torture to visit Ocalan,

 https://www.change.org/p/european-committee-for-the-prevention-of-torture-cpt-we-want-cpt-to-visit-mr-ocalan-at-imrali-prison

Palestinians mass at Gaza border to mark protest anniversary

Thousands of Palestinians  have been rallying  at the Gaza-Israel border today to mark the first anniversary of the weekly 'Great March of Return' protests, facing off against Israeli forces massed across the perimeter.
The protests call for the lifting of a security blockade imposed by Israel and Egypt, and for Palestinians to have the right to return to land from which their families fled or were forced to flee during Israel’s founding in 1948.
 The Gaza Health Ministry said two Palestinians were shot dead by Israeli forces near the border fence, during clashes that began on Friday. About 200 Gazans have been killed by Israeli troops since the protests started, according to Palestinian Health Ministry figures.
Gaza's Health Ministry said Saturday ten people have sustained injuries from live fire coming from Israeli troops, who also fired tear gas as dozens of protesters approached the fence.
The territory's Hamas rulers are trying to restrain the rallies.The militant group hopes a calmer demonstration would allow for the implementation an Egyptian-brokered agreement with Israel to ease the economic blockade imposed on the Gaza Strip since 2007. But warnings to stay far back from the heavily fortified fence were not being heeded by all."We will move towards the borders even if we die," said Yusef Ziyada, 21, his face painted in the colours of the Palestinian flag.
"We are not leaving. We are returning to our land."
March 30 also marks “Land Day”, that Palestinians  worldwide have commemorated Land Day since 1976, when Israeli security forces shot dead six Arab citizens of Israel killed by Israeli security forces during demonstrations over government land confiscations in northern Israel in 1976.
The main Land Day march in Israel is planned for Saturday afternoon in the northern city of Sakhnin, with additional marches and demonstrations expected across the country, as well as in the West Bank and Gaza.
More than 2 million Palestinians are packed into the Gaza Strip, a narrow coastal enclave where poverty and unemployment rates are high. The blockade is cited by humanitarian agencies as a key reason for impoverishment in Gaza. Lat year alone , about 200 Palestinians, including children, journalists, and the disabled, were killed  at the border, most by Israeli  live ammunition; 23,000 have been injured. 
Israel’s use of lethal force has drawn censure from the United Nations and rights groups. U.N. investigators said last week that Israeli forces may be guilty of war crimes for using excessive force.
The protests mark nearly  twelve years of a blockade that has made Gaza into what is often called the world's largest open air prison. They also come to invoke UN Resolution 194 their right to return in peace to their homes, from which they were expelled in 1948, when Israel was created.
 The Palestinians have no choice but to protest, their spirit not broken, despite their suffering they continue to carry on undaunted. Lets continue to gie them the solidarity and respect they deserve.