From the Archives of Marxism- On The 60th Anniversary- 19 June 1953: The Cold War Execution of the Rosenbergs

Workers Vanguard No. 1026	14 June 2013

From the Archives of Marxism- On The 60th Anniversary- 19 June 1953: The Cold War Execution of the Rosenbergs

Militant, 29 June 1953

Sixty years ago this month, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg, Jewish Communists from New York, were murdered by the U.S. capitalist state for the alleged crime of spying for the Soviet Union. Against the backdrop of bloodcurdling cries to “fry the Reds,” the Rosenbergs were subjected to a grotesque show trial on charges of “conspiring” to pass the “secret of the atomic bomb” to the USSR during World War II. The frame-up featured perjured testimony and concocted evidence as well as the stoking of anti-Semitism. With the trial coming at the height of McCarthyite anti-Communist hysteria, this was enough to secure a conviction.

Judge Irving Kaufman consulted with the prosecution before condemning the Rosenbergs to death. During sentencing, he took the opportunity to accuse the Rosenbergs of treason—defined by the Constitution as giving aid and comfort to the enemy in wartime—even though the Soviet Union was an ally of the U.S. during World War II! While liberal and social-democratic apologists for the government have come forward over the years claiming to “prove” the Rosenbergs’ guilt, these attempts have all fallen apart under the slightest scrutiny.

As the Militant (27 October 1952), published by the then-Trotskyist Socialist Workers Party (SWP), wrote in an editorial following the Supreme Court’s refusal to review the conviction: “The Rosenberg decision above all else was an act of ruling-class terror by a state that is preparing a war of world conquest, a war directed primarily against the Soviet Union.... It was far more a political than a spy trial. There is no other way to explain why the Rosenbergs, who were charged with playing the least important role of all those involved in the atomic espionage, should alone have been given the ultimate sentence.”

For Marxists, the central issue in the Rosenberg case was the defense of the Soviet workers state against imperialism. The U.S. had emerged from World War II as the predominant imperialist power, with a monopoly on atomic weapons. The main impediment to its world designs was the Soviet Union, which had issued out of the 1917 seizure of power by the Bolshevik-led working class in Russia. Despite its subsequent degeneration under Stalinist bureaucratic misrule, the USSR continued to embody key social gains of the October Revolution, centrally a planned economy and collectivized property. It was an urgent task of the working class to defend the Soviet Union—just as we Spartacists today defend the bureaucratically deformed workers states of China, Cuba, Laos, North Korea and Vietnam.

Julius Rosenberg was arrested less than a year after the first Soviet A-bomb test threw the U.S. rulers into a frenzy. As we wrote in “They’re Trying to Kill the Rosenbergs All Over Again” (WV No. 340, 21 October 1983):

“Those who helped the Russians achieve nuclear capacity did a great service for humanity. Had U.S. imperialism maintained a nuclear monopoly, it would have meant historic defeats for the international proletariat. It would have meant nuclear destruction from Southeast Asia to Latin America. Who can doubt that U.S. imperialism would have destroyed Vietnam totally with nuclear weapons if they did not fear a retaliatory Soviet strike? Would Cuba exist today if the U.S. had a nuclear monopoly?”

The late 1940s and ’50s in the U.S. was a time of widespread persecution of Communists, labor militants, other leftists and also some liberals classified as “Communist sympathizers.” Witchhunters such as Senator Joseph McCarthy destroyed the careers of such “subversives” in all walks of American life, but especially the labor movement. Some 25,000 union members, many of them key leaders of the CIO organizing drives of the 1930s, were purged, in some cases leading to the destruction of whole unions. Thousands more were tracked down by the FBI and driven from their jobs, only to continue to be hounded and witchhunted due to employer blacklists.

While belatedly coming to the defense of the Rosenbergs amid the Cold War atmosphere of repression, the SWP correctly recognized the centrality of the Soviet Union in the Rosenberg case and hailed the USSR’s nuclear capacity. In contrast, most of the rest of the left in the United States refused to defend the Rosenbergs. This included their comrades in the leadership of the Communist Party (CP), who did not even mention the case until after the trial was over and the death sentence had already been handed down. When the CP did take up the case, it neither denounced the political frame-up nor defended the Rosenbergs as victims of the capitalist state. The Daily Worker (6 April 1951) merely accused the government of “bad faith” similar to its refusal “to negotiate peace in Korea,” where the U.S. imperialists and their allies were fighting a war against the North Korean and Chinese workers states.

In recent years, the American nuclear cowboys have raised a hue and cry over the efforts of North Korea to develop and test nuclear weapons and adequate delivery systems—capacity that Marxists support. The U.S. imperialists have also played up Iran’s alleged nuclear program to impose withering sanctions to the detriment of its working masses and poor. In fact, possession of nuclear weapons is the only true measure of national sovereignty in today’s world, as Saddam Hussein, who did not possess “weapons of mass destruction,” learned the hard way.

The article we reprint below appeared in the Militant (29 June 1953) following the Rosenbergs’ execution. It highlights how the anti-Communist trade-union bureaucracy, which sealed its hold on the labor movement through the red purges, was deaf to appeals on behalf of the Rosenbergs. Following in their footsteps, today’s labor statesmen widely embrace the “war on terror,” the latest crusade undertaken by the capitalist rulers after the fading of the “Red menace” with the 1991-92 counterrevolutionary destruction of the USSR. The vast expansion of the repressive powers of the state in the name of fighting terrorism is, as with the anti-Soviet McCarthyite frenzy, ultimately aimed at the working class, the potential gravediggers of the capitalist system. For more on the case, see “Hail the Heroic Rosenbergs!” (WV No. 923, 24 October 2008).

*   *   *

The smell of the auto-da-fe—the burning of heretics—hangs over the land. With the legal murder on June 19 of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, the modern inquisition has sent its first two victims to the stake.

Their inquisitors kept the Rosenbergs on the wrack for weeks and months, offering the condemned couple their lives in return for “recantations” and “confessions.” The Rosenbergs declared their innocence to the end. They refused to “abjure” themselves and spurned the role of stoolpigeons and perjurers as demanded by the Eisenhower administration, with its Department of Justice and FBI.

Enraged that their odious compact was refused, the witch hunters in obscene haste shoved aside a last-minute stay of execution granted by Justice Douglas and claimed their blood-victims.

The whole prestige and authority of the U.S. government was mobilized to give the odor of legal sanctity to the burnings. Eisenhower and the Supreme Court themselves, in effect, pulled the electric-chair switch. A cold-blooded six-to-three decision of the hastily reconvened Supreme Court vacated Justice Douglas’ stay, granted the day before. A few hours later Eisenhower denied executive clemency, thus sealing the Rosenbergs’ doom.

Eisenhower prated about the “fullest measure of justice and due process of law” allegedly extended the Rosenbergs. Only the most gullible really believe that. This was a political assassination. That is how virtually the entire world views it. This is shown by the wave of outrage and revulsion that has swept the globe at the sadistic haste with which the Rosenbergs were rushed to their death.

World-Wide Protest

The protests were most widespread and vocal precisely in those countries of Western Europe where American influence is reputed to be greatest. All sections of the French union movement—including the Catholic right—called for clemency to the Rosenbergs. All the Italian unions strongly voiced similar demands. Some of the leading conservative British trades unions, most notably the huge Transport and General Workers Union with 1,300,000 members, openly joined the protest movement.

In addition, the closest allies of the American capitalists—from the Pope himself to the president of France—warned against carrying through the execution because of the blow it would deal Washington’s already shaky prestige among the masses of Western Europe.

Thousands among scientific, cultural, educational and religious circles here and abroad addressed appeals to Eisenhower for clemency. Some 2,800 Protestant clergymen in America voiced their opposition to the death penalty for the Rosenbergs. Eminent atomic scientists Dr. Albert Einstein and Dr. Harold C. Urey (who, incidentally, ridiculed the notion that the accused and the informer against them could have understood or conveyed atomic information) denounced the conviction of the Rosenbergs as well as their sentence.

But the one progressive force that might have prevented the murder of the Rosenbergs was shamefully silent. The 17,000,000-member American trade union movement uttered no word of protest or indignation at the witch-burning. With the notable exception of Hugo Ernst, head of the AFL Hotel and Restaurant Employees, not one leading American trade-union figure had the simple human decency and political intelligence to speak out against the political killing of the Rosenbergs.

It is inconceivable that the labor leaders did not know the tissue-paper flimsiness of the government’s case against the Rosenbergs and the atmosphere of the anti-communist witch hunt that made a fair trial for them impossible. Yet they were too cowardly, too opportunist, too eager to demonstrate their subservience to the capitalist government and their own rabid anti-communism to demand justice and clemency for the Rosenbergs.

For their blind treachery they themselves may yet pay a terrible price at the hands of the witch hunters, whose ultimate objective is nothing less than the crushing of the American labor movement. The smell of the blood of the Rosenbergs will undoubtedly excite the appetites of the McCarthyites and embolden them to seek bigger and juicier prey—including and especially the trade-union leaders.

Why has the case of the Rosenbergs raised such an outcry everywhere that free opinion still finds room to express itself? Why do many who remained silent while U.S. imperialism burned alive several million Koreans or annihilated two whole Japanese cities with atom bombs now cry out at the spectacle of two obscure Americans being killed after what appear to be exhaustive legal proceedings?

Deaths in war seem impersonal and are frequently excused as the regrettable but unavoidable hazards of military struggle. But the Rosenberg case spotlights the nature of U.S. capitalism in all its brutality and vindictiveness. This was deliberate, premeditated murder intended to intimidate into silence all who would oppose American imperialism in any way. It is a symbol of all that the world has come to hate of the ruthless arrogance and aggressive drive of the American ruling class.

Their pretense that the Rosenbergs got all the benefits of the law makes the actions of Eisenhower and the Supreme Court seem all the more hypocritical. As Justice Black pointed out in his strong dissenting opinion, not only is “judicial haste…peculiarly out of place where the death penalty is imposed,” but the Supreme Court “has never reviewed this record and has never affirmed the fairness of the trial…” Indeed, the court refused on a number of occasions to review the central question: Did the Rosenbergs get a fair trial?

Could a fair trial have been possible in the witch-hunt atmosphere and with the whole capitalist government lined up to burn the Rosenbergs, regardless of their guilt or innocence, to make of them a terrifying example?

The Eisenhower administration feared to wait any longer the test of public opinion. It feared that each day would see the protest and indignation grow, not only abroad but at home. The juridical case against the Rosenbergs was coming apart at the seams. It was becoming known that the Rosenbergs were actually charged not with committing espionage, but with mere “conspiracy”—agreement to commit—such acts. No tangible evidence was put forward even for this nebulous charge except the claims of a single informer who feared his own neck was at stake if he did not testify as demanded by the FBI. They rushed to kill the Rosenbergs precisely because the case could not stand up under further close public examination.

Act of Class Hate

This was a deed of class hate and class vengeance. The brutal American capitalist class has sadistically vented on the helpless bodies of the Rosenbergs its rage and frustration at the setbacks it has received abroad from the forces of the colonial and socialist revolutions and for the impediments raised by the revolutionary masses on all the continents to its schemes of world conquest.

The murder of the Rosenbergs shows how far the witch hunters are prepared to go to suppress free thought and political freedom in America. It is the extreme expression of a system of terrorism that has already put a gag over education, literature, the arts and sciences and public service that has sent hundreds to prison for their political views and cost thousands their jobs. It has placed shackles of fear on the American mind. And it will not be halted until the American labor movement—ultimate target of the witch hunters—stands forth with a mighty fist in the face of the witch hunters and declares: “Not another step!” 

Class Against Class-From The Pen Of James P. Cannon

Workers Vanguard No. 861	6 January 2006

TROTSKY

LENIN

Class Against Class

(Quote of the Week)

Referring to the victorious 1936-37 West Coast strike by warehousemen and maritime unions, Trotskyist leader James P. Cannon outlined the class-struggle principles key to guiding labor struggles.

A conflict between workers and employers is not a mere misunderstanding between two elements who have a common general interest. On the contrary it springs from an irreconcilable conflict of interest; it is an expression of a ruthless class struggle wherein power alone decides the issue.

Viewed in this light, a dispute between workers and employers cannot be settled fairly by the government; the government is an instrument of one of the parties to the dispute—in this case the capitalists. The class conflict cannot be handed over to the “public” to decide; the “public” is itself divided into classes with different interests and different sympathies regulated primarily by these interests. The polemics of Karl Marx against the conservative labor leaders of his day answered all these questions. All the experience of the labor movement since that time, including the recent west coast strike, speaks for the position of Marx and against all conceptions which overlook the class struggle.

—James P. Cannon, “After the Maritime Strike,” Labor Action, 20 February 1937, reprinted in Notebook of an Agitator (1958)

******

James P. Cannon

Labor Action

San Francisco—February 20, 1937

After the Maritime Strike

---

[Below is an article written by SWP leader James P. Cannon for the West Coast socialist newspaper Labor Action.—Editor]

THE more thoroughly the result of the 99-day maritime strike is considered the more convincingly does the victory of the unions stand out. The gains of the workers have two aspects. The immediate material benefits in the form of increased wages and cash payment for overtime are worth the struggle and suffering which the workers had to pay for them. The shortening of the working day of the Cooks and Stewards -- even if it fell short of the eight-hour objective-is a benefit which the workers involved will enjoy every day they are at sea. The general movement of labor for better wages and shorter hours is greatly stimulated by the tangible concessions won by the maritime workers in these respects.
But, in my opinion, the outstanding and most important result of the strike was the unquestionable strengthening of the individual unions, and of the Maritime Federation as a whole. That is the safeguard and the promise of better things to come.
The 1934 strike, with all its heavy cost of struggle and sacrifice, laid the foundation for all the advances of maritime labor in the past two and a half years. But it left the question of the stability of the unions still undetermined. The seafaring crafts had to fight every inch of the way by means of job action -- the only recourse left to them -- to wrest the recognition and the consideration denied them in formal agreement. The attempt to wreck the Sailors Union in connection with the revocation of its charter showed that the stability and strength of this militant organization was doubted by labor fakers as well as by shipowners. Finally, the arrogance of the shipowners last fall only demonstrated their underestimation of the stability of the Federation as a whole. They had to be convinced by the strike that maritime unionism is no passing phenomenon.
The unions survived this test of a drawn-out struggle and came out of it stronger than before -- and consequently with more confidence in themselves.
The results of the strike are the vindication of the strike. Who could argue now -- in the face of the results -- that the strike should have been postponed and stalled off indefinitely until Washington came to the rescue of the workers? All the Roosevelt administration ever offered to the maritime workers is the Copeland Book. It is clear now, or ought to be, that the strike was a necessity.
The prevailing policy in the strike was, in the main, a policy of militancy. That accounts for the victory. But this policy made its way and prevailed at times in a peculiar indirect way -- from the bottom upward rather than from the top down. The maritime rank and file are fighters. They are strongly influenced by militant traditions. That is the real secret, if there is a secret, of the strength of the Federation and its affiliated unions, not some new inventions in the line of strategy. The maritime workers FEEL the class struggle, and instinctively act accordingly. That is why they were right every time they blocked policies inspired by a different conception of capital-labor relations.
Some very erroneous conceptions were entertained in some of the leading circles of the Federation. At times they were even put forward as official decisions, but fortunately they were not carried out and therefore were not so harmful as they might have been.
Among them the following stand out most prominently: (1) The policy of stalling off the strike so as “not to embarrass President Roosevelt”; (2) The decision to move “perishable cargo” from the strike-bound ships; (3) The tendency to make a fetish of the “public”; (4) The conciliatory attitude toward government interference; (5) Most dangerous of all-the proposals to “accept the Copeland fink book and protest afterward”.
There was really nothing new in any or all of these erroneous proposals. The argument against them is not new either. It consists simply in an explanation that a conflict between workers and employers is not a mere misunderstanding between two elements who have a common general interest. On the contrary it springs from an irreconcilable conflict of interest; it is an expression of a ruthless class struggle wherein power alone decides the issue.
Viewed in this light, a dispute between workers and employers cannot be settled fairly by the government; the government is an instrument of one of the parties to the dispute-in this case the capitalists. The class conflict cannot be handed over to the “public” to decide; the “public” is itself divided into classes with different interests and different sympathies regulated primarily by these interests. The polemics of Karl Marx against the conservative labor leaders of his day answered all these questions. All the experience of the labor movement since that time, including the recent west coast strike, speaks for the position of Marx and against all conceptions which overlook the class struggle.
In the strike the Maritime Federation of the Pacific went through its first real test. The .results show that this formation was an aid to solidarity. The Federation proved its superiority over the system of every craft for itself. The habit of cooperation between the crafts and the practice of solidarity, through the Federation, tested in the strike, will undoubtedly bind the Federation together more cohesively.
But for all its unquestionable superiority to the isolated system, the Federation should be regarded as a transitional form of organization. The organizational goal of militant labor is industrial unionism. The militants should begin to consider this problem more concretely and to devise steps to advance its solution.

From The Bradley Manning Trial -Day 8

Circumstantial evidence against Manning might lack authentication: trial report, day 8

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By Nathan Fuller, Bradley Manning Support Network. June 18, 2013.

Col. Denise Lind, drawn by Debra Van Poolen (click for source)

The eighth day of Bradley Manning’s court martial lasted just an hour and a half, and we’re now in recess until Tuesday morning, June 25, so the defense and government can continue to hammer out 17 stipulations of expected testimony over the long weekend. Today the parties litigated the admissibility of three pieces of the government’s proffered evidence: the use of the Wayback Machine, an Internet archive tool that investigators used to retrieve a 2009 version of WikiLeaks’ ‘Most Wanted Leaks’ list, and two WikiLeaks tweets from 2010, which were recovered using Google Cache.
In one tweet, WikiLeaks announces possession of an encrypted video, which the government says is the Garani/Farah airstrike video and which it claims Bradley provided them:

The defense points to Bradley’s chats saying merely that WikiLeaks has an encrypted video, not that he gave it to them. The only video proven to match hash-values with the U.S. Central Command’s version can be found on Jason Katz’s computer, and no connection has been found between Katz and Manning.
In the other tweet, WikiLeaks requests “.mil email addresses,” and which the government cites when claiming Bradley worked at WikiLeaks’ behest, following their direction:

But the defense says Bradley never saw that tweet, and what he’s said to have downloaded to his computer doesn’t quite match the request: defense lawyers imply he downloaded the U.S. Forces-Iraq address list, not all military email addresses.
Investigators could not find the Most Wanted Leaks list via WikiLeaks’ website – they only found versions of it by searching with Google.
The defense objected to the use of these items on hearsay, relevance, and authentication grounds.
The defense said the Google Cache-retrieved tweets are ‘double hearsay’ evidence and therefore unreliable: essentially, it claims, Google is “saying” what another website “said” at a certain point in time. Defense lawyer Capt. Tooman said that the judge would need to hear directly from someone from WikiLeaks itself to be able to hear personal knowledge of when those tweets were sent and what they say.
The government claimed the evidence meets a hearsay exception that allows for evidence that has an effect on the listener for an element – they say the evidence goes to Bradley’s knowledge of what WikiLeaks would do with information that he gave them. But the defense countered that there’s no proof Bradley even looked at these tweets, and it has to be established that he did for the evidence to qualify for that exception.
That same argument was made for the government’s attempt to admit a Wayback Machine-retrieved version of WikiLeaks’ 2009 Most Wanted Leaks list. The defense contests the government’s production of that list because it can’t be proven that the Wayback Machine didn’t rely on a third-party web-crawler to obtain it, and if a third-party crawler did, we’d need to see personal knowledge from that crawler that the information wasn’t manipulated.
The defense has already admitted a different version of that list, one that calls for journalists, lawyers, police, and human rights activists to contribute to the list to ask for documents that would aid their work. But, the defense says, the government only provided one version because it better supports their case theory. The government only offered one version and they only use the Wayback Machine to authenticate it. There are versions of the list here, here, and here.
The government wants to prove that he viewed these tweets and lists before disclosing documents for the Article 104 Aiding the Enemy charge, so in the absence of less-circumstantial evidence, the admissibility of these documents could go a long way to supporting or eroding their contention.
Court is in recess and will resume for a status conference on Tuesday, briefly updating the court on the 17 stipulations of testimony in progress. In addition to those 17, the government intends to call 12 more sentences in its merits case. On Wednesday, court is scheduled to resume with those stipulations and more government witnesses.

 

***From Out In The 1950s Night- Marilyn Monroe’s Some Like It Hot

 

From The Pen Of Frank Jackman

DVD Review

Some Like It Hot, starring Marilyn Monroe, Tony Curtis, Jack Lemmon, directed by Billy Wilder

Let’s say a couple of guys, a couple of musicians, a couple of work-a-day musicians trying to rub two coins together, trying to cover rom rent and keep one step ahead of the repo man, one a sexy sax player and the other a hipster bass player (although aren’t all bass players hipsters and I am just being redundant here), working for dimes and donuts in a 1920s speakeasy band witness, quite by accident, the infamous Chicago gangster night of the long knives Saint Valentine’s Day Massacre. And the pair were still alive after the event, at least for a while until those gangsters got hip, to tell about it (although being work-a-day guys and wise they wouldn’t dream of putting the figure on those dastardly gangsters). Yah, still alive at least for a while until the other shoe drops.  

Let’s suppose those guys, and we can give them names, Joe and Bill, although let’s be a little free and easy with the use of those names since as we move on in the suppose world those names will vanish, wanted to stay alive long enough to play sexy sax and hip bass another day. Well what could they do? What would you do? What could they do in a 1950s black and white Billy Wilder film and not make the audience too uneasy. Simple, nothing to it, just have our  pair join an all- girl band, a popular nighttime feature back in the 1920s, and get the hell, way the hell out of Chicago on the fastest train out, fastest train out to sunny Miami. And thus are Joe and Bill strictly for professional reasons, and for life reasons too now that I think about those hoods who have certain unfinished business with our boys (girls?),   transformed from two working guys to two working girls (no, not that kind, really working, okay). And that transformation is not some trumped up over the top Mae West /Judy Garland drag queen thing down like you might have seen in the hip Village or North Beach Frisco scene but merely to transform handsome Tony Curtis into beautiful Tony Curtis and good-looking Jack Lemmon into fetching Jack Lemmon.    

Let’s say too that among those girl band members there was this blonde, maybe even a blonde goddess, Marilyn Monroe, this blonde singer, built, full-figured as was the desired look, desired man look back then, kind of Podunk dumb as was also desired man look as well, swaying back and forth making one, or both, guys “forget” they were girls. Now like with all blondes a story came with it. Seems she had seen the seamy side of life, had been kicked around a little by guys, sax players in particular, and so what she was looking for was some “do right” guy. And it would not hurt, although she would be the first to tell you she was no gold digger, if that right guy had a few million (a lot of dough back then although just walking around money now) stashed away for a rainy day. Like I say a story came with her.

Let’s also say we know a few things when all the dust settles.  We know Tony is not going to finish out his life as some over the top drag queen in the Village, not after he saw that full-figured blonde swaying her hips. We know that those big bad gangsters who wind up following the trail of our guys down to Miami are strictly RIP, or will be. And we know that once you get to the core of this film, one in an endlessly long line of a boy meets girl stories, that Tony and Marilyn are slated for heavenly, if poor, bliss. And Jack, well see the film for that, but this film may have been well before its time in suggesting some same-sex marriage proposition as valid, even if for laughs. Oh yah, and we also know this film was a great vehicle for Tony, Jack and Marilyn to strut their stuff. Kudos Billy.     

 

 

 

 

Free Bradley Manning!- Hands Off Edward Snowden!

China.org.cn, June 14, 2013

Whistleblower welcome in China

By Xu Peixi

Last week, a bright idealistic young man named Edward Snowden almost single-handedly opened the lid on the U.S. National Security Agency's PRISM program, a program which marks the bleakest moment yet in the history of the Internet due to its scope, exact country of origin and implications.

[By Gou Ben/China.org.cn]

In terms of scope, major transnational service providers ranging from Google to Apple are involved in allowing the NSA to access their customers' data for the purposes of "surveillance." Nearly all types of services ranging from email to VoIP have come within the program's scope and it originates in a country which dominates the world's Internet resources – a fact which is acknowledged in the information leaked by Snowden clearly states: "Much of the world's communications flow through the U.S." and the information is accessible. The case indicates that through outsourcing and contracting, Big Brother is breaching the fundamental rights of citizens by getting unfettered access to their most personal communications.

As the case unfolds, there are many things to worry about. How do we make sense of the fact that the market and the state colluded in the abuse of private information via what represents the backbone of many modern day infrastructures? How do we rationalize the character of Snowden and his fellow whistleblowers? How do we understand the one-sided cyber attack accusations the U.S. has poured upon China in the past few months? To what degree have foreign users of these Internet services fallen victim to this project? Among all these suspicions, let us clarify two types of American personality.

First of all, Snowden's case offers us a rare chance to reexamine the integrity of American politicians and the management of American-dominant Internet companies, and it appears that while many of these individuals verbally attack other nations and people in the name of freedom and democracy, they ignore America's worsening internal situation. In an eloquent speech on Internet freedom, former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said that if Internet companies can't act as "responsible stewards of their own personal information," then they would lose customers and their survival would be threatened. In the same speech, she also urged U.S. media companies to take a proactive role in challenging foreign governments' demands for censorship and surveillance.

Clinton was certainly under the impression that her own government was above reproach on these matters, when every piece of evidence, whether in hindsight or not, suggests the opposite. We must also remember that Clinton's Internet freedom speech was addressing Google's grand withdrawal from China; so, following the logical thread of her speech, it is surely now time for Google to take responsibility for leaking data and information to the NSA and withdraw from the U.S. market. David Drummond, Google's senior vice president and chief legal officer, justified Google's withdrawal from China by citing state "surveillance" and the "fact" that the Gmail accounts of dozens of human rights activists were being "routinely accessed by third parties". If Google wants to be consistent with its past pronouncements, the PRISM program gives the Internet giant much more cause for action.

We can see, therefore, that when American politicians and businessmen make accusatory remarks, their eyes are firmly fixed on foreign countries and they turn a blind eye to their own misdeeds. This clearly calls into question the integrity of these rich, powerful and influential figures and gives the definite impression that the U.S. bases its own legitimacy not on good domestic governance but on stigmatizing foreign practices.

Perhaps the most confusing issue revolves around the hypocrisy of those who preach about Internet freedom abroad while they stifle it at home. The Fudan University students who listened intently to President Obama's speech about Internet freedom and censorship at a town hall-style meeting in Shanghai in 2009 certainly took his remarks seriously. How must they be feeling now that it is obvious that President Obama himself does not believe his own Internet rhetoric? In the same vein, many like-minded young Chinese once presented flowers to Google's Beijing headquarters to pay tribute to its "brave" and outspoken challenge to perceived state surveillance by the Chinese government. How must they be feeling in light of Google's involvement in PRISM and with the knowledge that Google's action against China is only part of its commercial strategy? An increasing number of Chinese people will come to understand that the democratization of domestic Chinese media is entirely different from that which happens abroad.

Second, let us look at another kind of American personality. How can we understand and explain Snowden and similar figures? These young idealists, including the Washington Post's Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein who helped to bring down President Nixon in the Watergate affair, Wiki leaks' Julian Assange and American soldier Bradley Manning, among others, can be categorized as the "bright feathers" of our time, to borrow some words from the popular American movie The Shawshank Redemption. Plus, they all embody the courage to fight against the system, which the film also celebrates. The 25-year old Manning is now a prisoner, having been arrested in May 2010 in Iraq on suspicion of having passed classified material to WikiLeaks. Assange has been confined in the Ecuadorian embassy in London for nearly a year. Snowden is on the run in Hong Kong. While human rights activists from developing countries (defined by Western apparatus for sure) are often blessed with a choice of hiding places, we are now seeing the dilemma of Western dissidents. For this reason China, despite the fact that it does not have a good reputation as far as Internet governance is concerned, should move boldly and grant Snowden asylum.

After all, what the American and British authorities have done to figures such as Snowden represents a challenge to the common sense of the global public. These people are too brilliant to be caged. Their feathers are too bright. For the surfacing evils that have been done and continue to be committed by the state-market alliance in the digital age, Snowden and those like him represent the hope and possibility that counter measures exist to combat these evils. Unfortunately, those who proclaim to the world "don't be evil" are themselves willing cooperators in the whole game and their profit-driven nature has led them to play a major role in this evil. If intelligence work can be contracted or outsourced this way, anything can.

This is the reason why we appreciate and salute the efforts of Snowden et al, who have gambled their career, family, personal freedom, and even their life to let the global public know what the most powerful force in the world is doing with perhaps the central infrastructure of our age; to make the public aware that this force is acting in an unconstitutional manner and entirely contrary to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. To further understand the likes of Snowden, let us end with a narrative by the character Red from the Shawshank Redemption as he rationalizes the escape of his friend Andy: "Some birds are not meant to be caged. Their feathers are just too bright. And when they fly away, the part of you that knows it was a sin to lock them up does rejoice."

The author is a columnist with China.org.cn.

Free Lynne Stewart Now-Let Grandma Go Home!

THE PEACE THRU JUSTICE FOUNDATION

11006 Veirs Mill Rd, STE L-15, PMB 298

Silver Spring, MD. 20902

SHA'BAAN 1434 A.H.

(June 17, 2013)

Assalaamu Alaikum (Greetings of Peace):

While in the Carolina's I received the following message from Ralph Poynter, the committed husband of activist attorney Lynne Stewart. Ralph was appealing for support of a very important and time-sensitive initiative on behalf of his wife.

In a message dated 6/12/2013 10:40:08 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time, ralph.poynter@yahoo.com writes:

Greetings Mauri' Saalakhan:

Now that Lynne has fulfilled all the requirements for compassionate release, her papers sit on some bureaucrats desk in Washington. Therefore, I will be in front of the White House , Monday, June 17th from morning til nite, with literature regarding her case and calling for the removal of Obama.

Please ask those who can and will to give me whatever time they can to stand with me.

Ralph Poynter 917-853-9759

ps kindly call me with your suggestions on this matter

Any honest and self-respecting person who knows Lynne Stewart, should feel compelled to do whatever he or she can to help alleviate the suffering of this courageous grand-mother warrior (who suffers from 4th stage cancer while politically imprisoned).

I have just returned home (with a lot on my plate), and expect to depart for California on Wednesday, insha'Allah. I nevertheless plan to join Ralph Poynter in front of the white house tomorrow morning, June 18th (God willing); and I hope that others receiving this notice (who are capable of doing so) will plan to join us as well. I believe he is planning to maintain this daily vigil until our sister in struggle is released. May that day come soon! - MS

While there is a lower class, I am in it; while there is a criminal element, I am of it; while there is a soul in prison, I am not free. - Eugene Debs TAKE ACTION NOW! Sign The Petition! Please take a moment to join Pete Seeger, Desmond Tutu, Dick Gregory and thousands of others. Get ten of your friends to sign the petition for compassionate release today. It is devastating, totally unbelievable. Is this in a democracy, the only superpower? I am sad. I will sign. Praying God’s blessing on your efforts. - Desmond Tutu Lynne Stewart should be outa jail. - Pete Seeger Write Lynne today, and visit lynnestewart.org Lynne Stewart 53504-054 CARSWELL FEDERAL MEDICAL CENTER P.O. BOX 27137 Fort Worth TX, 76127 To Donate please send your gift to: Lynne Stewart Organization 1070 Dean St. Brooklyn NY 11216 (for gifts that need to be tax deductible call or email ralph.poynter@yahoo.com) EMERGENCY ALERT: LYNNE STEWART IN GRAVE DANGER The warden of Carswell FCI agreed to forward the compassionate release petition to the DOJ. TWO MONTHS AGO.. LYNNE DIES A LITTLE MORE EACH DAY... WHY THE DELAY The time to increase the heat is now. Dear Friends, 20,000 signatures cant be wrong... Hope you will join me in Wash. D.C. Monday, Jun 17 in front of the White House & the Bureau of Prisons to demand compassionate release for Sister Lynne... Women in Black "took it to the streets" in Wash. D.C. Let's keep the pressure on ...please continue to call for Lynne.....and facebook and twitter these pictures all over the world.... I will remain until Sister Lynne is home... Hope you will join me when you can...... Thank you.. Ralph Poynter--917 853 9759 Lynne Stewart Defense Org. ----- Forwarded Message -----From: Laurie <larbeiter@hotmail.com> To: Ralph Poynter <ralph.poynter@yahoo.com> Sent: Sunday, June 2, 2013 3:01 PM Subject: RELEASE LYNNE WASHINGTON DC Dear Ralph, First spontaneous public action... More to come... Laurie TAKE ACTION NOW! Sign The Petition! Lynne Stewart Must Be Free! Lynne Stewart and her husband Ralph Poynter. Compassion demands that Lynne Stewart be released immediately from prison so she and her family can fight for her life. Lynne Stewart, is political prisoner and a renowned human rights lawyer who is currently serving a ten year sentence at FMC Carswell TX. Please go to lynnestewart.org get active and sign the petition for compassionate release. Lynne Stewart Defense Organization 1070 Dean St. Brooklyn NY 11216 ralph.poynter@yahoo.com Over 20,000 and counting sign the petition! Please add your voice! If you have already signed the petition, please write a letter. They have the power to release Lynne now and must be encouraged to do so. Please write to: Mr. Charles E. Samuels, Jr., Director Federal Bureau of Prisons 320 First Street, NW Washington, DC 20534 Re: Lynne Irene Stewart, #53504-054 Compassionate Release Lynne Stewart Defense Organization 1070 Dean St. Brooklyn NY 11216 ralph.poynter@yahoo.com www.lynnestewart.org 917 853 9759

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There will also be another (no doubt, much larger) demonstration at the same location, organized by the DC area's Ethiopian Muslim community to draw attention to the gross anti-Muslim human rights violations being carried out by the Ethiopian government (see below).

Insha'Allah, I plan to show my support for both efforts.

Protest against the Injustices in Ethiopia
Tuesday June 18, 2013.
Time: 9:00am - 1:00pm.
1600 Pennsylvania Ave. NW
In front of the White House

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