What’s the Belmarsh Tribunal? Begin quote from Progressive International:
Just after the bombshell revelations about the CIA plot to kidnap and assassinate WikiLeaks publisher Julian Assange while he sought political asylum in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, the Progressive International comes to London with the first physical Belmarsh Tribunal. The intervention comes ahead of Assange’s extradition proceedings, which are set to continue in London’s High Court from 27 to 28 October 2021.
Inspired by the famous Russell-Sartre people’s tribunal, the Belmarsh Tribunal places the War on Terror on trial and holds the US government accountable for its war crimes. It is named for the London prison that has held Assange in permanent confinement for the last two years, as he faces extradition to the US, whose government plotted his assassination. The Belmarsh Tribunal will hold its first physical proceedings in London on the 22 of October 2021 at the Convocation Hall, Church House, Westminster, which was used for sittings of parliament during the Second World War.
The Belmarsh Tribunal will gather leading figures from politics, the law and journalism, to shed light on the US crimes that were revealed by WikiLeaks – torture, violence, illegal spying – but also to speak about the existing crimes of both US and UK against Julian Assange for exposing their illegal and unjustifiable actions.
End quote.
The Belmarsh Tribunal was held on Oct 22nd, and the proceedings were published on YouTube.
Granted that we have urgent matters to attend to and don’t have too much time to spare on matters that appear remote to us. But I urge you to watch/listen to the video. It reveals to us an important and tragic aspect of the world we live in. It’s important for us to know the crimes that have been and are being committed by our governments to benefit the military-industrial complex. If we don’t care, then we are complicit in the crimes against humanity that governments commit.
Julian Assange, Edward Snowden, et al, are the visible, high-profile victims of the crimes of our governments (I include every major government — USA, UK, China, Russia, India, etc.) but nearly everyone of the nearly 8 billion inhabitants of earth are victims. The US government is the most powerful and it commits the most crimes against humanity. Even the Chinese cannot match the US military’s destructiveness.
The first thing we have to do to fight evil is to become aware of it, and to help others understand that evil is being done. Then we have to organize to fight the source of evil — the military-industrial complex that sucks the blood out of innocent citizens through taxes, and then uses those to finance wars around the world that kill in the hundreds of thousands.
Watch this video. You will understand that the real criminals that support the military-industrial complex (government officials) have ganged up to kill an innocent man because he dared to reveal their evil deeds. You will be sadder but wiser.
Previous posts about Julian Assange: Wikileaks is Good for You and Me (Dec 5, 2010), and Wikileaks Will Make the World a Better Place (Dec 17, 2010).
Life is a Random Draw 
US government has increased by around 10x in last 100 years.
But the fascinating part is that the people have out innovated US government even more rapidly. As a consequence even though US government steals around 50% of your income as taxes, what we can achieve with that 50% in terms of exercising our freedoms is lot more than in 1910s.
For example, in 1910 you were “more free” to own guns in USA. In 2021 there are far too many laws around guns and YET guns are much cheaper, more affordable, better guns, more gun shops etc. have made per capita gun ownership much much higher. In some sense people are able to exercise their right to own guns much better than in 1910s.
So in real sense people are more free to own guns today than in 1910.
Same goes for criticism of government. There are more restrictions on speech (indirect or direct) in 2021 than in 1910. Yet, something like twitter has made it possible to say “LetsGoBrandon” by directly tagging the president himself in it. Or to say Fuck Trump on a stage and then share that with your million followers in a jiffy.
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