Political Martyrs
The U.S. government has now targeted Donald Trump as a dangerous national security threat. Washington has also concluded that Julian Assange, who is now close to being extradited to this country, is an even bigger threat to our security. The repellent Espionage Act is being invoked against both men.
The first man I regard as a demagogue and buffoon who hijacked this country's already tattered democracy, and instead of draining the Washington swamp, made it even more foul. The second man I regard as a human rights hero who has been victimized by a national security colossus that now reigns supreme (with the corporate media's collusion), surveilling all of us and managing dissent.
Both men are now political martyrs.
This essay in the New York Times convincingly argues that Trump will emerge politically stronger after his indictment on national security charges, just like he jumped in the polls after the New York district attorney indicted him for paying hush money to a porn actress.
Trump was actually sinking in the polls until the prosecutors got into the act. So, as this essay points out, Trump-haters have no reason to gloat about his legal travails, which he and his supporters believe (with some cause) is political persecution.
Trump should be tried by the voters, not by the courts. Is he "above the law." Yes, in our bitterly divided country, he should be. There are many people deemed too big to prosecute. Trump, as much I loath him, is one of those.
Assange, by contrast, is a genuine martyr. A man who had the courage to reveal the dark side of the U.S. empire -- what our weapons do to people every day somewhere on the globe. Norman Solomon calls this "War Made Invisible" -- the title of his excellent new book, which I'll have more to say about. Our taxes make this invisible war possible -- so does our silence.
Assange is Australian. Yet he's being dragged into the frightening U.S. criminal justice system by our long imperial reach. Will the U.S. media establishment -- which has long played a propagandistic role when it comes to "national security" -- allow this direct attack on its journalistic freedom to go forward? Maybe American journalists will finally do the right thing.
Maybe we all will.
Julian Assange, martyr