Today Assange Walks Free, Tomorrow...?

It was our collective action that achieved this

Okay, it wasn’t perfect.

Julian Assange walks free because of a plea bargain that had him pleading guilty to a crime that many agree he did not commit.

But he’s out of prison, and reunited with the people he loves.

It seemed impossible, but then there he was on our screens boarding a plane.

Hasn’t a little piece of all of us been languishing in a jail cell with him?

Hasn’t a little piece of all of us been set free?

As his wife, Stella, said, it’s because of our unending activism that this happened.

We need to allow the release of Julian Assange from prison to encourage us.

If our activism achieved this, despite the misinformation and mean spiritedness of the mainstream media as pointed out by Jonathan Cook, what else will our activism bring about?

Any of us who has taken action that counters the mainstream narrative knows what’s involved: the meanness, the ridicule, the lies, the dismissiveness.

But we keep on anyways.

Why? Because we have a moral compass. It’s not hard for us to grasp that we can’t let serious injustices slide.

And we struggle. How many others feel an oppressive sense of melancholy and dread about where the current geopolitical situation is leading us? Sometimes we just want to give up.

But we carry on.

I’ve made a commitment to, as long as I’m breathing, keep doing everything I can to get to a future where all can thrive, where we have a just peace, and where we can finally afford to expend our energies on other things.

Why are we here? Isn’t this the challenge of being alive at this precarious moment?

And who knows what our continued activism will lead to?

Maybe tomorrow we’ll look at our social media feeds, and the bombs will have stopped dropping on Gaza. Maybe food and aid will be delivered.

Maybe the military industrial/fossil fuel complex will have been weakened, and the forces for peace and green energy will will have overtaken them.

As we bear witness together, share actions and information, and support each other we’re creating the world we yearn for.

We’re creating space for truth, right action, and caring relationships, and that’s what’s going to address the lies and dirty tricks that we’ve become so accustomed to from the western ruling class.

If Julian Assange is walking free when it seemed like it would never happen, what’s next?

Maybe we’re just a tiny membrane away from the world we want for our children and grandchildren.

Let’s keep that in mind as we keep on keeping on.