I gave a speech for the Socialist Equality Party Australia rally for Julian Assange today, and I figure I may as well share the transcript for those who weren’t able to be there:

Today is the day when the rubber meets the road.

Today is the day when the nice guy mask has been ripped from the face of the inverted totalitarian state under whose boot we live.

We were told, concern trolled, that it was all about his cat, his body odour, his love affair for Trump or Putin or the Catalan people, Nazis, rape, transistor radios, and his hatred of truth, justice and the American way.

A thousand different stories about what this was all about, all created to confuse the casual viewer as to what was going on. 

In the end, it was about what any clear-eyed rebel could see from day one. It was the reason he was granted asylum in the first place. The powerful people he embarrassed with his leaks want to punish him. He is being bullied by the power whose wrongdoings he exposed. And those powerful people want to make an example of him and send a message to all of us.

Now I’ve heard it said, and I’m sure you’ve heard this too, that this sting was timed in part so that it occurred within the timeframe of the caretaker government given our forthcoming federal election here in Australia on May 18th. They reckon this’ll be good for them. They reckon this’ll mean that nothing can be done!

Ha, yeah well I don’t think so mate. I know that I will bailing up every politician I see on every street corner and demanding to know what their position on Julian Assange is.

I know that I will be making this a core election issue from which they cannot sheepishly demur as they have done til now.

I know that this will be the election issue that will be the decider on who I vote for, and who I do not.

And I know that I am joined by many of my fellow Australians in my outrage.

Australians are pretty easy-going, but only to a point, and that point has been reached.

Australian politicians and the Australian media have been put on notice as of today – we will not lie down quietly and utter that infamous Aussie phrase of the defeated – “Aww well whatever you reckon’s a fair thing…”

Because this not a fair thing.

We will not let this rest.

We will not let a son of ours be made a precedent for the death of the free press everywhere.

That will not happen on our watch.

Because that’s what’s happening. He is the thin edge of the wedge for the death of press freedoms all around the world. 

Think about it – this is an Australian, wrenched from the Ecuadorian embassy, being held by the UK, for journalism via WikiLeaks which has no office or affiliation in the US at all.

The long arm of the US empire has shown that it can nab any journalist, anywhere in the world, if it doesn’t like what you’re revealing, whether you’re a citizen of theirs or not.