New series of Derek begins

Ricky Gervais’ comedy/drama Derek returned to UK television last week, this time for a full series. The pilot had apparently been controversial for some, but I just remember being pleasantly surprised by Gervais’ kind but coarse treatment of delicate issues such as disability and the care profession. He did so in a way that was both heartwarming, without ever becoming saccharine, and simple, without ever being boring. A lot of critics seemed unconvinced, but I think they were missing the point, assuming that Gervais was either taking cheap shots at vulnerable people, or that he was attempting some sort of ‘clever’ post-modern ‘so-shit-its-cool’ maneuver.  But this is a sitcom only in the loosest definition of the term, and the only people Gervais is deliberately mocking, are those who get offended mainly as a cover for their own thinly-veiled prejudices. I read a rather scathing review of Derek in The Daily Telegraph today. Nuff said.

The first episode had me laughing out loud a few times, it is definitely very funny – but as with the pilot, the new material is as much to do with empathy as it is to do with cracking jokes. Maybe this is where some of the show’s critics are left wanting. They don’t seem to understand that Gervais is taking the piss out of them. He’s having a go at how, when we see someone we perceive to be different to ourselves, we feel the need to categorise them, and that that category can stop us seeing them as real people – with interests, passions, quirks, humour and emotion.

Coupled with his genuine love for the character, it is palpable that Gervais has created Derek in order to get across his statement about society’s attitudes. When the pilot of this show aired in Spring 2012, a lot of people (critics and newspaper columnists in particular) speculated that the character is Autistic – something which Gervais has denied in the press previously (stating in an interview with The Sun in March last year, ‘I’ve never thought of him as disabled’) and which he brazenly referenced towards the end of the first episode of this series. When a Council representative visiting the retirement home insensitively questioned Derek as to whether he had ever been tested for Autism, Derek offered a stream of questions about what would happen, should he be Autistic, such as, ‘Would I die?’, ‘Would I have to go into a hospital?’ and ‘Would it change me in any way as a person?’. Having received a ‘no’ to all of these queries, our eponymous hero simply said ‘Don’t worry about it then’. In this small dialogue, which lasted no more than a minute, Gervais perfectly summed up his feelings: so what if Derek is Autistic? Can’t we just enjoy him for the unassuming, kind-natured person he so clearly is without questioning whether he has a disorder or not? For Gervais to reply to his critics so concisely through the mouth of Derek was perfect and ingenious. From: http://uktvreviewer.wordpress.com/2013/02/03/derek-episode-1-1-review/

Gervais isn’t scared of getting political either – the main theme of the first installment is public sector cuts. The care home is threatened with closure due to shrinking budgets, and Gervais does a very good job of humanizing this modern problem. It makes for compelling viewing and a very effective strike against this current trend for passing the world’s economic woes onto those who struggle to look after themselves.

All of the characters in Derek represent those at the very bottom of the modern economic food chain –  low-paid public sector workers, the disabled, the elderly, the poor and the unemployed – sections of our communities that have been hit hardest by the Tories’ austerity drive, and subsequently demonized by politicians to justify the attack. Derek forms a much needed antidote to this insidious propaganda, and does so simply by being gentle and honest.

Derek is by no means perfect, and some of the criticisms that have been made of it in other reviews are justified – but I would counter that by noting many may be slamming it because they don’t like the politics. Empathy may be a dirty word now in Tory Britain, but this show is chock full of it – which is exactly why I like it.

Check the first episode out here on 4od:

http://www.channel4.com/programmes/derek/4od

Are Right Wingers Scared of Dependency?

I’ve just been alerted to an interesting article in Psychology Today by Michael Bader (a psychologist from San Francisco), hypothesizing that right-wing attitudes to health care reform may come from a deep-seated fear of dependency. There’s some interesting ideas in here, whether you agree with him or not, it certainly gets you thinking. Often people cite the pursuit of freedom as their primary reason for being against Government-run healthcare. But surely this is irrational? If you are desperately sick and can’t afford to pay to see a doctor you are far from ‘free’ in any sense. In these type of cases Obamacare would increase the level of people’s freedoms. Why are people opposing policy that will ultimately benefit them? Is it that they don’t want to accept a societal responsibility to help others who can’t help themselves? Surely freedom and responsibility are two sides of the same coin, and one without the other is an illusion? Bader tries to plumb the deep psychological depths of these questions and comes up with some interesting suggestions.
Read it here

Al Thawra (work still in progress)

Don’t stop fighting for freedom Egypt

owen jones, cringing in the shadow of margaret thatcher

^^^

I’m usually a fan of Owen Jones’ work. I thought ‘Chavs’ was a good book that said some important things that had gone very much un-said in recent times, where even supposed ‘lefties’ started bashing the lowest echelons of our increasingly stratified society. This post from the Commune raises some good points about his views and positioning however; I can’t help but agree with the author that his misplaced faith in New New (One Nation) Labour will lead a lot of his followers and fans to disappointment.

Nude Egyptian Protests Morsi

Today in Stockholm

Femen are certainly not scared of a little controversy – and neither is anti-islamist Egyptian activist Alia Magda al Mahdi, for that matter.

Alia became famous for publishing a nude photo of herself on her blog about a year ago, describing the act as “screams against a society of violence, racism, sexism, sexual harassment and hypocrisy”, positioning herself as a “secular, liberal, feminist, vegetarian, individualist Egyptian” and an atheist since turning 16. She was recently denied entry into France where she was to participate in a nude protest by feminist provocateurs, Femen, outside the Egyptian embassy in Paris. The organisation claimed that Alia had been denied entry into the country by “European secret services”, and that “Unknown forces affecting the management of airlines Lufthansa and Scandinavian airlines” had deprived her of the opportunity to travel to the protest – although there seems to be little evidence for such a conspiracy at the moment.

Alia wrote this about the event on her blog four days ago:

“Yesterday, I was going to protest against the Egyptian draft constitution with Femen and other Arab women in front of the Egyptian embassy in Paris.

One day before, Inna Shevchenko booked me a plane ticket from Gutenberg Landvetter Airport to Paris on Lufthansa and paid for it online, but I couldn’t check-in at the airport. The ticket office woman told me that my ticket was canceled because the payment was not completed. I thought it was an error and had another Femen member buy me a ticket for the next flight on Scandinavian Airlines. I got a boarding pass, checked-in, passed airport security and was waiting for my flight. Then, the same woman came to me and told me that she got a warning about me and I have to show her the credit card used to pay for the ticket and it has to be mine or I will not take that flight. I replied that thousands of people travel with tickets paid for by other people everyday, event holders always pay for participants’ travel expenses, I traveled this way three times before on KLM and Ryan Air and the first ticket was also paid for by someone else. She spoke to me in a not nice way, took the boarding pass and told me to collect my luggage. The woman who gave me my luggage removed the sticker that was stuck to it when I checked-in.

I am disappointed that my freedom of expression is also oppressed in Europe.”

Undeterred by this little hiccup, Femen activists travelled to Stockholm to meet Alia and stage a nude protest there instead – outside the Egyptian embassy.

Femen’s ‘press release’ :

“International women’s movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt!

Apocalypse of Muhammad

Today in the snowbound Stockholm the world has seen apocalyptic picture. 

International women’s movement FEMEN and antiislamist Egyptian activist Alia al-Mahdi have called to say NO to Sharia constitution in Egypt! Before the decisive day of the referendum in Egypt activists came to the Embassy of Egypt in Stockholm to support Egyptian heroes who are resisting the sharia-dictatorial draft of the constitution of the president Morsi. FEMEN calls people  of Great Egypt to deny this religious bondage of newly appeared prophet Morsi and to give the chance for Egypt for the rightful democratic development.

“Sharia is not a constitution” – it has been written on Alia’s naked body. Her genitals have been covered by the poster shaped like Koran. The three posters in the hands of activists are the symbolic  religious books. In that way  FEMEN warns the world about the danger of the transformation secular constitution into religious. FEMEN warns muslim brother Morsi, if he gave an orders to shoot at his own people then his last resting will be the Nile with crocodiles, not the pyramids. 

Fuck off religious slavery! Viva freedom and human rights!”

Post on Femen website

Alia al-Mahdi’s Blog

Update: This video of the protest has just been posted by Femen on Vimeo

Why Socialism X: Socialised Capital

How would a nascent Socialist State get hold of the necessary financial resources to build new services and re-tool old ones? Mammoth opposition from the privileged layers of the old regime will not make it easy…

Read more on Shape

Why the VICE generation are apocalyptic and frightened

Vice Magazine’s Alex Miller interviews one of Red Eye’s favourite filmmakers, Adam Curtis, in this new piece called Looking Beneath the Waves. In the article Curtis shares some of his latest theories on why the news (in its current guise) is unable to shed any light on the real reasons for the global financial meltdown, why economics is a failed pseudo-science, why a whole generation has grown up to be supremely cynical and paranoid, and the frightening reality of a world in which no-one really knows what’s happening, including both the journalists and politicians that pretend to have all the answers.

A must read.

The 12 Tax Dodgers of Christmas!

So many corporations seem to be at it, it maybe easier to list the one’s that aren’t exploiting tax loopholes (and then nationalise the rest!)

Tony Benn gives BBC a bollocking over Gaza

Rich People Don’t Go To Jail They Go To Inquiries

A Remix Manifesto

Protest Report: A Future That Doesn’t Work

We attended the TUC’s Future That Works rally in London at the weekend, to stand with those that oppose the Tories’ relentless austerity measures, and to take a few photos of what went on. Hampered by injuries and fatigue, we maybe weren’t pumped into our usual revolutionary fervor, but I couldn’t help but notice it wasn’t just us that seemed subdued. There can be no doubt that the turnout was good (estimates range from 100,000 to 250,000 participants), there was a lot of good drumming, placards and chants – but that’s where it seemed to end. It’s not that the mood was defeatist, it was more that the methods were conservative and the aims watered-down. While there were many calls for a General Strike amongst protesters on the street, there was little in the way of direct action, anger or real dissent. I’ve noticed that TUC rallies tend to me more populist and ‘middle-of-the-road’ than Occupy and UK Uncut et al, maybe necessarily so, but the real revolutionary contingent seemed missing this time around. What with Ed “One Nation Tory” Milliband speaking at the rally, with what basically amounted to a watered-down version of the Condem’s view on cutting the deficit, and a march that seemed more like a procession – it did appear that the movement had lost a little momentum, and was beginning to settle for ‘the lesser of two evils’.

This seems particularly strange in the current climate, as austerity begins to bite across the globe, with riots, general strikes and murmurs of revolutionary ideas beginning to appear in Greece and other European countries, my initial thought was maybe there just isn’t an appetite for that sort of conflict here in the UK.

But, on doing some reading when I got home, about what went on running up to the march on the 20th of October, it seems that the TUC were complicit in making the march as passive as possible. Read The TUC collaborate with the Met to sew up October 20 for more info on this. Further commentary on how the TUC handed the Met a list of 150 “violent activists” – from Libcom.org

If the trade unions are pushing to get Labour re-elected, and want to improve their image with the powers that be in order to do so, then this sort of conformity is to be expected, and their ‘Future that Works’ amounts to nothing more than ‘we’ll shut up for a promise of slightly less austerity’.

Another good post from Libcom.org, on the ‘state of the movement’ seems to confirm my suspicions that the right wing of the left was laying down the rules of engagement on the 20th of October. Read it here.

Anarchist Jailed For Remaining Silent

Clay and the Collective Body

Just read a really interesting interview with sculptor Antony Gormley (in New Scientist magazine, of all places) that had a surprisingly political slant.

His recent installation Clay and the Collective Body explores “conversations between people – through objects or through the process of creating” by locking 100 random people in a stark white environment, with only a monolithic block of clay for entertainment. This “gave rise to an extraordinary and explosive outpouring of, you could say, collective unconciousness.”

This alien place seemed to trigger something in the participants, something primal that if I was more of a “yogurt-weaver”, I may be tempted to call a universal human connection – certainly the only familiar sight were other people, and the only way of killing time was to create.

“What’s absolutely beautiful is the way that people have occupied that space and become the absolute opposite of what capitalism wants us to be – passive consumers of spectacle, of information, of entertainment, of objects of desire – they become participatory and productive and cross-fertilising.” I thought it was particularly apt that Gormley chose to use the word occupy in that context.

Although Gormley goes on to state that he never intends to make overt political statements with his work, he lets slip that “…there’s no question that many of my works, in different ways, are asking about the connection between humans and our environment. And I think that all my installations in cities of the naked human animal in effigy form – surrogate fossils, industrialised fossils – are asking, where does humankind fit? Now that we seem to be well into the sixth great extinction, how long are we going to contribute to the evolution of life? Those are very big issues”  – and undoubtedly political ones.

Another subject that Gormley brings up in the interview, that is also a favourite of my own, is that of Easter Island.

This ‘ghost island’ captured my imagination from a very young age, as it seems to encapsulate the power that art and iconography can hold over people, our self-destructive tendencies, the damage that can be caused by a flawed belief system and the folly of excess that human civilization seems prone to follow.

“What was in the mind of the man or woman on Rapa Nui who cut down the last tree? It seems the answer to that question is “Well, I cut down this tree because that was what my father did and that was what my father’s father did.” I think we’re in the same position, but we are running on the myth of progress. My work is there to ask pretty serious questions about how we can shift our perception of what constitutes viable human actions or viable human behaviour.”

I always thought there was an eerie connection between Gormley’s sculpture and the statues on Easter Island, and I’m pleased to learn my instincts were close to the mark. Both signify mankind’s strange detachment from the world that bore him, and the lonely marks left on the land after he has gone.

Gormley also goes on to criticise elitism and the determinism of scientific progress – it is a thoroughly thought provoking and enlightened article, that has once again piqued my enthusiasm for art’s potential to induce change, by making us take a long, hard, look in the collective mirror.

Read the whole interview in New Scientist

Culture in Decline

Very good overview of modern economics and how it’s fucking things up. Thoroughly recommended.

The Sun should run…

From Sabotage Times

What next for Libya

The attack on the US Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, and the subsequent deaths of the US Ambassador and three other Americans has brought this troubled country back on everybody’s agenda. It has been out of the news for some time now because, from the Western Powers point of view, there had been nothing “good” to report.

In spite of mammoth support for sections of the then opposition against Gaddafi by these major powers, without which he would certainly NOT have been overthrown even now (as Syria is certainly proving), they are certainly not getting what they expected from their expensive intervention.

But that support, mostly military and using both missiles and attack aircraft, still could not guarantee the dominance of that section of the opposition preferred by their western collaborators (and another look at Syria proves that also).

Read the rest on the Shape Blog

Rap News 15

The Revolution Will Be Televised

New BBC comedy series The Revolution Will Be Televised is actually rather good! Like Dom Joly with some more balls, or the Love Police with actual jokes; it is great anarchic fun for all the family, down to earth but with a surprisingly satirical left-wing edge.

Recommended light relief for all those suffering from Tory-itis in these challenging times. If you can’t beat em, laugh at em 😉

Episodes should be up on iPlayer for a few weeks I would’ve thought – here’s a link to their BBC page

Big up the beeb! (and I don’t say that very often)

Assange interviews the President of Ecuador

Putin Lights Up the Fires

New single from Pussy Riot

From The Guardian

“Tax Dodging Is Morally Wrong”

YOU are paying for THEIR mistakes

“…the solution to the financial crisis can only be to make the Working Class PAY! They will be forced into a poorer state continually – over a period of years. Certainly NOT a one-off loss (as is inferred) at all, but, on the contrary, a rate of getting poorer every day by around 3% over a year. And the unemployed will be poorer at an even greater rate!

So, as the Governor stated, it will take a long time to get enough from the Working Class to “foot the bill” produced by the Banks and the speculators.

And a true graph of purchase-ability by the Working Class will show a long period of getting less and less from the money they have earned.

Can you stomach this theft?”

Read the whole post here

The Pussy Riot Trial

I never thought I’d say this, but massive respect to Madonna for her stunt supporting Pussy Riot. People like Yoko Ono and Sting have made statements in support of the band and stuff, but only Madonna went to Russia personally and performed in front of a crowd of thousands of people with their name scrawled across her fucking back! I know she’s a master of cynically using controversy for her own publicity and everything, but fair play to her for this one – I just hope it makes sufficient impact. The fact that sentencing has been delayed may indicate that they are wavering under growing public support for Pussy Riot’s plight.

Madonna’s performance certainly seems to have offended the right people, with a Russian deputy Prime Minister (and former ambassador to NATO) tweeting “With age, every former slut tries to lecture everyone on morality” and a priest from the Russian Orthodox church urging believers to call in bomb threats to disrupt the gig! It sounds like they are clutching at straws to me. You can read more on this in The Guardian.

Pussy Riot’s closing statements yesterday took the form of a rousing speech against the authoritarian regime in Russia, leaving no doubt in my mind that these women are true freedom fighters and intelligent artists who have been demonized as part of a wider crackdown on dissent in the country.

The closing statements from Nadezhda Tolokonnikova in trial. 8 august 2012:

“Yesterday (on the 7th of August according to the website lenta.ru) Madonna’s performance took place. Madonna performed with the inscription “Pussy Riot” on her back. More and more people see that we are kept in pre-trial prison illegally and because of an absolutely false accusation. I am astounded by it. I am astounded by the fact that truth really triumphs over lies though we are physically here, in the cage. We are freer than all the people sitting opposite us on the side of the prosecution because we can say everything we want and we do it. As for the people from the side of the prosecution, they say only words passed by a political censor. They can’t say such words as “punk-prayer” and “Virgin Mary, redeem us of Putin!” They can’t say the lines from our punk-prayer that are related to the political system. They probably think that another reason why we are to be put into prison is our rebellion against Putin and his system. But they can’t say it because they are prohibited to do it. Their mouths are sewn. Unfortunately, they are just puppets at this trial. I hope they will realize it and will also head for freedom, truth and sincerity because all this is more important than static nature, affected decency and hypocrisy.

Because we don’t really have religious hatred, and never had it, our accusers have no choice but to resort to using a false witnesses. One of them – Motilda Ivashchenko -got ashamed and did not appear in court. And there is no more evidence of our hatred and enmity, in addition to this so-called expertise. Therefore, the court, if it would be honest and fair, must admit inadmissible evidence, due to the fact that this is not a rigorous scientific and objective text, rather dirty and mendacious piece of paper times of medieval inquisition.

Prosecution is ashamed to voice excerpts from lyrics by PussyRiot, because they are in fact the evidence of the lack of motive. I’ll present you this excerpt here, I think it’s very valuable. It’s from the interview for the “Russian Reporter” magazine, that was given on the next day after the performance in the Chuch of Jesus The Savior: “We feel great respect to any religion and to orthodoxy in particular, that’s why we’re so distressed about that, so great and so positive as it is, Christian Philosophy is being used in such a filthy way. Our brain is getting blown out by that all this beauty is being now used from the back. All of this is quite painful to observe.

14:47 In the end I’d like to quote one of the Pussy Riot’s songs, as if curiously enough all of them turned to be fateful. Including the one which says: “Head of the KGB, their major saint, guides the protesters to detention under escort”.

15:06 And what I’m going to quote right now is this very line: “Open all doors, take off your shoulder straps, feel the air of freedom with us”.”

Good luck Pussy Riot, you have our love and respect.

Free Pussy Riot Now!

Digital Amnesty

Earning a Living is Bollocks

Ragged Kingdom Closing Party

Artist and anarchist Jamie Reid, perhaps best known for his work with the Sex Pistols, is currently exhibiting a retrospective of his work at Temple Works in Leeds. The exhibition is on until the July 14th closing with an evening of experimental music and art curated by the Urban Exploration collective.

Interview with Jamie Reid
Urban Exploration Page

Urban Exploration will present a 4 hour epic set involving collaborative improv with Oliver Knight (spoken word), Jenny Komowsky (classical singing), Rowan Reid (singer/songwriter), Umcorps (modular synthesist), and a Navajo indian spirit dancer….all with a backdrop of tipis, interactive visuals and the largest reverb room ever!

More info on this event from Temple Works

Who’s George? Find out on the final night of Jamie Reid’s Ragged Kingdom at Temple.Works.Leeds, July 14, 7:00 pm – 1:00 am.

A fundraiser for St George’s Crypt homeless shelter in memory of our much loved porter Brian Bird (1959 – 2012), the night will see Jamie himself back at Temple.Works.Leeds.  An evening of extraordinary experiences will include experimental electronic ambient collective Urban Exploration collaborating with an opera singer, a poet, a singer songwriter (Jamie’s daughter Rowan), a hip-hop mc and a modular synthesist, and an acoustic set by Brian’s friends the Urban Stage Band – moving  from the Joiners bar into the Open Loading bay for a night of sound, light and …dancing by our surprise guest, Dennis Lee Rogers, the Spirit Dancer of the Navajo Nation in proximity to Jamie’s immense tipis which form part of his ongoing work around the Eightfold year. Celebrated dancer, artist and educator, Dennis met Jamie Reid in 1998 while on tour in U.K and returned to open Ragged Kingdom.in London in October 2011  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1q2Impc6pM8. Jamie’s piece Corporate Slavery currently hung in the Joiner’s Bar Main Gallery Space features Dennis himself.

Facebook Event Page

Why Comedians?

In the wake of the current onslaught against first, Jimmy Carr, and now Frankie Boyle for exploiting tax loopholes, the obvious question is why are comedians bearing the brunt of the flack against this endemic practice? Whether or not they are guilty of “moral” crimes (as David Cameron, of all people, would have it) ignorance or just “thrift” – neither of them had broken the law as it currently stands, but simply “managed” their accounts using the same old methods rich people have been using for generations. Creative accountancy is booming business and tax evasion is nothing new. Cameron’s own family fortune was made in tax havens. So is it one rule for big business and another for the rest of us? Why call comedians out for their financial activities when it is so common place among all the wealthy? Is it because they are accused of hypocrisy – undermining the moral high ground they appear to take in their performances? Are they just being called out to set an example because they are household names? Or is it just plain old mudslinging?

Arguably comedians have greater sway over public opinion than most politicians these days, and that may make them a legitimate target on the political playing field. Both Carr and Boyle have been critical of the government and the right-wing media in the past, and both are very popular performers, potentially influencing the opinions of millions of voters. Satire is still one of the most effective weapons against authority, and maybe it is beginning to be treated as such by those who wish to maintain the status quo, and those who have the most to lose in a swing to the left – people like The Daily Mail and David Cameron – the very people lining up to sling the mud. I very much doubt that this is a coincidence – either way it seems very convenient for them!

Frankie Boyle hit back at the allegations in The Daily Mail, tweeting:

“Amazed to read a Daily Mail story that is bollocks. Whatever next? I’m going to stick up the details as soon as my accountant wakes up.”

and

“From 2007 I have paid £2.7million in tax and this equates to just under 40% of my income. 1/5”

and

“I am certain I pay more tax than most people in show business and the cabinet. 5/5”

I propose, if this new wave of investigating comedian’s bank accounts is to continue, that the same should take place for all those who work at (and own) The Daily Mail group, the cabinet and every single Tory MP in the houses of parliament. Anything less would be grossly unfair to comedians. Now let’s see whose shirt is clean…

Shape on Austerity

“Are you wondering what is going on among the leaders of the Euro Zone of the European Union? Do you, along with British Prime Minister Cameron and his Tory colleagues, put the whole thing down to their stubborn refusal to act! Or do you decide that all such efforts to rationalise our World (including the lauded United Nations) are doomed to failure from the outset. Yet what is really happening is certainly none of these things! It is the final Dissolution of the Fictitious Value on which Capitalism rests. It is the regularly occurring and inevitable Crisis of Capitalism!”

More articles on Socialism and the collapse of Capitalism have recently been published on Shape Blog:

Austerity: The Rape of the Poor

The Major Crisis in World Capitalism

The latest in the Why Socialism series: The Essential Development of Marxist Theory 1

The Absurd Contradictions of Capitalism

The Price of Being a Western Dissident

Julian Assange is doing humanity a favour by exposing through the US Embassy Cables that “Oil motivates U.S. policy more than fighting terrorists” and that the killing and torturing of tens of thousands of civilians by the US and NATO forces in Iraq and Afghanistan through the Iraq War Logs and Afghanistan War Logs is evidence of war crimes.

However, to Assange’s dismay, as a western dissident, he does not enjoy the soft-power of being a Chinese dissident. The “free” world politicians fail to acknowledge the nobility of his work in exposing human rights violations and war crimes committed by NATO and the US. President Obama described his act as a “deplorable documents dump”; former House Speaker, Newt Gingrich believed that he should be “ treated as an enemy combatant”; Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell called him a “high-tech terrorist”; while Sarah Palin wanted him to be “hunted down like al-Qaeda.” Other politicians including some mainstream media “pundits openly call for his death.”

As an instant response, WikiLeaks has been blocked from being accessed by federal employees of the US. It is the same in Germany.

Read the rest of the article on dissidentvoice.org