From Democracy Now!:
We spend the hour with Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg, who recently announced that he has been diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer with only months left to live. Ellsberg, who turned 92 on April 7, may be the world’s most famous whistleblower. In 1971, The New York Times began publishing excerpts of the Pentagon Papers — 7,000 pages of top-secret documents outlining the secret history of the Vietnam War. The Times exposé was based on documents secretly photocopied by Ellsberg and Anthony Russo while they worked as Pentagon consultants at the RAND Corporation. The leak ultimately helped to take down President Nixon, turn public sentiment against the War in Vietnam and lead to a major victory for press freedom. The Nixon administration went to extraordinary lengths to silence and punish Ellsberg, including breaking into his psychiatrist’s office. But the government’s misconduct led to charges against him and Russo being dismissed. Over the past five decades, Ellsberg has remained a leading critic of U.S. militarism and U.S. nuclear weapons policy, as well as a prominent advocate for other whistleblowers. “Why in the world are we in this position, time after time, of fighting against the self-determination or the nationalism of other countries, and taking on those murderous tasks as opposed to dealing with problems at home?” says Ellsberg in an in-depth interview with Democracy Now! A rush transcript is available here and here. The interview is in two parts below:
As we continue our in-depth conversation with Daniel Ellsberg, the famed Pentagon Papers whistleblower talks about his lifelong antiwar activism and responds to the more recent leak of Pentagon documents about the war in Ukraine. Ellsberg also reflects on the many people who inspired him and says others who look up to his example should know that the sacrifices for building a better world are worth it. “It can work,” he says. Ellsberg, who was recently diagnosed with inoperable pancreatic cancer and given just months to live, spoke to Democracy Now! last week from his home in Berkeley, California.
Can Democracy Now! Explain their strong anti Russian stance and refusing to interview certain journalist?
that sounds suspiciously like a rhetorical question
Yeah, I don’t know what happened to Amy Goodman. She was a very courageous journalist, almost getting killed by the Indonesian military for covering Indonesia’s massacre in East Timor, and Democracy Now! used to be a great news show.
I started noticing a downward slide when Goodman started giving way too much time to these stupid woke and identity politics issues when Obama was president (not saying that it was connected to Obama, just saying when it happened). After that, she seemed to get TDS like a lot of other former progressives and former leftists, but whatever the problem was made me stop watching Democracy Now! when she started Russiagating. I’d been watching since its inception, and had listened to her even before that. And the whole Pacifica Network went down the toilet with her; I also stopped listening to my local Pacifica radio station when it started Russiagating, and I’d been listening to it since the early 1980s.
This is all not just sad, but totally sucks in every way. I’m sure the ruling class and their minions & supporters are happy about it, but they’re the only ones who benefit.