Freedom of the press is dying in America. Julian Assange is the canary in the coal mine. The government of the United States wants to shut him up forever for telling the American people the truth about serious crimes, lies and treachery our leaders have been visiting on various people around the world and us, too, in so many other ways.

I understand that our criminal government doesn’t like its crimes and indecencies being circulated to the people it is trying so hard — and in my view successfully — to render ignorant, impotent and subservient. The crimes being visited on Assange are a threat to us all. When and if they are successful in taking away his freedom, they will be taking away ours too. Every journalist and every decently educated U.S. citizen should be defending him. Almost all of America’s corporate press now exclusively prints on a daily basis our government’s lies while at the same time hiding important truths that we all have the right to know about. And this is happening at an accelerating rate. We are losing our freedoms inch by inch, and inch by inch, our would-be masters are becoming more emboldened. Are we losing our collective will to live in freedom?

Despite what I see being published elsewhere every day, I am grateful that this newspaper still offers us some hope. In fact, I believe the people on this little island and this newspaper could be the necessary spark to change the direction of history if we wanted to.

— Mark Goldman