Liberty, Vanunu, Dylan and Doors
On January 7, 2008, I received the following good news email from Mordecahi Vanunu:
Hi There,
The news:
The court hearing today postponed. Israel Gov' by their prosecutor agree to change the 6 months prison sentence to community service. Next the prosecutor will discuss with us which community service I will do. So all this trial and sentence for the last 3 years come to nothing.
Wishing you to see me free very soon,
vmjc
Ever since Vanunu was convicted in July 2007 and sentenced to six more months in jail for the interviews he gave foreign media in 2004, this civilian journalist has suffered a guilty conscience because I have been streaming 2005 and 2006 video of Vanunu on my site and YOUTUBE. I figured if Israel would send Vanunu back to jail for interviews nobody is reading anymore, what would they do to him for videos that are currently freely streaming on the World Wide Web?
This civilian journalist also owe
s her very career to Vanunu, so I am in his debt for he inspired me to realize my childhood dream of growing up to be Brenda Starr, the red headed ace investigative journalist of the Sunday comics. Because of a chance crossing of paths with Vanunu in June 2005 that lead him to share with me about his childhood and journey into Christianity, I was also inspired to imagine an adult hope; of becoming the 21st century Dorothy Day, a radical Christian who birthed The Catholic Worker newspaper that gave voice to the poor and oppressed in the 20th century.
Because I had been reporting on Vanunu's historic year and a half long freedom of speech trial in Jerusalem I was asked to speak in California on October 13, 2007-Vanunu's 53rd birthday- at the NO More Wars for Israel Conference, which had been dedicated to him. I went with the hope and desire to raise some funds for Vanunu's Defense before his January 8, 2008 appeal.
And another door opened to me when I heard another speaker there say,
"It was God that kept us afloat."
That speaker was Phil Tourney, a USS LIBERTY Veteran who has now become a brother, a friend and comrade in the good fight for justice for the USS LIBERTY.
Liberty also means freedom from captivity.
When Phil spoke those seven words, I immediately knew in my heart/gut, I had to do something. In less than three months, I have heard those same words affirmed by every USS LIBERTY survivor and supporter, I have thus far spoken with; and I have only just begun.
Although Vanunu's and the LIBERTY Vet's situations are very different, they are also very connected in my heart/gut. In both instances governments that claim to be democracies told truth tellers to SHUT UP and both governments have lied and covered up........
I made a phone call on January 5, 2008, to LIBERTY CENTRAL/Rich Schmucker. I thought I was just doing another USS LIBERTY article, but another door opened up to me.
Rich wasn't on the USS LIBERTY, the spy ship that Israel attacked and tried to destroy during the Six Day War, but he has been a supporter and accumulator of records galore about that day in infamy when the USA Government failed to support the troops, Congress went limp and the MSM went MIA.
Rich told me, "From 1963 until 1969, I was a CT, a Communications Technician stationed at the Naval base in Wahiawa, Hawaii. CT's are apart of the intelligence community and our work was classified. I never heard a word about what happened on June 8, 1967 in the Mediterranean until I was in a library in Auburn, Nebraska in 1979 and came across Jim Ennis's book, ASSAULT ON THE LIBERTY.
"I checked it out and after reading it, I became so dang angry because I hadn't heard anything about it while in the Navy, or in the newspapers or on TV, so I began doing research. Through the years I have obtained over two hundred pounds of documents and I have stuff the crew never even knew about. What I read opened more doors and I was led to contact Russians, Egyptians, Israelis and others and my phone bill was higher than a kite.
"I got the USA documents using the Freedom of Informatio
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3.22 Copyright (C) 2007 Alain Georgette / Copyright (C) 2006 Frantisek Hliva. All rights reserved."
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