2012-07-03 Great Aunt Sophie writes to her MP
Dear WikiLeakers:
I'm delighted that people are enjoying the Geek song and Great Aunt Sophie's midsummer spell.
My publicist Emma asked Aunt Sophie to share with you the letter she had written to her MP. Sophie was happy to oblige.
Emma wrote:
A blog I follow called for readers to write letters in support of Julian to their Members of Parliament. But I no longer live in England.
I could send an email detailing the prosecution's violations of the European Arrest Warrant procedure. I doubt anyone would notice it wasn't a UK address - do they even read these things?
I like to send paper copies, imagining piles of pro-Julian letters overflowing the desk of the assistant to the assistant to the officious official. But the stamps would be a dead giveaway.
Then I remembered my great aunt Sophie, who lives in West Yorkshire. She used to be quite a rabble-rouser; in her university days she was known as the Mother Jones of north Suffolk, or was it south Norfolk? I asked if she would write a letter in defence of Julian to her MP.
This morning I received a copy of her letter.
Crone Cottage
Wormhill, near Ducksbury
Ilkley Moor, W. Yorks.
HX5 9DF
To: Mrs. Linda Riordan, MP, Halifax
CC: Ms. Theresa May, Home Secretary
Mr. Nick Clegg, Deputy Home Secretary
Mr. David Cameron, PM
Mr. Thomas Hammarberg, Commissioner for Human Rights, Council of Europe
Dear High Muckety-Mucks:
I am an eighty-five-year-old Englishwoman living in a cottage outside Posslethwaite, miles from human habitation. My nearest neighbours are the farmers across the way, whom I watch every day herding their cows and repairing their dry stone walls. The closest pubs are The Inseminator's Elbow in Farmington, twenty kilometres, and The Cracked Code in Hackerdale, thirty-five kilometres - neither, it goes without saying, an establishment suitable for a lady.
Life would be bleak indeed were it not for my Internet connection. I used to spend hours numbing out with Monty Python re-runs, Sex In The City, and The Tudors. To keep my mind sharp I watched those TED talks. Then I saw one filmed in Oxford, an interview with a nice young man with white hair.
Three minutes into the young man's talk, his mobile phone goes off. "Goddamn it", he says, giggling, all legs and elbows as he reaches into his pocket to retrieve the fiendish thingie. The host ad libs, "It must be the CIA calling to ask about the code for a TED membership".
I was charmed.
I was not the only one.
This woman AA, for instance - right piece of work. Calls herself a lesbian, runs a lesbian nightclub called Fever. She invites the nice young man to give a talk, tells him she'll be gone, he can stay at her flat. Comes back a day early and offers to take him to dinner. Afterwards he can share her bed, or sleep on a mattress on the floor. Not the most difficult choice he's ever had to make.
But at some point they get into The Tussle Over The Condom. We've all been there. Most of the time you give in, because it's a turn-off to fight before you f - make love. It's also a turn-off to worry about getting pregnant or catching a disease, so you feel bad afterwards.
But that's a far cry from "rape". I read that neither the lesbian nor the cashmere sweater girl used that word. The police used it, and leaked the story to the tabloids. They wanted to stick it to the nice young man because he said they weren't holding governments and corporations accountable. They fought back by outing him - and the women. Once one paper cried rape, all the others took it up, without examining the evidence. Proving his point that they had no interest in "scientific journalism".
I showed Gertie a video of the nice young man accepting an award at the Oslo Freedom Forum. He wore jeans and a white shirt and carried a small laptop. He was so tall he had to bend over the microphone, shifting from leg to leg. His hair flashed silver against the blue backdrop.
An old man came up to him afterwards. "You are the only one which is sounding like a pure angel."
"A pure angel? Me? No, it's just the hair."
Gertie laughed and laughed. "That man never had to rape anyone", she said. "That man is fighting them off with a stick."
If you are determined to put someone in prison, how about that vacuous Yank hacker who turned in the gay bloke? Says he's a minister, rats on the kid, hands him over to the Feds to be tortured, then claims it's all the fault of the nice young man.
Who's paying him, I wonder. They should put him in a cell with the Swedish lesbian. He'd be a puddle on the floor in three days. Judas.
In closing, I beseech you to listen to your conscience. You are going to have to live with this decision for the rest of your lives. US government officials say the nice man has "blood on his hands" - talk about pots and kettles! I pray you don't end up with blood on yours.
I remain your most humble and obedient servant,
Sophie Goldstein, MSW, RN (ret.), DSFA
--
The Flower of Australia: Three Songs for Julian and his Friends
is scheduled for release on July 3rd, 2012
Julian's (In Prison) - The Geek Shall Inherit The Earth - The Flower of Australia
All proceeds go towards the defense of Julian Assange
$5-10 sliding scale
Signed and numbered pre-release copies $20
Mail checks to
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