This is the face of free speech in a culture of lies. The suffering is harrowing to behold. But don't look away. This is Julian Assange. Remember him? It is hard to tell if he is alive or dead in this photo (later reported to be AI-generated), but I will guess he is alive. He has to be. He must continue to exist, suspended in an eternal Anglo-American limbo of imprisonment, deprivation, torture, awaiting or is it fighting extradition; awaiting or is it fighting death. No, no, he mustn't die, says the Deep State, turning the screws just so tight and no tighter. His penalty for exposing our secet crimes is eternal torment here on earth where we reign as gods ... 

Why? Julian Assange, Wikileaks publisher, is the one uniquely brilliant and irrepressibly free man on earth who ever triumphed over the Demon State, at least for a time, by forcing into the light of day its darkest secrets. Obviously, he had to be stopped. And obviously, he must suffer, just this side of death, endlessly, As An Example. Of What Not To Do. Ever. Or Else.

And so I join the call, however impotently though sincerely, to "Free Julian Assange." Or, perhaps we should say Free Free Julian Assange, because Assange has always lived his life as one of the freest men in history. Free Free Julian Assange from the torture chamber of the Free World, which isn't free in the least.

Not that the historical irony is of any comfort.