I'll never forgive him
Keaton is a funny guy but I will never pardon his appearance on SNL in April 2019 the week our beloved Julian Assange was forcibly removed and arrested from the Ecuadorian embassy in London where he had sought political asylum since 2012. Keaton enacted the role of Assange and the intention was to mock and ridicule this man who deserves our undying appreciation. The entire media Establishment in the US worked overtime that week to deride Assange and belittle his accomplishment in revealing war crimes in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as political graft all over the world. I know Keaton was merely reading off the cue cards SNL writers provided for him, but that he didn't use his celebrity status to stand up for what is right and refuse to participate in the sketch means I hold him as much accountable as Lorne Michaels and his staff. Other offenders that same week include Jimmy Fallon, Jimmy Kimmel, Trevor Noah, and (saddest of all) Stephen Colbert. I'm sure our colleagues in the UK can provide us with similar sellouts over there. These are not true satirists but lickspittles to power, with gags seemingly written for them by the State Department or the CIA. Now Assange languishes in London's maximum security Belmarsh prison in an attempt not only to silence him but to intimidate all other present or future whistleblowers and has been subjected to ludicrous hearings that have been a travesty of justice presided over by the awful District Judge Vanessa Baraitser. All of us owe an immense debt of gratitude to Assange and Wikileaks.
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