Jacobin Radio pays tribute to the late Daniel Ellsberg, who was diagnosed with pancreatic cancer earlier this year and passed away on June 16 at age 92 . A committed, consequential activist with a moral compass that never left him, Ellsberg was always generous with his time. Shortly after he publicly announced his terminal illness, he took part in a Progressive Democrats of America Town Hall on April 9th, 2023, joined by Jacobin Radio producer Alan Minsky and Vietnam War historian Christian Appy. Ellsberg gives his thoughts on the current geopolitical situation, the continuing dire threat to humanity posed by heightened militarism and nuclear confrontation, and the need to keep fighting for progressive foreign policy. Looking back on his life, Ellsberg said, “When I copied the Pentagon Papers in 1969, I had every reason to think I would be spending the rest of my life behind bars. It was a fate I would gladly have accepted if it meant hastening the end of the Vietnam War.” Ellsberg spent decades working to alert the world to the perils of nuclear war and wrongful interventions. “As I look back on the last 60 years of my life,” he wrote recently, “I think there is no greater cause to which I could have dedicated my efforts.”
Jacobin Radio with Suzi Weissman features conversations with leading thinkers and activists, with a focus on labor, the economy, and protest movements.
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