PATRICE GREANVILLE • PAUL EDWARDS
Recently, Tom finally lost his battle with this unrelenting disease. Although this event will surely be ignored in the corporate media, and pass, therefore, unnoticed among the mass public, Tom's death is a big loss for all of us in the anti-imperialist and peace community, and certainly for humanity at large, which benefited greatly from his tireless activism. To push back against this unjust and insulting obscurity, we have asked our friend and contributing editor Paul Edwards to pen (once again) a few words to serve as a proper farewell.
Tom Feeley, who created and ran Information Clearing House for many years, died on September 9th. It is very hard to write of the loss of a man of such courage and character, when there are almost no standards of comparison; in a time when there are so very few like him, even in exile media, not one in the mainstream giants, and none in our national leadership. It is akin to writing a description of an extinct animal, of which the wide world has no knowledge and no familiarity. Tom was a plain, straight man, modest and unassuming, never given to advertising himself. He was, in many ways, an ordinary man, except in the those qualities that distinguish the most scrupulously ethical and morally brave among us. He was an immigrant who had come to America, drawn by our stated principles that have been so utterly and cynically expunged from national practice. He had been witness to that flagrant subversion and betrayal of all that had been promised at our creation, and it offended him to his core. In the madness that surrounded 9/11 and the tragic acceleration of our precipitous descent as a nation into a sinister moral darkness from which we will never be extricated, he felt a deep compulsion to do what little he could to contest and combat that terrible decline. He started ICH on the net. Over the next decades he ran it, against the national current of state sponsored propaganda, as an open forum and a welcoming editorial home for those who had the acuity and courage to tell the truth, to criticize and castigate falsehood, cruelty and injustice, and as Voltaire demanded, “Ecrasez l’Infame!”. Hail and Farewell, Tom. You were a hero. Paul |
The text below was first run on Oct 17, 2021:
My dear friend and senior contributing editor to this publication, Paul Edwards, has just alerted me to Tom Feeley's struggle to stay alive. For those in the genuinely progressive, anti-imperialist community, who, for some reason, never heard of Tom, let me just put it simply: Tom Feeley is editor at Information Clearing House, which he correctly describes as, "A fiercely, independent source of news and information." Yes, ICH is a key link in the ridiculously thin line of grotesquely underfunded websites still devoted to truth, truth when it matters most. ICH is a massive archive of genuine independent leftist analysis, and an invaluable tool in the contest with the forces working to impose an Orwellian world of fake democracy, constant war, widespread oppression and exploitation, and capitalogenic ecocide. Indeed, ICH would not be around without Tom's unwavering dedication. This is why Paul's fraternal words resonate so much in this quarter:
Tom himself filed an update last May on ICH, which I reproduce below:
Today, is my first attempt at returning to work and I hope that the ICH community will forgive my absence. I will be doing my best to return to regular daily updates but they will be somewhat reduced in content as I am determined to restore my health and provide news and insights that are not available on lamestream media. Again I want to thank you for your patience, support and good wishes.
Today, Tom filed his most recent personal update, and the news, as Paul had warned, was not good. By Tom Feeley Diagnosed with acute leukemia October 17, 2021 -- "Information Clearing House - Just wanted to say hi and give every member of our ICH community a big hug and huge respect. My doctor was treating me for long Covid and despite his best efforts I got to a situation where even one hour's work exhausted me. It got to the point that I was admitted to hospital in San Diego and a battery of tests suggested I might have leukemia, a marrow bone analysis confirmed I have acute leukemia I have been here for almost 3 weeks, where the doctors nurses and staff are working [to] get my cancer into remission. I am having daily chemotherapy. My laptop was delivered today and now I have the opportunity to post to the website and provide a newsletter, which may have less content but will still expose the corrupt system that inflicts so much pain in the world. I am so happy to be back following my passion. Seeking justice for all. For more than 20 years we have been providing information that our prostitute media are paid to ignore. We have built a community of (anti-war, pro-justice warriors) around the world. Click Here To Support Information Clearing House No Advertising - No Government Grants - This Is Independent Media Registration is necessary to post comments. We ask only that you do not use obscene or offensive language. Please be respectful of others.
Peace and Joy
Tom Feeley
I feel like I owe an apology for the lack of website and newsletter production to our group. As some of you know I got Covid19 in March of this year. This unfortunately led to problems with breathing and other symptoms.
If you can, please send our comrade Tom Feeley a note of support. I am certain he will appreciate it. In times like these, fraternal solidarity is everything. Risking the obvious, let me say we all wish our brother Tom Feeley a prompt and uneventful recovery. We need him in the trenches.
P. Greanville
Editor
The Greanville Post
NOTE: The ICH website and its daily newsletter were not established as a commercial enterprise. This service is free. We do not accept payments for publishing articles, we do not advertise or accept grants or Gov funds. This service is provided by our reader contributions only.
The views expressed herein are solely those of the author and may or may not reflect those of The Greanville Post. However, we do think they are important enough to be transmitted to a wider audience.
All image captions, pull quotes, appendices, etc. by the editors not the authors.
YOU ARE FREE TO REPRODUCE THIS ARTICLE PROVIDED YOU GIVE PROPER CREDIT TO THE GREANVILLE POST VIA A BACK LIVE LINK.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
[premium_newsticker id="211406"]
Don't forget to sign up for our FREE bulletin. Get The Greanville Post in your mailbox every few days.
[newsletter_form]
You are one amazing man, even if you are not a believer, I will be saying prayers for you and a speedy recovery.
I just discovered he passed away. His site was where I first started understanding the truth about USA government, Israeli aggression, and many more things back in the mid-2000s.
I noticed the site went down hill the last few years, but back when it first began, the Google boys hadn’t manipulated the search engines yet.
I wish him well on his next journey.