The things that informed me most were my experiences in fighting for freedom of the press, freedom to communicate knowledge – which, in the end, is freedom from ignorance. Secondly, [were] my experiences in understanding how the military-intelligence complex works at a practical level. I saw that publishing all over the world was deeply constrained by self-censorship, economics and political censorship, while the military-industrial complex was growing at a tremendous rate, and the amount of information that it was collecting about all of us vastly exceeded the public imagination.

I just got back from a trip, and in the mail was a Rolling Stone magazine. So typical, it is part pop culture, trying to stay in touch with young people and at the same time wanting to connect with older generations too. So on the cover is David Bowie (John Lennon has the week off), and inside is a full length interview with Julian Assange. Oh yeah – did I also say that Rolling Stone* is one of the few publications in the United States that does actual journalism?**

I set the magazine by my chair, but elected not to read the interview last night as I did not want to become agitated before sleepy time. I read it this morning. I’m not agitated. It’s more depressing than infuriating. The power of the United States National Security State (NSS) is so impressive that it cannot be well-described. It is felt via Assange and Bradley Manning as ominous, far-reaching and oppressive. We are not a free country. I knew that, but did not feel the weight of the oppression in totality until I read his words.

It’s one thing to see him destroyed – he knows that what he was told by a “Western intelligence source,” that he is “fucked,” is true. Whether he is nabbed by Karl Rove’s buddy Carl Bildt in Sweden, or whether the US brings him home via British extradition laws, he’ll likely never experience freedom again. Obama*** intends to fry him, and he has at his disposal the full weight of the military-industrial complex. Companies that have attempted to help him lose clients, individuals lose their jobs. The US media is assassinating his character – there are over twenty million links to him and “rape” now on the Google. MasterCard, Visa and PayPal have conspired against him and yet there are no legal proceedings against the companies in their conspiracy against him – not a good sign. There is complicity, top to bottom, among the corporate, military, media and government wings of the NSS.
Continue reading “Freedom from ignorance” →

Jhwygirl writes about a political discussion hosted by the Policy Insitute last week. The event was not recorded so that the candidates could speak freely. Not kidding. That’s how we roll.

During the event Rep Kim Gillan of Billings is said to have remarked that last year’s oil spill on the Yellowstone River was a benefit. Her words, as cited by jhwygirl:

…there are people in Billings that think the oil spill was a good thing, that it was good for business. They are looking at their watches and asking can we do this again next year?”

It’s not clear from that brief remark whether she is being sarcastic. I doubt it. I ran for legislature in Billings in 1996 and Gillan was a fellow candidate, one of two or three successful ones. I was terribly unimpressed with her at the time, not sensing any progressive impulses in her. She struck me as a right wing Democrat. I would not fully comprehend until the year 2000 how much the Democratic Party leadership despises progressives**.

I am going on memory here now, but as I remember, Gillan, the wife on a physician, had gotten a later-life masters in economics. Most likely she studied neoclassical economics, and credulously sponged it up – I was not impressed by her intellectual firepower. But she learned duckspeak, and was thereby set to go into politics properly trained in right wing economics.

I believe in public education, and that our brains and grades should be the guide by which we advance, and not our bank accounts. I wonder if Gillan would survive in a merit-based system. The remark above, if cited correctly, is testimony to the Carolyn Kennedy* syndrome: too much education wasted on too little brain.
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*To avoid the tinge of sexism, this could also be called the “Steve Forbes Syndrome.” It is not gender-based, but rather a phenomenon of
privilege, where people like Gillan, Forbes, and George W. Bush have access to higher education without meriting it. They are taught the words, but never quite grasp the music. In Bush’s case, it made him a dangerous man. The others are just annoying.
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**I hasten to add that I brought about my own electoral defeat without assistance from anyone.

Glenn Greenwald cites Law Professor Jonathan Turley in listing the assaults on the Bill of Rights taking place in the post 9/11 environment, first brought on by the George W. Bush Administration and now intensified by Obama:

1. Assassination of U.S. citizens;
2. Indefinite detention;
3. Arbitrary justice;
4. Warrantless searches;
5. Secret evidence;
6. War crimes;
7. Secret court;
8. Immunity from judicial review;
9. Continual monitoring of citizens;
10. and Extraordinary renditions.

Any student of post-war America realizes that all of this went on from VJ day forward. The US was in a position of unparalleled power, and the people who ran the country were no less susceptible to absolute corruption than anyone before. It happened quickly, with passage of the National Security Act of 1948, changing the name of the War Department to “Defense,” and conversion of the wartime OSS into the peacetime CIA. Soon thereafter came McCarthyism and the attack on civil liberties in the name of anti-communism. Wars, major and minor, were routine.
Continue reading “They are always with us …” →

Let’s see now … we’ve invaded without just cause, killed thousands of civilians, dropped bombs on wedding parties, used drones for random killings … what else can we do …what else can we do to help these people? Thinking …. thinking…
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PS: The War Department says that the four soldiers have been identified and that charges could be brought as early as today (Friday, 1/13). This sends a powerful message to all other soldiers in our various wars: “Dammit, you guys, would you poleeeeease fer Chrissakes look around as see if someone has a camera running?”
PPS: I don’t see any weaponry around the dead guys, probably stripped of guns, but then there is always the possibility that these are not soldiers. The War Department says they are “Taliban Fighters,” which roughly translated is like “Al Qaeda'” or a name we use to designate subhumans that are OK to kill or torture (killing being the easiest way out for them). For all we know, these could be perfectly innocent people, not even fighting back. The one on the left could even be female, or perhaps quite young.

Is it just me? First, Rahm Emanuel as White House Chief of Staff, William Daley and now Jacob Lew. What they have in common? Well, let’s say that they are ‘insiders,’ Wall Street variety.

What does the COS do? According to Wiki,

The duties of the White House Chief of Staff vary greatly from one administration to another. However, the Chief of Staff has been responsible for overseeing the actions of the White House staff, managing the president’s schedule, and deciding who is allowed to meet with the president. Because of these duties, the Chief of Staff has at various times been labeled “The Gatekeeper”, “The Power Behind the Throne”, and “The Co-President”.

So the question I pose is this: Is Obama even appointing these guys? Does Obama have any control over who is at State, Treasury or War? Or is he a willing captive, pretending to be the man behind decisions made by others? It’s been apparent some time now, perhaps since Watergate, that presidents can be taken down, so perhaps the culling process now yields weak men like Obama, willing to be the Monkees pretending to play their own instruments when we all know they are not. It’s just a show? Is the office completely captive now to what FDR called “economic royalists?”

Has it come to that? I suspect so.