Faltering Fourth Estate

Glenn Greenwald has once again gathered evidence that American citizens are intentionally being kept in the dark, even by our "news" media:

Yesterday, as I noted earlier, The Guardian reported that Davis -- despite Obama's description of him as "our diplomat in Pakistan" -- actually works for the CIA, and further noted that Pakistani officials believe he worked with Blackwater. When reporting that, The Guardian noted that many American media outlets had learned of this fact but deliberately concealed it -- because the U.S. Government told them to: "A number of US media outlets learned about Davis's CIA role but have kept it under wraps at the request of the Obama administration."

. . .

In other words, the NYT knew about Davis' work for the CIA (and Blackwater) but concealed it because the U.S. Government told it to. Now that The Guardian and other foreign papers reported it, the U.S. Government gave permission to the NYT to report this, so now that they have government license, they do so -- only after it's already been reported by other newspapers which don't take orders from the U.S. Government.

. . .

[T]here is simply no justification -- none -- for a newspaper to allow government officials to run around misleading the public, and to print those misleading statements, all while concealing information (at the Government's request) which reveal those claims to be factually dubious.
The question that has echoed in my ear for the past 10 years (or more) is, "What else don't we know?"

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We Are Not Parts

I’ll admit up front that I’m shooting from the hip here. There are many aspects to what is happening in Wisconsin right now with parallels to several past instances in the country in the fight over workers’ rights, unions, and moneyed interests, but I frankly don’t have the time to research them all right now and get something up before it all comes to a head. Isn’t it interesting, though, that we are collectively cheering what is happening in the Middle East right now and something similar is happening right here and people don’t seem to be paying attention to what’s at stake? I grant you, it’s a stretch. But on principles, not so much. We’re talking about who has the right to speak to power and over what. The protesters in Madison aren’t having their internet access and phone service pulled and it’s doubtful the military will be called in, but on the other hand the Wisconsin state police are being asked to go get the now-labeled Wisconsin 14 and bring them back to the state capitol to vote on something that is clearly a stripping of the right of petition and assembly. So this can become very quickly a constitutional issue and that’s scary, because right now the Supreme Court has been decidedly against workers’ rights. Governor Scott is at least being clear. I’ll give him credit, he’s not ducking questions about what he’s trying to do. Wisconsin, like many states, has a budget crisis. He’s already gotten concessions from the unions, a lot of money. The unions have not balked at doing their civic duty in terms of agreeing to pay cuts, freezes on raises, and some concessions on benefits to help the state meet its budgetary responsibilities. But he’s going further and asking that all these unions be stripped of their collective bargaining abilities in order to make sure they never again demand something from the state that the legislature or the governor believes they don’t deserve. In other words, Governor Scott doesn’t ever want to have to sit down and ask them for concessions ever again—he wants to be able to just take what he wants. [More . . . ]

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Hillary Clinton’s thugs

The following is reprinted with permission from DemocracyNow: This week, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton gave a major address calling for Internet freedom around the world. As Clinton condemned the Egyptian and Iranian governments for arresting and beating protesters, former U.S. Army and CIA officer Ray McGovern was violently ejected from the audience and arrested after he stood up and turned his back in a silent protest of America’s foreign policy. Ray McGovern joins us from Washington, D.C. [includes rush transcript] Ray McGovern, former senior CIA analyst whose duties included preparing the President’s Daily Brief and chairing National Intelligence Estimates. He was beaten and arrested while silently protesting a speech by U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton this week. He is a member of the group, Veterans for Peace.

JUAN GONZALEZ: On Tuesday, Hillary Clinton gave a major address calling for Internet freedom around the world. Speaking at George-–Washington University, Clinton condemned the Egyptian and Iranian governments for arresting and beating protesters.
HILARY CLINTON: What happened in Egypt and what happened in Iran, which this week is once again using violence against protesters seeking basic freedoms, was about a great deal more than the Internet. In each case, people protested because of the frustration with the political and economic conditions of their lives. They stood and marched and chanted and the authorities tracked and blocked and arrested them.
AMY GOODMAN: Just moments before Hillary Clinton spoke those words, a 71-year-old man was violently ejected from Clinton’s own event and arrested for turning his back on the Secretary of State. TV cameras caught part of what happened.
HILARY CLINTON: Than the government pulled the plug. So phone service was cut off. A TV satellite signals were jammed. Internet access was blocked for nearly the entire—
RAY McGOVERN: [Screaming]This is America! This is America! Who are you? Who are you?
JUAN GONZALEZ: The voice you heard screaming was that of Ray McGovern as he was dragged away by security guard that left him bruised and bloodied. He was then arrested. McGovern is a former Army intelligence officer and a 27-year veteran of the CIA. He was one of the daily briefers for President George H.W. Bush. He has since become a vocal critic of US foreign policy. He joins us in Washington, D.C. Ray, you were seriously hurt. Tell us what happened. RAY McGOVERN: I was pounced upon. I was blindsided, really. I was looking straight to the back, minding my own business. The only offense was standing up when everyone else was sitting down. Without any warning, I was pounced upon by and, what I call large manhandled by a fellow that looked like an NFL football player in plain dress. I don’t know who he was, that is why you hear me screaming, "Who are you? Who are you?" And I never did get the answer to that. So it was quite abrupt, quite violent. And the supreme irony, of course, sounds like something right out of Franz Kafka, four paragraphs later, Hillary Clinton is saying what you just quoted her as saying. You know, one has to keep one’s sense of humor in all of this, especially when one bears these kinds of bruises. I cannot show you the ones down below. I was listening on the way in, I tuned in a little late to your show. And when I heard Clinton say, that little clip, "We strongly oppose the use of violence," this is yesterday. We have deep concern over the actions of security forces. And I’m saying, yes! She is going to apologize. Like my Veterans for Peace colleagues asked her to do. Then I realized, she is talking about Bahrain. Straight out of Kafka. AMY GOODMAN: So, you were seriously hurt. What parts of your body? What did they do to you? RAY McGOVERN: Well, they put two sets of handcuffs on me roughly. They were the iron or steel handcuffs. They dug into my wrists. You can see some of the stuff right here. They put them behind my back of course and I started—bleeding profusely over my pants. We have the pants, they are full of blood. When somebody said, "Is that his blood?" One of the cops said, "No, no I pricked my finger". Right. The whole back seat of the pants is surfused with blood. They throw me-–well they didn’t throw me, they placed me in a patrol car—I try not to exagerate here—and I was taken up to one of the police headquarters in D.C. Mugshotted, fingerprinted to a fair thee well, and put in a cell of the size of Bradley Manning now occupies in Quantico. AMY GOODMAN: Ray we only have a minute but why were you there? Why did-–were you standing up? RAY McGOVERN: I was standing up in silent witness to the fact that Hillary Clinton is responsible or partly responsible for the countless thousands of Iraqis, Americans, Afghans, and God help was, Iranians—I hope not—and that she should not get the idea that everyone is going to sit down and applauded politely when there are so many of us that are usually excluded from these sessions who are feeling very, very sad and very angry at the foreign policy of our government. Very seldom do have a chance to express that. I thought that I expressed that in a most nonviolent way by simply quietly with my back to her with a T-shirt that said "Veterans for Peace." AMY GOODMAN: Well Ray McGovern, we want to thank you for being with us, former top briefer of Vice President George H.W. Bush. Ray worked for the CIA for more than a quarter of a century.

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Lack of Al Jazeera on cable TV bears on need for net neutrality

If you want to follow the uprising in Egypt through Al Jazeera, you almost certainly won't find it on cable TV. Here's why. This is yet another reason why we desperately need net neutrality. Violating net neutrality would turn the Internet into cable TV. Your carrier would become your nanny, screening information it deemed to be inappropriate or inconvenient.

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Avoid These Topics to Help End Civilization

Courtesy of WikiMedia There are four subjects the polite American avoids discussing in public: Politics, Religion, Sex, and Money. The ostensible reason for this taboo is to avoid offending anyone. But here I argue that this over-correctness is a causative factor in the decline of a civilization. Let's do money, first. As far as I know, this is a particularly American obsession. My European parents had to learn not to talk about money when they came to this country. Other places, the question, "So, how much do you make?" is as normal as "Are you married?" But in the U.S.A, we maintain a fiction of a classless society. We ask the same question only obliquely: "Where did you go to school?" is a good indicator of family income and social position. It is to the advantage of the landed class employers that their serfs employees not compare incomes, as well. By not allowing people to honestly gauge their economic value, they stay insecure. And insecurity leads to all manners of submissive behaviors, shoring up the security of the ruling classes, both secular and religious. Sex is a more generally repressed topic. There is no stronger drive, yet we must never directly say what we feel about it. Western churches even teach that one should deny and ignore the strongest drives within ourselves, leading to all sorts of perverse (read as counter-social) behaviors. To discuss it in public would allow people to see how normal their lusts really are, removing a major source of insecurity. Minor curiosities would not blossom into obsessions and perversions. Such openness would reduce the influence of those very organizations that profit from its repression, like churches and (other) marketing firms, whose urgent short-term goals are only occasionally and accidentally in line with continuing our civilization. Religion is a big one. People wear "subtle" symbols to let others of the same brand know they can be approached on the subject. The third eye, a cross or fish, a Koranic verse, and a star are some of the more obvious "secret" symbols. But it is a major faux pas to overtly declaim about your own faith to someone who may not agree. Unless, of course, the purpose is to stir controversy or solicit, two disreputable (completely human) drives. Again, by not knowing when and to whom you may come out,one feels insecure. This gives the leaders the upper hand. Especially when they strive to sow divisiveness, as in malignant fundamentalist sects. Finally, politics. This is the least stringent of the social prohibitions. I think this is in part because the churches and marketing firms rule the field, anyway. In our land, there are basically two sides: The established American parties, and those who can barely tell them apart. The parties do have differences. One wants to conserve our resources, reduce capitalist predation, and protect the underclass in hopes of a better tomorrow, and the other wants government to protect the minorities (specifically the rich, the unborn, and corporations) and let God (or the invisible hand) sort out the others until the imminent judgment day. So it occurred to me that hiding from these basic topics destabilizes civilization. Social groups balkanize into small, trusted segments that define themselves by their perceived differences. Each of the 30,000 Christian sects publicly claim the sum of all members of all denominations as supporting them, yet privately know that most of the 30,000 others are wrong and hell-bound. We have been divided, and conquered. If the people knew where they stood, and knew where the leaders stood, we would have actual checks and balances as were envisioned by our founders. Without such things, our nation may well founder.

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