Stephen Lendman
America governs lawlessly. Out-of-control rogues run things. Conditions go from bad to worse. Tyranny threatens everyone. So does possible global war.
Fear-mongering, saber rattling, hot wars, proxy ones, drone ones, geopolitical ones, financial
ones, anti-populist ones, mass incarceration, censorship, lawless
sanctions, subversion, sabotage, targeted assassinations, mass murder,
cyberwar, and horrific draconian harshness reflect out-of control
governance gone mad.
Lying is official policy. So is state
terror. Independent governments aren’t tolerated. They’re targeted.
Regime change is prioritized. World peace is threatened. Humanity’s
menaced. Survival’s uncertain.
Daily revelations explain more. War is
called peace. State-sponsored assassins are called freedom fighters.
Real ones are called terrorists.
Capital has divine rights. Monied
interests run things. Plundering the earth for profit is prioritized.
Popular needs go begging. Social America’s dying. Poverty, unemployment,
hunger, homelessness and human misery go unaddressed. Corporate rights
alone matter.
Democracy’s a four-letter word.
Out-of-control power is unaccountable. Rule of law principles are
mocked. Tyranny’s the law of the land. Advancing America’s imperium
matters most.
Workers are exploited. They’re
unprotected. Human and civil rights are sacrificed. Wealth, power and
privilege are served. Militarized control supports them. Nonbelievers
aren’t tolerated.
Torture is official policy. Gitmo is
America’s public face. Innocent detainees suffer. So do many others.
Thousands of political prisoners fill America’s gulag. It’s the world’s
largest. It operates globally. Mercy isn’t in Washington’s vocabulary.
Diktat power rules. Police state terror
threatens everyone. Freedom’s fast disappearing. Dissent’s not
tolerated. Heroic whistleblowers are criminalized.
Even retired four star generals aren’t safe. More on that below.
Journalists are spied on. So is everyone worldwide. Big Brother watches everyone. It’s no longer fiction.
Censorship prevents truth and full disclosure. Managed news misinformation substitutes. Students are debt entrapped for life. Millions have no futures. An entire generation’s lost.
Madness substitutes for sanity.
Unconscionable wrongdoing persists. America’s unsafe to live in.
Oblivion awaits. Most people are too out of touch to notice. Others are
dismissive.
Failure to act responsibly matters. It lets Washington get away with murder and much more.
Rogues running America take full advantage. Who knows what’s next.
The Pentagon’s former second in
command’s being investigated. General James (Hoss) Cartwright allegedly
leaked information higher ups want suppressed.
Cyberwar is official US policy. In
spring 2010, Iranian intelligence discovered Stuxnet malwar
contamination. Its Bushehr nuclear facility was affected. US/Israeli
cyberwar bore full responsibility.
Cartwright perhaps explained. He ran
cyber-operation Olympic Games. Obama ordered stepped up attacks.
Targeting Iran is prioritized.
Perhaps there’s hope if retired four
star generals become whistleblowers. Maybe other insiders will be
emboldened to act. Legions more than ever are needed. Hopefully many
will come forward responsibly.
Edward Snowden provided a vital service.
He’s a hero in his own time. He’s globally recognized. He deserves
praise, not prosecution. History won’t forget him. He revealed what
everyone needs to know.
Unprecedented global spying is official
US policy. It’s lawless. Spies “R” us defines it. Police states operate
this way. America’s by far the worst. It’s unmatched in human history.
No one’s safe anywhere any time.
Shoot the messenger. Snowden’s hunted.
He’s a wanted man. Washington wants him arrested. It wants him
prosecuted. It wants him imprisoned. It wants him silenced. Perhaps it
wants him dead.
It wants information he knows suppressed. London’s Guardian
revealed it. It plans telling more. On June 28, it headlined “US army
blocks access to Guardian website to preserve ‘network hygiene.’ “
It wants truth suppressed. It wants its
message alone circulated. ”The US army has admitted to blocking access
to parts of the Guardian website for thousands of defence personnel
across the country.”
“A spokesman said the military was filtering out reports and content relating to government surveillance programs to preserve ‘network hygiene’ and prevent any classified material appearing on unclassified parts of its computer systems.”
Pentagon officials lied. Censorship is
official US policy. NETCOM On-Line Communication Services operates from
San Jose, CA. It’s an Internet service provider.
Spokesman Gordon Van Vleet said it filtered “some access to press coverage and online content about NSA leaks.”
“The Department of Defense routinely takes preventive ‘network hygiene’ measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information onto DoD unclassified networks.”
An Army Network Enterprise Technology Command (NETCOM) spokesman said policy affects hundreds of defense facilities. Doing so suggests far worse future policy.
Washington may block anti-government
content. It may do so routinely. Alternative media sites may be
targeted. Vital truths more than ever may be suppressed.
Revealing them responsibly risks being
criminalized. So may discussing what’s already known. Pointing fingers
the right way is dangerous. Doing so risks being charged with aiding and
abetting America’s enemies.
Van Vleet added:
“We make every effort to balance the
need to preserve information access with operational security, however
there are strict policies and directives in place regarding protecting and handling classified information.”
“Until declassified by appropriate officials, classified
information – including material released through an unauthorized
disclosure – must be treated accordingly by DoD personnel. If a public
website displays classified information,” blocking it will follow.
“Classified” includes vital information
people have a right to know. Suppressing it reflects police state
harshness. Rogue states operate this way. It bears repeating. America’s
by far the worst.
According to an unnamed Pentagon spokesman:
“The Guardian website is NOT being blocked by DoD. The Department of Defense routinely takes preventative measures to mitigate unauthorized disclosures of classified information onto DoD unclassified networks.”
On June 25, Guardian editors headlined “Edward Snowden: in defence of whistleblowers,” saying:
He’s no traitor. America’s First Amendment matters. It “prevents prior restraint and affords a considerable measure of protection to free speech.”
Obama violates its letter and spirit. He’s done so by “show(ing) a dismaying aggression in not only criminalising leaking
and whistleblowing, but also recently placing reporters under
surveillance – tracking them and pulling their phone and email logs in
order to monitor their sources for stories that were patently of public
importance.”
Thanks to Snowden, we know more about
what NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake called “a vast, systemic
institutionalized, industrial-scale Leviathan surveillance state that
has clearly gone far beyond the original mandate to deal with
terrorism.”
Snowden is today’s Daniel Ellsberg. Releasing the Pentagon Papers got him targeted. He also faced Espionage Act charges.
He might have gotten life in prison. He
was lucky. Gross government misconduct saved him. His 1973 trial
collapsed. At the time, judge William Byrne, Jr. ruled:
“The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice.”
“The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case.”
Federal judges today don’t speak this way. Ellsberg later said:
“The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers.”
“If you can’t handle the thought that
the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn’t
stay in the government at that levelâ¤|.”
“The fact is Presidents rarely say the
whole truth – essentially, never say the whole truth – of what they
expect and what they’re doing and what they believe and why they’re
doing it and rarely refrain from lying, actually, about these matters.”
Ellsberg’s a modern day hero. So is Snowden. Washington fears ugly truths revealed. Doing so arouses public anger.
Perhaps it emboldens others to tell
more. Coming forward threatens America’s imperial ambitions. Preventing
them responsibly matters most.
Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago. He can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.
His new book is titled “Banker Occupation: Waging Financial War on Humanity.”
Visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com.
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