Julian Assange: Collateral Damage & Poster Boy For Empire In Decline

Who among us is not happy for the Assange family as they welcome back their dad, husband, brother, and son? For the crime of doing 21st century-style journalism and building a worldwide publishing platform for information that corporate media would never reveal, Julian Assange was tortured by the U.S. and UK governments for years.

Kevin Gosztola, who wrote the great book Guilty of Journalism: The Political Case Against Julian Assange, commented:

The U.S. national security state would have been comforted if Assange had died at Belmarsh, but the opposite happened. He walked out of Belmarsh. The world saw a refreshing image of someone boarding a plane, who was once one of the best known political prisoners.

Many of us recognize that the end of the biggest press freedom case in the 21st century does not represent an end to this important struggle for freedom of the press. The U.S. government will continue to try and define "responsible journalism" in a manner that protects the military and national security agencies.

 

Assange's most famous publication in my mind is the war crime documentation "Collateral Murder," a video of U.S. soldiers firing down on Reuters journalists and civilians including children in Baghdad. Their schoolboy glee at killing with impunity is ably captured on the video that whistleblower Chelsea Manning saw while on active duty, shared with wikileaks, and did seven years in prison for herself. This event changed the life of soldier Ethan McCord who was on the ground attempting to rescue the children whose father had been shot going to the rescue of the wounded journalists.

Many other publications by wikileaks have changed the course of history in our lifetime: in 2021, the Pandora Papers exposed how the very wealthy hide their wealth from taxation in the nations where they use public services; in 2016,  the "Podesta emails" from the Democratic National Committee revealed how corrupt the electoral system of the U.S. really is; and in 2017 "Vault 7" shared CIA technical documents revealing a multitude of spying practices. Subsequently, we learned that Donald Trump and Mike Pompeo made plans for the CIA to assassinate Assange and that they had been spying on his communications with his legal counsel while taking refuge in Ecuador's embassy in London.

Aside from the torture in Belmarsh Prison, the U.S. government has extracted a guilty plea to a felony violation of the Espionage Act -- from a citizen of Australia. Also a fine structured as a £520,000 fee for the charter flight from London to a U.S. imperial outpost in the Northern Mariana Islands to enter his plea. (You can donate to a fundraiser for that here.)

Why not let Assange take a commercial flight from London to the U.S. to enter his plea there? Let me answer that question with a question: why is the Democratic National Convention nominating process going to be virtual this year rather than being held as is customary in person? A: Because the peasants are revolting and it's in the empire's interest to keep evidence of this out of the public eye.

Of the many truths about an empire in decline revealed by Assange's work, these stand out in my mind:

• War crimes are not crimes, but reporting them is. (Cf. John Kiriakou)

• The 1st amendment of the U.S. constitution guaranteeing freedom of the press is defunct. Branches of the press which our corporate overlords cannot control, they will seek to destroy

• No one is safe from the vindictive fury of a national security state embarrassed in public. Your country of citizenship is irrelevant.

• Fabricated sex crimes will be used against critics of the U.S. government (cf. Scott Ritter). You may remember Sweden tried to prosecute Assange for "rape" based on allegations that he deliberately damaged a condom used in consensual sex.

• There is no meaningful difference between Republican and Democratic administrations on any of these matters. Obama, Trump, and Biden all had a hand in punishing Assange for publishing nothing but the truth.

Truth, Or I Dare You To Call It Propaganda

Photo of a paper document alleged to be Pentagon briefing slides on the Ukraine war.

You can have truth, or you can have propaganda, but you can't have both. Which will it be?

Investors who are clients of Bank of America were upset recently when a conference to listen to experts on current events heard several presenters who sounded like they were reciting Putin's talking points!

For example, from the prepared remarks Nicolai Petro, a professor of political science at the University of Rhode Island who is alleged to have once worked at the State Department, (obtained by Financial Times which I'm quoting here):

“Under any scenario, Ukraine would be the overwhelming loser” in the war. Its industrial capacity would be “devastated”, partly by its economic policy of becoming an agricultural superpower “as recommended by the EU and the United States” and its population would continue to shrink as people left to look for employment abroad. 

“If this is what Russia meant by removing Ukraine’s capacity to wage war against Russia, then it will arguably have won,” he said. 

 He said the US government had no interest in a ceasefire because it had the most to gain from a prolonged conflict through a “dramatic increase in EU energy and military dependence on the US”.

According to FT, a BofA client complained, "The whole event was overwhelmingly pro-Russian.”

This is what happens to people's brains after long marination in false dichotomy.

The truth about what has happened and will happen in Ukraine is murky, contested, and sometimes confusing. But it's not partisan.

The truth doesn't care who wins in Ukraine.

The U.S. and its banksters, on the other hand, are presently caught between a rock and a hard place. Face the truth and use that knowledge to make some rational decisions about investments among other things? Or promote the patriotic narrative that Putin is all bad, all the time, and Zelensky is a hero -- and make decisions based on that?

Because you can have intel or you can have propaganda, but you can't have both.

There are hundred of documents similar to this one. If a hoax, somebody put a lot of time into this.

Which leads us to the fascinating trove of alleged Pentagon-sourced documents on Ukraine, China, and the Middle East. Are they real? Were they leaked or "leaked" or maybe hacked?

Some of the facts seem credible, for instance, that four Ukrainian troops have died for every one Russian troop. It's the kind of data it's almost impossible to be certain about, but it is congruent with the tragedy we've seen unfolding for the people of Ukraine, like the long battle for Bakhmut which they just lost, and their ongoing conscription challenges. 

If leaked, these documents appear to have come from someone pretty far inside -- either at the Pentagon or as a high ranking official of another allied nation.

Were they leaked by a European ally in retaliation for the bombing of the Nord Stream pipeline?

By a pro-Russian infiltrator in one of those spaces?

Or maybe a gamer stumbled onto the trove in the output tray of a printer at their office, snagged it, and shared it with their buddies? Mostly the documents seem to have come out in channels like 4chan or in Minecraft chat rooms. What's that about?

Julian Assange has now been tortured almost to death for leaking truths about the Iraq War, the dirty dealings of the ultra wealthy, and the like. That the U.S. is behind his extrajudicial punishment makes for some spectacular hypocrisy as in the case of a Wall Street Journal reporter just arrested in Russia for trying to obtain classified information about military production.

Did Evan Gershkovich in fact do that or was he just an innocent reporter doing his job, as U.S. Secretary of State Blinken would have us believe?

More than one person has suggested that Gershkovich was nabbed in order to be exchanged for a prisoner the Russians want back, in the way Brittney Griner appears to have been used.

If Russia offered to release Gershkovich in exchange for Assange's freedom, it would be on par with offering Edward Snowden asylum in Moscow: a blow for truths our government doesn't want us to know.

Democracy Then! Propaganda Now

Democracy Now!, legacy alternative media for the latte left, has been repeatedly exposed as biased in favor of the U.S./NATO empire. But most who watch DN! cannot tolerate the cognitive dissonance to acknowledge this shift.

Credit for the title of my post -- Democracy Then! Propaganda Now --  goes to "Diogenes" who posted a version of it commenting on this discussion between Max Blumenthal, Aaron Mate and Randy Credico on The Grayzone's YouTube channel. 

A shorter version of the video can be found attached to this Grayzone tweet, but the longer version (11 or so minutes) is worth watching if only to see Julian Assange lied about to his face as he repeatedly denies the false charge that wikileaks said Donald Trump would be less dangerous as president than Hillary Clinton. 

Count how many times Assange says "No, we didn't" while DN!'s guest talks over him.

Summary of The Grayzone's charges against Democracy Now!:

• John Pilger told Blumenthal he was banned from DN! because their funder the Lannan Foundation did not like Pilger's views
• DN! was wrong on wikileaks & Julian Assange, and has never apologized
• DN! was wrong on the Syrian war & the White Helmets
• DN! was wrong on Russiagate, which it heavily promoted
• DN! was wrong on alleged Uyghur genocide
• DN! is wrong on the Ukraine war origins & goals, and clearly biased against Russia

The propaganda of the U.S. empire is, as many have observed, outstandingly effective. 

It has split the antiwar movement in the U.S. by capturing many of their sources of information.

I once worked in marketing (for cars) and learned of the strong spending to build brand loyalty among college students. Because research shows that brand loyalties are formed when we are quite young and these loyalties are extremely resistant to change for most people. 

This is why it's effective to lure people into trusting a news outlet like Democracy Now! (or Common Dreams, or NPR, etc. -- those are posts for another day). Once trust has been established, the slow drift toward supporting the imperial narrative can begin. Much like the frog in that pot of slowly warming water, most won't notice and many will employ strong denial tactics to maintain  that they're not being boiled to death.

Some have identified the first sign of Democracy Now!'s rightward drift in their coverage of the unfortunate events of 9/11/01. Since the current nonstop warmongering of the U.S. kicked off using 9/11 as a pretext, that makes a lot of sense. But substantiating that claim would take more research than I have time for at the moment. 

Just something to think about.

Assange Can Be Extradited Rules UK Court While Press Freedom Dies A Lingering Death

Julian Assange can be extradited to the United States because that government has given assurances he will be treated humanely. 

So says the court in the UK which has seen Assange, his health broken and mental health in jeopardy, and turned away.

His crime? Revealing the truth about governments. For instance, what the U.S. government was doing in Iraq with our tax dollars in the now infamous "Collateral Murder" video i.e. gunning down Reuters journalists and shooting up a good Samaritan's van carrying children in Baghdad.

The U.S. government tortured Chelsea Manning at length for allegedly leaking evidence of U.S. war crimes in Iraq.

The UK government tortured Julian Assange by holding him captive in the London embassy of Ecuador for seven years as his health deteriorated.

On what legal grounds? In so-called "free democracies" the publication of truth is a protected right of journalists. Indeed, a free press is considered the cornerstone of democracy.

Trumped up charges of rape (i.e. nonconsensual condomless intercourse) in Sweden was the ostensible reason Assange was targeted for lawfare, but the Assange's accuser has now retracted his accusation. And the machinations behind getting her to make it in the first place have been revealed as bunk.

How Edward Snowden, NSA whistleblower, escaped the long arm of U.S. imperial power to suppress the truth makes for a thrilling documentary. Snowden remains a guest in Russia, and is now raising a family rather than returning to the U.S. to languish in prison himself.

Assange has a family, too, but his children are not permitted to know their father's care.

People who dare tell the truth about the most powerful government in history pay a harsh price. 

Their families pay a harsh price.

Meanwhile Twitter, YouTube, and Facebook accelerate censorship of dissident views. Sometimes on behalf of convicted pedophiles and their close friends in high place.

We all pay a harsh price as truth and real journalism subside into darkness.

Good News, Bad News -- Which Do You Want First?

Me, I want to get the bad news up front but appreciate the warning (bad news coming): Nancy Pelosi, an 80 year old multi-millionaire so clueless she proudly showed off her two luxury refrigerators full of gelato during the first pandemic lockdown, yesterday was re-elected to lead the House of Representatives for her corporate sponsors. 

This after presiding over a pathetic $600 one time payment to struggling taxpayers while other countries have been providing thousands per month so people could afford to stay home.

The really bad news for many was that the so-called Squad of progressive Democrats in the House caved and supported Pelosi even though their followers were calling en masse for them to withhold their votes in order to #ForceTheVote on the wildly popular brand of universal health care, Medicare for All.

The fact that any progressive in Congress generally gets co-opted within a couple of years and falls obediently into line on behalf of her career is not a new phenomenon. 

Most mysterious to me is why people continue being (acting?) surprised when this happens.

Worthy of note is that my representative did something really unexpected and unusual: he voted for a fellow war veteran who serves in the U.S. Senate. This taught me that the Speaker of the House does not have to be a member of the House (who knew?), and suggests that he could not bring himself to vote for corporate shill Pelosi. The statement explaining his choice shows that he and his staff get the sentiment that is abroad in Maine and throughout the land:

I am of the opinion that only a general strike will bring about universal health care in the U.S. 

Our corporate overlords have long since indicated that we can eat shit and die as far as they're concerned. Withholding the labor that builds all that wealth would be powerful -- and calls to do so are growing every day. Status quo upholders claim "that will never happen" to which I say: return to your history books and read up on what happened when elites had bled the working class dry in empires of the past.

Ok, ready for the good news?

A conservative judge who was expected to extradite journalist Julian Assange to face trumped up espionage charges in the U.S. did not do so. Her stated reason: mistreatment during his long imprisonment by the UK on behalf of the U.S. has rendered him a suicide risk, and District Judge Vanessa Baraitser does not believe the conditions in U.S. prisons are such that Assange could be prevented from killing himself in custody. 

According to AP:

“I find that the mental condition of Mr. Assange is such that it would be oppressive to extradite him to the United States of America,” the judge said.

(Wondering if she was thinking about Jeffrey Epstein here. Does anyone really believe he killed himself in prison?)

According to independent journalist Jeremy Scahill:

Undoubtedly a victory that Assange extradition blocked. He may well have died in prison if extradited to the US. The UK judge was correct about the horrid conditions in US prisons. But this ruling largely supports the dangerous US position on the Assange case. Far from over.

— jeremy scahill (@jeremyscahill) January 4, 2021

So this one victory does not mean the persecution of Julian Assange for revealing evidence of war crimes via Wikileaks is over. In order to stay up to date on the health of the free press canary in the corporate coal mine, we can't rely on the Associated Press or other corporate news outlets who ignore him whenever possible. Instead, we can use this handly list compiled by independent journalist Kevin Gosztola of other reporters who are consistently paying attention.

Because without real news, we're doomed to die in the dark.

Cloud Of Darkness Over Future Of US Still Led By Warmongers

"Cloud of darkness" was trending on Twitter when I got up this morning. It means one thing to gamers but this boomer couldn't help but feel it probably was a reference to our collective future governed by the president-elect's cabinet picks.

Putting female warmongers in prominent roles to please Democrats already trained to regard the warmongering Hillary Clinton as a desirable "leader" is absolutely unsurprising. What's only mildly surprising is the weak, insincere protestations sponsored on corporate media outlets like CNN and MSNBC. 

Cutting the mic of commentators who question the wisdom of appointing, say, Rahm Emmanuel, is entirely in character for these manufacturers of consent.

Did folks catch latest censorship from the Clinton News Network (CNN) where the new Congressman Elect Jamaal Bowman was cut ( technical difficulties) right when he started to criticize the possible selection of Rahm Emmanuel to Biden's right-wing cabinet. https://t.co/0TetVofEPB

— Ajamu Baraka (@ajamubaraka) November 25, 2020

Because if you're trying to spin neoliberals as progressives, muting the pushback is essential.

To get back to my original point, trying to spin corporate hacks who peddle weapons to Israel and Saudi Arabia while unwilling US taxpayers pick up the tab as feminists is laughable. Well, it would be laughable if it didn't fool so many liberals. Identity politics has been a potent management tool for keeping the brunch eating masses stupefied while the soul and treasury of the US is hollowed out by austerity to pay for endless wars.

Real feminist leaders like Kathy Kelly have been speaking out during this transition on the urgency of ending the 19 year war on Afghanistan.

link to video on YouTube if embed does not work for you

Here's she's joined by moderator Ann Wright, another peace leader, as well as Matthew Hoh, Rory Fanning, Danny Sjursen, and Arash Azizzada to discuss the prospects of this happening before Biden gets into the White House.

Democrats in Congress and generals at the Pentagon are putting up resistance, of course. If the cash doesn't flow to weapons manufacturers, how will the campaign contributions and/or cushy corporate posts flow?

When you're in the weapons business -- as the US government surely is -- endless wars is your go-to marketing scheme.

But the current occupant of the White House has shown less business acumen than some expected. Instead, he has appeared to focus on his image. Challenges like managing a public health crisis resulted in fatal damage to his persona as leader, but the remaining weeks do offer some opportunities for legacy repair.

Ending the war in Afghanistan (which Obama promised to do but never did) could be just the ticket. 

Pardoning Julian Assange, jailed in the UK for the crime of actual journalism on Obama's watch and since, would also be a winning move and, as an in-your-face to his rival and predecessor, likely to appeal to the outgoing chief executive.

Why The U.S. Government Is So Mad At Julian Assange And Chelsea Manning

Julian Assange is a journalist who changed the way journalism gets done. He was arrested in London this week at the behest of the U.S. government. Chelsea Manning is whistleblower who is back in prison for a second time, because she refuses to testify to a secret grand jury about Assange.

Their most famous revelation is probably this U.S. Army video of helicopter troops laughing and firing on Reuters journalists, a dad who went to their rescue, and the children riding in his van in Baghdad in 2007.



(If the embedded video doesn't work for you, see it here on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5rXPrfnU3G0)

Wikileaks released the video with supporting documents on April 5, 2010 at http://collateralmurder.com.

Between the two, Assange and Manning have shone the light of public scrutiny on many dark dealings.

The U.S. government appears to be persecuting them, not because you can close Pandora's box, but as a lesson to other journalists and whistleblowers.

Stand up for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange now, before there are no journalists left unmuzzled to stand up for them.

Free Chelsea Manning (again!) resources at Courage to Resist.

Whistleblower Chelsea Manning Back In Prison For Refusing To Testify In Secret

Chelsea Manning is a martyr to the 1st amendment.

I don't think that is too strong of a statement. After her complaints about illegal activity by the U.S. military in Iraq were ignored by her chain of command, Manning shared a trove of material on those war crimes including the now iconic "Collateral Murder" video.




U.S. army personnel shooting from a helicopter over Baghdad murdered, not only Reuters journalists engaged in their work, but a father who tried to evacuate the wounded men in a van containing his children. (He was just driving by and was thus rewarded for acting as a good Samaritan.)

In retaliation for leaking evidence of war crimes, Manning was first imprisoned in a cage in the desert in Iraq. There, she believed she would die of exposure and dehydration.

Then, she was shipped home and imprisoned at Quantico Marine Base in Virginia. I demonstrated with others outside Quantico (you can read my account of that here) after news that she was being tortured in detention reached me.

She spent nine months in solitary confinement.

Manning was subsequently imprisoned at Fort Leavenworth in Kansas. My husband and I demonstrated with others outside Leavenworth (see photo above, and you can read my account of that here), calling for her freedom. President Obama had promised to protect whistleblowers, but he did nothing of the kind. 

She was courtmartialed and held for years after that. As soon as that verdict was announced, she came out as transgender and changed her first name from Bradley to Chelsea. 

Finally, Obama gave her clemency for time served as he was leaving office. Her entire imprisonment and torture happened on his watch.

Very sadly, Manning is back in prison again. As the U.S. government continues to pursue the journalist Julian Assange, alleged to have received Manning's leaked war crime evidence, they have convened a grand jury that meets in secret. A subpoena to appear and testify before the grand jury was rejected by Manning on the grounds of secrecy. She has indicated that she will testify, but not in secret.

Both Manning and Assange continue to be targeted by the U.S. empire and its warmongering presidents. Their crime is not gunning down children or torturing innocent men at Abu Ghraib or Guantanamo. Their crime: telling the truth to the American people.

To support Chelsea Manning you can go here for more information, including how to donate to her defense fund and how to send messages of support. She may be in prison for up to 18 months this time, or as long as the grand jury is impaneled. And the government can repeat their harassment of her.


https://youtu.be/aKj_i4lCfs8  "Chelsea Manning spoke to the press prior to be taken into custody, March 8, 2019, at the U.S. District Court, Eastern District of Virginia."


Why won't the federal government let Manning testify in public? What are they afraid she might reveal?

The Washington Post, which functions mostly as a mouthpiece for corporate government, has a new, somewhat ironic slogan. It refers to the demagogue with bad hair's attacks on the press; the Post and other corporate media are rightly worried that if the government can go after Assange for publishing inconvenient truths via Wikileaks, it can similarly go after them.

They should stand up for Chelsea Manning and Julian Assange now, before there are no journalists left unmuzzled to stand up for them.

Manning, Snowden, Assange: Three Bright Stars To Lead Us

How Chelsea Manning sees herself. By Alicia Neal, in cooperation with Chelsea herself,
commissioned by the Chelsea Manning Support Network, 23 April 2014.

With all the fuss about Oliver Stone’s film SNOWDEN this week my thoughts have turned increasingly toward the martyrdom of Chelsea Manning. Along with Julian Assange, Manning and Snowden form a constellation of stars that will illuminate the heavens as long as history endures. Which may not be all that long at the rate we’re going.

Chelsea Manning is similar to Ed Snowden in more ways than one, but it is she who felt compelled to go on a five-day hunger strike at Leavenworth prison demanding the right to treatment for gender dysphoria; Snowden lives in relative freedom in an apartment in Moscow with his girlfriend. Chelsea reports having experienced gender dysphoria from a very early age and that her father often beat her as a child for not being masculine enough. 

After being duped by an online “friend” she revealed her role in sharing evidence of U.S. Army war crimes, including but certainly not limited to the attack on Reuter’s employees and their would-be rescuers in the streets of Baghdad. The video of that attack includes the crude, contemptuous commentary of boys in a helicopter shooting down at human beings and is known by the name “Collateral Murder.”

For many of us, the “Collateral Murder” video is the very emblem of the rapacious U.S. foreign policy that has dominated this century: wanton killing of civilians and journalists in an oil-rich country that had nothing to do with the staged terror events of 9/11.

The silent killer riding the helicopter is the moral injury that leads so many U.S. veterans to suicide, more than 20 per day currently.

After Chelsea was accused of sharing truth via Wikileaks she was first kept in a cage in the desert in Kuwait for several very hot days and nights; she has reported that she expected to die there. In light of how events unfolded since, I imagine she might sometimes wish that she had.

Stateside, she was incarcerated at Quanitico prison on a Marine base in Virginia. A long bout of solitary confinement where she was kept in solitary for months, deprived of her clothing, forced to wear an abrasive garment alleged to prevent suicide, and then awakened by guards once an hour 24/7 to check if she was “okay.” Being woken up over and over for no reason alone is enough to make a person feel psychotic and hopeful for the release of death.

Bear in mind, all of this happened before Manning was convicted of anything.

Her recent hunger strike at Leavenworth followed a suicide attempt which followed administrative punishments for being found in possession of LGBT literature, and toothpaste that was past its expiration date. Manning has been forced to keep her hair military-man short, and until her hunger strike has been refused gender reassignment surgery and hormone therapy. These are now promised as a result of the hunger strike; also promised is more solitary confinement.

To say that Chelsea Manning is a martyr to the cause of transparency and upholding the fine ideals of the U.S. constitution would not be an exaggeration.

Image source: PopularResistance.org "Snowden: Most Wanted Man In Word Wrapped In US Flag" by Kevin Zeese

If Snowden is seen as a winner, at least by filmmaker Stone, and Manning as a martyr, Assange falls somewhere between the two. He, too, has suffered mightily for his role in creating the mechanism whereby the people find out what evils the U.S. government has actually been up to. Holed up in the London embassy of  the nation of Ecuador, which granted him asylum if he could only get there, the Australian citizen dares not emerge lest he be immediately arrested on charges of Swedish “rape” (i.e. intercourse-without-a-condom) and then extradited to the U.S. to be tortured like Manning. No one would choose to live as Assange has done these past several years, but he has several advantages that Manning doesn’t, not least of all the ability to continue his history-changing work via the information engine Wikileaks.

Julian Assange by hologram at the @Nantucketproj incredible technology, engaging conversation pic.twitter.com/SPnyRLpUSP

— Casey Neistat (@CaseyNeistat) September 28, 2014

Assange and Snowden continue to “appear” at various international conferences in absentia by means of technology. Manning’s public profile is much more limited due to her incarceration in a maximum security federal prison. All three stars publish regularly in mainstream and alternative media outlets, continuing to share their thinking on the state of information freedom and the civil liberties eroding before our very eyes on a daily basis. 

Stone’s portrayal of Snowden as an idealistic militarist who continued engaging the ethical aspect of his life’s work -- until he found himself holed up in a Hong Kong hotel room, fleeing for his life -- redeems itself from the book it is party based upon, a book that irritates Assange. It also resonates with Manning’s story. Both swore to uphold the constitution; both responded to their own moral injury when it became apparent that their work for the military and/or its contractors (Snowden’s employer Booz Allen Hamilton is an intelligence subcontractor for the NSA, a branch of the Pentagon) grossly violated that constitution.

There are unsung whistleblowers amongst us who, I am happy to say, I will not be able to write about because they remain undiscovered. The noteworthy whistleblowers from the earlier years of my time on the planet continue to inspire -- Daniel Ellsberg, Erin Brockovich, and many who are less celebrated but no less important.

Blowing the whistle on torture can lead directly to being tortured yourself. This is the lesson that the U.S. government strives to teach to potential Mannings, Assanges and Snowdens who lie awake at night struggling with their consciences and wondering whether to risk sacrificing their life, liberty and pursuit of happiness for the greater good.

Information Wants To Be Free And So Do Whistleblowers

White House Press Secretary turned journalist says he was instructed not to acknowledge any drone program even if questioned about it during press conferences. Robert Gibbs reportedly described this communications strategy as "pay no attention to the man behind the curtain" and further added

the White House's denial of the program "when it’s obviously happening, undermines people’s confidence overall in the decisions that their government makes."

The White House has refused thus far to release the legal memos they use to justify extrajudicial assassination. Apparently the fact that your taxes pay the salary of everyone in the White House, in the CIA, at the drone bases, and the special folks who prepare the "kill list" for Tuesday review doesn't buy you a right to significant information.

Robert Naiman of Just Foreign Policy believes the public has the right to know and has called on the Senate to conduct hearings where information could be brought to light:

The Senate Intelligence Committee is supposed to do oversight of the Central Intelligence Agency. Since the CIA is conducting drone strikes in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia, and since this is a controversial policy, the Senate Intelligence Committee should be doing oversight of that. 

But, as the Los Angeles Times recently noted, the Senate Intelligence Committee has never held a public hearing on CIA drone strikes. Indeed, for the year prior to the recent confirmation hearing of John Brennan to head the CIA, it never held a public hearing at all. 

Following Brennan's confirmation hearing, Politico reported that Sen. Dianne Feinstein, chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said she was unaware of reports that U.S. officials assumed any male of fighting age killed in a strike was a combatant — a method likely to undercount the number of civilian deaths.

On the other side of the coin, what happens to those who dare to share the truth of what our government is up to?  CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou just began a 30 month prison sentence for his leaks about torture. Coverage by Democracy Now! notes the irony that Krirakou never tortured anyone, while those who did torture are not being sent to prison. Information sharing genius Aaron Swartz was hounded to death by prosecutors for merely giving folks access to academic journals, and Julian Assange has been in asylum at the Ecuadorian embassy in London for months now rather than face extradition to the U.S. for Wikileaks' participation in sharing a wealth of information with the general public. 

Assange is justified in seeking to remain beyond the grasp of the U.S. government -- his most famous accomplice in the quest to bring some information about U.S. government doings into the light of day, Bradley Manning, has been incarcerated for 1,000 days and has yet to be brought to trial.

U.S. Army personnel shooting from a helicopter at a van rescuing injured civilians. (From the "Collateral Murder" video which is probably Manning's most famous leak.)

Again I must note the irony that Manning's crime is sharing information about acts of violence, such as military attacks on civilians in Iraq and Afghanistan -- yet he himself has done nothing violent.

Two t.v. news channels showed up in Portland, Maine on February 23 to record a rally organized by CODEPINK Maine marking Bradley's 1,000th day in jail. But the editors at both stations must have killed the story, because in the end all you get is my amateurish video. (Apologies to Occupy Maine's attorney John Branson for accidentally unsynching his audio -- what he had to say is well worth hearing.) 

Bellows looks on as Bradley Manning supporters sign a petition calling for his release. You can sign it online.

MCLU director Shenna Bellows also spoke about the implications for all of us of the trampling of our rights under the Constitution -- something that the president and members of the Senate swore to uphold when they assumed office, and something which the people of Maine have the right to know about. But corporate media do the bidding of those in power, and the people must become information workers on their own behalf if they wish to know what is done in their name by their government.



My CODEPINK associate Pat Taub distributed flyers in downtown Portland in advance of the rally. She said that every single person she encountered while asking in shops if she could post a flyer -- had never heard of Bradley Manning. (Go ahead, try it yourself. Search for Portland, Maine t.v. mentions of Bradley Manning. After all, he only shared the information that helped start the "Arab Spring" and Occupy Wall St. and...)

Careful information control

While my newshound buddies who spend their days reading see the Safeway shooting in Arizona as clear evidence that violent rhetoric from the right is a proximate cause -- an early chicken coming home to roost -- intelligent high school students around the country barely know of the incident, much less the analysis.

Careful information control in the imperial homeland has triumphed again.

As just one example among many, the Christian Science Monitor carefully distanced itself from making the kind of connection that bloggers and columnists all over the world have made, headlining: Nihilism or [former governor of Alaska]: What motivated Arizona shooting suspect? According to the CSM, the jury is still out.

In a related story about a watered down ammunition control bill being introduced quickly in Congress, they reported:

The National Rifle Association has posted news articles on its web site about the planned legislation focused on high-capacity clips, but has yet to respond specifically to the plans. When asked for a response, an NRA media liaison issued the same statement the organization has been putting out since the Tucson shootings: "At this time anything other than prayers for the victims and their families would be inappropriate."

At any other time -- such as a day in which 850 children were dying in Afghanistan, many from starvation -- it would be ok for the NRA to lobby Congress against the kind of gun control that most societies on our planet find to be prudent. Because violence in the U.S. and violent occupation of Afghanistan are UNRELATED! How dare I even include them in the same paragraph?

Manufactured consent works like this:

1) Insist that analysts who see connections are delusional. For example, insist that spending less by closing schools and cutting programs serving the mentally retarded elderly has nothing to do with citizens paying $10,000+ per household to occupy Iraq and Afghanistan for decades.

2) Flood the airwaves with celebrity gossip and ads for consumer goods. Make sure that thoughtful analysis of reported actual events is marginalized, and seems dull and tedious by comparison. Result: a citizenry whose young people often cannot identify their own country or most other countries on a map. Who, when asked where they are able to find news about foreign affairs, they may cite the headline feed on their AOL or Google web portal. But most will shrug and say, "Nowhere, really."

3) Employ highly paid hacks to publish sensational material -- such as a photo of a woman mutilated in the head by an abusive husband -- in prominent placements, with headlines advertising faux connections between violent occupation of a country and "protecting" its women from violence.

4) Embed journalists with the military. 'Nuff said.

5) Vilify and violently repress those engaged in signficant acts of bringing the truth of events to the public. Create sensational smears about them to distract the few members of the mass media consuming public who are aware of their efforts.

6) Tell a big lie e.g. "The war on terror makes the U.S. safer, because if we don't fight them (sic) over there, we will have to fight them over here." Keep telling it, loudly, over and over and over again.

Then, when the occasional crazed loner with way too much firepower lashes out at government officials, say it has nothing to do with politics. Say he was nuts and everyone knew it. It's a mental health issue. Say he was "left wing, quite liberal."

Make sure to use the word "liberal" to remind people of threatening statements online, like this one from Pete "The Carpenter" Harring, transition team chief for Maine's new Tea Party governor:

Liberals are like Slinkies...they're really good for nothing...But they still bring a smile to your face when you push them down a flight of stairs.

Whip up some more fear so that citizens clutch their firearms ever closer to their chests. Say the solution is not fewer guns, but more guns.

Make sure to use the incident to keep people afraid, very afraid.

Help people look away. For example, put the President on Faux News television during the Super Bowl. Generate a ton of fake news reporting the impending event.

%%%%%%%%

NV note of the day:
According to studies, those practicing non-violent action report a reduction of fear as a side effect.

If people are to be successful in liberating themselves from a regime that rules by fear, they must understand the methods and techniques to overcome its adverse effects. To this end, knowledge, discipline, and careful planning have proven to be effective.

Source: ON STRATEGIC NONVIOLENT CONFLICT: THINKING ABOUT THE FUNDAMENTALS (Helvey, 2004).