link to FAIR to sign petition.or link: http://www.fair.org/index.php
All energy directed toward reforming political and state structures is useless. All efforts to push through a “progressive” agenda within the corridors of power are naive.
Trust in the reformation of our corporate state reflects a failure to recognize that those who govern, including Barack Obama, are as deaf to public demands and suffering as those in the old Communist regimes. We cannot rely on any systems of power, including the pillars of the liberal establishment—the press, liberal religious institutions, universities, labor, culture and the Democratic Party. They have been weakened to the point of anemia or work directly for the corporations that dominate our existence. We can rely now on only ourselves, on each other.
Above quote a sobering commentary by Chris Hedges on President Obama and the corporate elites :
No Act of Rebellion Is Wasted by: Chris Hedges | Truthdig | Op-EdChris hedges Via Truthout.org. Dec. 13, 2010
As for the US government attacks on Wikileaks:
... Prosecuting Assange under The Espionage Act of 1917...(which)
criminalizes the communication of "information relating to the national defense", which "the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States."
The act theoretically makes criminals of Julian Assange, the newspaper editors working with WikiLeaks and anyone who reads, or even Tweets, about the contents of a classified cable.
As many as three million state employees may have access to SIPRNet, the "completely secure" database at the Department of Defense and State Department from which Manning is alleged to have stolen classified documents. Manning has disclosed how, while working in his office, he downloaded documents on to "a CD-RW labeled with something like 'Lady Gaga'".
(To evade suspicion, Manning has said, he "listened and lip-synced to Lady Gaga's Telephone while exfiltratrating possibly the largest data spillage in American history".)
From: The US Government's Pursuit of WikiLeaks Could Be Its Undoing by Peter Kirwan via Commondreams Dec. 13, 2010
In what sense are the documents released by Wikileaks judged to be "Classified " if as many as three million US employees had access to them .
Will the US DOJ go after news agencies around the world plus go after anyone who read or tweeted or blogged about these documents.
Is the writer of this blog guilty of espionage , sedition & giving aid and comfort to the "Enemy"
Is anyone who helped Wikileaks in whatever manner ie servers, bankers, Pay Pal, Amazon, Visa etc. and Twitter, Facebook , Google or anyone who gave any form of material support to Wikileaks all to be subpoenaed by the DOJ or Homeland Security to explain their actions .
Will it just be a Show Trial ala Soviet Union or The Republic of China to put the fear into news agencies and social networks and the public at large.
Fun with Glenn Beck- Beck decides what is a fact and what is not. If he says something is a fact therefore it is a fact no matter what others argue and no matter what the reality is. (actually a lot like Bush, Cheney et al & Obama)
Beck in his typical fashion makes up stats to in this case heighten suspicion and fear of Muslims around the globe and those Muslims residing in the USA.
He claims that 10% of all Muslims are terrorists. This would mean that are somewhere around 157,000,000 (157 million )active Muslim terrorists. Never mind that there are no studies or intelligence to support Beck's claim.
The problem is that once Beck makes such a false erroneous assertion his "true Believers " in his audience will now repeat this number as if it were true.
These "True Believers" will argue that those who contradict Glenn beck are covering up what is actually going on.
His detractors are either trying to be "Politically Correct " and don't want to offend the Muslim community or they themselves are practicing "Taqiyya" that is trying to deceive the non-Muslims.
WATCH: Fareed Zakaria Wipes the Floor With Glenn Beck Over "Nonsense" Muslim Terrorist Claim, CNN by Lauren Kelly via Alternet.org & Huffington PostDec. 13, 2010.
We already know Glenn Beck is full of nonsense, but it can still be refreshing to hear someone take down his insane arguments using logic and common sense. Take, for instance, Fareed Zakaria, who took to his show on CNN yesterday to combat Beck's insane claim that there are "157 million Muslim terrorists in the world."
Beck first made the claim in his 2003 book, and he did so again on his radio show last week. Via the Huffington Post:
"Beck wondered why this wasn't receiving any media coverage [before last week]," [Zakaria] said. "Well, let me suggest one reason. It is total nonsense. A figure made up by Glenn Beck with absolutely no basis in fact."
Zakaria noted that, according to the State Department, there were around 11,000 terrorist attacks committed in the world in 2009. He said he would be "generous" to Beck and assume that a hundred people carried out each attack -- even though, in reality, most involved from one to three people.
"One hundred people times 11,000 terror attacks equals 1,100,000 people," Zakaria said. "But Glenn Beck's figure is 157 times higher than that. If in fact there are 157 million Muslim terrorists in the world, what would the other 155,900,000 of them doing last year?"
Watch the whole segment here
Chris Hedges has lost patience with the Obama Administration and argues it is just continuing all of the anti-Democratic policies of George W. Bush's Regime.
Different day , Different Faces same old BS.
No Act of Rebellion Is Wasted by: Chris Hedges | Truthdig | Op-EdChris hedges Via Truthout.org. Dec. 13, 2010
We, like those who opposed the long night of communism, no longer have any mechanisms within the formal structures of power that will protect or advance our rights. We too have undergone a coup d’état carried out not by the stone-faced leaders of a monolithic Communist Party but by the corporate state. We too have our designated pariahs, whether Ralph Nader or Noam Chomksy, and huge black holes of state-sponsored historical amnesia to make us ignore the militant movements, rebels and radical ideas that advanced our democracy. We opened up our society to ordinary people not because we deified the wisdom of the Founding Fathers or the sanctity of the Constitution. We opened it up because of communist, socialist and anarchist leaders like Big Bill Haywood and his militant unionists in the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW).And so the US government is shown to have little regard for its espoused Democratic Principles as it goes after Wikileaks and Julian Assange. The issue appears to be that freedom of speech is fine as long as it is not used to embarrass the elites or show that they are involved in ongoing deception and propaganda aimed at its own public.
We may feel, in the face of the ruthless corporate destruction of our nation, our culture, and our ecosystem, powerless and weak. But we are not. We have a power that terrifies the corporate state. Any act of rebellion, no matter how few people show up or how heavily it is censored by a media that caters to the needs and profits of corporations, chips away at corporate power. Any act of rebellion keeps alive the embers for larger movements that follow us. It passes on another narrative. It will, as the rot of the state consumes itself, attract wider and wider numbers. Perhaps this will not happen in our lifetimes. But if we persist we will keep this possibility alive. If we do not, it will die.
All energy directed toward reforming political and state structures is useless. All efforts to push through a “progressive” agenda within the corridors of power are naive. Trust in the reformation of our corporate state reflects a failure to recognize that those who govern, including Barack Obama, are as deaf to public demands and suffering as those in the old Communist regimes. We cannot rely on any systems of power, including the pillars of the liberal establishment—the press, liberal religious institutions, universities, labor, culture and the Democratic Party. They have been weakened to the point of anemia or work directly for the corporations that dominate our existence. We can rely now on only ourselves, on each other.
The truth maybe out there but it is not for general mass consumption so our new overlords tell us ???
God and governments act in mysterious ways which we the unwashed masses are not supposed to question.
Peter Kirwan argues that the US government will only make matters worse for themselves and for America's reputation by extraditing and charging Julian Assange of Wikileaks under the Espionage Act of 1917.
He points out that in order to make such a charge stick the US prosecutors must show that Assange intended to do maximum harm to the USA and its allies.
Assange on the other hand will argue that leaking these documents was for the "Public Good" and a means to hold the government to its basic responsibility to not undermine democratic principles and government accountability and transparency.
The US Government's Pursuit of WikiLeaks Could Be Its Undoing by Peter Kirwan via Commondreams Dec. 13, 2010
This is about as good as it gets for the United States of America. Backed by the righteous anger of lawmakers and commentators, hundreds -- perhaps thousands -- of the nation's brightest brains are working toward the goal of making Julian Assange answer for his alleged crimes in a US court.
... Prosecuting Assange under The Espionage Act of 1917...
... the Espionage Act criminalizes the communication of "information relating to the national defense", which "the possessor has reason to believe could be used to the injury of the United States." The act theoretically makes criminals of Julian Assange, the newspaper editors working with WikiLeaks and anyone who reads, or even Tweets, about the contents of a classified cable.
The law's sweeping nature has troubled judges for the best part of a century. As a result, administrations have become reluctant to deploy it.
A civilian *recipient* of classified data has never been convicted under this law. Nor has someone like Assange, who will claim to be protected by the First Amendment to the US Constitution, which protects freedom of speech and freedom of the press.
When the White House went after Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers to The New York Times in 1971, it used The Espionage Act. But Assange's position isn't analogous to that of Ellsberg. Instead, it's closer to that of The New York Times, which published Ellsberg's documents. Even the Nixon administration held back from prosecuting The Times, preferring instead to injunct the newspaper while it pursued Ellsberg through the criminal courts.
The Nixon administration was trying to circumvent the First Amendment. Yet in order to prosecute Assange, the Obama administration may have to confront the First Amendment head on. It may be forced to argue that WikiLeaks isn't a media organization, but merely a web site, devoid of editorial functions, that publishes raw data.
The argument that only "established" media outlets can count on First Amendment protection is profoundly at odds with the reality of media production and consumption in the 21st century. Any prosecution on these grounds will provoke storms of criticism and ridicule.
Neither has Assange made this argument easy for prosecutors. WikiLeaks asked Washington for assistance with redacting the cables and met with a refusal. Yet when The New York Times asked the US government for advice on what to censor, it received suggestions. "The other news organizations supported these redactions," New York Times editor Bill Keller recently wrote in an online discussion. "WikiLeaks has indicated that it intends to do likewise. And as a matter of news interest, we will watch their website to see what they do."
If Assange has been sensible, WikiLeaks is exercising the same editorial judgments as the world's leading newspapers. It's instructive to listen to what Sylvie Kauffmann, executive editor of Le Monde (which also collaborated with WikiLeaks) has to say about this:
"Even the political classes [in France] recognized that the newspapers who had been working on these cables had behaved in a responsible way. They acknowledged that we had been doing our job of selecting the material in an expert way. There was a complete evolution of the public view."
The prospect of the editors of Der Spiegel, El Pais, the Guardian, Le Monde and The New York Times testifying about how they limited unacceptable side-effects should worry the White House. Perhaps Assange's defence team will also want to question US defence secretary Robert Gates about his claim that the damage inflicted by Cablegate has been " fairly modest". If this is the case, perhaps WikiLeaks and its collaborators were a good deal more responsible than critics suggest.
and :
As many as three million state employees may have access to SIPRNet, the "completely secure" database at the Department of Defense and State Department from which Manning is alleged to have stolen classified documents. Manning has disclosed how, while working in his office, he downloaded documents on to "a CD-RW labeled with something like 'Lady Gaga'"...
So are all news agencies around the world to be charged by the US government for espionage or sedition and giving aid and comfort to the enemy.
The British newspaper the Guardian publishes a summary of the reactions of the various countries mentioned in the leaked Cables. By doing so is the Guardian giving aid and comfort to Wikileaks and America's enemies.Will the Obama administration not just go after domestic news agencies but also foreign news agencies that publish parts of the leaked cables and those who discuss these leaked cables in the media.
After 12 days of WikiLeaks cables, the world looks on US with new eyes :Reaction across the globe to the leaked US embassy cables has ranged from anger and bitterness to extreme indifference Guardian.co.uk dec. 10, 2010
and so it goes,
GORD.
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