We are given only so many warnings about what the owners are implementing.
Since the original post, we've seen how dissent and truth seeking is crushed - who can forget the "I am the science" and the banning of counter arguments during COVID? The agreement of '50 intelligence officials" that Hunter's laptop was a disinformation plot (even though it wasn't). The attempted assassination of a former President that has all but disappeared from the news. How the country, led by an obviously senile President, is stumbling into two major wars without any debate.
We've already seen people in Britain arrested for only publishing opinions on social media. Is there any doubt that such criminalization will work its way over here - under the guise of some future "national emergency"?
We owe people like Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and many others an incalculable debt. But I fear we may not be able to do so much longer.
Love this post. Edward Snowden is a true American patriot in every real sense of the word. Just like Daniel Ellsberg and Chelsea Manning, etc. Julian Assange, while not American, is also among the true patriots for exposing lies, hypocrisy and illegal US government actions around the globe. The US National Security State operates on the "do as we say, not as we do" principle. As such, it is a global outlaw and the cause of horrendous suffering and devastation. Edward Snowden pulled back the curtain to give us a glimpse into the pernicious apparatus that does everything possible to hide its crimes.
I skimmed through those three chapters. Both grandfathers my father and uncles were all in the military during WWI or WWII- But NONE were career military.
While the armed forces were mostly made up of non career recruits "in for the duration" & draftees during WWII, a great deal of the positive feelings the US population still may have towards our military were formed.
The (post Vietnam) all volunteer military is a VERY different beast, now we are two generations past even having random draftees in the mix, whatever ethics, morals and sense of restraint those non career people brought is GONE, except for a belief that those must still exist among the general public.
Upshot, we are back to some of the institutional, cultural/behavioral conditions that led our founders to dislike a standing army, further complicated by the vague memory of a bygone era where the attitudes of non career officers and men moderated our forces behavior.
A terrific article, thank you. I have long thought that if Americans really want an enemy they have one…on steroids, and it is not immigrants, socialists, communists, liberal Democrats, women or LGBTQ people. Ultimately, with a fatuous appeal to human liberty and freedom of speech our own homegrown plutocratic overlords will continue to encourage empower and support their system that causes as much destabilizing conflict-driven shit to happen as possible in order to bring out the very worst in us that we can possibly be as human beings, thereby keeping us all so divided, distracted, desperate and dispirited that we never focus on what really matters, namely that it is the self-serving corruption, deceit and mediocrity of our very own homegrown plutocratic overlords that is the enemy within hell-bent, for their own self-aggrandizing power, profit and privilege, on destroying the rest of us all as ordinary Americans in democratic good faith.
Bill, thanks for re-posting this article.
We are given only so many warnings about what the owners are implementing.
Since the original post, we've seen how dissent and truth seeking is crushed - who can forget the "I am the science" and the banning of counter arguments during COVID? The agreement of '50 intelligence officials" that Hunter's laptop was a disinformation plot (even though it wasn't). The attempted assassination of a former President that has all but disappeared from the news. How the country, led by an obviously senile President, is stumbling into two major wars without any debate.
We've already seen people in Britain arrested for only publishing opinions on social media. Is there any doubt that such criminalization will work its way over here - under the guise of some future "national emergency"?
We owe people like Edward Snowden, John Kiriakou, Chelsea Manning, Julian Assange, and many others an incalculable debt. But I fear we may not be able to do so much longer.
Very well put, Tom. Thanks.
Love this post. Edward Snowden is a true American patriot in every real sense of the word. Just like Daniel Ellsberg and Chelsea Manning, etc. Julian Assange, while not American, is also among the true patriots for exposing lies, hypocrisy and illegal US government actions around the globe. The US National Security State operates on the "do as we say, not as we do" principle. As such, it is a global outlaw and the cause of horrendous suffering and devastation. Edward Snowden pulled back the curtain to give us a glimpse into the pernicious apparatus that does everything possible to hide its crimes.
I like your twelve points, Bill. They made me think which is a good thing. I added Edward's book to my reading list.
@Karl
Re: "The Cost of Loyalty", chapters 5, 6 & 7.
https://www.amazon.com/Cost-Loyalty-Dishonesty-Failure-Military/dp/1632868989
Yeet!
I skimmed through those three chapters. Both grandfathers my father and uncles were all in the military during WWI or WWII- But NONE were career military.
While the armed forces were mostly made up of non career recruits "in for the duration" & draftees during WWII, a great deal of the positive feelings the US population still may have towards our military were formed.
The (post Vietnam) all volunteer military is a VERY different beast, now we are two generations past even having random draftees in the mix, whatever ethics, morals and sense of restraint those non career people brought is GONE, except for a belief that those must still exist among the general public.
Upshot, we are back to some of the institutional, cultural/behavioral conditions that led our founders to dislike a standing army, further complicated by the vague memory of a bygone era where the attitudes of non career officers and men moderated our forces behavior.
A terrific article, thank you. I have long thought that if Americans really want an enemy they have one…on steroids, and it is not immigrants, socialists, communists, liberal Democrats, women or LGBTQ people. Ultimately, with a fatuous appeal to human liberty and freedom of speech our own homegrown plutocratic overlords will continue to encourage empower and support their system that causes as much destabilizing conflict-driven shit to happen as possible in order to bring out the very worst in us that we can possibly be as human beings, thereby keeping us all so divided, distracted, desperate and dispirited that we never focus on what really matters, namely that it is the self-serving corruption, deceit and mediocrity of our very own homegrown plutocratic overlords that is the enemy within hell-bent, for their own self-aggrandizing power, profit and privilege, on destroying the rest of us all as ordinary Americans in democratic good faith.
@Karl
Thank you for the title, I have written another comment (also shared as a note) based on a quick skim of chapters 5 through 7. YEET!!!