Brilliant, as always Bill. Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Nuland have single-handedly destroyed Ukraine in their delusional quest to try and maintain the unipolar world with the US as global hegemon. What a tragedy! Meanwhile, the US press bemoans the imprisonment of the WSJ reporter, a likely US spy, but for years has had nothing to say in defense of Julian Assange, an honest journalist who is slowly dying in prison for exposing US crimes and malfeasance. Another grotesque hypocrisy!
You nailed it Charlie. Especially on the matter of the American Media and Assange [and while we're at it, Snowden, Manning, and a number of other like-minded folks].
On Dec 3, 2022, Elon Musk asked Twitterers: "Should Assange and Snowden be pardoned?"
Of the 3,316,014 votes cast in a couple of hours, 80.5% said YES, and 19.5% said NO.
I kinda think it's a matter of maintaining the illusion that the USA is what it was supposed to be but never quite was. And I truly believe the electorate as a whole - not just the MAGA people - are content with this and will continue to buy into this from now until doomsday because it's the more convenient avenue, and Amerikans will always seek the path of least resistance.
re Your declaration, Bill, that “In a democracy, government actions are supposed to be transparent to us. I want to know what my government is up to; we all should.” …:
The November/December 2013 issue of ADBUSTERS [#110] contained an article that every American and every citizen of every other nation on this Planet needs to read and ponder.
Entitled “Radical Transparency,” its core message is this:
“So long as elites and powerful forces are able to concoct wars and geopolitics in secret, we, the people, will never see a day of peace on Earth. Not even a single minute in fact … likely not even a second. Aggression, hatred, greed, jealousy and fear may be the ingredients of war, but secrecy is the heat that it needs to rise … the fuel that turns the disapproving into blind followers. So long as secrecy prevails as a fundamental right of states, peace, unity and brotherhood will always remain dreams … increasingly jaded ones.”
And, its conclusion is thus:
“If we are ever going to escape the 21st century with less bloodshed than the 20th century, we’re going to have to strip our governments of the right to lie to us citizens. In this information age, where gigatons of information zip around the globe each second, and where the geopolitical, financial, and ecological stakes are high, we need a new human right…..”
In response, the article proposes the following “amendment to the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to every constitution of every country in the world,” including, especially, The United States of America:
“Everyone has the right to live in a world without secrets. This right includes freedom from state deception, freedom from corporate misinformation, freedom from financial manipulation and the right to full public disclosure on all matters pertaining to peace, security, ecology and finance.”
A World Without Secrets… . Can You imagine? Could You imagine? Dare You imagine?
a document leak of the breath we see last week would require a long line of systemic failures in document handling on the order of the quality performance of the f-35, ford class carrier, etc.
As usual, I agree with you. However in this case it's not just the Pentagon, in fact more of the problem resides in the CIA. If you have not read "The Devil's Chessboard" which is abut Alan Dulles and his brother and how they created a CIA designed to function as an underhanded unit, also "Operation Gladio: the unholy alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia" and/or "JFK and the Unspeakable" then you apparently are not aware that there is a mountain of evidence that the CIA actually runs the US government. These are terrifying books that everyone should read. They are not the only ones out there, but these are ones that I know are fully annotated and documented. Perhaps the others are too, but I haven't read them.
Perhaps it is dangerous for bloggers to mention these books and others or refer to what they are saying about how Alan Dulles in particular managed to imprint his deep hatred of Russia and anything that had the slightest smell of socialism on the agency he designed - the CIA , and how that imprint has stayed with it for 75 years. But I do think it is time to start putting that history out for common consumption since it is that hatred that is coloring so much of our foreign policy . The Vietnam war was based on it, and numerous attacks on central and south American countries that only wanted to do more for their citizens rather than for US fruit or oil or mining companies. Also we have Iran which made the mistake of wanting its oil profits to go to its people, so we took out their democratically elected leader and put in the Shah who ruled with a very iron fist. And ultimately we have Ukraine, where once again we have installed fascists to do our will. It is not surprising that the mayhem is coming home to us who have continually allowed this to happen.
Our government behaves despotically toward every government that does not do exactly as we demand - we aggressively punish any with blocks to their commerce or anything we can think of to make them behave, we starve them, impovrish them and ultimately bomb them until they obey. This is America today and the people have learned that if they want something, they need to bash someone to get it -that is, after all , the American Way.
Read "JFK and the Unspeakable," and I agree that it's frightening. But not surprising. Another book along the same lines is L. Fletcher Prouty's "The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World." Most revealing.
That is a great idea,,,, round the guns and ammo up and send them to Ukraine. That would definitely turn the tide. In fact if Putin heard that we were doing that he may withdraw and ask for a ceasefire. I know the Chinese would definitely stop sailing in the South CHINA sea in order not to provoke Murican citizenry.
Before rejecting A World Without Secrets out of hand as naïvely immature, impractical, ignorant, and impossible [if only because inconceivable], consider first exactly WHY governments, corporations, financial institutions, and their media value, need, and thus demand and thereby get secrecy.
To consider just one tiny slice of the Secrecy Spectrum: WHY is it that the only News we ever get is always about what our Leaders have been doing and/or are up to, as or after They have concealed Themselves in Their ECHELONS ABOVE TOP SECRET enclaves and meetings, behind ultra-secretly and -secured closed doors?
WHY is it that what we do episodically get, such as it is, is then typically only under the very strictest condition of anonymity and non-attribution, thereby depriving us of the ability to judge, if nothing else, the probability of the truthfulness and usefulness of the information that we are fed? And not just having to take the Media’s word for it?
WHY do our Leaders tell us Nothing about exactly what They are talking about and what they are actually, really doing? About what decisions they are making? And about how and WHY They are making them?
WHY is Nothing [at least as it affects Us ~ We, them People] ever talked about in the open? Until, that is, the decisions have been made and all that We, them Folk, get [and get to do] is to deal with the attendant results thereof; ie, to suffer the consequences of those decisions?
WHY ~ when it is time for our Leaders to consider and ultimately make a decision, are all the presentations, alternatives, negotiations, consultations, confrontations, accommodations, compromizations, and declared ameliorations [to say nothing of the amortizations]…. ~ WHY do they always, Always happen in “SECRET”?
WHY is EVERYTHING done in secret, until it’s released to and then sold by the Media for, and thus, ultimately and only ~ for our consumption, partial digestion, and excretion ~ as a means of perpetuation? And even then, WHY are we only told only that which we are INTENDED to know/think/believe and to thus act upon? But never WHY it is needed, wanted, and thus intended that we know, think, believe, and act upon it?
WHY all the Secrets? Well… . Obviously, if You’ve been paying attention, that is and can only be another Secret. And thus won’t get us anywhere but, ultimately, at best, into an eternal [as opposed to infinite] regress.
i second Charlie K's comment of "Brilliant," Bill. Definite candidate for inclusion in the BEST OF BV.
And "GUNS AND AMMO FOR UKRAINE: Save Ukraine—Donate Your Assault Rifles and Bullets!” is beyond brilliant. It's in the same class as The Onion's constantly recurring headline.
An argument can be made that all that is happening right now is that America is beginning to get payback for all the mass shootings, aerial bombings, artillery barrages, etc that it has inflicted upon this Planet since 9/11, if not World War II.
During WW II Britain had few guns to equip their Home Guard. Estimates were that there were only enough rifles for 10% of the guard. American sportsmen sent their guns to help equip them. The shortage was made up when the US sent them M-1 carbines as well. When the war ended, the Brits, under their gun-controlling socialist government, cut up the guns and dumped them into the sea.
It is good [but not comforting] to know that i am not the only one asking if the United States will survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026 ~ 1,179 days from today. George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures concludes his just posted “The American Crisis Intensifies” as follows:
“I do not believe the situation will hold beyond the coming election. The brutal social issues, from race to gender to guns, create a public division that affects the functioning of government. Relations within the political system at all levels are increasingly venomous. The financial system has left an economic crisis. As forecast, the technological system will become increasingly inefficient, and the public appetite for its goods will be in decline. The financial system portends economic decline thatwill breed increasingly desperate and simplistic solutions, further drawing capital out of the financial system. For the first time in history, the institutional cycle and the social cycle will coincide. While wars tend not to influence domestic cycles, the impact of the Ukraine war will likely be magnified.
“The current political system cannot manage this situation. A solution must emerge now, to be presided over by the next president. It is impossible to explain all the details of a system failure or the need for a new political order. At this point, the only thing that can be said is that we are heading into failure, and a new president, filling everyone with joyous hope, will oversee what must be done. BUT WHAT MUST BE DONE REMAINS MURKY, TAKING ITS BEARING ONLY FROM THE BREADTH AND SERIOUSNESS OF THE FAILURE.”
"The man suspected of killing five and injuring eight at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, was a star athlete in high school who allegedly suffered so many concussions, he wore a helmet at basketball games."
Brilliant, as always Bill. Biden, Blinken, Sullivan and Nuland have single-handedly destroyed Ukraine in their delusional quest to try and maintain the unipolar world with the US as global hegemon. What a tragedy! Meanwhile, the US press bemoans the imprisonment of the WSJ reporter, a likely US spy, but for years has had nothing to say in defense of Julian Assange, an honest journalist who is slowly dying in prison for exposing US crimes and malfeasance. Another grotesque hypocrisy!
You nailed it Charlie. Especially on the matter of the American Media and Assange [and while we're at it, Snowden, Manning, and a number of other like-minded folks].
On Dec 3, 2022, Elon Musk asked Twitterers: "Should Assange and Snowden be pardoned?"
Of the 3,316,014 votes cast in a couple of hours, 80.5% said YES, and 19.5% said NO.
A Google Search revealed that nobody in America's Media bothered to carry that story. i found it at https://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/elon-musk-s-twitter-poll-on-assange-snowden-not-expressing-an-opinion-but-101670129326697.html .
I kinda think it's a matter of maintaining the illusion that the USA is what it was supposed to be but never quite was. And I truly believe the electorate as a whole - not just the MAGA people - are content with this and will continue to buy into this from now until doomsday because it's the more convenient avenue, and Amerikans will always seek the path of least resistance.
re Your declaration, Bill, that “In a democracy, government actions are supposed to be transparent to us. I want to know what my government is up to; we all should.” …:
The November/December 2013 issue of ADBUSTERS [#110] contained an article that every American and every citizen of every other nation on this Planet needs to read and ponder.
Entitled “Radical Transparency,” its core message is this:
“So long as elites and powerful forces are able to concoct wars and geopolitics in secret, we, the people, will never see a day of peace on Earth. Not even a single minute in fact … likely not even a second. Aggression, hatred, greed, jealousy and fear may be the ingredients of war, but secrecy is the heat that it needs to rise … the fuel that turns the disapproving into blind followers. So long as secrecy prevails as a fundamental right of states, peace, unity and brotherhood will always remain dreams … increasingly jaded ones.”
And, its conclusion is thus:
“If we are ever going to escape the 21st century with less bloodshed than the 20th century, we’re going to have to strip our governments of the right to lie to us citizens. In this information age, where gigatons of information zip around the globe each second, and where the geopolitical, financial, and ecological stakes are high, we need a new human right…..”
In response, the article proposes the following “amendment to the UN Charter, the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and to every constitution of every country in the world,” including, especially, The United States of America:
“Everyone has the right to live in a world without secrets. This right includes freedom from state deception, freedom from corporate misinformation, freedom from financial manipulation and the right to full public disclosure on all matters pertaining to peace, security, ecology and finance.”
A World Without Secrets… . Can You imagine? Could You imagine? Dare You imagine?
i retired from dod work about 4 years ago....
a document leak of the breath we see last week would require a long line of systemic failures in document handling on the order of the quality performance of the f-35, ford class carrier, etc.
As for the spying issue, I don't doubt that everyone spies on everyone else. It's just really bad form to get caught at it.
As usual, I agree with you. However in this case it's not just the Pentagon, in fact more of the problem resides in the CIA. If you have not read "The Devil's Chessboard" which is abut Alan Dulles and his brother and how they created a CIA designed to function as an underhanded unit, also "Operation Gladio: the unholy alliance between the Vatican, the CIA, and the Mafia" and/or "JFK and the Unspeakable" then you apparently are not aware that there is a mountain of evidence that the CIA actually runs the US government. These are terrifying books that everyone should read. They are not the only ones out there, but these are ones that I know are fully annotated and documented. Perhaps the others are too, but I haven't read them.
Perhaps it is dangerous for bloggers to mention these books and others or refer to what they are saying about how Alan Dulles in particular managed to imprint his deep hatred of Russia and anything that had the slightest smell of socialism on the agency he designed - the CIA , and how that imprint has stayed with it for 75 years. But I do think it is time to start putting that history out for common consumption since it is that hatred that is coloring so much of our foreign policy . The Vietnam war was based on it, and numerous attacks on central and south American countries that only wanted to do more for their citizens rather than for US fruit or oil or mining companies. Also we have Iran which made the mistake of wanting its oil profits to go to its people, so we took out their democratically elected leader and put in the Shah who ruled with a very iron fist. And ultimately we have Ukraine, where once again we have installed fascists to do our will. It is not surprising that the mayhem is coming home to us who have continually allowed this to happen.
Our government behaves despotically toward every government that does not do exactly as we demand - we aggressively punish any with blocks to their commerce or anything we can think of to make them behave, we starve them, impovrish them and ultimately bomb them until they obey. This is America today and the people have learned that if they want something, they need to bash someone to get it -that is, after all , the American Way.
Read "JFK and the Unspeakable," and I agree that it's frightening. But not surprising. Another book along the same lines is L. Fletcher Prouty's "The Secret Team: The CIA and Its Allies in Control of the United States and the World." Most revealing.
That is a great idea,,,, round the guns and ammo up and send them to Ukraine. That would definitely turn the tide. In fact if Putin heard that we were doing that he may withdraw and ask for a ceasefire. I know the Chinese would definitely stop sailing in the South CHINA sea in order not to provoke Murican citizenry.
Before rejecting A World Without Secrets out of hand as naïvely immature, impractical, ignorant, and impossible [if only because inconceivable], consider first exactly WHY governments, corporations, financial institutions, and their media value, need, and thus demand and thereby get secrecy.
To consider just one tiny slice of the Secrecy Spectrum: WHY is it that the only News we ever get is always about what our Leaders have been doing and/or are up to, as or after They have concealed Themselves in Their ECHELONS ABOVE TOP SECRET enclaves and meetings, behind ultra-secretly and -secured closed doors?
WHY is it that what we do episodically get, such as it is, is then typically only under the very strictest condition of anonymity and non-attribution, thereby depriving us of the ability to judge, if nothing else, the probability of the truthfulness and usefulness of the information that we are fed? And not just having to take the Media’s word for it?
WHY do our Leaders tell us Nothing about exactly what They are talking about and what they are actually, really doing? About what decisions they are making? And about how and WHY They are making them?
WHY is Nothing [at least as it affects Us ~ We, them People] ever talked about in the open? Until, that is, the decisions have been made and all that We, them Folk, get [and get to do] is to deal with the attendant results thereof; ie, to suffer the consequences of those decisions?
WHY ~ when it is time for our Leaders to consider and ultimately make a decision, are all the presentations, alternatives, negotiations, consultations, confrontations, accommodations, compromizations, and declared ameliorations [to say nothing of the amortizations]…. ~ WHY do they always, Always happen in “SECRET”?
WHY is EVERYTHING done in secret, until it’s released to and then sold by the Media for, and thus, ultimately and only ~ for our consumption, partial digestion, and excretion ~ as a means of perpetuation? And even then, WHY are we only told only that which we are INTENDED to know/think/believe and to thus act upon? But never WHY it is needed, wanted, and thus intended that we know, think, believe, and act upon it?
WHY all the Secrets? Well… . Obviously, if You’ve been paying attention, that is and can only be another Secret. And thus won’t get us anywhere but, ultimately, at best, into an eternal [as opposed to infinite] regress.
i second Charlie K's comment of "Brilliant," Bill. Definite candidate for inclusion in the BEST OF BV.
And "GUNS AND AMMO FOR UKRAINE: Save Ukraine—Donate Your Assault Rifles and Bullets!” is beyond brilliant. It's in the same class as The Onion's constantly recurring headline.
An argument can be made that all that is happening right now is that America is beginning to get payback for all the mass shootings, aerial bombings, artillery barrages, etc that it has inflicted upon this Planet since 9/11, if not World War II.
Just the beginning,
During WW II Britain had few guns to equip their Home Guard. Estimates were that there were only enough rifles for 10% of the guard. American sportsmen sent their guns to help equip them. The shortage was made up when the US sent them M-1 carbines as well. When the war ended, the Brits, under their gun-controlling socialist government, cut up the guns and dumped them into the sea.
It is good [but not comforting] to know that i am not the only one asking if the United States will survive to celebrate its 250th birthday on July 4, 2026 ~ 1,179 days from today. George Friedman of Geopolitical Futures concludes his just posted “The American Crisis Intensifies” as follows:
“I do not believe the situation will hold beyond the coming election. The brutal social issues, from race to gender to guns, create a public division that affects the functioning of government. Relations within the political system at all levels are increasingly venomous. The financial system has left an economic crisis. As forecast, the technological system will become increasingly inefficient, and the public appetite for its goods will be in decline. The financial system portends economic decline thatwill breed increasingly desperate and simplistic solutions, further drawing capital out of the financial system. For the first time in history, the institutional cycle and the social cycle will coincide. While wars tend not to influence domestic cycles, the impact of the Ukraine war will likely be magnified.
“The current political system cannot manage this situation. A solution must emerge now, to be presided over by the next president. It is impossible to explain all the details of a system failure or the need for a new political order. At this point, the only thing that can be said is that we are heading into failure, and a new president, filling everyone with joyous hope, will oversee what must be done. BUT WHAT MUST BE DONE REMAINS MURKY, TAKING ITS BEARING ONLY FROM THE BREADTH AND SERIOUSNESS OF THE FAILURE.”
Full article at https://geopoliticalfutures.com/the-american-crisis-intensifies/ EMPHASIS ADDED
From the NY Post:
"The man suspected of killing five and injuring eight at the Old National Bank in downtown Louisville, Kentucky, was a star athlete in high school who allegedly suffered so many concussions, he wore a helmet at basketball games."
I these crazy times a joke or 2 helps keep us safe.
Cheers