Ray McGovern and the Sam Adams party have presented the Sam Adams award to Edward Snowden. I am delighted. This from Ray’s account of the event:
In brief remarks from his visitors, Snowden was reassured — first and foremost — that he need no longer be worried that nothing significant would happen as a result of his decision to risk his future by revealing documentary proof that the U.S. government was playing fast and loose with the Constitutional rights of Americans.
Even amid the government shutdown, Establishment Washington and the normally docile “mainstream media” have not been able to deflect attention from the intrusive eavesdropping that makes a mockery of the Fourth Amendment. Even Congress is showing signs of awaking from its torpor.
In the somnolent Senate, a few hardy souls have gone so far as to express displeasure at having been lied to by Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and NSA Director Keith Alexander — Clapper having formally apologized for telling the Senate Intelligence Committee eavesdropping-related things that were, in his words, “clearly erroneous” and Alexander having told now-discredited whoppers about the effectiveness of NSA’s intrusive and unconstitutional methods in combating terrorism.
Coleen Rowley, the first winner of the Sam Adams Award (2002), cited some little-known history to remind Snowden that he is in good company as a whistleblower — and not only because of previous Sam Adams honorees. She noted that in 1773, Benjamin Franklin leaked confidential information by releasing letters written by then-Lt. Governor of Massachusetts Thomas Hutchinson to Thomas Whatley, an assistant to the British Prime Minister.
The letters suggested that it was impossible for the colonists to enjoy the same rights as subjects living in England and that “an abridgement of what are called English liberties” might be necessary. The content of the letters was so damaging to the British government that Benjamin Franklin was dismissed as colonial Postmaster General and had to endure an hour-long censure from British Solicitor General Alexander Wedderburn.
There has been a determined attempt by government to justify the need to intercept everybody’s communications, all the time. We have, yet again, had MI5 claim there are many thousand violent Islamic terrorists running around the UK, (yet somehow not managing to kill anybody). The cry of “paedophiles” is raised, as always. I can imagine them suggesting the entire population be shot dead, and justifying it as making sure they get the paedophiles. The tabloids would go with that.
There still had not been a single credible claim by the mainstream media that any named individual has died, despite that contingency being trotted out all the time as the reason Snowden and Manning should not have revealed state crimes and abuse of power. I am hopeful that, with the internet still largely free to the dissemination of information, out next massive whistleblower is only weeks away.
I am going to put my head above the parapet and agree to an extent with James8379.
Too many comments on this blog seek to find a Zionist connection with whatever topic is under discussion. For example, repeated links referencing politicians who are members of the various Friends of Israel parliamentary groups grow wearisome. The point has been made that these groups exist, that they organise trips to Israel (and often the Palestinian territories too) and some of the costs are funded by the Israeli government.
As for the troll issue, my approach is to either debate with people, if their comments are challenging and contain an evidential basis, or ignore them if their posts are vitriolic and lack any reasoning. However, calling people trolls for simply disagreeing with the majority opinion on the blog is intellectually lazy.
I will brace myself for the reprisals…
James8379: “The overall tone of that post Mary is anti-Semitic.”
So nothing actually “anti-Semitic” per se, just your perception that the “tone” is !
Perhaps either you are being hyper-sentive to the point of paranoia, or maybe you are just fed-up with Israel always being in the news, and always in the bad news at that; if the former, sorry there doesn’t seem to be a cure, if the latter, then as Komodo suggested, Israel needs to be persuaded of the errors of it ways.
Jives said,
Indeed it is a very sinister undercurrent. Given the mode of the operation of the hasbara team assigned on this blog, and their insistence to constantly bombard the threads with the utter nonsense that is the currency in the corporate media, as well as the clearly obvious hasbara 101 techniques deployed to suppress, derail, and trash the threads, in addition to the constant personal attacks, and the constant stream of rancour.
Why should there be so much instance for these operatives to post on this blog?
Why is there such a uniform thrust of the known elements to provide a platform for the known ziofuckwits that are passed as “dissidents”?
Why should there be an apparent “clamour” to stop this blog from debating the inhumanity of the baby killing, old woman beating, land stealing, mass murdering ziofuckwits?
It is all far too sinister indeed, to find such a persistence and orchestrated attacks on the contributors, for debating the ziofuckwits and highlighting their appalling human rights record, all the while the orchestrated attempts to reintegrate the “chief” that was thrown out on its ears?
Anyone with a modicum of decency, pride, and humanity would have got the message and not insisted on being an unwanted guest, worse still to orchestrate a comeback campaign as waged on this blog?
My name is James. I am 34. Have lived in lots of places you talk about and feel entitled to post whatever I like. I can’t possibly be an ‘unwanted guest’ as the forum is open to all and if I feel the posts are anti-Semitic and knee-jerky bullshit recycling of news then I am entitled to say so.
I am in no way massively in support or against the mainstream news and take it as I find it. However, all this conspiracy theory rubbish is silly. All this wasted time and ‘intellect’ looking for the subversive and hidden agendas behind every news story….
I’m not a ‘zio-fuckwit’ and am certainly not in cahoots with anyone else you might currently disapprove of on here but do feel that debate is being strangled by people who insist on posting inconsequential bollocks they have found by simply googling ‘what has (insert bad race) done today that I can recycle and moan about….
I also have no idea what the ‘Hasbara’ team is…
This is a link to a report on Cameron’s failed promise to fund innovative care in the NHS that I wrote about this morning. His promise NHS, NHS, NHS! is as empty and hollow as the man who spoke the words. There is no profit for the NHS privateers in this kind of medicine. They will pick and choose the easy options.
New rare treatments fund scrapped
Cash to fund the early entry into hospitals of hundreds of potential new treatments for rare diseases and disorders has been withdrawn.
NHS England said financial pressures meant it had had to cancel the £50m innovations commissioning fund.
The more than 600 NHS and non-NHS applicants that had hoped to provide these specialised services will now miss out.
The fund was announced two months ago with the promise it would save lives.
The idea came from a widespread review of innovation in the NHS that David Cameron launched in December 2011.
/..
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/health-24533624
~~~
NHS free treatment for all will DISAPPEAR due to spending cuts, experts warn
14 Oct 2013 06:38
In a leaked document, the NHS Confederation said without a radical boost in funding, free care for all would disappear
http://www.mirror.co.uk/news/uk-news/nhs-free-treatment-disappear-due-2368109
that said I do believe that having seen it a first hand there is an instinctive tendency to racism within most people and Putin is more than happy to appeal to it.
Fixed. Though denial has become a way of life, The Other remains a potential and invocable threat, and it doesn’t take much to get part of the populace enraged against any Other you care to name. (C.f. Mel Phillips on Islam, fr’instance) I neglected to mention Putin’s (pragmatic) relations with the Orthodox Church, without which his popular appeal would be much less – as the Tsars realised in their time. Other prejudices against The Other come with that package.
“their insistence to constantly bombard the threads with the utter nonsense that is the currency in the corporate media” —–
Zimbabwe, Syria, North Korea, Mali, Myanmar, Belarus, China, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
If it was possible to quantify the crap that goes on in these countries, I would guess that it was comparable with the shit that goes on in Israel but it doesn’t get mentioned in the way that so many of you ‘discuss’ Israel….
“instinctive tendency to racism within most people” – not in young children, so cannot be called instinctive.
I also have no idea what the ‘Hasbara’ team is…
Risible statement, in the way of a convincing rebuttal, along with the cover story, too! Evidently these days the levels of intellect are so dumbed down, anyone with an infantile cover story, and even a more contrived and lame conjecture is to be believed. Very sinister indeed.
And I’m not defending Israel, just holding a mirror up to your prejudices and ‘pet hates’….
“would have got the message and not insisted on being an unwanted guest”
Here again we have the assumption that this blog belongs to someone other than Craig and that they have the right to determine who is and isn’t a wanted guest. If Passerby and others wish to control who is and isn’t a guest and what they can and cannot say then they are free to go and impose such policies on their own blogs – but please don’t pretend you are committed to free speech.
Exactly
Komodo.11 56am
No need for aspirin, the sphagnum-psylocybe head poultice worked wonders, but thanks anyhow.
….
and 12 27pm
News of the NSA’s Mega-Lightening Machine not only made me smile but added a little optimism to my outlook re Total Surveillence since it’s pretty clear the hardware is pretty frecked aswell as uncontrolable.
Btw, I bumped into Kibo while I was in that trance and she told me she remembers the strange couple of years after the Fall of the Berlin Wall when the old soviet aparatniks and their controlled soviet press were the last to acknowledge that hardly anyone one believed in them any more. The botched US global hegemony through financial and military shock-and-awe and it’s media Fairytaleland little helpers, strikes me as a very similar dynamic. Especially now it has decided on a self-inflicted DIY financial lobotomy in Washington.
It’s like Professor Doom, at the point shortly before the explosive destruction of his Island Lair upon which stands the All Seeing Eye……..as he desperately pulls at the levers and presses the large red buttons steam starts to burst through the pipes…..
…. the rumbling rises to a crescendo and huge chunks of roof start to fall on the scurrying henchmen…..
…cut to the sound of small waves splashing on the sides of the Great Hero’s love-boat as he claims his just reward….
…
2 07pm
Thanks,
”I guess the solution to the admitted problem – that Israel sucks – is for it to stop being an apartheid state and stealing land. Hasn’t been tried before. Might work.
What a curious and ingenious but, maybe over complicated ideafor some minds to grapple with.
Can I complicate matters further with another rather quaint notion, like also stop testing US weapons on Palestinian civilians. The world knows the US leads the field in high tech industrial scale slaughter and for some strange reason most people regard both the production and use of it’s products as as unacceptable behaviour.
‘Risible statement, in the way of a convincing rebuttal, along with the cover story, too! Evidently these days the levels of intellect are so dumbed down, anyone with an infantile cover story, and even a more contrived and lame conjecture is to be believed. Very sinister indeed.’
No really…. I read the blog but have no idea what it is. I rarely reading the comments unless I have something to say. I’m not sure I have come anything ‘sinister’ in real life and am definitely not on your paranoid ‘wavelength.’
There’s no cover story, no bullshit, no lame conjecture… I am just someone who wants to say something.
And say what you wish, but my opinions are not contrived.
where’s the debate? Where’s the interaction? Where’s the questions? Where’s the debate?
Oh, lost in the paranoid babble as always…
Instead of just shrieking ‘troll’ or ‘hasbara’ why don’t you just ask some questions? If they are ‘hasbara’ – I am under the impression it means someone who is paid by the Israeli government to defend its actions online – then how does your strategy of sticking your fingers in your ears and shouting fuck off actually work? Given that we have at least one person who has been accused of being a troll, a paid shill and sorts of other guff not only continuing to debate reasonably but agreeing that Cast Lead was an act of terror, and another agreeing that Likud are both racist and anti-arabist, you’d think a large part of this board would be hanging its head in shame, or at the very least apologising.
MC: thanks, and agree.
Unwanted guest’s proxy said;
Jon is the representative of the blog owner, and in his capacity as the Moderator, he has rejected the presence of the entity you are campaigning tirelessly to reinstate.
Here is what Jon said;
If ‘Hasbara’ means what you suggest then I am shocked….
At no point have I ever defended Israel. To be honest, I’m not interested to a huge degree which is why I was annoyed by some people’s eagerness to denigrate the country at the expense of the relevant topic.
So some of you really are paranoid weirdos…
I try to see the good in everyone but some of you push it too far….
..and I don’t think anyone is campaigning tirelessly to reinstate anyone. I think the point might be that he can say whatever the fuck he wants to….
Censorship, freedom of speech and all that…
I just looked ‘hasbara’ up –
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_diplomacy_%28Israel%29
I’ve seen posters here referring to a manual, but have never looked at it because I honestly can’t see the point. I’d be happy to discuss things with someone who wanted to defend the actions of the Israeli government – or the British government, for that matter.
James , maybe you should do what you accuse many other posters on here of doing and consult Google (regarding hasbara)
Oh, lost in the paranoid babble as always…
…And yet you decide to get involved.
Waiting at a checkpoint for hours in blazing heat can’t be fun.
Watching your home be demolished can’t be either.
Being raided in the middle of the night and having your son arrested must be terrifying.
Struggling to get fresh water and wading through shit that the local Jewish settlement has diverted in your direction must be pretty disgusting too.
Having a relative shot while tending their sheep ‘too close to the wall’.
Targeted assassinations removes a basic right we all should have.
……. I could go on endlessly with these examples of ‘paranoid babble’
The simple fact is if every country played it like the Israeli government do , the world would be in chaos. Oh and if it wants to be described as a Jewish State why is it anti-Semitic to call it’s inhabitants Jewish? The anti-Semite tag is just too useful to ignore , isn’t it?
James: I’m free to post ‘I love Cameron’ repetitively if I want to, I presume, but I’d hope someone would stop me.
Andy,
My point was that the anti-Israeli (I’m being polite) diatribes have neither anything to do with the article being discussed or anything I have talked about.
I am neither an anti-Semite or a raging pro-Israeli.
Andy, my friend, you sound the most anti-Semitic of them all….
FFS! It is the principle rather than the facts. I care about Israel as much as any man on the street. The fact that this discussion has led me to be attacked for my ‘pro-Israel’ prejudices surely proves my point. You’re obesessed….
And this previous was largely ignored in a previous post so I’ll repost in the hope of some balanced discussion…
‘Zimbabwe, Syria, North Korea, Mali, Myanmar, Belarus, China, Iraq, Iran, Russia, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan
If it was possible to quantify the crap that goes on in these countries, I would guess that it was comparable with the shit that goes on in Israel but it doesn’t get mentioned in the way that so many of you ‘discuss’ Israel….’
james: despicable as your listed regimes may be, one thing that distinguishes them from Israel is that none of them is currently involved in the illegal occupation of another country.
Keep on using ‘antisemitic’ against all and sundry, 8379. Cheapen the term further. Then maybe it will stop having any perceived value against people who recognise that the Israeli state is not founded on the principles of Judaism.
Sophia: psilocybin has a lot to be said for it. Generally from a prone position, interspersed with hysterical giggles. Go easy, girl.
“james: despicable as your listed regimes may be, one thing that distinguishes them from Israel is that none of them is currently involved in the illegal occupation of another country.”
also see discussion with Resident Dissident & Ben of the UK’s role vis a vis one of our allies on previous page.
Having said that: “The fact that this discussion has led me to be attacked for my ‘pro-Israel’ prejudices surely proves my point” – well, yes; I can see that.
Hear, Hear Technicolour @3:50pm. I have tried to relay the same message at various points earlier in time but have failed miserably. You enunciated it so eloquently.
I hope Jon is reading this and feeling a genuine sense of regret at banning Habbabkuk. Were he to see that he was here for genuine discourse such that is taking place, he might yet relent without waiting for the Boss’s instruction.
Jon, if you genuinely care deeply for freedom of speech, the overall health of this blog and believe that people will eventually find the common ground if they stop accusing others of being trolls, you would reinstate Habba. I propose the word troll is what should be banned here and be the prerogative of the Moderator to determine who they are and take action. That sounds civilised enough for me. That would be the kind of empowering of the Moderator that would be fair and balanced.