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.
Interview with Snowden published yesterday. He gave no files to Russia.
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/18/world/snowden-says-he-took-no-secret-files-to-russia.html?hpw&_r=1&pagewanted=all&
“Are you going to dictate what can be suggested and what can’t??”
No, but I will call a shameful suggestion exactly what it is.
Still can’t believe you say you are with the PSC; actually, it might help explain why they are so invisible, if there are full of “supporters” like you !
Thanks for that, Mary. Thrilling news.
Mary; What can you make of Amazon buying WaPo and eBay funding Greenwald’s news outlet?
“Not when you tell people to clear off if they don’t wish to discuss Israel/Palestine 24/7”
If people do want to discuss I/P here, and many obviously do, then there’s no point for those who don’t, in sticking around & moaning about it.
‘Anon It’s called freedom”
Not when you tell people to clear off if they don’t wish to discuss Israel/Palestine 24/7 it isn’t, especially as the blog owner hasn’t posted on that topic for some time.’
Wrong. Incorrect.
Craig said this on August 31st on the Troodos thread.
‘On one level the explanation is simple. The intercept evidence was provided to the USA by Mossad, according to my own well placed source in the Washington intelligence community. Intelligence provided by a third party is not automatically shared with the UK, and indeed Israel specifies it should not be.
But the inescapable question is this. Mossad have nothing comparable to the Troodos operation. The reported content of the conversations fits exactly with key tasking for Troodos, and would have tripped all the triggers. How can Troodos have missed this if Mossad got it? The only remote possibility is that all the conversations went on a purely landline route, on which Mossad have a physical wire tap, but that is very unlikely in a number of ways – not least nowadays the purely landline route.
Israel has repeatedly been involved in the Syrian civil war, carrying out a number of illegal bombings and missile strikes over many months. This absolutely illegal activity by Israel- which has killed a great many civilians, including children – has brought no condemnation at all from the West. Israel has now provided “intelligence” to the United States designed to allow the United States to join in with Israel’s bombing and missile campaign.
The answer to the Troodos Conundrum is simple. Troodos did not pick up the intercepts because they do not exist. Mossad fabricated them. John Kerry’s “evidence” is the shabbiest of tricks. More children may now be blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts. It is nothing to do with humanitarian intervention. It is, yet again, the USA acting at the behest of Israel.’
“Not when you tell people to clear off if they don’t wish to discuss Israel/Palestine 24/7 it isn’t”
No one is saying that.
“Hasbara agent! Zionist shill! Paid agent of the Israel!”
Yep. And it’s been broadening.
I’m utterly lost as regards the numbers, but so far I think they have labelled:
Habbabkuk, Villager, Anon (now ‘For the return of Habba’), myself, Technicolour, and Jemand. But I know I’ve left out quite a few.
Let’s just say that anyone who disagrees with Fedup, Passerby and Macky will be labelled a ‘hasbara troll’ in short order.
Talk about pathetic and pitiful …
“Still can’t believe you say you are with the PSC; actually, it might help explain why they are so invisible, if there are full of “supporters” like you !”
Believe it mate. (And have a look at the archives here. Passerby skipped over that part of my remarks.)
Even IPSC supporters are involved in other things too, you know.
Carry on little jihadis, I’ve got to go.
“Even IPSC supporters are involved in other things too, you know”
But how many would actually “suggest” not discussing I/P on a Political Blog ? !!
Six burned out cop cars….in Canada? Sheesh.
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/national/rcmp-move-in-on-first-nation-protesting-shale-gas-development/article14904344/
“Craig said this on August 31st on the Troodos thread.”
Christ, Mary, couldn’t you just have posted a link? Instead of a great big chunk of c and p?
me gone.
“me gone”
Not before your customary little bitchy snipe at Mary; I reckon your “suggestion” was also just another dig at her; goodness, you teamed-up with the Habbu-Clown Troll in snarking at Mary for months, so I’m guessing that there isn’t much that you wouldn’t actually do to get at her !
Now that really is “pathetic and pitiful”.
mike 18 Oct, 2013 – 4:28 pm
Here’s a wee tip for those who have to travel the snowy A9, bearing in mind that the two most likely places for the road to be blocked are the summits called Drumochter and Slocht (works best read with a Scottish ‘ch’).
If the Slocht’s blocht,
Drumochter’s blochter.
Don’t know Ben. I suppose you are asking if they are aincere. EBay’s Omidyar has to do something with his massive wealth I suppose and Amazon’s Bezos seeks to control a media outlet.
Omidyar has wealth of $8.7billion. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pierre_Omidyar
Bezos has wealth of $28.9billion http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jeff_Bezos
I guess both of them are addicted to power. Incidentally both underpay the British tax system on their UK sales.
Amazon UK paid £2.4m tax last year, despite £4bn sales
EBay only pay £1.2m tax in the UK on turnover of £800m
Mary; My hope is that their only true interest is in a tax write-off, but wealth and power are like feel good drugs. You can never get enough of a good thing.
Said and then Fraser left the fucking building!
Although just a wee bit up, as Brian would say there is this little outburst;
blockquote>.. Their hatred covers everyone who isn’t a middle aged or elderly white man — meaning Mexicans, Arabs, blacks, Muslims especially
So which statement should we fucking believe then? The concerned activist for the down trodden Palestinians story? Or the little stealthy ziofuckwit sleeper that masquerades as the concerned activist for the down trodden Palestinians?
Fear not because the roll call of honour solves any lingering doubts, for anyone except the legal eagles who would be wanting court admissible evidence and need swearing on huge stacks of religious books before a notary . This paragraph however is sufficient for those of us with a paranoid disposition;
Fact that he luminaries stated are all not ziofuckwits, and I have been fucking fighting the same gang of the ziofuckwits who were attacking me in a swarm and kicking up a ziofuckwit farrago is because they were all nice liberal bunch of nice guys, only helping me out to wash my brain and shit, really!!!!
Conclusion, this blog has not been targeted by the ziofcukwit mercenary gang, and we are all just plain loopy, and mad as a hatters for thinking so, because we are just not superior enough to see the fucking flower pots they have been wearing as their camouflage.
and i’m off for a quiz, have fun
A Node – thankyou; precious advice.
Focusing thoughts and translating those ideas on race, tribalism religion, whatever into words is indeed counter-productive. We can argue on many such memes, themes, thesis or moot(mute)points of issue such as Two-State Solution, Protestant ascendancy, Pieds Noirs, Nomenklatura, illusions of world order et alii until the thread starts to echo with strands of xenophobia.
For all that is periphery, chasing the squirrel, a deception perpetuated for thousands of years and kept alive by those out of sight, operating through their ‘hired guns’ -the people’s banal representatives.
Kept alive because it works. We have forgotten Troodos and the implications, the ramifications, the significance:
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/08/the-troodos-conundrum/
A stage that spawned an awareness of treacherous exceptionalism manipulated by masters of cunning and duplicity.
Craig said: Israel has repeatedly been involved in the Syrian civil war, carrying out a number of illegal bombings and missile strikes over many months. This absolutely illegal activity by Israel- which has killed a great many civilians, including children – has brought no condemnation at all from the West.
Israel has now provided “intelligence” to the United States designed to allow the United States to join in with Israel’s bombing and missile campaign.
Craig passed an intention and we transfused and conveyed that intention – those ‘truth vibrations’ succeeded and a Syrian connection was saved from being “..blown to pieces by massive American missile blasts.”
That freedom is the essential ‘relief’ appealed here, right now. Yet most of us can be ‘blood-hounds’ snooping, prying – that easy leap in consciousness is the marvel, the stunner, the thirst to evolve.
We must leave here with that intention.
With reference to an older discussion;
http://truth-out.org/news/item/19470-how-us-pressure-bends-un-agencies
Interesting points, Sofia at 2:44. Should we just accept political (and environmental?) destruction (and the termites responsible . . . ) as part of the Grand Scheme of birth, maturation, decay, and disintegration? It’s tempting, especially when one feels powerless to challenge the dominant destructive powers, to take a step back and view the whole thing from a more abstract vantage point . . .
But I suspect that this is a failure of courage as well as a failure of empathy. For example, it’s probably a lot harder to choose the larger-scale view if one is a Palestinian farmer whose olive groves have just been bulldozed or whose son has just been shot. Despite the attractions of abstraction, the human scale of things is where we are located; and I think we have to engage as fully as possible with the realities that exist at that scale . . .
I’d be interested to hear opposing arguments, though . . .
One liner of the day — brilliant!
For The Return Of Habba And Free Speech
18 Oct, 2013 – 2:31 pm
@Mary
“I was previously anon – and apart from what I say that is all I shall reveal – but I’m not Habba, Villager or anyone else for that matter.
They must think we’re as green as my cabbages!”
This red cabbage just cannot stop feeding us!
______________
So she has some utility, after all. LOL 🙂
Various friendly greetings:
Passerby, belated hellos.
BrianFujisan, yes, e-mail me any time you wish and we’ll try to arrange something. (Anyone may e-mail me any time; it’s really easy for me to click “delete” if I really don’t like it…)
Ben Franklin, yes, I think that “Zardoz” would be a good new screen name for you (see below).
Mary, thanks for your kind wishes.
Jon, thanks for fixing my tags.
——-
Now, some general observations:
No one can prove that any other contributor is working with Hasbara, or being paid to be a shill by some organisation. Neither can any contributor disprove any such accusations. It therefore seems silly and unproductive to engage in such arguments, because they end up degrading the “signal to noise ration” of the comment thread. It seems more sensible to post verifiable facts to make ones point. Then, if ones opponent really is such a shill, they’ll probably stop arguing so as not to provoke the posting of any further embarrassing evidence.
When replying to another contributor, it aids intelligibility if you quote their screen-name and, if their comment is a fair way back up the thread, the time and maybe even the date. Short, specific screen-names are therefore preferable to long sentence-like things.
Finally, to all the hot-heads here, please, please, please, just take a deep breath, and if that hasn’t calmed you down, have a cup of tea or a little of your favourite intoxicant. Fighting for peace is a contradiction in terms, and none of us know everything, least of all about what other contributors really think and/or believe.
Best wishes to all.
Regarding the earlier discussion about whether Israel is willing to negotiate in good faith ….
Palestine’s pre-condition for negotiating is the very reasonable request that Israel freezes their illegal programme of settlement construction.
This month, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said illegal Jewish settlements in occupied Palestinian territory are a “bogus issue” that “don’t stand in the way” of a peaceful solution to the conflict.
Illegal Israeli Settlement Construction Rose By 70% in 2013
http://antiwar.com/blog/2013/10/17/illegal-israeli-settlement-construction-rose-by-70-in-2013/
Pakistan TV Exposes Osama bin Laden Killing Hoax, Documentary Debunks 9/11 Official Story
http://rinf.com/alt-news/breaking-news/pakistan-tv-exposes-osama-bin-laden-killing-hoax-documentary-debunks-911-official-story/84215/
Video of interview with English subtitles:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xffT-8R38lQ
And if you still haven’t cheered up, here are some pictures of anti-crepuscular rays that I saw in Caithness last week:
http://www.killick1.plus.com/anti-crepuscular/
Anon, if you looked at my photo’s, please send some money to my e-mail address…
Clark
18 Oct, 2013 – 7:22 pm
Be careful there mate, he will charge you for his time for looking at your photos!
You know how it is with these superior sort of people.
Nice photos Clark, and how are you mate? Are you doing well? Are keeping well?
Beautiful Clark. Thanks. Good camera. Ace photographer.
I seem to remember that you contribute to Wikipedia. Suggest adding them to this page??
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anticrepuscular_rays
PS bloody hell Clark, that is great for a phone camera, you have done really well, did you set it up somewhere or were you holding the phone?
http://www.craigmurray.org.uk/archives/2013/10/edward-snowden-gets-sam-adams-award/comment-page-5/#comment-434012
All I would say is ‘Little things please little minds’, from Ovid.