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.
Jemand. 4 43am
“Don’t you realise that you are contributing to ethnic tensions when you peddle racist myths that perpetuate the “cult of race”?”
Jemand. 2 36pm yesterday.
“We get that from… disgruntled non-whites like you all the time.“
Can you make up your mind? Are you a tireless defender of multiculturalism and or a white supremacist?
You can’t have one foot either side of the fence if its made from barbed wire.
Des Res
Can you do that in the English language, convert a transitive verb like amplify into an intransitive one in order to avoid giving an explanation? I can understand certain specific meteorological factors amplifying a storm. But can storms amplify themselves for no detectable reasons? Usual huff and bluff without any pruff.
D R no.2
Was I calling Germans Nazis? I thought I was calling USUKIS the investors of the universal 24/7 spying system Nazis. The system still cannot connect your medical records to your council tax without human spies selling you by identifying you, for money, as a problem. They have burned billions trying get the technology to work, but they still have to rely on bribing humans to shop people to them.
In other words without Zionist Wars and GCHQ bribing people to shop their fellow citizens, there would be no recession. What would you call people who have globalist ambitions to alter the course of the future of independent distant nations through state-sponsored violence other than Nazis? Neo-cons?
Sorry, that was Guano. Goo Goo was just for the infant kangaroo Jemand pontificating from his mummy’s tummy pouch.
Pity the poor people of Russia even more
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2195035/Vladimir-Putins-presidential-perks-include-palaces-planes-yachts-white-gold-watches-47k-toilet.html
Zuma is a complete amateur when it comes to kleptocracy
DesRes
We were discussing the tyrants who rule us here in the UK. Putin = the Queen. Cameron however is free to be a man of principle, but chooses to wave the Zio-doG.
Or, in his eyes, Zio-God.
Guano
Mary was discussing Jacob Zuma. I’m afraid I don’t have selctive vision when it comes to tyrants.
Re storms if you bother to listen to meterologists carefully you will see that they are always very guarded about giving very precise predictions about weather – as was the case yesterday regarding the likely strength and path of the storm. If you wish to be technical there are convective forces within the the atmosphere layers which cannot be predicted with certainty although they are getting better
http://www.met.rdg.ac.uk/phdtheses/The%20predictability%20of%20convective%20storms%20over%20the%20ocean.pdf
Guano
You may be a bit slow on the up take but I think DR was pushing you towards his abd his friends crackpot theory that WW2 and the Shoah was all part of the great Zionist conspiracy theory initiated by the Ashkenazis (yes some of them do actaully spell it that way to emphasis their sick distortion of history) and of course Stalin’s father was a Rothschild as was Yeltsin’s wife. Yes all of this garbage, and much much more, is available to you when you start to click on links provided by our resident Holocaust denier (or is it liar).
You don’t like it when caucasians refer to “non-whites”, do you Sofia? Why is that? Why do you assume the very worst motives? Is it because you have a chip on your shoulder about your own ethnic heritage? Don’t feel ashamed. Belonging to one ethnic group or another is not your doing and nothing to take pride or shame in.
I don’t understand where you got the silly notion that I was, or wanted to be, a defender of multiculturalism or “white supremacist” as I am not a subscriber to your “cult of race”. I’m even reluctant to use the term “race” because I don’t believe it exists. But everyone else seems to and I don’t have a suitable alternative for that term.
I hope that clears up some of your confusion.
“Pity the poor people of Russia even more”
Something that appears to have escaped your notice is that the residences, yachts and cars to which the DM article refers are not Putin’s personal property but trappings of his office and will therefote pass to his successor.
When it comes to kleptocracy you will surely be aware that the UK taxpayer has coughed up almost a trillion pounds to bail out the banks, whereas Russia’s only bailout amounted to a mere 10 billion.
ResDiss says ‘Then might I suggest you sit down, drink a cup and relax – rather than dreaming up silly conspiracy theories.’
Are you not aware that caffeine is a stimulant, not a relaxant?!
Also what I have been saying is not a ‘silly conspiracy theory’ (how the neo con and paleo con supporters love that expression and shoot it out to challenge the received propaganda just like one of those medieval charms used to ward off harm) but a rational statement of fact based on observation.
meant to say …shoot it out when the received propaganda is challenged…..
“Yes ResDis and Dreolin. A storm, not a hurricane as they repeated endlessly. They (the media) are trying to obtain photos of trees on cars, collapsed scaffolding etc. Those events happen at other times and are hardly reported.My point here has been that there is a strategy in place. People are being made to feel victims, powerless like corks in a vast ocean and to feel even more disempowered than we are.”
Probably the most hilarious post I have read all year amongst some stiff competition from Mary.
“So it was a storm. Lots of work for fencing contractors, power line workers and men with chainsaws no doubt but it did not deserve the overhyping that has gone since Thursday when I said it was being amplified.”
Yes those filthy capitalist bastard chainsaw men always ready to seize on a opportunity to make a buck out of other people’s misery!
Academicians at Bnai Brith University, Shalom Campus have just released a scholarly research paper funded by the well known Pallys Out WB Charity , headed “911 could have become another holohoax, its all Mr YouTube’s fault” As a result,the ADL has submitted a formal complaint to Google seeking to remove all 911 WTC demolition videos as anti-semitic material.
Has anyone got a Zionist angle on the storm yet? Maybe ZBC is trying to ‘normalize’ images of uprooted trees in the public consciousness so that we are desensitized to images of bulldozed Palestinian olive groves?
Of interest to Gulnara watchers:
“Uzbekistan: Is ‘pop star’ president’s daughter in power struggle?”
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-24652433
Karimova’s been in a war of words with her sister, Lola Karimova-Tillyaeva, who recently said they’d not spoken for 12 years, adding: “There are no family or friendly relations between us.” Gulnara retorted that her younger sibling – Uzbek ambassador to UN cultural organisation Unesco – was “friends with sorcerers”. Opposition website Uznews reported that Gulnara had also expressed concern about her mother performing “strange rituals”. On top of this, she blamed hackers for the four-day disappearance of her usually highly-active Twitter account, which has almost 40,000 followers. Previously, she’d accused “envious” people of rendering it inaccessible.
Yes Esther Rantzen has organised a funnd-raiser at the ZBC to pay for removal of the tree which fell on Jimmy Savile’s grave, as a mark of respect for all the advice he gave to the Israeli Cabinet and forming ChildLine !
How much more infantile can Agent Cameron and Lynton Crosbie become?
The Tories’ latest election propaganda.
Mystic Ed (and his crystal balls)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lSIQ91VO6A8
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2468091/Now-personal-Cameron-ridicules-Mystic-Ed-YouTube-attack-Labours-predictions-economy.html
Jemand
I know we are in o/ether life here, but can we leave Heebyjeeby, genderbending and the subject of smears out of the same sentence.
Surely even in second life some pretence of personal privacy can be aspired. ( DesRes intransitive verb )
Not much more infantile than ‘Obomber, ‘B.Liar’, ‘Shillary’ and ‘Agent Cameron’.
Anon ‘Of interest to Gulnara watchers:
“Uzbekistan: Is ‘pop star’ president’s daughter in power struggle?”
http://m.bbc.co.uk/news/blogs-news-from-elsewhere-24652433‘
Stewed cabbage. We know ALL of that already.
Why is it on the ZBC website? Bit of background publicity for their new flop The Ambassadors perhaps?
Anon: “so that we are desensitized to images of bulldozed Palestinian olive groves?”
It’s very apparent that some don’t need to be desensitized to this, or any other aspect of the brutality being inflicted against the Palestinians.
A non has quipped;
Surely if the amounts of money spent on suppression of the Muslim population, under the guise of “war on terror”, along with the bank bail outs. Both direct results of the ziofuckwit policies foisted on the Western gubimnets, and instead these enormous funds were spent on improving the infrastructure, the current disruption would have been minimised.
However, that is not the line which the questioner is prepared to take, as this lame question proves to be yet another example of continuation of the inane, and insipid keyboard war for the benefit of the zionistan.
John Major proposed a windfall tax on energy companies to help freezing pensioners this winter. The reality of the cost of energy is that UK intereference in foreign countries including John Major’s use of the predecessors of AlQaida in Kurdistan and Yugoslavia, has led energy-producing countries to regard the UK as deeply untrustworthy.
The UK’s addiction to the dark arts of international politics is the reason that we now pay vastly more for our energy than if we had been politically neutral. The likes of John Major ring their hands over the poor, but it is their addiction to war and foreign interference that has made the cost of our energy soar.
Point well made Macky. I had missed the inherent cruelty behind the jibe.
‘Olive oil is the backbone of the Palestinian agricultural economy, providing employment for 65% of the population, but ongoing Israeli occupation has left the industry decimated. Large swathes of olives groves been razed by Israeli bulldozers or been burned to the ground by settlers, and huge amounts of olive oil go to waste because it is too dangerous for farmers to harvest the crops or because of restrictions on movement.
Every year over half of the oil produced in Palestine is literally poured down the drain due to the lack of access to international markets.’
http://www.waronwant.org/overseas-work/conflict-zones/palestinian-olive-farmers
‘Since 1967 Israel has razed over 800,000 Palestinian olive trees, the equivalent to destroying Central Park 33 times over’
http://mondoweiss.net/2013/10/palestinian-equivalent-destroying.html
UK storm @ 1:03 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9t7mDDa8bRk&feature=c4-overview&list=UUTiL1q9YbrVam5nP2xzFTWQ
Thanks AA. Yes, I am shocked GLP has a 20-incher.
Greenwald on ‘He said, she said’ journalism….http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/28/opinion/a-conversation-in-lieu-of-a-column.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0
But this model has also produced lots of atrocious journalism and some toxic habits that are weakening the profession. A journalist who is petrified of appearing to express any opinions will often steer clear of declarative sentences about what is true, opting instead for a cowardly and unhelpful “here’s-what-both-sides-say-and-I-won’t-resolve-the-conflicts” formulation. That rewards dishonesty on the part of political and corporate officials who know they can rely on “objective” reporters to amplify their falsehoods without challenge (i.e., reporting is reduced to “X says Y” rather than “X says Y and that’s false”).
Worse still, this suffocating constraint on how reporters are permitted to express themselves produces a self-neutering form of journalism that becomes as ineffectual as it is boring. A failure to call torture “torture” because government officials demand that a more pleasant euphemism be used, or lazily equating a demonstrably true assertion with a demonstrably false one, drains journalism of its passion, vibrancy, vitality and soul.
Worst of all, this model rests on a false conceit. Human beings are not objectivity-driven machines. We all intrinsically perceive and process the world through subjective prisms. What is the value in pretending otherwise?
The relevant distinction is not between journalists who have opinions and those who do not, because the latter category is mythical. The relevant distinction is between journalists who honestly disclose their subjective assumptions and political values and those who dishonestly pretend they have none or conceal them from their readers.
Obama wasn’t kidding when he told Merkel ‘I didn’t know’.
He really didn’t know?
http://www.juancole.com/2013/10/americas-branch-government.html
It’s worse than I thought.
Is this the last word on the UK storm?
http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/28/uk-storm-giant-beach-ball-on-the-loose-in-london-4163980/
Anyone for the Tower of London on November 6th?
DEFENCE AND SECURITY DINNER
With Guest of Honour Sir Iain Lobban KCMG CB, Director, GCHQ
On Wednesday 6 November 2013, 7.00pm – 11.00pm
At Tower of London, London EC3N 4AB
Book now at londonchamber.co.uk/events
http://www.apm.org.uk/sites/default/files/open/Defence%20and%20Security%20Dinner%202013.pdf
If Joe Bloggs applied for a ticket (£210) would he get one or does one have to be in the spooky and/or the arms trading/warmongering worlds. Silly question.