Why is the U.S. press corps so silent about an actual threat to press freedom?
In February, after Donald Trump tweeted that the U.S. media were the “enemy of the people,” the targets of his insult exploded with indignation, devoting wall-to-wall media coverage to what they depicted as a grave assault on press freedoms more befitting of a tyranny. By stark and disturbing contrast, the media reaction yesterday was far more muted, even welcoming, when Trump’s CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, actually and explicitly vowed to target freedoms of speech and press in a blistering, threatening speech he delivered to the D.C. think tank Center for Strategic and International Studies.
What made Pompeo’s overt threats of repression so palatable to many was that they were not directed at CNN, the New York Times or other beloved-in-D.C. outlets, but rather at WikiLeaks, more marginalized publishers of information, and various leakers and whistleblowers, including Chelsea Manning and Edward Snowden.
Trump’s CIA Director stood up in public and explicitly threatened to target free speech rights and press freedoms, and it was almost impossible to find even a single U.S. mainstream journalist expressing objections or alarm, because the targets Pompeo chose in this instance are ones they dislike – much the way that many are willing to overlook or even sanction free speech repression if the targeted ideas or speakers are sufficiently unpopular.
Decreeing (with no evidence) that WikiLeaks is “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” a belief that has become gospel in establishment Democratic Party circles – Pompeo proclaimed that “we have to recognize that we can no longer allow Assange and his colleagues the latitude to use free speech values against us.” He also argued that while WikiLeaks “pretended that America’s First Amendment freedoms shield them from justice,” but: “they may have believed that, but they are wrong.”
He then issued this remarkable threat: “To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.” At no point did Pompeo specify what steps the CIA intended to take to ensure that the “space” to publish secrets “ends now.”
Before delving into the chilling implications of the CIA Director’s threats, let’s take note of an incredibly revealing irony in what he said. This episode is worth examining because it perfectly illustrates the core fraud of U.S. propaganda.
In vilifying WikiLeaks, Pompeo pronounced himself “quite confident that had Assange been around in the 1930s and 40s and 50s, he would have found himself on the wrong side of history.” His rationale: “Assange and his ilk make common cause with dictators today.”
But the Mike Pompeo who accused Assange of “making common cause with dictators” is the very same Mike Pompeo who – just eight weeks ago – placed one of the CIA’s most cherished awards in the hands of one of the world’s most savage tyrants, who also happens to be one of the U.S. Government’s closest allies. Pompeo traveled to Riyadh and literally embraced and honored the Saudi royal next-in-line to the throne.
This nauseating event – widely covered by the international press yet almost entirely ignored by the U.S. media – was celebrated by the Saudi-owned outlet Al Arabiya: “The Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef bin Abdulaziz al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior, received a medal on Friday from the CIA . . . . The medal, named after George Tenet, was handed to him by CIA Director Micheal Pompeo after the Crown Prince received him in Riyadh on Friday in the presence of Deputy Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman al-Saud, Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Defense.”
The description of this Pompeo/Saudi award ceremony was first reported by the official Saudi Press Agency, which published the above photographs. It gushed: “In a press statement to the Saudi Press Agency (SPA), following the reception, the Crown Prince expressed appreciation of the CIA for bestowing on him such a grace, laying assertion that this medal is a fruit of endeavors and instructions of the leaders of the kingdom, notably the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Salman bin Abdulaziz Al Saud, bravery of security men and cooperation of all walks of the community to combat terrorism.”
Then there’s the venue Pompeo chose: the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS). As the New York Times reported in 2014, the CSIS – like so many of D.C.’s most prestigious think tanks – is itself funded by dictators.
In particular, the United Arab Emirates has become “a major supporter” of the group, having “quietly provided a donation of more than $1 million to help build the center’s gleaming new glass and steel headquarters not far from the White House.” Other CISIS donors include the regimes of Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and Kazakhstan.In return, UAE officials are treated like great statesmen at CSIS.
This is all independent of the fact that Pompeo’s boss, President Trump, just hosted at the White House and lavished praise on one of the world’s most repressive tyrants (and closest allies of the U.S. Government), Egyptian leader Abdel Fatah al-Sissi. And the government of which Pompeo is a part sends arms, money and all kinds of other support to dictators across the planet.
So how could Mike Pompeo – fresh off embracing and honoring Saudi tyrants, standing in a building funded by the world’s most repressive regimes, headed by an agency that for decades supported despots and death squads – possibly maintain a straight face as he accuses others of “making common cause with dictators”? How does this oozing, glaring, obvious act of projection not immediately trigger fits of scornful laughter from U.S. journalists and policy makers?
Try to find mainstream media accounts in the U.S. of Pompeo’s trip to Riyadh and bestowing a top CIA honor on a Saudi despot. It’s easy to find accounts of this episode in international outlets, but very difficult to find ones from CNN or the Washington Post. Or try to find instances where mainstream media figures point out what should be the unbearable irony of listening to the same U.S. Government officials accuse others of supporting dictators while nobody does more to prop up tyrants than themselves.
This is the dictatorship-embracing reality of the U.S. Government that remains largely hidden from its population. That’s why Donald Trump’s CIA Director – of all people – can stand in a dictator-funded think tank in the middle of Washington, having just recovered from his jet lag in flying to pay homage to Saudi tyrants, and vilify WikiLeaks and “its ilk” of “making common cause with dictators” – all without the U.S. media taking note of the intense inanity of it.
But it is Pompeo’s threatening language about free speech and press freedoms that ought to be causing serious alarm for journalists, regardless of what one thinks of WikiLeaks. Even more extreme than the explicit attacks in his prepared remarks is what the CIA Director said in the question-and-answer session that followed. He was asked about WikiLeaks by the unidentified questioner, who queried of “the need to limit the lateral movements such as by using our First Amendment rights. How do you plan to accomplish that?” This was Pompeo’s answer:
A little less Constitutional law and a lot more of a philosophical understanding. Julian Assange has no First Amendment privileges. He is not a U.S. citizen. What I was speaking to is an understanding that these are not reporters doing good work to try to keep the American Government on us. These are actively recruiting agents to steal American secrets with the sole intent of destroying the American way of life.
That is fundamentally different than a First Amendment activity as I understand them. This is what I was getting to. We have had administrations before that have been too squeamish about going after these people, after some concept of this right to publish. Nobody has the right to actively engage in the theft of secrets from American without the intent to do harm to it.
Given how menacing and extreme this statement is, it is remarkable – and genuinely frightening – that it received so little notice, let alone condemnation, from the U.S. press corps, most of which covered Pomepo’s speech by trumpeting his claim that WikiLeaks is an agent of an enemy power, or noting the irony that Trump had praised WikiLeaks and Pompeo himself had positively tweeted about their revelations.
Pompeo’s remarks deserve far greater scrutiny than this. To begin with, the notion that WikiLeaks has no free press rights because Assange is a foreigner is both wrong and dangerous. When I worked at the Guardian, my editors were all non-Americans. Would it therefore have been constitutionally permissible for the U.S. Government to shut down that paper and imprison its editors on the ground that they enjoy no constitutional protections? Obviously not. Moreover, what rational person would possibly be comfortable with having this determination – who is and is not a “real journalist” – made by the CIA?
But the most menacing aspect is the attempt to criminalize the publication of classified information. For years, mainstream U.S. media outlets – including ones that despise WikiLeaks – nonetheless understood that prosecuting WikiLeaks for publishing secrets would pose a grave threat to press freedoms for themselves. Even the Washington Post Editorial Page – at the height of the controversy over WikiLeaks’ publishing of diplomatic cables in 2010 – published an editorial headlined “Don’t Charge WikiLeaks”:
Such prosecutions are a bad idea. The government has no business indicting someone who is not a spy and who is not legally bound to keep its secrets. Doing so would criminalize the exchange of information and put at risk responsible media organizations that vet and verify material and take seriously the protection of sources and methods when lives or national security are endangered.
The Obama administration, in 2010, explored theories for how it could prosecute WikiLeaks, and even convened a Grand Jury to investigate. But it ultimately concluded that doing so would be impossible without directly threatening First Amendment press freedoms for everyone. As former Obama DOJ spokesman Matthew Miller yesterday said of Pompeo’s threats:
@ggreenwald it's also hollow. DOJ knows it can't win a case against someone just for publishing secrets.
— Matthew Miller (@matthewamiller) April 13, 2017
But back in 2010, the Obama DOJ briefly flirted with, but then abandoned, the possibility that it could get around this problem by alleging that WikiLeaks did more than merely publish secrets, that it actively collaborated with its source (Chelsea Manning) on what documents to take. As the New York Times’ Charlie Savage reported then: “a government official familiar with the investigation said that treating WikiLeaks different from newspapers might be facilitated if investigators found any evidence that Mr. Assange aided the leaker, who is believed to be a low-level Army intelligence analyst — for example, by directing him to look for certain things and providing technological assistance.”
Ultimately, though, no evidence was found that this happened. And, beyond that, many in the DOJ concluded – rightly so – that even this “collaboration” theory of criminalization would endanger press freedoms because most investigative journalists collaborate with their sources. As Northwestern Journalism Professor Dan Kennedy explained in the Guardian:
The problem is that there is no meaningful distinction to be made. How did the Guardian, equally, not “collude” with WikiLeaks in obtaining the cables? How did the New York Times not “collude” with the Guardian when the Guardian gave the Times a copy following Assange’s decision to cut the Times out of the latest document dump?
For that matter, I don’t see how any news organisation can be said not to have colluded with a source when it receives leaked documents. Didn’t the Times collude with Daniel Ellsberg when it received the Pentagon Papers from him? Yes, there are differences. Ellsberg had finished making copies long before he began working with the Times, whereas Assange may have goaded Manning. But does that really matter?
The dangers to all media outlets from this theory should have been crystal clear when Joe Lieberman and former Bush Attorney General Mike Mukasey argued that the New York Times itself should be prosecuted for publishing and reporting on WikiLeaks’ secret documents – on the ground that no meaningful distinction could be made between the NYT and WikiLeaks.
But criminalizing WikiLeaks’ publication of documents is clearly part of what Pompeo is now planning. That’s what he meant when he argued that “administrations before have been too squeamish about going after these people, after some concept of this right to publish”: he was criticizing the Obama DOJ for not prosecuting WikiLeaks for publishing secrets. And this is why Pompeo yesterday claimed – with no evidence – that WikiLeaks “directed Chelsea Manning in her theft of specific secret information.” He clearly intends to pursue prosecution of WikiLeaks and Assange for publishing classified information.
It has long been a dream of the far right, as well as hawkish Obama followers, to prosecute journalists and outlets that publish secret information based on this theory. As Newsweek noted in 2011: “Sarah Palin urged that Assange be ‘pursued with the same urgency we pursue Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders,’ and The Weekly Standard’s William Kristol wants the U.S. to ‘use our various assets to harass, snatch or neutralize Julian Assange and his collaborators.'”
This same “collaboration” theory that Pompeo is advocating is what various Obama loyalists, such as MSNBC’s Joy Reid, spent months hyping in order to justify the prosecution of the journalists (such as myself) who reported the Snowden materials: that we did not merely report them but “collaborated” with our source. Her theory then became the basis for her NBC colleague David Gregory asking if I should be prosecuted on the ground that I “aided and abetted” Snowden.
This – the “collaboration” theory propounded back then by Bill Kristol and Joe Lieberman and Joy Reid, and now by Mike Pompeo – is the mentality of people who do not understand, who do not practice, and who hate journalism, at least when it exposes the bad acts of the leaders they revere. Just as is true of free speech abridgments, if you cheer for it and endorse it because the people targeted in the first instance are ones you dislike, then you are institutionalizing these abridgments and will be unable to resist them when they begin to be applied to people you do like (or to yourselves).
WikiLeaks now has few friends in Washington: the right has long hated it for publishing secrets about Bush-era war crimes, while Democrats now despise them for its perceived role in helping defeat Hillary Clinton by exposing the secret corruption of the DNC. But the level of affection for WikiLeaks should have no bearing on how one responds to these press freedom threats from Donald Trump’s CIA Director. Criminalizing the publication of classified documents is wrong in itself, and has the obvious potential to spread far beyond their initial target.
People who depict themselves as part of an anti-authoritarian #Resistance — let alone those who practice journalism — should be the first ones standing up to object to these creepy threats. The implications of Pompeo’s threats are far more consequential than the question of who one likes or does not like.
Top photo: CIA Director Mike Pompeo speaks at the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, on April 13, 2017.
I think this is outrageous, and if succeed in prosecute; therefore, they will start going after every media outlet. You got to remember our U.S. Government is like a kid in cookie jar they will always lie and denied everything while they break every law in book, and they live by double stander. So for this to take place and if succeed then we are so screw because Whistleblowers are only ones who keeping our government in check and no media outlet won’t touch it anymore if they can go to jail. Well this is my thoughts anyways so I guess you can say good bye to our Constitutions if succeed…
Assange is a traitor and so is Glenn liberalism is a mental disorder
U.S. Government is traitor which Whistleblowers Scott Bennett has proven that; however, Mr. Assange and Mr. Greenwald have more brass then you ever will have. Whistleblowers and reporters who report on the leaks are our Bravest Heroes not traitor. So you saying that they are traitor then you should open your eyes and take another look at our own Government have been doing to us. All Whistleblowers and Mr. Assange as well as Mr. Greenwald and all reporters who report on the leaks deserve our greatest respect. I hope you wake up my friend and see the real truth.
I just listened to Greenwald’s interview with Amy Goodman on how the CIA’s persecution of Assange is a tactic — go after someone who is currently so unpopular that people will get behind an assault on press freedoms that they would normally oppose. Then, if successful, and after the precedent is established, they can go after bigger game.
The conversation brought back a memory for me, of listening to Jello Biafra (the former front man for The Dead Kennedys) speak about the obscenity charges he was facing as a result of the efforts of a group called The Parents Music Resource Center, led by Tipper Gore. This was in 1986. Biafra was going broke trying to defend himself and was speaking to raise legal funds. Why would The Parents Music Resource Center focus their ire on a musician that had such a small following and zero mainstream success? Biafra contended that the musicians Gore and the PMRC really wanted to go after were people like Prince, who was simply too big and too popular to attack. So for a target they picked this (relatively) obscure punk band with an offensive name, that couldn’t afford to defend themselves, to set a dangerous precedent.
Holy Shi…! This is so jarringly incompatible with the mandatory position on 1st amendment rights tradition has always mandated for senior US officials and any public figure when the topic is broached I kept thinking I must be misunderstanding or there must be some missing element that changes the context of Pompeo’s statements so they would be understood to not be as … blasphemous … as they sound to American ears. Deep down I felt a chill like I had somehow lost track of where I was going and wound up in the twilight zone. A CIA head announcing that he will not obey the 1st amendment and his contempt for all the past executive branch office holders that respected the Constitution and accepted being bound by it and no reporters thought that was a story! No editor thought this was as obvious a headline that will sell as man bites dog? Impossible. Can someone tell me, is this normal for this world? Where I come from we do these things completely different so I’m not sure what is going to happen next with this, can someone explain please? Wow.
I love Glenn Greenwald. It just makes me so angry that he and his team are doing nothing to reach millenials. Where are the viral YouTube videos? Where’s the podcast with tens of millions of listeners?
Joe Rogan, who I love, has ten times as much reach and influence than Glenn and even Rogan would agree that’s just ridiculous. Glenn needs to get himself out there. His team needs to get themselves out there. Otherwise, all this amazing information goes to waste.
Why does Alex Jones know how to run a news operation more successfully than Glenn? I am a huge fan of Alex, but why does he reach tens of millions of viewers, listeners, AND readers while Glenn remains in the shadows despite all his talent and intelligence? Pull it together guys. Think bigger. We need you.
Spread this article guys!
As a libertarian, it scares me that there are so few real liberals like Glenn Greenwald left in the media. I can agree with real liberals in every single non-economic issue and I admire their principles. However, all these fake liberals scorn the first amendment, the fourth, fifth, and sixth amendments. They fail to call intelligence agencies out when they’re wrong, choosing instead to lavish them with praise and to collectively salivate at even the hint of another illegal war we could engage in. It’s disturbing.
Over 90% of the U.S. media is controlled by a small cabal of six corporations that are in bed with the military-industrial complex. That’s why you don’t see the mainstream media standing up for liberal principles anymore. They’re controlled by a corporate oligopoly that barely anyone talks about.
I always steer my liberal friends towards Glenn Greenwald and The Intercept. They need to continue to grow and become more influential as the mainstream corporate-controlled media continues to die out.
Where is the ACLU’s response to this direct assault on the 1st Amendment?!
“Decreeing (with no evidence) that WikiLeaks is “a non-state hostile intelligence service often abetted by state actors like Russia” a belief that has become gospel in establishment Democratic Party circles”
And this is why the DemocRAT Party is the enemy of democracy, the Bill of Rights and the Constitution. And why any idea of “uniting” with the thoroughly corrupt DNC elite against Trump is ludicrous.
Sen Sanders traveling with Tom Perez is a circus, and the “unite” tour premise should be rejected, with prejudice, by true Progressives. I say that as a voter/donor for Sanders over decades in Vermont and in the rigged 2016 primary. He is displaying an incredible lack of self respect by traveling with Obama/Clinton flack Perez, and thinking that his supporters are going back over to the rotten Dems because “Trump.” Time to stop “loving” politicians, whomever they are, and holding them ALL to account. And have them hold the illegal and murderous activities of animals like Pompeo to account.
obama created cia censorship board over the fcc in the last ndaa and now th cia is targeting independent media wikileaks and they are coming after THE INTERCEPT.
why is the intercept ignoring this?
the cia censor board over the fcc is now going after wikileaks and the intercept is next.
why is the intercept ignoring this?
Glennits the biggest story of censorship in the 21st century aimed at wikilaeks, the intercept and independent media and you are NEXT.
WHERES THE COVERAGE OF THE CIA CENSORSHIP BOARD CONTROLING THE FCC TO CENSOR YOU!
WHY IS THE INTERCEPT IGNORING THE STORY THAT THREATENS THE EXISTANCE OF THE INTERCEPT?
WHERES THE COVERAGE WHERES THE OUTRAGE? WHERES THE ALARM OVER FASCIST CENSORSHIP COMING AFTER THE INTERCEPT BY THE CIA?
What are your sources on this?
This is a nutjob’s reference to Section 1287 of the 2017 NDAA. There isn’t much news coverage of it. The ‘obama created’ bit is the clearest evidence the poster is a nutjob. The kernel of truth is that Obama didn’t veto the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2017. But nutjob is right – this is worthy of news coverage. The section provides for the secretary of state and secretary of defense to create an interagency, international Global Engagement Center (GEC) to “discover, expose and counter foreign government information warfare efforts (to include foreign propaganda and disinformation efforts) and proactively advance fact-based narratives that support US allies and interests.” The GEC’s public face is here: https://www.facebook.com/GlobalEngagementCenter/ It’s probably got a private face too. There does seem to be some form of covert censorship in the USA: Try to find a copy of Al Quaeda’s latest press release, even in translation. I remember looking for a copy the last time I read a news article announcing one had been put out. I have great google fu, and even tried other search engines, and read article after article looking for clues for how to find it, or a link to it. It was major news, and yet I found impossible to obtain.
What happened to my comment? Censored or held for moderation?
@Ben – he’s referring to the NDAA that established the “Global Engagement Center” (it incorporated the “Countering Foreign Propaganda and Disinformation Act” which has a wikipedia page.
Wow, excellent. Let’s take away all the laws that are in place to keep the government in check. That way no one is exposing lies, atrocities, and corruption. It’s shocking to think that people would rather not know what their tax dollars fund and what horrors are being committed in their name. You want assange gone so that.. your government can continue to rape the world (and you) but you can sleep soundly while it happens? Sounds great. Go on America get rid of assange. Sweet dreams.
Pompeo==Brennan
Pompeo == Brennan
A good story would be about the 1,000 + civilians killed by US and our Coalition Allies dropping bombs in the ME in March alone .
How can Assange be a hero for publicizing the inner workings of the CIA cyber efforts.
I would think one would be anti-American for doing that . Does the public really have a right to know this information? Would someone enlighten me as to why this is ok ? My first instinct is to want to see a seal team drag Assange out of the Embassy where he is hiding in plain sight .
What can one say to someone like yourself who willingly says to those around him, “I want to be blind – do to me what you will.” Freedom is the vision of an enlightened mind. That is why those who are ruled and those who despotically rule over them fear that word. It is under a cloak of “secrecy” that despots operate. It is those who are willfully blind who resent the secrecy being lifted so that light shines in. For the sights that meet the eyes, once secrecy has been stripped away may not be a pretty sight. This sodden swamp revealed behind “The Matrix,” once the niceties of secrecy is stripped away, may cause us to blurt out with Pogo, “we have met the enemy and he is us!”
As to your impulse to batter down everything that challenges a views by using military might, the Seals for instance, I can only respond in the words of Tom Lehrer:
When someone makes a move
Of which we don’t approve
Who is it that always intervenes
UN and OAS, the have their place I guess
But when in doubt, send the Marines!
For might makes right
Until they’ve seen the light
They’ve got to be respected
All their rights “protected”
Until somebody we like can be elected . . .
” Would someone enlighten me as to why this is ok ? ”
Check out the Declaration of Independence. ” Governments derive their power from the consent of the governed” Paraphrased. How can the governed give their consent if they are kept in the dark. They can’t.
Bravo Glenn! No one else has so consistently displayed the same qualities of true journalism.
Pompeo, like any good Federal lackey is hardly operating in a vacuum. He is a mouthpiece for those who perpetrate “policy.” The CSIS, billing itself as a “neutral,” “bi-partisan” think tank, has provided Pompeo a platform from which to throw down a gauntlet to those who dare to blow aside the noxious cloud of secrecy under which the “honorable men” perpetrate their brand of snake oil and lay bare their true motives. The CSIS, far from being neutral, serves the interests of the rich and powerful. Superficially, the CSIS advertises John Hamre as its president. Yet Hamre, is a third-tier former government lackey with just enough plausibility to “front” in this position. The real control of CSIS and presumably its political stance, is in the hands of its CEO, multi-billionaire Thomas Pritzker. Although the CSIS has technically not “sided” with Pompeo it has given him a credible platform from which to spew his denouncements. Pritzker, a hotelier and sometime “businessman” and major global player, who fogs his proclivities under a cloak of “philanthropy,” along with others of his ilk resents the threat of policy exposure. Moreover, the Board of Trustees of Pritzker’s “think tank,” reads like a veritable rat’s nest of the rich and powerful. Board members include political elites like Henry Kissinger, William Cohen, Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Leon Panetta (to name but a few) who have consistently steered US policy onto the rocks . These collectively resent the exposure of their nefarious activities to public scrutiny.
Al this arguing about propaganda, when propaganda is simply usually misleading people through promoting a certain point of view – an accusation that can be leveled at anyone’s confirmation bias, really. We all use ‘propaganda’ everyday to motivate ourselves and others (certainly on these threads), and it’s only when the user is consciously ignoring salient facts and trying to manipulate with information for destructive purposes that it becomes dubious – but even that assessment is often largely in the eye of the beholder.
With regard to WikiLeaks and the election, personally I believe some individuals who were focused on transparency and civil liberties – including Assange – presumed that criticizing and humiliating Trump was already being done quite thoroughly (by both reputable and not-so reputable propagandistic outlets) and felt a responsibility to not let Clinton Democrats sneak all of their political malevolence under the wire just because of this (this certainly explains to my mind his comments on releasing the material he obtained).
You’re all basically arguing about arguing, or debating about debating.
And by the way, Goebbels spoke goebbeldygook.
yes arguing about arguing is popular here
the main fissure seems to be between the legal logicians and the emotional reasoners
…and the logicians are singularly unconvincing because human beings are not logical creatures. Good propaganda appeals to the emotions.
Advertising appeals to the emotions.
… the people must understand that the right thing is the right thing. Propaganda includes everything that helps the people to realize this.
You should know the difference advertising and propaganda, even if an appeal for ignorance moves you.
… writes the guy who is quoting Goebbels as his source for the truth. Goebbels was glorifying propaganda – but that was just propaganda. Advertising and propaganda may be selling different products; the techniques used are the same.
No, propaganda and advertising are not at all the same.
Advertising sells a product. The success or failure of an advertising campaign can be measured in sales or that product. Whether you buy coke or pepsi doesn’t particularly matter to me — or anyone else.
Propaganda, in contrast, is a means by which a political policy gains approval and acceptance by the masses. Success or failure cannot be measured except by lack of widespread opposition. If you had read Goebbels speech as I suggested, you wouldn’t make such an uninformed claim. He gives various examples of the success of his propaganda in the widespread acceptance of various Nazi programs.
If you say that by dropping the MOAB on a bunch of Afghanistani peasants, you’ve reached your sales quota for the year, you’re desperately uninformed and myopic about the consequences of a successful propaganda campaign.
Maisie’s claim that Goebbels speaks “goebbeldygook” appeals exactly to that ignorance. Her formulation — Goebbels = Nazi = worthless — ignores a horrendous history of death, suffering, war, and brutality brought by the Nazis. Ignoring Nazism means, inevitably, repeating it … in different words, with different players, and in different circumstances, but all leading to exactly the same results. If you’d like to avoid those results, which you must according to most of you reviling Clinton and the Deep State, you should understand the forces and dynamics which brought about WW2 and the gas chambers.
In a way, advocating for ignorance is like advocating abstinence as a means of preventing teen pregnancy. The more you don’t talk about it, the greater the likelihood of the exact opposite outcome.
You cannot wish away a political figure like Trump who celebrates war (“I love war”) combined with a US military establishment designed and eager to wage war.
If you think that by defeating Clinton you’ve accomplished what you claim to want (constraints upon the US military establishment), I’d say you have failed spectacularly … daddy.
have to disagree. the best advertising is propaganda for an entire groovy universe to live in … and purchasing the product becomes the entry point into that world
this is more or less how trump won: make america great, buy trump
http://www.alternet.org/media/10-brilliant-quotes-noam-chomsky-how-media-really-operates-america
of course Chompy would agree with this quote, except for the last part about “benefiting the masters of the economy.”
he would instead say that this “benefits our need for way cool products and shit like that”
Yes, US politicians — including Obama and Trump — market themselves as products. And yes, every marketing campaign shows happy smiling people who’ve suddenly gone from fat to thin, depressed to happy, flaccid to turgid, and lonely to popular or whatever.
Propaganda is much more than — and much different from — pasting happy ferns on a colorful background.
In 1967, riots outside the Democratic Convention showed the popular anti-war mood that permeated the country. In 2003, as Bush gathered the political momentum necessary for an invasion of Iraq, there were some demonstrations against the war, but those demonstrations didn’t change anything. The US shrugged — or complained — and went along with their everyday lives.
Now, the US drops the MOAB and quite likely plots a pre-emptive war against NK, and besides some school marmish finger-wagging, the US shrugs again.
What changed between 1967 and 2003?
Whatever changed, It wasn’t advertising that changed it.
you’re comparing apples and oranges when you talk about sophisticated political propaganda and “sunday shopper” happy ads
both political and consumer advertising have become much more high concept since the 1960s
“It’s the Real Thing”, “Just Do It”, “Think Different”, “HOPE”, “I’m with Her”, and “Make America Great” are all examples of this …
Bush in particular was a master of simplicity … he was “the decider” who could reduce a military invasion to a “Top Gun” photo op in a matter of hours
and since the US political opposition has gone high concept and “viral” as well (witness “adbusters”, “Occupy”, and “WikiLeaks”), those people willing to mix it up on the streets with police are really in the minority
Different entities, different goals, different methods …
Let me untangle this if I can.
Trump ran a marketing campaign, complete with caps, slogans, tv ads, standard electoral ploys, and a measure for success.
Russia ran a propaganda campaign. Russia’s overarching goal seems to be (quite reasonably) removing the European threat in the west — the old soviet satellite states, the Baltic States, Ukraine. Their goal wasn’t to elect Trump but to sow discord among European institutions like Nato, EU, G-7 and more. This is best accomplished by undermining Establishment figures like Clinton.
It seems to me this distinction highlights the presumable commonality of interests and shows the ways in which the Russians used institutional interests (Wikileaks, Trump campaign, Brexit figures) to pursue their own strategic interests.
The US establishment (media/IC/pols) looks at what Trump gave the Russians — promises, quid pro quos, state secrets, whatever because they’re American-centric.
But this confuses the intertwined issues because the Russians don’t want anything specific from the Trump campaign. (The inclusion of the Ukraine clause in the Republican platform seems like a clumsy attempt of someone(s) to give something in exchange that really wasn’t necessary.) The Russians want to attack the US substrata of militarism. Clinton is the perfect foil, Assange the perfect spokesman. Trump is almost irrelevant here. The Russian propaganda campaign would have been exactly the same whether it was Trump or Rubio or Gingrich.
I hate people who brag when shortly after making a claim, their claim is validated.
Just stop it Milton! You’ve made your point. And besides, nobody is going to come back to notice it. Let it go.
What’s the matter with you?
All mushrooms are fungi, but not all fungi are mushrooms. Similarly while all advertising is propaganda, not all propaganda is advertisment. Advertising is a form of propaganda, get your pseudo-intellectual ar se over it.
Advertising and propaganda may not be ‘the same’ but, particularly in the US, they are generally mixed together.
Propaganda: The Formation of Men’s Attitudes by Jacques Ellul
From Randall Bytwerk, Professor Emeritus of Communication Arts and Sciences at Calvin College in Grand Rapids, Michigan
All the propaganda of the Third Reich. It is an impressive collection.
I commend this closing excerpt from an article in The Nation by Greg Grandin this past December 8th.
Goebbels > Allen Dulles > Kissinger > Brzezinski > Pompeo; This progression of practitioners of “performative utterance”, at the behest of their enablers, needs much further understanding by a much wider audience.
EA
If you are reading this right now at the CIA, please, please leak information on CIA spying on Americans. Wikileaks and SecureDrop are both easy and safe.
And please leak information on Britain’s intelligence community spying on Americans when it was “too hot” for the Americans to do it, and then passing that information back to the CIA.
George Bush (the elder) was Head of the CIA before becoming President. He was obviously aware of these programs. It’s also not plausible to say the younger Bush didn’t know about these programs, or never heard about them from his father.
CIA: it’s easy and safe to leak these programs. Please do so. Given the trends in encryption and technology, these leaks are coming, in fact, they are assured. We will win in the end. It should be You who changes the world.
It’s actually neither easy, nor safe. Do you honestly think that the government took little or no precautions to those persons having access to information regarding their spying on Americans. They have.
Leaking is safe and easy.
There’s a long list of leakers who will never be caught. The last major leak – Wikileaks’ Vault 7 release of the CIA’s hacking tools – has left even the CIA helpless, sputtering, and impotent.
Privacy and encryption tools are getting better. At the same time, governments have a large and widely-disseminated pool of illicit actions they have to defend. Valuable leaks are increasing, and the natural evolution is already in place. We will win in the end.
Leak now (at least against your competitors – this is logical). Leak while you can still get a place in the history books.
All my boomer life I’ve heard that self reverent expression, “The American way of life”.
Like Ike Eisenhower, I saw rolling fields of corn, boys and girls of all backgrounds raised with the family Bible and knowing right from wrong, and citizens free to question in open discourse almost anything, Habeas Corpus…all that stuff. Of course, I knew that was romantic, but I always believed there were good values down deep.
Now that phrase has become loaded with hypocrisy, commercialism, and self interest. Daddy Warbucks has his own definition of it.
Like many here, I’ve spent thousands of keystrokes addressing the losing Democratic Presidential candidates campaign, the reason for that loss, and what should happen now. Twitter proves that often times, less is more:
Don’t worry Glen if they ever try to come after you I’ll save ya????
I trust Julian Assange. Sifting truth from propaganda, from outright lies is increasingly exhausting but for over a decade Julian has shown integrity and an ethical vision soaring far above his corporate controlled peers. Keep up the good work J.A.
Greenwald is going to write about what Greenwald decides to write about. He is not going to change. Pointing out US foreign policy hypocrisy is certainly a lot easier than delving into the geopolitics of the greater Middle East. That might require some reading for historical context. However, Greenwald has a billionaire funding this site with at least 20-30 journalists. Here is what Greenwald said about democracy (in reference to Brazil):
Right next door to Brazil, the left wing Venezuela government is undermining their democracy with not a single story from the Intercept. Does Greenwald care about democracy? Greenwald did mention Venezuela within the context of US spying:
Yet people are starving and going to Columbia by the thousands for food. Venezuela democracy is in crisis. The Intercept has had numerous stories on Brazil yet not one on Venezuela’s “democracy”. We all enjoyed an extremely important article on Chris Kyle – the American war hero – and numerous other stories of marginal interests. It would seem that the undoing of the democracy in Venezuela as well as the suffering of the Venezuelan people would warrant an article by one of his billionaire paid journalists – if not Greenwald himself.
Still waiting. By the way, an excellent article on Mashal Khan in Pakistan today.
Craig, I suspect you forgot to take your pills and are having one of those bad days. Just to make you feel better remember that Trump will eventually bomb democracy into every country with the one and only mother of all bombs. Don’t worry, be happy !
Happy is a relative term. For example, I’m happier than those guys who were beneath the moab……
If you can convince the US government to initiate a humanitarian bombing campaign of Venezuela, that would increase the chances of Mr. Greenwald writing about it.
The US, however, is only one country. So Venezuela will probably have to get in line for the US freedom bombs, just like everybody else.
I’m fairly certain that a US bombing campaign is on the Christmas wish list for the opposition.
“In Venezuela, a Rebellion Is Taking Shape, but Where Can It End?” http://thebea.st/2povnsJ via @thedailybeast
Craigsummers and the US news media like to talk about the problems in Venezuela, but they don’t talk about the government death squads in Guatemala or the 13 year old girls being forced to sell themselves in the streets in Colombia. I have seen this with my own eyes. I have also watched political rallies in Kiev with my own eyes, and seen the US and Russian news media report on them in ways that were equally untruthful.
Greenwald is one of the few honest US reporters. Abby Martin is also very impressive:
http://theempirefiles.tv
The post lightly [edited] for accuracy:
“[Craigsummers] is going to [believe] what[ever] the [US government and its mainstream press] decides. He is not going to change. [Ignoring] US foreign policy hypocrisy is certainly a lot easier than delving into the [reality] of the greater Middle East. That might require some [think]ing for historical context. However, [craigsummers] has a [national security state apparatus telling him what to think]. Here is what [craigsummers] said about democracy (in reference to B[rownies]):
Throughout the world, the US is undermining democracy: threatening, bombing, and occupying countries with little if any regard for morality and international law]. Does [craigsummers] care about democracy? [Craigsummers] did mention [terrorism] within the context of US [attempts to tighten its control over the Middle East]:
Yet people are [dy]ing and [fleeing the Middle East] by the [tens of] thousands for [survival]. [Meanwhile, American] democracy is in crisis. The Intercept has had numerous stories on [these and other critical issues, but craigsummers] enjoyed an extremely important article on Chris Kyle – the American war hero [as presented by the mainstream media]– and numerous other stories of marginal interests. It would seem that the undoing of the democracy in [the US] as well as the suffering of [millions of] people would warrant a [passing concern] by one of his b[rain cells].
Still waiting. By the way, [this was an] excellent article [with important points he ignores].”
This is hilarious:
Commenter Mona:
“It is moronic to reach conclusions based what what a person does not write about.”
Glenn Greenwald in this article:
“it was almost impossible to find even a single U.S. mainstream journalist expressing objections or alarm, because the targets Pompeo chose in this instance are ones they dislike”
Glenn Greenwald CONCLUDED that mainstream journalists did not express their objections about the alarming Pompeo’s speech BECAUSE those journalists dislike Pompeo’s targets.
Again. commenter Mona’s statement:
“It is moronic to reach conclusions based what what a person does not write about.”
Taken out of context, the above might almost seem to make sense. And far, far out of context is where you’ve taken it.
In fact, in context, it doesn’t make a whit of sense, except to the sloppiest of thinkers.
If you ponder deeply (as deeply as you may be capable of pondering), you may be able to ferret out the difference between (1) reaching a conclusion based upon Glenn’s “failure” to write “something about something” about which he seldom writes anything at all, and which anyone familiar with his work should know is not on his beat; and (2) concluding that MSM journalists’ failure to object or express alarm at threatening remarks by a CIA director (!) targeting investigative journalism is likely due to the thoroughly-established fact that the named target is one with whom they compete and whom they overwhelmingly despise.
Your reasoning is tortured, twisted and tormented — and your conclusion is specious.
“Taken out of context, the above might almost seem to make sense. And far, far out of context is where you’ve taken it.”
Actually it is not, but your dedication to remodel reality in order to disburden a member of your crew should be appreciated. Your reasoning will certainly comfort you and your associates, but it will bring laughter to those who grasp common sense. Greenwald’s pattern to suddenly ignore a subject even when the conditions that he ( and your associates) claims caused his great interest in that particular matter amplify is more than enough to conclude that his real agenda is not necessarily related to his official position.
Have you ever considered entering the Bulwer-Lytton contest? If you just removed some punctuation, you’d have a good start, here.
I take this as checkmate!
Commenter Mona:
“It is moronic to reach conclusions based what what a person does not write about.”
[…]
Glenn Greenwald CONCLUDED that mainstream journalists did not express their objections about the alarming Pompeo’s speech BECAUSE those journalists dislike Pompeo’s targets.
That’s right, but he also claimed they weren’t expressing that conclusion even while they were writing about Pompeo’s speech.
The bolded bit included a link to CNN’s Chief National Security Correspondent tweeting – last time I checked, tweeting involves writing – exactly what Greenwald said.
So unless you’re trying to convince people that journalists were ignoring Pompeo’s speech altogether, their writing about it (which they did) is NOT the same as their lack of expressing an opinion on the First Amendment implications in the speech. Mona was correct in what she wrote. Your elision, not so much.
Words mean.
A lack of words can also mean — like avoiding a homeless person asleep on a sidewalk … or walking to the other side of the street when otherwise you would be in the vicinity of a person of another race.
However, drawing conclusions based on expressed words if far more accurate and authentic than reaching conclusions on unexpressed words.
The difficulty of finding accurate authentic information increases exponentially when words are absent. We humans tend to fill in the blanks with our own imaginings.
This common, even universal, human tendency to infer, makes actual statement more sturdy than imputations.
This shouldn’t be in dispute.
Even among those looking for a dispute.
You took an extra trip through the buffet line to pile-up that word salad, didn’t you.
Sigh….
Another Glenn-bot (aka *Mouseketeer) graces us w/ their rational thinkery, instead of prepping for their 2017 – Habanero Jam production..
The gall..!!
Kudos,
suave’
*ht – the craig
“Nobody puts p’ska in a corner.”
johnny castle (dancing dirty)
https://youtu.be/28A9Jgo92GQ
Hi suave
Long time no see. Hope everything is going good for you.
“So unless you’re trying to convince people that journalists were ignoring Pompeo’s speech altogether”
No, I am not, but this writer is:
“By stark and disturbing contrast, the media reaction yesterday was far more muted”
“Mona was correct in what she wrote. ”
That conclusion is even more shocking! Lol lol lol
I command you for the energy spent to rescue a member of your crew.
P.s They can write about the speech WITHOUT WRITING ABOUT THEIR OPINION about the same speech.
“It is moronic to reach conclusions based what what a person does not write about.”
Joseph Goebbels:
Reading Goebbels makes it much simpler to understand anti-Zionism. Certain anti-Zionists must have been very familiar with the work of Goebbels, for example Ilan Pappe:
Below is a quote from Michael Neumann, Professor of Philosophy and author of the book, “The Case Against Israel”:
Anti-Zionist propaganda includes comparing Israel to Apartheid South Africa and equating Zionism and racism. The far left uses lying as a strategy. Anti-Zionism and Goebbels – two peas in a pod……
the bigger picture is that the DNC has used wikileaks weakly-directed propaganda cult for their own propaganda purpose (the myth of significant russian influence)
trump however is only too willing to play the deepstate game … and so HRC is now being accused of being a russian spy on the cover of a major supermarket tabloid (really)
Sometimes it is hard to control the forces you unleash. Ask Robespierre.
propaganda goals arent going to be served by the specific content of the documents released by wikileaks
but simply by releasing a huge mass of authentic material (which few will even read, let alone understand), wikileaks creates a powerful propaganda cult of “transparency”
McMaster is blathering about Assad’s brutality “spilling over into Iraq”.
This guy is a clown.
Wikileaks isn’t a media outlet, it’s a transnational spy agency as I argued on March 27, 2017. Stop promoting Assange propaganda.
https://lynnaewilliams.com/2017/03/wikileaks-a-spy-agency-for-the-21st-century/
Down-thread, Mona poses an innocent seeming question:
In response, I point out that the use of “accurate authentic information” isn’t quite as benign as it appears. Truth is an important component of all propaganda — something true can be employed in a variety of pernicious ways. (see the book The Bell Curve for instance.)
I already knew that Josef Goebbels had claimed that effective propaganda relies upon truth. So I looked for that quote and I found it in Goebbels 1934 speech to the Nazi Party at Nuremberg.
Unfortunately, the speech is owned by a small college in Michigan (alma mater of Betsy DeVos, btw). Written permission was necessary to reprint any part of it. Generally educational institutions allow “fair use” citations.
The Intercept polices — I assume — “moderate” any post using a “protected” citation into oblivion. I posted a bit of it anyway and my post didn’t appear. Thus I subsequently posted my thoughts without the citation and left it at that.
Having reread the entire Goebbels speech, I’m convinced that it shines a bright light on the 2016 election.
The propagandistic value of using “accurate, authentic information” strongly implies, (to me), the calculated role of the FSB and Wikileaks in the US election.
It is far from benign.
I strongly recommend that others interested in understanding the 2016 election (and many other peculiarities of State sponsored information) track down and read that entire speech.
I will leave it at that so as not to run afoul of TI moderation.
Bullshit on stilts from @Milton Wilmellow:
There is no “moderation” here for quoting anyone, including Josef Goebbels. And no one “owns” any of his speeches. That is utter horseshit.
You, Milton, made the absurd claim that in the Wikileaks context, releasing accurate, authentic information puts WL in league with Josef Goebbels. Now, in the face of appropriate mockery for such an insane claim — Josef Goebbels as a teller of truth! — you contrive even more unhinged crap about “owned” Goebbels speeches.
Jesus, Milton, you really have totally lost it.
This, Milton, was what Goebbles actually felt about truth:
Authentic documents — thousands of them — do not fit into that paradigm. Especially authentic documents that themselves largely pertain to how to sell partisan propaganda, as opposed to truth.
Yet:
And:
Finally, I notice you didn’t find Goebbels’ explicit statement that good propaganda neither needs to lie and mustn’t lie. You can find that statement as easily as finding another.
The fact that you do not bother — that you discredit me apparently without looking — demonstrates the sort of ethical system you employ. Like Trump and Republicans, you apparently assert as a premise that since you’re absolutely correct, your opponent is necessarily wrong.
If you don’t agree with my characterization of your ethical standards, you can find the speech I referenced, find the statement in that speech that verifies my assertion and then apologize to me.
Yes, that will take you all of ten or fifteen minutes.
But I suspect it isn’t the time investment that matters to you — from your numerous postings, you apparently have plenty of time. I suspect your commitment to “accurate, authentic information” isn’t exactly what you claim.
You can prove me wrong.
“You, Milton, made the absurd claim that in the Wikileaks context, releasing accurate, authentic information puts WL in league with Josef Goebbels.”
NO. HE DID NOT. I assume you have a minimum level of intelligence when I say you are spreading falsehoods about other commenters. That means you understand what they say, but you decide to distort their comments anyway. However, now I wonder if you even have the basic intellect to grasp what others are saying here.
AS A MEMBER OF THE NAZI PARTY, A SPEAKER, BEFORE THE ELECTION GOEBBLES DID PROVIDE ACCURATE AND AUTHENTIC INFORMATION ABOUT THE GERMAN ECONOMY TO INFLUENCE THE ELECTORATE. BUT HE CAREFULLY OMITTED SEVERAL FACTS.
Conclusion (implied by Milton): just because an individual, or an organization published accurate, authentic information does not mean they are “benign” and not propagandists.
Goebbles was not a public servant at that time. He could say and write whatever he wanted whether it was truth or not.
Wikileaks is not under any obligation to publish X instead of Y. It can publish whatever it wants. There is nothing wrong about Wikileaks publishing accurate or inaccurate information to influence the electorate. That is the nature of freedom of speech, freedom of the press.
Greenwald wrote and talked a lot about the US providing weapons to Mubarak and to Sisi of Egypt. The information he provided were fully accurate. But he did not write anything about the US providing sophisticated weapons to President Morsi while journalists, human rights groups were complaining about human rights violations. Why?
1) Because he does not have to. 2) He probably supported some of Morsi’s policies
Like you, I dare you to state three positive results of the US invasion in Afghanistan. You will not. You will continuously repeat that the US is killing civilians in Afghanistan. That is an accurate statement, but you will omit the other part of the story because your agenda is to blame the US not to perform an objective analysis.
Again, there is nothing wrong in publishing accurate, authentic information to influence the electorate. However, publishing accurate or authentic info does not mean the publisher does not have a sinister agenda.
You make excellent points, especially relating to use of accurate information.
Another, complimentary tactic, is to actively suppress information.
Prosecuting attorneys and DAs often employ this…and once in a while, are charged.
Sophists attempting to make ‘convincing’ arguments resort to suppression of discrediting and contradicting evidence.
It is such a popular strategy, that corporations, institutions, government use it widely.
“Don’t investigate! don’t publish, don’t disclose!”
See it all the time: If a department wishes to research items damaging to a powerful entities’ interests, why, eliminate their funding… or, place a crony into a position of control to ‘oversee’ the department.
Revise the law or policy to eliminate jurisdiction, constrain those with knowledge from disclosing. (NDAs, Regulatory Capture)
Another suppressive tactic that works in Russia, North Korea, elsewhere?
Just shoot the bastards.
Let the truth be known, right?
Of course you think so. You’re nearly as fuckwitted as Milton has become.
insults may gratify your sadistic personality and penchant for abusing people…
Therapy may be some help in that regard.. but your shit hurling confers no illumination or logic….
Partial disclosure of ‘truth’ while withholding facts is a common tactic of disreputable attorneys… something you engage in here…. and says a great deal about your ethics.
“your shit hurling confers no illumination or logic….”
Shockingly the moderators cannot see it that way. It really helps to be the friend of TI writers.
Shockingly the moderators cannot see it that way. It really helps to be the friend of TI writers.
lol. Would you like some smelling salts to go along with that fainting couch, the legs of which are about to bust from the weight of your maidenly shock? [snort!]
Shockingly the moderators cannot see it that way. It really helps to be the friend of TI writers.
Of course. That’s why “we” send regular, large payments in used $20s. Thank the gods for USPS flat-rate Priority Mail boxes.
“The propagandistic value of using “accurate, authentic information” strongly implies, (to me), the calculated role of the FSB and Wikileaks in the US election.”
The key to good propaganda is a kernel of truth followed by a monotonous, specious, argument.
That is what Goebbels recognized.
The monotonous, specious, argument is that Russian had significant influence.
Israel has orders of magnitude more influence on American politics.
You can make any assertion you want.
Or you can read the source material I provided (albeit indirectly) and comment on that.
I go out of my way to verify what others write because I find a fair hearing important. If somebody says something I find silly, I still check the source because someone else (not me) found something credible. When I look, I want that source to make sense or at least support the dispute. If I’m wrong, I want to know it. That is how I learn.
The alternative is to allow gobbledygook and nonsense to prevail — as we frequently see on this site.
Goebbels made the very salient point that lies undermine the successful propaganda campaign (like those used against Germany after WW1).
Truth, however, serves the cause even if it must be delivered in “artistic” ways. A just cause (he makes the assumption that his was a just cause) demands truth. Lies undermine it that cause … the State itself.
Since I apparently can’t link to that speech (I’ve made several attempts), I hope there are others for whom the “accurate, authentic information” matters.
At least others who actually mean it.
” If I’m wrong, I want to know it. That is how I learn.”
I’ll just quote you directly: “You can make any assertion you want.”
Your circular interpretations are tiresome.
You ask 8 telling questions of NWwoods in support of the 3-ring circus you call an argument.
The reason the FBI wasn’t called upon by the DNC is that they knew Seth Rich took the emails.
Can the FBI open a murder investigation?
If they “knew” that Seth Rich “took the emails” (whatever emails you’re talking about) his killing seems like a perfect opportunity for the FBI to widen their investigation.
The FBI shouldn’t have to request anything of the DNC.
Or do you mean that the DNC, having murdered Rich, wanted to freeze out the FBI? If so, then why did the FBI suddenly lose their teeth? It seems to me that a murder is a much greater crime than some missing emails.
“Or do you mean that the DNC, having murdered Rich, wanted to freeze out the FBI?”
That is what I am thinking.
The FBI didn’t find much evidence because the DNC didn’t use email to order the hit.
Mr. Goebbels claim that his propaganda was the truth, is what is known as ‘The Big Lie’.
When you do not hold yourself to a certain standard of accuracy, you lose credibility.
Here is a Wikipedia item headed as “Big lie.”
Or this:
Or this:
In short, the concept “Big lie” seems to be a fancy way of calling your opponents “Big liars.”
Goebbels claimed his opponents propaganda technique was ‘The Big Lie’ and that his own technique was to tell the truth. Doesn’t this seem a little bit self serving?
My recommendation is not to take anything Goebbels said at face value. However, if you want to provide examples of Goebbels ‘true’ propaganda, be my guest.
He lays it out very clearly in his 1934 Nuremberg speech.
You’ll have to google it to read it.
Goebbel’s speeches are propaganda!
You and milton seem to forget that speeches are designed for public consumption; they are the end-product of a propaganda machine.
Read his personal writings. Read his praise of Der Sturmer; he explains why it was so popular. Essentially it was full of easy truths directed at people’s angst. The solution was described as being obvious and the worker is smart enough to see it too!
I’ve watched some of Goebbels early speeches (with subtitles) given in small halls with people surrounding him or up-close to his podium. I cannot describe how believable he is.
What I found was Goebbels 1933 speech at Nuremberg. Let’s look at it.
The truth? Sounds more like a Big Lie to me.
Sure.
Sorry. Don’t see anything that looks like the truth. It’s all fairly transparent propaganda.
Propaganda shouldn’t contain obvious falsehoods – that’s just common sense. And maybe adding one or two acknowledged truths makes propaganda more convincing. But to say that publishing the truth about someone is a form of propaganda – you’ve been reading a bit too much of Goebbels.
I’ll second that.
so now Assange and Wikileaks are propaganda stooges BECAUSE the information they expose is true and accurate?
i think you’re missed your calling.
“you’ve,” not “you’re.” dammit.
I think you’re leaving out a few key details.
i thought that was a rule in this particular game.
Edit:
Dan Kennedy teaches at Northeastern University.
https://camd.northeastern.edu/journalism/people/dan-kennedy/
Hidden?
There’s nothing hidden about it.
It is all right there out in the open.
The problem here isn’t that it’s secret, the problem is that the reporters and public are no longer able to acknowledge anything that doesn’t fit the propaganda narrative that Pompeo was repeating at the ceremony.
Americans have no free will.
Strange days are coming….
What this speech really shows is that Wikileaks and other activists really do make a difference. On the other hand Coming might give another speech about how he defines the U.S. Democracy. No other than Coming knows how our Democracy is impeded by the influence of corporations and their money.
Of-course the US. “has only good intentions” when siphoning the world’s data and communications. What else could he say. Still the facts prove him wrong more than one time.
And again without hard evidence the Russians are implicated by Coming. What he might better investigate: that if Trump’s campaign team had contacts with the Russians this would have been know to the RNC as well. Both the RNC and Trump are parties that benefited heavily from the DNC’s “dirty laundry”. Not the Russians.
Point given: All information provided by Manning to Wikileaks shouldn’t have been published. Though Manning should receive a medal for the War-Crimes he helped to expose. It should be encouraged that army-personnel and/or civilians publicly come forward if they are witness to such.
This is another excellent article. Those whose “minds are not right” according to the yankee power structure find Greenwald to be one of the few sources of free information remaining. What this does is expose the fact the yankee imperium has developed a new model of fascism based on a fascist party and a nominal opposition fascist party. Since the Snowden revelations, all major commercial western media has been “gleichgeschaltet”, the Nazi term for put under the absolute control of the power structure. Basically, what the imperium now is is the Nazi regime without ovens. Its war policies are similar and are a threat to our continued survival under organized civilization.
Sounds interesting exiled. How did it rate on Rotten Tomatoes?
I thank Glenn Greenwald for the above.
Trump’s CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, due America’s armed patriots, shall never be permitted to do what his dip into Trump’s bucket of greed has goaded. He needs a new pony. http://WhistleBlowersRights.com
My thanks to Glenn Greenwald for the above.
Neither Trump, nor his CIA Director, Michael Pompeo, will EVER defeat the will of any who are determined to remain free. http://WhistleBlowersRights.com
So the logic is: only those elected by the people for the people has got the right to hack unlimited? On the people then, because they wount have the need to check themselves
Government secrecy flies in the face of representative government. How the hell can we know who to vote for when we don’t know what they are doing?
What he fails to mention is that without Russia and Wikileaks he would not have his job(.) What his ignorance of history fails to understand is that the Truth cannot be intimidated(.) At least he credits Wikileaks for ‘intelligence’, even if not the brand to which he subscribes, i.e. alt-intelligence producing alt-facts consumed and promoted by alt-media.
Note to publisher: China will ‘show’ its desire to rein-in DPRK, but never forget that it was Russia who ‘created’ the Hermit Kingdom. So when the Sino-USA rapture fails, it will be back to Russia that the real facts will turn, i.e. intelligence(.)
What he fails to mention is that without Russia and Wikileaks he would not have his job(.)
Considering the fact that Greenwald was already writing for the Guardian when the Snowden documents reached him, and that he’d already authored four of his five books (three of them NYT best sellers), I’m guessing he would have been gainfully employed writing somewhere regardless of whether or not TI had been funded by Omidyar.
What his ignorance of history fails to understand is that the Truth cannot be intimidated(.)
What your ignorance of his body of work fails to understand is that there are still journalists out there who tell the Truth and cannot be intimidated.
p.s. What is the significance of dressing up your punctuation with parentheses? Are simple periods not sufficiently dramatic and mysterious? :-s
@ Pedinska!
I could be wrong, it’s hard to tell, but I think Lloyd Cata is talking about CIA director Pompeo(.) Not geegee(!)
I only stopped by this a.m., to tell Mona that wrt craigsummers … I sense a disturbance in the force. I think Trump is a bit more than craig bargained for. It wouldn’t surprise me if craig, and other professionals of his ilk, start going Hippie at any time. .. now(!)
Agreed.
The Tenet medal? What is it made of, depleted uranium or something?
What is wrong with publishing accurate, authentic information even ifthe hope is to influence the electorate?
Nothing. Wikileaks does not have to be neutral. It is free to publish accurate, inaccurate, or distorted information to influence the US electorate if it has a problem with the US government.
The CIA is not neutral and never claims to be. So, it will publish accurate, inaccurate, distorted information to attack its enemis.
As a non-state actor, I think you grossly underestimate the nature of CIA directors threat.
I am not. Publishing secrets information is dangerous business specially if the publisher is not even a US citizen. I am sure Assange knew of the risks associated with that venture. This is what he stated to the Guardian regarding the Kroll report on Kenya
“1300 people were eventually killed, and 350,000 were displaced. That was a result of our leak. On the other hand, the Kenyan people had a right to that information and 40,000 children a year die of malaria in Kenya. And many more die of money being pulled out of Kenya, and as a result of the Kenyan shilling being debased.”
You cannot possibly believe the CIA will not retaliate if you keep releasing their secrets. The CIA response might not be as swift as the FSB, but it will come sooner or later.
Yes, and morally decent people will expose and oppose such retaliation.
I found the original source here: https://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/aug/01/julian-assange-wikileaks-afghanistan
The thing about Assange is that he is only someone willing to publish what he gets. There’s nothing *special* about him unless you accept that every single media outlet on the planet, regardless of ideology or nationality, accepts that it is censored by the CIA. Otherwise, any of them could be him tomorrow.
We need a far more robust network of physical samizdat. We used to have such things – in the old days, people routinely got together to copy their floppy disks. We should not merely have this network to get things around online censors, but as the forerunner of a more genuine Civil Defense network – people who know one another, live close by, and are willing to cooperate on the day when the North Koreans crash every self-driving car in the country into the nearest ambulance or police car. If civilization falls, it will fall on someone to refound it on high principles of truth and liberty.
The CIA has nothing to do with the discussion. It’s the clandestine arm of an imperial government and is properly judged by different standards than Wikileaks.
I answered the question about Wikileaks. It can publish whatever it wants even if it is inaccurate. I am not sure whether it has claimed to be neutral. Has it?
Wikileaks has never published anything inauthentic. Nor does it describe itself in terms of neutral v. non-neutral. It’s about government and corporate transparency. Indeed, it’s their radical transparency that has earned them criticism even from many who otherwise support them, like Glenn Greenwald.
I answered this; it can only be fucking viewed by reading in “Latest.”
that would only make sense if any of Wikileaks information had been shown to be inaccurate or distorted. since that isn’t the case, it’s hard to demonstrate some sort of manipulation.
Untrue. If Assange does not like you then he might publish all your embarrassing emails while not publishing any of my embarrassing documents. Your emails are authentic, accurate. Mine are authentic and accurate as well. He will not publish mine because he wants me to win and wants you to lose. Again, Assange does not have to be neutral. He is not even a journalist so we cannot even blame him for omission.
Some journalists even say they will not even attempt any level of neutrality. Example: Greenwald wrote about US/Venezuela relations when the Socialist Party was popular. Have you noticed his silence about Venezuela now? He has a problem with the US and he is not neutral. So, he does not have to write anything about the socialist party. Since he is a journalist you can blame him for omission, but that standard does not apply to Assange.
It is moronic to reach conclusions based what what a person does not write about. Greenwald very seldom writes about Venezuela, and then only in the context of U.S. policy. There is no “standard” by which your contrived notion of “neutrality” in any manner impeaches Greenwald’s journalism.
His beat is U.S. policy, and that of our Western allies, as well as media criticism and U.S. civil liberties, especially free speech/press. Not matters in Venezuela. Venezuela is merely your next non sequitur, desperately reached for after the smackdown you suffered with the CIA bullshit.
Your output here is largely dumb; replete with straw men, non sequiturs and desperate attempts to find some nits to pick in the words of the writers and the commenters who are generally supportive of them.
“It is moronic to reach conclusions based what what a person does not write about”
Would apply that statement to your friend Glenn Greenwald?
“ the media reaction yesterday was far more muted….it was almost impossible to find even a single U.S. mainstream journalist expressing objections or alarm, because the targets Pompeo chose in this instance are ones they dislike”
He concluded what those journalists believe based on their silence. Do you think it was “moronic” of him to reach conclusions based on what those journalists did not write?
one has to first commit a corrupt act or be engaged in a corrupt endeavor to be exposed for having done so. there is only one party that is responsible for that corruption. there is no sin of omission here, no unfairness. if you steal or cheat and get caught, it’s your own fault.
they teach this kinda thing to most children at a very young age, i’m not sure why so many are having trouble with this concept.
A question better addressed to Fox News, Madison Ave., or Josef Goebbels.
You define propaganda and then ask what is wrong with it.
Do you understand, for instances, the importance to a defendant of a defense attorney in court proceeding or the importance of the “fairness doctrine” to democracy … or are these irrelevant in your happy little vacuum?
That is fucking hilarious. My question, in it’s entirety, was this: “What is wrong with publishing accurate, authentic information even if the hope is to influence the electorate?”
And according to you, truth-telling rises to the level of Josef Goebbles.
What has happened to you, Milton, is truly remarkable. Now you have Goebbles as a guy who trafficked in accurate information. Wow.
Yes, exactly.
I said, “You define propaganda and then ask what is wrong with it.”
Here’s the problem.
You blame me for your own ignorance. This is typical of many posting here.
So let me offer you what you apparently lack: a bit of an education:
Goebbels was an expert propagandist who didn’t hesitate to brag about his methods.
The whole speech of which this is but a sentence can be found by using Google (“Goebbels 1934 at Nuremberg”.) It will explain what you and your pals here missed during the 2016 election.
[Note: Everyone should read this speech if they want to gain some insight on the 2016 elections — and more . I was already familiar with the speech before I posted, but as I was rereading it, I noted the author requested permissions before reprinting. This quote, however, is available at a variety of sources.]
Goebbels was quite specific.
Propaganda must be true to be effective.
Only amateurs lie — and I doubt the FSB employs amateurs.
“Now you have Goebbles as a guy who trafficked in accurate information.WOW”
That is not hilarious unless you do not understand what propaganda means or who Goebbles was. Goebbles did provide accurate and authentic information about the German economy to influence the electorate before the election. He just omitted several facts. Am I factually incorrect? There was nothing wrong with that. He was not a public servant, so he had no duty to even attempt to be neutral.
Yes, he also lied and published inaccurate information to sustain his racist and criminal activities.
People do not want to use the word Goebbles because he was such a hardcore criminal. The reality is politicians, journalists, publishers…are using his tactics as we speak.
Again, there is nothing wrong with Wikileaks providing accurate or even inaccurate info to influence the electorate. They are not public servants and they do not even claim to be neutral.
I am not sure whether you are implying that Wikileaks could not be manipulating the electorate because the information published was accurate. That would be hilarious.
You are an abject moron, and the notion that you understand Goebbel’s extremely sophisticated understanding of propaganda, and that he thought releasing thousands of authentic, accurate documents was the essence of it, is preposterous. (Milton actually knows this, hence his risible post above.)
Many here, myself included, have corrected your frequent errors of both fact and reasoning, and yet you persist in spewing yet more mock-worthy bullshit. Masochist?
“Many here, myself included, have corrected your frequent errors of both fact and reasoning, and yet you persist in spewing yet more mock-worthy bullshit. Masochist?”
Lol lol lol
Tell us ONE factual error you corrected from me. Just ONE please.
“You define propaganda and then ask what is wrong with it.”
Master Wiltmellow, do you realize “accurate, authentic information ” is not propaganda by definition?
You’ve been occupying your private island for far too long.
Why yes, I understand that value. Do you understand that the US hasn’t had a fairness doctrine since 1987?
FFS
All of you sound like a bunch of preteens telling ghosts stories to scare one another.
Yes, I know the FCC eliminated the Fairness Doctrine in 1987.
My point wasn’t about the Fairness Doctrine.
My point was that people have an absolute right rebut accusations against them. This right is so fundamental to the practice of law and to a healthy Democracy that we have institutions regulating behavior so as to guarantee everyone’s right to respond to ones accusers. We even have a name for this principle — habeas corpus.
Lawyers who don’t understand this fundamental right — or who dismiss it because it is inconvenient to their argument — display such a total ignorance or diregard of Law that they shouldn’t be allowed to practice law.
Equating “true” with “proof of guilt” is absurd.
For instance:
(spoiler alert for every single episode of CSI.)
The murderer was 5”9″ tall, right handed and can whistle The Star Spangled Banner. The suspect is 5”9″ tall, right handed and can whistle The Star Spangled Banner. Therefore the suspect must be guilty.
I expect someone claiming to be a lawyer, even someone claiming to be an adult American, to understand this right of everyone to confront their accusers.
Mr. Greenwald
First of all, you are skirting the issue with WikiLeaks. Assange abused the power of his position to undermine the candidacy of Hillary Clinton. Exposing DNC corruption and his extreme advocacy are two separate issues. In your interview with Naomi Klein, you and Ms. Klein summed up the problem:
Assange deserves a great deal of criticism for his decision to influence the election to achieve a desired result (couched in “journalism”). Assange’s power is dangerous. His denial that he was purposely trying to undermine HRC is nothing short of a confession of his abuse of power. By the way, how is the election of Trump working out for Assange? The Arrogant Assange may not know as much as he thinks he knows.
Secondly, it is journalism itself that is suspect because of the preeminence of (extreme) advocacy – and a lack of any semblance of objectivity. Who knows what the facts are reading today’s media. Just look at the major media outlets in Brazil which you criticized incessantly for leading the call to remove Rousseff. Is that not extreme advocacy? The media is garnering less and less confidence from the public because of their obvious political agenda. This has been going on for a long time, but it is far more blatant today – and the public is less certain which facts are being conveniently left out.
The truth hurts, and even though it may have been applied somewhat lopsidedly, it was still truth.
Perhaps we’ll never know just what facts were “conveniently” omitted, but we know which facts would have been omitted, thanks to WikiLeaks.
How do you know what is true or untrue?
You only know that documents stolen by Russians and presented by Wikileaks were represented as the whole truth. You don’t have the original documents. You don’t know what was omitted. You don’t know what was altered.
You have no way of knowing.
You know nothing but the intent which — itself — should carry much more weight than a bunch of selective details.
Nonsense. The DNC and Podesta emails are all authentic; no one from those parties denied the authenticity of the sets of emails. Moreover, if anything was “omitted” the DNC and John Podsta — as well as those with whom they exchanged emails — have the easy ability to, ahem, correct the record.
Julian Assange didn’t write the emails that (properly) caused a slew of resignations at the DNC. Julian Assange didn’t write the emails demonstrating what the Bernie supporters knew to be true about establishment Democrats sandbagging Sanders. (We were told we were “conspiracy theorists” and other unpleasant things — not so much any longer given the evidence we now have.)
Julian Assange published authentic emails that showed the malfeasance of the rotted Democratic Party. The fault lies with that party for the rancid positions and behaviors therein documented.
And one question I never get an answer to: WHAT could GOP emails, had they been obtained and released by Wikileaks, possibly have done to harm Donald fucking Trump? What the man and his party publicly and constantly say and do are already vile and absurd. You’re really gonna maintain that anything in an email cache could be more embarrassing and revolting for decent and reasonable people? LOL
democrats are much less likely to like watching the sausage being made compared to republicans, judging from observation
He who would pun would pick a puck.
*the lesser of two evils … https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=440l8poSQiA
h/t ‘mellow
the right-hand weevil has significant advantages
The leaked emails didn’t merely reflect sausage-making; they showed establishment Democrats injecting Salmonella.
I don’t think many decent and reasonable people voted for Trump. No doubt, some were decent, or reasonable, but not both. So, yes, GOP emails exposing the very same corruption that is, of course, endemic in the Republican Party, (is endemic in all mainstream political parties) would have had impact.
What “very same corruption?” Again, the outrageous behavior and statements from Trump, and from Republicans in general, were entirely observable. Early in the primaries, Trump declared: “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.” That’s one of the very few things he said that seems exactly true.
I don’t know Mona.
That’s the point.
I don’t know because I don’t know.
Maybe his tax returns would “harm Donald fucking Trump.” Maybe divorce filings would “harm Donald fucking Trump.” Maybe videos from a Moscow hotel would “harm Donald fucking Trump.” Maybe an infinity of possibilities.
Unknown information is … um … how do I put this? .., UN-FUCKING-KNOWN!
That’s right, you don’t. It is hard to conceive of any remotely plausible emails from Team Trump that could have harmed him, given the endless parade of revolting and/or inane things the man openly says and does — a parade that did not defeat him.
And that’s really kind of the point.
When it comes to “what would it take for you to stop supporting your party’s candidate?” there are a lot of people on the left who can give a fairly good answer. Those on the right, on the other hand, usually can’t give an honest answer — and when they can, the reply amounts more or less to “they would have to strip naked and masturbate to a selection of prostitutes of both sexes and all races raping children, while simultaneously sacrificing their children to satan and doing drugs, although I would still vote for them as long as they promised a tax cut” — in other words, it’s practically impossible for a right-winger to give up voting for the Republicans, but Democrats can actually Go Too Far.
Team Clinton really didn’t get that — and the DNC still doesn’t. To Clinton, voters are fungible; if you pick up a right-leaning voter as you alienate a left-wing voter, then it doesn’t matter. Her entire campaign was explicitly designed to go after “moderate” Republicans (as though those really exist, these days), using the Democratic base as fuel, to be burned up and cast aside during the chase. This was admitted. It’s not a supposition, they said outright that it was their strategy. At one point, they had a vast lead, because Trump was a clown, and the Clinton camp got all smug.
Then came the Comey letter to Congress. If Clinton had been strengthening her relation with her base, then she would have had the support of a lot of voters who would not have cared. Instead, she had pissed off a lot of the base by taking stands they didn’t want or like (being pro-war, saying that Wall Street didn’t need any more regulation, her initial pro-TPP stance which turned into an obviously fake repudiation, etc.) and gained only a lot of voters who were just barely willing to vote for her, and all of those immediately refused.
She is, in other words, a massively incompetent fool, a personification of the Dunning-Kruger effect who has somehow bamboozled a large chunk of the Democratic Party into believing that she has basic competence which is far beyond her grasp.
Milton, you are absolutely correct.
Sophistry suggests that nothing about Trump would have sullied the public’s willingness to vote for him…
Of course, it didn’t help that just 11 days to the election, the FBI’s Comey announced they were investigating Hillary, …. and suspiciously, the FBI said nothing about their longstanding investigation into far more serious charges against Trump.
Had the FBI announced they were investigating Trump and his cohort of possible collusion / involvement with Russia, it is reasonable to expect that US citizens would have had ‘a problem’ with that.
There is no fucking doubt.
LOL! Maybe you know that. I am still unsure regarding the purported “Russian influence”.
Thank you, Mona, for the rest of the story. “…correct the record.” indeed.
Would you believe Rex Tillerson?
Would you believe US authorities?
Nope. He’s a known liar.
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2017/jan/12/rex-tillerson/tillerson-misleads-russian-sanctions-opposition/
Nope. They’re known liars. No citation necessary, I believe.
I don’t know if Guccifer has been positively identified as Russian. Do you?
These “sources” are stenographers, dutifully repeating what they’ve been told.
yeah, that would explain why the DNC launched their witch hunt . . . because there was no actual leaked information to begin with.
If someone broke into your home and stole papers from your desk, you wouldn’t call the cops because you have nothing to hide?
I doubt that.
And if your unfriendly neighbor starts telling your other neighbors that she knows you’re hiding something because you called the cops, you’d agree your actions are very suspicious.
I doubt that too.
Does your brain hurt from trying to use it?
Atrophy is a consequence of disuse. FYI.
“If someone broke into your home and stole papers from your desk, ”
What if your family member took papers from your desk?
The only thing we know for sure is that someone took DNC emails.
We know there were people in the DNC who did not like the torpedoing of Sanders; do the math.
Or are you mathematically challenged, too …
Seriously?
You use a possible motive to turn a criminal act by someone unidentified into proof of their guilt?
You must be a hoot when you play the game Clue.
Col. Mustard did it with the lead pipe in the library.”
How do you know?
We know Col. Mustard likes to read. Add it up for yourself!
Figures you think in terms of childhood board games.
It is more likely the leaked material was an inside job rather than ‘the Russians did it’.
Explain Seth Rich.
Explain Assange’s statements on the source.
That the media is screaming Russia should tell you it was anybody but the Russians. That’s how DC works; serial liars are the norm.
The Russian people learned to read between the lines of Pravda; you are too invested in the lines of text.
In other words, “Col. Mustard did in the library with the lead pipe … because that’s more likely than Mrs Peacock in the kitchen with the rope. Ropes don’t belong in a kitchen.
And then as if to put an exclamation mark on your childish logic:
You might as well say. “Explain Sasquatch” as if an artist’s rendering of Sasquatch proves the existence of Sasquatch. Seth Rich got shot by unknown assailant(s). That does not prove a conspiracy anymore than Vince Foster’s suicide revealed a secret affair with Hillary
Better, but still stuck in a child’s playroom, is your demand:
I assume by this you mean JA’s explicit statement that Russia was not the source of the Podesta/Clinton emails.
First, I can’t speak for JA. For me, he loses a bunch of credibility when he asserts a “vibrant” Russian environment for journalism. Murdered journalists, murdered political opponents and murdered ex-spies don’t add up to a “vibrant” political environment.
Further, Assange undermines his own credibility when he violates the primary tenet of secrecy — blindness to a source — that he claims grants Wikileaks its credibility.
There is a huge difference between not knowing and knowing and not telling.
By claiming he knows Russia isn’t the source, he also tacitly admits he knows the source. When someone throws their entire organization under the bus like this, their credibility significantly suffers … in my opinion.
Finally, when a presumed Russian agent — Guccifer2.0 — claims whether truly or falsely responsibility for hacking the DNC, Assange’s credibility again suffers a hit.
Explain JA?
Okay. Julian Assange is not credible.
Finally, justifying your disbelief because “the media is screaming Russia” is exactly the sort of upside down thinking that does not prove a Russian conspiracy to silence (or confound) US media, but rather it proves that your standards for belief are surprisingly lax.
How childish. An artist’s rendering is not a metaphorical equivalency to a dead body. Your brain has been rendered, apparently. Seth Rich was gunned down just before he was scheduled to testify. He wasn’t robbed; he was silenced.
I’m not bothering with the rest of your post.
“..call the cops..”
DNC repeatedly turned down FBI requests to forensically examine its servers, defaulting instead to some partisan clowns in its own employ known as (more recently discredited) Crowdstrike as its sole source of expertise in arriving at their highly dubious conclusions pointing to Russia as the perps.
When Comey says the FBI investigated Clinton’s use of a private server and found nothing incriminating, did Clinton have the choice of refusal? Did that FBI investigation not include DNC servers since, presumably, the DNC was one of HRC’s correspondents?
If the FBI already has access, why would they request it? If they didn’t already have access, why not?
Your attempt to discredit the imputed actions of the DNC are a little over the top:
If, as the TI narrative goes, HRC was entangled with the US Deep State, why didn’t she use her connections instead of hiring an outside group? If you want to discredit the FBI as somehow not part of the US political establishment that endorsed and protected HRC, then mustn’t you also accept their investigation of Russia ties to the Trump campaign as credible?
More simply, how can the FBI be credible in one context and not credible in another?
Assuming by your screen name that you believe the State can not be trusted, why do you offer an argument that depends upon trusting the State’s claims?
This is the problem with conspiracy theories in general. They usually contradict themselves by depending upon elements that undermine their animating premises.
we know there was a leak because of the information that was, you know, leaked. as it turns out, that’s information that the public has some legitimate interest in and right to know about those ostensibly engaged in public representation. when presented with this information, why wouldn’t a responsible journalist publish it?
no one has refuted the information contained in the leak. they’re only crying foul that the leaked information was subsequently published – that they were found out.
You seem to assume Assange has the power to make leaks appear out of thin air, according to his personal agenda. He publishes what he gets, as he should. There’s no evidence that Wikileaks withholds material, other than to maximize impact, which is in the interests of Wikileaks as a publisher.
Nobody acknowledges there is simply too much diversity of opinion. People like to be told what to think, and if a dozen different news sources are telling them to think a dozen different things, why should we be surprised when the end result is confusion? The American public doesn’t know what to think anymore as they try to make sense of the mixed signals they are receiving.
And the solution, according to Mr. Jilani, is to increase diversity in the news media. This is like taking someone suffering from sensory overload, and subjecting them to powerful strobe lights and loud noises. The American public is slowly being driven insane by the news media, as is confirmed by the politicians it elects to office and the policies it supports.
The NY Times tries to combat this by offering up its simplistic solutions to complex world problems. But I fear they are fighting a losing battle, at least until Mr. Pompeo can shut down the internet.
“This is like taking someone suffering from sensory overload, and subjecting them to powerful strobe lights and loud noises. ”
Or taking someone suffering PTSD out on the rifle-range to loosen up …
You do realize, craig, as a non-state actor like the rest of us, you’re just Trump cabal-decision away from being determined ‘hostile’. .. and, just to drive the point home, Trump’s director of the CIA just ‘explicitly threatened speech and press freedoms’ of non-state hostile actors.
You good with that?
a.) his (Assange) position is he is willing to print/disseminate matters of great public importance that the gov. and/or major press/media are, for whatever reason(s), either unwilling or unable to do.
b.) he (Assange) advocated for neither the ‘gonorrhea’ , ‘syphilis’ or the lesser of those two evils in the 2016 election.
*notes. there is a difference between exposing the corruption, greed and malfeasance of the Clinton/DNC campaign (i.e. syphilis.) and … ‘extremely advocating’ for Trump (i.e. gonorrhea.) . If you have direct evidence of Assange stumping for Trump, please provide it.
My only concern with Assange/Wikileaks is the ‘dumping’ without review … but clearly Snowden has provided a working model for alleviating those concerns.
As you would be aware, Craig is an extreme authoritarian. Among other things, he flatly refuses to state any virtues of the 4th Amendment and has defended anything the U.S. government wishes to do in its violation. He’s also on board with the state (if it’s the U.S. or Israel) torturing people.
You should see his putrid (but predicable) kind words about the NYT hiring the Zionist racist, Bret Stephens. That, you see, is a matter of “diversity” of opinion. [eyes rolling]
Craig’s judgments are reliably authoritarian, Zionist crap.
You kind of wonder how Mr. Pompeo squares this with the CIA rank and file. What does he say?
“I just gave our highest award to guy, who would have half of you stoned to death for adultery and the other half of you executed for sodomy. Have a nice day!”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGBT_rights_in_Saudi_Arabia
From:[email protected]
To: [email protected]
Date: 2014-09-27 15:15
“…we need to use our diplomatic and more traditional intelligence assets to bring pressure on the governments of Qatar and Saudi Arabia, which are providing clandestine financial and logistic support to ISIL and other radical Sunni groups in the region.”
Link – https://wikileaks.org/podesta-emails/emailid/3774
Pompeo gives Saudi Prince Muhammed bin Nayef the Tenet medal for ‘promoting world security and peace’ while Podesta previously emailed Hillary about Saudi government funding ISIS in Iraq and Syria!? Odd, that. And we have Assange’s Wikileaks to thank for leaking the above linked email!
From the Independent.co.uk website dated Feb 13, 2017-
Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef was presented with the George Tenet medal by CIA director Mike Pompeo. The medal was awarded in recognition of Prince bin Nayef’s “excellent intelligence performance, in the domain of counter-terrorism and his unbound contribution to realise world security and peace“.
Thanks to Glenn for calling this out! Pompeo caught red-handed with his nose wedged deeply between the Saudi Prince’s butt cheeks. Utterly disgraceful–especially because the medal was given while Saudi Arabia reduces Yemen to rubble and is deliberately starving its captive population of food and urgently needed medical supplies. I’m sure folks from Yemen are very happy to hear that Pompeo awarded the Saudi Prince this medal for promoting “world security and peace”. Not to mention it is the Saudi Royals who have been funding, arming and equipping ISIS: how is funding ISIS’s ongoing wars in Iraq and Syria “promoting peace”?
Pompeo: disgraceful. Sickening. Shameful.
Link – http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-east/cia-saudi-arabia-crown-prince-muhammed-bin-naye-medal-counter-terrorism-work-intelligence-a7577221.html
Mike Pompeo
Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef
Crown Prince Muhammed bin Nayef was presented with the George Tenet medal by CIA director Mike Pompeo
“These are actively recruiting agents to steal American secrets with the sole intent of destroying the American way of life.”
Absolutely correct.
Destroy those things which cause most destruction.
“AWL is possibly the greatest threat to life on earth”, was an insight made by one and then millions of observers who could see the emperor was naked.
2017 04 15 09:28:02
Unsure how many more exposes we will be receiving in the future – DHS employees (at least in this sector) had to sign disclosures last week – mum’s the word, not a peep of anything you know or hear – or your ass is grass. Scary.
Great report, thank you.
Signing a disclosure to keep mum. Whoa….what a wimpy bureaucratic gesture to keep the lid on government corruption and secrecy. Promises, whether verbal or in writing don’t amount to much when the government does something seriously wrong and breaks its own laws. Leakers will always, always be around providing invaluable public service.
It may be as you say a “wimpy bureaucratic gesture” but I can assure you, people are scared. Of course, the private contractors love this shit, they are 100% behind it especially in this area. Hope you are correct regarding leakers always being around.
Points well taken. Indeed, it is a scary situation!
Cheers
I just want to congratulate the Saudi Prince on winning that award and kudos to Pompeo for handing it to him.
The heart swells with pride and admiration.
Your hard fought victory over Clinton must likewise cause you pride and admiration.
Those of you who find such a deliciously perverse satisfaction that the US is as bad as you imagine, you should now swell with even greater pride and admiration. You will be proved right.
Congratulations!
For every Mexican dragged from their home, for every black kid shot by police departments around the country with new-found immunity, for every child killed in Trump’s ruthless war against an idea, for every American child denied a decent life because your hatred for Clinton drove you into a frenzy of denunciations, for every school shuttered, for every billionaire whose taxes dwindle, for every woman’s clinic closed, for every horrifying gun spree, for every repudiation of judicial fair play, for every blabbering member of Congress finding ways to steal social security money from seniors, for every increase in Pentagon spending — for all of these events and millions more, I will remind you of your choice in November of 2016.
So what’s this about Mike Pompeo?
Sanders made the choice clear last July.
The energy you spent denouncing Clinton could have been better spent denouncing Trump. As a Bernie voter, I followed his advice. Assuming the country survives that long,for the next four years I will remind every one of you that you could have prevented Trump.
I’ll watch as these “OMG” articles churn out like filthy air from a coal plant.
If you don’t like it, why didn’t you do more to prevent it when you had your chance?
Are you satisfied yet?
You’re so wonderful, and so humble, it must be almost like soiling yourself to speak to lesser creatures such as myself. I suppose my dislike of both Trump and Clinton really counts for nothing with you, as I should have ignored Hillary’s corporatist warmongering and disdain for regular people and realized that Trump would of course win (against the odds predicted by just about everyone) if I didn’t shut my mouth, didn’t influence all those millions to follow me and vote for Jill Stein.
Actually after I posted, I felt sad.
What difference do I make pointing out things already decided? Did the charred survivors wandering the ruins of Hiroshima curse the Emperor for the suffering the war brought Japan?
History isn’t just what happens, it is also what we — the survivors — think and feel about what happens. As you and the other ferocious piranha who go into a feeding frenzy over the slightest deviation from the Greenwald narrative, do you consider what you have brought us as you gloat over what you’ve avoided?
Maybe it’s too soon for Mourning in America and maybe it’s too soon for recriminations. But it’s not too soon to remind yourself and everyone else of that which impends. Living in the abstract, as the privileged do, often allows us to avoid the despair that has become a permanent feature of impoverishment within the land of the free and indebted.
Because we avoid that despair with our recriminations, doesn’t make it vanish.
We should always remind ourselves of it.
Pompeo is an authoritarian blabberer who protects the protected and abuses the abused. As you and your pals tear down the very flawed Democrats, you should be reminded of the Trump/Republicans you ignored as you await your next feeding frenzy.
Rather than celebrate your antagonism, reflect on your world.
Thank you so much for offering your advice, but my position on these matters remains unchanged from how it was before I read a word of yours. I already do “reflect on my world,” quite deeply in fact – and I have no particular antagonism toward you, unless you actually support the corporatist warmongering of Democrats rather than just glossing over it with lame excuses. I hope that one day you may be surprised to discover that your overall pomposity is unpleasant and unlikely to persuade thoughtful others.
Most of the tragic events you highlight were there DURING 8 yrs of Democratic rule. Your virtue quest is proof of your brainwashing. Infant mortality rate’s tell a bitter story during the Obama years.
The Clinton’s set this stage in the 90’s. What we are seeing is if Corporations & Billionaires, the ‘Professional Class’ of Harvard snobs in/and out of the Obama/Clinton White House really made things better. The answer is yes, they did make them better for themselves, and F*^@ the rest of us. I am STILL NOT sorry for NOT voting for the shit show.
As a reminder Hermann Goering said at the Nuremberg Trials .
“The people can always be brought to the bidding of the leaders. That is easy. All you have to do is tell them they are being attacked and denounce the pacifists for lack of patriotism and exposing the country to danger. It works the same way in any country.”
“Fascism should more appropriately be called Corporatism because it is a merger of state and corporate power.”
Benito Mussolini
It’s only a matter of time before Pompeo and his crew bully the host countries of Assange and Snowden into sending them back to America to be prosecuted and punished to the fullest extent allowed, and possibly then some. I don’t know if they can be stopped from doing it.
On a lighter note, how about that tongue-twisting proclamation describing the phony-ass award Pompeo gave Mr. Warmth. I still don’t know what it means. I think it’s essentially a thank you to the Prince for allowing the U.S. to take as much of his oil as it wants without having to invade. And something about terrorism.
And those classic photo stagings of Pompeo with the Middle Eastern royalty should give inspiration to tin horn dictators everywhere that they, too, can fight their way to the big time.
I don’t know why Pompeo and his kind care about Wikileaks exposing crimes. The Criminals exposed never get prosecuted or punished for their warcrimes or whatever. They just get mad and try to find the whistleblower so they can punish them. And they continue on committing more Crimes. So what if the peons know about it? The peons better pretend they’re on the criminals that run the world side, if they know what’s good for them.
i think it’s part of the picture. if you’re telling everyone you run the world, people expect you to go after anyone who says otherwise. the peons pretend, everyone plays their part and all is right in Lumberton.
One big reason why they hate Wikileaks is that Wikileaks has broken far more scoops and done it more cheaply.
I absolutely agree.
The only cold comfort here is that I know that in the end the courts are the ones limiting this. We are still depending on the ghosts of dead men to defend our rights, which is shameful and not altogether effective, but does have its days. If this CIA director is talking about a court fight, it’s one that Obama might just as easily provoked if he thought he would win. Trump does a lot of heavy handed things … winning doesn’t seem high on his list of priorities.
The fear of course is that the CIA, never known for playing by any rules of common decency, has some plan closer to locking Assange in a Third World psych ward and pumping him full of mind-altering drugs (they’ve done this before) than going to the courts. This would be a great loss for freedom … it would also further accelerate America’s decline in the international arena. The world already knows that China is the biggest manufacturer, the biggest educator, the biggest inventor, and even politically, the model that every Internet-censoring bureaucrat around the world dreams of following. America has… the dregs of its mystique. Pompeo proposes to pour these out in a futile effort to pretend his secrets are secret after his organization and its cousins failed to protect them, distributed them to half a million people over computer networks and then can’t believe that someone is giving them away.
@hans andersonn
Uh-huh. Well Kantian or not, and whether you are a consequentialist or not, how’s that LOTE been working out for you and the Democrats in general? Cuz that party is, per Matt Ygelsias, a “smoking pile of rubble” at all levels — federal, sate and municipal.
The Democrats can’t seem to get a clue (or refuse to), that standing for and with the financial elites has alienated the working class and poor, of all backgrounds. Even after the massive repudiation last November — they couldn’t beat a despised oaf like Donald fucking Trump — they’re still doing this: The Democratic party is undermining Bernie Sanders-style candidates:
Go spew your condescension to the DNC. Unless, that is, you want the Democrats to keep losing.
your ongoing boilerplate regarding the decline and fall of my formerly-beloved democrats is duly noted
and the vacant stares and “rocking” behavior of me and my various obamabot acquaintances should make you happy
quilting boilerplate panels is a terrible monkey; first championing, then attacking, and then defending.
imagine controlling all those talking points on a daily basis.
then imagine the consternation when one’s delicate compass is defiled by the flux line of reality.
that is one quinine pill I wouldn’t want to chew no matter the botanicals offered in conjunction.
ok “chad”, noted and filed under “whatever” .. but some of us have the bigger backstory
it’s like “the breakfast club” for adults
Another example of which side of the road one resides…
Another example of which side of the road one resides…
Another example of which side of the road one resides…
Another example of which side of the road one resides…
Another Trump idiot in charge.
When did wikileaks get assassins and snipers?
Did I miss something?
At the center of this display of Pompous-eo-ness is the
concept of
“Misappropriated Secrets.”
The truth is that Misappropriated Secrets are
the product of and the chief method of
how the faking U$A operates and manipulates.
Lies and misrepresentation are presented as if they are the truth
because the whole machinery of the faking U$A is what is
“misappropriated” by the corporate capitalists religion and its
“Secrets” are private property, just like the rest of the machinery.
Pompouseo and the democrat/republican squalid machinery
must be furious that anyone else might present the
Misappropriated Secrets of the faking U$A to the public.
The majority of established fake journalists would NEVER
reveal a Misappropriated Secret until they were given the
approval to do so by the authors and, even then,
The Misappropriated Secrets (MS) must be used in a manner
which will provide the germination of many more MS.
From here on, I will know the real meaning of MS-NBC ,
NOT that they would EVER reveal the real workings of the machinery,
but rather, that they are part of what is really misappropriated
by capitalist cunning.
reply doesnt work on my android gizmo
“trust in the system” as goal or pivot point proves what i was saying i think
both candidates have an intrinsic function in an evil system (using the LOTE forced choice) for the idealist.. the less idealistic voter can look at the individual goodies like abortion rights, school funding, gender rights etc and then choose accordingly
They certainly can, just as a prostitute down on her luck could choose an abusive pimp who situates her in a nice apartment over an abusive pimp who gets her hooked on drugs in a one-room hovel. To make a statement and demand better choices, some feel it is necessary to broadcast a bold refusal to accept mere tidbits in lieu of actual democracy.
Some do indeed select on the basis you seem to recommend, as it is difficult to justify not doing so in the light of those suffering acutely from the worse choice; I’m just pointing out why this just isn’t doable for those to whom it feels like a tacit agreement with a corruption too grievous to be borne – a corruption which even at its most giving (LOTE) is still too threatening for the planet and its varied communities to be supported.
I feel that unless partisan theatrics and apathy are overcome, the serious dangers are not going to stop. And as difficult as it is to make such a statement or demand for change, many feel the same way.
the rejection of LOTE here by the self-identified heart and soul of UT is well documented
after all, to the idealist “degrees of evil” are just plain “evil”
the goal is the pursuit of good in and of itself, not the constitutional “pursuit of happiness” …
Kant would call this a striving by the idealist a striving not for happiness itself, but rather a striving to deserve their happiness
For some of us the rejection of “lesser of two evils” isn’t simply that degrees of evil are still evil – but that, like a ‘Good Cop/Bad Cop’ situation in an utterly corrupt police department, neither of the only-pretending-to-have dissimilar-goals authorities can or should be trusted (and are in fact in the case of the political duopoly part and parcel of the same rightward-moving Overton window or paradigm). To encourage a trust in a compromised system (by feeding the wolf dressed as a lamb rather than the wolf in a ‘wolf’ T-shirt) is refused not because of idealism but out of disgust with the deception and its predictable results.
Speaking of Kant:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HMQkV5cTuoY
It’s been the very best laugh for me in the past year.
as a practical matter, the leakers and other non-credentialed journalists all rent or lease or steal bandwidth that is subject to terms of service
the important people can make patriotic statements that comfort or horrify .. the fact remains that the venue for all this isn’t publicly owned, although it’s publicly visible
the argument that electronic communication on private networks is not protected free speech is thus one of the many tools in the toolbox blah blah blah
Michael Pompeo is a profound ENEMY of the USA! I thought his speech was a skit for SNL. Nobody is that dumb.
Trump needs to purge this loon NOW!
Lot of irony with the Intercept having to hold its nose and support Bashar al-Assange, the evil non-journalist who does the evil anti-journalistic thing of publishing everything he gets.
I note that Pompeo and others no longer bother to mention the Intercept among their “enemies” maybe that’s because after Snowden almost nothing, certainly nothing of any magnitude, has been leaked to the Intercept, whistleblowers clearly favoring WikiLeaks where they can trust that the documents for which they took great risk to obtain will actually see the light of day. And the established order can count on the “curation” at the Intercept to result on only a fraction of what they receive being published.
In my book “editorial independence” or “journalism” do not include god like powers over the community of citizens, in who’s name the documents were produced, as to what they should and should not be allowed to see.
I thought for a second you’d written a book called “Editorial Independence,” which is pretty funny.
I happen to agree that some of the Intercept is pretty silly, and should release far more material (if they have it), but Greenwald has always insisted WikiLeaks is a vital source.
And as for releasing absolutely all they get – evidently this is not set in stone, as the recent Vault 7 release from WikiLeaks had conspicuous deletions:
WikiLeaks posts trove of CIA documents detailing mass hacking
Yes, Wikileaks’ freedom to cooperate with Russia in order to install Trump as their puppet is being threatened. Good job, Intercept! Keep those pro-Russia apologies coming!!
The Rise of Non-State Actors in Global Governance
acuns.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/gg-weiss.pdf
Thanks for the read.
God have mercy, O Lord Jesus, but this truth in your article, then, Glenn Greenwald, renders these words coming from Mike Pompeo’s heart and mouth blasphemous:
“Jesus Christ is our savior and is truly the only solution for our world.”
Source: “Mike Pompeo: ‘threat to America’ caused by ‘people who deeply believe that Islam is the way'”, Vimeo, 01:13, in Lee Fang, “CIA Pick Mike Pompeo Depicted War on Terror as Islamic Battle Against Christianity”, The Intercept, November 23 2016.
Happy – scratched that – Sad Easter, brother Greenwald.
Ironic that Jesus is quoted in the Bible as saying “Ye shall know the Truth, and the Truth shall make you free.”
Pompeo Pilate would probably rewrite it if he could to add “As long as it doesn’t conflict with our plans.”
I do not really support infringement on freedom of speech but let me play devil’s advocate for just a minute here – I don’t think it is fair to say that there is ‘no evidence’ that Wikileaks is a non-state hostile intelligence service.
While I think Pompeo does the CIA no favors by overstretching in his use of terminology, Julian Assange’s dislike of Hillary Clinton is well documented, and it has also been documented that the Russians supplied/tipped off Wikileaks with sensitive information from her campaign.
From this perspective it makes sense to see Wikileaks as a hostile foreign agent, willing or otherwise. Remember, Russia, an authoritarian state with repressive laws on the press is not bound to the same rules that liberal democracy requires – it is quite possible and likely that they used Wikileaks’ commitment to free speech and the publication of sensitive documents to their advantage to create discord in the 2016 US election cycle.
Whether or not Assange and his team knew about the sources coming from Russia (I suspect they didn’t, but it wouldn’t surprise me if they did) – they could have clarified or distanced themselves immediately once it was discovered.
I don’t know if they did so or not in the end but by cooperating with a foreign government, as far as I’m concerned that reeks of a lack of credibility. Why should we trust them when they are actively willing to work with foreign governments?
Even if they didn’t know that they were, they absolutely should at least have been more careful in researching their sources. I cannot believe that amongst their collection of attorneys, hackers, journos and investigators there wasn’t a single person responsible for checking the credibility, political integrity and trustworthiness of sources.
Your screed is filled with falsehoods and propaganda. Directly to what I quoted from you, Wikileaks has never has a single published document shown to be in error. So in regards to “credibility” and “trustworthiness” of their sources, you’re making no sense.
To your“it has also been documented that the Russians supplied/tipped off Wikileaks with sensitive information from her [Clinton’s] campaign.”
Showing that Clinton’s campaign was filled with dirty tricks and lies is the kind of “sensitive information” that the public should be aware of. Thanks to Wikileaks, they are. And you can choose to believe Assange or not but he has unequivocally stated that Russia or connection to Russia was not the source of the Clinton/Podesta emails that Wikileaks received and published.
Amen
Can I get a witness?
I couldn’t agree more. When we focus on achieving the ends we want by any means possible, it ultimately leads to the means being discarded all together and when that happens, the winner is simply the person with the power to achieve the ends they want. I suppose we are seeing Pompeo express the belief that the execituve branch has that power and is going to use it, whatever the cost to the free press, the people of the US, or the constitution.
The CIA is incongruous with freedom. What amazes me most is when the likes of Rachel Maddow give as if their proof that is evil Putin by citing that he was a former KGB agent while at the same time acting as if the CIA are a choir of angels.
it’s like you can know who the “good guys” are in syria by whether they wear white helmets or not. that was a hackneyed old plot device westerns from the 1920’s, but it must be a goodie because it still convinces some audiences.
Thank you for your work Mr. Greenwald.
On MSNBC some commentators see the irony in Pompeo’s words (from about 5 minutes, mixed with big bomb news): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk_Rgb1mxIw
Do the American people really not know that many American client states are run by dictators?
Glenn Greenwald- I hope you are working on a book… or three.
Seems that many of the things the shadow government wanted to do with Obama they are going to do with Trump, presumably because as a purported authoritarian he is able to bear the more fascist mantle.
Obama’s authoritarianism ultimately had to be hidden or disguised, as his reputation was of someone more thoughtful and nice – for example, his refusal to close Gitmo was seen as the Republicans’ fault even though Obama was never proposing the end of indefinite detention; his bombing of several nations and execution of American citizens without due process was reported on less than how pleasant his gamily looked; and his use of the Espionage Act to prosecute whistleblowers more than anyone before him was plainly ignored by all but a handful of civil libertarians…
It is evident that the Deep State feel Trump will dramatically take the brunt of the criticism for an extreme advance of the corporatism, militarism, imperialism and oppressive policing (inclusive of unethical surveillance) which has been steadily entrenched by previous administrations – and just like Bush, Trump will usher in stunningly noxious changes which his successor will (like Obama) not undo but quietly build upon even while probably posing as someone more reasonable.
What dreadful theater this all is. The establishment has become truly monstrous, and people are still either too apathetic or stuck in impotent partisan nonsense to facilitate change.
gamily = “family.”
There is a tipping point. It probably occurs when they start clubbing people over the head and dragging them away semi-conscious.
Il Duce! You’re so brilliant as always, as though people (mostly black people) haven’t been bonked on the head and dragged away right and left for years, now. You know, of course, that your hilarious and spot-on comments are the main reason I read The Intercept. Keep on!
It’s nice to believe that would be a tipping point, but I’m afraid rational objective people will still be the minority.
When it gets to that point there will be red team media cheering the blue team people getting clubbed, and vice versa resulting in both mindless mobs cheering on the righteous progress. The one party, two theatrical factions system members are nothing more than professional wrestling fans.
An astute comment still in ‘latest’ (possibly a new poster) implies you obviously mean “start clubbing white people…”
Nope. United airlines already does that when they overbook and need a seat. It’s in the Contract … refer to it.
*I wouldn’t pay much mind to Maisie doings about the Deep State. Who would you rather meet in a dark alley; Trump or the Deep State? *Maisie may be that young girl they found living with monkeys in the far mystical deep state of India recently.
Of course, I would prefer the Deep State stay deep, like they’re supposed to. However, I believe the The tipping comes when/if they actually ‘go after aNon-State hostile intelligence service’. *see Non-State enemy combatants in the global war on terror for more detail.
By definition, a Non-State hostile intelligence service could be any Tom, Dick or Harry …and may include (but not limited to) the following:
1. Glenn Greenwald … for bringing it up, hostilely.
2. All the media who print the lie … and all the people who read it.
3. Everyone who has posted a comment above&below … it goes without saying.
Nice. At least I know how to use asterisks.
It was a heartwarming story.
I’m not convinced that there has been an acceleration of anything under Trump. Rather it’s just been an unmasking of what was already going on while BO was in charge. He was just subtle and understated about what was happening…”well, some folks were tortured”. It didn’t matter to his fans that the torture didn’t stop, I mean, he’s a Peace Prize winner and all that.
What’s really ratcheted up under der Trump is the in-your-face acknowledgement of what our government is (continuing) to do, and I am happy about that. No more hiding behind great photo ops with Bo or the family.
It’s about time the curtain got pulled back.
It’s a good point that the escalation is of minor significance (although functionally for some people it will be enormous), because the emphasis on how ‘different’ Trump is represents precisely the sleight-of-hand the establishment uses to distract from the ongoing corruption of the Powers That Be operating continuously via successive administrations.
However, I’m not convince the curtain is being pulled back effectively at all, since via propaganda the West has learned to “love to hate” Republican authoritarians, tut-tutting at them from pseudo-liberal positions of superiority even while actually doing little to institutionally restrict them. I saw Bush being castigated by the press for being a jerk, but not only were his offenses given free passage by Democrats but even now he’s been rehabilitated into good society – when he should by rights have been prosecuted (by Obama) for war crimes – and to my mind there will no doubt be the same courtesies extended by the prevailing culture when ‘nasty old Trump’ is shown the door.
The media will gleefully berate Trump as they did Bush, but will not promote substantially curbing the Deep State goals of corporatist warmongering and oppression he is further entrenching, for the media is on the whole part of the same corrupt establishment which thrives greatly on the corruption.
i’m with you, i think the threat Trump poses to the establishment, and Republicans in particular, is giving the game away. for the Dems, they’ll keep singing the same song, that at least they’ll give you a reach-around if you vote for them, and that’ll probably sell. Republicans, however, are playing with fire. i believe they see some value in his bulldozing a bunch of policy through and opening up new war fronts. but they have to be careful to throw him under the bus at the right time so they can blame him for the fall out.
still, the strongest card each Party holds, their superpower, is *the other Party,* leading us back to our endless loop. the Dems know that with Trump running amok, they’ll likely get the WH back in due course. and because the Dems won’t have made any significant changes to their organization, the R’s know they only have to bide their time as well.
astonishingly, i can see how we could be just as fucked after Trump as we were before.
Great article. I can’t believe none of the journalist working for so many companies lack any integrity to call that scam Pompeo on his remarks. If this people are so clearly biased and spineless how can we trust anything they publish…with each passing day I completely lose any respect for ” journalists”
Maybe Team Trump is putting a “unified” front on his Cabinet in re defense/intelligence.
This whole freedom thing is making me nuts. It helps to have your perspective, Glenn Greenwald.
Didn’t Mr Pompeo reference “even The Intercept…?”
This WH and this administration are a threat to people everywhere.
The authoritarianism/paternalism is rotten to the core.
The corporate media is also too slow in figuring this whole reporting thing out, but the default is always going to be pro-admin, to our everlasting detriment.
I heard a rerun this morning – Jeffrey Rosen hosting a forum at the National Constitution Center last night.
The guests on this particular panel of the Fourth Estate was Dafna Linzer, Gary Rosen, and Mark Thompson. Some of what was discussed was reportage in the age of Trump – ironic at best. (Dafna is from NBC/MSNBC) https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4666235/freedom-day-fourth-estate.
To add on, I just closed this page, went to HuffPo and saw that the White House is refusing to release visitor logs. Obama also refused but relented only under court order and then only in limited form. There is nothing here which should ever need to be “protected” for any reason. Nothing. This should not only be open it should be readily accessible. They should be entering this into a computerized log which would also automatically update it to their website.
You can think of this as a small matter but the very smallness of this issue is what makes it major. This is about the entire relationship of the rulers to the ruled and determining who the country belongs to. Something so small and otherwise insignificant should never be an issue. Same for who visits. What could the White House be hiding? Not really all that much. They just hide. It is an exercise of authoritarianism. Power. Arrogance.
I remember my first days as a reporter, heading to the police station to peruse their logs. Those were always open. And other records at the courthouse. Always open. That was some years ago now and I suspect everything is being closed down. The citizens are being treated as if we were prisoners, certainly as subjects, not allowed in the grand hall, or allowed to even speak as equals with our “betters.”
That violates and destroys the very foundation of what (in theory, if never totally in practice) makes our country and informs our sense of pride in our living space.
There is also simple “professional” resentment and envy from those who’ve been to journalism school, gotten their degrees, “qualified” for their jobs in journalism and wear massive press credentials to prove all of it. They are the “anointed” ones. I was a working journalist for more than two decades, long before I got a journalism degree. Words like “responsible” are used not for responsibility but for a designation as a suck up writing pablum. Those degrees are mostly job-training programs rather than vocations, as such.
Glenn Greenwald, Julian Assange and a small host of others are multiple times the journalists as those trained to push out stories by the measure and anointed by the mainstreammedia. They have different ways of approaching exposure of information needed by the population but at the core, that is their focus. At core they are journalists, regardless of how their stories are written or style or other pro forma presentation standards.
The problem with being anointed, and “responsible” and “legitimate” is that these are certifications of some governing approval and, with the anointing and approval, governing control. But the information exposed, belongs to the people, not to those in charge, whether government, or private industry. Whatever affects the public safety, health and welfare needs to be open to the public. Period.
Umm Wikileaks is not the press their servers are in Russia and they’ve become a front for the Russian government. Assange is not a U.S. citizen so he is not protected by U.S. laws. Snowden is a thief and a traitor that sought to bring down the intel community so Russia could install it’s puppet. Wake up people!
Spare a thought for this pompous bloke. He was only reading a prepared speech to avoid the fate of the other Mike. As least grant him the credit of being a quick learner even if you dislike this distasteful chap.
A pompeous chap, indeed.
There is no surprise that beside other steps in making a totalitarian system (mass surveillance, militarization of the cops, etc), they will start to hunt journalists too. It is just a question of time when they will start to arrest journalists, in that way, they will also impose self-censorship, many journalists will be afraid from the prison and they will not criticize the government. There is nothing new in creating such system, it is already done many times in the past in many countries, the only problem is that people will stay passive instead to organize and fight.
This article from Glenn is useful to explain to the people what is happening, but beside being informed, people need to organize. It must start from journalists, other people can participate and help, but I doubt that other people will protest to protect the media, especially because many people don’t like corporate media. So, the US is big and it is hard to organize people, even Occupy protests were brought under control and destroyed by the FBI and their infiltrators. But the first thing is to convince journalists to be solidary each with others and fight together against this type of repression that is a part of a bigger repression: creating a totalitarian system.
“Assange Responds To CIA Director That “Produced al-Qaeda, ISIS, Iraq, Iran & Pinochet”
The US is the terminal cancer of this planet that means it can kill it. There is no signal that the disease is going to be cured. It is just a matter of time that the disease will consume us all. Every four years the Americans elect a presiddent this time they elected a guy with mental problems, Trump has the IQ of a ten years old boy. We are done.
Between our partisan instincts for tribalism, affinity instincts for nationalism, and child-like instincts for protectionism, we are literally going to “amuse” ourselves to death.
I wax and and on WikiLeaks but at least they have an ethos. It might be as simple (or, simplistic) as, Without Fear or Favor, but at least they’re a little closer to the spirit of Adolph Ochs’ announcement than when the NYT withheld the reporting of Risen and Lichtblau before the 2004 election.
Lovely sentiment, indeed. The NYT was famous for printing propaganda for the Dulles brothers about fifty years prior to suppressing their “anti-administration” stories in 2004.
If you insist upon links, I will dig one up, but I suggest The Devil’s Chessboard, by David Talbot.
Funny line about amusing ourselves to death, though.
CIA=Clusterfucks In Action, NSA=Nay-Saying Assholes
While we’re at it, take down the American Flag at Langley, and force Mr. Pompeo and all the other upper management weenies to clothespin their underwear to the rope, and hoist the underwear up for all to see. They don’t deserve an American flag outside their facility. Their agency is an insult and a slap-in-the-face to our country.
The reason our government supports these dictators is because they need war to prosper. The government pays ungodly amounts of money to corporations for weapons, supplies, manpower, and technology. Without war, these companies would lose a large portion of their profits. They are intentionally perpetuating conflicts around the world and at home.
The “resistance” will slowly fold into Trump’s arms as he continues to pivot towards Clintonism. I had zero faith in their resolve watching them capitulate and go against everything they supposedly stood for by supporting Clinton. The Russian crazed Maddowites may be their last column to fall to Trump’s neo fascism.
Liberals have threatened Wikileaks and press freedoms to a greater degree by embracing the lie that Russia hacked our election and used Wikileaks. This lie is based on one report by a Ukrainian software company that hates Russia. The CIA director is only jumping on the Democratic McCarthyite bandwagon.
“Can’t we just drone this guy?”
– Hillary on Julian Assange
Liberals have threatened Wikileaks and press freedoms to a greater degree by embracing the lie that Russia hacked our election and used Wikileaks.
You do not know that it did not. Your statement is embracing a lie.
Should have been a block quote:
You do not know that it did not. Your statement is embracing a lie.
“You do not know that it did not. Your statement is embracing a lie.”
Remind us again that we don’t know Russia didn’t do something …
Israel had a far greater known impact on the election than any other country.
It brags about it and has for decades.
I don’t know what this means exactly, but your sentiment is clear.
Russia did something.
Otherwise Trump people wouldn’t be lying about meeting with Russians. (I don’t think there are any corresponding meetings by Clinton people.)
The questions isn’t “if” Russia did something.
The question is “what” Russia did.
Would you believe Rex Tillerson?
“Would you believe Rex Tillerson?
Rex Tillerson says Russian meddling in US election is ‘well-established’ [Independent headline]”
Right. When they say ‘it is well established’ I think of things like ’17 intelligence agencies agree’ .
What did the British do?
What did the French do?
What did the Israelis do?
Trump certainly has underworld connections in Russia but to insist the board “ignored” the threat of Trump is ridiculous.
The only reason we have Trump is because Haim Saban wanted Hillary and he wasn’t going to have his balls cut off. (I understand they are at his ankles but still attached.)
The people wanted Bernie and we got fucked by people loyal to Israel before America.
Tell me Shakespeare didn’t have Shylock pegged.
errata;
not sure where the bold came from on the last sentence.
according to milton the people wanted HRC, by popular vote anyway
did the Israel lobby have a better grip on “the people”, or the electoral college?
the mind reels
Thanks for the article Glenn, this puts into sharp relief the reality of who runs the show … what happened to all the good journalists that were so fearless in exposing the iniquities of the ruling elite? Freedom of speech whimpers then expires …
“crush us with misappropriated secrets”
On the bright side, he just confirmed that Wikileaks publishes 100% accurate information.
No one has been a greater threat to Freedom & Democracy than the CIA, Just look @ the number of dictators it has propped up over the last 50 years & the number of governments it has helped to overthrow, including the US Government, Remember JFK . The Deep State is alive & growing stronger every day, using the same tactics that Hitler used to gain power, attacks on a free press, militarized police state, & eliminating civil rights under its Constitution
thanks, glenn.
words fail.
The empire is on its path of self-destruction.
Yes..looking at all the machinations that have been and will be pronounced over the next four years, cant see him lasting for another term. The centre is starting to collapse and the demise is accelerating..the MOAB that was dropped in Afghanistan and the 36 terrorist were killed works out at approx $460,000+ per terrorist. America cannot afford this mayhem for very long….but Trump has found the key to the ammo locker and we can expect more of this costly drama
You tell’em Glenn.
And oh yeah,… Fuck Jon Ann Reid.
“Joy Ann Reid”
It’s looking more and more like the ongoing ‘quiet crisis’ of capitalism is motivating a real acceleration of the whole authoritarian project. Disaffected populist or at least pseudo-populist voting may be an annoyance, but on a more serious level, it’s looking like capitalist systems are in real, terminal trouble of their own making. Negative interest rate speculation and ‘quantitative easing’ aren’t even working to buy time anymore if they really ever did, and it’s an open secret that nobody – least of all central banks – knows what the hell to do about it at this point, or where the political will would come from to enact a plan even if they had one.
A looming fear of some kind of post-capitalist end-game scenario is surely going to bring out the worst of this authoritarian crap, since nobody even remotely involved in the power structure wants to see real democracy in action in that kind of world.
Just doubled my donation for Wikileaks !
@ Glenn
First, great and important piece.
Second, I hope you’ll get some face time on as many TV shows as possible to defend your argument.
Third, I hope you’ll reach out to all major mainstream journalism outlets to see if they’ll let you submit a guest editorial or op-ed or something if they aren’t willing to defend their own rights, or equally important defend them for all journalism endeavors even if they don’t like them.
It would also be great for you to point out their hypocrisy in remaining silent when almost all of them have aided and abetted, by Pompeo’s definition anyway, leakers and others by virtue of receiving, vetting and publishing hacked/leaked documents. I mean how they don’t understand that Pompeo’s statements don’t put them in jeopardy is completely beyond me.
First they came for Wikileaks and I said nothing because I was not Wikileaks.
Then they came for NYT, Washington Post, . . . and there was no one left to say anything.
Their level of silence and shortsightedness is truly disturbing.
One gets the ludicrous image of Mike Pompeo standing at his bathroom sink in his underwear trying to get the toothpaste back into the tube.
https://www.yahoo.com/tech/leak-suggests-nsa-penetrated-mideast-141347857.html
Or perhaps this scene from V for Vendetta
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CVpqDH7jZTo
One of my favorite movies in my DVD collection.
I only wish there was some “superhero” that was going to save the people from themselves by laying low their oppressors.
Alas, that’s just in comic books and we’re all going to do the heavy lifting on this one.
“To give them the space to crush us with misappropriated secrets is a perversion of what our great Constitution stands for. It ends now.”
I guess telling the truth, exposing war crimes, exposing our governments violations of the constitution are now considered perversions.
JFK had the right idea, do away with the CIA, we don’t need them now.
While we are at it do away with homeland security, that was a farce dreamed up by a half-wit president and his cronies.
We Americans have to keep our eye on the ball. When people with this kind power have attitudes like pompeo, it is dangerous.
Right now there is talk about changing our constitution. There are enough states to conduct a constitutional convention, controlled by republicans.
We have a congress that are controlled by republicans.
So we stir in republican control, trump, and corporate money, there is no telling what our constitution could look like.
Don’t fool yourself, the GOP may control it but it’s not without the help of “Democrats” like Schumer, Feinstein, and the rest of their Clinton-like cronies.
Let’s get one thing straight.
The CIA Vault 7 documents were leaked by someone within the CIA. Julian Assange did not break and enter the CIA building, as far as I know.
The CIA lost custody of their own documents, through one of their own employees. The responsibility for the leak belongs to the CIA.
Actually I think the current belief is that they were leaked by a contract employee of the CIA working for a contractor of the CIA. At least that’s what I saw several places concerning ongoing investigations of the leaker.
I heard it was Mr. Pompeo. It explains why he doeth protest too much.
I figured Vault7 was the result of Betrayus leaving, for 3 days, the entire CIA black-book collection with his mistress.
I’ll wager the CIA was penetrated before they even got the book back.
That’s someone the CIA decided to share the information with. That’s the CIA losing control of it’s own assets.
From there, the leaker could send it to hundreds of media outlets throughout the globe, via encrypted email.
The first instant the CIA botched their protection of their assets, it was all over.
If you are inside the CIA right now, please leak evidence of the CIA illegally spying on Americans. You will change the world forever.
It is remarkable how quickly the masks are coming off — and how closely the revealed visages resemble our nightmarish expectations.
Thanks, again, Glenn. I think. ;^(
Whoops – prior comment should have read “Pompeo can go fuck himself.”
Great work as always, Glenn. And Pompeo and go fuck himself.
Since Pompeo thinks that torture is ok, why not let himself be waterboarded on live prime time TV? Or better yet, why not have his testicles crushed? I mean, from Alberto Gonzalez on, it is legal and ok.
I didn’t know about the award given to Abdulaziz. Heads continue to roll – unfortunately, the wrong ones. Great article.
“the future of radio belongs to us” ch0.us
It sounds like Mikey Pomp-piss-poo has ordered a CIA hit on Assange.
Trump better not piss off Pomp-piss-poo, or the Deep State will deep-six him too.
Now, let me tell you about our intentions to find a new way to suppress free speech and dissent.
The more people see how evil the U.S. government has become, the more they will oppose it.
The Democrats are done. Can indepedent media stop pushing this tired old two-party system crap? It’s not like the Dems are the only choice for progressives. I know these kinds of stories tickle the bitter “progressive Democrats” so they can feel like this wasn’t their fault, but it’s often the Democrats who undermine truly progressive policy. The entire system is corrupt, so we gotta start throwing sticks into the spokes of the government.
Vote Green. Vote with your wallet. Governments are the people, not the people who run government. Take responsibility and be the change you want to see. This will require bravery and conviction.
The mainstream media used to keep a journalist or two on staff to lend a distinguished air to their operations. However, the media can no longer afford these flourishes if they don’t directly contribute to the bottom line. Nowadays you need several editors on staff to write click-bait headlines, one or two embedded CIA operatives and several public relations people whose job is to ensure that nothing displeasing to the commercial sponsors is published. So there just isn’t a roster spot left for journalists.
So the question is: does the First Amendment matter to anyone but journalists? If a dying profession is its sole public proponent, perhaps a mercy killing would be kindest and the US should annul the First Amendment. I understand the sentiment, but I think it is unnecessary. Social media is the new public communications platform. Twitter and Facebook aren’t bound by the First Amendment so they can tailor public discourse with a free hand without resorting to the cumbersome annulment process.
This suggests the CIA model of planting agents in newsrooms is obsolete. I’m sure there already are many CIA employees working for Twitter and Facebook. After all, they have a competitive advantage on the job market, since their private sector salary is subsidized with a top-up from the CIA. But the CIA, as a slow moving government bureaucracy, probably is lagging behind the market. This is what Mr. Pompeo is attempting to change, in between posing for photo-shoots with foreign tyrants and launching attacks on the First Amendment. So I’d give him some latitude since his clumsy statements may just be rookie mistakes and he’ll eventually find his footing.
Need I point out the irony of Wikileaks favoring the authoritarian Trump in the US election?
>blockquote> Donald Trump is not a DC insider, he is part of the wealthy ruling elite of the United States, and he is gathering around him a spectrum of other rich people and several idiosyncratic personalities. They do not by themselves form an existing structure, so it is a weak structure which is displacing and destabilising the pre-existing central power network within DC. It is a new patronage structure which will evolve rapidly, but at the moment its looseness means there are opportunities for change in the United States: change for the worse and change for the better”. Julian Assange
I recall a line from William Shirer’s The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich where German conservatives felt Hitler would benefit their political fortunes. They thought about the benefit to their own faction.
Yet:
To the extent that Julian Assange and Wikileaks (and surely the Russians) participated in pushing the 2016 election to Donald Trump, I have little doubt they will refuse to accept responsibility for their interference. They opened this window of opportunity and in flew the fascists.
Why is anyone surprised by this and other fascistic policies advocated by Trump and his henchmen?
How is it wrong, much less illegal, to publish information that may impact on an election?
For what, exactly should WL/Assange “accept responsibility” for?
Revealing the truth should never be done lightly. The mainstream media, to their credit, realize this and behave responsibly. Mr. Assange is a reckless extremist, willing to go wherever the truth might lead. He can’t then disingenuously sidestep any responsibility for the consequences.
“Revealing the truth should never be done lightly”?
How about “suppressing the truth should never be done lightly”?
Let me tell you, decisions are much better made on the basis of complete and accurate information than they are when based on the alternative.
And presidential elections are among the most important decisions Americans make.
D
The problem with the ‘truth’ is that it has a certain ‘stickiness’. Once you make it public, it is hard to retract it. Fake News narratives are much more malleable and can be adjusted to changing circumstances. So while I don’t disagree that ‘suppressing the truth should never be done lightly’, it doesn’t pose anything like the same level of risk as telling the truth.
“And presidential elections are among the most important decisions Americans make.”
I know you really meant to say that deciding which party to vote for is an important decision for Americans who vote in the US’ silly presidential elections.
If true, does it mean American voters could and should be responsible for their really shitty judgement? Does it mean they could directly responsible for war crimes committed by Nixon / Reagan / Carter / Bush / Obama / Clinton / Trump?
Will you answer that question?
Gawd you’ve completely lost it:
Please explain how it is possible to “push” or “interfere” with a US election by disseminating TRUE information about a particular individual running for a US political office?
If it could be a sound/valid argument that publishing TRUE information about an individual running for a US political office amounts to “interference” with an election, then every US journalist who disseminates TRUE information about US candidates for elected office is necessarily INTERFERING with a US election.
Seriously, how in the span of just a couple of months have you become such a sputtering partisan moron?
Or is it your position that only American citizens have a right to disseminate TRUE information about US politicians running for US elected office? If so, I think you’ve got a major hypocrisy problem because many many many foreign nationals, particularly citizens from “allied” nations, report and disseminate TRUE information about individuals running for US elected office.
If you can prove that Russia spread FALSE (dis)information about a US citizen running for elected office in the US, or alternatively that Russia in collaboration with Trump (or campaign operatives) rigged vote totals or voting machines, then you’ve got some reason to suggest a US election was “interfered” with, but short of that you’ve got bullshit partisan propaganda and nothing more.
But given that the special snowflakes of America have been outright spreading disinformation, influencing elections, and outright overthrowing any regime it doesn’t like all over the globe going on the last 55+ years, I don’t really think you have much of a logical or moral leg to stand on to make that argument.
In any event, it is incredibly sad to see someone whose opinion used to make sense most of the time, and who might be considered an ideological ally, reduced to such a pathetic incoherent sputtering mess.
That actually to Milt, not Mona, yes?
I’m sure rr meant to address that to Milton — the commenting system here sucks and many of us have made that boo boo.
I’m no IT person but it seems like it would be better to use one of the other commenting services. This one is both brutal and fickle in equal measures.
Like Milt’s “logic”.
Yeah I thought I hit reply to Milton, but maybe I goofed, but that’s who it was intended to be a reply to.
Mona et al
This troupe of howler monkeys should read what I present rather than howl about what I didn’t write.
Nowhere did I say “wrong” or “illegal.” In fact, my citation makes the opposite point.
Like a mob shouting to a person on a ledge, “jump, jump, jump” you can disavow all responsibility of the bloody mess on the ground a few minutes later. Part of the point of being a mob — or a troupe of howler monkeys — is the ability to claim your innocence.
Elections have consequences. If you didn’t know Trump was a fascist before the election, you should know by now. If you don’t know by now, that’s only because you’re not a undocumented worker, a foreign exchange student, or an inner city resident struggling to survive in this capitalist’s paradise.
Or maybe you just lack sufficient imagination and empathy.
When you insist that Hillary Clinton, the Democrats, the DNC, liberals or Muslims are the enemy, you haven’t heard the very loud and unmistakable message Trump delivers.
He despises government like almost all Republicans since Reagan decreed, “… government is the problem.”
Trump already creates an authoritarian government that punishes exactly those things like truth, rights. and decency my critics so piously (yet insincerely) invoke.
Actually, I’m rather surprised that more of you don’t see this implicit authoritarianism as displayed by Trump’s laughable nepotism, his desperate refusal to reveal his business practices, his insistence upon policies already repudiated in courts, his selection of the most ideological appointees possible, and his quick trigger finger.
I thought that by now, even the dimmest of you would have caught on. Pompeo makes it more explicit here, but that doesn’t mean others — and especially Trump — haven’t shouted it with at least as much intensity and enthusiasm already.
Fixed up your post to reflect the reality you so wish to deny; your paradise lost, as it were.
I thought you absolved all of us (“from your position on high has great protector of all that is good and worthy”) who didn’t vote for Trump as not responsible for Trump–not logically and not morally (and not as a practical matter)?
I didn’t vote for Trump, Mona didn’t vote for Trump, Doug didn’t vote for Trump, and with the exception of a few regular trolls, not sure anybody around here voted for Trump. Now Doug and I live in states that went solidly for Hillary Clinton even if neither of us chose to vote for another woman candidate or no candidate at all. So how exactly is it that we should bear some responsibility for Trump? Are we not shouting out loudly enough for you that he’s a colossal asshole and borderline fascist? Or is it that we don’t do it reflexively no matter what the topic at hand is, you know, like you do?
In your fevered incoherent mind, is it not possible to be both against Trump, and be critical of the Democratic party, at the same time?
Like I said, you haven’t been making anything remotely resembling coherent comments for months which is truly sad.
As far as the comment above, nice combination straw man – moving the goalposts – non-sequitur you strung together there. Maybe you should throw in the towel for the weekend and go have a cocktail, or make it to your local meeting of The Resistance instead of wasting your time here trying to blame the election on a bunch of people who didn’t vote for Trump, or the evil scary Russians and their diabolical “interference” with our elections by spreading accurate information about our candidates.
Ron: Is it not possible to be both against Trump, and be critical of the Democratic party, at the same time?
Glenn: Now, I happen to think that the Trump presidency is extremely dangerous and I also believe that the CIA is extremely dangerous. The difference is that Trump was democratically elected by and is (to some extent) accountable to the people whereas the CIA was elected by nobody and remains unaccountable to anyone.
If only Mr. Obama had the foresight to annul the First Amendment, Wikileaks could have been suppressed and Fascism stopped in its tracks. The same mistake was made with Hitler. Demagogues will use their free speech privileges to sway the rubes and induce them to vote against their own best interest. So the First Amendment is practically an open door beckoning the Fascists to step through. Mr. Pompeo may shut it too late, but better late than never. The next populist candidate might have been even worse than Mr. Trump.
“…(and surely the Russians)”
Ha ha ha! Oh, surely! Keep going with that thought because it’s a winning combo for future elections. And I’m especially glad you and the DNC are incapable of realizing that.
As to fascistic policies, Trump may exceed him, only time will tell, but it’s BO that used the Espionage Act of 1918 more than all other Presidents combined. And who did he use it against? Whistle blowers.
this just in, from Bizarro World…
this just in, from Bizarro World….
“Need I point out the irony of Wikileaks favoring the authoritarian Trump in the US election?”
Need I point out that there is literally no proof of this?
Yes, yes I must.
The failure of the Hillary Clinton Presidential bid rests solely on the Democrats shoulders.
How many stolen emails of Republicans, Trump or other candidates did WL publish?
You sound like a guy before DNA testing who says of his pregnant girlfriend, “theres’ no proof it was me.”
We will discover, eventually, that there was a quid pro quo between Assange and Russia.
And yes, I can’t prove that.
But to say that WL didn’t favor Trump over Clinton is just ludicrous.
And yet I’ll say it again: there’s no proof of this.
Motive or lack-of means nothing when considering the release of the DNC emails had upon Hillary’s campaign. I’d argue she’d have lost regardless of their release – but there’s no proof of that; just as you and yours breathlessly proclaim that:
As Kitt so well describes in another part of this thread addressing similar wild and completely-missing-the-point claims:
The #IBleedBlue crowd has been so intent on keeping the Clinton Faux-Democratic Machinery in place at all cost that they were adding to the self-inflicted wounds of the DNC email debacle even before the election itself: literally telling Bernie supporters and others that they didn’t need (or even want) their votes.
Like me and millions of others, Andrew Sullivan has a telling piece wondering why this dynamic is even still a thing:
You and yours are in denial; but worse than that, by not acknowledging these facts, you’re collectively committing the same failures that not only assured us all of a Trump Presidency in the first place, but will get us yet another one, or one like it.
Assange never “favored” Donald Trump – rather, it appears (based on that same quote that has been regurgitated and taken out of context so many times it pains me to think about it) he misunderstood what Trump actually stood for (nothing) and the way that the American presidency actually works.
Google “julian assange la repubblica interview”
Does this sound like Assange favors Clinton?
Does this quote take anything out of contexts?
Was Assange somehow forced to blame Clinton for the 2016 refugee crisis in Europe?
Would you honestly say that between Clinton and Trump, JA favors Clinton?
You defend JA by saying he “misunderstood” what Trump actually stands for?
Among other things, Trump said,
This is NOT “nothing.”
Trump stood for something — stands for something — and we see it displayed in real time. None of you get to say you didn’t see this coming.
NONE
OF
YOU
I think one thing you’ve either forgotten or wish to ignore is how much of a shoe-in for the presidency Hillary Clinton was regarded by just about everyone.
Election model: Clinton will win easily (The Hill)
Everyone from mainstream media to the fringes was saying this (Alex Jones growled that the voting machines were going to be rigged in her favor, and unsurprisingly said “they didn’t have time” or some such silliness when Trump ‘won’) – basically it all looked in the bag for Ms. Clinton, and no one really doubted that (except the Powers That Be, evidently, who were perhaps alarmed at her insistence on a Syrian no-fly zone, a step too far even for Trump it seems).
It’s obvious now that Trump was really just as much a corporate elite/military-industrial complex servant as Clinton, if more nationalist and not such a Big Wheel in the Washington circuit, but recall that at the time he really was regarded as an outsider about whom Assange himself declared:
Apart from the fact that many simply couldn’t resort to lesser-evil voting (some not entirely convinced she really was particularly lesser), very few of us expected the Powers That Be to renege on Clinton’s coronation – and while this may cause you to bluster further and lay all the blame at the doorstep of this shameful lack of foresight, let me urge you to consider that ultimately the voters and/or the Deep State evidently chose the puppet Trump over the Hillary marionette because she didn’t persuade them not to; nor indeed, evidently, did those like you.
Assange: Trump Won’t be Allowed to Win
Maisie. One of the best here.
Thanks!!
Glenn,
OK you have rung the bell! What can the worried and depressed citizen do?
Write my Congressman and Senators who are puppets of the moneymen? Stand on a street corner and cry?
Great article. This is very worrisome. I’m presenting at a conference and writing a paper highlighting the CIA’s extensive role in overturning democracies. My sources are already published, but nobody cares about this stuff so the information is generally unknown. How worried should I be in light of Pompeo’s remarks?
The most delicious aspect of this toxic confection is WaPo running Assange’s op-ed and the Bezos-Amazon-CIA connection. What, as the kids says, is up with that?
Does this mean that my contributions to WikiLeaks will now be a crime?
Seems quite deranged. Apart from the obvious crazy claims does he not have a clue how accusing Wikileaks of being “abetted by state actors like Russia” plays into the Dem accusations regarding his own boss?
These guys need to realize that if they are unable to rationally articulate their opinions that it maybe those opinions arose from their illogical lizard brain.
MSM did report Pompeo’s threats. The problem is, this issue is too abstract for most Americans to care about. Civil liberties advocates like Mr. Greenwald have a marketing issue; how to make Americans care more about civil liberty.
And those of us who do care have few effective outlets. I didn’t vote for Trump, I am an ACLU member, and I write my Congressman and Senators. That’s not much, given the scale of the assault, but I’m not sure what else to do.
The best way to do this is to take those civil liberties away. People only appreciate something when they don’t have it. The Trump administration may do more to make Americans care about civil liberty than all previous administrations combined.
So true. 45 and his gang could be the bitter pill Americans need to wake up to reality. One can hope at least.
“… how to make Americans care more about civil liberty.”
I have been to both Russia and Syria and discussed politics extensively with people in both countries. That fact of the matter is that people everywhere will quite willingly give up their civil liberties if they are told that there are foreigners who want to hurt them, and that they need a strong leader to protect them.
This is why Putin and Assad are so popular in their countries. The people with whom they are not popular look and talk like you. I say this from personal experience.
https://twitter.com/trickfreee/status/850751135522603012
Here is something like evidence. BitCoin deposits being made to WikiLeaks coinciding with political events. I’m sure the CIA has more powerful tools than your average Twitter user. Don’t assume there is no evidence, because there very clearly IS.
Bitcoin data consistent with public providing more contributions due to the positive press over the Podesta email release. Dog wagging the tail.
Did Pompeo also declare war on the “un- named officials” doing all the anti-Trump leaks to some of the major media outlets?
Who knows, but one thing is certain : he didn’t mention the Intercept twice by mistake, or to create division between WL and TI. He actually issued an indirect threat, and rest assured it hasn’t fallen on deaf ears. GG & Co were most probably on the CIA’s radar already, now they’ll be surveilled 24/7. Hell, even you will, merely for posting a comment. Time to update SecureDrop and a few domestic alarm systems…
Northeastern.
Be careful, the CIA has a completely new array of “tools” now than they did in the post 911 anthrax mailings to selected new reporters.
The Big Bamboozle
Substitute the words “jewish bankers” for CIA if you want to understand the current political dynamics.