Leon Neal/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images Daniel Ellsberg, leaker of the Pentagon Papers, defended whistleblowing on Saturday.
LONDON — Julian Assange, the WikiLeaks founder, and Daniel Ellsberg, who leaked the Pentagon Papers, lashed out together on Saturday at the Obama administration’s aggressive pursuit of whistle-blowers, including those responsible for the release of secret documents on the Iraq war.
Mr. Assange also said that WikiLeaks, which released the trove of almost 400,000 Iraq war documents on Friday, would shortly be posting an additional 15,000 remaining secret documents on the Afghan war.
Mr. Assange, speaking at a news conference in a London hotel a stone’s throw from the headquarters of Britain’s foreign intelligence agency, MI6, was joined by Mr. Ellsberg, 79, the former military analyst who leaked a 1,000-page secret history of the Vietnam War in 1971 that became known as the Pentagon Papers.
Mr. Ellsberg, who said he had flown overnight from California to attend, described Mr. Assange admiringly as “the most dangerous man in the world” for challenging governments, particularly the United States. He said the WikiLeaks founder had been “pursued across three continents” by Western intelligence services and compared the Obama administration’s threat to prosecute Mr. Assange to his own treatment under President Richard M. Nixon.
DEMOCRACY NOW INTERVIEW: Pentagon Whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg on Upcoming Iraq War Wikileaks Docs (October 22nd) (Part 1 of 2)
The Juan Williams NPR firing Fox hiring debacle just will not go away, and once again, and I hate to say this, but it is the extreme right wing end of the argument that is winning the spin game.
It all started when Bill O’Reilly went on The View and well, take a look:
Whoopi and Joy, you could have said, yes, Bill, it is a fact that Muslim’s killed us on 9/11. Because, well it is a fact. But is only the most recent chapter in a long history of US meddling (let me clarify that term)-murdering innocent civilians — innocent civilians in the middle east, many of them Muslim’s and all perilously close to the Muslim holy city of Mecca and the Hyper-capitalist holy grail of foreign cheap oil.
I’m talking about a history that goes back to at least 1953 when the CIA overthrew Iran’s democracy and the more recent history of the first gulf war, and the subsequent sanctions that killed at least 1/2 million Iraq children while leaving US boots on the ground in the middle east.
Then a few radical Muslims-from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia it seems, aided and abetted by an ignorance or a come on over wink wink nudge nudge say no more attitude that went all the way up to the White House flew a few planes into a copula buildings, killing thousands of Americans.
So what do we do? We launch a viscous and brutal war against the defenseless country of Iraq that killed at least 1 million innocent civilians and created untold numbers of orphans at least a few of which, I am certain, will grow into radicalized Muslim’s prepared to martyr themselves.
So when, days later, Juan Williams says in a debate with Bill O’Reilly that he does a double take when he is on a plane and he sees people who self identify as Muslims, this is understandable. Muslims, like Christians, are batshit crazy to begin with, what with their irrational belief in an all knowing creator of the universe that wrote a book of laws for them to live by (and a confusing book at that, preaching peace on the one hand and commanding you to kill the infidels on the other). Juan’s fear is also understandable in the context of the oil and flame combination of these batshit crazy religious people being incited by the unbelievable amount of their blood shed by American hands.
Where Juan’s fear is not justifiable is in the context of statistics. The overwhelming majority of Muslims just want to eat, work, and play in peace. Williams himself made this point, but it was to late, because NPR has shown itself incapable of any sophisticated debate or discussion about the holy war we are waging in this world.
We know that the randian regressive christian conservative tea bagging fox news network wielding a blunt instrument in the merry go round of the 24 hour partisan feeding frenzy, but NPR, in explaining Juan Williams firing stooped to suggesting that Williams “keep his comments between him and his therapist”.
Fox news, not missing a PR beat, reached into their pockets and has snatched up Williams, offering him a $2 million contract. Sarah Palin, without a mis spelled word or malaprops in sight, wrote: “If NPR is unable to tolerate an honest debate about an issue as important as Islamic terrorism, then it’s time for ‘National Public Radio’ to become ‘National Private Radio,’” she wrote. “It’s time for Congress to defund this organization…President Obama should make clear his commitment to free and honest discussion of the jihadist threat in our public debates – and Congress should make clear that unless NPR provides that public service, not one more dime.”
And Juan Williams wrote on Fox News.com “Daniel Schorr, my fellow NPR commentator who died earlier this year, used to talk about the initial shock of finding himself on President Nixon’s enemies list. I can only imagine Dan’s revulsion to realize that today NPR treats a journalist who has worked for them for ten years with less regard, less respect for the value of independence of thought and embrace of real debate across political lines, than Nixon ever displayed.”
When you get a card carrying liberal like Juan Williams to place a standard bearer of the liberal elite like NPR below tricky Dick Nixon, then I am left tipping my cap to my regressive counterparts on the right. They simply are better at spin. Their victory is our loss.
Again.
ω
Feel free to repost all or part of this on a non-commercial blog/website. Always credit “Davis Fleetwood” as the author and include an active link back to the particular blog post.
A freelance writer, Davis Fleetwood has worked as a writer/ media consultant for Dennis Kucinich’s 2008 presidential campaign and served as a contributing editorial commentator for The Uptake. His videos have been seen by over 17 million viewers. He has been called (among many other things) “one of the most prominent voices in YouTube politics.” (-You Tube News & Politics chief, Steve Grove) He was a “Best of YouTube, 2007” nomination. His book DROPPIN’ KNOWLEDGE LIKE A CLUMSY LIBRARIAN, is now available from No Cure For That Press, and his first full length feature documentary, MANIFEST DESTINY’S CHILD, is due out on DVD this January.
THE HERMIT WITH DAVIS FLEETWOOD is Independently produced by a staff of one & runs on the fuel of your individual donations.
Sam Stein, reporting for the HuffingtonPost, writes:
In the last round of ads it will run before the election, the progressive advocacy group MoveOn.org is going back to the well, raising the specter of well-resourced corporations overwhelming the vote of regular citizens.
Airing in 28 different races, the spot took obvious, painstaking effort to produce, featuring actual voters in that specific district reading portions of the script. But by getting authentic narrators to deliver the message there is some additional resonance.
Here is the MoveOn spot:
Cute.
To bad MoveOn.org ignores the Democrats complicity in the clusterfuck of our current 2 party duopoly.
TEXT:
This Ad is not paid for by the corporate front groups, oil billionaires, or foreign entities that are trying to buy this election for the Republicans.
And this Ad is not paid for by Wall Street Hedge Fund managers trying to ensure that finical regulation remains a dirty word for Democrats.
And this ad is not paid for by the military industrial complex, who have ensured that not matter which of the major parties are in power, we will continue to spend and kill well past our economic and moral limits.
This is our ad, made by hard working, independent Americans.
This November 2nd, let the GOP know that they are batshit crazy. The left wing lost the culture wars of the 1990s, but we welcome the opportunity for CW2. (4 continued)
This November 2nd, let the Democrats know that they have taken your vote for granted for to long. You gave them 2006. You gave them 2008. They failed you in every way.
This November 2nd, go to the ballot box and vote Green, 3rd party, or cast a protest vote by writing in: “NO CURE FOR THAT”.
It’s a perfect storm. And I’m not talking about the impending dangers facing Democrats. I’m talking about the dangers facing our democracy.
First, income in America is now more concentrated in fewer hands than it’s been in 80 years. Almost a quarter of total income generated in the United States is going to the top 1 percent of Americans.
The top one-tenth of one percent of Americans now earn as much as the bottom 120 million of us.
Who are these people? With the exception of a few entrepreneurs like Bill Gates, they’re top executives of big corporations and Wall Street, hedge-fund managers, and private equity managers. They include the Koch brothers, whose wealth increased by billions last year, and who are now funding tea party candidates across the nation. Continue reading →
SHARE THIS:
By Pam Martens. This article originally appeared on CounterPunch
Lily Tomlin said it best: “No matter how cynical you become, it’s never enough to keep up.” Despite two solid years of progressive media tracking the billionaire Koch brothers’ funding of right wing front groups, new details have emerged which show a more sophisticated and ominous network than previously understood.
One of the key organizations funded by a Koch-controlled foundation is Americans for Prosperity (AFP). While it has been widely documented and publicized that the group is orchestrating the Tea Party, AFP is also a veritable smorgasbord of other “grassroots” personalities. The AFP or the AFP Foundation have spawned the following identities:
DefendingtheDream.org (August 27-28 D.C. summit for right wing strategizing and rally);
SayNoCapandTrade.org (kill tax on production of greenhouse gases);
NoInternetTakeover.com (attacks on the Federal Communications Commission);
SickofSpending.com (“…how to recruit, educate, organize, and mobilize fed up Americans to stop the radical left-wing agenda…”);
RegulationReality.com (“…educate citizens about the EPA’s attempt to implement radical global warming regulations…”);
NovemberIsComing.com (phone bank; go door to door to beat back those liberals);
TaxCutsForAll.com (don’t raise taxes on the rich);
SpendingCrisis.org (shrink the Federal government);
CaliforniaSoS.com (cut spending in California);
United4NoOn4.com (kill Amendment 4 in Florida that would give voters more say in local legislative decisions; an ironic position for people who say they want to promote more liberty).
Americans for Prosperity also created PatientsUnitedNow.com and orchestrated hundreds of rallies to help kill the public option in health care reform. Continue reading →
A secretive network of Republican donors is heading to the Palm Springs area for a long weekend in January, but it will not be to relax after a hard-fought election — it will be to plan for the next one.
Koch Industries, the longtime underwriter of libertarian causes from the Cato Institute in Washington to the ballot initiative that would suspend California’s landmark law capping greenhouse gases, is planning a confidential meeting at the Rancho Las Palmas Resort and Spa to, as an invitation says, “develop strategies to counter the most severe threats facing our free society and outline a vision of how we can foster a renewal of American free enterprise and prosperity.” Continue reading →
With only 14 days remaining until the mid term elections Democrats, liberals and progressives are either unmotivated or completely defeated. We no longer stand for anything, it seems, save the restoration of sanity.
Not that the Jon Stewart siren song is without seduction. If the 2006 and 2008 elections have taught Democrats and those on the left anything at all it is that your new boss is much like the old boss, with game changing differences notable not in foreign policy (we still kill first and ask questions later) nor in domestic policy (Even in the face of the biggest wealth grab and upward redistribution of wealth in the history of the world, the white house still answers to Wall Street first, the people 2nd). With that said, there is plenty of insanity to go around. The GOP, heavily favored to lay down an ass whooping on the Democrats on November 2nd, has been successfully hijacked by a radian regressive christian conservative movement.
