SNL 'ISIS' Skit Shows Too Many Remain Free Speech Hypocrites

The Saturday Night Live skit featured cute Dakota Johnson  (of '50 Shades' fame) as a teen off to join the terror zombies called ISIS. She is being taken to the airport to meet their local emissaries by "Dad" - played by Taram Killam.  At the outset Dad asks his budding little ISIS girl: "Well, this is it. Need any help with your bag?"

She replies, "No that's all right, I got it".  And Dad responds, "Looks like your ride is here."

And the scene pans off to a pickup arriving with Islamic emblems displayed and guys sporting rifles. Dad sees them and chirps: "You be careful, okay?"

And as the wannabe warrior peeks into the car window from outside she smiles and says:

"Dad, it's just ISIS."

The spot ends with the main ISIS bearded guy saying "Death to America!" after 'Dad' asks him to "take care of her", then the words appear on the right bottom of the screen:

"ISIS: We'll take it from here, Dad"

To behold the reaction  to this skit (as "offensive") , at which we howled with laughter, you'd think the SNL bunch had insulted everyone's mom. Despite the backlash from obvious free speech hypocrites (who want only THEIR brand justified) Taram Killlam defended it on Twitter, observing:

"Proud of this. Freedom to mock is our greatest weapon. Thanks to the writers who asked not to be mentioned by name."

So why all the huff and puff and sanctimonious outrage now when many of these same upset ninnies cheered in indy theaters when N. Korean dictator Kim Jong -Un was killed in a pseudo-jokey assassination flick called 'The Interview"?  Well, because Americans can dish it out but can't take it. They will howl with laughter when another nation's pet "Ox" is gored in a media venue, but snarl in outrage when their own Ox is exposed. In this case the petrified fear of the ISIS bugs and their foul deeds.

Oh no! Mustn't laugh at that or mock it! No NO! It's real and it could happen to us!

But see, if that meme is kept constant as well as it's ancillary one, that numbers of young Americans (and other nationality) idiots really are trying to join ISIS, then we lose by being reluctant to mock them. Both the nitwit joiners and the ISIS bugs. (Which I already have stated ought to be eliminated with nerve gas whenever they charge out into the open desert by themselves).

So why the asymmetric outrage?  Again, because far too many pick and choose what forms of free speech (mostly over the top jabs at others' cultures, religions)  they will defend and hold sacred, but are prepared to condemn and punish those who dare to offer second thoughts - or jokes - concerning our own sensitive baggage. In this case the phenomenon of ISIS recruiting our wholesome young 'Murican offspring via social media.

Since it is too real to those who have young 'uns (and fortunately I don't,  so don't have to police them 24/7)  then mocking it - as in depicting a girl being driven by daddy to meet  ISIS - becomes seriously "cringe worthy" and offensive.

So basically, the ISIS maggots so have Americans crawling into their holes out of fear that they're afraid to laugh at their own neurotic foibles.

The takeaway from this is - once more - you  do not get to pick and choose which forms of free expression you will defend and which you will ignore if you declare yourself a real free speech champion. Cafeteria free speechers are hypocrites, pure and simple. So, if you're yelping now about the SNL 'ISIS" skit, you didn't have any right to yelp about being denied yucks when 'The Interview' was not shown in mainstream cinemas.

It's as simple as that!

The Paris Terror Attack, 'Charlie Hebdo' And The Limits of 'Free' Expression

The ghastly terror attacks yesterday morning in Paris, which left 12 dead and 4 critically wounded,  have been described as the "French 9/11". Of course, this is gross exaggeration. In fact, the bombing of a Cuban airliner over Barbados on Oct. 6, 1976 - leaving 73 dead-  is more in line with the magnitude of a 9/11. But let's get to the point which inheres in one question asked by many thinking people yesterday:

Can one condemn the brazen attack on the offices of Charlie Hebdo magazine but also criticize the outrageous satires the medium used, especially to attack Muslims?

This, let us grasp, resides at the core of  free expression. Because if you condemn the attacks but don't also permit criticism of the magazine's outrageous and provocative cartoons, then you are NO free speech champion. For while you would extend the license of all out free expression to Charlie Hebdo you would deny it to any who might criticize its over the top 'humor' - which often attacked, disrespected a whole culture .

This came to the fore yesterday in one column by global editor Tony Barber, on the Financial Times.

Barber condemned the brazen attack but also observed it might never have transpired had Charlie Hebdo exercised even a modicum of common sense, and temperance in its satire.  This elicited no fewer than 1,000 comments of which the bulk - perhaps 800 - were mindless and savage attacks on Barber's article - even calling for his firing from the FT.

Wow! What tremendous demonstration of support for  "free expression"! Don't these moron champions grasp that by calling for Barber's head, they have in fact become hypocrites? If they extend the license for Charlie Hebdo to depict the icon of Islam as sodomizing himself in cartoons, yet deny Barber his own expression of (very sober) opinion in his piece, then that is what they are!

They pick and choose what forms of free speech (mostly over the top jabs at others' cultures, religions)  they will defend, but are prepared to condemn and punish those who dare to offer second thoughts, or criticism of CH. This is unacceptable.

These people, make no mistake, are no different from the "free speech" champions who called for Bill Maher's firing from 'Politically Incorrect' in 2001, after he said the 9//11 attackers demonstrated courage by actually flying planes into buildings.  Maher was released from his ABC  show, just like Ward Churchill was released from his position as professor at Univ. of Colorado when someone dug up his essay "On Roosting Chickens' - referring to the World Trade Center workers (mainly investment specialists)  as "little Eichmanns".

Outrageous? Sure! But you  do not get to pick and choose which forms of free expression you will defend and which you will ignore if you declare yourself a real free speech champion. Cafeteria free speechers are hypocrites, pure and simple. So, if they are yelping now about Charlie Hebdo's right to have done those outrageous satires, but kept their lips zipped for Bill Maher and Ward Churchill's expressions, then their yap isn't worth an ounce of doggie lickspittle.

Churchill meanwhile lost his job which the media was perfectly okay with because well, he "lacked discretion and common sense". (The CU honchos realized it would look bad to fire him for speech, after all that's what universities are supposed to be about, so dreamed up a "plagiarism finding" which centered on Churchill alone, no other faculty.)

Now, fast forward to yesterday, Tony Barber basically said the same thing regarding CH in lacking common sense and also showing "stupidity" for some of its more over the top depictions. But he was literally crucified for defecting from the party line, errrr.....parrot line, that HEY! Charlie Hebdo had every right to insult whoever or whatever they wanted - like a giant baby or drunk pissing and defecating on everyone in view.

One moron actually wrote in one of the comments: "Free speech means the right to insult anyone you want, at any time and not have to worry about any consequences!"

To which I responded that this was not free speech but licensed insanity. No one gets to insult whoever and whatever they want without any consequences. Ask any drunk in a bar who after one too many begins hurling epithets at the mothers of the all the other patrons. Think he will last very long before being punched out for his intemperance? Anyone who believes so is an idiot. So yes, there can be free expression but it is daft to expect and demand free expression with no consequences. That is a fantasy world.

Another commenter, 'Marianna NYC',  in line with my view, also noted that free expression doesn't mean one can say whatever, curse anyone's god or prophet, with no consequences. That is not the world we inhabit and most of the planet's populace - unlike the libertine West - holds radically different  (and much more conservative) views of speech and how free it can be. And even in Germany you can be put away for making jokes about Jews "going to the ovens" or denying the holocaust.

Now, consider what I will refer to as one of the best examples of Charlie Hebdo's recklessness in expression - not "free" expression. This was cited last night by Chris Hayes on his 'All In' show noting how the French in 2012  - had to CLOSE twenty embassies around the world because Charlie Hebdo published cartoon representations of Mohammed naked.  A nation having to shutter temporarily 20 embassies in the wake!? Can no one of intelligence see that this response itself shows the representations were reckless,  not free expression? No genuine free speech should necessitate a nation closing 20 embassies, I am sorry!

Yes, to blind Westerners this is a hee-haw but imagine if Al Jazeera did the same thing in a cartoon about Christ- including sporting a huge boner. Would we still be laughing? I doubt it!

Marianna NYC's plea in her assorted comments on the FT site was that yes, let's have speech - wonderful free expression - but how about making it positive and uplifting? Must it inevitably drag others' gods, prophets, leaders down into the gutter to get laughs for the rest of us? Can we not put ourselves in others' shoes and experience some empathy for their sensibilities? How can we ever expect to make the world a better place by tearing others down, whether via films ('Desert Warrior', 'The Interview') or by over the top "satire" which is designed to impale raw nerves and inflame hatreds?

Again, Marianna and Tony Barber  note this is not to in any way justify the dastardly and cowardly attacks, but only to try to make people understand these didn't occur in vacuo. (The same way Ward Churchill tried to tell people that 9/11 didn't occur in vacuo.) By therefore exercising more responsibility and discretion - which too many in the West see as limitation- we can therefore find a way to forge humor that doesn't step over the line to provoke attacks like Benghazi. We can have humor and satire but without the nastiness and disrespect that only sows hate.

Sadly, until the West grasps the freedom paradox - that there can be no absolute freedom - i.e. without responsibility, we will never see any advancement on this issue.

From one website on the freedom paradox:

"In our age freedom is a distorted and detached concept, a kind of abstraction. There is little connection of freedom to responsibility , to the common good or to truth. To the modern world freedom is essentially understood as “the ability to do whatever I please.” Now the absurdity of such a definition is usually evident in our time as my radical freedom bumps up against your radical freedom and suddenly we’re demanding laws!

The first paradox of freedom is that true freedom is experienced only in relation to what is good and true.

The second paradox of freedom is that, since we are contingent and limited beings, we can only experience freedom within parameters and by limiting our freedom to a certain extent:

The Third paradox of freedom is that my freedom today often exists due to prior constraint."

See also:

http://clivehamilton.com/books/the-freedom-paradox/

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/thom-hartmann/60378/lets-call-all-terrorists-terrorists

and:

http://www.salon.com/2015/01/14/hollywoods_political_deafness_what_cosby_selma_hebdo_reveal_about_white_liberal_consciousness/

The U.S. Hangs Onto To Its "North Korea Dunnit" Malarkey - Why Be Surprised?

Left:Little Kim after being head shot and just before his head is exploded by CIA assassins in 'The Interview' - which lap dog patrons have paid good money to cheer and say the 'Pledge of Allegiance' to before watching. Who are they allegiant to, murderers? Or are they just ordinary jingoistic assholes? Right:  Jeremy Renner stars as journalist Gary Webb in 'Kill the Messenger' - a worthwhile film all REAL Americans ought to see.

The U.S. appears to be sticking to the "North Korea dunnit" line despite all signs pointing to an enclave of hackers belonging to a group called 'The Guardians of Peace'.   Every indicator shows the malware and other attributes were deliberately employed as decoys to set up the North Koreans. Far fetched? Hell no, especially not when there's a sordid history of this country setting up decoys in order to take the heat off the real perps.

You need look no further than how Lee Harvey Oswald was set up just over 51 years ago in the Kennedy assassination. The CIA, desperate not to leave its fingerprints on the assassination, made sure to paint Oswald as a lunatic commie loner - complete with purchased useless weapon - in order to target the Soviet Union and Cuba. The original plan was to make it look like a commie plot to justify attacking Russia and Cuba.  But even then there were savvy journalists, like Newsweek's Kenneth Crawford, that didn't buy it. It was too easy, too pat and besides, as Crawford observed in his column a week after the assassination: "How explain the irony of a lone pro-Castro gunman being fingered in a city - Dallas- that is a Right Wing citadel?"

How indeed! But when agendas are afoot - especially launched by an agency of one's own government, anything is possible.

Yesterday, according to Politico the FBI was briefed on the alternate but much more credible theory that unknown hackers set the North Koreans up.  Especially noteworthy, that at least one Sony insider - a former employee- played a major role in engineering the hack.

Rather than the U.S. government, then, most savvy in the know people are turning to experts like Norse, a Silicon Valley cyber security firm. Also, the FBI wanted to know from Norse who it thought was behind the attack on Sony Pictures.

Kurt Stammberger a senior Vice President at Norse, had already informed CBS News in an interview a week earlier that "all signs indicated the attack was an inside job". As the Norse VP put it:

"There are certainly North Korean fingerprints on this, but when we run all of those leads to ground they turn out to be decoys or red herrings."

He added that Norse's own investigation points to a woman who calls herself "Lena". According to Stammberger, this Lena worked at Sony Los Angeles for ten years until leaving the company in May. As he explains:

"This woman was in precisely the right position and had the deep technical background to locate the specific servers that were compromised."

Despite all this, the State Dept. said Monday it "had no plans to change its position", adding "we are confident that North Korea is responsible for this destructive attack and we stand by that conclusion"

And why wouldn't they - given that State is still loaded with Neocons, and they were instrumental (especially State harpy Victoria Nuland) in ratcheting up the Ukraine crisis back in the spring - by spurring on the unrest in Kiev?  These Neocons in State already have an agenda to stir up the trouble pot so why not here too?

Backing up my contention is the take of cyber-security expert Hector Monsegur who noted on CBS:

"There wasn't enough time to do an investigation, looking at all the attack vectors, looking at all the logs."

In other words, the government's conclusion on who orchestrated the attack came far too soon, exactly parallel to the gov't modus operandi in the Warren Commission Report - finding Lee Oswald guilty  even before the Commission formally commenced (Google "Katzenbach memo") despite the fact all signs pointed to Lee being an obvious decoy, a patsy.

According to Monsegur:

"North Korea would not be able to handle such a massive amount of information, going into it from an external source - without raising any red flags. "

Skeptics like me point to not only the short length of time the FBI took to draw its conclusion (again, similar to what they did under J. Edgar Hoover in the Kennedy assassination case) but also the malware used in the attack which use by N. Korea is not exclusive. It's used around the world, including the U.S. in its Stuxnet worm.

So who are you going to believe, the government - with an obvious agenda- or objective security experts like Kurt Stammberger and Victor Monsegur? Given the government's hideous record in concealing the truth - including in past bogus whitewash investigations, I choose to believe the experts - who are in the business of detecting the cyber-leaks and tracing them to the actual perps as opposed to decoys.

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/gary-leupp/60239/a-straightforward-chronology-of-the-sony-hacking-incident

Excerpt:

"The U.S. government, including the security apparatus and the State Department, have a long history of bald-faced lies, and the corporate media has a long history of taking its talking points from the State Department. I don’t even want to waste time reprising the litany of lies that accompanied the preparations for the criminal assault on Iraq. Anyone paying attention knows what happened."

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/60251/the-victory-of-perception-management

Diatribes & Digressions: Looking At National Events of the Past 4 Days

Getting a bad case of flu is a bummer especially if you're an active blogger (at least one post produced per day) and have to watch the same insane antics go by on the 24/7 news cycle while you can barely sit up to sip hot tea-  far less comment on the nuttiness.  But thanks to the compassion of a dear friend, 'Monica' (originally from San Francisco and a strong liberal and follower of my blog) wifey and I have come through the worst - thanks to her delivery of home made chicken and minestrone soups - as well as a butternut squash dish.  Oh, she also delivered to us one of her home baked apple pies. All of her  much appreciated efforts have brought the two of us back to the cusp of health - if not yet the whole way.

But it's enough that  I can allow myself to comment  in a retrospective way - on the issues and stories I would have pounded in full blog posts had I been well enough to do it. So I call these kernels 'diatribes' mixed in with some digressions - where I offer further insights into the country's madness.

Let's see:

1) DOW Hits 18,000 !

The corporate media, given its total lack of priority perception,  obviously found this one of the biggest stories to run with. But it's just another major distraction - along with the Sony Corp. circus - which I will get to. (Including the idiocy of Americans who truly believe they are "fulfilling their civic duty"  by going to see 'The Interview'. No, you're fulfilling your own moron expectations - get over yourselves!)

Back to the DOW hitting 18,000.  In fact, any wealth added - say in added share prices for small investors in their 401ks is bogus unless this country gets its infrastructure in order and that means spending a minimum of $2 trillion to repair all the twitchy bridges, crumbling roads, aged water mains and vulnerable sewer systems - some over 100 years old. As I have written before,  if a country is mesmerized by this DOW figure and ever higher peaks, and ignores its actual residual wealth in resources and supporting infrastructure - especially when the existing system is crumbling - it can be finally deemed insane. The meaning of this term refers to being detached from reality to the extent that one's own self- interest is threatened in the long and short term.

Look at it this way: How dopey would a homeowner be who suddenly got a windfall of say $10,000,  but didn't do squat to repair his leaky indoor plumbing, rusted pipes? Think he's living in a fool's paradise? If so, you're right to downplay the 18,000 DOW.  You cannot, in the realm of reality, secure more wealth if your existing owned resources - property are corroding under your nose and you're not doing zip to repair or sustain it.


2) Oil Prices Boost Consumer Confidence and Spending!

Yes, to hear all the finance pundits yell it, consumers are on a track to a "de facto" equivalent tax cut of nearly $125m a year.  This as a result of oil prices having fallen from near $2.82 /gal a year ago to about $2.32 now.  The average savings per family are reckoned at from $90-100 a month, which left enough extra bucks to buy more presents for sure (may even a VOD purchase of 'The Interview')

But people need to get a grip and understand it's not all one way to non-stop money blessings.  As Financial Times columnist Gillian Tett has observed, we are actually approaching a serious cause for major worry if the oil prices continue to fall. When Tett was first asked about this on a 'CBS Morning show' interview a couple weeks ago she pointed to the fact that while "consumers are happy" it is the oil companies that have gone out on extended lending limbs to the banks. She added if the oil prices fall too much more "they will not be able to repay the loans to the banks".

Does that sound familiar? If so then you're correctly remembering the 2008 credit crisis when banks' assets nearly froze as a result of the incursion of unregulated derivatives known as credit default swaps - especially into higher grade bonds. It took a series of bailouts  to right the ship of finance and banking preventing another depression. Incredibly, we now may be facing a similar meltdown if prices actually fall much below where they're at now.

Let people enjoy their lower gas prices, but they need to understand it's not a one way benefit but a double-edged sword.

Digression:  Some small uptick in oil prices, at least in the U.S., may be possible if the fracker nuts are punished for their pollution and made to pay more. We already know the bastards are fouling the water supplies but they were given an out with what was called the Halliburton Loophole - this allowed frackers to be exempted from the portions of the Safe Drinking Water Act  and Clean Water Act. But the EPA has found a way, evidently, to get around this. To the point, the  EPA just hit XTO Energy, a subsidiary of ExxonMobil and the nation’s largest natural gas company, with a cool $2.3 million fine for Clean Water Act violations related to its fracking activities in West Virginia.

The EPA’s approach is a clever workaround of those restrictions which brings to the fore a new take on the phrase "end around". . As CleanTechnica’s Tina Casey explains, the pollution targeted by the EPA wasn’t caused by fracking itself, but instead by other, ordinary violations committed by XTO: the company, it charges, dumped sand, dirt, rocks and other dirty fill materials into streams and wetlands without a permit, in violation of the Clean Water Act.

In total, the company damaged 5,300 linear feet of streams and 3.38 acres of wetland — making the $2.3 million fine comparatively large, particularly when you consider the extra $3 million it agreed to pay in restoration costs.

If the EPA remains consistent in going after all such similar fracking pollution episodes, it means the cost of fracking will be increased beyond its currently artificially low limits. (Which take no account of the costs to the environment). By therefore holding the frackers accountable oil shale and gas prices in the U.S. shouldn't fall too low - adding to the global free fall.  But it means keeping on the case, especially when the GOP take over both houses of congress  next year and attempt to defund the agency.

3) Sony releasing its clunker 'The Interview' to theaters - and then online  Whoopee DO!

Face it, this was no freaking godsend to "free speech" or "patriotism"- but what I called a planned, dog whistle rounding up of dopes -because it's predicated on Sony's cynical  need to try to squeeze some scratch out of this god awful $44m clunker ($80 m with marketing costs).. It was either release this noisome dreck initially (yesterday) to about 300 greedy independent theaters (not showing their patriotism so much as their need to make more money at the big theater chains' expense) or let it sit on shelves while Sony veered further into the red. Money talked louder.

And let's not get carried away that this is some huge watershed event, for god's sakes! We're talking of barely 400 theaters if that- when finally counted-  compared to nearly 2,000 (with multiple screens)  for all the major chains (Regal, Cinemark, Carmike, AMC). So it carries the word "tokenism" to new heights.  Also, as The Denver Post feature story on the release noted yesterday, quoting Web-bush Securities analyst Michael Pachter:

"This isn't being done because Sony wants to do it regularly, but rather out of necessity prompted by the exhibitor boycott. The only guys showing it are the independents"

So it's basically a one -off and the pundits' blather that "Sony has found a new model for distribution" is bollocks. So the next time Seth Rogen scrapes the toilet bowl for outrage - say showing the Pope's  head blown  off by an atheist media loser - don't expect the same reaction. As for the online release - letting internet users see it "video on-demand", this is also a back against the wall gimmick - hoping enough American dopes, seized by the patriotic fervor of a dog whistle, will pay $5.99 to see bare shit that they wouldn't pay 25 cents to see if some very bad man hadn't bad mouthed it and allegedly threatened theaters.

Digression: Oh, and a bunch of hacker nuts, NOT North Koreans, exposed Sony's hidden secrets in emails then warned theaters against showing it. Note that most tech savvy experts say NK had nada to do with the hack, but point the finger at a former 10 yr. Sony employee some have referred to as "Lena" - who had the experience, tech skill  and access to servers over the time of her employment that would have enabled it.  See also:

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/12/24/new-study-adds-to-skepticism-among-security-experts-that-north-korea-was-behind-sony-hack/?_r=0


The most ripe offal heard this morning from those who saw this flick yesterday is that "it went beyond entertainment, it was like we were being called to fulfill a higher civic duty".  Huh? Have you totally lost your fucking minds? It's a low grade inflammatory piece of crap that 99 percent of critics have panned. If no 'bad man' had said or done anything it's certainly nothing you'd have paid good money to see - any more than one of those 'Jackass' movies - which at least have the semi-redeeming feature that they can be regarded as low grade comedic fare.

The take from my German friends Reinhardt and Elli was perhaps most on the mark when they noted how yesterday's  Sony media circus and the American stampede to see the movie reminded them of Germans' reaction after Leni Reifenstahl's 'Triumph of the Will' was mocked and disparaged as "propaganda"  by Americans, ca. 1934. (Well, it was a propaganda piece, but this again shows the blindness of pseudo-patriotism) Then - like being beckoned via dog whistle- they all wanted to see it because the Amerikaner dissed it. They felt it their "patriotic duty" to the Fatherland and Der Fuhrer. Indeed, many sang 'Deutschland Uber Alles' before screenings the same way thousands of Americans were reported to have burst out with 'God Bless America' before showings of 'The Interview'.

It just takes the right stimulus to turn any national - German, American, Swiss...whomever....into frothing dog whistle bait. Pavlov's experiments with dogs was merely the first step in plumbing this phenomenon which should now be also investigated in humans.

The "free expression" appeal is also full of humbug. Freedom of expression of what? Anything? No, because the right to freedom of speech or expression is always founded on the exercise of discretion and responsibility.  This grade Z waste of money lacked any redeeming characteristics for 'art' and certainly lacked responsibility by depicting the head blown up of a living leader in a CIA-sponsored assassination. That any imbecile could remotely claim "civic duty" in watching it, well, it points to the nature of imbecility rampant in the country right now which has exchanged a noble calling with a bastardized form of Id-gratification.

Also, if you are going to crow about "freedom of expression" you had better damned well be consistent and not be a cafeteria -style free expressionist!  That means if,  as in 1988 a film like 'The Last Temptation of Christ' is set for re-release to the big screen (which features scenes of sex between Mary Magdalen and Christ in a dream sequence),  you had better be ready to defend that free expression as enthusiastically as you now defend it for 'The Interview'. Else, you're a damned hypocrite and only allow "freedom of expression" when convenient or when it conforms with a narrow band of stimuli which you value as acceptable expression!   This is why I take most Americans' opinions quoted after the film yesterday as not worth a bag of hot gas.  Because I don't believe any of these assholes would have fought with the same verve for 'Last Temptation' - which saw furious protests to close down theaters back in '88 - and not by crazy tinhorn communists, but our own freedom lovin' people.

"We wanna give people the choice to see the flick, but only if it agrees with our perceptions of what ought to properly be shown!"

Sorry, doesn't work like that, Roscoe!

Digression: Anyway, Salon's Robert Kennelly put it best after the absurd Sony circus grabbed headlines again this past week - mostly while I was laid up in bed with this &^$%#*#**#=! Flu.:

"The United States is in real trouble when the story about the hacking into Sony Pictures computers and their decision to pull an inane comedy totally big foots the deeply troubling Senate Intelligence Committee’s study of the CIA’s Detention and Interrogation Program.

Talk about using the holidays to flush bad news. Between the salacious internal Sony emails, the Obama administration’s watershed reset of U.S.-Cuban relations, and Christmas the average American will not get reporting on the  fine print in the Senate Committee report nor a full analysis of the ambiguous CIA response."

This is putting it mildly given that the Senate report chronicled years of "obfuscation, deceit and deception by a CIA that was hell-bent on covering its tracks" according to Kennelly. And now the CIA is saying it is “unknowable” if the torture techniques produced results.

But polls indicate a majority of Americans buy into this malarkey - I am sure the same bunch or uneducated demographic (one hopes!) that believe little Kim was behind the Sony hack and are now on a mission to 'show him'  by doing their "civic duty" - DLing  'The Interview'.  But all that the Sony farce did is take the outrage at CIA torture further off the table.

It hasn't absolved Americans from those crimes, any more than the Germans were absolved after allowing the Nazis to run their nation into the ground for 13 years- including the genocide of one third of Europe's Jews. The most basic lesson of history appears to be that which most forget: "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"

What emerges from the Senate report is a CIA that post-9/11 quickly turned to outside contractors and used multiple “black sites” where they employed what they euphemistically called  “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These practices  included waterboarding, forced rectal feeding, extended sleep deprivation, keeping subjects in prolonged stress positions including standing on broken bones, closing detainees into coffin-like boxes,  staging of mock executions, as well as making threats to kill or rape detainee family members.

Dozens of individuals were wrongfully detained by the CIA and  two of the Agency’s informants were mistakenly tortured. One detainee died of hypothermia after 48 hours of sleep deprivation, getting doused with cold water and being  chained to a concrete floor.Certainly these are all activities that would be defined as illegal under the United Nations Convention Against Torture, which the United States ratified in 1994. Under the terms of the Convention there are no “exceptional circumstances,” even  preventing a potential terrorist act. The ends never justifies the means, and if ever it was accepted it did, well we'd be one with the Nazis of 1943 who saw no problem with the 'Final Solution'.

Even being ill with the flu the past five days hasn't prevented me from seeing this country is as crazy as ever, and growing more so as too many of its clueless "consumers"  imbibe each added byte of PR and propaganda. Blindness rules, and most especially the most malignant form of all: the inability to see ourselves as others do - an unhinged agglomerate of over-sized babies running on their inner Id,  determined to get what they want by screaming "freedom of expression"- also invoked to see whatever the hell they want (oh, unless it upsets their temperaments) all in the name of "civic duty" and "patriotism". 

Maybe Samuel Johnson was correct when he wrote:  "Patriotism is the last refuge of the scoundrel"

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-lindorff/60248/marketing-madness-americans-see-selves-as-freedom-s-heroes-as-they-flock-to-watch-a-lousy-comedy

And:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-parry/60251/the-victory-of-perception-management
 

Hello, Obama! SONY Had NO CHOICE!

President Barack Obama is an intelligent guy, but his harsh reprimand of Sony today shows he can also be guilty of making some dumbo claims, rebukes and statements. We saw this earlier in the spring when he actually went on record as saying Russia was a "second class Power". Uh, no, dude. Not when they have nearly half all of the planet's nuclear weapons!

Earlier today Obama again showed he can sometimes be as clueless as Dumbya Bush when he rebuked Sony for withdrawing its year-end assassination flick, 'The Interview'.  The Prez said "I think they made a mistake" then followed it up with:

 "I'd wish they'd spoken to me first. I would have told them 'do not get into the pattern in which you are intimidated by these kind of criminal attacks".

And what would your speaking to them have accomplished, sir?  Let's think about this carefully, not parroting the bollocks and insanity of most of the Neoliberal, paper patriot, pseudo free speech crowd in the U.S. who are also insane and no longer able to reason properly.

First, even if Sony HAD NOT withdrawn this reprehensible flick - which depicts the head of a living leader of a sovereign state (never mind you may hate it)  being blown up in its final scene WHERE the hell could they have shown it? Alas, it was the theater chains like Cinemark, Carmike and Regal Cinema which pulled it after the physical threats were announced. This represented something like 19,200 screens across the country which would have meant the most Sony could have hoped for was maybe getting a few dozen indie flick screens in the malls. Now, seriously, do you really really believe those small indie theaters would have cooperated with Sony after all the majors said 'No'? If so you are more ensconced in the proverbial la la land than your CIA head Brennan - not willing to call the CIA torture, torture.

Second, as Lawrence O'Donnell pointed out last night on "All In", for the benefit of a clueless substitute for Chris Hayes, it was ultimately about possible litigation - given the FBI itself could not 100 percent promise the theater owners that no threat would materialize. (Even a nutso creep like James Eagen Holmes, who committed the Aurora CO theater massacre,  might have used it as a pretext for an incident.)  Given this lack of 100 % assurance, had the theater owners shown the film and ANY kind of violent incident occurred THEY would have been out their with their asses in the lawsuit wind, having to pay up to injured patrons. The repercussions would be similar to what the Aurora, CO Cinemark is facing from the families of the dozen slain and nearly five dozen wounded victims of that theater massacre 2 years ago. (A Denver Judge denied Cinemark's plea to avoid the 20 lawsuits because it "had no foreknowledge". Imagine the consequences for any violent episode in a theater showing 'The Interview')

So, let's get a bearing here on reality, which appears to be a commodity in short supply in the US of A: If you really would like to rebuke anyone or any entity, it is the actual cinema companies, theater owners and litigious lawyers you would have to go after before Sony. The fact you did not do this discloses your analog to "hostage taking" is simply empty rhetoric and posturing.

Obama continued his fulsome, self-righteous bloviation by saying:

"We cannot have a society in which some dictator some place can start imposing censorship here in the United States."

Sounds real testy with a tinge of humbug, and if I didn't know who had said the words I'd have attributed them to Bill O'Reilly or Sean Hannity - because those two don't think before disengaging mouth or brains (And let's get it clear it isn't a case of  "libtards" being "thin-skinned" - as we see many flocking to the film's defense, yelping they want to see this crappola too - or are four square for Sony putting it up online.  See George Clooney. This is a case of rational people who can still exhibit some mode of discretion and sense, as opposed to jingoistic twits so hyped up on paper patriotism that it's gutted their febrile brains..)

Because when you make a sweeping remark like that as if in some existential vacuum you are revealing yourself oblivious to: 1) the fact that Sony's contract with theater owners allowed their withdrawal from exhibition, and 2) was ultimately because of our litigious society - something which you as a constitutional lawyer ought to know  - because you also must have taken some tort courses at Hah-vahd to get there.

If Obama wanted to be honest in attributing mistakes to Sony, it would have been in green lighting that irresponsible dreck in the first place. Even their own execs, for god's sake, were nervous about the violent ending. Even Obama's own Dept. of Homeland Security(according to an LA Times report) warned Sony that the film "could provoke retaliation."

Ultimately, this crap film masquerading as a comedy deserved to be "assassinated" as one commenter put it in a response at Truthdig.com, because it was neither art or free speech. Showing a living leader's head being exploded and burned up in gory full screen color is not anything any normal, sane human grants as "speech" or "art" - any more than money is speech, and a color photo of a heaping pile of hog shit is art.

But it does show how far along our people - including our leaders- have lost their bearings, their good sense and judgment. More evidence as a whole that our nation - thanks to being pumped by PR and propaganda - is gradually losing its collective mind.  The critical thought test currently is only passed by those who agree that this film never ought to have seen the light of day - and to date- I have seen only two lone voices in the media, which is otherwise overwhelmed with this 'free speech' and "artistic license" BS.

One more point: It would not be wise to instigate a "cyber war" over what one Harvard law prof correctly described as a criminal attack on a lone corporation. Especially as the perceived victim nation does not launch such a war unless it is 100 percent certain all its ducks are cyber-secure and "in a row", including for infrastructure control,  power plants and water systems!

See also:

http://www.latimes.com/entertainment/envelope/cotown/la-et-ct-sony-japan-ceo-interview-20141220-story.html



http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/sony-pictures-should-have-had-sense-not.html

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2014/12/waaahh-we-caved-in-to-terrists-no.html

And:

http://www.salon.com/2014/12/18/everyone_caved_how_much_of_the_interview_fiasco_is_actually_hollywoods_fault/

Excerpt:

"emails suggest Sony execs remained nervous about the film’s content, especially the ending. On July 9, Lynton wrote to Pascal, “we cannot be cute here,” saying they could work with “no melting face and actually not seeing [Kim Jong-un] die. A look of horror as the fire approaches is probably what we need.” Rogen, while willing to play ball, appears reluctant to completely scuttle the visuals in this Sept. 25 email to Pascal: “There are currently four burn marks on his face. We will take out three of them, leaving only one. We reduce the flaming hair by 50% … The head explosion can’t be more obscured than it is because we honestly feel that if it’s any more obscured you won’t be able to tell its exploding and the joke won’t work.”

Another reason not to back this crappo film:

http://www.philly.com/philly/news/politics/20141220_ap_1c88ae9ef80a4fe594b0f15402d0bd30.html