Americans Lost Faith In Democratic Institutions Traced To The Kennedy Assassination

One of thousands of 'Wanted for Treason' posters retrieved from Dallas streets on the day of John F. Kennedy's assassination. Our civic decline and mistrust in government commenced almost from the instant of Kennedy's killing.

More and more articles, op-eds have been shedding light on the retreat of American voters from embracing democracy and democratic institutions and many even distrusting the voting process entirely. For reference, a Pew Research Center Poll barely a month ago showed the "trust in government" at 19 percent, compared to 89 percent in 1959.  Meanwhile, Gallup's research  has: Americans’ Trust in Mass Media Sinks to New Low.

One article kept from The International New York Times, from when we traveled eastern Europe last September, stated that not only have citizens liked democracy less than they once did but also "the democratic game itself"  has been eroded. The level of discourse citizen to citizen has coarsened as well as the discourse within and between branches of the government itself.  We now see, for example, procedures like the filibuster - once reserved for extraordinary circumstances -  employed with regularity.

Most astounding to me was the observation (ibid.)

"When asked by the World Values Survey to rate how democratically their country is being governed on a 10 point scale, a third of Americans responded at the low end - 'not at all democratic"

Even more astounding and veering into the appalling - a recent public opinion poll showed that 43 percent of Republicans, 20 percent of Democrats and 29 percent of independents would support a military coup against the United States government under certain circumstances.

What has happened between 1959 and the present to degrade civility and political civic space to this extent? Writing as one who has lived those years and observed carefully the nation's political arc, I can put the down slide almost from the time of the Kennedy assassination, on Nov. 22, 1963. 

Most savvy and politically aware people, paying any attention at all, knew from the instant LBJ was sworn in (later on the 22nd) that he had had a hand in at least accepting a plan for the kill.  When he set up the phony Warren Commission,, everyone with  politically savvy eyes and ears could smell a rat, a ruse to cover up the bastard's tracks. With the  cover up's assistance of Operation Mockingbird, the metastasizing cancer of government distrust had begun its long and sordid track. As Steve Kornacki reported in his ‘UP’ journal on MSNBC, the morning of Nov. 23, 2013, the "fix" was in even before JFK arrived in Big D. Using tapes and media documents, Kornacki showed that Johnson was about to be exposed as an influence peddler in conjunction with the Bobby Baker scandal by LIFE magazine in its upcoming issue. Johnson knew this months in advance and also he had no choice other than to place his future fortunes with the several interests that wanted Kennedy dead, especially the CIA.

A paper trail of bank statements and payments was to have been included in the LIFE expose, and as Kornacki pointed out a Senate investigation would have ensured LBJ being dumped from Kennedy’s 1964 ticket.  In other words, LBJ had by far the most to gain from JFK’s assassination, since he’d then be next in line as President, and not have to face justice in the Baker scandal. What most don't say is that many of us were already aware of Johnson's nefarious background at the time and we didn't trust him.   Philip Nelson, whose book ‘LBJ – The Mastermind of the JFK Assassination’ – was even cited by former British intelligent agent and author John Hughes-Wilson,  observed (Chapter 6: The Conspirators, p. 317):

“The crime could only have been accomplished with at least the acquiescence and foreknowledge of the only man capable of choreographing the massive cover-up which was immediately launched. It is axiomatic that since the cover-up started before the shots were fired, the order for JFK’s assassination could only have come from his successor, Lyndon B. Johnson.”

By 1984, LBJ's propensity to remove obstacles by murder was finally uncovered in a Dallas Morning News headline article, e.g.

Billie Sol Estes reported that Johnson had Henry Harvey Marshall, a USDA official in charge of the federal cotton allotment detail,  killed because he had attempted to link Estes’ nefarious dealings to the then Vice-President.  While Estes ended up doing prison time, he did have his say before a grand jury (which subpoenaed him)  In the follow-up grand jury investigation, Johnson, his one-time aide Cliff Carter, and ‘Mac’ Wallace were all deemed “co-conspirators in the murder” of Marshall.

But Johnson was only one sordid piece - or cog-   in the whole undermining tapestry that has ultimately led to the massive citizen distrust in government and the democratic process we behold today. It is part of the cancer I refer to as erosion of the nation's civility and civic space.  The fact is that enormous external forces were already afoot and wary of Kennedy's policies and genuinely liberal stances on multifold issues.  Stances which, if continued, would very well threaten those interests.

For example, we now understand today that much of the rancor and sense of rebellion has been initiated with global trade pacts like NAFTA.   We now also know that the hype used by the elites to pump up support has been more a matter of manipulation of citizen consent, e.g.

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/dave-johnson/69588/tpp-partner-jails-human-rights-blogger

But this incentive to spread a misshapen plan for global trade didn't just commence in the past 25 years. Nor did the aspiration for a genuinely fair trade system originate recently. In fact, the original importance of preserving a global trade network without sacrifice to private monopoly or multi-national power was first recognized by  John F. Kennedy in late 1962 and 1963. He made enormous efforts to stave off incipient private control of the globalization process. As Donald Gibson observes in his must-read monograph(‘Battling Wall Street – The Kennedy Presidency’, Sheridan Square Press, 1994, p. 113):

"John Kennedy declared the 1960s the decade of development. The Alliance for Progress, development aid, low interest loans, nation-to-nation cooperation, and some measure of government planning were some of the ingredients of that policy. Within a few years of Kennedy's death most of this had been abandoned. By the early 1970s, this type of effort and the optimism associated with it had vanished altogether."

The effect was that the task of implementing and governing economic adjustment was assumed by private markets. Power which has grown exponentially since the extirpation of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1973. The causal undercurrents and ideology of corporate-state global domination have been well articulated by Gibson, even from before its emergence within ten years of the Kennedy assassination (which many astute observers tie in with financial elite interests) (op. cit. P. 75):

"Kennedy's ideas.. .his view of foreign aid and foreign policy, and his recommendations and actions in a variety of specific areas disrupted or threatened to disrupt an established order. In that established order, in place for most of the century, major government decisions were to serve or at least not disrupt the privately organized hierarchy."

Gibson goes on to point out that the vested interests within this hierarchy were similar to, "if not direct imitations of those of that older British elite rooted in inherited wealth and titles, and organized in the modern world around control of finance and raw materials." (ibid.)

It seems very plausible then, that the slaying of John F. Kennedy set the stage for a global Corporatocracy in which these same elite imperatives would be allowed to subordinate and dominate the interests and welfare of the masses. Imaginary? Take a gander at columnist Jay Bookman's view from his article "New World Disorder - Evident Here and Abroad", in The Baltimore Sun, 1998):

"The global economy has been constructed on the premise that government guarantees of security and protection must be avoided at all costs, because they discourage personal initiative. In times of crisis, however, that premise cannot be sustained politically. In times of trouble it is human nature to seek security and protection and to be drawn toward those who promise to provide it. That is how men such as Adolf Hitler, and Vladimir Ilyich Lenin came to power, with disastrous consequences. "

Let's be reminded here that Hitler's ascension, in particular, was spurred on by increasing dissatisfaction of Germans with the democratic processes of the Weimar Republic. A lot of insights have been gleaned by talks with my German sister-in-law, Krimhilde, e.g.

When I saw her earlier this year in Barbados we again talked about conditions before Hitler came to power.  Mostly, people were fed up. Fed up with the scarcity of key food items and also with the inflation.

"When a loaf of bread cost more than a week's wages it is serious" she said.

Hitler was viewed with suspicion, as Trump is now, but offered a plan, a way out, "Lebensraum"  - and Germans jumped at the chance to improve their lot. But it would mean trashing the Versailles Treaty which had been a millstone around Germans' necks.

With Hitler's invasion of the Sudetenland, in 1938, the incineration of Versailles was finalized and Hitler and the Third Reich were well on the way to their ideal of expanded living space and resources.

After this diversion let's return to the global trade issue, and again, Kennedy's will to insist it be equitable. Gibson notes that the elite banking and financial interests at the time  (ibid.) "would have little tolerance for a president who interfered with their decisions or made their interests secondary to the needs of nations or of people in general."

One could say that by the time of JFK's assassination, the global tableaux had been set for eventual market domination of the world. With no other fearless national leaders to stand in the way (the last ones assassinated) the goal of worldwide subjugation of national interests to speculative capital, trans-national corporate control and personal debt could proceed apace. One merely had to await the right constellation of pro-market interests,  military consolidation and interjection, e.g.

www.tinyurl.com/CSI-Censor-1

and this was incepted in the Reagan years - reaching its culmination in the early 1990s via bi-partisan support of "Neoliberalism". 

The global trade plan was long range to be sure, but the elites had always been patient. Now they would exercise that patience and sense of noblesse oblige. Again, the payoff being a world of serfs delivered to them by their own governments. These governments themselves hamstrung by the unequal power of differing accords (i.e. GATT, NAFTA) over which they had little option other than to 'sign on'. Accords which could disembowel labor, its pensions and benefits, and lay waste to all social safety nets to protect the more vulnerable citizens. At the same time reckoning hard-won environmental laws as 'trade impediments' to be challenged in a world trade court (WTO).

Perhaps no more eloquent condemnation of this travesty arrived than from an op-ed by Ian McDonald, appearing in The Barbados NATION (Aug. 14, 1998):

Do we really believe for one moment that those who preach free trade and the inevitable triumph of market forces have anything other than their own increased wealth and aggrandizement in mind? Do we honestly believe they think the system they espouse is fundamentally a good one for all concerned? Are we so naïve as to think if, by any chance, the system were to operate against their interests, that they would not make sure it was changed or abridged to suit them? Are we so innocent and trusting that we cannot recognize bullying and crude self-interest when our noses are being rubbed in it constantly?"

Adding:

"We should cease making speech after speech accepting that our fate and the fate of the world, will inevitably be decided by impersonal, market controlled forces and the sooner we accept this the better off we will be. Instead we should be denying most strongly, in every forum available to us, that such a fate is inevitable... That instead the world deserves a better future than the one on offer from the ruthless money men and sleaze-ridden free trade marketeers, who are making this terrible bid to dominate the world."

 McDonald's writing flair exactly channeled the building rage against governments themselves for siding with elite interests to render them pawns. It prefigures today's rage and massive distrust in democratic institutions.  William Greider, in his masterful work One World Ready Or Not - The Manic Logic of Global Capitalism, is blunt that the overall imperative is  ultimate abolition of all governmental, national social insurance systems - whether these be Medicare or Social Security in the United States, or the analogous systems in Germany or Barbados. In each case, the particular system to be replaced by a privatized entity able to generate individual debt, corporate profit and further income inequality.

Were there significant citizen efforts to thwart the march toward global corporate fiefdom?  Yes, and the most recent were by the young (mainly) protestors behind Occupy Wall Street.  However, once the Neoliberal security state had them in their sights, e.g.

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/12/national-security-state-spied-on-occupy.html

The movement basically was neutralized.  Factored into this was how OWS protestors - exercising their first amendment rights- were targeted by rifles in Houston, in 2013, e.g.

Don’t take my word for it. Here’s what the document obtained from the Houston FBI, said as received by David Lindorff (see also: http://www.thiscantbehappening.net/node/1494 )

"An identified [DELETED] as of October planned to engage in sniper attacks against protestors (sic) in Houston, Texas if deemed necessary. An identified [DELETED] had received intelligence that indicated the protesters in New York and Seattle planned similar protests in Houston, Dallas, San Antonio and Austin, Texas. [DELETED] planned to gather intelligence against the leaders of the protest groups and obtain photographs, then formulate a plan to kill the leadership via suppressed sniper rifles."

By now, with the justified citizen efforts pummeled, rage began to mount, and malignant distrust of all government institutions as well as the Constitution itself began to take hold. They only needed a spark, and that was delivered by Edward Snowden in 2013 when the first NSA files disclosing massive overreach were released. Among the findings:

" The following information was deemed  fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards."

There existed a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, were considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database in question could identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.

The tragedy of the 20th (and now 21st ) century is the tragedy of the civic commons. The gradual erosion of civil society is largely fueled by the removal of civic space (as well as civic protest)  and hence the reality that citizen interests are eclipsed by corporate and market interests, either in pursuit of state (or corporate) power, profits or both. Thus, political influence is purchased via the power of the purse, for example in lobbying, or in the current cycle via Koch brothers infusion of money to defeat policies, candidates they don't want. These vermin then write the laws subsequently enacted to favor their special interests, whether bloated defense contracts, or absurd prescription drug bills that are really corporate welfare.

Again, this isn't occurring just in the U.S. (though it has been most rapid here) but all over the world, as the Globalists clear out public space to make room for their corporate power enclaves.

If you don't know why there's such anti-government (anti-establishment) rage as well as loss of faith in the democratic process then you haven't been paying enough attention. Thus, no surprise we've seen the dominance of corporate space over civic space, paving the way for citizens to emerge as corporate serfs and pawns.

The latest blow to citizen trust in the process and in government didn't arrive by way of the TPP, NAFTA or any other global trade pact but by FBI Director James Comey's announcement yesterday to revisit Hillary Clinton's emails, this now barely ten days from the general election. As Jennifer Granholm put it last night on Chris Hayes' show:

"You can't put something out eleven days before a presidential election that has an impact on the election...I'm a former federal prosecutor and the rules related to how a prosecutor or investigator is to act in the face of an election are really quite clear. You are to limit the impact on the election. But in this case there is no evidence of any wrongdoing on her part."

Indeed, the case was only re-opened because files were found on sex pervert Anthony Weiner's computer which was shared by Huma Abedin, a Hillary aide while at State.   In an interview on 'Smerconish' (CNN) this morning, Matt Miller - another former prosecutor - agreed that  yes, Comey was probably worried about the Rs using it to criticize him if he waited until post-election, but added "You know, that's too bad, but you suck it up!"

On Chris Hayes 'All In' Mr. Miller also noted:

"When the FBI conducts investigations like this they're not supposed to comment on them anyway and especially not so close to an election. There's a long standing practice at DOJ that they go out of their way not to say anything close to election day, usually defined within 60 days."

Alas, the damage may already have been done, we just don't know how much. What we do know is this latest episode isn't likely to elevate citizen trust in the democratic process - even as it fuels the furor of Trumpies now convinced he was right all along in his wild accusations about election "rigging". They would be well advised to worry more about how his election would spur this country further into the global corporatocracy and render them - and the rest of us - even more abject serfs.


See also:

http://smirkingchimp.com/thread/p-m-carpenter/69590/that-was-one-fucked-up-fbi-announcement

And:

http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2010/11/great-american-decline-2-globalization.html

Unhinged Rhetoric Does This Nation No Good - Now James Woolsey Wants to Execute Snowden?

Former CIA head James Woolsey said the 'blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands'. No,  the blood of those citizens is on ISIS' hands, you fool!

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

Let us admit in a time of hyped terror, with robed lunatics barking threats on almost every TV screen in a 24/7 medium, it takes courage for a citizen not to become petrified and hide under his or her bed. It also takes courage and character, as well as confidence in one's own positions, not to surrender to hysteria and especially political fear-mongering, to give these slime what they want, which is to change who and what we are as a nation,

So it's been disconcerting to hear the recent insane rhetoric coming out of assorted yapping mouths lately, mostly those who we knew were already detached from reality.

Such as Donald Trump now calling for a database to track all Muslims, and Ben Carson comparing the Syrian refugees (mainly women and children) trying to escape their war torn country to rabid dogs. Then there was former CIA head James Woolsey who actually said "the blood of French citizens is on Edward Snowden's hands" in a debased pop off that rivals those of even Trump and Carson.

What is this lunatic thinking? Where does he pull this from? Is he even remotely aware that the end-to-end encrypted devices and apps (like 'Whats App') used by the ISIS bugs weren't even around when Snowden made his revelations in 2013? (On November 18, 2014, Open Whisper Systems announced a partnership with WhatsApp to provide end-to-end encryption by incorporating the encryption protocol used in their TextSecure application into each WhatsApp client platform. Prior to this there were numerous security holes and issues). Of course, it's all insanity ratcheted up and made to sound rational. It isn't. It's nutso talk. (Especially as it is the Tech companies which are now most adamant about not removing encryption for their apps because they believe it will degrade the devices' usefulness.)

Snowden then was absolutely correct to expose the violations of our 4th amendment rights which even a subsequent   300-page report  by a commission (appointed by Obama himself)  found to be infringing on our civil liberties with dragnet collection of our personal information and data. What are we even worth as a country and a people if we succumb to so much fear that we're prepared to sacrifice our principles and liberties which is precisely what these fucktard terrorists want?

But given that the CIA also believed JFK was guilty of "treason" - and so had him terminated in an executive action- the words out of Woolsey's mouth perhaps aren't surprising.  In JFK's case, he earned the company's wrath by refusing to support their ill-conceived Bay of Pigs invasion with air power, and then fired Allen Dulles as CIA Director in the aftermath. Worse, he commenced a year's long secret rapprochement with Fidel Castro - certainly which would be viewed as a stab in the back, just like Snowden's revelations are now by Woolsey.

Thankfully more of the background details of this will be brought out in David Talbot's new work, “The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA, and the Rise of America’s Secret Government,”  which extends out from JFK’s murder to investigate the rise of the whole shadowy network that Talbot holds ultimately responsible for the president’s assassination, and which metastasized in its wake. This is a work long since needed, and particularly how Dulles kept his little operations going on sub rosa even after JFK ditched him. (Dulles was later appointed to be on the Warren Commission by LBJ. Two real traitors working in league with each other to cover their foul tracks.)

As for the Reepo presidential candidate clowns popping off with their own whacked out rhetoric on the refugees, Col. Lawrence Wilkerson had this to say on Chris Hayes' All In last night:

"It doesn't surprise me coming from the right wing blather of the Republican Party. It's the kind of talk that surrounded the internment of the Japanese who were loyal to a fault. But we put them in concentration camps. It's the kind of talk that's extremely dangerous. It's the kind of talk that plays right into the hands of Al Baghdadi and Al Zawarahi, Al Musra and so forth.

Because that's what they want...they want us to act to bring about our own suicide".

That suicide, of course, also extends to killing our own constitutional principles in the interest of trying to get absolute security. But as Benjamin Franklin put it: "Those who would sacrifice liberty to gain a temporary security deserve neither liberty or security."

He didn't mince words. And why should he have? Liberties once lost, as Woolsey would have wanted us to do, are difficult if not impossible to win back. Once you give them up - say in the midst of combating these asshole terrorists (the latest attack was in Mali last night) you surrender to them, without even firing a shot.

Most citizens, indeed, aren't even aware our liberties (including the right to own guns) hang on a metaphorical knife edge. This concerns Reagan’s Executive Order 12656, issued in 1988, which has remained in effect since and was actually activated after 9/11. The order stated that Continuity of Government procedures were called for in the event of "any occurrence, including natural disaster, military attack, technological emergency, or other emergency, that seriously degrades or seriously threatens the national security of the United States."

According to the 9/11 Commission Report (p. 326; cf. p. 38), "Contingency plans for the continuity of government" were implemented on September 11, 2001.  Later mutations of COG under the Bushites  equated political dissent with treason. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"“…activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"

 According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes past protest movements like Occupy Wall Street and anyone who currently protests the Keystone XL pipeline, chemical toxins in water or fracking. (No surprise this meme is still lurking - ready to spread- as we learned in the Denver Post (Nov. 18) that certain citizens of Thornton, CO had their names and home locations placed in red on a city council map as "opponents to fracking". )

How much did Snowden reveal or confirm that we didn't know or realize before - bordering on coming this [[ close to a totalitarian state? investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham disclosed the extent of the spying :

"The following information seemed to be fair game for collection without a warrant: the e-mail addresses you send to and receive from, and the subject lines of those messages; the phone numbers you dial, the numbers that dial in to your line, and the durations of the calls; the Internet sites you visit and the keywords in your Web searches; the destinations of the airline tickets you buy; the amounts and locations of your ATM withdrawals; and the goods and services you purchase on credit cards. All of this information is archived on government supercomputers and, according to sources, also fed into the Main Core database.

There exists a database of Americans, who, often for the slightest and most trivial reason, are considered unfriendly, and who, in a time of panic, might be incarcerated. The database can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously.” He and other sources note the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Are Americans really ok with all that indiscriminate snooping in a terror war? If so, they merit neither liberty or security. They are prepared instead to surrender their most precious rights to the ISIS or other rats at the drop of a hat. Blaming the French deaths on Snowden also shows Woolsey has his head where the Sun doesn't shine, just like the CIA's earlier mutations (e.g. Allen Dulles) who orchestrated Kennedy's executive action then blamed it on a patsy they set up.)

Former NSA code breaker Bill Binney  delivered the sane view after the Snowden disclosures emerged and those like James Clapper and Keith Alexander were making noises about the need for mass warrant, dragnet searches.

"First of all I don’t understand this being bamboozled into thinking that you have to do this to find bad guys. That’s false. There’s very simple principles you can use to find out who is the bad guy and who isn’t and you can do this without violating anybody’s privacy”.

Americans need to keep things in perspective as this current terror epoch continues and not surrender their brains and balls to the hysterical, unhinged voices spouting off on the tube. Better yet turn the tube off - as well as other media access- and reclaim your gray matter by doing some serious reading.  As author Harold Bloom put it:

"If we fail to read conscientiously and seriously we risk becoming lost in the visual media"

See also:

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/walter-brasch/64867/the-republicans-rhetoric-of-hate-and-fear


Excerpt:

"In the history of the United States, just the members of the white-hooded Protestant-professing fire-and-brimstone Klan killed and maimed more Americans than all the murders by non-Christian terrorists—and that includes 9/11. Add in the number of serial killers, the racists who killed children in churches, the zealots who killed health care personnel because they performed legal abortions, and the people like the Oklahoma City bombers and the Unabomber, and the number of pretend-Christians killing Americans rises to hundreds of times greater than any Muslim attack."

Will You Soon Be Classified as a “Terrorist”? Marianne Williamson’s Concerns – And Mine!

"I know the capacity that is there to make tyranny total in America. And we must see to it that this agency and all agencies that possess this technology operate within the law and under proper supervision so that we never cross that abyss. That is the abyss from which there is no return.” - Sen. Frank Church, referencing the NSA in 1975.

 

Marianne Williamson is absolutely spot -on correct when she was quoted in a recent Los Angeles Magazine (June, p. 110) as noting her major worries included “diminishing civil liberties, expanding corporate influence, political corruption and the rise of domestic surveillance.” All those were given as reasons she planned to run for congress in California. (Whether she wins or loses, her voice will have been heard and her concerns are legitimate.)

 

Ms. Williamson went on to note that – added together – “these threats constitute such a powerful force of darkness that it could put American democracy in a death spiral” from which we may never recover.  Indeed, it may already be too late. Especially when one beholds the sheer mass of lily-livered “citizens” railing against Ed Snowden – after his recent interview- one even calling it an “infomercial for traitors” - as some dumb shit yahoo did on the Denver Post site, while others insisted he must "come home and face the music”. Yeah, right! A Kangaroo court where as Snowden observed in his Brian Williams interview,  no exculpatory evidence would be permitted on the grounds it is “classified”. Gimme a break! As Pentagon Papers hero Daniel Ellsberg pointed out on 'Andrea Mitchell Reports': "Snowden isn't running from justice, he's fleeing from INJUSTICE!"

 Williamson’s fear is reasonable, but  while she named the U.S. government (“We’re cool as American people, but it’s the U.S. government that’s bringing us down”) she might also want to have a look at some of the goobers that pass for citizens who are ALSO bringing us down because they’re playing right into the security state’s shameless exploitation of terrorism to destroy civil liberties.

As Snowden, as well as his lawyer (featured on Steve Kornacki’s ‘UP’ on Sunday), pointed out, there isn’t one scintilla of evidence the gov’t has presented – despite all its histrionics (or should I say, John Kerry’s hysterics),  that any real harm has come to anyone from Snowden’s leaks.  Oh lots of embarrassment – of course! But let’s not conflate embarrassment with actual harm. (And if you're going to jump on this "harm" bandwagon, you better also have the decency and consistency to put the five Taliban commanders - just released from Gitmo in exchange for Bowe Bergdahl - on the same radar.)

 
Now, skip to the latest disclosed NSA outrage (one must wonder how many more are needed to get our consumers…..errrr citizens to sit up and take note).  That is that the National Security Agency is collecting “millions of images per day” from photos shared online for use in its advanced facial recognition programs. The New York Times reports that the agency culls millions of faces from “emails, text messages, social media, video conferences and other communications,” gaining “tremendous untapped potential” to track intelligence targets throughout the world. 

In other words, let me spell it out for you. They take your Facebook, instagram, and text message et al  photos and compile them into nefarious “facial recognition” programs for which you lack even clue one on the collateral uses (and abuses) that could metastasize.

What if they are putting them all into the COG template – then what? Recall COG (continuity of government) allows authorities to identify as “domestic terrorists” all those assembled under its provisos. In regard to the last, the definition of "terrorist" was expanded to "domestic terrorist" by congress in 2001, to include:

"“activities that involve acts dangerous to human life that are a violation of the criminal laws of the United States or of any State; appear to be intended to intimidate or coerce a civilian population; to influence the policy of a government by intimidation or coercion; or to affect the conduct of a government by mass destruction, assassination, or kidnapping; and occur primarily within the territorial jurisdiction of the United States"


According to the ACLU, “this definition is broad enough to encompass the activities of…prominent activists, campaigns and organizations.”  That includes Occupy Wall Streeters and anyone who protests the Keystone XL pipeline, GMO foods or any fracking well drilled near their home!

Think I’m exaggerating? According to one 2010 document, cited and quoted by the Times.

“It’s not just the traditional communications we’re after: It’s taking a full-arsenal approach that digitally exploits the clues a target leaves behind in their regular activities on the net to compile biographic and biometric information that can help implement precision targeting,”

But you’re just a noble citizen ‘good guy’ so you got nothing to fear. Okay, fair enough, let's go with that myth. So let’s say for argument’s sake that a frack rig goes up near your home, e.g.

 The noise is ear splitting and the pollution god-awful. Half the night you’re choking on dust and your kids are getting rashes that won’t heal. Worse, your water can be lit on fire coming out of the tap and you dare not drink it. Finally pissed, you summon the backbone to take to the streets,  joining a protest on Main St. and lo and behold some scurvy little bum from a national or local security outfit is there taking photos of all protesting  n’er do wells. The photos are compiled and then compared to facial recognition captures made from FB, instagram, emails and so on.

Bingo! You’re ID’d and you, Mr. "Good Guy" , are a domestic terrorist! Now, you officially graduated to the Main Core database! According to investigator Christopher Ketcham who first exposed it:

"the database is sometimes referred to by the code name Main Core. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”

Meanwhile, the spooks are working overtime to assuage fears from skeptics and cynics - including those like me, and even Marianne Williamson. One NSA spokesperson told the Times:

“the N.S.A. would be required to get court approval for imagery of Americans collected through its surveillance programs, just as it must to read their emails or eavesdrop on their phone conversations.”


But let’s bear in mind getting permission for such intrusions would be no biggie, not since the 1978 FISA law was “updated” to become basically a rubber stamping joke with nothing barred. So in reality, none of the new FISA courts will refuse anything. More than anything else, however, the revelations are a reminder of our increased vulnerability to being tracked online by any number of interested parties.  Snowden's lawyer appearing on Kornacki's  'UP' last Sunday, also noted how many clients of the NSA (seeking private information on citizens) are corporate sources. Of course, this is despicable.

I mean, Jeezus, trading on terror hysteria to sustain  and justify intrusive systems that raid citizen information for private, corporate consumption.  How low can  you go? See more from the Times:

Civil-liberties advocates and other critics are concerned that the power of the improving technology, used by government and industry, and they should be! According to Alessandro Acquisti, a researcher on facial recognition technology at Carnegie Mellon University:

  “Facial recognition can be very invasive. There are still technical limitations on it, but the computational power keeps growing, and the databases keep growing, and the algorithms keep improving.”

As if that’s not enough, state and local law enforcement agencies are relying more and more on a wide range of databases of facial imagery, including driver’s licenses and Facebook, to identify suspects. The F.B.I. is developing what it calls its “next generation identification” project to combine its automated fingerprint identification system with facial imagery and other biometric data.


The State Department has what several outside experts say could be the largest facial imagery database in the federal government, storing hundreds of millions of photographs of American passport holders and foreign visa applicants. And the Department of Homeland Security is funding pilot projects at police departments around the country to match suspects against faces in a crowd.

The N.S.A., though, is unique in its ability to match images with huge troves of private communications.  So why the continual dismissive tone and naïvete regarding NSA programs? Because people - too many -  have regressed into consumers as opposed to active, skeptical citizens who ought to be keeping government on a short leash. Back in the day, like ca. 1975, there still existed a majority of real citizens instead of pretend ones, and so a Senator like Frank Church could articulate genuine fears on the NSA's powers even then (see quote at the top). 

Today, too many have become poppets, simple-minded consumers, so accept everything the gov't tells them like they accept everything companies tell them about their illustrious products. This regression also explains how a useful tool like Bill Scher ("Liberal oasis") could actually believe these intrusive, mass dragnet NSA programs are beneficial and "doing good". (As he did on Kornacki's show on Sunday.) Is Scher THAT terrified of a bunch of ragtag idiots he'd prepared to sacrifice most civil liberties? Evidently he is, at least from the claptrap he spouted against Snowden last Sunday morning.

Be afraid. Be very afraid. And whether you consider Marianne Williamson a ‘flake’ or not you ought to seriously consider her words when she describes such indiscriminate mass surveillance as a “lack of basic respect” for citizens and the addiction to doing it “sociopathic”.

NSA Gnome James Clapper: A Dope or a Nut?

It appears the liar and 4th amendment traitor James Clapper went on a tirade yesterday, demanding whistleblower Edward Snowden "return all the stolen documents" and calling the surveillance disclosures published by the Guardian, Washington Post, NY Times and other news outlets a “perfect storm” that would endanger American lives."  Of course, this is a pile of horse manure, as ripe as Clapper's LIES before the Senate Intelligence Committee in March of last year. So bad, that Patriot Act co-author James Sensenbrenner was led to assert in October(to the Guardian):

"Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

And as for endangering American lives let's be mindful of Bruce Schneier, a security specialist, who wrote in The New York Times last July 3rd:

"The argument that exposing these documents helps the terrorists doesn't even pass the laugh test; there's nothing here that changes anything any potential terrorist would do or not do."

Evidently also, Clapper and his other NSA troglodytes never received the 'memo' that Snowden's documents are already electronically 'out there'  - in the proper hands of media sites that have agreed to disclose the content in quantized measures - as opposed to giant dumps. Even if Snowden were to agree to give back what he actually took, the copies of the documents would remain in cyberspace. Making one wonder if Clapper is a dope or a nut.

Reinforcing this, is that Clapper - arrogant ass that he is - offers nothing in compensation to Snowden - other than a "trial" (read kangaroo court mock trial) if he returns with what he has.  Is he joking or what? Why on earth should Snowden come back with his material to face a jury-rigged trial, likely from a military court, and a judge as biased as the one that sabotaged the Garrison case against CIA contract agent Clay Shaw?

Again, the sign of un unbalanced dope whose hubris and power have clearly gone to his head. Even more laughable, according to the Guardian account:

"Testifying before a rare and unusually raucous public session of the Senate intelligence committee that saw yet another evolution in the Obama administration’s defense of bulk domestic phone records collection, Clapper called on “Snowden and his accomplices” to return the documents the former National Security Agency contractor took, in order to minimize what he called the “profound damage that his disclosures have caused and continued to cause”.

Again, this is bollocks. The damage amounts to nothing, not one thing. The REAL damage is to these disgusting spooks whose act has finally been exposed for the world to see and who believe they have a license to gobble up everything about people in their metadata grabs. (And again, Obama is just as wrong to defend them- though as I've written before, he's likely coerced by their threats to do so.)

Clapper's "accomplices" bunkum is also choice, and an apparent imitation of the idiot Mike Rogers' recent rants about Snowden having "allies" in the FSB or Russian Intelligence. This despite the fact that Snowden has repeatedly said he acted alone in assembling and leaking a vast trove of information on the scope of US surveillance efforts.

Clapper also appears ignorant of the fact this was a conclusion  reportedly reached by the NSA’s official investigation into the Snowden leaks. SO again, he's either a dope or totally incompetent - if he isn't even aware of the conclusions reached by his own NSA.


 At the hearing, senator Ron Wyden, the Oregon Democrat whose questioning last March ended with Clapper lying to the panel about the deliberate collection of Americans’ data, pressed Clapper to give public answers on surveillance activities on American information “sent over the web or stored in the cloud” – references to NSA’s so-called “upstream” collection capabilities, which allow the agency to harvest data in transit. He also questioned Clapper on whether the NSA had conducted “warrantless searches” for “specific” Americans’ identifying information in its vast databases of foreigners’ internet content, an authority first reported by the Guardian.

“Can you tell us today whether any such searches have ever been conducted?” Wyden asked. To which Clapper responded:

“Senator Wyden, I think, at a threat hearing, this would ... I would prefer not to discuss this and have this as a separate subject. There are very complex legal issues here, I just don’t think this is the appropriate time or place,”

In other words, 'we gotta do these mass  metadata grabs but we can't provide you with any evidence to justify them'.  Confirming what many of us in deep politics already suspect, that the "terror" card is being played as an expeditious smokescreen to cover up an all -encompassing industrial -economic espionage program and - as a byproduct -  to monitor the masses. The last thing the security state wants to see, or be caught off guard on, is tens of thousands rioting in the streets and burning cars, etc. - as they are in the Ukraine.  This is irrespective of whether the cause is fouled water, as recently occurred in West Virginia, or because a new Occupy movement takes hold to mobilize against the banksters and Tom Perkins' spoiled rich.

Above all, the masses must be monitored so they can be controlled. Hence, the use of a mass grab spy program to compile lists of "enemies of the state" for Main Core.

Another misbegotten canard is Clapper's insistence that the mass data grabs are allowed under current law. Let me assert if this is the case, that law is an 'ass' and in violation of the 4th amendment. The reason is that even a cursory reading of the 4th amendment shows the wording is predicated on individualized warrants! Hence, you cannot have a collective seizure of data that conforms to the heart of the amendment. What Clapper is really defending is the bastardized version of the FISA law that was created and approved AFTER the Bushies were caught out doing warrantless wiretaps in 2006-08.

Again, for those with short memories, the original (1978) FISA law required individual warrants which had to be sought from a proper FISA court.  After Bush and his thugs were caught breaking it, congress - instead of prosecuting them - took the easy way out and made legal what had been illegal!  In other words, the "law" now on the books is an affront to not only the 1978 law, but the 4th amendment and was composed by traitors!

Perhaps the real reason Clapper and his NSA clones are frothing at the mouth  about Snowden and his disclosures was best expressed by a commenter on the Guardian forum (for the Clapper article):

·        Lightning strikes 300 Americans a year. Huge by comparison to terrorism. Maybe the real reason is the military budget. They cannot live without a threat equal to 20th century warfare. Why don't we let them defend us against space aliens? Terrorism is way down from the 1970s and paradoxically appears to be a receding threat. Ok, the worst months of Vietnam killed 2000 soldiers. It took years running two wars to reach that level. Times change. The real discussion is about making the citizens of America a replacement threat for the Pentagon to keep their budget. They have to do it in secret because the US is a Constitutional state.

Neolib Hack Samuelson Defends NSA Invasion Of Privacy

"In every interview Snowden has relied on the simple notion that informed the founders of our nation regarding the primacy of truth in public discourse.   His commitment to that ideal cannot be comprehended by a mass media culture of careerism informed by public relations that trivializes all differences of truth and logic into incomprehensible mulch. His is instead the simple veracity of the once honored slogan that the truth shall set us free and that it is overwhelming government power that is most threatening to that freedom." - Robert Scheer, on  smirkingchimp.com

I figured that eventually the WaPo Neoliberal hack Robert Samuelson would chirp up in a column to praise the NSA, and diss Edward Snowden - while again seeking to confuse his readers in conflating truths and jabberwocky.   Before even getting to his nonsense, it really ought not be a stretch to grasp that arch-Neoliberals would be wholesale salivating for the national security state, just as they drool for the military.

As Thomas Frank observes in his remarkable expose of the market worshippers, One Market Under God, the Neoliberal basic imperative is "let them eat stocks" (or mutual funds). This despite the fact that since the investment trusts of the 1920s (precursor to today's mutual funds) the traders and brokers have regarded the ordinary public as a "dumb herd" (p. 109) and sheep to be shorn. After the 1960s the message softened  - in order to lure more proles into the market - but the subtext has been the same: popularize the "Street", make people believe they're big shots too, and wait for the crash to suck up their assets.

The main message of the Neoliberal imperative: People must not depend on the government for their security, including for Social Security, veterans' benefits, Medicare or Medicaid.  If they are to sustain themselves they must be cajoled to do it by investment in the market where all factors are "democratized"  - and no one suffers, i.e. by having to pay more taxes so some old fart can get his prostate cancer treatments, or pay his monthly heating bills.

And to ensure this imperative is met, the Neoliberal pushes the political matrix to allocate ever more resources to military and national security interests, thereby leaving little for domestic social insurance programs. This, in fact, is what we beheld last month, when in a "bipartisan" deal, the Dems allowed the Reepos an extra $23b to use for military spending, while their side sucked up the loss in compensating domestic cuts - mainly by disallowing the extension of unemployment insurance.

For the same reason, a hack like Samuelson would plump for the NSA and the overall national security budget (now at $71b /year) increasing - again to put more pressure on domestic spending programs, including food stamps, Medicare etc. Samuelson actually has the nerve to spout this disingenuous tripe:


"There is more than a little hypocrisy to the outcry that the government, through the National Security Agency (NSA), is systematically destroying Americans’ right to privacy. Edward Snowden’s revelations have been stripped of their social, technological and historical context. Unless you’ve camped in the Alaskan wilderness for two decades, you know — or should — that millions upon millions of Americans have consciously and, probably in most cases, eagerly surrendered much of their privacy by embracing the Internet and social media."


Let's back up so that casual readers aren't lured into buying this bollocks. As I noted before, people willingly putting out their information in the expectation of social communication or comity- say on a blog, Facebook page, or Twitter, is NOT the same as having their social intent perverted by some impersonal spook technology to vacuum up every word for filing and cross-referencing.  In the latter case,  collecting every fucking thing surreptitiously then compiling it into a database for which criminal intent or terrorism might later be associated (including domestic terrorism for protesting against a fracking operation, or demonstrating against Wall Street shysters.)  Recall that investigative reporter Christopher Ketcham learned that  NSA's Main Core:

"Can identify and locate perceived ‘enemies of the state’ almost instantaneously. One knowledgeable source claims that 8 million Americans are now listed in Main Core as potentially suspect. In the event of a national emergency, these people could be subject to everything from heightened surveillance and tracking to direct questioning and possibly even detention.”


Thus it  ought to be a no brainer that Samuelson's efforts to assuage doubts are not to be trusted. Apart from which, the casual blog poster, or FB poster doesn't expect his words to be collected by these disreputable sneaks and assembled in a program called "Main Core" - because those words were interpreted by some snotty eggheads as being indicative of "an enemy of the state".

None of that downside is noted by Samuelson, but we know this sort of 'dodge and hide' template is his forte.   Indeed, after his initial codswallop Samuelson seeks to further justify it by writing:

"The Internet is a vehicle for self-promotion, personal advertising and the pursuit of celebrity"

Again, even if it is, it doesn't mean people ALSO welcome having all their ruminations, images, beliefs, philosophies compiled by spooks into some nefarious hidden database that regards these as evidence for being an "enemy of the state".  No, people expect that IF that is done - and indeed it is using the NSA's MUSCULAR, PRISM and Xkeyscore programs - they want the fourth amendment followed and that means an individualized warrant brought before a proper FISA court - not the rubber stampers we have now.

Oh, and then we have Samuelson's brilliant  "solution":

"If Americans think their privacy is dangerously diminished, there are remedies. They can turn off their PCs, toss their smartphones and smash their tablets"


Yes, seriously, these are the very words of this character. If you are humbugged by the notion of the spooks vacuuming up all your words, beliefs, pictures and filing them into a Main Core program for "enemy of the state" profiling - you can always disconnect! Toss that Ipad or notebook down the chute and let not your hearts be troubled!

Oh, and then there's the "commercial scare" routine again:


"To these conscious sacrifices of privacy must be added murkier, collateral losses that are orchestrated by the world’s Googles, Facebooks, service providers and “data brokers,” writes Alice Marwick of Fordham University in the New York Review of Books. They scan users’ digital decisions (sites visited, products and services purchased, habits and hobbies favored) to create databases, often merged with other socio-economic information"


But again, Google, Facebook, ISPs etc don't have the power to take away your freedom, like the government does (say by invocation of its 'Continuity of Government' program - with all the data they've gathered on you being an "enemy of the state")

And then the hack strikes again:


"The NSA’s damage to privacy is dwarfed by the impact of market activity...... Suddenly, Big Brother looms. In our mind’s eye, we see the NSA’s computers scouring our every phone call. We’re exposed to constant snooping and the possibility that the government will misuse the information it finds.

The reality is far more limited. The NSA is governed by legal restrictions. It does not examine the full database. It searches individual numbers only after it has determined there’s a “reasonable, articulable suspicion” that a number might be linked to terrorist groups"  


Puh-leeze! All of this amounts to disinformation. The same sort of twisted nonsense Samuelson delivered earlier regarding "deficits" being created by JFK, during his administration, which I have already skewered. http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2012/07/thats-right-now-blame-60s-jfk-for.html

The reality is that Samuelson's cited "legal restrictions"  governing the NSA are little better than the merest figleaf. Those (original) restrictions ceased to exist when the FISA law was changed after the Bushistas' illegal wiretapping over 2005-08. Instead of prosecuting the Bushistas, a compliant congress and the courts excused the transgressions and actually made them lawful!  Hence, whatever protections people think they have disappeared when the illegal variant of the FISA law was extended back in 2011.

We also know that it isn't necessary for NSA programs "to search the whole database" and that the Main Core will assemble suspicious words whether a human person searches or not.  This is also why the Occupy Wall Street protestors literally came under the gun.  Finally, even one of the original authors of the Patriot Act, Jim Sensenbrenner, insisted he never intended it to go as far as it has, and as Snowden revealed.  As he was quoted in a UK Guardian piece two months ago"


 "Oversight only works when the agency that oversight is directed at tells the truth, and having Mr Clapper say he gave the least untruthful answer should, in my opinion, have resulted in a firing and a prosecution,"

Sensenbrenner was referring to NSA honcho James Clapper lying before a Senate hearing  months earlier, when asked if the NSA did mass surveillance. So if Clapper was lying, it is obvious that Samuelson must be too by his specious defense of the NSA - and that those poor little souls aren't doing anything beyond the limits of Sec. 215 at all.  Oh no, so just rest your little heads! All is well!

Is Samuelson calling Sensenbrenner a liar?  If the original author of the Patriot Act believes the NSA overstepped the bounds of the law who the fuck is Samuelson to claim anything different?

Oh wait, he's a Neoliberal hack!

Next time you see anything from Robert Samuelson and wonder if it has some veracity, consider the source. Would you drink water from a sewer ditch? Of course not, so why take anything from Samuelson as useful information you can trust?

See also (from someone you can trust):

http://www.smirkingchimp.com/thread/robert-scheer/53531/exposing-public-wickedness-is-more-american-than-apple-pie