The truth at any cost lowers all other costs — curated by former US spy Robert David Steele.
…when it comes to anti-terror laws. I am currently in Paris, and I have seen really stupid things around the world, but this takes the cake.
I’m sitting in a Starbucks and logging on to their wi-fi, and I’m greeted with this login screen, where I must fill in my name and address before going online. This is to make sure that terrorists can be tracked. About this point, the French parliament must have run out of oxygen.
Bradley Manning trial: six things we learned
As the army private awaits news of his sentencing, here's a look at the intriguing nuggets which emerged from his court martial
Lessons (List Only):
1. Bradley Manning made history
2. Journalism is no longer monopolised by traditional media
3. The US government may never have found Wikileaks' source
4. Wikileaks embarrassed the US government, but nobody died
5. The US military is no place for gay men questioning their gender
6. The war on US leakers is here to stay
When your government lies to you over and over, as is the case in the U.S. today, the result is a loss of faith in the institutions of the state. I saw this happening in the old Soviet Union. People openly talked about how nothing the government said could be trusted. At the time it struck me as a very dangerous trend. Now it is happening here. This statement by the National Institute on Drug Abuse is an exa! mple. It is deceitful and dishonest in intent, and in fact, and the Obama Administration should be ashamed of itself. The lying that is coming out of the administration on in everything from national security to Marijuana is a disgrace. Click through to see some a very good compendium of actual facts.
Federal Drug Agency Denies Marijuana Is Less Toxic Than Alcohol
ROBIN WILKEY – The Huffington Post
This is a very serious issue that is getting almost no coverage in corporate media. Given its implications this is quite revealing of the state of American media. I have been digging into this for the past couple of weeks, and I am still unclear whether articles like this are alarmist, or an accurate representation of! what is going on. But one thing is clear, this is a major issue and appears to be a critical step in the rise of the Non-geographical corporate State's acquisition of power. A world without democracy, ruled by a technocratic elite serving the interests of US and global capital – protecting “investor rights” against national laws and regulations – is now being created in secret negotiations over free-trade treaties, one of which, the TransPacific Parnership (TPP), may be sewn up this fall. Can popular will stop it?
NAFTA on Steroids: The TransPacific Partnership and Global Neoliberalism
CLIFF DURAND, Research Associate, Center for Global Justice and Professor Emeritus of Philosophy at Morgan State – Truthout
One of the more interesting trends going on right now as the decision by the Millenials to abandon Christianity. I think this is happening because the Theocratic Right lives in a realm of fantasy that Millenials can see is utterly bogus — 6,000 year old Earth, inerrant Bible, Creationism, and Clima! te Denierism.
Hemant Mehta on Rising Atheism Among Millenials: ‘It’s not That Christianity Is Unpopular, It’s That It’s Untrue
GEORGE CHIDI – The Raw Story
Here is some good news about the anti-GMO movement with which I am in complete agreement (See my esssay, The Great Experiment: Genetically Modified Organisms, Scientific Integrity, and National Wellness.)
Big Food Stocks and Anti-GMO Sentiment: The Right to Choose Movement Gains Strength
MINYANVILLE – NASDAQ
Latin America Condemns US Espionage at United Nations Security Council
Posted: 19 Aug 2013 12:01 AM PDT
“The United States appears to be destined by Providence to plague America with misery in the name of liberty.” Simon Bolivar Throughout the day, on August 6, President Cristina Fernandez Kirchner of Argentina chaired a historic United Nations Security Council meeting that revealed a seismic shift in geopolitical consciousness and incipient strength. The agenda of Security […]
Detained in the U.S.: Filmmaker Laura Poitras Held, Questioned Some 40 Times at U.S. Airports
The Academy Award-nominated filmmaker Laura Poitras discusses how she has been repeatedly detained and questioned by federal agents whenever she enters the United States. Poitras said the interrogations began after she began working on her documentary, “My Country, My Country,” about post-invasion Iraq. Her most recent film, “The Oath,” was about Yemen and Guantánamo and follows the lives of two past associates of Osama bin Laden. She estimates she has been detained approximately 40 times and has had her laptop, cellphone and personal belongings repeatedly searched. Tonight she is leading a surveillance teach-in at the Whitney Museum in New York City with our other guests, computer security researcher and government target Jacob Appelbaum and National Security Agency whistleblower William Binney. Poiras is currently at work on a film about post-9/11 America. This interview is part of a 5-part special on growing state surveillance.. Click here to see segment 1, 3, 4 and 5. [includes rush transcript]
Transcript [Also Available as Video]
This is a rush transcript. Copy may not be in its final form.
AMY GOODMAN: Our guests are William Binney, who was technical director of the NSA’s World Geopolitical and Military Analysis Reporting Group. He worked with the NSA for almost 40 years, National Security Agency. We’re also joined by Laura Poitras, the Oscar-nominated filmmaker, and Jacob Appelbaum, a computer security researcher.
You two have something in common with each other. You—every time you come into the United States by plane, you are stopped, you are searched, you are interrogated. Laura Poitras, tell us about your experience. Your latest one?
Escalation of Attacks on News-gathering Process and Journalism by US-UK Gov’t
Detaining My Partner: A Failed Attempt At Intimidation At 6:30 am this morning my time – 5:30 am on the East Coast of the US – I received a telephone call from someone who identified himself as a “security official at Heathrow airport.” He told me that my partner, David Miranda, had been “detained” at the London airport “under Schedule 7 of the Terrorism Act of 2000.” David had spent the last week in Berlin, where he stayed with Laura Poitras, the US filmmaker who has worked with me extensively on the NSA stories. A Brazilian citizen, he was returning to our home in Rio de Janeiro this morning on British Airways, flying first to London and then on to Rio. When he arrived in London this morning, he was detained.
Endless war is the basis for the abrogation of our civil liberties, the suspension our legal guarantees, and the assault on journalism. It is the cancer that is destroying our democracy, and our passivity is what makes it possible.
Legal War?
WILLIAM BOARDMAN – Nation of Change
We are in the endless war because of the stupidity of American foreign policy beginning with the Reagan Administration, which was notably inept. And, thanks to Dick Cheney and the Neocons, we have transformed what was once a deep affection for Americans in the Arab world, which I experienced in the two years I lived in Egypt in the 70s, into! a deep and abiding hatred which will endure for generations.
They Hate Us, They Really Hate Us
MARC LYNCH, Associate Professor of Political science and International Affairs at George Washington University – Foreign Policy
