The inevitable end result of our last 56 years

[Chris Barnard]

6 minutes ago, Benjamin Cole said:

I guess the long knives are out to censor Joe Rogan too. 

https://www.theverge.com/2021/12/7/22821823/joe-rogan-media-matters-hot-pod-spotify-moderation#comments

If this how the left-wing thinks today? 

I hope the readers of this space, who should be aware of media manipulation in the wake of the JFKA, and of the national security state and its grip on media...have more enlightened points of view regarding press freedoms...

Suddenly the heat is on after daring to question the dreaded C narrative. How did he get cured so fast? Reputation destruction in full swing. 
 

 

[Bob Ness]

3 minutes ago, Chris Barnard said:

Thank you, Bob. I like the logic in this reply and it does illustrate some of the complexities involved. 
 

Do we hold our personal data (legally or ethically) as non crime committing individuals on a par with state institutions classified information? Or, is one more important than the other? Or, is it determined on a case by case basis? 
 

If state crimes or, international crimes were uncovered in those data leaks. Are both parties prosecutable? Or, just Assange? Is this a factor in the Assange case? Or, was he just exposing questionable behaviour, not criminality? 
 

it’s very difficult to understand the crux of the matter in the British media. 

There's a really big gray stripe down the middle of that road I'd say. Certainly the ability for journalists to reveal the truth is extremely important in every sense. The point where it goes over a line is usually best handled in court rooms I suppose. Imperfect as they may be they're built for sorting through complex issues with conflicting arguments studied in excruciating detail.

One example of a very close call was the case in Chicago in I believe 1942 where a newspaper there published a story that revealed the US Government's successful decryption of the Japanese "Purple" code:

For 74 years, only members of a Chicago grand jury could definitively say why they declined to indict a reporter responsible for a 1942 front page article that implied American cryptanalysts had cracked the Japanese military code.

The documents were unsealed for a group of petitioners in late 2016 after a three-year court battle, and on Wednesday, a number of carefully selected documents will be publicly available online for the first time on the National Security Archive’s website, said John Prados, editor of the postings. The timing — just 10 days after the publication of “Stanley Johnston’s Blunder,” a novel by former journalist and historian Elliot Carlson — was merely coincidental, both men said. Carlson sued for the release of the grand jury documents with the help of the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Prados testified as an expert...

...The grand jury declined to indict Tribune war correspondent Stanley Johnston and the Tribune’s then-managing editor, J. Loy Maloney, because Adm. Ernest J. King, who Carlson called “the adult in the room,” didn’t want to risk even more media attention and the chance that Japanese leaders would change the code from the one the Americans had already cracked.

“If this had gone on to a public trial, there’s no telling how much publicity it would’ve received or how much chaos it would’ve caused,” Carlson said from his Maryland home Tuesday. “It was already turning into a media circus, and Adm. King didn’t want to risk it hitting the airwaves. They didn’t so much fear Japanese agents in America, but that somehow all the publicity of the trial would come to the attention of the Japanese and they would change the codes.”

Keep in mind the Grand Jury files were just unsealed in 2016!! This is a case where tens of thousands of lives could have been lost as a result. Maybe even more. But the Chicago Tribune, the Managing Editor and the Reporter were all called in and faced charges. They didn't go run to the Spanish Embassy and hide out until the war was over.

In general I'd say on a case by case basis as the rights of the individual are at least as important as the state.

Regarding Assange I believe there was an 18 count indictment but it's really hard to say whether there will be superseding indictments and who they may cover. They've already gone after others and there's probably more on the way.

[Chris Barnard]

5 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

There's a really big gray stripe down the middle of that road I'd say. Certainly the ability for journalists to reveal the truth is extremely important in every sense. The point where it goes over a line is usually best handled in court rooms I suppose. Imperfect as they may be they're built for sorting through complex issues with conflicting arguments studied in excruciating detail.

One example of a very close call was the case in Chicago in I believe 1942 where a newspaper there published a story that revealed the US Government's successful decryption of the Japanese "Purple" code:

For 74 years, only members of a Chicago grand jury could definitively say why they declined to indict a reporter responsible for a 1942 front page article that implied American cryptanalysts had cracked the Japanese military code.

The documents were unsealed for a group of petitioners in late 2016 after a three-year court battle, and on Wednesday, a number of carefully selected documents will be publicly available online for the first time on the National Security Archive’s website, said John Prados, editor of the postings. The timing — just 10 days after the publication of “Stanley Johnston’s Blunder,” a novel by former journalist and historian Elliot Carlson — was merely coincidental, both men said. Carlson sued for the release of the grand jury documents with the help of the Reporter’s Committee for Freedom of the Press, and Prados testified as an expert...

...The grand jury declined to indict Tribune war correspondent Stanley Johnston and the Tribune’s then-managing editor, J. Loy Maloney, because Adm. Ernest J. King, who Carlson called “the adult in the room,” didn’t want to risk even more media attention and the chance that Japanese leaders would change the code from the one the Americans had already cracked.

“If this had gone on to a public trial, there’s no telling how much publicity it would’ve received or how much chaos it would’ve caused,” Carlson said from his Maryland home Tuesday. “It was already turning into a media circus, and Adm. King didn’t want to risk it hitting the airwaves. They didn’t so much fear Japanese agents in America, but that somehow all the publicity of the trial would come to the attention of the Japanese and they would change the codes.”

Keep in mind the Grand Jury files were just unsealed in 2016!! This is a case where tens of thousands of lives could have been lost as a result. Maybe even more. But the Chicago Tribune, the Managing Editor and the Reporter were all called in and faced charges. They didn't go run to the Spanish Embassy and hide out until the war was over.

In general I'd say on a case by case basis as the rights of the individual are at least as important as the state.

Regarding Assange I believe there was an 18 count indictment but it's really hard to say whether there will be superseding indictments and who they may cover. They've already gone after others and there's probably more on the way.

Thanks - Great reply, you write well. 

I thought there would be a grey area on this. 

[Jeff Carter]

1 hour ago, Bob Ness said:

WTF? How hard is it to make the archive unavailable or restrict access on a server? It isn't! Any fifth grader could! Wikileaks was responsible for the dump because it was in THEIR archive and in THEIR source's best interest to protect them. FCS they apparently knew about it for 7 months!...

These facts are why the links you post to UNATTRIBUTED authors at Consortium News are worse than useless because people actually believe the thrust of the article. They get difficult to read.

Bob, can you then explain why your formulation apparently does not start from the start - I.e. the US government organizations and political parties, that is the Pentagon, CIA, and DNC whose sloppy information security procedures assisted the leaks in the first place? Are they not then part of the conspiracy equally too?

From the “unattributed” Consortium News:

Ellsberg made an astute observation from the stand that the low-level field reports leaked by Manning contained information about U.S. torture and an assassination program that would never have been in such reports in Vietnam, which Ellsberg said he himself had written when he worked at the U.S. embassy in Saigon during the war.

The existence of such programs, he said, would have been restricted to the highest levels of government. That thousands of people had clearance to read the reports Manning leaked showed that torture and assassination had been “normalized.” 

Bob, can you explain how the “attributed media” blew such major stories as the Warren Commission conclusions, Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and “Russiagate” ( which was essentially retracted three weekends ago). Particular attention to WMD - because the Brown University Costs of War project shows since the “attributed media” blew the story and helped steer the USA into a devastating military disaster, about a million people were killed and a staggering 38 million persons have been displaced as war refugees. Ooops. But yeah, let’s shoulder Julian Assange with all the blame.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

 

 

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

Bob, can you then explain why your formulation apparently does not start from the start - I.e. the US government organizations and political parties, that is the Pentagon, CIA, and DNC whose sloppy information security procedures assisted the leaks in the first place? Are they not then part of the conspiracy equally too?

She should have been raped after dressing in a bikini. Something like that, Jeff? You have a strange way of making victims. The perpetrators should be victimized? The victims are the real perpetrators?

The Pentagon, CIA and DNC are organizations that us US citizens entrust (no matter what your or my opinion of them is) to engage in our defense (by extension Canada and Europe too!!) and political concerns (DNC) for the purpose of furthering our society. We pay for them (Canadians get a free ride there) with our tax dollars and expect that they will be protected by courts and legal authorities from expensive and otherwise costly intrusions and theft of property, intellectual or physical. That's not unreasonable.

Wikileaks and it's members are not part of what has been assembled to inspect and oversee the performance of those institutions. I didn't ask them to purloin documents and create untold amounts of man hours and expense to undo their bungling of the information they received illegally. Wikileaks could have provided the information redacted and in tranches and maintained their security while accomplishing their "journalistic" endeavor. 

They didn't. I personally think that much of what they have done is amateurish and speaks more to their earnest desire to right wrongs (I'm sure they feel justified and I might agree with them most of the time) while not really knowing how to accomplish it properly. Assange is problematic because I believe his motives are different. His overt narcissism conflates reporting with his need for recognition and success in the business and that's where the problem lies. In principle "Wikileaks" is a great idea. In practice it became an extension of his ego.

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

Bob, can you explain how the “attributed media” blew such major stories as the Warren Commission conclusions, Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction, and “Russiagate” ( which was essentially retracted three weekends ago). Particular attention to WMD - because the Brown University Costs of War project shows since the “attributed media” blew the story and helped steer the USA into a devastating military disaster, about a million people were killed and a staggering 38 million persons have been displaced as war refugees. Ooops. But yeah, let’s shoulder Julian Assange with all the blame.

https://watson.brown.edu/costsofwar/

Uh... Russiagate hasn't been retracted, Jeff. Nice try.

Either way - how do you know about it, Jeff? It wasn't Wikileaks. Any of the above examples you cite have been exposed and not necessarily by little publications. I could go on about these examples but with the exception of Russiagate I'm sure we would agree about them. I may even know stuff you don't about certain episodes!

Edited December 14, 2021 by Bob Ness

[W. Niederhut]

      Well, I appreciate the references from my two alma maters, Brown and Harvard, but it's truly irritating to watch Jeff Carter continue to deny the reality of the Trump/Putin Russia-gate swindle-- even comparing it to the M$M disinformation about the Warren Commission Report and Iraqi WMDs.  What bunk.

     Jeff has promoted this Russia-gate denial nonsense for the past four years in our discussions here. Basta per Dio!

     And Russia-gate is also relevant to the debate here about Julian Assange.

     My own view is that Assange and Wikileaks provided a valuable service to humanity by exposing U.S. war crimes and  our misguided involvement in the destruction of Libya and Syria.  For that, I thank him.

      The gripe that I have with Julian Assange is the deliberate, strategic role that he played with Russian military intelligence in helping to elect Donald Trump to the White House in 2016-- something which has been profoundly destructive to my country.

      Perhaps it's no big deal to Jeff Carter and our forum members across the pond that Trump was used by Putin to actualize the "Gerasimov Doctrine" -- to fracture U.S. society along racial and cultural fault lines.  It worked!

      Or that Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords and rolled back pollution controls.  

      Or that Trump tried to sabotage Obamacare and defund Medicare and Medicaid in 2017-- after claiming in 2016 that his health plan would provide affordable healthcare for all Americans! 

      Or that Trump further slashed taxes for billionaires and corporations--increasing our national debt by $8 trillion in four years, without stimulating significant GDP or private sector job growth in the U.S.

     Or that Trump stacked our courts with pro-corporate Federalist Society Koch judges who will uphold Citizens United and Shelby v. Holder-- perpetuating corporate plutocracy in the U.S.

      But, as an American, the damage that Putin, Trump, and Assange have done to my country is a very big deal to me.

Edited December 14, 2021 by W. Niederhut

[Benjamin Cole]

16 minutes ago, W. Niederhut said:

      Well, I appreciate the references from my two alma maters, Brown and Harvard, but it's truly irritating to watch Jeff Carter continuing to deny the reality of the Trump/Putin Russia-gate swindle-- even comparing it to the M$M disinformation about the Warren Commission Report and Iraqi WMDs.  What bunk.

     Jeff has promoted this Russia-gate denial nonsense for the past four years in our discussions here. Basta per Dio!

     And Russia-gate is also relevant to the debate here about Julian Assange.

     My own view is that Assange and Wikileaks provided a valuable service to humanity by exposing U.S. war crimes and  our misguided involvement in the destruction of Libya and Syria.  For that, I thank him.

      The gripe that I have with Julian Assange is the deliberate, strategic role that he played with Russian military intelligence in helping to elect Donald Trump to the White House in 2016-- something which has been profoundly destructive to my country.

      Perhaps it's no big deal to Jeff Carter and our forum members across the pond that Trump was used by Putin to actualize the "Gerasimov Doctrine" -- to fracture U.S. society along racial and cultural fault lines.  It worked!

      Or that Trump withdrew from the Paris Climate Accords and rolled back pollution controls.  

      Or that Trump tried to sabotage Obamacare and defund Medicare and Medicaid in 2017-- after claiming in 2016 that his health plan would provide affordable healthcare for all Americans! 

      Or that Trump further slashed taxes for billionaires and corporations--increasing our national debt by $8 trillion in four years, without stimulating significant GDP or private sector job growth in the U.S.

     Or that Trump stacked our courts with pro-corporate Federalist Society Koch judges who will uphold Citizens United and Shelby v. Holder-- perpetuating corporate plutocracy in the U.S.

      But, as an American, the damage that Putin, Trump, and Assange have done to my country is a very big deal.

"Perhaps it's no big deal to Jeff Carter and our forum members across the pond that Trump was used by Putin to actualize the "Gerasimov Doctrine" -- to fracture U.S. society along racial and cultural fault lines.  It worked!---W.

I wonder if it was Russians who carefully and skillfully played US media to make the Rittenhouse story a race story. 

Were the Russians were behind Jussie Smollett? Interesting question. 

[Ron Bulman]

40 minutes ago, Bob Ness said:

She should have been raped after dressing in a bikini. Something like that, Jeff? You have a strange way of making victims. The perpetrators should be victimized? The victims are the real perpetrators?

The Pentagon, CIA and DNC are organizations that us US citizens entrust (no matter what your or my opinion of them is) to engage in our defense (by extension Canada and Europe too!!) and political concerns (DNC) for the purpose of furthering our society. We pay for them (Canadians get a free ride there) with our tax dollars and expect that they will be protected by courts and legal authorities from expensive and otherwise costly intrusions and theft of property, intellectual or physical. That's not unreasonable.

Wikileaks and it's members are not part of what has been assembled to inspect and oversee the performance of those institutions. I didn't ask them to purloin documents and create untold amounts of man hours and expense to undo their bungling of the information they received illegally. Wikileaks could have provided the information redacted and in tranches and maintained their security while accomplishing their "journalistic" endeavor. 

They didn't. I personally think that much of what they have done is amateurish and speaks more to their earnest desire to right wrongs (I'm sure they feel justified and I might agree with them most of the time) while not really knowing how to accomplish it properly. Assange is problematic because I believe his motives are different. His overt narcissism conflates reporting with his need for recognition and success in the business and that's where the problem lies. In principle "Wikileaks" is a great idea. In practice it became an extension of his ego.

Uh... Russiagate hasn't been retracted, Jeff. Nice try.

Either way - how do you know about it, Jeff? It wasn't Wikileaks. Any of the above examples you cite have been exposed and not necessarily by little publications. I could go on about these examples but with the exception of Russiagate I'm sure we would agree about them. I may even know stuff you don't about certain episodes!

So the former prez  and assange are narcissist's.  Yet the chump's son has cried foul outing dad on j-6,  Funny if not so serious.

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, W. Niederhut said:

Or that Trump tried to sabotage Obamacare and defund Medicare and Medicaid in 2017-- after claiming in 2016 that his health plan would provide affordable healthcare for all Americans! 

That's coming out next week! You'll see. Everyone will be covered! It's just in draft form waiting for final embellishments!

Well said W.

[Bob Ness]

3 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

Thanks - Great reply, you write well. 

I thought there would be a grey area on this. 

Thanks Chris. I try hahaha

[Bob Ness]

1 hour ago, Benjamin Cole said:

"Perhaps it's no big deal to Jeff Carter and our forum members across the pond that Trump was used by Putin to actualize the "Gerasimov Doctrine" -- to fracture U.S. society along racial and cultural fault lines.  It worked!---W.

I wonder if it was Russians who carefully and skillfully played US media to make the Rittenhouse story a race story. 

Were the Russians were behind Jussie Smollett? Interesting question. 

I think the back story was the "race story" not the Rittenhouse malarky itself. Doesn't mean people read that in but I never got the feeling race was the major issue there except when he was gallivanting around with racist groups.

[Benjamin Cole]

4 hours ago, Chris Barnard said:

Suddenly the heat is on after daring to question the dreaded C narrative. How did he get cured so fast? Reputation destruction in full swing. 
 

 

Chris B. --

The way the mass media is demonizing and calling for censoring Joe Rogan is...spooky.

On COVID-19, I think the vaccines are fine, and should be free, but only for those who want them. After the elderly were voluntarily vaccinated I thought the fight was done. 

I do not understand the forced vaccination of children, who face extremely small risks from C19, nor the endless travel bans, vaccination police, lockdowns, etc. 

The reasonable balance has been lost...a parallel is letting the national security guys determine military sending and posture. 

BTW, I strongly suspect the Wuhan virus resulted from a lab leak. I put the odds at 10-1.

But...the lab leak was a debunked conspiracy theory. Right? 

Now, the same guys who "debunked" the Wuhan lab leak want me to believe...you name it. Sorry, the trust is gone. 

 

[Jeff Carter]

2 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

She should have been raped after dressing in a bikini. Something like that, Jeff? You have a strange way of making victims. The perpetrators should be victimized? The victims are the real perpetrators?

Bob - can you explain exactly how a military-industrial complex responsible since 2003 for the deaths of almost a million persons and the displacement of a staggering 38 million persons is in fact the victim, because a radical journalistic project called Wikileaks was formed to assist in exposing the obvious crimes committed by an unaccountable elite in this specific situation?

2 hours ago, Bob Ness said:

The Pentagon, CIA and DNC are organizations that us US citizens entrust (no matter what your or my opinion of them is) to engage in our defense (by extension Canada and Europe too!!) and political concerns (DNC) for the purpose of furthering our society...

Wikileaks and it's members are not part of what has been assembled to inspect and oversee the performance of those institutions. 

Bob - do you think the “institutions” which have been “assembled to inspect and oversee”  have been successful in light of the physical displacement of 38 million people since 2003? What exactly accomplishes the “earnest desire to right wrongs” done “properly”? Does that involve the NY Times and The Washington Post? So Assange is “problematic” - should he then be condemned to spend the rest of his life in a U.S. SuperMax prison?  Please explain.

[Kirk Gallaway]

2 hours ago, Benjamin Cole said:

Chris B. --

The way the mass media is demonizing and calling for censoring Joe Rogan is...spooky.

On COVID-19, I think the vaccines are fine, and should be free, but only for those who want them. After the elderly were voluntarily vaccinated I thought the fight was done. 

I do not understand the forced vaccination of children, who face extremely small risks from C19, nor the endless travel bans, vaccination police, lockdowns, etc. 

The reasonable balance has been lost...a parallel is letting the national security guys determine military sending and posture. 

BTW, I strongly suspect the Wuhan virus resulted from a lab leak. I put the odds at 10-1.

But...the lab leak was a debunked conspiracy theory. Right? 

Now, the same guys who "debunked" the Wuhan lab leak want me to believe...you name it. Sorry, the trust is gone. 

 

Well That's fascinating Ben, as usual. What new diatribes can you entertain us with?

Oh yeah, produce one article from somebody and say the entire MSM is going after Joe Rogan. What a twitter world we live in now.

Ben:After the elderly were voluntarily vaccinated I thought the fight was done. 

Yes apparently you were wrong.

Ben:I do not understand the forced vaccination of children, who face extremely small risks from C19, nor the endless travel bans, vaccination police, lockdowns, etc. 

So is this angst about  more lockdowns in the U.K. Ben.?

You know I've checked out ex pat boards and one thing that seems more overwhelming in the last year is the number of dismayed people, largely from some well off backgrounds, often in Europe,  who aren't content where they are who  despite all the turmoil they hear about in the U.S. think their life will somehow transform if they could only get to the U.S.!

So we're kind of in a place where we can be picky and choosy. Personally if it was up to me, I wouldn't have any unvaccinated people entering the U.S. Why do we need to take any chances? And Ben, being old, I'm afraid you'd need a booster. And I can feel how you're sick and tired you are of that "jab" thing. 

But I do sympathize with people who want a new life.  You could take your chances going over our southern border you're always so concerned about. But I warn you, you'd have to compete with a much younger more able bodied population to get through down there. And maybe just as well, because we don't really need any more retirees. Still, you're welcome to try!

 

Kind of like the Squid Games

 

 

heh heh

Edited December 14, 2021 by Kirk Gallaway

[Benjamin Cole]

19 minutes ago, Jeff Carter said:

Bob - can you explain exactly how a military-industrial complex responsible since 2003 for the deaths of almost a million persons and the displacement of a staggering 38 million persons is in fact the victim, because a radical journalistic project called Wikileaks was formed to assist in exposing the obvious crimes committed by an unaccountable elite in this specific situation?

Bob - do you think the “institutions” which have been “assembled to inspect and oversee”  have been successful in light of the physical displacement of 38 million people since 2003? What exactly accomplishes the “earnest desire to right wrongs” done “properly”? Does that involve the NY Times and The Washington Post? So Assange is “problematic” - should he then be condemned to spend the rest of his life in a U.S. SuperMax prison?  Please explain.

Jeff Carter can more than handle his own, but I gotta say he is more than right on this issue. 

Whatever your partisan leanings, the national security state has about 1,000 times the influence to stage and manipulate events, and control subsequent media coverage, than the Trumpers ever had. 

Beyond that, the DoD budget is $715 billion, the VA budget is $270 billion, the DHS budget is $90 billion, and the black budget maybe $100 billion. Total $1.175 trillion. 

Dudes, you are barking up the wrong tree, and a bonsai tree in a redwood forest, if you think the Trumpers are the threat to America. 

Besides all that, there was no chance in hell some halfwits around Trump were going to stage a coup, and zero connections between those halfwits and the halfwits who occupied the Capitol.  

But there are clues that there were federal instigators in the crowd on 1/6.

Trump will gone soon enough. The national security state, on the other hand....