Legal/Constitutional

The near total blackout of truth in the Western media makes this one of the most dangerous times in history, with coordinated “news” outlets acting collectively as a sort of Ministry of Government Lies. To try to escape this stranglehold, it is necessary to reach outside the echo chamber of massaged and approved opinion in which we are basted day in and day out. It’s not that difficult. I am perhaps one of the most hapless technophobes I know–my ten year old students have every new gadget possible, and their parents have even more. Yet somehow they can’t escape the echo chamber.

The White House Fool has repeatedly declared erroneously and foolishly that it is “against international law” for Crimea to exercise self-determination. Self-determination, as used by Washington, is a propaganda term that serves Washington’s empire but is not permissible for real people to exercise. On March 6 Obama telephoned Putin to tell the Russian President again that only Washington has the right to interfere in Ukraine and to insist against all logic that only the “government” in Kiev installed by the Washington-organized coup is “legitimate” and “democratic.”

So now we (or at least the 0.03% of us who care to hunt for it) discover that U.S. military spending is not actually being cut at all, but increasing. Also going up: U.S.

As the dramatic events in the Ukraine are unfolding the topic of what President Yanukovich can, or can not do, regularly comes up and I think that this is a good time to go back to basics and look at what a government — any government, regardless of its political orientation — can and even must do when confronted with an urban armed insurrection.

“Today no American is safe from his own government”, writes Paul Craig Roberts in his introduction to his new book on How America was Lost: From 9/11 to the Police/Warfare State (Clarity Press, 2014). To anticipate the essence of the book: The greatest threat to the freedom of the American people comes from their own government and not from an imaginary terrorist threat. This alarmist rhetoric serves as a pretext for America’s wars of aggression.

RT is the best English language news source available to Americans. On January 29, RT published a photo of 5 presidential appointees lying through their teeth to Congress.

The story told in Betty Medsger’s new book The Burglary: The Discovery of J. Edgar Hoover’s Secret FBI is a tale of a government drunk on its own power, some citizens determined to end the binge, and a time when heroes were not only made in sporting venues and the movies. It is about people putting their lives on the line in opposition to an encroaching police state and the men determined to imprison those people for their opposition.

In his 7,000-word State of the Union speech last month, President Obama waited 5,700 words before stintingly devoting a single sentence to the subject of surveillance. He didn’t mention the rogue NSA, didn’t name specific reforms, adding only that the important thing was that “public confidence” in the “vital work” of the intelligence community was maintained. This cavalier approach to the topic of the year belies the administration’s essential disinterest in the public interest. This perspective was reified in the last two weeks by the voices of the American intelligence community.

The powerless voices for the common good of America are ignored. Congress, through its decisions and actions, betray the very idea of public service for the common good. And the American people know it. Congress’ reputation has continued to nosedive, with only 10-15% of the populace currently approving its conduct.
The aim of this essay is to take an honest look at a dishonest assembly and then will close by proposing that the corporate escort service on Capitol Hill be replaced with honest and knowledgeable people dedicated to providing public service.

On this website, we’ve speculated that one outcome of the flood of NSA-centered revelations has been to desensitize U.S. citizens and diminish outrage at what is actually revealed. We are becoming conditioned to the horror story that is the National Security Administration.