In an interview with Consortium News Editor-in-Chief Joe Lauria, Pentagon Papers whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg says the Espionage Act, under which he was indicted, cannot apply to Julian Assange because he is a journalist. Speaking during an online vigil for Assange…Read more →
Joe Lauria, editor-in-chief of Consortium News, on Saturday helped moderate a daylong chain of interviews in defense of WikiLeaks and its publisher Julian Assange, including a discussion with Daniel Ellsberg. A #Unity4J online vigil was held on Saturday to defend the WikiLeaks…Read more →
Public reactions to an open letter from academics, journalists and politicians asking for co-existence with Russia show many Americans don’t buy the media’s bellicose spin, as Norman Solomon explains. By Norman Solomon Throughout the day before the summit in Helsinki,…Read more →
Support of Julian Assange outside the Ecuadorian Embassy (Hans Crescent, Knightsbridge, London). Marshall24 /Flickr
The Washington Post: Watchdog or stenographer to power?
by Ian Sinclair
Morning Star
22 March 2018
STEVEN SPIELBERG’S new film about the Washington Post’s decision in 1971 to publish the Pentagon Papers — a secret history of the Vietnam War that proved successive US presidents had lied to the US public — has received huge amounts of critical acclaim.
The Doomsday Machine, published in December by Bloomsbury, is Daniel Ellsberg’s account of the 1960s U.S. nuclear weapons program told from his experience as a consultant to the Pentagon and the White House. Ellsberg drafted Defense Secretary Robert McNamara’s nuclear war…Read more →
Imagine a film about a backer of an American war in the Third World who, as a State Department official, decides to visit and observe that war firsthand. After many months he learns that most of what our leaders have been telling the public about the war was wrong. In reality, our side was not winning, and most of the claims made for the effort were false. For example, patrols reported to protect certain areas did not even exist. The written reports describing these patrols were simply made up.
The new movie “The Post” tells the story of the Pentagon Papers from a curious perspective that ignores much of the drama of the real history, as James DiEugenio explains. By James DiEugenio Imagine a film about a backer of…Read more →
Police PR, mosh pit opera and Ticketmaster Taylor + this day in history w/Flight 007 and our song of the day by Mastodon on your Morning Monarchy for September 1, 2017.
Exclusive: As President Trump considers sending more troops to Afghanistan, it’s worth recalling the modern U.S. dynamic of politicians and generals making misguided judgments about war, writes ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern. By Ray McGovern Fifty years ago, I could have…Read more →
