Saturday 21 June 2014

GERRY CONLON DEAD IN THE BRITISH SCUM STATE OF OCCUPIED IRELAND



The Guildford Four: in the name of justice

As one of the Guildford Four, Gerry Conlon spent 15 years in prison for an IRA campaign he knew nothing about. More than 24 years later he has died still fighting for justice for others like the Craigavon Two.

Guildford Four - Gerry Conlon - in the name of justice
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Gerry Conlon: 'The Government knew we were being tortured' 
There are moments when I lose sight of Gerry Conlon through the fog of countless cigarettes smoked during our four-hour interview. He is in Liverpool to campaign for other victims of miscarriages of justice, and we meet in a rented apartment in the city's Chinatown. We are joined periodically by others who are there to support the cause. Each adds views on the various injustices they have suffered and each contributes to the cloud of thick smoke filling the room.
In 1974, the then 20-year-old Belfast-born Conlon was arrested over the IRA pub bombings in Guildford which killed five people. He had never been to Guildford. But along with the three other members of the group that became known as the Guildford Four, Conlon was sentenced to life in prison on the basis of false confessions made after days of mistreatment by Surrey police.
Conlon's father, Giuseppe, was also imprisoned as part of a group known as the Maguire Seven. The basis of their convictions was forensic evidence - later discredited - which the prosecution claimed proved they had handled explosives used in the bombings. The group, includingPatrick Maguire who was just 13 when he was arrested, were sentenced to between four and 14 years in prison.
In 1989 the Court of Appeal quashed the convictions of the Guildford Four when it was found that crucial alibi evidence - proving Conlon could not have done the bombings - had not been shown to the defence. There was also evidence of police collusion on fabricating the statements - the only evidence produced against them at the original trial. The Maguire Seven later had their convictions overturned, but by this time they had all served their sentences and been released, except Giuseppe Conlon who, already in failing health when he was arrested, died after five years in prison.
The Gerry Conlon that stood outside the High Court in London after his release was a triumphant and charismatic figure. He told massed press and supporters that he was an innocent man who had spent 15 years in prison for a crime he didn't commit. He vowed to clear his late father's name and fight for the release of others, like the Birmingham Six and the Bridgwater Three, who had been wrongly convicted.
This is the Conlon that played repeatedly on the news bulletins. And this is the man portrayed by Daniel Day-Lewis as the star of In the Name Of the Father, the partly fictionalised 1993 film based on Conlon's autobiography. But Conlon's feelings of triumph were short-lived and he was far from ready for the outside world.
"If you spend a few weeks in the Big Brother house, you get counselling when you leave to prepare you for life outside. I spent 15 years being moved from one terrible prison to the next, being treated like I was lower than the worst kind of paedophile. When I got released I was given £34.90 and told to go."
When long-term prisoners come up for release, they are slowly reintroduced to the outside world, with supervised day releases, then weekend releases. When wrongful convictions are quashed, prisoners leave straight away, with no preparation for how to cope with life on the outside.
Conlon was initially on a high after his release. He put everything into making good his pledge to get the convictions of the Birmingham Six overturned. After months of frantic campaigning, he went back to his mother's house in Belfast to take a break when suddenly the impact of what he had been through hit him.
"I came out of the bathroom and my father, who'd died years earlier, was sitting on the settee in prison pyjamas and a prison dressing gown. Since then I haven't been able to get the terrible images out of my head.
"I never had one suicidal thought in prison. Now I have them all the time. I haven't been able to have a relationship, I've turned to alcohol and drugs, it's a constant waking nightmare."
More than twenty years after his release, the man sitting in front of me is no less eloquent and determined than the angry 35-year old who stood outside court, but his mind has never escaped from prison. He speaks lyrically, without pause, recalling full names, exact dates and locations of the grim landmarks of his ordeal. But at every turn he is visibly haunted by the terrible memories that won't stay in the past and the injustices which continue in the present.
Conlon believes that because their case caused such political embarrassment, there was what he calls a "whispering campaign" around Westminster after their release. That although their conviction was quashed, the authorities wanted people to think they were freed on a technicality, but may actually have been guilty.
He is angry that nobody was ever punished for their wrongful imprisonment. He is also convinced that it was not just the police that lied to get them convicted. He believes the conspiracy to jail innocent people went right to the top.
"The Government knew, right from the start, that we were innocent. They knew we had nothing to do with the IRA, but they didn't care. That's why they have a 75-year immunity order on our case. Because they want all the people involved to be dead before they release our files."
Because this cloud of suspicion was allowed to remain, Conlon was denied access to psychiatric treatment. It was not until 2007 that he began getting regular therapy, and even then only one hour a week. This has helped, but is far too little, coming far too late, for someone who suffered trauma on the level that he did.
"I have what they call a disassociation problem: something comes in to my head and I'm back in prison. I'm back in Wakefield, being tortured... hands behind my back, gun in my mouth, it doesn't go away.
"The reason I took drugs and alcohol was because I couldn't deal with what my mind was projecting. To get some relief from the nightmares, day and night.
"But then the nightmares started breaking through with a sledge hammer, and once that happened it was a question of giving up the drugs and fighting to get professional help."
The effects of his wrongful conviction went far beyond Conlon and the others who were wrongfully convicted. Prison visits were supervised and any personal details discussed would be spread around by mischievous warders, so they stuck to discussing pleasantries.
"I'd spent months in solitary, in the dark. I'd been beaten, had people defecating in my food, putting glass in my food. I'd seen people murdered. Yet I had to tell my family they were treating me well.
"When you come out you find the relationship with your family during your time inside was built on falsehoods. I didn't know that my mother and my sisters were being strip searched and abused when they came to see me. You can't calculate the devastating effect it has on your family."
As we are speaking Conlon sees a news report on the TV screen behind me about the treatment of the former Guantánamo Bay detainee Binyan Mohamed.
"Nothing has changed. The Government knew we were being tortured in the 1970s. When I hear about Binyam Mohamed it all comes back. My mind flashes back to the beatings, the threats and the mental cruelty I suffered at the hands of the police."
Conlon has become frustrated by the lack of political will to help victims of miscarriages of justice. The Miscarriages of Justice Organisation (Mojo) was formed by Paddy Hill after he and other members of the Birmingham Six had their convictions quashed in 1991. Mojo is campaigning to have a trauma centre set up dedicated to helping miscarriage of justice victims after they leave prison. They get sympathetic noises from politicians but little action.
In 1997, Conlon was given half a million pounds in compensation. Giving money to victims of miscarriages of justice is likened by Conlon to giving them a "bottle of whisky and a revolver".
"They may as well say: 'here's the money, now go and kill yourself.'
"They gave me £546,000 - for taking me, torturing me and framing me; taking my father, torturing him and having him die in prison; then leaving me sinking in the quicksand of my own nightmares."
In 2005 the Guildford Four and the Maguire Seven finally got a personal apology from Tony Blair. Conlon told the then Prime Minister that the apology would only mean something if it came with more help for the victims.
"Blair turned to [parliamentary private secretary] David Hanson and said: 'David, get on to this right away.' Since then we've had no help. We followed up on Tony Blair's promise and were basically told to get lost. He lied to us - the apology means nothing."
"If there was a trauma centre, within a year, you could probably be living a normal productive life rather than being haunted by nightmares."
But picking up the pieces of those who have already been wrongly convicted is cure, rather than prevention. Seeing the mistreatment of suspects and innocent people going to prison makes him feel that Britain has not moved on since the 1970s.
"Back then it was the Irish, now it's Muslims. But nobody is safe, one of the Guildford Four was English. Everyone thinks this happens to other people, but it's closer than you think.
"Who's to say you're not going to be next. Look at Sally Clarke, she was a solicitor and she drank herself to death after she was wrongly convicted of killing her two sons."
What is striking about Conlon is that while he is angry, he is amazingly lacking in bitterness. He is clearly suffering greatly with the horrors of 15 years being treated "worse than a twisted child killer". He wants his case files released; he wants proper post-sentence care for other victims of miscarriages - but he is not consumed by hate.
A common theme he returns to is how trauma counselling is given to people who have experienced what, to him, would seem fairly mild. But every time he mentions another group getting "the best counselling available", he pauses, and slowly emphasises, "and so they should, and so they should. But what about us?"
Conlon is now "full of" psychiatric drugs, and his terrifying flashbacks continue. But through the pain caused by his years in prison he finds some purpose.
"I want my father's death to count for something. It's the hardest thing you can imagine to be put in prison for something you didn't do. If I can do something to stop it happening to other people my life will have meant something."







BRITISH HUMAN RIGHTS CRIMES 'Assange.. free ..next few days' - WikiLeaks?





Noam Chomsky: The Corporate Elite Are Actively Courting Disaster  Link





ROTTEN RUC INFILTRATE BRITISH POLICE IN IRELAND AND ENGLAND

The disgraced RUC are running the British paramiltary force again in Occupied Ireland, with almost all of the corrupt politicians at Stormont compromised and woe betide any Irish Nationalist seeking justice of this industrial war machine. Yes it's business as usual,  with the shiny new ex-RUC Chief Constable George Hamilton in charge,

The chief constable of West Yorkshire Police has been suspended, pending an investigation by his former force in Occuped Ireland. Gilmore, who grew up in Belfast and spent most of his police career in the RUC in British Occupied Ireland, was suspended by the West Yorkshire police and crime commissioner Mark Burns-Williamson. Also former Assistant chief constable Duncan McCausland, in 2010, has been questioned over alleged corruption regarding police vehicle contracts.

A 37-year-old member of RUC/PSNI staff arrested on Tuesday, as part of a police corruption investigation was released yesterday evening, pending a report being sent to the Public Prosecution Service. The list goes on and rather than waste time,  the whole lot of these RUC/PSNI are rotten and corrupt, policing the Scum State of British Occupied Ireland. This is why the native populance throw stones, rubbish, petrol bombs at them when, they come into their housing estates.


In the meantime an official has been suspended from dutym. The RUC/PSNI said in a statement, \the suspects were arrested on suspicion of a range of offences, including bribery, misconduct in public office and procuring misconduct in public office.

One is a former high-ranking RUC/PSNI officer. Another a serving British paramilitary RUC/PSNI police officer and two other men also in custody in Antrim police station, while two men are being questioned in England.

As part of this continuing investigation into alleged corruption over RUC/PSNI vehicle contracts, a 71-year-old man was detained in Co Down yesterday on suspicion of bribery and procuring misconduct in public office. He remains in custody.

Huge amounts of British taxpayers monies, are being spent on the disgraced RUC/PSNI since 2002 re-hiring corrupt RUC officers, involved in collusion and Britain's ongoing dirty war against the Irish natives, with the old RUC  working as agency staff.The amount of British taxpayers money squandered is staggering, with a £106m bill for ex-RUC officers; the increase of these veterans's numbers going back into the PSNI, on a regular basis, from hundreds of personnel annually in 2002, to thousands annually, just a few years later, and by the start of 2012, 75% of agency workers in the British paramilitary police, coming solely from ex-RUC personnel, many of them also in secret, sectarian, loyalist organizations.


The British brought back these retired policemen, after searching in every luxury holiday home complex, beach and golf courses along places like the Rivera and sex resorts like Pattaya, to persuade these beer bellied ex-pats, to come back home, to earn plenty of dosh, supporting the inexperienced, frail paramilitary PSNI. With so many aged ex-RUC officers back on the payroll, it suggests major problems within the paramilitary PSNI and no expertise. Many of the more experienced paramilitary British police, have gone further afield, to earn massive amounts of money, as mercenaries in the private wars of Central African business.

Several senior former RUC senior officers, are working in police forces of many tinpot dictatorships, as well as Iraq and Afghanistan. Of course it is too late for Sinn Fein to complain now, about the re-hiring of so many old RUC staff. They foolishly signed up to an arrangement at St Andrews in 2006, which handed full control, to the unsupervised British Secret Service of MI5, who have just appointed ex-RUC officer, George Hamilton as Chief Constable, from the ranks of the disgraced RUC,
The leading role of the British Secret Service MI5, a law unto themselves in all policing operations in British Occupied Ireland, is motivated by huge overspend, particularly with cozy arrangements of old wine in new bottles, that have come back into the paramilitary PSNI, now under the supreme command of one of their own, RUC Chief Constable George Hamilton. Neither the elected Executive and the Department of Justice, have any operational control over any policing in British Occupied Ireland, which is farcical in supposed Peace process context

There are of course major concerns about, ex-RUC officers, who have past form in running sectarian killer agents, who murdered Human Rights lawyers and whole innocent families at random, which has been thoroughly documented within both republican and loyalist organisations. None of these numerous killers within the RUC have been brought to justice.

The RUC handling of informants, directly involved in hate crimes, including murder, particularly by UVF/RUC double agents, is one of the biggest scandals of the troubles. There surely will be new scandals in the very near future, involving loyalist sectarian activists and pseudo-republicans committing murder crimes, while all the time working for RUC again, along with British Secret Service MI5 state assets, in British Occupied Ireland. The RUC are running the force again with almost all politicians compromised and woe betide any Irish Nationalist seeking justice of the machine. Yes it's business as usual with the shiny new RUC Chief Constable George Hamilton.


The huge sums of British taxpayers money involved in RUC/PSNI corruption and bribery, in the procurement of jeeps and war equipment, is just a small part of the overall massive sums of monies, wasted on colluding corrupt politicians at Stormont and Westmnister, political prisoners, careerist informers, secret sevice agencies and corrupt judicial bribery. The British paramilitary police are scum, just like the politicians and the whole British industrial war comples in Ireland which is simply a money making racket at the ordinary British taxpayers expense.






Friday 20 June 2014

WORLD CUP JULIAN ASSANGE & NEWRY PROTEST






Defend Julian Assange!

19 June 2014
Today marks two years since WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange was forced to take refuge in Ecuador’s London embassy, having been made the target of a filthy campaign by the Obama administration to have him extradited to the US to face espionage and treason charges punishable by life in prison or even death.
Assange’s sole “crime” was to publish secret documents exposing war crimes carried out by the US government in Iraq and Afghanistan and conspiracies hatched by the US State Department in countries around the world.
In a telephone press conference on the eve of the grim anniversary, Assange demanded that US Attorney General Eric Holder drop an ongoing national security investigation against WikiLeaks or resign. He also spoke on the legacy of President Barack Obama, noting that the “former constitutional law professor” will be remembered for “the construction of extrajudicial kill lists of individuals, including of American citizens,” and “being the president who conducted more Espionage Act investigations against journalists and their sources than all previous presidents combined going back to 1917 and the original issuance of the Espionage Act.”
Since June 19, 2012, Assange has been forced to hole up in the Ecuadorian embassy to stay out of the clutches of British authorities. The UK government denied him safe conduct to Ecuador, which granted him asylum on the grounds that he faces the threat of torture and death if sent to the US.
London is seeking to have Assange arrested and extradited to Sweden on the basis of trumped-up sexual misconduct allegations, a transparent subterfuge to effect his delivery into the hands of the US government.
Ever since Assange entered the embassy building it has been the target of a round-the-clock siege by the British police at a cost of over $10 million. At one point, the British government announced that it did not respect the international principle of diplomatic asylum and threatened to have the embassy stormed.
The British parliament amended the country’s extradition laws in March of this year, barring the extradition of individuals unless they have been charged with a crime and are slated to go to trial. There have been no such charges leveled against Assange, and Swedish authorities found in 2010 that the allegations made against him by two Swedish women—one of them active with CIA-connected anti-Castro Cuban groups—were insufficient to bring a case.
Nonetheless, the British government is proceeding on the basis of the old law—riding roughshod over Assange’s right to asylum—because it is intent on doing Washington’s bidding.
The Obama administration has kept open a grand jury empaneled in 2010 to bring secret charges against Assange. Last month, in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit, the FBI and the Justice Department confirmed that they are continuing an active “criminal/national security” investigation against both Assange and WikiLeaks, adding that there had been “developments in the investigation over the last year.”
This revelation was offered to block a demand that the US government provide the names of all those it had spied upon in connection with WikiLeaks—the National Security Agency (NSA) reportedly recorded information on everyone who merely accessed the group’s web site—and a record of communications with Internet service providers and financial companies that were pressured to cut off WikiLeaks’ funding and Internet access.
The FBI statement gave the lie to claims floated in the press last November that the US government had no interest in Assange and that his seeking refuge in the Ecuadorian embassy was a matter of “paranoia” or “self-aggrandizement”—a patent attempt to lure him into the hands of American authorities.
The witch-hunt against Assange is part of a broader campaign mounted by the US government to silence all those who challenge and expose its crimes both at home and abroad. Private First Class Chelsea (Bradley) Manning is now serving a 35-year sentence at the military prison at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas for leaking hundreds of thousands of classified documents to WikiLeaks.
Edward Snowden, the former NSA contractor who released documents exposing the vast secret and illegal spying apparatus through which the NSA collects, stores and examines the emails, phone calls, texts and other communications of millions of people within the US and around the world, has been reduced to the status of a stateless person, forced to live in exile in Russia. It was revealed earlier this week that when Snowden first arrived in Moscow, Washington sent one of its “extraordinary rendition” aircraft to Europe with the aim of seizing him.
Washington’s determination to silence and punish Assange only intensified after WikiLeaks aided Snowden in escaping arrest by US authorities and reaching Moscow.
Others have also been jailed, including ex-CIA officer John Kiriakou, who was prosecuted for publicly exposing the agency’s use of torture.
It is striking that, under conditions where the criminal policies US imperialism has pursued over the past period are blowing up in Washington’s face in the debacle in Iraq, so many of those who have attempted to expose these policies of aggressive war, torture and police-state spying are now either in prison, enforced exile, or locked in an embassy surrounded by police.
In the meantime, those responsible for war crimes in Iraq and crimes against the American Constitution continue to enjoy full immunity. None of them have been called to account or punished. As for the various outlets of the corporate media that turned themselves into propaganda tools for US imperialism in the Iraq war, they are now covering up for their complicity in that crime and helping to pave the way for even more terrible ones in Iraq and elsewhere.
The methods of the Obama administration denounced by Assange Wednesday have been developed to defend the interests of the financial oligarchy that controls the US government. Under conditions of a global breakdown of capitalism and an ever widening gulf between itself and the broad masses of working people, this oligarchy cannot tolerate the exposure of state crimes and secrets. It moves inexorably toward dictatorial forms of rule.
The only real constituency for the defense of democratic rights is to be found in the working class. What is required is the independent mobilization of workers, students and youth to defend Assange, Manning, Snowden and others who are victims of state conspiracy and repression. This campaign is inseparable from a struggle against the capitalist system, which is giving rise to both war and police state dictatorship as it seeks to impose the full burden of its crisis on the backs of working people.
Bill Van Auken




Thursday 19 June 2014

CHRIS HEDGES INTERVIEWS NOAM CHOMSKY AS NEWRY PROTESTS



Noam Chomsky is a renowned professor of linguistics at MIT. He has authored over 30 political books dissecting U.S. interventionism in the developing world, the political economy of human rights and the propaganda role of corporate media.

Transcript

Chris Hedges Interviews Noam Chomsky (1/3)CHRIS HEDGES, INVESTIGATIVE JOURNALIST: Let's begin with a classic paradigm which is throughout the Industrial Revolution, which has been cited by theorists from Marx to Kropotkin to Proudhon and to yourself, that you build a consciousness among workers within the manufacturing class, and eventually you lead to a kind of autonomous position where workers can control their own production.
We now live in a system, a globalized system, where most of the working class in industrial countries like the United States are service workers. We have reverted to a Dickensian system where those who actually produced live in conditions that begin to replicate almost slave labor--and, I think, as you have written, in places like southern China in fact are slave [labor]. What's the new paradigm for resistance? You know, how do we learn from the old and confront the new?
NOAM CHOMSKY, LINGUIST AND POLITICAL COMMENTATOR: Well, I think we can draw many very good lessons from the early period of the Industrial Revolution. It was, of course, earlier in England, but let's take here in the United States. The Industrial Revolution took off right around here, eastern Massachusetts, mid 19th century. This was a period when independent farmers were being driven into the industrial system--men and women, incidentally, women from the farms, so-called factory girls--and they bitterly resented it. It was a period of a very free press, the most in the history of the country. There was a wide variety of journals, ethnic, labor, or others. And when you read them, they're pretty fascinating.
The people driven into the industrial system regarded it as an attack on their personal dignity, on their rights as human beings. They were free human beings who were being forced into what they called wage slavery, which they regarded as not very different from chattel slavery. In fact, this was such a popular view that it was actually a slogan of the Republican Party, that the only difference between working for a wage and being a slave is that working for a wage is supposedly temporary--pretty soon you'll be free. Other than that, they're not different.
And they bitterly resented the fact that the industrial system was even taking away their rich cultural life. And the cultural life was rich. You know, there are by now studies of the British working class and the American working class, and they were part of high culture of the day. Actually, I remembered this as late as the 1930s with my own family, you know, sort of unemployed working-class, and they said, this is being taken away from us, we're being forced to be something like slaves. They argued that if you're, say, a journeyman, a craftsman, and you sell your product, you're selling what you produced. If you're a wage earner, you're selling yourself, which is deeply offensive. They condemned what they called the new spirit of the age: gain wealth, forgetting all but self. Sounds familiar.
And it was extremely radical. It was combined with the most radical democratic movement in American history, the early populist movement--radical farmers. It began in Texas, spread into the Midwest--enormous movement of farmers who wanted to free themselves from the domination by the Northeastern bankers and capitalists, guys that ran the markets, you know, sort of forced them to sell what they produced on credit and squeeze them with credit and so on. They went on to develop their own banks, their own cooperatives. They started to link up with the Knights of Labor--major labor movement which held that, as they put it, those who work in the mills ought to own them, that it should be a free, democratic society.
These were very powerful movements. By the 1890s, you know, workers were taking over towns and running them in Western Pennsylvania. Homestead was a famous case. Well, they were crushed by force. It took some time. Sort of the final blow was Woodrow Wilson's red scare right after the First World War, which virtually crushed the labor movement.
At the same time, in the early 19th century, the business world recognized, both in England and the United States, that sufficient freedom had been won so that they could no longer control people just by violence. They had to turn to new means of control. The obvious ones were control of opinions and attitudes. That's the origins of the massive public relations industry, which is explicitly dedicated to controlling minds and attitudes.
The first--it partly was government. The first government commission was the British Ministry of Information. This is long before Orwell--he didn't have to invent it. So the Ministry of Information had as its goal to control the minds of the people of the world, but particularly the minds of American intellectuals, for a very good reason: they knew that if they can delude American intellectuals into supporting British policy, they could be very effective in imposing that on the population of the United States. The British, of course, were desperate to get the Americans into the war with a pacifist population. Woodrow Wilson won the 1916 election with the slogan "Peace without Victory". And they had to drive a pacifist population into a population that bitterly hated all things German, wanted to tear the Germans apart. The Boston Symphony Orchestra couldn't play Beethoven. You know. And they succeeded.
Wilson set up a counterpart to the Ministry of Information called the Committee on Public Information. You know, again, you can guess what it was. And they've at least felt, probably correctly, that they had succeeded in carrying out this massive change of opinion on the part of the population and driving the pacifist population into, you know, warmongering fanatics.
And the people on the commission learned a lesson. One of them was Edward Bernays, who went on to found--the main guru of the public relations industry. Another one was Walter Lippman, who was the leading progressive intellectual of the 20th century. And they both drew the same lessons, and said so.
The lessons were that we have what Lippmann called a "new art" in democracy, "manufacturing consent". That's where Ed Herman and I took the phrase from. For Bernays it was "engineering of consent". The conception was that the intelligent minority, who of course is us, have to make sure that we can run the affairs of public affairs, affairs of state, the economy, and so on. We're the only ones capable of doing it, of course. And we have to be--I'm quoting--"free of the trampling and the roar of the bewildered herd", the "ignorant and meddlesome outsiders"--the general public. They have a role. Their role is to be "spectators", not participants. And every couple of years they're permitted to choose among one of the "responsible men", us.
And the John Dewey circle took the same view. Dewey changed his mind a couple of years later, to his credit, but at that time, Dewey and his circle were writing that--speaking of the First World War, that this was the first war in history that was not organized and manipulated by the military and the political figures and so on, but rather it was carefully planned by rational calculation of "the intelligent men of the community", namely us, and we thought it through carefully and decided that this is the reasonable thing to do, for all kind of benevolent reasons.
And they were very proud of themselves.
There were people who disagreed. Like, Randolph Bourne disagreed. He was kicked out. He couldn't write in the Deweyite journals. He wasn't killed, you know, but he was just excluded.
And if you take a look around the world, it was pretty much the same. The intellectuals on all sides were passionately dedicated to the national cause--all sides, Germans, British, everywhere.
There were a few, a fringe of dissenters, like Bertrand Russell, who was in jail; Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, in jail; Randolph Bourne, marginalized; Eugene Debs, in jail for daring to question the magnificence of the war. In fact, Wilson hated him with such passion that when he finally declared an amnesty, Debs was left out, you know, had to wait for Warren Harding to release him. And he was the leading labor figure in the country. He was a candidate for president, Socialist Party, and so on.
But the lesson that came out is we believe you can and of course ought to control the public, and if we can't do it by force, we'll do it by manufacturing consent, by engineering of consent. Out of that comes the huge public relations industry, massive industry dedicated to this.
Incidentally, it's also dedicated to undermining markets, a fact that's rarely noticed but is quite obvious. Business hates markets. They don't want to--and you can see it very clearly. Markets, if you take an economics course, are based on rational, informed consumers making rational choices. Turn on the television set and look at the first ad you see. It's trying to create uninformed consumers making irrational choices. That's the whole point of the huge advertising industry. But also to try to control and manipulate thought. And it takes various forms in different institutions. The media do it one way, the academic institutions do it another way, and the educational system is a crucial part of it.
This is not a new observation. There's actually an interesting essay by--Orwell's, which is not very well known because it wasn't published. It's the introduction toAnimal Farm. In the introduction, he addresses himself to the people of England and he says, you shouldn't feel too self-righteous reading this satire of the totalitarian enemy, because in free England, ideas can be suppressed without the use of force. And he doesn't say much about it. He actually has two sentences. He says one reason is the press "is owned by wealthy men" who have every reason not to want certain ideas to be expressed.
But the second reason, and the more important one in my view, is a good education, so that if you've gone to all the good schools, you know, Oxford, Cambridge, and so on, you have instilled into you the understanding that there are certain things it wouldn't do to say--and I don't think he went far enough: wouldn't do to think. And that's very broad among the educated classes. That's why overwhelmingly they tend to support state power and state violence, and maybe with some qualifications, like, say, Obama is regarded as a critic of the invasion of Iraq. Why? Because he thought it was a strategic blunder. That puts him on the same moral level as some Nazi general who thought that the second front was a strategic blunder--you should knock off England first. That's called criticism.
And sometimes it's kind of outlandish. For example, there was just a review inThe New York Times Book Review of Glenn Greenwald's new book by Michael Kinsley, and which bitterly condemned him as--mostly character assassination. Didn't say anything substantive. But Kinsley did say that it's ridiculous to think that there's any repression in the media in the United States, 'cause we can write quite clearly and criticize anything. And he can, but then you have to look at what he says, and it's quite interesting.
In the 1980s, when the major local news story was the massive U.S. atrocities in Central America--they were horrendous; I mean, it wasn't presented that way, but that's what was happening--Kinsley was the voice of the left on television. And there were interesting incidents. At one point, the U.S. Southern Command, which ran--you know, it was the overseer of these actions--gave instructions to the terrorist force that they were running in Nicaragua, called the Contras--and they were a terrorist force--they gave them orders to--they said "not to (...) duke it out with the Sandinistas", meaning avoid the Nicaraguan army, and attack undefended targets like agricultural cooperatives and, you know, health clinics and so on. And they could do it, because they were the first guerrillas in history to have high-level communications equipment, you know, computers and so on. The U.S., the CIA, just controlled the air totally, so they could send instructions to the terrorist forces telling them how to avoid the Nicaraguan army detachments and attack undefended civilian targets.
Well, this was mentioned; you know, it wasn't publicized, but it was mentioned. And Americas Watch, which later became part of Human Rights Watch, made some protests. And Michael Kinsley responded. He condemned Americas Watch for their emotionalism. He said, we have to recognize that we have to accept a pragmatic criterion. We have to ask--something like this--he said, we have to compare the amount of blood and misery poured in with the success of the outcome in producing democracy--what we'll call democracy. And if it meets the pragmatic criterion, then terrorist attacks against civilian targets are perfectly legitimate--which is not a surprising view in his case. He's the editor ofThe New RepublicThe New Republic, supposedly a liberal journal, was arguing that we should support Latin American fascists because there are more important things than human rights in El Salvador, where they were murdering tens of thousands of people.
That's the liberals. And, yeah, they can get in the media no problem. And they're praised for it, regarded with praise. All of this is part of the massive system of--you know, it's not that anybody sits at the top and plans at all; it's just exactly as Orwell said: it's instilled into you. It's part of a deep indoctrination system which leads to a certain way of looking at the world and looking at authority, which says, yes, we have to be subordinate to authority, we have to believe we're very independent and free and proud of it. As long as we keep within the limits, we are. Try to go beyond those limits, you're out.









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    interesting question from hedges. interesting history from chomsky. answer to the question would have been interesting.




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        One of the things that makes me suspicious of people like Noam Chomsky, Amy Goodman, Thom Hartmann, etc, is that they rarely if ever name the names of the plutocratic families, the corporate oligarchs and the international banksters that are wreaking havoc upon the People, both here in the USA and around the world and upon our beloved Mother Earth.
        And they rarely if ever connect the dots and present the Big Picture and what is coming down the pike.
        Moreover, they spend little to no time presenting well-thought-out viable step-by-step plans of action with strategies and tactics that each and every one of us must take if we are to get to a place where it will be easier to usher in a Whole New Way of Living rooted in Love and Wisdom.




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            There seems to be a lot of empty chariots around. lots of complaining, no revolution in the works. The only way to beat moneyed power is a long term movement(8-12 years) planned to overthrow the government. I see no plan in the works.
            To see how complaint the mainstream media has become watch NPR News., now a vassal of the oligarchs.
            Paul Craig Roberts is a truth teller The USA is entrenched in its madness.. particularly the powerful. No mention of breaking out of war cycle or improving quality of life . Entrenched. Empty suits running the world.




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                We have the capability of providing food, clothing, shelter, education and healthcare, to the most excellent degree, for each and every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, and to do it in such a way that was in Harmony with Nature rather than against Nature. We already have a gazillion creative solutions.
                Here is a rough draft of my proposal. Please feel free to critique it and tear it apart if you must. Let us learn together and come up with a step-by-step outline of how we go from the current state of affairs to a Whole New Way of Living rooted in Love and Wisdom.
                At the moment, the Presidency is pretty much out of reach.
                The system is rigged and at this level it is difficult to overcome.
                We need to change the laws.
                We must work from the bottom up.
                We start from where we live.
                We take charge of our own city/town/village and we show the world what is possible.
                For instance, here in NYC, about 72% of eligible voters don't vote in the NYC Mayoral election. And at least 2/3 of them are progressive.
                5 million New Yorkers are eligible to vote.
                Only 1 million usually vote (20% of eligible voters).
                The mayorship is usually won with less than 800,000 votes.
                We start by creating a Majority Voting Bloc.
                This means that all we have to do is to inspire just 1 million individuals from the 4 million to vote together for the candidates who are best for the People. This Voting Bloc will enable us to win the Mayorship and the City Council and members of the House.
                Then we will be able to repeal laws that do not serve the People and enact laws that do.
                Then we will be in a better position to finally implement the gazillion wonderful creative solutions we already have without impediment.
                Other cities/towns/villages of the world will be inspired to do the same.
                In time, we will be in a position to win the Governorships, the State Senate and the State Assembly. Then later the US Senate and the Presidency.
                Then from there we can more easily usher in a Whole New Way of Living rooted in True Love and Wisdom.
                i am turning around and mentoring on average about 10 new uninformed/misinformed people every week.
                It is imperative that each and every one of us, without exception, does the same.
                A Bug's Life - ''Then they ALL might stand up to us'': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

                  see more



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                  you have passed the nine circles of hell in your western education. you do not have to spell right to speak the truth. In fact deceivers speak relatively well but any classic westerner grounded in the priceless knowledge of the west knows of shadow of truths and half truths
                  (language is a abstract system that bridges to true systems e.g. math). You have to ask the right questions. it is akin to the relationship of kant and the deceptive language of Hegel. The orgin of truth is in the blank pallet of the mind, the mystical intersecting yoke of waves of energy collapsing into into probability of a chess player using prescience to guess an outcome. I call it a fluid mosaic model adding the function of time to see us grow organically as cells dividing fractal.The primordial western dark subconsciousness vs. truth light of western culture. It is archetypal battle between good and evil




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                      Jacob, I suggest they rarely are aware of a viable solution. The are in essence political gadflies. Full of facts about atrocities, know nothing about how to succeed. Ralph Nader was the first I saw with this tendencies.




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                          I sense a disturbance in the force almost as if a shadow has sprung up.




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                              yes, another particularly appropriate conditioned response




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                                  You understand that every billionaire who supports the reduction of social programs and education, and the growth of "defense" programs, is at fault. Since there are 492 in the USA alone, only a few who disagree with information collection, and fewer who might disagree with privatisation, would be easier to list, IF we knew who they were, IF there are any at all.
                                  Over 300 went to the Koch Bros thing in Dana Point, and if you lust to learn names , you can just visit information on that gathering to find 300 of those who push feudalism.
                                  As Chomsky said, wage slavery is slavery. Get that straight - that THOSE SLAVES WORK WILLINGLY FOR THOSE WHO CREATE THE OLIGARCHY. So you must add EVERYONE who works for wages to your list. All the whining about social injustice by anyone who shops at WalMart or such places, is equal to lying politicians.
                                  As those very unhappy people who work for the oligarchs become more unhappy, perhaps they will become as violent as those who support them. Such a civil war seems somewhere in the offing, once the ridiculous focus of the USA on Southwest Asia ends.
                                  Who will suffer? Not the short list of wealthy or their politicians. Those who grasp at life under their heel, and those who grasp for a life free of their control, although pretty much the same - lower class, calling themselves middle class - it is they who will suffer, THEY who will kill one another, just as always in war. The privileged will grow on to become warhog senators, or warhog industrial management.
                                  Other innocents will be raped, starved, their lives made into suffering by those who pretend that they choose sides, but in reality, just want to replace one name with their own. Since so few can be lord, boss, CEO, prez, most will convince themselves that it is somehow courageous to extend war, killing, suffering forever, violently desperately trying to perpetrate suffering while avoiding it themselves, claiming they are patriots or some such vile label.
                                  You say you want their names, those whose fault it is. What will you do with them? strip them of wealth? assassinate? You are fools.
                                  All you need to know is whether you want to live in the slave/stratified society. Then either make your decision to cease supporting it, or grovel for your worshipped leaders.

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                                      Very hard not to shop at Walmart when you live in a small city and are broke. They want people broke. That is the only way to go back and shop at such a staid place. There is no enjoyment shopping there. It is a necessity.




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                                    Remember even the house of Pericles became corrupt.




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                                      hey are demagogues in a global game of risk and are the oracles of delphi.




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                                          usa....By golly you have the page why don't you drop all the names for us. Be sure you have the credible proof to save yourself from a law suit. And by the way. Why do we need names? We step outside the political model and form 'community cooperative models' and create rules where whomever they are can't operate. I love the critics that have no solutions themselves.




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                                              We have the capability of providing food, clothing, shelter, education and healthcare, to the most excellent degree, for each and every man, woman and child on the face of the earth, and to do it in such a way that was in Harmony with Nature rather than against Nature. We already have a gazillion creative solutions.
                                              Here is a rough draft of my proposal. Please feel free to critique it and tear it apart if you must. Let us learn together and come up with a step-by-step outline of how we go from the current state of affairs to a Whole New Way of Living rooted in Love and Wisdom.
                                              At the moment, the Presidency is pretty much out of reach.
                                              The system is rigged and at this level it is difficult to overcome.
                                              We need to change the laws.
                                              We must work from the bottom up.
                                              We start from where we live.
                                              We take charge of our own city/town/village and we show the world what is possible.
                                              For instance, here in NYC, about 72% of eligible voters don't vote in the NYC Mayoral election. And at least 2/3 of them are progressive.
                                              5 million New Yorkers are eligible to vote.
                                              Only 1 million usually vote (20% of eligible voters).
                                              The mayorship is usually won with less than 800,000 votes.
                                              We start by creating a Majority Voting Bloc.
                                              This means that all we have to do is to inspire just 1 million individuals from the 4 million to vote together for the candidates who are best for the People. This Voting Bloc will enable us to win the Mayorship and the City Council and members of the House.
                                              Then we will be able to repeal laws that do not serve the People and enact laws that do.
                                              Then we will be in a better position to finally implement the gazillion wonderful creative solutions we already have without impediment.
                                              Other cities/towns/villages of the world will be inspired to do the same.
                                              In time, we will be in a position to win the Governorships, the State Senate and the State Assembly. Then later the US Senate and the Presidency.
                                              Then from there we can more easily usher in a Whole New Way of Living rooted in True Love and Wisdom.
                                              i am turning around and mentoring on average about 10 new uninformed/misinformed people every week.
                                              It is imperative that each and every one of us, without exception, does the same.
                                              A Bug's Life - ''Then they ALL might stand up to us'': http://www.youtube.com/watch?v...

                                                see more



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                                                  And what will you do when the the plutocratic families, the corporate oligarchs and the international banksters use cointelpro tactics and send in the police? What will you do when they use the mainstream media, the legal system and the financial system to neutralize your good work as they have done so many times before throughout history?




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                                                      usa....Your remark about NYC being '...at least 2/3 progressive...' is ridiculous out of your so called stats with no reference given. And what does 'progressive' mean to you anyway? Anyone not on the far right?




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                                                        usa...and what does all of your discourse have to do with your criticism of Noam Chomsky not dropping names? CommunityRightsPDX. org.




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                                                            Then please present his well-thought-out viable step-by-step plans of action with strategies and tactics that each and every one of us must take if we are to get to a place where it will be easier to usher in a Whole New Way of Living rooted in Love and Wisdom.




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                                                          It's in the narrative. Read it.




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                                                          ALL VERY TRUE.




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                                                              The exploitocracy is devoted to the eradication of two saliently subversive impulses
                                                              To think for yourself
                                                              And act for others




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                                                                The good professor and his wife had absolutely no problem living on a kibbutz in "Israel"--the Squatter State occupying land that belongs to the Palestinians.




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                                                                    usa......Many young USA Jewish people did this up at least until through the 80s. Many were going to college in Israel on an exchange program for a year. Many were pre or post college trying to learn their Jewish Culture. This was long before mainstream Jews or Christians had any idea what the fascist regime was doing. I had a young Jewish friend who did this and actually came home with very little respect for the regime.
                                                                    Your remark is immature and very very outdated. Mr. Chomsky is one of the greatest intellectuals and thinkers in the world and this is all you can pull off? Shameful.




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                                                                        It must have had an effect on him. He's been very generous in his criticism of the Israeli regime. Particularly in regard to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians and their (Israel's) sabotaging of the peace talks.




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                                                                          The working sheep are to blame for the demise of Occupy! If you had all stopped working for a week, the .01% would start listening. That was the power of Unions. Wake up sheep and smell your cheap starbucks coffee grinds!
                                                                          BDS!israelNOW!




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                                                                              Any jew willing to go against the grain is a hero in my eyes! Chomsky throws out the puzzle pieces, but it's up to the sheep to take it and run! It's easy for everybody to sit around and judge the messengers. What are you doing to find where the pieces go? BDS!israelNOW!




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                                                                                  Maybe the Elites are all aliens sent to mine the world for resources, but instead of going to war and conquering humanity which even for a advanced alien species would take a large amount of resources they just take our form and subvert our politics. I mean what other explanation can there be for these people lack of humanity, they are not human.




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                                                                                      Something nasty happening...within the past hour, I attempted to watch this interview, but was redirected to it on YouTube...where there are several comments posted regarding an article in The New Republic branding Hedges a plagiarist.
                                                                                      I read the article, and find the accusations hard to take very seriously...however, I believe a primary reason for what appears to be the attempt to smear Hedges is his very vocal and persistent support for Palestinian justice, which Chomsky is also perhaps even more vocal...and which is anathema in the pages of TNR.
                                                                                      So, be aware...those commenters, very adamant, will probably be showing up here.




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                                                                                          its all western madness




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                                                                                              I wouldn't call filth like Kinsley liberal by any stretch of the definition. They're fascists through and through, and we need to be willing to define what a liberal or a progressive or a socialist is, define who is not, and identify by actions, rather than only words.




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                                                                                                  Chomsky is full of facts about wrong doing, but nary a word about what would succeed. He is the epitome of a political gadfly: always going on with what is wrong, never telling us what is right. But undoubtably more and more miserable the more he does this.
                                                                                                  Every person intrinsically knows that she can be nourished in every activity she does. But only after pursuing a long time and much trial and error. Nourished being the experience that what just unfolded in the activity you just did was as good as it gets, gave you a sense of satiety. So in every activity, you either do it in a way that you are not nourished, or do it in a way you are nourished. And nothing the government does has any bearing on this. So it is good to have a good government, But the idea that bad governments can stop people from learning how to be nourished is sheer nonsense.
                                                                                                  By the way, any time you an activity and note something is missing, that is the universe telling you were not nourished by your involvement in that activity. And you have to make major changes in your approach to that activity to become nourished when you do it.
                                                                                                  And incidentally, no one who pursues authentic nourishment ever gets fooled by government propaganda.




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                                                                                                      particularly appropriate conditioned response




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                                                                                                          Chomsky has made a similar criticism of himself. He's said words to the effect - He's good at recognizing what's wrong, but the few times he's tried prescribing solutions - things didn't turn out so well.




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                                                                                                              The problem with this approach useless, is that almost every time what is presented as wrong is just a symptom of the real deeper problem. Besides every human knows that talking about wrong never leads to success. And success only comes from hard work, with lots of adjustments over time. So if he admits to doing this, he is admitting to posturing for fame and fortune; he sure as heck can't claim he promoting a viable solution.




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                                                                                                                  It's a little hard for me to see how Chomsky could have foreseen, taking the positions he's adopted would lead to him becoming famous. He had a much more lucrative career as a linguist, and in the field of cognition. Branching out to cultural criticism and criticism of government and its policies sounds far too risky (to me) as a means to fame and acclaim.
                                                                                                                  And i don't think Chomsky the work Chomsky has put into trying to root out the underlying causes contributing to the ills he has identified has been insignificant. I don't agree with your dismissal of his criticisms - Unless the "wrongs" are analyzed they will likely be repeated. And they will likely be repeated with all the vigor and which you attribute to leading to success. The 'adjustments' to which you refer are a result of recognizing error, and analyzing it.




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                                                                                                                usa.....Great there is script because Professor Chomsky is difficult to hear. I enjoyed the interview very much. I am looking forward to the next two.




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                                                                                                                    it is all so obvious but I haven't seen it for 70 years.




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                                                                                                                        thank you, history is repeating itself as swollen shores reseed to bring another season of sowing seeds and massive herd of animals once fed us have now disappeared by an idea a group of immoral men once devised to kill all the meat so the people would be subordinate to immorality and is repeating once again like Dante s allegory of circles of hell.