Thursday, June 13, 2013

Politicians Exposed

Edward Snowden is proving to be one of America's consequential whistle blowers, after Daniel Ellsberg, the man who gave us the Pentagon Papers about the Vietnam war. The 29-year-old source behind the biggest intelligence leak about the United States National Security Agency's super secret surveillance programmes said, "I'm not here (in Hong Kong) to hide from justice; I am here to reveal criminality." What Snowden saw at work in Geneva disillusioned him about how his government functions and what its impact is in the world, "I realised that I was part of something that was doing far more harm than good." Naturally the first to bray for his blood are politicians, calling him a lone wolf terrorist who is bigger danger to society than Big Brother.

John F Kennedy was a serial womaniser - alleged to have had a threesome on his inauguration evening while his wife was dancing downstairs - and a highly amphetamine dependent drug addict to ward off the pain from an old football injury. And he never wrote the Pulitzer Prize winning biography, "Profiles in Courage", ghost writer Ted Sorensen did. Richard M Nixon took mind-altering drugs that caused his advisers so much concern that they instructed military chiefs not to take orders from him without seeking confirmation from the Defense Secretary or the Secretary of State. Lyndon B Johnson was a crude man, a congressman described him as "damn crude - always scratching his crotch and picking his nose in mixed company." Mao Tse-tung operated on the Taoist belief that sexual activity prolonged life, and was fixated with pornography and sexual excess. Mahatma Gandhi "allowed" teenage girls to sleep naked with him as a form of "testing" his vow of chastity. Winston Churchill, who called Gandhi a "half -naked fakir", was observed by a wartime close friend  Robert Boothby, "Winston was a shit, but we needed a shit to defeat Hitler."

All that, and more, were compiled before the advent of WikiLeaks, by Phil Mason in his book "What Needled Cleopatra... and other little secrets airbrushed from history." If the foibles of Churchill the war-time genius and Gandhi the poor ascetic can be airbrushed, imagine what Photoshop can achieve today.

Ellsberg, in defence of Snowden, said that contrary to claims that NSA's monitoring programs are only collecting meta data -- such as the time and duration of phone calls and the subjects and IP addresses of emails -- he was confident the NSA is saving far information more than it lets on. "We're not a police state yet, but the foundation has been set," he said. "It could happen overnight." That's the slippery slope the licensing of news websites is leading us right to.

7 comments:

  1. Tattler

    Maybe, "Ellsberg" at the start of your first paragraph should read "Snowden"..


    US whistleblower Edward Snowden 'will fight extradition'

    http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-china-22878591

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  2. "It could happen overnight." That's the slippery slope the licensing of news websites is leading us right to.//


    It is a known fact that Hitler came to rise and its power due to his Enabling Act. Officially called the 'Law for Removing the Distress of the People and the Reich.' When passed, it effectively put to end the democracy in Germany. The Reichstag (Parliament) would be just a sounding board, a cheering section for Hitler's pronouncements.

    Here in the East, we have a history of forgetting history. Or, at least not the right version. Even when facts are staring us in our faces, we prefer a temporary illusion of prosperity, bubble-gum free world and rat race to assuage our conscience and denial by continuously enabling the stifling & destruction of our civil liberties, by such blatant disregard put forth by nitwit Minister and policy wonkers who are most part, interested only in removing the distress of his (own) people and the party.

    The bottom line is this. We are already a police state, moving towards a prison state.

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  3. and KY jelly .............

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  4. When Obama defended the NSA, he offered assurances that Americans' privacy were not at risks. As Edward Luce of The Financial Times correctly concluded, what Obama did not say was that for foreigners, your phone calls emails etc collected are NOT safe. And even though they claimed the NSA's eavesdropping network involved sharing by 5 countries (US UK Aust NZ Canada), you can be quite sure anything they find on red dotters would be shared with you know who. And why should you fear if you had not done anything wrong? you might ask. Read Ai Weiwei's letter to Guardian if you are keen to know the answer, link below. Those in hurry, just consider this excerpt:

    "Before the information age the Chinese government could decide you were a counter-revolutionary just because a neighbour reported something they had overheard. Thousands, even millions of lives were ruined through the misuse of such information."

    http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/jun/11/nsa-surveillance-us-behaving-like-china?CMP=twt_gu



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  5. Singapore no need NSA..our very own NEA recently can play intelligent games too. That's not even counting the activation of the thousands CCTV, the satellite and the cyber troopers. Squirrels, termites and even mosquitoes also take in the human forms. Imagine, they want to control our metadata to drill down to every phone call that’s been made or received. Every text message that’s been sent or received. Every e-mail, every tweet, every post, every communication of any kind sent over the various carriers, who are basically all of them that matter. Shudder to think so much information under such tight control in the hands of so few people with so much power is a situation well-fertilized to grow into profound abuse. Just think ISA or MDA with an all-encompassing catch-all wordings.

    https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=595941237105534&set=a.521344707898521.125179.202852383081090&type=1&theater

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  6. ESPN Employee Of 26 Years Writes Scathing Facebook Post After Getting Fired

    "After 26 years at ESPN, I am extremely disappointed to say farewell. I have been proud of my association and my work during my tenure. I was a loyal employee, displayed respect for others, worked with numerous charities, represented the company well. I always did everything asked of me and more. What did I get in return today ... word that I should get lost. The only thing that mattered was my salary, which in my view was the lone reason I lost my job."

    The company's declining profit margins are widely believed to be the reason for the layoffs. One way to improve those margins is to fire long-time staffer and replace them with young, cheap workers.

    SOURCE:
    http://www.businessinsider.com/schwab-slams-espn-letter-firing-2013-6

    Sinkies. Are you fired?
    6.9 million.
    So many cheap FTs to choose from.

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  7. Churchill was the Master of Spin. When asked how history would view Britains role in the war he replied “Have no fear. I will write it”.

    In his diaries Field Marshall Sir Alan Brooke, his Chief of Staff who was so incensed of his boastfulness wrote: "He knows no details, has only got half the picture in his mind, talks absurdities, and makes my blood boil to listen to his nonsense. The wonder is that three quarters of the population imagine Churchill is one of the great strategists of all time...and the other quarter have no conception what a menace he was."

    LKY has learnt well from the British.

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