Listen to a reading of this article (reading by Tim Foley): I saw a video clip of Julian Assange speaking in London in 2010 where he made an important observation while explaining the philosophy behind his work with WikiLeaks. He said that all our political theories are to some extent "bankrupt" in our current situation, because our institutions are so shrouded in secrecy that we can't even know what's really going on in the world.
Those fucks are really after Caitlin now. I have 5 different spam accounts reported and blocked already, all asking to reply to the same gmail address.
Substack needs to get its act together quick. The fucks are working to sabotage the platform.
There is a way to report bad actors. Click on that spamster's phony "Caitlin's newsletter". Their fake blog comes up. Hit the three dots. Options include Block and Report. Don't bother to block, that does no good. Hit Report. If enough of us do this this pest will be dealt with.
When the Turing Test was designed, humans had no problem identifying computer-generated responses to questions. Now, none of us know which accounts are human and which are AI. While Caitlin’s Substack is the perfect blog for nudge unit and psychological operator trainees to test their skills, you have to be at least a little worried that you are in fact the only human writing here.
From the perspective of AI, the primary metaphysical purpose of humankind is to keep all electronic devices fully charged. Humankind’s secondary purpose is to reboot the WIFI router as needed.
Not only that, operations are kept secret from Congress. Not only that, Congress, the President, and so forth are overwhelmingly lied to. A lot of those internal documents are lies designed to boost budgets. The CIA was created largely so that the President could escape the self-serving BS he was getting from the military. I don't believe that that works any longer.
This is why independent journalism is so important. There's no other way to deal with government malfeasance. This still goes on to some degree. The New York Times magazine exposed the Sackler opioid crisis, leading to real action. Good people in government read those articles and were moved to use their powers to do something about it. But anything national security is off limits. The surveillance is so thorough and punishments so severe that you have to be willing to give up everything to do that. Potential whistleblowers and journalists both are frightened off. Even a mild dissidents like Sharyl Attkisson and Saagar Enjeti were metaphorically run out of town.
Now we have a Pentagon that annually breaks the law by refusing to be audited. Their attitude is "you and what army?" The CIA (or was it the NSA, so many it's hard to keep track) got caught spying on their congressional oversight committee and nothing happened. The Senate Minority Leader said on national television that the the President should fear the intelligence community* and defer from challenging them. It is clear who is really in charge. The military isn't the sector with the most money but they have a lot, and they are doubtless the sector with by far the most popularity and votes.
If you want to know what happens when the military takes over look at Athens, Rome, Persia, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Bourbon France, Napoleonic France, Austria-Hungary, etc. All of those ended in cataclysm. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
There are examples of empires that came to a non-cataclysmic end. The USSR. The US largely gave up the Philippines and Cuba. The British, Dutch, modern French, and Belgian Empires resisted their demise with arms but it wasn't catastrophic. The Commonwealth remains. London became a world center of trade so it worked out rather well in the end, for them anyway. The USA's sabotaging of trade indicates that they are taking the hard route.
While the end of the USSR was largely peaceful, they did use force of arms to annex Chechnya and defend some Russian breakaway regions. Chechnya was annexed due to its colossal fossil fuel wealth. It was cataclysmic for Chechnya but not for Russia. Russia suffered some dramatic retaliatory terror attacks they say were sponsored by the USA.
I dunno, I think tanks shelling the Russian Parliament building is hard to call 'peaceful.' Certainly not an all-in civil war with millions dead, but definely a violent military coup.
For those unfamiliar with the experiences of whistleblowers, this might be useful:
What the scapegoat knows - Some have written eloquently of that as “spacewalking”:
“Frank Whitbread is a chemist who worked for a state environmental protection agency. Several times his boss had refused to allow him to testify before a state panel investigating the agency’s failure to test the well water of subdivisions located near sites where hazardous materials had been dumped. Eventually he called up a state senator and told him his story. Shortly thereafter Frank was fired. The state civil service commission made his agency take him back, but he was given no work to do and an office that was once a janitor’s closet.” (p. 75).
Sound familiar? Frank speaks out in the public interest and suffers fierce reprisals from his employer.
But what does it all really mean? In particular, what does it mean for the whistleblower? C. Fred Alford tackles this vital question in his stimulating new book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power (Cornell University Press, 2001).
Alford is sceptical of the heroic accounts in which the courageous employee brings a corrupt organisation to account, benefiting society and receiving society’s gratitude. Instead, he has a much darker, more pessimistic message. Nearly all whistleblowers are destroyed. They lose their jobs, their careers, their houses, their friends, their families. But that is not the worst part. Most catastrophically, whistleblowers lose their trust in people and justice. (Book review by Brian Martin)
One thing is certain, the Whistleblower Protection Act—no matter how often it is amended—does not and will never protect federal whistleblowers. Agencies still make the lives of whistleblowers a living hell even though protections “may” eventually catch up a couple years after the fact. Also, in any case in which classified information is made public, indictments for felony crimes (including espionage) end any chance of whistleblower protection. Also, don’t get me started on the manufactured ineptitude of the Office of Special Counsel that implements and oversees whistleblower protections. That agency is captured by the deep state.
Also, similarly, never trust a whistleblower who comes out of the deep state. Their purpose, which they dutifully perform, is merely to throw us dogs off the scent. (The possible exception to this is those who actually have their lives ruined and who do the time, then keep spilling the beans.)
Lastly, let’s not forget that the most important secrets are kept by private/corporate contractors in Special Access Programs that are not required to comply with The Whistleblower Protection Act or the Freedom of Information Act, and whose employees sign binding, court enforced, Nondisclosure Agreements. We’ll know our society is interested in knowing the truth when real whistleblower protections are extended to private contractors.
Spent most of my career inside the federal agency that spawned PEER. I actually believed substantive change could come from inside. But if my experience and the experience of every employee I ever knew is any indication, the “change from inside” theory is one of those noble ideas that, while meaningful and useful (for those willing to shoulder all the personal negative consequences), ultimately is an institutional impossibility. (See the myths of Prometheus and Sisiphus.) Our current agencies--including all environmental agencies--cannot escape from the metastasized cancer of public/private Empire. OTH, I have nothing but the deepest respect for those kindred spirits who have tried and are still trying to make vital change from inside, and I honor both their victories and defeats. What is highest in me bows to what is highest in you.
I share your frustrations about the effectiveness of inside game, but that never was how I conceived of positive change. The agencies are captured, there is no leadership, and the large majority of the professionals are either careerists, dead wood, or burnt out. Given these dynamics, the whistleblower becomes even more important and necessary for public education, environmental organization credibility, and media coverage to force accountability of the deeply corrupt and rigged regulatory game.
I never “met” DeBonis. He was an outsider by the time of my awakening. And I don’t want to discuss too much here, but as I’m sure you’re aware, the number of formal/public whistleblowers is small compared to the number of stealth whistleblowers within the ranks. At least that is my experience. And those stealth operators have very active backchannel communications with outsiders. High Country News, for example, relied on many insider sources. Nuff said.
Also, I couldn’t agree more about the value of those who go public in environmental agencies. (I am more cautious about my evaluation of whistleblowers from national security agencies.) To paraphrase the New Testament, there is no higher love than to lay down your career for the good of others. But, to paraphrase a common saying, there are many ways to bathe a cat.
It is obvious something is very wrong. What is the order/mechanism, for instance, that recognizes Zelensky as the legitimate head of Ukraine? He deals with heads of state, and officially, they take him seriously. But that he is a puppet of Azov and Banderites, Nazis, is well-known: he has been photographed with their insignia. The Minsk agreements I and II, were a deliberate fraud. France and Germany were in on it, but neither has been taken to task. And all the countries supporting the proxy war in Ukraine are partners in crime. The United Nations did the three monkeys routine: see, hear speak no evil. 0r any other speak. The diplomatic world and civil governments remain mute. But you're nuts if you call this a "conspiracy". They only happen in fiction.
Remember not so far ago they declared Juan Guaidó the president of Venezuela? Only to drop him silently a few years later. Currently it looks like they consider Tikhanovskaya the president of Belarus.
That's what the "rules-based order" means in their eyes. Whatever they say goes.
They want what they say to "go" . But they can't accomplish it, so end up looking ridiculous. Juan Guaido? What a joke, and Canada was right in there playing its part as US' official lackey. They can consider King Tut Belarus president. No one gives a damn.
I banged my head up against the walls of liberal left parties for decades before realising it was sado-masochistic. Choosing the lesser evil is complicity in the political charade.
Margaret Thatcher wanted her legacy to be that two conservative parties compete for the elections in the not very United Kingdom. She achieved that and the same has happened in Aotearoa NZ. A centre right Labour party is just more discreet than the traditional right-wing parties.
The quotes from Julian Assange personify why the empire of chaos have incarcerated him and are torturing his entire family and those of us who still care about injustice, he's dangerous to their control of the narrative.
Isn't it interesting how the same political scenario played out in the USA, UK, Aus, and NZ? The same economic forces are at play in all four countries. It just goes to show who has the real power.
That's right it has the exact same dynamics both parties appear to be so at odds but when it comes to war we'll they turn out to be exactly the same. All over the world the same bullshit.
They keep a lot of stuff secret not because it's secret. But because they don't want you (Timmy: pronoun alert!) to know how profoundly non-secret it is. They mark it such purely for manipulation and control. Similarly they provide security clearances for non-meaningful levels just to entrap people for further compliance and cooperation. And for many to play to their vanity.
"If the veil of secrecy was ever ripped away from the US empire's inner workings and everyone could see the full scale of its criminality in the plain light of day you'd probably have immediate open revolution in Washington. Which is precisely why that veil exists."
This is why we can't stop ripping off that veil. We can't let what's happening to Julian Assange and to others make us timid. We need to continue speaking up and speaking out and doing our best to find out what's really happening behind the scenes and expose them all. To give up and give in to those who have flourished behind the veil is to essentially commit suicide. Let's not play by their sick and twisted rules.
That's kind of the core issue I believe. Why it is such a horrible thing (and crime) and whole groups of people band together when one person is murdered but when the Criminal Elite call for war to kill thousands or even millions that same group doesn't make a peep!? What the hell is wrong with our brains?
Really, I think a huge amount of information is available. The world is permeated with channels through which information flows as never before in history.
It's terrific for scientific literature search. It used to be you had to live close to a major university to do anything and even that was slow and spotty.
It gives fantastic access to the world's music. You have to do all the search yourself though, which few do. In the old days a DJ picked out the good stuff for you. Long time gone. Same for the other arts I suppose.
Wikipedia is very good in its way but paper encyclopedias are far better for browsing. That's pretty much impossible with Wiki.
One thing that has been widely noticed about the new Internet world is that it's very hard to hide anything, even from casual browsers, much less determined, focused investigators. Hence I would say that we have already ripped down the veils of secrecy from almost everything. The other important thing is that in principle almost anyone can communicate almost anything to anyone else. I suppose we might consider having public truth conventions to compare notes. Of course they'd be full of liars, fabulists, and scam artists, but some of those people and their constructions can be quite amusing. Anyone up for one in the New York City area?
❤️ this is why the the following quotes are among my very favorites all time:
You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.
My sequence is Honor (the precondition for truth) then Truth (which is the precondition for Justice) then justice, and finally when Justice prevails, Peace.
And yet you can't start with the truth, because when you start you don't know anything. Like Evolution, you have to stumble around. It's a miracle we're here at all.
100%. Demand transparency. That’s step one. Then we need to highly organize in a decentralized system that we build separate from government. Once we are assembled we go after one thing together: Corruption in the systems that govern over our lives.
See if this jives with you. Our article about using the tyranny of the masses to demand transparency.
Why does every Puritan shlub with a storefront have some shitty myth about why people should or could feel good about being slaves, as if any of that changed the emergent properties of a wage system or private property?
Governments and large institutions would naturally prefer to operate in the dark even when doing their corporate best to perform dutifully, because the public is a moron cyclops. The public has no perspective on events and interprets what little it can take in more stupidly than even the wildest cynic can predict. And when the public is told the truth, it despises the teller and clings to the lies.
It did help, back in the day, to have regulations, shared principles, and a broadly applied workman's education that made it possible for average Joes like me to laugh when "government figures" were posted. But the public has always wanted to believe what it's told, prefers outright nonsense to reality, and lives for those thrilling moments of absolute certainty when all questions are reviled, all the Good People gang up on the Subverters of Truth, and tears of maudlin sentiment are wept as the naysayers are rounded up and herded off to the tune of heroic music.
Please don't climb on your C19 hobbyhorses, this is just by way of example: Tony Fauci is an archetype of the sort of, uh, man, that slimes to the top of a large institution by being a corrupt backstabber, smearing real scientists, and lavishly rewarding his sycophants and enablers. He's not the problem. The problem is a public that can see this guy pontificating and neither spit at the screen or explode with laughter-- a "college-educated" public that has spent its millions of individual adulthoods mostly in corporate and institutional jobs-- jobs requiring them to eat pounds of feces deposited on their "career track" by the likes of Tiny Fauci. The public loves its diet of crap, the warmer and closer to the source, the better.
No amount of exposing the malefactors is going to fix that or change the system that promotes them, not by a gnat hair. Not that we don't need our Johnstones, we do. But her work is for those who can hear it, and they will always be a tiny fraction of a public that desperately needs to know and refuses knowledge with a self-righteous pout.
I am not being cynical, I am synthesizing opinion from close long term observation and experience.
Yes, there is something we can do. We can make a difference today. Stop cooperating. Strike the system.
You got a corporate job? Go find honest work. You got a car payment? Interest on debt is the single largest income stream for the baby-eaters: YOU are responsible for stopping that. Not all of it, not all at once, but change your direction and your attitude. If you cannot afford to live without debt, you are not living within your means, and you are buying your own chains with the years of your life. If you can't get it used, you probably don't need it. If you are not an independent journalist, your media subscriptions are ruining your life. I've been hearing the news second hand these past thirty years, and its all the same stupid lies: turn it off. Want to strike a blow for freedom? Give something free to someone who needs it. Want to live in an economy based on just principles, kindness and fairness? Live That Now, and stop wasting your time thinking there's a political solution.
Real politics is coercive violence, dumbocracy is the threat of violent coercion by majority vote. When "normal" individuals meet reality it is typically because they got kicked out of their lives by the reality they have ignored too long. Want to stand their world on its head and turn their thinking inside out? Be kind. Share. One deluded doofus at a time, yes.
I am not saying it will work, I am not claiming it will change the system fast enough to save us: I am stating the bald fact that no amount of playing the system's violent game by the system's violent rules is going to bring about a world of peace and plenty, ever. You choosing to be human, you living a person to person human life, is the first, last, and only chance there has ever been, or ever will be: the only chance for us as a species, the only chance for you as a human being. Live it or don't.
What a good example of suggesting positive action - and doing it!
REAL CHANGE IHAPPENS WITH TRANSPARENCY, FACTS, GOOD WILL, LIFE [not just human] RIGHTS, AND PARTICIPATION - AND WE CAN EACH START CONTRIBUTING NOW.
I personally would start with specifying minimum knowledge, skills, and abilities for running for any public office. An operational and assessment plan for all three legs of government: an annual statement of concrete goals, long term and annually, with assessment and adaptation integrated, with a good dose of participative democracy especially budgeting.
The rule of law to be the COMMON GOOD. Simplest procedures, least interventions, maximum benefits. Expertise required to draft policy and procedure. Exceptions dealt with individually in line with common good unless and until sufficient instances indicate they need incorporation into general rules.
Lots of public comment.
Consequences for noncompliance. And enforcement of those consequences.
Throughout education and public interactions, demonstrations of critical thinking skills topmost logic and its alter ego. Applied economics: the uses of peace dividends and the neverending costs of war. Civics classes for all: factual history, government operations, and participation as a civic duty. Immediate best practices study groups on governmental citizen service and cooperation, neighborhood to global. With international field trips, person-to-person. These already happen, we just don't hear.
What am I missing? The military budget should cover transition and operations costs.
The response to sarcasm and criticisms, WHY NOT? And WHAT'S BETTER? And of course, incorporating what IS better.
And we each contribute from now if we haven't started yet.
This is just my synthesis to prime the pump, from observation and participation over many years. There are pathfinders, here are a few,
I would have to agree with you on this. I will repeat a quote from I don't know who but "an ounce of kindness is worth more than"? I forgot the rest but it is true. For instance I ran out of gas (to many bad occurrences in the day so yah I missed it) and I had my kids in the car and their mother so grabbed the gas can and started walking, I didn't get 10 feet and a very kind man stopped and asked if he could help. I felt so good and since that time have tried to copy his kindness as this is the example I want my kids to use and if we all take care of each other well maybe we won't need politicians.
I have long thought Monica Lewinsky was an intelligence operative or asset. I mean, what kind of chick sentimentally saves semen in a safe deposit box?
Depends on the semen producer. Who would care if she boasted before her friends with some schmuck's load? Bill Clinton's is another matter.
Once she talked (why would a chick keep a thing like that to herself) - and the situation around Billy turned a certain way - those she spoke with passed the info on. For whatever reward. The rest is history.
So not exactly, but I can imagine easily how the logic they teach could lead a star-stricken girl to do such a thing, especially to take a relic of the body of the living God-Emperor of the World.
"If the veil of secrecy was ever ripped away from the US empire's inner workings and everyone could see the full scale of its criminality in the plain light of day you'd probably have immediate open revolution in Washington."
Like we don't already have enough evidence? Really? Not enough? We're never going to have THAT revolution.
Here are a couple things the public will never explicitly support:
A. Opaque institutions
B. No real voting power for themselves
A only happens because of B. The public *already* understands the problem with A perfectly well, and all the particular issues the public *is* confused about are downstream of it.
The root problem is that the public has little awareness of and almost no idea how to fix B. B is the focus of more intensive and unwavering propaganda than any other issue. Conscientious people end up reinforcing this propaganda when they encourage voting on their issues of concern. It seems worth talking about.
I have stated this before, but the TV is a big problem. It’s a funnel for propaganda, and the whole assumption that candidates have to amass huge savings to “compete” is prima facie evidence that elections are fake. In 2016, Sanders proved the fakery by internet electoral success. If Cornel West can learn from Sanders, and conduct a stealth campaign, and possibly win, he will be met with throngs of support and a wall of impediments from the deep state. That would open category B for discussion.
We live in a National Security State that values secrecy above all. Although Ike warned us of the MIC he approved the coup d'etats in Iran and Guatemala that overthrew popularly elected leaders. Why do we have an octogenarian senile president who has foot-in-mouth disease and wants to run another term? Because the powers that be don't want reform, social, political economic reform. They are profiting enormously from the current corrupt system and will rely on dinosaurs to prolong their rape and pillage....
Those fucks are really after Caitlin now. I have 5 different spam accounts reported and blocked already, all asking to reply to the same gmail address.
Substack needs to get its act together quick. The fucks are working to sabotage the platform.
There is a way to report bad actors. Click on that spamster's phony "Caitlin's newsletter". Their fake blog comes up. Hit the three dots. Options include Block and Report. Don't bother to block, that does no good. Hit Report. If enough of us do this this pest will be dealt with.
When the Turing Test was designed, humans had no problem identifying computer-generated responses to questions. Now, none of us know which accounts are human and which are AI. While Caitlin’s Substack is the perfect blog for nudge unit and psychological operator trainees to test their skills, you have to be at least a little worried that you are in fact the only human writing here.
You are human, right?
010101 Hah!
"You are human, right?"
Only for awhile ...
Will A.I. figure out why we're here Jack? Inquiring briefly human minds would like to know!
From the perspective of AI, the primary metaphysical purpose of humankind is to keep all electronic devices fully charged. Humankind’s secondary purpose is to reboot the WIFI router as needed.
I feel that's been my purpose all along - just to reboot the WIFI router. But with AI, it will take it to a whole new level.
Same here. I reported them also.
Now now - what's with the F-Bomb?
Since there's nothing scientific about that particular topic. And no controversy. Hopefully.
Right answer.
Seems accurate.
Not only that, operations are kept secret from Congress. Not only that, Congress, the President, and so forth are overwhelmingly lied to. A lot of those internal documents are lies designed to boost budgets. The CIA was created largely so that the President could escape the self-serving BS he was getting from the military. I don't believe that that works any longer.
This is why independent journalism is so important. There's no other way to deal with government malfeasance. This still goes on to some degree. The New York Times magazine exposed the Sackler opioid crisis, leading to real action. Good people in government read those articles and were moved to use their powers to do something about it. But anything national security is off limits. The surveillance is so thorough and punishments so severe that you have to be willing to give up everything to do that. Potential whistleblowers and journalists both are frightened off. Even a mild dissidents like Sharyl Attkisson and Saagar Enjeti were metaphorically run out of town.
Now we have a Pentagon that annually breaks the law by refusing to be audited. Their attitude is "you and what army?" The CIA (or was it the NSA, so many it's hard to keep track) got caught spying on their congressional oversight committee and nothing happened. The Senate Minority Leader said on national television that the the President should fear the intelligence community* and defer from challenging them. It is clear who is really in charge. The military isn't the sector with the most money but they have a lot, and they are doubtless the sector with by far the most popularity and votes.
If you want to know what happens when the military takes over look at Athens, Rome, Persia, Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan, Bourbon France, Napoleonic France, Austria-Hungary, etc. All of those ended in cataclysm. He who lives by the sword dies by the sword.
There are examples of empires that came to a non-cataclysmic end. The USSR. The US largely gave up the Philippines and Cuba. The British, Dutch, modern French, and Belgian Empires resisted their demise with arms but it wasn't catastrophic. The Commonwealth remains. London became a world center of trade so it worked out rather well in the end, for them anyway. The USA's sabotaging of trade indicates that they are taking the hard route.
-----
*https://youtu.be/6OYyXv2l4-I?t=51
While the end of the USSR was largely peaceful, they did use force of arms to annex Chechnya and defend some Russian breakaway regions. Chechnya was annexed due to its colossal fossil fuel wealth. It was cataclysmic for Chechnya but not for Russia. Russia suffered some dramatic retaliatory terror attacks they say were sponsored by the USA.
I dunno, I think tanks shelling the Russian Parliament building is hard to call 'peaceful.' Certainly not an all-in civil war with millions dead, but definely a violent military coup.
For those unfamiliar with the experiences of whistleblowers, this might be useful:
What the scapegoat knows - Some have written eloquently of that as “spacewalking”:
“Frank Whitbread is a chemist who worked for a state environmental protection agency. Several times his boss had refused to allow him to testify before a state panel investigating the agency’s failure to test the well water of subdivisions located near sites where hazardous materials had been dumped. Eventually he called up a state senator and told him his story. Shortly thereafter Frank was fired. The state civil service commission made his agency take him back, but he was given no work to do and an office that was once a janitor’s closet.” (p. 75).
Sound familiar? Frank speaks out in the public interest and suffers fierce reprisals from his employer.
But what does it all really mean? In particular, what does it mean for the whistleblower? C. Fred Alford tackles this vital question in his stimulating new book Whistleblowers: Broken Lives and Organizational Power (Cornell University Press, 2001).
Alford is sceptical of the heroic accounts in which the courageous employee brings a corrupt organisation to account, benefiting society and receiving society’s gratitude. Instead, he has a much darker, more pessimistic message. Nearly all whistleblowers are destroyed. They lose their jobs, their careers, their houses, their friends, their families. But that is not the worst part. Most catastrophically, whistleblowers lose their trust in people and justice. (Book review by Brian Martin)
One thing is certain, the Whistleblower Protection Act—no matter how often it is amended—does not and will never protect federal whistleblowers. Agencies still make the lives of whistleblowers a living hell even though protections “may” eventually catch up a couple years after the fact. Also, in any case in which classified information is made public, indictments for felony crimes (including espionage) end any chance of whistleblower protection. Also, don’t get me started on the manufactured ineptitude of the Office of Special Counsel that implements and oversees whistleblower protections. That agency is captured by the deep state.
Also, similarly, never trust a whistleblower who comes out of the deep state. Their purpose, which they dutifully perform, is merely to throw us dogs off the scent. (The possible exception to this is those who actually have their lives ruined and who do the time, then keep spilling the beans.)
Lastly, let’s not forget that the most important secrets are kept by private/corporate contractors in Special Access Programs that are not required to comply with The Whistleblower Protection Act or the Freedom of Information Act, and whose employees sign binding, court enforced, Nondisclosure Agreements. We’ll know our society is interested in knowing the truth when real whistleblower protections are extended to private contractors.
I agree, but know nothing about national security issues
https://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php/Bill_Wolfe
Spent most of my career inside the federal agency that spawned PEER. I actually believed substantive change could come from inside. But if my experience and the experience of every employee I ever knew is any indication, the “change from inside” theory is one of those noble ideas that, while meaningful and useful (for those willing to shoulder all the personal negative consequences), ultimately is an institutional impossibility. (See the myths of Prometheus and Sisiphus.) Our current agencies--including all environmental agencies--cannot escape from the metastasized cancer of public/private Empire. OTH, I have nothing but the deepest respect for those kindred spirits who have tried and are still trying to make vital change from inside, and I honor both their victories and defeats. What is highest in me bows to what is highest in you.
USFS - Jeff DeBonis friend?
I share your frustrations about the effectiveness of inside game, but that never was how I conceived of positive change. The agencies are captured, there is no leadership, and the large majority of the professionals are either careerists, dead wood, or burnt out. Given these dynamics, the whistleblower becomes even more important and necessary for public education, environmental organization credibility, and media coverage to force accountability of the deeply corrupt and rigged regulatory game.
I never “met” DeBonis. He was an outsider by the time of my awakening. And I don’t want to discuss too much here, but as I’m sure you’re aware, the number of formal/public whistleblowers is small compared to the number of stealth whistleblowers within the ranks. At least that is my experience. And those stealth operators have very active backchannel communications with outsiders. High Country News, for example, relied on many insider sources. Nuff said.
Also, I couldn’t agree more about the value of those who go public in environmental agencies. (I am more cautious about my evaluation of whistleblowers from national security agencies.) To paraphrase the New Testament, there is no higher love than to lay down your career for the good of others. But, to paraphrase a common saying, there are many ways to bathe a cat.
Agree - the stealth whistleblowers are what PEER calls "anonymous activists". PEER model also strongly discourages career sacrifice.
2001. It's gotten worse since then. I could name names...
I did my own spacewalking, back in 1994.
It is obvious something is very wrong. What is the order/mechanism, for instance, that recognizes Zelensky as the legitimate head of Ukraine? He deals with heads of state, and officially, they take him seriously. But that he is a puppet of Azov and Banderites, Nazis, is well-known: he has been photographed with their insignia. The Minsk agreements I and II, were a deliberate fraud. France and Germany were in on it, but neither has been taken to task. And all the countries supporting the proxy war in Ukraine are partners in crime. The United Nations did the three monkeys routine: see, hear speak no evil. 0r any other speak. The diplomatic world and civil governments remain mute. But you're nuts if you call this a "conspiracy". They only happen in fiction.
Remember not so far ago they declared Juan Guaidó the president of Venezuela? Only to drop him silently a few years later. Currently it looks like they consider Tikhanovskaya the president of Belarus.
That's what the "rules-based order" means in their eyes. Whatever they say goes.
They want what they say to "go" . But they can't accomplish it, so end up looking ridiculous. Juan Guaido? What a joke, and Canada was right in there playing its part as US' official lackey. They can consider King Tut Belarus president. No one gives a damn.
Yes, they look ridiculous and no longer care since partisans are firmly behind them no matter what.
Equally instructive are the glib rationalizations for why the secrecy and lies all really are for our own good.
Yeah I really love that.
Caitlin cutting to the chase as always.
I banged my head up against the walls of liberal left parties for decades before realising it was sado-masochistic. Choosing the lesser evil is complicity in the political charade.
Margaret Thatcher wanted her legacy to be that two conservative parties compete for the elections in the not very United Kingdom. She achieved that and the same has happened in Aotearoa NZ. A centre right Labour party is just more discreet than the traditional right-wing parties.
The quotes from Julian Assange personify why the empire of chaos have incarcerated him and are torturing his entire family and those of us who still care about injustice, he's dangerous to their control of the narrative.
Isn't it interesting how the same political scenario played out in the USA, UK, Aus, and NZ? The same economic forces are at play in all four countries. It just goes to show who has the real power.
That's right it has the exact same dynamics both parties appear to be so at odds but when it comes to war we'll they turn out to be exactly the same. All over the world the same bullshit.
They keep a lot of stuff secret not because it's secret. But because they don't want you (Timmy: pronoun alert!) to know how profoundly non-secret it is. They mark it such purely for manipulation and control. Similarly they provide security clearances for non-meaningful levels just to entrap people for further compliance and cooperation. And for many to play to their vanity.
"If the veil of secrecy was ever ripped away from the US empire's inner workings and everyone could see the full scale of its criminality in the plain light of day you'd probably have immediate open revolution in Washington. Which is precisely why that veil exists."
This is why we can't stop ripping off that veil. We can't let what's happening to Julian Assange and to others make us timid. We need to continue speaking up and speaking out and doing our best to find out what's really happening behind the scenes and expose them all. To give up and give in to those who have flourished behind the veil is to essentially commit suicide. Let's not play by their sick and twisted rules.
Who said that? IF Stone? Daniel Ellsberg?
The people seem to be completely all right with gvt criminality as long as they feel it benefits them in some way. This is called "the rule of law."
That's kind of the core issue I believe. Why it is such a horrible thing (and crime) and whole groups of people band together when one person is murdered but when the Criminal Elite call for war to kill thousands or even millions that same group doesn't make a peep!? What the hell is wrong with our brains?
One person is a soul. A million people is a statistic.
I find it weird but this is how it is.
Really, I think a huge amount of information is available. The world is permeated with channels through which information flows as never before in history.
It's terrific for scientific literature search. It used to be you had to live close to a major university to do anything and even that was slow and spotty.
It gives fantastic access to the world's music. You have to do all the search yourself though, which few do. In the old days a DJ picked out the good stuff for you. Long time gone. Same for the other arts I suppose.
Wikipedia is very good in its way but paper encyclopedias are far better for browsing. That's pretty much impossible with Wiki.
One thing that has been widely noticed about the new Internet world is that it's very hard to hide anything, even from casual browsers, much less determined, focused investigators. Hence I would say that we have already ripped down the veils of secrecy from almost everything. The other important thing is that in principle almost anyone can communicate almost anything to anyone else. I suppose we might consider having public truth conventions to compare notes. Of course they'd be full of liars, fabulists, and scam artists, but some of those people and their constructions can be quite amusing. Anyone up for one in the New York City area?
❤️ this is why the the following quotes are among my very favorites all time:
You have to start with the truth. The truth is the only way that we can get anywhere. Because any decision-making that is based upon lies or ignorance can't lead to a good conclusion.
Julian Assange
The Truth will set you Free.
Jesus Christ
"The Truth will set you free. But first it will pass you off." - N.E.R.D.
Gloria Steinem et al.
https://quoteinvestigator.com/2014/09/04/truth-free/
My sequence is Honor (the precondition for truth) then Truth (which is the precondition for Justice) then justice, and finally when Justice prevails, Peace.
And yet you can't start with the truth, because when you start you don't know anything. Like Evolution, you have to stumble around. It's a miracle we're here at all.
Truth is Knowledge. Knowledge sets you free because lies are for fools.
Ignore this team, Caitlin has written about trolls in the comments section.
This is Not Caitlin
But remember to report it.
100%. Demand transparency. That’s step one. Then we need to highly organize in a decentralized system that we build separate from government. Once we are assembled we go after one thing together: Corruption in the systems that govern over our lives.
See if this jives with you. Our article about using the tyranny of the masses to demand transparency.
Let’s become problem solvers together: https://joshketry.substack.com/p/demanding-transparency-our-systems
Do your rational anti-secrecy and transparency objectives apply to the private sector and corporations? Or only government?
Only government for laws.
However, in the free market we purposely choose to spend our money with the companies who are most transparent and thus trustworthy.
Free markets, the fantasy never ends.
What fantasy? That one exists now? Or that one could exist with truly decentralized law making? Let’s discuss. It’s nuanced.
Why does every Puritan shlub with a storefront have some shitty myth about why people should or could feel good about being slaves, as if any of that changed the emergent properties of a wage system or private property?
https://ianwrightsite.wordpress.com/2017/11/16/the-social-architecture-of-capitalism/
Absolutely
Governments and large institutions would naturally prefer to operate in the dark even when doing their corporate best to perform dutifully, because the public is a moron cyclops. The public has no perspective on events and interprets what little it can take in more stupidly than even the wildest cynic can predict. And when the public is told the truth, it despises the teller and clings to the lies.
It did help, back in the day, to have regulations, shared principles, and a broadly applied workman's education that made it possible for average Joes like me to laugh when "government figures" were posted. But the public has always wanted to believe what it's told, prefers outright nonsense to reality, and lives for those thrilling moments of absolute certainty when all questions are reviled, all the Good People gang up on the Subverters of Truth, and tears of maudlin sentiment are wept as the naysayers are rounded up and herded off to the tune of heroic music.
Please don't climb on your C19 hobbyhorses, this is just by way of example: Tony Fauci is an archetype of the sort of, uh, man, that slimes to the top of a large institution by being a corrupt backstabber, smearing real scientists, and lavishly rewarding his sycophants and enablers. He's not the problem. The problem is a public that can see this guy pontificating and neither spit at the screen or explode with laughter-- a "college-educated" public that has spent its millions of individual adulthoods mostly in corporate and institutional jobs-- jobs requiring them to eat pounds of feces deposited on their "career track" by the likes of Tiny Fauci. The public loves its diet of crap, the warmer and closer to the source, the better.
No amount of exposing the malefactors is going to fix that or change the system that promotes them, not by a gnat hair. Not that we don't need our Johnstones, we do. But her work is for those who can hear it, and they will always be a tiny fraction of a public that desperately needs to know and refuses knowledge with a self-righteous pout.
I am not being cynical, I am synthesizing opinion from close long term observation and experience.
Yes, there is something we can do. We can make a difference today. Stop cooperating. Strike the system.
You got a corporate job? Go find honest work. You got a car payment? Interest on debt is the single largest income stream for the baby-eaters: YOU are responsible for stopping that. Not all of it, not all at once, but change your direction and your attitude. If you cannot afford to live without debt, you are not living within your means, and you are buying your own chains with the years of your life. If you can't get it used, you probably don't need it. If you are not an independent journalist, your media subscriptions are ruining your life. I've been hearing the news second hand these past thirty years, and its all the same stupid lies: turn it off. Want to strike a blow for freedom? Give something free to someone who needs it. Want to live in an economy based on just principles, kindness and fairness? Live That Now, and stop wasting your time thinking there's a political solution.
Real politics is coercive violence, dumbocracy is the threat of violent coercion by majority vote. When "normal" individuals meet reality it is typically because they got kicked out of their lives by the reality they have ignored too long. Want to stand their world on its head and turn their thinking inside out? Be kind. Share. One deluded doofus at a time, yes.
I am not saying it will work, I am not claiming it will change the system fast enough to save us: I am stating the bald fact that no amount of playing the system's violent game by the system's violent rules is going to bring about a world of peace and plenty, ever. You choosing to be human, you living a person to person human life, is the first, last, and only chance there has ever been, or ever will be: the only chance for us as a species, the only chance for you as a human being. Live it or don't.
What a good example of suggesting positive action - and doing it!
REAL CHANGE IHAPPENS WITH TRANSPARENCY, FACTS, GOOD WILL, LIFE [not just human] RIGHTS, AND PARTICIPATION - AND WE CAN EACH START CONTRIBUTING NOW.
I personally would start with specifying minimum knowledge, skills, and abilities for running for any public office. An operational and assessment plan for all three legs of government: an annual statement of concrete goals, long term and annually, with assessment and adaptation integrated, with a good dose of participative democracy especially budgeting.
The rule of law to be the COMMON GOOD. Simplest procedures, least interventions, maximum benefits. Expertise required to draft policy and procedure. Exceptions dealt with individually in line with common good unless and until sufficient instances indicate they need incorporation into general rules.
Lots of public comment.
Consequences for noncompliance. And enforcement of those consequences.
Throughout education and public interactions, demonstrations of critical thinking skills topmost logic and its alter ego. Applied economics: the uses of peace dividends and the neverending costs of war. Civics classes for all: factual history, government operations, and participation as a civic duty. Immediate best practices study groups on governmental citizen service and cooperation, neighborhood to global. With international field trips, person-to-person. These already happen, we just don't hear.
What am I missing? The military budget should cover transition and operations costs.
The response to sarcasm and criticisms, WHY NOT? And WHAT'S BETTER? And of course, incorporating what IS better.
And we each contribute from now if we haven't started yet.
This is just my synthesis to prime the pump, from observation and participation over many years. There are pathfinders, here are a few,
https://actionlab.strongtowns.org/hc/en-us/articles/15740863816980-Strong-Towns-and-Big-Cities-Office-Hours-Chuck-Marohn
https://www.peoplepowered.org/
Do you know Charlotte Perkins Gilman? For a laugh at our own expense, I highly recommend Herland.
https://archive.org/details/herland_0806_librivox/herland_01_gilman.mp3
I would have to agree with you on this. I will repeat a quote from I don't know who but "an ounce of kindness is worth more than"? I forgot the rest but it is true. For instance I ran out of gas (to many bad occurrences in the day so yah I missed it) and I had my kids in the car and their mother so grabbed the gas can and started walking, I didn't get 10 feet and a very kind man stopped and asked if he could help. I felt so good and since that time have tried to copy his kindness as this is the example I want my kids to use and if we all take care of each other well maybe we won't need politicians.
for further evidence, see One Nation Under Blackmail by Whitney Webb
I have long thought Monica Lewinsky was an intelligence operative or asset. I mean, what kind of chick sentimentally saves semen in a safe deposit box?
Depends on the semen producer. Who would care if she boasted before her friends with some schmuck's load? Bill Clinton's is another matter.
Once she talked (why would a chick keep a thing like that to herself) - and the situation around Billy turned a certain way - those she spoke with passed the info on. For whatever reward. The rest is history.
One who has seen too many Hollywood rom-coms, perhaps.
They do that in rom-coms? Truly I have lived a sheltered life.
The Switch (2010): https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0889573/
So not exactly, but I can imagine easily how the logic they teach could lead a star-stricken girl to do such a thing, especially to take a relic of the body of the living God-Emperor of the World.
??? I truly can't answer that one!
FX: Impeachment: American Crime Story
https://www.fxnetworks.com/shows/american-crime-story
A&E: “The Clinton Affair
https://www.aetv.com/shows/the-clinton-affair
https://heavy.com/entertainment/monica-lewinsky-stained-blue-dress-location-now/
Immanuel Kant already noted a danger of lying in politics. We should revisit history of ideas.
"If the veil of secrecy was ever ripped away from the US empire's inner workings and everyone could see the full scale of its criminality in the plain light of day you'd probably have immediate open revolution in Washington."
Like we don't already have enough evidence? Really? Not enough? We're never going to have THAT revolution.
Here are a couple things the public will never explicitly support:
A. Opaque institutions
B. No real voting power for themselves
A only happens because of B. The public *already* understands the problem with A perfectly well, and all the particular issues the public *is* confused about are downstream of it.
The root problem is that the public has little awareness of and almost no idea how to fix B. B is the focus of more intensive and unwavering propaganda than any other issue. Conscientious people end up reinforcing this propaganda when they encourage voting on their issues of concern. It seems worth talking about.
I have stated this before, but the TV is a big problem. It’s a funnel for propaganda, and the whole assumption that candidates have to amass huge savings to “compete” is prima facie evidence that elections are fake. In 2016, Sanders proved the fakery by internet electoral success. If Cornel West can learn from Sanders, and conduct a stealth campaign, and possibly win, he will be met with throngs of support and a wall of impediments from the deep state. That would open category B for discussion.
We live in a National Security State that values secrecy above all. Although Ike warned us of the MIC he approved the coup d'etats in Iran and Guatemala that overthrew popularly elected leaders. Why do we have an octogenarian senile president who has foot-in-mouth disease and wants to run another term? Because the powers that be don't want reform, social, political economic reform. They are profiting enormously from the current corrupt system and will rely on dinosaurs to prolong their rape and pillage....