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Velcome, Comrade Trump
It is impressively sad how quickly this all happened.
Their shock that Hillary could lose to… him… needed some sort of explanation, as it could not have anything to do with Clinton’s shortcomings. It was cheating (we’ll have recounts), it was the Electoral College (faithless electors, unite!), it was Comey, or the media, or… when all else fails, you go with what you know: the Russians.
Putin is just a wonderful supervillain, and Trump such a stupid foil, that it was an easy sell. Dust off some old propaganda (the RT.com Red Scare part of the IC report was four years old itself, the material in it about 50 years old) and you are set. The American people are the most frightened puppies on earth and with terrorism just not scary as it once was, a new villian that plays to old fears appeared at the right place at the right time.The Chinese might have been a good group to blame, but they don’t seem to take the bait and plus they make all our stuff. Never mind that long string of evil dictators who attack their own people across the MidEast the U.S. has used for the last 15 years to keep the war machine chugging, we’re back to the Eagle versus Bear. We’ll probably give Putin back the Fulda Gap just so we can fight over it.
After that, it is all just farce. Yes, yes, Trump is a secret agent, cleverly cultivated for years (how did the Russians know he’d be president, oh, yeah, they are all chess masters), blackmailed by Boris and Natasha with a (Hmmm, what should it be, how about) golden showers. People who appear on RT.com are puppets, anyone who traveled to Russia suspect, those who deny any of this simply useful idiots.If you’re a journalist, simply phone up your favorite CIA leaker for a quote, or hell, just make something up, throw in a few Googled-translated Russian words for stooge (марионетка) or compromise (компромат) to make seem authentic, slap on a closing line about our very democracy itself in danger, use a few Tom Clancy terms such as “clear and present danger,” and poof, you’ve made your deadline before lunch.
It’s going to be four years, and it will get worse.
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
Obama Hands Out Good Leaks, Obama Prosecutes Bad Leaks
Alongside my recent article on Obama’s hypocrisy over leaks on CBS News, Salon, TomDispatch and elsewhere, I joined RT.com for an interview exposing this same subject. Take a look:
(If the video clip isn’t embedded above, see it here)
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
Hypocrisy of Free Speech: Only If We Agree with What They Say
A story of our times as RT.com tries to pull back the curtain on the hypocrisy of US government statements about web freedom. They were kind enough to quote me:The State Department since 2008 has spent $76 million overseas on Internet freedom, giving tools and support to bloggers and journalists and online people around the world, particularly in countries that we have difficulties with,” he said. “At the same time, the State Department… has found Internet freedom to be inconvenient in the form of WikiLeaks, and has worked just as hard and probably spent even more money trying to shut down free speech that it opposes, while supporting free speech that it feels furthers America’s own political goals overseas. We call that hypocrisy.
While trying to stifle inconvenient leaks at home, the US perceives the Internet and social networking platforms as major tools for spreading democracy, and spends millions of dollars to help people in the Middle East and China get around Internet-blocking firewalls. At the same time, ironically enough, American companies provide Bahrain, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait with the technology to effectively block websites.
A lot of the tools of control that are used by the so-called repressive governments are provided by American companies, Peter van Buren explains. The difference is that corporations, for better or worse, talk about profit as their motivation. However, the American government talks about freedom and democracy as its motivation, when in fact in many ways it seems to act in the opposite direction.
Read the entire piece online, and don’t miss the video of SecState Clinton pounding the pulpit for web freedom, at least if you’re Chinese or Iranian.
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
On RT.com: War on Whistleblowers
The House Subcommittee on Capital Markets and Government-Sponsored Enterprises passed a bill that severely weakens protection for corporate whistleblowers. The bill requires the whistleblower to confront the company in question first before going to a regulatory agency. Then the agency would notify the entity being accused of wrong-doing before any enforcement action is taken. Also it would legalize retaliation by the company against the whistle blowing employee. I joined RT.com to take a closer look at the rights of whistleblowers and how they’ve changed through the years.
(Follow this link if the video is not embedded above).
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
Baghdad Boondoogle: Wasting $750 Million
Michael O’Brien, author of America’s Failure In Iraq: Intervention to Withdrawal 1991-2010, talks about the US Embassy in Baghdad, wondering along with just about every other sentient being just why America spent over $750 million dollars to build the World’s Largest Embassy.
(If the video is not embedded above, follow this link)
O’Brien also has a scathing blog on Iraq, Afghanistan and all of America’s wars of terror at America’sFailureinIraq.com
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
Insubordination or Free Speech? You Decide.
I was invited on to a news show on RT.com to discuss whether or not my speaking out (or that of any whistleblower) was insubordination or free speech, ironically running afoul of the State Department’s rules which claim that the exercise of free speech by its employees is in fact insubordination.
Yeah, I’m confused too, so better just watch the video and see if that helps:
Still not sure if it was insubordination or free speech?
Better try again, this time in my interview with The Pulse Morning Show (audio only).
Still not sure if this is insubordination or free speech? Here’s a hint: It is free speech.
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
What Next in Iraq? Listen in on RT.com
I discuss the current political moves in Iraq, and look ahead at the next likely steps, on RT.com.
See the full story, now at RT.com.
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
On Russia Today Television
Video from my recent interview with Russia Today:
If the video is not showing above, follow this link to view it.Don’t miss the comments– one guy writes “100 dollars this guy will be dead with in 1 year.”
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
State Department and Free Speech?
From an inteview with RT.com television:
Peter Van Buren is being investigated by the US Department of State, whom he works for. What did he do? He blogged. Van Buren posted a link to a publically available WikiLeaks diplomatic cable. He also wrote a book.
“Two years ago I served 12 months in Iraq as a Foreign Service Officer, leading a Provincial Reconstruction Team. I had been with the State Department for some 21 years at that point, serving mostly in Asia, but after what I saw in the desert — the waste, the lack of guidance, the failure to really do anything positive for the country we had invaded in 2003 — I started writing a book.”
If the video embed is not showing on your screen, follow this link to watch.
Copyright © 2017. All rights reserved. The views expressed here are solely those of the author(s) in their private capacity. Follow me on Twitter!
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