The Security State Crushes Ever Tighter 496

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The disgraceful judges of Britain’s High Court – who have gone along with torture, extraordinary rendition, every single argument for mass surveillance and hiding information from the public, and even secret courts – have ruled that it was lawful for the Home Office to detain David Miranda, a journalist as information he was carrying might in some undefined way, and if communicated to them, aid “terrorists”.

Despite the entire industry, both private and governmental, devoted to whipping up fear, it is plain to pretty well everyone by now that terrorism is about the most unlikely way for you to die.  A car accident is many hundreds of times more likely.  Even drowning in your own bath is more likely.  Where is the massive industry of suppression against baths?

I had dinner inside the Ecuadorian Embassy on Sunday with Julian Assange, who I am happy to say is as fit and well as possible in circumstances of confinement.  Amongst those present was Jesselyn Radack, attorney for, among others, Edward Snowden.  Last week on entering the UK she was pulled over by immigration and interrogated about her clients.  The supposed “immigration officer” already knew who are Jesselyn Radack’s clients.  He insisted aggressively on referring repeatedly to Chelsea Manning as a criminal, to which Jesselyn quietly replied that he was a political prisoner.  But even were we to accept the “immigration officer’s” assertion, the fact that an attorney defends those facing criminal charges is neither new nor until now considered reprehensible and illegitimate.

As various states slide towards totalitarianism, a defining factor is that their populations really don’t notice.  Well, I have noticed.  Have you?

 

 

 

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496 thoughts on “The Security State Crushes Ever Tighter”

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  • doug scorgie

    Can I suggest that Craig or his IT helpers set up an “off-Topic” thread?

    It would help to remove the temptation to post off-topic material on specific threads.

    I’d like to post about the ongoing situation in Venezuela for example.

  • John Goss

    Yes, Mary, shame about the US. The UK too, but then again, we did better than expected. The Times says that £34 billion was spent by the Russians and asks if it was worth it. I think the answer is it is much better spending that kind of money in international competitive sport than in killing people to steal their resources. I mention no names but we all know who they are and Russia is not among them.

  • Ben

    Doug; Thanks. I’ve been distracted with personal matters for some time now and haven’t had time to separate the chaff from the wheat. It’s been several days and Craig seems to have interest in the topic for a day or two, so I shouldn’t worry about breaking this up with Venezuela. In fact I think it would be instructive.

    “Bloodworth says that he supported the Chavista movement when a US backed coup violently ousted Hugo Chavez in 2002. “I have no trouble remembering which side I was on” he claims – very dubiously as I’ll explain.

    Bloodworth doesn’t remember that Leopoldo Lopez was among the leaders of that coup. This video shows Leopoldo Lopez and Henrique Capriles (a state governor who ran against Maduro in April of 2013) supervising the illegal “arrest” of a Chavez government minister during the 2002 coup. Bloodworth objects to Lopez’s arrest for leading protests over the past few weeks that are clearly aimed at repeating what happened in 2002, but Bloodworth never considers an incredibly obvious point. Lopez would have been locked up for decades (if he were lucky) had he participated in the violent overthrow of the UK or US governments. If not for the Venezuelan government’s unusually high tolerance for dissent, Lopez and Capriles (his “moderate” ally) would never have been around to lead protests, much less hold public office as Capriles now does. One can only shudder at what their fate would have been in the USA after participating in a briefly successful coup. Chelsea Manning has been locked up for years and openly tortured simply for exposing human rights abuses and embarrassing the US government. Manning will not be leading violent protests or holding public office (even if she wanted to) any time soon.

    Bloodworth also forgets (or more likely doesn’t know or care) that Human Rights Watch (HRW) utterly disgraced itself during the 2002 coup. He takes HRW assessments of Venezuela at face value but does not recall that during the 2002 coup HRW failed to denounce the coup, failed to call on other countries not to recognize the Carmona dictatorship, failed to invoke the OAS charter, and did not call for an investigation of US involvement. Thankfully, most governments in the region denounced the 2002 coup at once, exactly as HRW would have done had it not been penetrated by US State Department officials and other elites as Keane Bhatt recently noted.

  • Resident Dissident

    @John Goss
    “I think the answer is it is much better spending that kind of money in international competitive sport than in killing people to steal their resources.”

    And of course the Russian Government wouldn’t kill anyone or steal their resources. Why do you think the Sochi games cost more than all the previous Winter Olympics put together – don’t you think that there is the slightest possibility that some of the spending was diverted elsewhere? Why do you think that most of Russia’s natural resources are now in the hands of Putin and the oligarchs – when they all used to be state owned? Why do you think Putin has spent rather more on his palace than the now deposed Ukrainian president? Why do you think Putin and his cronies are such great admirers of the General Pinochet? Why do you think that they introduced a flat rate income tax system with a tax rate of 13% and for those oligarchs who thought that was a little on the high side allowed them to avoid tax through a rather helpful tax treaty with Cyprus. And if you don’t believe that the Russian kleptocracy woun’t kill people in order to steal their own resources from them – perhaps you should look at what they spend on pensions, health and housing for their own people.

  • Mary

    What next for Prosor and Sacks? International Friends of Israel? International Friends of BICOM?

    Prosor and Sacks to launch American friends of BICOM
    February 19, 2014

    Israel’s ambassador to the UN Ron Prosor will address a New York event marking the launch of American Friends of BICOM next week.

    The new group will support the work of the London-based organisation, which aims to create a more supportive environment for Israel including by taking journalists and opinion-formers to the Jewish state and Palestinian territories.

    The launch of the first Friends of BICOM group in America recognises the growing impact of British media in the US.

    The BBC is among the world’s most widely-consumed broadcasters, the Daily Mail’s website recently overtook the New York Times as the most visited newspaper site and the Guardian’s site last year saw 12.5m visitors from the States.

    Bicom Dinner 13037http://jewishnews.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/007-Bicom-Dinner-13037-2.jpg?ce4b75

    BICOM CEO Dermot Kehoe said: “The launch of American Friends of BICOM gives a great opportunity for further transatlantic cooperation. The global reach of British media means BICOM’s work matters worldwide.”

    Prosor is to join former Chief Rabbi Lord Sacks during the launch event, where around 100 guests will hear about the importance of engaging with UK media. It will be hosted by BICOM founder Poju Zabludowicz, chairman Edward Misrahi and the new American Friends of BICOM board.

    The launch was announced as the organisation unveiled a new 60-page BICOM publication called ‘The Apartheid Smear,’ which addresses the intellectual foundation of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanction (BDS) movement.

    The document will be circulated by Israel’s foreign ministry with pro-Israel groups worldwide. In the UK, the Union of Jewish Students (UJS) has been working with BICOM to distribute the leaflet on campus.

    http://jewishnews.co.uk/prosor-sacks-launch-american-friends-bicom/

  • Resident Dissident

    Mary

    Of course it was not just Oliver Kamm who got it spot on about Media Lens and Srebenica but George Monbiot who Media Lens, of taking “the unwarranted step of belittling the acts of genocide committed by opponents of the western powers”.

    And where exactly do you stand on what happened at Srebenica, Mary?

  • Resident Dissident

    I should add that what we are seeing with the response to O’Hagan and Bloodworth is of course further examples of how political and religious cults save their greatest venom for their apostates. And the more the “true” believers protest the more that we know that this is the case.

  • Anon

    Mary: “Well done Russia for Sochi and for winning. US fourth!”

    Isn’t it funny. Mary couldn’t stick the London Olympics, or “Limp Ics” as she called them. Far too much money spent at the expense of ordinary people, if I remember correctly. And yet here we have the most expensive Games in history, Summer or Winter, and not only is Mary completely silent on the grotesque expenditure that pales into insignificance that of the London Games, but she actually has the gall to gloat about the number of Russian medals won.

    If you don’t like her principles, she has others!

  • Mary

    For information – the Medialens Editors wrote:

    DANCING ON A MASS GRAVE – OLIVER KAMM OF THE TIMES SMEARS MEDIA LENS
    25 November 2009
    http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2009/585-dancing-on-a-mass-grave-oliver-kamm-of-the-times-smears-media-lens.html

    A ‘Malign Intellectual Subculture’ – George Monbiot Smears Chomsky, Herman, Peterson, Pilger And Media Lens
    02 August 2011
    http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2011/637-a-malign-intellectual-subculture-george-monbiot-smears-chomsky-herman-peterson-pilger-and-media-lens-sp-1119850121.html

    ‘Sworn Enemies’? A Response To George Monbiot
    6 November 2012
    http://www.medialens.org/index.php/alerts/alert-archive/2012/704-sworn-enemies-a-response-to-george-monbiot.html

  • Mary

    Ref smearing of Sochi by Western media.

    The media’s ‘crusade’ against Sochi: where does the whistle blow from?
    Wed, Feb 5, 2014

    ‘Jon HELLEVIG (Finland)

    The Western press is once again brimming with a fresh wave of anti-Sochi slander. The new round is dedicated to the supposedly “skyrocketing” costs of the games, or the “bacchanalia of waste and corruption” as Steven Lee Myers of the New York Times so poetically expresses it.*’

    *
    http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/27/world/europe/russians-debate-sticker-price-of-sochi-games.html?_r=1

    http://orientalreview.org/2014/02/05/the-medias-crusade-against-sochi-where-does-the-whistle-blow-from/

  • Ben

    Protestors still wearing masks. Why? Is there a chance Moscow might throw some weight around in the Ukraine?

  • Resident Dissident

    Why? Is there a chance Moscow might throw some weight around in the Ukraine?

    Yes – or they might try to freeze by turning off the gas, or starve them – all of which has been tried in the past. It is quite comical how some point to US/EU interference in the current dispute and ignore both the current and past interference of Russia in the affairs of the Ukraine.

  • Ben

    Ach. The threat already made; http://www.eutimes.net/2014/02/russian-threat-of-war-over-ukraine-stuns-obama-regime/

    “A new report by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MoFA) relating to the ongoing crisis in Ukraine says that United States President Barack Obama was “stunned” yesterday after President Putin warned him in a telephone dialogue between these two leaders that Russia was prepared to send over 250,000 heavily armed troops into Crimea to protect the sovereignty of its citizens against further US-EU aggression.”

  • Resident Dissident

    Nick Cohen gets it spot on in today’s Observer:

    “You complain about ‘western imperialism’,” we should say. “Allow us to show you what modern imperialism will do to you if you even think of sending snipers to shoot peaceful demonstrators. We will change the locks of your apartments on Fifth Avenue, the Avenue Montaigne and Kensington Palace Gardens. We will shutter your villas of Cap Ferrat. Then we will empty your bank accounts so completely you will realise that all your thieving has been for nothing.”

    The Putin’s, Karimov’s and Yanukovych’s of this world should note.

  • John Goss

    Great closing ceremony to the Sochi Olympics, with a bit of humour referencing the the ring that failed to open. And of course Misha the bear and the single tear. Very moving. A pity there are those who comment here who can only see the bad in Russia. Incredible organisation said the English commentators.

    Thanks Mary for the Bicom links. I do not know about you but I suspect the moderator(s) is having the weekend off. They do such sterling work. I am expecting a few comments to be gone tomorrow. Responding would be futile. Even this might go because it is off topic.

  • Resident Dissident

    John Goss

    I can see plenty of good in Russia – it just isn’t represented by Putin and the oligarchs or their show projects – the good lies with their many many victims.

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