Democracy and WikiLeaks
Before the idea of democracy became a practical experiment after the American Revolution, philosophers knew the purpose of government if nobody else did. The purpose of government was simple. The purpose of Troy and Athens, the purpose of Carthage and Rome, the purpose of France and Spain and Britain, the purpose of the German Reich and of the Soviet Union was simply this.
The purpose was to maintain the power of the Supreme Ruler and of his court.
The slaves, the workers, the soldiers, the sweaters and the diers were cattle. They did what they were told or were driven to an earlier death.
Then came democracy, the stirring phrases of the Declaration of Independence, the revolutions in France and the collapse of European empires. The people previously indentured to the land and to the government became the owners and the rulers. They seized power and took over their lives through a system of elected and selected bodies that focused their voices and their energy and satisfied their wishes while the old power brokers and the privileged regrouped.
They have taken nearly 300 years to reacquire their power and their privileges. But, with the National Security State, they have nearly eliminated the power of the people and returned them to their former position as servants to the throne.
Three hundred years can seem like an eternity. In the long history of power and privilege, it is barely the blink of an eye. The three hundred years is an aberration from the norm in one of those neat bar charts generated by Windows. It is barely a blip on the upward curve of the consolidation of the power that has made bigger empires and more slaves to serve the ambitions of powerful people.
Who are the heroes of American Democracy? A wonderfully well-spoken, modest young soldier, veteranof the Afghan War, was the latest model paraded out. A man who risked his life in a fire fight to save two downed comrades. A symbol for the daily deeds of daring performed by an army of 150,000 men and women trying to repress the legitimate claims of a dispersed primitive people to their own freedom. According to a recent survey, more than 90% of Afghanis did not know why they were under attack. There is not recent survey to show how many American military, much less how many Americans, know why we are attacking and dying. We have once again become the thoughtless slaves, doing the bidding of the power brokers.
Democracy is over. And not because of America’s enemies.
Who should be the heroes of a flourishing democracy? Bradley Manning, the boy who pulled the curtain from behind the Wizard of Oz in the State Department. Julian Assange, the mastermind behind controlling the technology to expose to the world what the people in our little corner are too brainwashed to believe, that we are more like the Wicked Witch of the West than the fairy princess.
I hate what we have let the dream of democracy become, all the servants lined up like sheep to be sheared naked to prove they are no threat to the order of the State.
The 2009 coup in Honduras
A key difference was that Honduras is in Central America, "our backyard," so different rules applied. Top officials in Washington supported the political aims of the coup. They did not nominally support the means of the coup, as far as we know, but they supported its political end: the removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. On the other hand, they were politically constrained not to support the coup openly, since they knew it to be illegal and unconstitutional. Thus, they pursued a "diplomatic compromise" which would "restore constitutional order" while achieving the coup's central political aim: removal of the ability of President Zelaya and his supporters to pursue a meaningful reform project in Honduras. The effect of their efforts at "diplomatic compromise" was to allow the coup to stand, a result that these supporters of the coup's political aims were evidently content with.
AP's treatment of President Morales' remarks was instructive:
Morales also alleged US involvement in coup attempts or political upheaval in Venezuela in 2002, Honduras in 2009 and Ecuador in 2010.
"The empire of the United States won," in Honduras, Morales said, a reference to the allegations of former Honduran President Manuel Zelaya that the US was behind his ouster.
"The people of the Americas in Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador, we won," Morales continued. "We are three to one with the United States. Let's see what the future brings."
US officials have repeatedly denied involvement in all of those cases and critics of the United States have produced no clear evidence. [my emphasis]
Since 2007, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) - with the support of the United States, Israel and European allies UK, France and Germany - has been demanding that Iran explain a set of purported internal documents portraying a covert Iranian military program of research and development of nuclear weapons. The "laptop documents," supposedly obtained from a stolen Iranian computer by an unknown source and given to US intelligence in 2004, include a series of drawings of a missile re-entry vehicle that appears to be an effort to accommodate a nuclear weapon, as well as reports on high explosives testing for what appeared to be a detonator for a nuclear weapon. That position is based on the premise that the intelligence documents that Iran has been asked to explain are genuine. The evidence now available, however, indicates that they are fabrications.
The Times highlighted documents that indicated the U.S. and South Korea were "gaming out an eventual collapse of North Korea" and discussing the prospects for a unified country if the isolated, communist North's economic troubles and political transition lead it to implode.
(The interesting thing is the American spin, that China’s interest in supporting North Korea is to prevent China from being overwhelmed by North Koreans flooding into China’s delicate political situation and that North Korea feels threatened by America’s plan to get rid of the North Korean government by any means short of war. Well, DUH.)
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A respondent opines
Beyond the additional nearly $1 trillion two prominent economists estimate it will cost just to treat veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq for the next 40 years, the potential human cost is huge.Since the war began in October 2001, there have been periodic reports about substance abuse, depression, domestic violence, suicide, homelessness and violent crime among traumatized veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq. High unemployment in a bad economy has merely compounded their troubles.
Cooking the books and keeping the faith on BP and the Deepwater Horizon
An Environmental Protection Agency memo, one of many showing uncertainty, said, "EPA agrees that the ultimate message to the public will likely be that the oil was successfully dispersed with chemical dispersants, but until we know with some degree of certainty ... we are hesitant to assign distinct percentages at this time."EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson was "concerned about the level of certainty implied in the pie and cylinder charts." Another e-mail noticed that a pie chart in a draft of the government's report wasn't actually round: "A pie chart pretty much has to round to 100," NOAA spokeswoman Jennifer Austin wrote.
U.S. officials clearly understood the possible economic consequences of their findings. Anticipating a question in August for an upcoming news conference, a NOAA spokeswoman asked scientists, "What impact, if any, will this report have in determining BP's financial liability for this spill?" The answer: The U.S. can fine BP up to $4,300 per barrel of oil that is counted as leaked.
The documents released Wednesday by the Commerce Department, NOAA's parent agency, were significant because they revealed conversations among scientists working on the forecasts of oil in the Gulf. The government released 5,817 pages of files late in the afternoon on the eve of Thanksgiving, traditionally a period when few people are paying attention to news reports because of holiday travel
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