“If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.” Joseph Goebbels, Adolf Hitler’s Minister of Propaganda
This piece is dedicated to some truth tellers, heroes of the highest order who have risked all, including their lives, those champions who have paid dearly for their courage to enlighten the people and the rest of the world as to the misdeeds and crimes of governments. “The truth, indeed, is the mortal enemy of the lie,” (so says Goebbels) and perhaps that is the very reason governments want to at all costs, keep the lantern of discovery snuffed out lest the people become enraged and seek an accountability, atonement, and remedy.
Again we must ask why Obama and Congress would seek to extradite Snowden for his spilling the beans about American secrets. Why, indeed? Did Snowden seek to sell secrets that would harm America and its alliances? Clearly, in a word, NO. Did Snowden break his contract with the U.S. Government not to reveal the secret nature of documents and files he worked with as a contractor? Clearly, YES. He did no doubt about it. Several decades before Daniel Ellsberg set the precedence and released the infamous Pentagon Papers:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pentagon_Papers
Recently Ellsberg praised the efforts of Snowden. Fate and history was on Ellsberg’s side. The Nixon Watergate scandal broke right after Ellsberg blew the whistle on U.S. secret policies in Viet Nam and Southeast Asian bordering countries. Nixon had enough on his plate with Watergate to muddy the water with someone as insignificant as Ellsberg who could prove he was telling the truth. It only cost us an additional 10,000 American and an additional 1,000,000 Viet Namese lives for Ellsberg to reveal the heinous secrets of the United States Oil Can Harry’s who started and who set the stage for total war in Southeast Asia. And why did our beloved government choose such a bloody course? Well, the official answer was to contain the Chinese communists from expanding into Viet Nam, Cambodia, Thailand and other parts of the region. Johnson and McNamara started the fire, and Nixon couldn’t resist stoking the coals.
So when Obama inherited Bush’s war of madness and outright lies about Saddam Hussein having Weapons of Mass Destruction pointed at U.S. cities, Obama could not resist all that much, either. It was only during his first term as president that Obama withdrew some, but not all, troops from Iraq. And Afghanistan? Well there’s talk. We will have to wait and see. Occupation and keeping the fires of war burning are very important economic considerations, you know. If the United States was indeed, spending a billion dollars a day when Iraq and Afghanistan were both occupied by U.S. boots on the ground just think of the dollars lost by Military Industrial Complex corporations in just one day! Unlike Snowden and Ellsberg, war corporations that sell a Tomahawk Missile for about $1,400,000 apiece get bloodied by shutting off the fiscal tap at the Pentagon. Forget the thousands of lives lost by keeping the store open another day or two to go through channels as Ellsberg chose to do, just think of the bottom line. If war corporations had brains they might see the human side of why it is bad to have a closed society that kills and maims its citizens. But (Kaching!) money and profits are not just the name of the game; they are the only game.
It is apparent that Snowden and Ellsberg are concerned with lives lost and Americans harmed by a ruthless secrets kept by our government. Corporations, well, after all, war is the basis of the manna that falls from the skies in the form of hammers that Uncle Sam will gladly pay $500 apiece for from your tax dollars. Apparently Ellsberg and Snowden were only trying to enlighten Americans adrift in a world of secrecy and without much hope for ever knowing the truth that if known and told, could have altered the course of history and perhaps made a better world for all of us. Ellsberg said he was prepared to live out the rest of his life in prison by exposing lying governments and presidential administrations. Watergate and Nixon’s attention to his own ass that had just burst into flames was the only thing that saved Ellsberg.
Bradley Manning, a third leaker of U.S. secrets was not so lucky. See, Manning was an Army Intelligence Analyst and wore the uniform. When in uniform your ass is in the government’s foot locker (old Navy expression to describe the power of the higher ups in the chain of command). You can be tried in a military tribunal, a military courts martial, and have the book thrown at you for little to no sentence (in Manning’s case of having been found guilty) or up to a100 years imprisonment. Get it? The military is not a democracy. It does not care about human rights or being kind or fair with interlopers who they naturally assume are intent on threatening the government hierarchy.
So why is the government so afraid? What is it about a so-called free and open society, under democratic principles, that needs to protect a hidden agenda? Why is it hidden? Who placed the absolute crown upon the heads of state to rule in secrecy and not tell us what is going on? What is the risk for they who presume to know what is best for us, our country, and in the interest of National Security? George W. Bush when asked about signing the McCain “No Torture” Bill, said he would damn well torture the enemies of the United States (without a trial or a lawyer, mind you) if he thought it was in the best interest of National Security. And he affixed a signing statement to that effect by his signature on the McCain bill. What absolute power! To override Congress, the legislative process, etcetera. Why are its protectors like Dick Cheney so enraged at those who share government secrets with the American people who are supposed to be in the equation of the people, by the people, and for the people?
http://cnnpressroom.blogs.cnn.com/2013/10/28/dick-cheney-to-cnns-jake-tapper-on-edward-snowden-i-think-hes-a-traitor-i-hope-we-can-catch-him-at-some-point/ (note: Cheney calls Snowden a traitor)
But for what crime is Snowden guilty? Why does Cheney call him a traitor? One would think Cheney would be the bigger traitor for having his aide Scooter Libby off one of our own CIA undercover operatives, namely Valerie Plame, thereby exposing thousands of world agents to harm and our own operations conducted in thwarting terrorist attacks. Wouldn’t one think that is the bigger and better display of a traitor against the United States?
Poor Obama. He wants Snowden’s head, too. Pity. Is Obama truly become a Bush Lite president? Hey, Barry, here’s a hot tip for you. Pardon Snowden and let him come back home. The American people will love you for it. They will appreciate your breaking with the secret regime of Bushites that preceded you. Be open. You ain’t gonna run again anyway. Step into the star light and shine like many of us all thought you would. What you got to lose?
When the shoe of truth fits who but the dark and evil forces seeks to hide under the rocks? If the NSA needs to break the law with Obama’s blessing by spying on any and all Americans without proper FISA Court approval how do we approve of such a draconian imperial act like that? If Obama won’t step up to the plate and walk the walk instead of talking the talk, then who will protect us and our privacy? Who will prevent our government evolving into a police state what with the loss of privacy in our bank accounts, our cell phone records and conversations, Internet surfing, and (drum roll) our right to habeas corpus (Mr. President, it’s time. Restore it. Now.). In our hearts, we cannot accept yet that you are but a Bush Lite. Give up the fascistic parts of the Patriot Act, okay? Stop setting yourself up to go down in history with all the appearances of a Richard Nixon.
Secrecy is bad. When Napoleon the Pig in Orwell’s Animal Farm discovered the newborn pups in the barn, he hid them in secrecy. He knew they would be useful as attack dogs perhaps at a future date when they had grown and could be used to keep disgruntled other animals in check when they discovered they had been had. And found themselves living in an animal society with a pig as dictator.
How can the public be informed if you conduct your presidential business in secrecy? Even when it is not called for in the interest of National Security or any other bogus sacred cow of a reason given? Why one would think that you, Mr. President would support an informed citizenry, not a secret society or dictator state where people are misinformed and kept in the dark. That is the image of you that elected you. Twice.
So get to work. Close Guantanamo. Tell those who seek to steal our government away and its resources that America is not for sale. Help us retake our country. We believed in you. So get to work. You got 3 more years to turn the corner and enrich the lives of all Americans not just the wealthy who can kiss our collective asses for building all those factories in China and Mexico. Be the Harvard lawyer/graduate your diploma says you are. You got a much higher IQ than the 92 IQ of the smirking dunce and his Darth Vader assistant that got us here and millions killed. While attacking a country that never attacked us. While playing footsie with the oil-rich shieks and giving them prominence and importance just because they had cheap oil. Remember the monicker “Bandar Bush?” The Saudi prince whom the Bushes embraced as one of their very own?
Forget the taunts and jeers coming from those who supported the previous White House administration. The one that almost destroyed America. Let’s prove them and all their paid pundits wrong. Let’s see you keep some promises and get us out of this hole before we lose our government, our currency, our jobs, and our country. Enough of us still believe. Know something? It’s hard to snuff out the audacity of hope.