Jay Carney Demonstrates U.S. Commitment to Free Speech

Obama's mouthpiece and Flack-in-Chief, Jay Carney, attacked Russia for allowing Edward Snowden, the persecuted whistleblower who has exposed details of the “National Security” Agency's massive surveillance of everyone on earth they possibly can spy on, to have some human rights defenders visit him in his de facto holding cell in the Moscow Airport transit lounge. The aptly-named Carney denounced Russia for permitting Snowden to have “a propaganda platform.” In other words, the Russian government should silence and repress Snowden and prevent him from meeting with anyone. No freedom of speech at all, no freedom of association with others.

Snowden is a person who hasn't been (officially) convicted of anything yet- although the U.S. Government, various political apparatchiks, and most of the U.S. media has convicted him of “treason,” for the unauthorized disclosure of “national defense data,” endangering the public, aiding Our Enemies, etc. etc. (The anonymous “leaks” you see daily in the same U.S. media, planted there by the same officials denouncing Snowden and bemoaning what he did, is fine, even though just as illegal as anything Snowden has done, because those are things the power bosses want to plant in the public mind.)

By the way, this is the same U.S. government that denounces Russia for political repression.

OK Jay, you're a serious thinker. We can see that.

Obama the Incorrigible Cookie Thief and His Bogus Blather

After Obama gets caught spying on reporters, and then spying on all Americans (not to mention everyone else in the world), he shamelessly talks like he's against that stuff, or has qualms about it.

When he gets caught with his hand in the cookie jar, he says stuff like “we should have a conversation about how many cookies one is allowed to eat,” and “I'm in favor of putting a lock on the cookie jar.” Totally phony and in complete bad faith. Utterly like his last Democratic predecessor, Bill “It Depends On What 'Is' Means” Clinton. (You know, the guy who apparently didn't know that two people rubbing each others' sex organs constitutes sex.)

{Speaking of sex, you need other kinds of stimulation in your life too. You need intellectual stimulation. You need emotional stimulation. You need to dose yourself with taboo truths for humanity. What more convenient way to be guaranteed of the fix you crave than to get automatic feeds from here or sign up for email alerts?

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Unpleasant Parallel Between Syrian Uprising and the Spanish Civil War

Some rabid jihadists megalomaniacally styling themselves as "The Islamic State of Iraq in the Levant" just murdered one of the top leaders of the Free Syrian Army- the real Syrian rebellion (as opposed to outsiders looking to seize control of another failed state) at a "checkpoint" they set up. This followed the murder of a dozen of his men.

It is reminiscent of the Spanish Civil War, when the so-called "communists" (Bolshevik ideologues under the iron control of one Josef Stalin) waged war on the other left forces battling to defend the Republic against the traitorous fascist military rebellion led by Generalissimo Francisco Franco. Needless to say, having one side in a war tearing itself apart like that guarantees its defeat.

The Islamists who are now in effect waging war on the Syrian opposition to Assad care much less about overthrowing Assad than do the Syrian rebels. Thus they can afford the failure of the uprising. Much worse woe is in store for the Syrian majority.

The despicable standoff attitude of the U.S. and its Western lackeys greatly contributed to this situation. Had they armed the Syrian opposition before the Islamist psychopaths had gotten a toehold, things may have been different. For two years fear of Islamists was the excuse to stand aloof. (Along with fear of "being dragged into another war," which is nonsense. Providing arms in no way puts one on a slippery slope to sending in combat troops, or doing anything else for that matter. Amazingly, the bourgeois commentariat in the West keeps parroting this bogus line.)

Now, two years on, all Obama has done is said he'll dribble in a few arms- but they haven't even started doing that yet! (Which doesn't stop dingbat leftists from screeching about how the U.S. is "arming Jihadists in Syria." Even some otherwise intelligence people have made these claims.)

So what comes to pass is a stronger Jihadi movement, a crushed Syrian uprising, and a lot more bloodshed and suffering. (Assad was at his weakest at the beginning of the rebellion, when Obama started his two years of dithering.) Once again, we see that the immoral path is NOT the realistic one, that morality and realism in fact follow the same road. The fecklessness of outside powers is yet another example of their shameless cynicism and utter lack of ethics. Meanwhile, Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah are bold and forceful in supporting the tyrant.

The U.S.' view is that it didn't have a dog in this fight, since it didn't have a client or puppet organization in Syria. If the U.S. actually gave a rat's ass about human rights, democracy, people's aspirations, and all the other gush they pump out in huge volumes, incessantly, they would at least have given the Syrian people the wherewithal to have a fighting chance to win their struggle.

What's Wrong with Aljazeera?

To find out, go to propagandaanalysis.blogspot.com, for July 12th. You can click on the link to the right in the sidebar. 

Who Says the U.S. Military Is Culturally Insensitive?

In recognition of Ramadan, the U.S. military is going to force feed the Guantanamo Bay prisoners who are on hunger strike at night for the next month instead of during the day, as per Muslim fasting requirements.

See? The U.S. military isn't so bad! Lay off 'em!

{I was just wondering, why is it that, all over the world, literally billions of people get free email alerts whenever there's a new essay on this website, but you don't? Is it because you're an outcast from humanity? Or is it just that you've been too busy to get around to it? If it's the latter, we can fix that! It only takes a few seconds to arrange. And it's totally painless, there are no needles involved.

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Why You Need to Defend “Other People's” Rights

Let's start with free speech. It's not just about your right to speak. It's about your right to listen.

When someone is silenced, the right of everyone else to hear that speech is violated. Including yours.

But what when the speech of someone you might want to hear is silenced? Then what? Who will you go to for redress?

You're just an individual. You are weak. You are up against the state. The state is strong. No individual can stand up to the state and prevail. Only numerous individuals, standing together, can successfully challenge the state.

How about the right of habeas corpus, the right not to be imprisoned by the state without a trial, without any charges, without the right to defend yourself before a jury who will decide your guilt or innocence instead of the state deeming you guilty because it says so? If you're thrown into a dungeon, once that right is lost, you have no power to get out.

If people you hate, or are told to hate, don't have rights, neither do you. The state can always declare you an enemy- or do what the U.S. has done, say that to “protect” you from official enemies, it must take away your rights. (It has done this in every war, and increasingly in the periods between wars. This is not a new phenomenon.)

Other people aren't “other.” Other people are you too.