A kind of journalism that serves the public

Journalism
is printing
what someone else
does not want printed

 Greenwald continues

Excerpt, editing for TIN by Carolyn Bennett

From part two of a two-part Democracy Now interview with the author of No Place to Hide: Edward Snowden, the NSA, and the U.S. Surveillance State.

Glenn Greenwald says, “We tried to do … reporting in the public service.”

He says the journalism he advocates and engages in “is controversial among a large klatch of … ‘establishment’ journalists” as there exists “an unwritten set of rules that govern how you [journalists] are supposed to speak and what you’re supposed to do,” which he says he consciously reject[s] and set[s] out to violate because … [these rules] are corrupting.” Continuing, Greenwald says he has been

…a very vociferous critic of how the establishment media in the United States conducts itself, and that’s created a lot of animosity even before the Edward Snowden story … [and his reporting and the way he tries] to do journalism [has been] the target of [their] criticism. 

D

Glenn Greenwald reporting
Posted at Euronews

oes the public hear meaningfully and appreciate journalism in service to the public? Greenwald draws on his particular experience covering issues of concern in his latest work.

Working on surveillance issues for eight years, he says, “I know the difficulty of trying to induce large numbers of people to pay attention and care about [these issues] because it’s a little bit more ethereal and abstract, and even a little bit remote, than … your inability to pay bills or to get health insurance for your children.

“The ability we’ve had to take [actual] documents and show them to people ─ as opposed to just reporting on [the issues] and making them rely on what we’re saying ─ has been indispensable in engaging the public.

 

“It really shows the value of whistleblowing, not just for exposing specific programs; but for strengthening democracy and for the debate that is necessary to support democracy.”

  

Source: Democracy Now, May 14, 2014, “Glenn Greenwald: U.S. Corporate Media is ‘Neutered, Impotent and Obsolete’,” http://www.democracynow.org/2014/5/14/glenn_greenwald_us_corporate_media_is

Filmmaker Laura Poitras and Glenn Greenwald, winner of the Pulitzer Prize, were the journalists who first met Edward Snowden in Hong Kong in June of last year.

_________________________________________

Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
 _________________________________________

Inventors of global terror seen as “extremist,” “ridiculous,” “war criminal”

Pakistanis
killed by U.S. drones

Terrorizers calling “them” terrorists

Editing and commentary by Carolyn Bennett 

I

f you believe this stuff, I’ll gladly sell you that bridge in Brooklyn and expect you to buy it ─ on credit, of course, the old bankers’ politicians’ bait and switch to own you.

 Convenient, inconvenient 

“bad guys”

U.S. Senate
Session

GOBBLEDYGOOK Senator Saxby Chambliss

Pushes “chatter” and “bad-guy” thesis

Chambliss is a good ole boy from the U.S. South who has been occupying a seat in Congress for nearly 20 years, and yes, it is past time for him to go. During one of the Sunday television idiot hours he said while in the District of Columbia he has never been scared “other than when (he gets) classified briefings.…”

[Does this mean the fear-mongering propaganda that claims the minds of the American public also claims the minds of politicians who spew it from public office?]

On the latest “terror alert,” Chambliss admits, “…We don’t know the location” or the target of these supposed “chattering” jihadists. “We think (overseas) is where the activities [are] planned for. So … these (surveillance) programs, even though they’re controversial, this (Obama Government alert) is a good indication of why they’re so important.”

Speaking of gobbledygook

“…If you (presumably Sunday media talkers) could tell us who the bad guys are,” Chambliss said, “I assure you we'd limit it to gathering on just the bad guys. …”

[If it were not for the dangerous, senile ineptness of congressional lifers, their foolish talk would be ridiculously funny.]

Chambliss continues

The surveillance programs, he said, “are very important because they’re what allow us to have the ability to gather this chatter. … If we did not have these programs, then we simply wouldn’t be able to listen in on the bad guys.” 

C

ontrary to Chambliss’ contradictory gobbledygook, an American philosopher interviewed today by Press TV said the Obama/Congressional “terror” alert “is ridiculous” on its face and “appears to be another psychological political stunt to intimidate the American people and make them believe that there is a real ‘terrorist’ threat from abroad.”

James Fetzer went on to declare that “America has become the greatest aggressor and terrorist nation in the world… an obscene (state of affairs given) the ideals and traditions of” the United States.

“I have no doubt whatsoever,” he said, “that this alarm and the

closing of these (25) embassies is an attempt to deflect attention from the U.S. surveillance scandals: growing scandal over the national security agencies, the massive surveillance program; some of our nation’s highest ranking officers’ (e.g., Admiral Clapper and General Alexander) lying to the Congress (and) betraying their oath to support, preserve and defend the Constitution of United States.”

Contrary to a particular part of Chambliss’ justification of the NSA program, Fetzer recalled that “the NSA program began seven months before 9/11 (September 11, 2001); and therefore cannot be justified on the basis of 9/11. It hasn’t done us any good. 

“The only terror threats

that have been revealed were those staged or faked by the U.S. FBI and Homeland Security. The situation is becoming a disgrace.

“Those who understand what is going on recognize that United States has completely lost its way and it is turning into some kind of bizarre sick political joke.”

Bad Guy

World’s principal antagonist, enemy, adversary, bully

Latin America

Latin America to Europe

“‘…The idea that they (the Obama Government) would pressure their European allies to block the plane (U. S. refused to confirm or deny its responsibility in the incident) carrying the president of a sovereign state (Bolivian President Evo Morales) is a really radical and extreme act. It smacks of rogue nation status and the kind of imperialism and colonialism that Latin America has long chafed at. I think that’s the reason you’re seeing so much support for Snowden in Latin American governments and among the populations as well.’” Venezuelan, Bolivian and Nicaraguan offered grants of asylum to NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden after the international incident barring French and Portugal airspace ─ over false suspicions that Snowden was on board ─ and forcing Bolivia’s presidential plane to land in Austria. 

Terrorizer's
War on
'Terrorists'

Today on Democracy Now, journalist Glenn Greenwald appraised the United States as global enemy. “If you try and count the number of countries at whom the United States has directed its fury and issued threats over the last two months in connection with the Snowden affair … it’s amazing,” he said.

They (the Obama Government) began with the government of Hong Kong and followed with the government of China then moved to Latin America and threatened Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador and Nicaragua over whether he would be granted asylum.  They’ve threatened Cuba over giving him the right to refuel.

The list now includes Russia [and is] almost getting to be longer than the list of countries at which they are not threatening or aiming their fury.

 

The United States in the past few months, Greenwald says, has, through “really extreme and radical behavior … showed the world what its character is. The “event-shifting” moment in Latin America, he says, “was when they (the U.S.) caused the plane of Evo Morales to be downed in Austria by blocking airspace rights over their European allies.

 

“… Everyone in the world ─ probably except for Americans ─ knows that the United States routinely refuses to extradite all sorts of people accused of horrible crimes.… When the United States pretends to be outraged that they don’t get what they want in extradition, everyone in the world knows that they frequently do the same thing in much more extreme cases…

“You can’t go around the world beating your chest and threatening everybody for very long,” he says, “without starting to appear ridiculous.”

 

Bad Guy 

Killer by remote

Various instruments of hostility including verbal threat, varieties of intimidation and demonization, provocation and destabilization, sanctions warfare, direct invasion and occupation, and drone (Unmanned aerial vehicles: UAV) attacks have been reportedly used on orders of the current U.S. administration against

Afghanistan	Bahrain	China	Egypt
Iran	Iraq	Karachi	Korea
Libya	Nigeria	Pakistan	Russia
Somalia	Sudan	Syria	Yemen
and untold	other	countries	…and peoples.

Yemen after
Drone attack

 “Washington carries out drone strikes in a number of countries including Yemen, Pakistan and Afghanistan under the pretext of targeting terrorists but most of the victims have been innocent civilians.” Investigative journalist Naveed Ahmad commented in a Press TV interview on Sunday that the Obama government’s “use of assassination drones in Pakistan and Yemen … encourages some emerging parts (countries) like India to use the same tactics; and Israel, which is already using (drones) on innocent people.” He reiterated what many others in South Central Asia have said repeatedly: foreign drones violate countries’ sovereignty. Though U.S. Secretary of State John Kerry pledged on Friday to end drone strikes ‘very, very soon,” his State Department, on the same day, said the government “has no timeline” for ending drone strikes. Of course, again, nobody in the world, except perhaps the American public, believed him anyway.

T

he Bureau of Investigative Journalism has released its July 2013 update of the Covert Drone War against three countries. TBIJ’s overview said the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “kills more people in Pakistan per strike than at any point since July 2012. U.S. drones return to Yemen‘s skies and al Qaeda confirms the death of its deputy leader. United Nations report finds indications of increased U.S. and UK involvement in Somalia.”

Pakistani dead
after drone attack

PAKISTAN

Total CIA strikes in July: 3

Total killed in strikes in July: 23-29 (civilian deaths reported: 0)

All actions 2004 – July 31, 2013:

Total Obama strikes: 320

Total US strikes since 2004: 371

Total reported killed: 2,514-3,584

Civilians reported killed: 410-928

Children reported killed: 164-195

Total reported injured: 1,112-1,493

“J

uly was the busiest month since January for the CIA’s drones with three strikes and at least 23 dead, eight of them identified by name. This was the highest ratio of people killed in each strike in Pakistan since July 2012 when four operations reportedly killed at least 38 people.

“The first strike on July 3 (Ob318) skewed the kill ratio – it was the bloodiest attack in nine months with 16-18 people reported dead. This bucked a trend identified by the Bureau for low-casualty strikes: there has been a decline in the number of reported killed in each strike since the peak in 2009.

“The death toll was unusually high: U.S. drones have reportedly killed 16 or more people in a strike only three times in the past two years, most recently on October 11 2012.  Also in July, the Bureau released an internal Pakistani record of drone strike casualties showing officials found CIA drone strikes have killed a significant number of civilians.

Of 746 people listed as killed in the drone strikes outlined in the document, at least 147 of the dead are clearly stated to be civilian victims

94 of those are said to be children.

YEMEN

Confirmed U.S. drone strikes: 1

Further reported/possible U.S. strike events: 1

Total reported killed in U.S. operations: 4-12 (civilian deaths reported: 0)

Yemenis protest
drone strikes

All actions 2002 – July 31 2013 (All except one of these actions have taken place during the Obama presidency. Reports of incidents in Yemen often conflate individual strikes. The range in the total strikes and total drone strikes TBIJ recorded reflects this.)

Confirmed U.S. drone strikes: 47-57

Total reported killed: 243-358

Civilians reported killed: 15-52

Children reported killed: 2

Reported injured: 62-144

Possible extra U.S. drone strikes: 81-100

Total reported killed: 286-460

Civilians reported killed: 23-48

Children reported killed: 6-9

Reported injured: 81-106

All other U.S. covert operations: 12-77

Total reported killed: 148-377

Civilians reported killed: 60-88

Children reported killed: 25-26

Reported injured: 22-111

“Reported U.S. drones killed at least seven people in Yemen this month (July) in the first air strikes since a suspected U.S. drone killed a 10-year-old boy and as many as six others.

“J

uly’s strikes came as President Hadi was visiting the U.S. and days before a scheduled meeting at the White House on August 1 to discuss counter-terrorism policies and political reform.

In July AQAP’s (Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula) chief theologian Ibrahim al Robaish confirmed the group’s deputy commander Said al Shehri’s death by video eulogy. Al Shehri has been reported killed on several occasions since co-founding AQAP in January 2009.

Al Robaish revealed al Shehri was killed by a drone while talking on his phone in Saada province; however it was not clear exactly when al Shehri died. The only strike in Saada in 2012 recorded by the Bureau is YEM121, which killed at least three people on October 28.

A U.S. court held preliminary hearings in a lawsuit brought by relatives of U.S. citizens killed in drone strikes abroad, including Anwar and Abdulrahman al Awlaki. District court judge Rosemary Collyer asked government lawyers, who were attempting to get the case dismissed, ‘How broadly are you asserting the right of the United States to target an American citizen?’ She added that she was ‘troubled’ by the U.S. administration’s view it can kill U.S. citizens abroad without judicial oversight. ‘The executive is not an effective check on the executive,’ she added.

SOMALIA

Somalis attacked by
drones

Total reported (July 2013) U.S. operations: 0

All actions 2007 – July 31 2013

U.S. drone strikes: 3-9

Total reported killed: 7-27

Civilians reported killed: 0-15

Children reported killed: 0

Reported injured: 2-24

All other U.S. covert operations: 7-14

Total reported killed: 47-143

Civilians reported killed: 7-42

Children reported killed: 1-3

Reported injured: 12-20

“For the eleventh consecutive month there were no reported drone strikes in Somalia. A United Nations report found that al Shabaab retains control of ’most of southern and central Somalia’ and is the country’s main threat to security.

“According to the report, al Shabaab has steered clear of direct conflict, sticking to asymmetrical fighting. The group’s supplies and fighting force of 5,000 have been largely preserved. Al Shabaab attacks have risen from the end of 2012 into 2013, despite losing the key southern port of Kismayo in September 2012 to African Union forces. This month militants struck in the capital once again, killing a Somali and a Turkish official in a bomb attack on the Turkish consulate.

“… Multiple diplomatic and military sources told UN monitors that both the U.S. and UK ‘are increasingly involved in directly supporting intelligence services in “Somaliland”, “Puntland” and Mogadishu’ ─ some of this support in violation of the UN arms embargo on the country, the investigators said.

 “… Despite the reported increase in Western support for Somali counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency forces, the Al Shabaab presence continues.”  (It is, after all, their country.]

Afghan civilians
suffer
airstrike

August 2013

Afghan villager
suffers airstrike

This month Afghan security sources reported, “U.S. forces shot and killed a school teacher in Afghanistan’s central-eastern province of Ghazni, Local Afghan officials said the American troops opened fire on the school teacher while he was working in his grape orchard in the Ghazni province. … Security sources reported that U.S. soldiers had also opened fire on police officers who had rushed to the scene to take the farmer to hospital. Four officers were seriously wounded as the result of the shooting. Civilian casualties caused by foreign forces have been a major source of tension between Kabul and Washington. The latest deadly incident comes after a series of U.S. airstrikes claimed the lives of more than 100 people and severely injured several others in different regions of Afghanistan over the past few days.”

In various parts of Afghanistan over the past decade, many civilians have lost their lives in U.S.-led strikes and ground operations.

Reporting August 1 on a latest Bureau of Investigative Journalism report, Press TV recounted, “CIA unmanned aircraft strikes intended for an alleged senior al-Qeada member in a single village in North Waziristan last year had “deliberately targeted rescuers attempting to help victims of previous drone strikes in Pakistan’s tribal areas.”

Pakistan buries its
dead
after airstrike

Unspeakable cruelty

Targeting rescuers

The tactic called ‘double-tap’ strikes, which had apparently stopped in July 2011, have been resumed by the CIA. 

“Five double-tap strikes took place in mid-2012, killing 53 people and injuring 57 others. One of the attacks targeted a mosque.

United Nations special rapporteur on extrajudicial executions Christof Heyns noted in June 2012 that double-tap strikes can be labeled as war crimes and UN special rapporteur on torture Ben Emmerson QC agreed with his colleague that if such attacks “prove to have happened,” they are considered “war crimes.”

Indeed, those who are paying attention understand that the United States of America, having failed to evolve, failed to rise from the status quo and move 

constructively forward, has lost its way.

Sources and notes

“Glenn Greenwald: ‘Rogue’ Actions of U.S. in Snowden Row Yield Latin American Offers of Asylum” (Amy Goodman, Democracy Now! / Video Interview, Published: Monday 8 July 2013)

Democracy Now guest: Glenn Greenwald, Columnist for The Guardian (UK) who originally broke the story on NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. 

http://www.nationofchange.org/glenn-greenwald-rogue-actions-us-snowden-row-yield-latin-american-offers-asylum-1373298680

Transcript excerpt from  “August 4: Dick Durbin, Saxby Chambliss, Rudy Giuliani, Bob Costas, Joe Scarborougn, Rick Santorum, Joy-Ann Reid, Andrea Mitchell (segment on Obama Government alert),  August 4, 2013, http://www.today.com/id/52668743/ns/today/t/august-dick-durbin-saxby-chambliss-rudy-giuliani-bob-costas-joe-scarborougn-rick-santorum-joy-ann-reid-andrea-mitchell/#.Uf_ZPmzD-1s

CHAMBLISS, Saxby, (1943 - ) Member of U.S. House of Representatives (Georgia) January 3, 1995-January 3, 2003; Member of U.S Senate (North Carolina) since 2003 (Party: Republican); term ends in 2015; sits as chair of the Committee on Agriculture, Nutrition, and Forestry.

[eighteen years too many]

Background: academic credentials, work experience, birthplace: University of Georgia, Athens (B.A., 1966); University of Tennessee College of Law (JD, 1968; Moultrie, Georgia attorney; birthplace: Warrenton, Warren County, North Carolina http://bioguide.congress.gov/scripts/biodisplay.pl?index=C000286

“U.S. terror alert, ‘political stunt’ says James Fetzer” (Press TV has conducted an interview with James Fetzer, American philosopher, about the U.S. closing 25 diplomatic missions in foreign countries), August 5, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/05/317348/us-terror-alert-a-political-stunt/

“Greenwald: Snowden ‘Doing Very Well’ in Russia After Sparking ‘Extraordinary Debate’ on NSA, Spying, August 5, 2013, http://www.democracynow.org/2013/8/5/greenwald_snowden_doing_very_well_in

“U.S. covert actions in Pakistan, Yemen and Somalia” (July 2013 Update by Jack Serle and Alice K Ross, published in All Stories, Covert Drone War, Monthly Updates on the Covert War),

August 2, 2013, http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2013/08/02/july-2013-update-us-covert-actions-in-pakistan-yemen-and-somalia/

“U.S. drone strikes ‘encouraging Israel, India’,” August 5, 2013,

http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/05/317248/us-drone-strikes-pakistan-yemen-israel/

http://www.thebureauinvestigates.com/2011/08/10/timeglider/

“U.S. forces shoot and kill school teacher in eastern Afghanistan.” August 4, 2013, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/04/317162/us-forces-shoot-dead-afghan-civilian/

“CIA targeted rescuers of drone victims in Pakistan: Report,” http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/08/01/316731/cia-targeted-rescuers-of-drone-strikes/

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy
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Pageantry at Tel Aviv: America’s neglect funds $BILLIONS in Israeli aggression, welfare

Neglected
U.S. high school students
protest school closings

Marine Vietnam Veteran, Veterans Today editor Gordon Duff pens “Israel driving America’s ‘welfare Cadillac’”

Editing, re-reporting by 

Carolyn Bennett 

 

Self-eating, lies 

Neglected children

“Americans who are going to bed hungry only want to see and hear just so much about life in Israel, the endless free time, the beaches, how all hard work is performed by one million foreign nationals who do the shopping, cook the food, run the farms and factories, leaving real Israelis to enjoy the existence of H.G. Well’s “Eloli” from his novel, The Time Machine,” Duff wrote.

Neglected
U.S. education

Wikipedia note: Eloi in The Time Machine: “The Eloi are the childlike, frail group, living a banal life of ease on the surface of the earth, while the Morlocks live underground, tending machinery and providing food, clothing and infrastructure for the Eloi. Each class evolved and degenerated from humans.

The novel suggests that the separation of species may have been the result of a widening split between different social classes. The main difference from their earlier ruler-worker state is that, while the Morlocks continue to support the world’s infrastructure and serve the Eloi, the Eloi have undergone significant physical and mental deterioration.

Neglected and abused
U.S. elderly

While one initially has the impression that the Eloi people live a life of play and toil-less abundance, it is revealed that the Morlocks are attending to the Eloi’s needs for the same reason a farmer tends cattle; the Morlocks use the Eloi for food. This is why there are no old people, and why the Eloi seem to fear the dark.

Gordon Duff resumes

Armed to the teeth
aided by
USA neglecting
its own

“The American entertainment industry may have to take a spare moment away from its glorification of torture and abuse, its demonization of ‘the inferior races’ and return to its role of incessant victimization mythology. If this fails, Israel may find its free ride on the ‘gravy \train’ at an end.”

A December 10, 2012, Glenn Greenwald article addresses a dark Hollywood case, “Zero Dark Thirty,” in which he asks and answers the question: “Can a movie that relies on fabrications to generate support for war crimes still be considered great?”

Torture
practiced
upheld
by USA

“What this film does,” Greenwald says, “is [it] uncritically presents as fact the highly self-serving, and factually false, claims by the CIA that its torture techniques were crucial in finding [Ethnic Yemeni Kindite, member of the wealthy Saudi bin Laden family, al-Qaeda founder Osama bin Mohammed bin Awad] bin Laden.

“[It] propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the U.S. government, based on pure falsehoods.”

I

Neglected
Abandoned
U.S. people

 spliced in the ending of Gordon Duff’s article. This is the heart of Duff’s development pegged to the current pageantry in Tel Aviv and less-headlined neglect at home. U.S. President Barack Obama’s message to Israel, Duff says, “will never be reflected in a press release.” Certain utterances will never reach screaming network news. Duff says ─  

Neglected
U.S. workers

It isn’t just that America can no longer function as the largest unpaid mercenary force in the world; America is broke.

America’s ‘free money’ printing presses are at the ‘end of the line,’ policing the world is no longer an option when America itself is coming apart ‘at the seams.’

It is Obama’s job to explain to [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu that America is going to have to cut back on its deliveries of free white phosphorous and cluster bombs; this may require cutting back Israel’s bombing of Gaza.

Neglected
U.S. children

 America’s state of neglect

Neglected and abused
U.S. prisoners

“$25 billion in American money buys a life in Israel that those who pay for it will never be able to enjoy,” says Vietnam Veteran Duff, “unless they happen to be of the right religion and ‘theoretical ethnicity.’

“America can no longer pay its soldiers and is working very hard to find ways to totally abandon its millions of disabled 

Neglected
U.S. education

Neglected
U.S. children
U.S. education

veterans, some whose ‘paperwork’ has been in ‘processing’ since the end of the Vietnam War.

“

Between 25,000 and 50,000 veterans of the ‘War on Terror’ have killed themselves, quite honestly to the relief of American ‘conservatives’ who looked on them as unpleasant reminders of Bush-era failed policies.

Neglected
U.S. soldiers

America’s GOP ─ the Israeli dominated political party of Mitt Romney, John McCain and Lindsey Graham ─ has long played the American people for fools, attacking ‘entitlements’ … , Social Security retirement, Medicare/Obamacare [Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA, the Affordable Care Act)], veterans benefits and military pay as money ‘stolen’ from America’s ‘tax cheating’ one percent-ers.

Neglected
U.S. children

[Yet] … one rule has been inviolable: no matter how many veterans die of exposure and starvation, no matter how many children of the poor go to sleep hungry or … are forced to eat rats to stay alive, the endless overt and covert aid to Israel ─ up to $25 billion dollars per year ─ is supposed to continue.

“

Education Neglected 
Force preferred

Schools can close” in this Union, Duff reminds us, “teachers lose their jobs, nurses are laid off, millions of Americans lose their homes ─

[Yet] billions in welfare payments taken from the taxes of America’s working poor floods into Israel to finance

U.S. citizens
beg for what
was believed
secured

their [Israelis’] free healthcare,

their [Israelis’] free education,

their [Israelis’] bulldozers and guard towers, endless miles of walls and barbed wire and a standard of living few Americans can come close to.

Sources and notes

“Israel, driving America’s ‘welfare Cadillac’” (by Gordon Duff), March 20, 2013 7:48AM, http://www.presstv.ir/detail/2013/03/20/294505/israel-driving-americas-welfare-cadillac/

GD/SL, © Copyright 2012 Press TV All rights reserved.

Eloi: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eloi

Gordon Duff

“Gordon Duff is a Marine Vietnam veteran, a combat infantryman, and Senior Editor at Veterans Today. His career has included extensive experience in international banking along with such diverse areas as consulting on counter insurgency, surveillance technologies, intelligence analysis, defense technologies or acting as a UN diplomat and ‘special consultant.’

“Duff currently serves on the boards of the Adamus Group [?], one of the world’s largest energy technology firms and of a private financial institution participating in the Federal Reserve Banking group. His most recent project adapts advanced military technologies to wildlife and land management in cooperation with the UN, USAID and International Wildlife Federation.

“Gordon Duff has traveled to over 80 nations. His articles are published around the world and translated into a number of languages. Duff, military affairs analyst for Press TV, regularly appears on TV and radio, a popular and sometimes controversial guest.” http://www.veteranstoday.com/author/gordonduff/

Affordable Care Act

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) (commonly called Obamacare or the Affordable Care Act) is a United States federal statute signed into law by President Barack Obama on March 23, 2010. Together with the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act, it represents the most significant government expansion and regulatory overhaul of the U.S. healthcare system since the passage of Medicare and Medicaid in 1965. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Obamacare

Zero Dark Thirty

In a December 10, 2012, article in The Guardian UK, Glenn Greenwald addressed the “Zero Dark Thirty” issue. “Can a movie that relies on fabrications to generate support for war crimes still be considered great?” he asked and answered.  

“…That this film would depict CIA interrogation programs as crucial in capturing America’s most hated public enemy, and uncritically herald CIA officials as dramatic heroes, is anything but surprising.

A large Hollywood studio would never dare make a film about the episode which is America’s greatest source of collective self-esteem and jingoistic pride without clinging tightly to patriotic orthodoxies.

The events that led to bullets being pumped into Osama bin Laden’s skull and his corpse being dumped into the ocean have taken on sacred status in American lore, and Big Hollywood will inevitably validate rather than challenge that mythology.

“…The claim that waterboarding and other torture techniques were necessary in finding bin Laden was first made earlier this year (2012) by Jose Rodriguez, the CIA agent who illegally destroyed the agency’s torture tapes, got protected from prosecution by the DOJ [U.S. Department of Justice], and then profited off this behavior by writing a book. He made the same claim as ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ regarding the role played by torture in finding bin Laden.

That caused two Senators who are steadfast loyalists of the CIA - Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Dianne Feinstein and Armed Services Committee Chair Carl Levin - to issue statements definitively debunking this assertion. Even the CIA’s then-Director, Leon Panetta, made clear that those techniques played no role in finding bin Laden. An FBI agent central to the bin Laden hunt said the same.

“What this film does, then, is [it] uncritically presents as fact the highly self-serving, and factually false, claims by the CIA that its torture techniques were crucial in finding bin Laden.

“Put another way, it propagandizes the public to favorably view clear war crimes by the U.S. government, based on pure falsehoods.

“Shouldn’t that rather glaring ‘flaw’ preclude gushing admiration for this film? Is it possible to separate the filmmakers’ political propaganda and dissemination of falsehoods from their technical skills in producing a well-crafted entertainment product?”

“Zero Dark Thirty: new torture-glorifying film wins raves” (Glenn Greenwald Guardian UK),

December 10, 2012, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2012/dec/10/zero-dark-thirty-torture-awards

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Bennett's books are available in New York State independent bookstores: Lift Bridge Bookshop: www.liftbridgebooks.com [Brockport, NY]; Sundance Books: http://www.sundancebooks.com/main.html [Geneseo, NY]; Mood Makers Books: www.moodmakersbooks.com [City of Rochester, NY]; Dog Ears Bookstore and Literary Arts Center: www.enlightenthedog.org/ [Buffalo, NY]; Burlingham Books – ‘Your Local Chapter’: http://burlinghambooks.com/ [Perry, NY 14530]; The Bookworm: http://www.eabookworm.com/ [East Aurora, NY] • See also: World Pulse: Global Issues through the eyes of Women: http://www.worldpulse.com/ http://www.worldpulse.com/pulsewire http://www.facebook.com/#!/bennetts2ndstudy

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