by Chris Hedges
Writer, Dandelion Salad
Truthout
June 3, 2013
Image by Steve Rhodes via Flickr
Alex Gibney’s new film, “We Steal Secrets,” is about WikiLeaks and its founder, Julian Assange. It dutifully peddles the state’s contention that WikiLeaks is not a legitimate publisher and that Bradley Manning, who allegedly passed half a million classified Pentagon and State Department documents to WikiLeaks, is not a legitimate whistle-blower. It interprets acts of conscience and heroism by Assange and Manning as misguided or criminal. It holds up the powerful—who are responsible for the plethora of war crimes Manning and Assange exposed—as, by comparison, trustworthy and reasonable. Manning is portrayed as a pitiful, naive and sexually confused young man.
[…]
via Truthout
Chris Hedges spent two decades as a foreign reporter covering wars in Latin America, Africa, Europe and the Middle East. His latest books are Days of Destruction, Days of Revolt, Death of the Liberal Class, and The World as It Is: Dispatches on the Myth of Human Progress.
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[DS added the video report.]
Secrecy Cult: ‘Manning leaked less than 1% of classified docs’
RussiaToday Jun 3, 2013
One hundred fifty four years: The amount of time whistleblower Bradley Manning could spend behind bars. His espionage trial begins later today in the US, after his arrest in 2010, which saw him charged with aiding the enemy after he leaked thousands of classified documents online. As RT’s Marina Portnaya reports – his court martial process begins at a time when the US is accused of being anything but truthful or transparent. READ MORE: http://on.rt.com/gj6ydx
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Bradley Manning Trial: After 3 Years, Army Whistleblower Begins Court Martial Shrouded in Secrecy
democracynow Jun 3, 2013
http://www.democracynow.org – More than three years after he was arrested, Army whistleblower Bradley Manning goes on trial today accused of being behind the biggest leak of classified information in U.S. history. Manning faces life in prison for disclosing a trove of U.S. cables and government documents to the whistleblowing website WikiLeaks. On Saturday, hundreds of Manning supporters rallied outside the barracks at Fort Meade, Maryland, where the trial will be held. We’re joined by two guests: Firedoglake reporter Kevin Gosztola, who is at Ft. Meade covering the trial; and attorney Chase Madar, author of “The Passion of Bradley Manning.”
see
Julian Assange: Stratfor Hacker Jeremy Hammond Guilty Plea Part of Crackdown on Journalism, Activism
Cornel West: Obama is a War Criminal + Julian Assange: What Makes Us Civil is Education
The Death of Truth by Chris Hedges (Interview with Julian Assange)
Julian Assange Unveils Latest WikiLeaks Release: Project K + “The Kissinger Cables”
Bradley Manning: Hung Out To Dry
Why Democracy – Taxi to the Dark Side (video; over 18)
Videos:
Dandelion Salad 
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The real crime in this matter is the military’s use of “guilty before proven innocent” tactics to break Bradley Manning down. While the government has the express need to keep secrets, all too often the secrets the government keeps are of the CYA variety. Sure our troops are going to make mistakes. Accountability to the people is, however, quite important and the fact the military in effect is afraid to admit its mistakes shows just how badly the very concept of leadership has broken-down since World War II.
Quot. “The primacy of personal piety over justice is the inversion of morality. It is the sickness of our age.” This is an excellent point that needs a profound exploration, a subject of a book. Thank you!
Does an empire have a heart, let alone black?
We are all accountable to this precocious and lethal “state” of affairs ~ that invisible, amorphous phenomenon we variously characterize as the establishment, the power elite, the “ruling” superclass etc. However, it is never accountable to “us.” The US refuses to ratify international law. Yet it is “us” who grant it the “authority” to determine our planetary outcomes. How? ~ by condoning its inevitable de facto existence. We crave quasi-authority and sanction.
“It” has the power, “we” are powerless. It has control, we are its fiefs. It makes decisions, we merely accept its diktats ~ as it force feeds its villainous “PR.” We are abused children!
Is this really so? Will it ever be thus or can it be other? Is there actually any better, wiser, more honourable way to live (& die,) or are we forever trapped in an inevitable spiral of dominance, decadence, exploitation and “education” by deceit?
Throughout recorded time ~ that metaphysical paradox, selective human memory has blinged as “history” ~ many dynasties have risen and fallen. What is the cement that glues it all together, and what are the flaws that destine it to decompose?
Sex. Everything is about sex, from the first cellular symbiosis to the most sophisticated play of the media, from the reproductive urge to procreate, to the catabolic ecstasies of death. “Please,” we are conditioned, “seduce us and screw us…forever.”
The corruption of instinct is the first duty of depraved pseudo-governments/priesthoods ~ their incorporated science of institutionalized delusion. Disguise it, dress it up as something else; pervert it, peddle it, profit from it, pretend it is holier once it is branded and sold ~ especially if “it” is permissibly feminized.
“Sick fuck” is a vulgar pejorative, that actually pretty well sums it all up. Bottled sex-appeal. War-porn. So what is the solution to our moral dilemma? Was it, and will it ever be such?
No!!
Whatever we may think of Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, he surely got one thing right: if men as immoral agents through the agencies of political “power” disenfranchise women, simply as a default matter of course, they/we (at the very least) in a single stroke, simply halve the spiritual potential of humanity.
A viable avian species needs both wings, and genders. Why, I wonder are Angels sometimes portrayed thus?