Bread and Circuses

Bread and Circuses

By Expotera
February 28, 2017

Now that no one buys our votes, the public has long since cast off
its cares; for the people that once bestowed commands, consulships,
legions, and all else, now meddles no more and longs eagerly for
just two things -- bread and circuses. ~ Juvenal

Don't close your eyes
Don't turn away
You know deep down
You've got something to say
And with each night the darkness comes
And it consumes us all
We are all plagued with death
It is "The Fall"
As we lay dying here
The bread and circuses they entertain
We live through them
And they through us
They are the virus in our veins
The one that pushes us to run from the light
And forces us to hide
The one that feeds us lie after lie
And says we should ignore
The void inside

- Dena Lumley

The evil was not in bread and circuses, per se, but in the
willingness of people to sell their rights as freemen for full
bellies and the excitement of the games which would serve
to distract them from the other human hungers which bread
and circuses can never appease. ~ Marcus Tullius Cicero

Omens

Omens

By Cecilia Llompart
Poets.org
February 26, 2017

The dead bird, color of a bruise,
and smaller than an eye
swollen shut,
is king among omens.

Who can blame the ants for feasting?

Let him cast the first crumb.

~

We once tended the oracles.

Now we rely on a photograph
a fingerprint
a hand we never saw coming.

~

A man draws a chalk outline
first in his mind
around nothing
then around the body
of another man.

He does this without thinking.

~

What can I do about the white room
I left behind?

What can I do about the great stones
I walk among now?

What can I do but sing.

Even a small cut can sing all day.

~

There are entire nights
I would take back.

Nostalgia is a thin moon,
disappearing
into a sky like cold,
unfeeling iron.

~

I dreamed
you were a drowned man,
crown of phosphorescent,
seaweed in your hair,
water in your shoes.

I woke up desperate
for air.

~

In another dream, I was a field
and you combed through me
searching for something
you only thought you had lost.

~

What have we left at the altar of sorrow?

What blessed thing will we leave tomorrow?

https://www.poets.org/poetsorg/poem/omens

The Chickens Have Come Home To Roost

The Chickens Have Come Home To Roost

By Judge Andrew P. Napolitano
Information Clearing House.com
February 24, 2017

Last week, The Wall Street Journal revealed that members of the
intelligence community — part of the deep state, the unseen
government within the government that does not change with
elections — now have acquired so much data on everyone in
America that they can selectively reveal it to reward their friends
and harm their foes.

Their principal foe today is the president of the United States.

Liberty is rarely lost overnight.

The wall of tyranny often begins with benign building blocks of
safety — each one lying on top of a predecessor — eventually
collectively constituting an impediment to the exercise of free
choices by free people, often not even recognized until it is too
late.

Here is the back story.

In the pre-Revolutionary era, British courts in London secretly
issued general warrants to British government agents in America.

The warrants were not based on any probable cause of crime or
individual articulable suspicion; they did not name the person or
thing to be seized or identify the place to be searched.

They authorized agents to search where they wished and seize
what they found.

The use of general warrants was so offensive to our Colonial
ancestors that it whipped up more serious opposition to British rule
and support for the revolutionaries than the "no taxation without
representation" argument did.

And when it came time for Americans to write the Constitution,
they prohibited general warrants in the Fourth Amendment, the
whole purpose of which was to guarantee the right to be left alone
by forcing the government to focus on bad guys and prohibit it from
engaging in fishing expeditions.

But the fishing expeditions would come.

In 1978, Congress passed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
which was intended to rein in the government spying on Americans
that had been unleashed by the Nixon administration.

FISA established a secret court and permitted it to issue warrants
authorizing spying on agents of foreign governments when
physically present in the United States.

People born in foreign countries who are here for benevolent
or benign or even evil purposes have the same constitutional
protections as those of us born here.

That's because the critical parts of the Constitution that insulate
human freedom from the government's reach protect "persons,"
not just citizens. But FISA ignored that.

And FISA was easy for the government to justify. It was a pullback
from Richard Nixon's lawlessness.

It required the feds to seek a warrant from federal judges. The
targets were not Americans.

Never mind, the argument went, that FISA has no requirement of
showing any probable cause of crime or even articulable suspicion
on the part of the foreign target; this will keep us safe.

Besides, the government insisted, it can't be used against
Americans.

That argument was bought by presidents, members of Congress
and nearly all federal courts that examined it.

We don't know whether the authors of this scheme really wanted
federal spies to be able to spy on anyone at will, but that is where
we are today.

Through secret courts whose judges cannot keep records of their
own decisions and secret permissions by select committees of
Congress whose members cannot tell their constituents or other
members of Congress what they have learned in secret, FISA has
morphed so as to authorize spying down a slippery slope of targets,
from foreign agents to all foreigners to anyone who communicates
with foreigners to anyone capable of communicating with them.

The surveillance state regime today permits America's 60,000
military and civilian domestic spies to access in real time all the
landline and mobile telephone calls and all the desktop and mobile
device keystrokes and all the digital data created and used by
anyone in the United States.

The targets today are not just ordinary Americans; they are justices
on the Supreme Court, military brass in the Pentagon, agents in the
FBI, local police in cities and towns, and the man in the Oval Office.

The British system that arguably impelled our secession in 1776
is now here on steroids.

Enter the outsider as president.

Donald Trump has condemned the spying and leaking, as he is a
victim of it.

While he was president-elect, the spies told him they knew of his
alleged misbehaviors — vehemently denied — in a Moscow hotel
room.

Last week, his White House staff was shaken by what the
spies did with what they learned from a former Trump aide.

Trump's former national security adviser, retired Lt. Gen.
Michael Flynn, himself a former military spy, spoke to the
Russian ambassador to the United States in December via
telephone in Trump Tower.

It was a benign conversation. He knew it was being monitored,
as he is a former monitor of such communications.

But he mistakenly thought that those who were monitoring him
were patriots as he is.

They were not.

They violated federal law by revealing in part what Flynn had said,
and they did so in a manner to embarrass and infuriate Trump.

Why would they do this?

Perhaps because they feared Flynn's being in the White House,
since he knows the power and depth of the deep state.

Perhaps to send a message to Trump because he once compared
American spies to Nazis.

Perhaps because they believe that their judgment of the foreign
dangers America faces is superior to the president's.

Perhaps because they hate and fear the outsider in the
White House.

The chickens have come home to roost.

In our misguided efforts to keep the country safe, we have
neglected to keep it free.

We have enabled a deep state to become powerful enough
to control a powerful president.

We have placed so much data and so much power in the hands
of unelected, unaccountable, opaque spies that they can use it
as they see fit — even to the point of committing federal felonies.

Now some have boasted that they can manipulate and thus control
the president of the United States by selectively revealing and
concealing what they know about anyone, including the president
himself.

This is a perilous state of affairs, brought about by the maniacal
passion for surveillance spawned under George W. Bush and
perfected under Barack Obama — all with utter indifference to the
widespread constitutional violations and permanent destruction of
personal liberties.

This is not the government the Framers gave us.

But it is one far more dangerous to human freedom than the one
from which they seceded in 1776.

Empire America

Empire America

By Liam C. Calhoun
February 22, 2017

I spot a drone today;
No bombs,
But with plenty o’ potential –
A will to malice,
To malcontent, to murder.

I seek it south
And at its zenith,
Above dissent,
And the bastion that’d never know
Better, from worse.

So too, I spy it over the sands
And over cave,
Over Manhattan, over perdition,
And over “god,” over greed,
Over "great," and god-damned
Guaranteed;

A glistening, wrought silver teething,
“Dead,” come one wrong,
Word, or whatnot,
Anything antagonist “corporate,”
Our contradictory content,
Blessed, this,
“Complacency,” – indiscriminate.

Unbeknownst and melancholy-ridden,
The bombs have dropped,
And for some time now,
A sooner to be eternity
Whilst we’ve managed nothing but
The simplest of slumber;

We’re lucid but one second
And sheep more so the years.
The flock afar-critical,
As abstained become the hours,
The minutes, until, “then,”
Atop, “when,”
Whilst we learn again to breathe,
Maybe even dream,
And relieve the nooses continually
Knotted by others –

It’s an imaginary rebellion. Sure.
And I’m sure you’d agree;
Yet still, I soak a nightmare’s sweat
Whilst we gladly assume our
Peasant’s role
And as long as we do,
“They’ll,” gladly assume their
Thrones.

Rushin’ Doll’s

Rushin’ Doll’s

By T.P. Wilkinson
Dissident Voice
February 20, 2017

From the Tiber
To the Thames
The Potomac
To the Seine
Gold flows in sacks
To the Hudson’s
Safe harbour.

Paddling
Peddling
Through the confluence of cash.

Confusing
The mouth
The source
And the course
Not far from these rivers
Not far from these wells
Driven to madness
From the heavens
They fell.

Saving
Their dolla’s
Protecting
Their sheiks
From Riyadh
To Kabul
Fed on Syrian meat.

March with Prussians
To widen the gap
So Trump and the Russians
Take Hillary’s rap.

http://dissidentvoice.org/2017/02/rushin-dolls

America's Civic War

America's Civic War

How Long Can America Stand Divided?

By Matt Mayer
US News.com
February 18, 2017

America is engaged in a Civic War.

I don't casually conflate this war with the Civil War fought to save
the union and end slavery.

Yet many fear that our current crisis could spiral out-of-control in
the coming years, resulting in as grave a threat to our union as the
Civil War.

America has overcome previous periods of protest and unrest,
but the ever-increasing unraveling of the last few decades has
no modern parallel.

As with many Americans, I first became uneasy with the tenor of
our national debate during George W. Bush's presidency when the
left ceaselessly attacked him over the Iraq War and enhanced
interrogation techniques.

The right took its turn during Barack Obama's presidency with
constant assaults on his birth, Benghazi and use of executive
power.

Our unraveling, however, predates both presidencies.

Some cite the 1960s, some Watergate, and others point to
Bill Clinton's presidency.

For me, the spiral really began with the left's, "borking" of
Supreme Court candidate Robert Bork.

The shrillness of that episode when the left went after his person
not so much his jurisprudence launched the era of zero-sum politics
in Washington.

What began in Washington slowly spread to the rest of the country
over the subsequent 30 years via 24-hour news channels, talk radio
and the internet.

Donald Trump's election may be merely another chapter in this
ongoing fight, but the sheer non-stop level of opposition beginning
before the election and accelerating each passing week portends a
deepening of the crisis.

Four weeks in, the left talks incessantly about impeachment and
secession, with some even publicly mentioning assassination and
a coup.

Such talk used to be confined solely to the dark corners
of our fringes.

Traditional areas where restraint was deployed such as
the inauguration, the appointment of Cabinet nominees
and the White House Correspondents' Dinner have become
hotly contested battlefields on which to draw blood.

Every action, no matter how small, is vigorously opposed
and magnified far beyond reason.

We have entered the era of inch-by-inch trench warfare.

As Doris Kearns Goodwin vividly described in her book "Team of
Rivals," the 30 or so years preceding the Civil War involved a
growing separation and looming clash between the North and the
South.

Abraham Lincoln's election in 1860 merely served as the catalyst
for the South to "fire the first shot."

The fight's geography today isn't so neatly divisible; rather, it pits
the densely populated major cities and coasts against the suburban
and rural masses.

Unlike in 1860, the media today isn't aligned by geography.

The mainstream media clearly has become part of the left,
with nontraditional entities serving as news sources for each
side's partisan points of view.

Instead of making us more social, the increased use of social media
has torn us further apart, as, what we dare not say to our neighbor's
face in our backyards, we aggressively type or endorse casually with
a click on our smartphones.

Our trust in government, media and each other declines
precipitously each passing year.

Facts have become, like beauty, something in the brains
of the beholders from both sides.

Facing the reality of Clinton, Bush, Obama and Trump, we like to
claim we'd theoretically support a presidential candidate from the
other side, but who on the right would the left really support and
vice-versa?

We are, in fact, a red America and a blue America.

All signs point to it getting much worse.

We exited our past crises united once again and stronger for it in
the long term.

We may not be as fortunate this time, as each side becomes more
entrenched and convinced of its righteousness.

The Pied Pipers of today who preach Rodney King's, "can't we all
just get along" plea are sorely out-of-step with large segments of
America.

The path they want to lead us down is little more than the same
well-trod trail full of the very failed appeasement politics that
have fueled the anger and apartness.

It will take more than recycling cliches to change the course we
are on.

Talk isn't just cheap, it is utterly ineffective.

Lincoln fundamentally understood that a united America required
the North to thoroughly defeat the South.

The surrender of General Robert E. Lee at Appomattox largely
ended the Civil War, but true victory did not come for another
100 years.

Even if one side can win our Civic War, what will the settled
peace look like, will it hold and how long until final victory
will be achieved?

Ultimately, can there by clear victory in a Civic War based upon
ideologies that all fall within the four corners of a democratic
free society?

The very tenants of liberalism and progressivism have always been
the antithesis of the principals of conservatism and libertarianism
and vice-versa.

Elections used to determine which ideology prevailed for four-to-
eight years, with opposition being civilly exercised in Congress or
from statehouses.

Now, each side vigorously opposes and demonizes action before
they even know what exactly it is they are opposing in a, "they're
for it, we're against it" automaton fashion.

Obama wasn't just wrong. He was a closeted Muslim seeking to
supplant our Constitution with Sharia law.

Trump isn't just misguided. He is the next Adolph Hitler rapidly
laying the groundwork for the next Holocaust.

Western civilization is tragically losing its civility.

The unfortunate reality is that it may take an existential external
threat to truly bring us together, as occurred during World War II.

Given the rising instability in hot spots around the world, perhaps
a global crisis will peel us away from our partisan tribes and spur
us to once again rally around the flag as lovers of freedom.

The enemy at our gate may be the only force that can push us to
stop seeing our enemies across the aisle.

As Lincoln warned, "A house divided cannot stand."

The question isn't whether we are divided.

We most certainly are; rather, it is how long can our house stand
if our division persists?

http://www.usnews.com/opinion/civil-wars/articles/2017-02-16/
americas-divisions-have-led-to-a-civic-war

‘He Will Die In Jail’

‘He Will Die In Jail’

By David Edwards
Information Clearing House
February 16, 2017

U.S. national security officials are reportedly ready to “go nuclear”
after President Donald Trump’s latest attack on the intelligence
community.

In a series of tweets on Tuesday and Wednesday, Trump insisted
that the “real scandal” was not that former National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn lied about his contact with Russia.

Instead, the president blasted what he said were “un-American”
leaks that led to Flynn’s ousting.

On Wednesday, former NSA intelligence analyst John Schindler
provided some insight into the reaction of national security
officials.

“Now we go nuclear,” he wrote on Twitter. “[Intelligence
community] war going to new levels. Just got an [email from]
senior [intelligence community] friend, it began: ‘He will die
in jail.'”

“US intelligence is not the problem here,” Schindler added in
another tweet. “The President’s collusion with Russian intelligence
is. Many details, but the essence is simple.”

The views expressed in this article are solely those of the author
and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of Expotera.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/46457.htm#sthash.gJ
sXF5CX.dpuf

General Michael Flynn

General Michael Flynn

By Expotera
February 14, 2017

Last night General Michael Flynn was forced to resign from his position as U.S. National Security Adviser.

General Michael Flynn was a very, very, highly enthusiastic supporter of Donald Trump during his campaign for the Presidency and General Michael Flynn was also a very, very, strong critic of Hillary Clinton's campaign for the Presidency as well.

Before Donald Trump won the Presidential Election back in
November he told all of his supporters that, "Justice Would Have To
Be Delivered At The Ballot Box" but after Donald Trump won the
Presidential Election back in November he told all of his supporters
that, "He Would Not Be Prosecuting Hillary Clinton" as he had
previously promised out on the campaign trail.

We are now only a little over three weeks into Donald Trump's
Presidency and in the words of the Chairman of the Foreign Affairs
Committee in the Russian Parliament Konstantin Kosachev, “Either
Trump hasn’t found the necessary independence and he’s been
driven into a corner... or Russophobia has permeated the new
administration from top to bottom. This action is based on not
just paranoia but something even worse."

You see out of all of the people who are currently living off the, "Public" and working for the government out in Washington D.C., General Michael Flynn was probably one of the very, very, "Last" people who should have been forced to resign from his position as U.S. National Security Adviser simply because General Michael Flynn had absolutely positively nothing to do with with putting our entire Country well over, "$20 Trillion Dollars" in debt, yet all of the people who are now fully responsible for all of this have never been forced to, "Resign" from their individual positions, nor will they ever be, "Prosecuted" by this new administration as well.

Donald Trump now owes General Michael Flynn for, "Falling On His Sword" to simply help Donald Trump to continue to protect, "Hillary Clinton" and the establishment in which she now fully represents from being brought to, "Justice" and I salute General Michael Flynn for his service to our Country, as well as for his willingness to, "Resign" from yet another, different color version of, "The Synagogue of Satan".....

William Blum: Rogue State

William Blum: Rogue State

By Expotera
February 09, 2017

From 1945 to 2003, the United States attempted to overthrow more
than 40 foreign governments, and to crush more than 30 populist-
nationalist movements fighting against intolerable regimes. In the
process, the US bombed some 25 countries, caused the end of life
for several million people, and condemned many millions more to
a life of agony and despair. - William Blum

Our leaders are cruel because only those willing to be inordinately
cruel and remorseless can hold positions of leadership in the foreign
policy establishment. People capable of expressing a full human
measure of compassion and empathy toward faraway powerless
strangers do not become president of the United States, or vice
president, or secretary of state, or national security adviser or
secretary of the treasury. Nor do they want to. - William Blum

What our leaders and pundits never let slip is that the terrorists
whatever else they might be-might also be rational human beings;
which is to say that in their own minds they have a rational
justification for their actions. Most terrorists are people deeply
concerned by what they see as social, political, or religious
injustice and hypocrisy, and the immediate grounds for their
terrorism is often retaliation for an action of the United States.
- William Blum

Propaganda is to a democracy what violence is to a dictatorship.
- William Blum

Do you remember the classic example of chutzpah? It's the young
man who kills his parents and then asks the judge for mercy on
the grounds that he's an orphan. The Bush administration's updated
version of that was starting a wholly illegal, immoral, and
devastating war and then dismissing all kinds of criticism of its
action on the grounds that 'we're at war. - William Blum

A terrorist is someone who has a bomb, but doesn't have an
air force. - William Blum

Why don't church leaders forbid Catholics from joining the military
with the same fervor they tell Catholics to stay away from abortion
clinics? - William Blum

The Soviet Union and something called communism per se had
not been the object of Washington's global attacks. There had
never been an International Communist Conspiracy. The enemy
was, and remains, any government or movement, or even
individual, that stands in the way of the expansion of the
American Empire; by whatever name the US gives to the enemy -
communist, rogue state, drug trafficker, terrorist. - William Blum

The "trickle-down" theory: the principle that the poor, who must
subsist on table scraps dropped by the rich, can best be served by
giving the rich bigger meals. - William Blum

No matter how paranoid or conspiracy-minded you are, what the government is actually doing is worse than you imagine. - William Blum

The de facto censorship which leaves so many Americans
functionally illiterate about the history of US foreign affairs may
be all the more effective because it is not official, heavy-handed
or conspiratorial, but woven artlessly into the fabric of education
and media. No conspiracy is needed. - William Blum

Castigating Trump For Truth-Telling

Castigating Trump For Truth-Telling

By Robert Parry
Consortiumnews.com
February 7, 2017

Gaining acceptance in Official Washington is a lot like getting
admittance into a secret society’s inner sanctum by uttering
some nonsensical password.

In Washington to show you belong, you must express views that
are patently untrue or blatantly hypocritical.

For instance, you might be called upon to say that, “Iran is the
principal source of terrorism” when that title clearly belongs to
Saudi Arabia and other Gulf state allies that have funded Al Qaeda,
the Taliban and the Islamic State.

But truth has no particularly value in Official Washington;
adherence to, “group think” is what’s important.

Similarly you might have to deny any, “moral equivalence” between
killings attributed to Russian President Vladimir Putin and killings
authorized by U.S. presidents.

In this context, the fact that the urbane Barack Obama scheduled
time one day a week to check off people for targeted assassinations
isn’t relevant.

Nor is the reality that Donald Trump has joined this elite club of
official killers by approving a botched and bloody raid in Yemen
that slaughtered a number of women and children (and left one
U.S. soldier dead, too).

You have to understand that, “our killings” are always good or at
least justifiable (innocent mistakes do happen from time to time),
but Russian killings are always bad.

Indeed, Official Washington has so demonized Putin that any
untoward death in Russia can be blamed on him whether there
is any evidence or not.

To suggest that evidence is needed shows that you must be a,
“Moscow stooge.”

To violate these inviolable norms of Official Washington, in which
participants must intuitively grasp the value of such “group think”
and the truism of, “American exceptionalism” marks you as a
dangerous outsider who must be marginalized or broken.

Currently, President Trump is experiencing this official opprobrium
as he is widely denounced by Republicans, Democrats and, “news”
people because he didn’t react properly to a question from Fox
News’ Bill O’Reilly terming Putin, “a killer.”

“There are a lot of killers.” Trump responded. “We’ve got a lot of
killers. What do you think — our country’s so innocent. You think
our country’s so innocent?”

Aghast at Trump’s heresy, O’Reilly sputtered, “I don’t know of any
government leaders that are killers.”

Trump: “Well — take a look at what we’ve done too. We made a lot
of mistakes. I’ve been against the war in Iraq from the beginning.”

O’Reilly: “But mistakes are different than —“

Trump: “A lot of mistakes, but a lot of people were killed.
A lot of killers around, believe me.”

‘Moral Equivalence’

Though Trump is justly criticized for often making claims that
aren’t true, here he was saying something that clearly was true.

But it has drawn fierce condemnation from across Official
Washington, not only from Democrats but from Trump’s fellow
Republicans, too.

Neoconservative Washington Post opinion writer Charles
Krauthammer objected fiercely to Trump’s, “moral equivalence”
and CNN’s Anderson Cooper chimed in, lamenting Trump’s deviation
into, “equivalence” i.e. holding the U.S. government to the same
ethical standards as the Russian government.

This, “moral equivalence” argument has been with us at least since
the Reagan administration when human rights groups objected to
President Reagan’s support for right-wing governments in Central
America that engaged in, “death squad” tactics against political
dissidents, including the murders of priests and nuns and genocide
against disaffected Indian tribes.

To suggest that Reagan and his friends should be subjected to
the same standards that he applied to left-wing authoritarian
governments earned you the accusation of, “moral equivalence.”

Declassified documents from Reagan’s White House show that this
P.R. strategy was refined at National Security Council meetings led
by U.S. intelligence propaganda experts.

Now the, “moral equivalence” theme is being revived to discredit
a new Republican president who dares challenge this particular
Official Washington, “group think.”

Lots of Killing

The unpleasant truth is that all leaders of major countries
and many leaders of smaller countries are, “killers.”

President Obama admitted that he had ordered military strikes
in seven different countries to kill people.

His Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rejoiced over the grisly
murder of Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi with a clever twist
on a famous Julius Caesar boast of conquest: “We came, we saw,
he died,” Clinton chirped.

At the start of the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, President George
W. Bush ordered the U.S. military to conduct a devastating aerial
assault on Baghdad, known as, “shock and awe.”

President George W. Bush launched an illegal war against Iraq
based on false pretenses, causing the deaths of hundreds of
thousands of Iraqis, many of them children and other civilians.

President Bill Clinton ordered a vicious bombing campaign
against the Serbian capital of Belgrade, which included
intentionally targeting the Serb TV building and killing 16
civilian employees because Clinton considered the station’s
news reports to be, “propaganda” i.e., not in line with U.S.
propaganda.

After the U.S. bombing in 1991 that incinerated more than
400 civilians, the Amiriyah Bunker in Baghdad was turned
into a memorial to the victims.

Since the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003,
the memorial was closed to the public.

President George H.W. Bush slaughtered scores of Panamanians
who happened to live near the headquarters of the Panamanian
Defense Forces and he killed tens of thousands of Iraqis,
including incinerating a civilian bomb shelter in Baghdad,
after he brushed aside proposals for resolving Iraq’s invasion
of Kuwait peacefully.

Bush wanted a successful war as a way to rally the American
people behind future foreign military operations, so, in his
words, the country could kick “the Vietnam Syndrome once
and for all."

Other U.S. presidents have had more or less blood on their hands
than these recent chief executives, but it is hard to identify any
modern U.S. president who has not been a, “killer” in some form,
inflicting death upon innocents whether as part of some,
“justifiable” mission or not.

But the mainstream U.S. press corps routinely adopts double
standards when assessing acts by a U.S. president and those
of an, “enemy.”

When the U.S. kills people, the mainstream media bends over
backwards to rationalize the violence, but does the opposite if
the killing is authorized by some demonized foreign leader.

That is now the case with Putin.

Any accusation against Putin – no matter how lacking in evidence
– is treated as credible and any evidence of Putin’s innocence is
ridiculed or suppressed.

That was the case with a documentary that debunked claims that
hedge fund accountant Sergei Magnitsky was murdered in a Russian
prison because he was a whistleblower when the documentary
showed that he was a suspect in a massive money-laundering
scheme and died of natural causes.

Although produced by a documentarian who started out planning to
do a sympathetic portrayal of Magnitsky, the facts led in a different
direction that caused the documentary to be shunned by the
European Union and given minimal distribution in the United States.

By contrast, the ease with which Putin is called a murderer –
based on, “mysterious deaths” inside Russia – is reminiscent
of how American right-wing groups suggested that Bill and
Hillary Clinton were murderers by distributing a long list of,
“mysterious deaths” somehow related to the Clinton, “scandals”
from their Arkansas days.

While there was no specific evidence connecting the Clinton's to
any of these deaths, the sheer number created suspicions that
were hard to knock down without making you a “Clinton apologist.”

Similarly, a demand for actual evidence proving Putin’s guilt
in a specific case makes you a, “Putin apologist.”

However, as a leader of a powerful nation facing threats from
terrorism and other national security dangers, Putin is surely a,
“killer” much as U.S. presidents are killers.

That appears to have been President Trump’s point, that the
United States doesn’t have clean hands when it comes to
shedding innocent blood.

But telling such an unpleasant albeit obvious truth is not the way to
gain entrance into the inner sanctum of Official Washington’s Deep
State.

The passwords for admission require you to say a lot of things that
are patently false.

Any inconvenient truth-telling earns you the bum’s rush out into the
alley, even if you’re President of the United States.

https://consortiumnews.com/2017/02/07/castigating-trump-for-
truth-telling

Frederick Douglass

Frederick Douglass

By Robert Hayden
February 5, 2017

When it is finally ours, this freedom, this liberty,
this beautiful and terrible thing, needful to man as air,
usable as earth; when it belongs at last to all,
when it is truly instinct, brain matter, diastole, systole,
reflex action; when it is finally won; when it is more
than the gaudy mumbo jumbo of politicians;

This man, this Douglass, this former slave,
this Negro beaten to his knees, exiled,
visioning a world where none is lonely, none hunted, alien,
this man, superb in love and logic,
this man shall be remembered.

Oh, not with statues’ rhetoric,
not with legends, and poems, and wreaths of bronze alone,
but with the lives grown out of his life,
the lives fleshing his dream of the beautiful, needful thing.