"No Comment" at The Guardian on the London attack

The Guardian has, for "legal" reasons, deleted all comments on the murder of Machine Gunner Rigby, or as they call him, "Drummer" Rigby at Glenn Greenwald's column, They have gone on to disable ALL commenting on any article relating to the Woolwich murder, making a mockery if not a travesty -- out of their misnamed "Comment is Free" section.

The Guardian columnist Glenn Greenwald on security and liberty issues has posted this explanation of sorts.

UPDATE
For reasons I'll let the Guardian explain, all of the comments to all of the columns and articles posted on the London attack were deleted, and the comment sections then closed. I hope that won't happen to today's column here, as the topics discussed here are not really about the attack but the broader debate about terrorism. But it's possible that it will happen again. Those wanting to post comments should be aware of this possibility before spending your time and energy to write one. - Green Greenwald

In England, which resembles Orwell's "Air Strip One" more and more each day, several people have been charged with making "malicious" social media comments. I find this bizarre and wrong. That's something the Americans got right, free speech!

Since The Guardian has seen fit to end all discussion of this event I thought I would open this space for anyone who wishes to comment on Greenwald's two latest posts. (or anything else relevant)

Comment is free. 

Talk is cheap

In general, I think Americans are too preoccupied by what people 'say' and not enough by reality. Perhaps this is a by-product of the culture of personality. Perhaps a by-product of television, of living vicariously, of virtual realities.
Whatever the case, I see the slippery slide back into the entire paradigm of the matrix whenever that SOB opens his mouth. The entire western world is still peeing their pants because, in part, this bum is a black man.

MLK on the other hand is someone we like not because he's a black man, but because he spoke truth and truth is always informative and educational. Obama is NOT informative and educational.

If Obama wants to describe the workings of some aspect of the universe, great, but it's not a speech then, but an education, a talk, whatever. If you want to talk about North American indigenous having no defense against Eurasian microbes such that they were 90% dead by the time the English and Dutch were landing on what is now the East Coast of the US, then fine. But you can't do that and hem and haw about phrasing and pleasing crowds and selling agendas etc and call it educational (even if it contains some educational items).

Obama is disgusting. Every time he opens his mouth he's disgusting. He mentions MLK and he's a whore, exploiting another black man for his own ends. He makes a point of using MLK's bible for the oath and it's a sheer abortion of what MLK was about.

So the devil can quote scripture. Good for him. He's still a fucking liar.

I prefer Bush speeches, because no one with any interior lighting could possibly be fooled into enjoying his speeches. He was a cretin and a scoundrel and when he opened his mouth, it was obnoxious and disgusting. IOW, his speeches were exactly what they looked like.

Hitler DID give good speeches. He was also charming to a fault and extraordinarily likable. He loved dogs, he was sensitive and gentle, he had incredible charisma. Can you imagine radio programming today waxing on and on about Hitler all day long without so much as a qualification? Stalin too. I once wanted to mention that Stalin had taken a famine ridden agrarian nation of immense size and turned it into a world industrial power in the space of one decade and the company I was in would not even allow me to say it.

Just today I was in an email conversation about how the Italian socialist paper John Pilger writes for stopped using his stuff after Obama was elected, for the first time ever. And in this exchange, I learned that in Spain too, the "otherwise utterly lucid Spanish newspaper - Público – had a headline stressing that Obama had chosen someone distinguished for his criticism of the Bush Administration torture policies. John Fucking Brennan!"

So, honestly, I want to know, just how long does this prick's honeymoon last?

I'm no historian to begin with, but even if I were, I could not have the historical perspective at present to know who was the greatest destroyer of America - that is, the America of values, of Jefferson, of Madison, of Thomas Paine - - Ronald Reagan or Barack Obama. But right now, without that perspective, my money is on Obama. So, amidst all this talk about Obama's speechifying, all I can do is quote that well worn phrase from film and fiction, Don't piss on my back and tell me it's raining. 

I hope his wife is proud of America NOW.

Terry5135

BLOG OF THE DAMNED

A procession of the damned.
By the damned, I mean the excluded. 
We shall have a procession of data that Science has excluded. 
- opening lines of The Book of the Damned, by Charles Fort

This is a place for those who are being "moderated" at The Guardian in the increasingly ironically named "Comments are Free" section, in particular at Glenn Greenwald's section.

If you think your comment may be deleted, please keep a copy and post it here. Anyone interested in seeing what the deleted comment was may do so here.

Just post it as a regular comment with any relevant information or data that you care to append.

Anything goes except for:  any criticism of me, my nose, the Guardian, Glenn Greenwald or Israel. Bad mouthing cats is also not appreciated.

Okay, I am kidding.

Good luck and good commenting!

permalink: http://eyestir.blogspot.com/2012/09/blog-of-damned-this-is-place-for-those.html

Obama the Hypocrite

Earlier this year, the Obama refused in court to release videos or photographs related to the killing of Bin Laden, on the grounds that they were too secret to release and would be a threat to national security. Typical of Der US courts, these days, acquiesced to those arguments and dismissed the suit, arguing "the release of the images and/or videos 'reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.'"

And yet, ever since that day, the administration has been a non stop treasure trove of leaks about that killing, so as to enhance the image of the deep dark heroic and courageous image of the profound contemplative president, even though the white house has behaved unprecedentedly ruthless and obsessed with prosecuting whistle blowers who shine a light on wrong doing.

Worse, since that day also, Hollywood film makers sat down with administration and military personnel for detailed information for the purposes of producing a major blockbuster film about the event, to be released in sept or oct of this year, just in time for the election, to show Oboob in the light of being a real all American macho warrior. There was such a furore over how this could influence the election, they postponed the release of the film until December. But obviously, not the trailers. So I wonder how many times you'll see this and other trailers of the movie between now and November. This may be #1:

And now we learn that one of the seals has written a book detailing the raid that is too secret and vital to national security to be demanded in court, which will be ready for release in September, ample time to embed the presidential heroism in the public mind. It's written under a pseudonym, but contains so much auto-biographical references that anyone with access to confidential military records could determine who it is faster than you can say Bradley Manning. Gee, I wonder if he too will be put in isolation - torture, according to international law - for two years and forced to stand at attention every morning stark naked for roll call like Bradley Manning was. Somehow, I don't think so.

It's embarrassing how much American rulers have come to resemble a bunch of thugs at an organized crime summit meeting.

Terry5135

* My inspiration here is Glenn Greenwald's essay on the subject, so check out his piece for a more detailed and well sourced commentary along similar lines:

The Bin Laden raid exposes the Obama administration's selective secrecy

The White House punishes whistleblowers even as it permits flattering leaks. So which will it be for a Navy Seal's new book? - Glenn Greenwald

More

With Obama, there are good leaks, and bad leaks...

Terry5135
 Earlier this year, the Obama refused in court to release videos or photographs related to the killing of Bin Laden, on the grounds that they were too secret to release and would be a threat to national security. Typical of Der US courts, these days, acquiesced to those arguments and dismissed the suit, arguing "the release of the images and/or videos 'reasonably could be expected to cause exceptionally grave damage to the national security.'" 

And yet, ever since that day, the administration has been a non stop treasure trove of leaks about that killing, so as to enhance the image of the deep dark heroic and courageous image of the profound contemplative president, even though the white house has behaved unprecedentedly ruthless and obsessed with prosecuting whistle blowers who shine a light on wrong doing.

Worse, since that day also, Hollywood film makers sat down with administration and military personnel for detailed information for the purposes of producing a major blockbuster film about the event, to be released in sept or oct of this year, just in time for the election, to show Oboob in the light of being a real all American macho warrior. There was such a furore over how this could influence the election, they postponed the release of the film until december. But obviously, not the trailers. So I wonder how many times you'll see this and other trailers of the movie between now and November. This may be #1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EYFhFYoDAo4 

And now we learn that one of the seals has written a book detailing the raid that is too secret and vital to national security to be demanded in court, which will be ready for release in September, ample time to embed the presidential heroism in the public mind. It's written under a pseudonym, but contains so much auto-biographical references that anyone with access to confidential military records could determine who it is faster than you can say Bradley Manning. Gee, I wonder if he too will be put in isolation - torture, according to international law - for two years and forced to stand at attention every morning stark naked for roll call like Bradley Manning was. Somehow, I don't think so.

It's embarrassing how much American rulers have come to resemble a bunch of thugs at an organized crime summit meeting.

The Bin Laden raid exposes the Obama administration's selective secrecy | Glenn Greenwald | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk:

Fucking hell - and Fuck The Guardian

An open letter to The Guardian Editorial Board

by Terry5135

Well, I for one, think it's pretty fucking strange to post an editorial and then say comments will be welcome the next day. Is that so the writer will have time to get out of town?

This editorial (to loosely use the word) has to be one of the most specious pieces of crap I've ever seen in any major media organization that has an iota of credibility (which qualification doesn't leave very many). To even respond to any of its elements is to further a fantasy being furthered by yet another of the multitude of storybook characters who want to believe in their fairy tale world; who want to reside in a reality of things being as they would wish rather than how they are; who want to use Orwellian logic to believe that the map is the territory.

The plain fact is that none of these events have anything to do with any Swedish procedures, persons, concepts of law, or political and/or legal desires. This is about Assange and Amerika. One can argue, as the author feebly attempts to do at the very end of his smear piece, that Assange's reasoning is faulty, but this piece is not that argument. The sole patronizing concession (something had to be there, to at least provide a pretense of desiring credibility) to that argument is this statement:

Yet there is no serious evidence that Washington plans to start such proceedings [i.e., "that if he goes to Sweden he will face extradition to the US to be prosecuted for treason"]; and if it ever did, the political and public opposition in Sweden as well as Britain and across the world would be massive.

Well, to start, the last half of that statement - that the world would object - is hysterically funny to ears of grief on the face of it. Where has this bozo been for the last 11 years? (Indeed, I'd say for the last 31 years, but we'll leave that aside for the moment.) To suggest with a straight face that the US really cares what the world's public, be they in Sweden or Britain or anywhere else, thinks about anything it does at all takes that old, trite metaphor about heads in sand to new depths of absurdity. Sure, even if her own citizens care, they can drift off to a free speech zone five miles from where anyone will see them and make their sentiments known to each other. Hello? Hello? The lights are on but no one is home! Even before we start compiling the list, we can start with the two at the top: America is launching aggressive wars, which crime Justice Robert Jackson called the mother of all crimes (or was it the 'father'?); and America has become a nation that officially tortures (but calls it something else, which probably endears the US to the author of this tripe above).

The first half of the statement is a bald assertion of something [i.e., "there is no serious evidence that Washington plans to start such proceedings"] that is just plain false. I'm not going to dignify some hack at this junction, in order to engage in the bottomless lilliputian version of sophism, but the plain fact is that there is ample evidence of that very thing. I will not outline those things in plain sight that this author has obviously long ago tightly shut his eyes against. We need look no further than Jose Padilla who was driven out of his mind before even entering into "such proceedings" or Bradley Manning who was treated to two years of the most horrific mind shattering treatment before being able to enter into such "due process" - which, incidentally, the attorney general of the USA has pronounced as not necessarilty being "judicial process". Need we look further than gitmo to see that people the army long ago had determined not to be a threat or of having a terrorist connection which the US still holds after a decade?

I think Assange has plenty to worry about from that country, besides "criminal proceedings for treason", which specific horrors the anonymous author of this piece assures us could not take place because of international public opinion in the first place (pardon me while I seach for the airsick bag).

But perhaps the gravest sin of all is the egregious insult to the one player who seems to escape notice here entirely - Ecuador. What is it about British fascists that engenders the kind of arrogance that assumes that little brown people have no ability to discern matters for themselves? It should be patently obvious that Ecuador is not about to extend asylum to some mere perpetrator of sexual assault so that he can evade even so much as questioning about such matters as a person of interest. No matter what one thinks of Ecuador - and this author obviously thinks precious little of them - it's a risky, lose/lose situation for that country and that president. So obviously, rightly or wrongly, they are granting asylum from the political persecution of the USA. If the Guardian editorial staff wishes to make a convincing argument that Ecuador is acting incorrectly and from faulty conclusions, then the paper should make that argument.

Julian Assange: the balcony defence

Miss A and Miss W are at the heart of this story, however inconvenient it may be for the WikiLeaks founder's supporters

• Editorial
• guardian.co.uk, Sunday 19 August 2012 15.47 EDT
• 
  
• Amid the estimated 100 protesters, 50 police, a noisy helicopter and rained-on press corps gathered in Knightsbridge on Sunday afternoon, two women were missing. They are referred to as Miss A and Miss W – that is, when they are mentioned at all in the hullabaloo over Julian Assange. Yet Miss A and Miss W are at the heart of this story, however convenient it may be for Mr Assange's supporters to elide them.

Editorial is here.