John Keriakou and Brian Becker have this daily podcast, Loud and Clear, which I
love. It's 2 hours long which is ridiculous, but it goes over the current news
with guests who talk on each subject for about 15 or more minutes, more in the
first hour which is devoted to a news item in depth. They get the same people
whose articles I like, who are on The Real News, or Flashpoints, and sometimes
on Democracy Now. Of course, all of this may disappear. They're on Sputnik
Radio which was just told by our government to register is a foreign entity,
like RT, and who knows how long Pacifica will be around. The internet is now no
longer neutral so what does that tell us about how accessible alternative news
sources will be?
Miriam
-----Original Message-----
From: blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
[mailto:blind-democracy-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Carl Jarvis
Sent: Saturday, January 13, 2018 11:21 AM
To: blind-democracy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx
Subject: [blind-democracy] Re: A Warning for Democrats, and Indeed for All
Americans
John Kiriakou wrote of former CIA director Michael Hayden , "...he's a danger
to the American way of life."
Well John, if you mean Your and My way of life, Yes, point well taken.
But remember, John, our way of life is not of any concern to the Way of Life of
the Ruling Class.
Michael Hayden and his ilk have always stood ready to protect the Way of Life
of the American Oligarchy.
Carl Jarvis
On 1/12/18, Miriam Vieni <miriamvieni@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
A Warning for Democrats, and Indeed for All Americans By John
Kiriakou, Reader Supported News
11 January 18
Many Americans, at least most in my circle, are enjoying watching
Donald Trump self-destruct. It's bad for the country, but to some of
us it's as much fun as watching a train wreck. And maybe if the
Democrats can get their act together, they can win back the House in
2018 and the Senate and White House in 2020. Trump is making it look
like it might be easy.
But I have a warning for Democrats, and indeed for all Americans. For
God's sake, don't elevate the likes of former CIA directors Michael
Hayden and John Brennan and the former director of National
Intelligence, James Clapper, to the position of "senior statesmen."
They are not the voices of reason, either for the Democrats or for
anybody else. They are monsters who have ignored the Constitution, the
US code, and international law. They have committed war crimes and
crimes against humanity. We should shun them, not celebrate them.
Hayden is probably the most public of the three. The former director
of both the NSA and the CIA has never seen a camera that he didn't
want to get in front of. He's a regular on the Sunday morning talk
shows, the cable news networks, and even Comedy Central. He sucks up
to the right and then sucks up to the left if he thinks it'll get him
a little screen time. But let me tell you something from personal
first-hand experience: I am convinced that he's a danger to the
American way of life.
Hayden headed the NSA from 1999 to 2005. It was on his watch that the
NSA made the decision to spy on American citizens when he championed
the Trailblazer Program. It was Hayden who targeted whistleblowers
Thomas Drake, Bill Binney, and Kirk Wiebe. It was Hayden who created a
domestic call telephone database to keep a record of every phone call
and text message made by every American and to hold it forever. And
he's been utterly unapologetic. Hayden said during his confirmation
hearings that intercepting the communications of Americans was
"consistent with the Constitution,"
even
if it meant overriding or ignoring laws forbidding warrantless wiretapping.
Hayden served as CIA director from 2006 to 2009, where he oversaw the
agency's system of secret prisons and the extraordinary rendition program.
While there, he steadfastly supported the agency's torture program,
lied to Congress about it, and tried to loosen regulations that would
have allowed drone strikes based on the "behavior of ground vehicles."
And don't forget that Hayden, along with others relegated to the
dustbin of history like former CIA leaders George Tenet, Jose
Rodriguez, Mike Morrell, John McLaughlin, and Philip Mudd, all
co-authored a "rebuttal" of the Senate Torture Report, saying that
torture worked. And it wasn't really torture.
Shameful. ("Won't somebody please think of the torturer!")
Like Hayden, John Brennan did incredible damage to our civil liberties
during his tenure as Barack Obama's deputy national security advisor
for counterterrorism and as CIA director. It is impossible to
calculate the number of people John Brennan killed during his time in
government, none of whom had the Constitutional benefit of having been
charged with a crime, of having evidence presented against them, or of
facing their accusers in a court of law. Brennan, the keeper of the
infamous "kill list," decided who would live and who would die. It was
as simple as that. Brennan had no respect for the law and no tolerance
for any journalist or citizen who challenged him on it.
Brennan also had no respect for the Congressional oversight
committees. He famously ordered his spies to hack into the computer
system of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, lied about it,
and then when caught, filed a "crimes report" with the Justice
Department asking that the Intelligence Committee investigators be
arrested. If that isn't anti-Constitutional authoritarianism, I don't
know what is.
An even more important thing that we should remember about Brennan is
that he was not a johnny-come-lately to intelligence. He didn't just
appear in the Obama campaign as a fresh-faced CIA Democrat. He had
been the Number 3 at the CIA during the George W. Bush administration.
He was up to his neck in the torture program, his denials notwithstanding. He
was no liberal.
Brennan is now a fellow at Fordham University, his alma mater, where
he is free to propagandize the young people of our country. He's also
a frequent talking head at the Council on Foreign Relations and other
groups where the swells meet to think the big thoughts. The rumor in
Washington is that he's on every Democrat's short list for Secretary
of State or Secretary of Defense post-Trump. God help us.
James Clapper is perhaps most famous, or infamous, for looking Senator
Ron Wyden in the eye in an open hearing of the Senate Intelligence
Committee and telling him point blank that the NSA was not, repeat
not, spying on American citizens. Lying to Congress is a crime. Spying
on Americans is a crime. But Clapper paid no price for his insolence.
When Clapper finally submitted his resignation in 2016, Wyden said,
"During Director Clapper's tenure, senior intelligence officials
engaged in a deception spree regarding mass surveillance. Top
officials, officials who reported to Director Clapper, repeatedly
misled the American people and even lied to them." That's Clapper's
legacy. He's a liar.
That brings us back to the issue of statesmanship. It is possible, and
in this case obvious, that you can have a situation where there is no
good guy.
It's time for the Democrats to clean up their act. They're going to be
the party of freedom, civil liberties, and human rights or they
aren't. They need to choose. They can still end up on the right side
of history. But that's only if they shun monsters like Mike Hayden,
John Brennan, and Jim Clapper and others like them, and if they start
paying a little more attention to the Constitution.
John Kiriakou is a former CIA counterterrorism officer and a former
senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. John
became the sixth whistleblower indicted by the Obama administration
under the Espionage Act - a law designed to punish spies. He served 23
months in prison as a result of his attempts to oppose the Bush
administration's torture program.
Reader Supported News is the Publication of Origin for this work.
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