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Showing posts with label Freedom of speech. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Freedom of speech. Show all posts
Former secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld shares a laugh
with former president George W. Bush and former vice president Dick Cheney
during his farewell parade at the Pentagon.
Bradley Manning was sentenced to 35 years in prison on
Wednesday for releasing 700,000 documents about the United States' worldwide
diplomacy and wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Manning was a 25-year-old Army private first class at the time of his arrest.
He saw himself as an idealist acting to end the wars, and said in online chats
with hacker Adrian Lamo that he was particularly concerned about the abuse of
detainees in Iraq. No political or military higher-ups have ever been
prosecuted for detainee abuse or torture in Iraq, Afghanistan or at Guantanamo
Bay.
"One of the serious problems with Manning's case is that it sets a
chilling precedent, that people who leak information ... can be prosecuted this
aggressively as a deterrent to that conduct," said Andrea Prasow, senior
counterterrorism counsel and advocate in Human Rights Watch's U.S. Program.
"Shouldn't we be deterring people who commit torture?"
Here are some of the individuals who have been involved since 9/11 in detainee
abuse and torture, and potential war crimes, and have never been prosecuted.
George W. Bush
George W. Bush was president when the U.S. invaded Iraq based on faulty
intelligence, tortured terror prisoners and conducted extraordinary renditions
around the world.
"Enhanced interrogation," a Bush administration euphemism for
torture, was approved at the highest level. A "principals committee"
composed of Vice President Dick Cheney, National Security Advisor Condoleezza
Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Colin Powell, CIA
Director George Tenet and Attorney General John Ashcroft signed off on the
methods.
"There are solid grounds to investigate Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, and Tenet
for authorizing torture and war crimes," said Kenneth Roth, executive
director of Human Rights Watch, when the group released a report called
"Getting Away With Torture" in 2011.
Dick Cheney
As Bush's vice president, Cheney pushed the nation over to the "dark
side," as he called it, in the war on terror.
The U.S. used extraordinary renditions to swoop up terror suspects and send
them to repressive regimes for torture. Cheney was the key driver in producing
the faulty intelligence that led the U.S. into war in Iraq. And he steadfastly
defended the CIA's use of water-boarding and other torture tactics on U.S.
prisoners.
Cheney "fears being tried as a war criminal," according to Colin
Powell's former chief of staff Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, but he never has been.
Donald Rumsfeld
One of the planners of the Iraq War, Rumsfeld steadfastly maintained while Defense
Secretary under Bush that U.S. soldiers did not have an obligation to stop
torture being used by their Iraqi counterparts. He also approved of
"stripping prisoners naked, hooding them, exposing prisoners to extremes
of heat and cold, and slamming them up against walls" at Guantanamo.
While deployed to Iraq, Manning discovered that Iraqi soldiers had arrested
members of a political group for producing a pamphlet called "Where Did
the Money Go?" decrying corruption in the cabinet of Prime Minister Nouri
al-Maliki.
"‘I immediately took that information and *ran* to the officer to explain
what was going on," Manning wrote in the chat logs. "He didn’t want
to hear any of it … he told me to shut up and explain how we could assist the
FPs in finding *MORE* detainees."
George Tenet and CIA torturers
Tenet was the CIA chief who told Bush that the case for war with Iraq was a
"slam dunk." Under his watch, the CIA waterboarded Khalid Sheikh
Mohammed, Abu Zubaydah and Abd al-Rahim al-Nashiri.
Further down the chain of command at the spy agency, lower-level officers have
escaped prosecution for killing a prisoner in Iraq and one in Afghanistan in
CIA custody. Attorney General Eric Holder in 2012 ruled out prosecuting anyone
responsible for those deaths.
In sharp contrast, former CIA agent John Kiriakou is currently serving a
30-month sentence for revealing to reporters the names of interrogators
involved in detainee abuse.
Abu Ghraib higher-ups
Although low-level soldiers like former Army Reserve Specialist Lynndie England
were court-martialed for their role in detainee abuse at this notorious prison
in Iraq, graphically illustrated in photos, the only officer prosecuted in the
case had his conviction tossed out.
A 2009 Senate Armed Services Committee report found that the abuses at Abu
Ghraib were not the result of a few unmonitored bad apples but rather the
direct result of "enhanced interrogation" practices approved of by
officials much higher up in the Bush administration.
-----------------------
Update: 11:55 am
Bradley Manning
In His Own Words After Being Sentenced to 35 Years
US Army Private
First Class Bradley Manning arrives alongside military officials at a US
military court facility to hear his sentence in his trial at Fort Meade,
Maryland on August 21, 2013. (AFP Photo / Saul Loeb)
A US military
judge has sentenced Army Pfc. Bradley Manning to 35 years in prison. Manning
faced up to 90 years behind bars, while prosecutors sought to put the
whistleblower away for a minimum of six decades.
Manning will be
credited with the 1,294 days he spent in pre-trial confinement plus an
additional 112 days. He was also dishonorably discharged, saw his rank reduced
to private from private first class and was forced to forfeit all pay and
benefits. No additional fine, however, was levied against him. Manning will
have to serve a third of his sentence before he is eligible for parole.
Col. Denise Lind,
who on Tuesday began her deliberations in the court-martial case, announced the
sentence shortly after 10am local time (14:00 GMT). Lind read out the sentence
succinctly and provided no other statement as a gaggle of journalist’s waited
in anticipation. Flanked by his lawyers, Manning, 25, stood at attention and
appeared not to react when Lind announced the punishment, AP reports. He
further made no statement after his fate was announced
Immediately after
sentencing, Amnesty International called on President Barack Obama to commute
Manning’s sentence to time already served to allow his immediate release.
"Instead
of fighting tooth and nail to lock him up for decades, the US government should
turn its attention to investigating and delivering justice for the serious
human rights abuses committed by its officials in the name of countering
terror,” said Widney
Brown, Senior Director of International Law and Policy at Amnesty
International.
The American
Civil Liberties Union was also quick to excoriate the decision. “When a soldier who shared information with the press and public is punished
far more harshly than others who tortured prisoners and killed civilians,
something is seriously wrong with our justice system,” said Ben Wizner,
director of the ACLU’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project.
Elizabeth
Goitein, co-director of the Liberty and National Security Program at the
Brennan Center for Justice, decried the sentence as "unprecedented"
in its magnitude.
"It's more than 17 times the next longest sentence ever served" for
providing secret material to the media, said Goitein. "It is in line
with sentences for paid espionage for the enemy."
Manning's lawyer
David E. Coombs had asked the judge for leniency, requesting a sentence that
did not “rob him of his youth." Coombs argued that Manning's leaks had not
endangered the US.
The prosecution had sought a 60-year sentence, arguing the stiff term would
deter others from leaking classified information.
"There's value in deterrence," prosecutor Capt. Joe Morrow
said in his closing argument on Monday
Protesters with the Bradley Manning Support Network
hold a vigil while waiting to hear Manning's sentence on August 21, 2013
outside the gate of Fort George G. Meade, Maryland. (AFP Photo / T.J.
Kirkpatrick)
Last week the
25-year-old Manning apologized for the “unintended consequences”
of his actions, saying he believed he was “going to help people, not hurt
people."
He told the court at Fort Meade, Maryland, that "the last three years
have been a learning experience for me."
WikiLeaks responded to Manning’s mea culpa, saying “the only currency this
military court will take is Bradley Manning’s humiliation.” The anti-secrecy
group continued that Manning’s “forced” apology was done in the hopes of
“shaving a decade or more off his sentence.”
The soldier was convicted last month of 20 charges including espionage, theft
and violating computer regulations. Manning was found not guilty, however, of
the most serious charge – aiding the enemy – which entailed a potential
sentence of life without the possibility of parole.
Manning faced up to 90 years in prison for passing on more than 700,000 Iraq
and Afghanistan battlefield reports and State Department diplomatic cables to
WikiLeaks while working as an intelligence analyst in Iraq in 2010. He was
later arrested in Iraq in May of that year.
He also leaked video of ‘Collateral Murder’ video, which shows a US helicopter
attack in Baghdad in which at least nine non-combatants were killed, including
a Reuters news photographer and his driver.
Manning is entitled to appeal against any verdict handed to him by the
court-martial in the Army Court of Criminal Appeal within six months.
Collateral
Murder Bradley Manning Leaked Video Clip
Moscow has
slammed the “harsh” sentence for US Army Pfc. Bradley Manning, saying it was apparently
meant to scare away other whistleblowers, and was not in accordance with human
rights standards.
“When the
USA’s interests are at stake, the American judicial system, as in the case of
Bradley Manning, takes unjustifiably harsh decisions based on the principle of
'let’s teach them so that it doesn’t become a habit' – and without any glance
at the human rights aspects,” Russian Foreign Ministry’s special
representative for human rights, Konstantin Dolgov told reporters on Wednesday.
Calling Manning’s
case an example of US “double standards in regard with the supremacy of law
and human rights,” Dolgov argued it showed that America’s claims for
leadership in those respects are “groundless.”
The Foreign
Ministry official then cited international human rights groups – including
those in based in the US – who believe Manning has revealed “widespread
abuses on the part of the US Army during operations in Iraq and Afghanistan,
including the deaths of civilian, the torture of prisoners, as well as the
other grave abuses of the international human rights law. ”
Despite all the
efforts of rights groups and the UN Human Rights Council, no one in the US was
held accountable for these crimes, Dolgov added
FREE Bradley Manning!!! Jail the top brass of the US Military for their War Crimes in Iraq AND the US Government executive for their Aggressive war on the sovereign nation of Iraq!
I made a video series 2 years ago called “The Road to
Endless War” to bring attention to the trends and path that the World was
heading towards. In episode 7 titled “Empires Fall & New Ones Rise” I point
out what is coming in regards to freedom of the Press and its suppression –
Today we are seeing a global fascist empire rising before us as the
establishment of this economic system are now censoring news stations, vilifying
reporters, declaring them enemies, and in some cases killing them. (See video
and story Links at the Bottom of this Post for more details and Information)
We are now on the cusp of what comes next, which in my
opinion is a major staged event (False Flag Event) the results of which will
see the emerging fascist state criminalize all opposing voices, the complete
erosion of our freedoms and privacy, and a push for a major war.
The direction our Western Fascist Empire is taking ensures their own agenda of total economic control, which can only be done by
destroying all opposition to it at any cost. The result of a staged event will bring war to
western shores, collapse of the western economic system, and the destruction of
our freedoms and liberties, which includes a great deal of pain and suffering.
One can easily guess which group of people have been demonized by our Israeli
and Saudi controlled nations, and where all the wars our governments started are raging…
I’ve warned everyone, now it’s up to you to make a choice, either follow
the establishment and repeat history on a scale 1 million times worse than World War II, or organize and rise
up within your own countries to fight back…
People need to refuse to comply with their governments, and
must speak out in their masses or there will be no safety for anyone…the
Psychopathic establishment are ready to play their last hand in a game that is
rigged and stacked in their favour…their final hand is a full house with
terrorism, war, collapse, torture and death. We must answer with massive
rebellion. The system of governance must be removed from the hands of the few
and be placed in the hands of the many.
In the Video
below: The Guardian's editor Alan Rusbridger said that UK authorities raided
the paper's London office to destroy hard drives in a bid to stop further
damaging publications. He also said that intelligence officials from the
Government Communications Headquarters (GCHQ) had told him that he had the
option of handing over all the classified documents or seeing the newspaper's
hard drives destroyed. For more RT talks to WikiLeaks spokesperson, Kristinn
Hrafnsson.
Video-sharing site YouTube deactivated Press TV's official
page without explanation after the Israeli-American Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) ordered it to terminate the Iranian channel's live broadcast.
"We have not been able to upload new videos on our official YouTube page
since July 25. Both YouTube and (its parent company) Google have declined to
comment," said Press TV Newsroom Director Hamid Reza Emadi.
He added that YouTube was "in fact responding to an ADL order to stop us
from revealing Israeli crimes to the world."
An article on ADL's official website has accused Press TV of bypassing the
West's sanctions by broadcasting live via YouTube and other internet and mobile
platforms.
"ADL has contacted YouTube regarding concerns about Press TV," reads
the article, further noting that the station's "broadcast on YouTube comes
at a time when the United States, the European Union and others in the
international community are seeking to isolate Iran."
Since January 2012, Press TV has come under mounting pressure from European
governments and satellite companies, which have taken the alternative channel
off the air across the European Union.
In a statement published on the official website of the American Jewish
Committee (AJC), the pro-Israeli lobby has lauded Spain's efforts to ban Press
TV, saying Madrid has pulled the plug on the Iranian channel following months
of negotiations with the AJC.
"In recent years has emerged a channel that not only
challenges the Zionists' long-time media dominance, but also has it questioned
the West's silence on their (the Zionists') crimes against humanity. That's
Press TV and they're determined to silence it," Emadi added.
He said Press TV had to create an alternative YouTube account to upload its
videos.
Six years after the White House first started running
amok on the computer networks of its adversaries, US President Barack Obama has
signed off on a top-secret order that finally offers blueprints for the
Pentagon’s cyberwars.
Pres. Obama has autographed an executive order outlining
protocol and procedures for the US military to take in the name of preventing
cyberattacks from foreign countries, the Washington Post reports, once and for
all providing instructions from the Oval Office on how to manage the hush-hush
assaults against opposing nation-states that have all been confirmed by the
White House while at the same time defending America from any possible harm
from abroad.
According to Post’s sources, namely “officials who
have seen the classified document and are not authorized to speak on the
record,” Pres. Obama signed the paperwork in mid-October. Those
authorities explain to the paper that the initiative in question, Presidential
Policy Directive 20, “establishes a broad and strict set of standards to
guide the operations of federal agencies in confronting threats in cyberspace.”
Confronting a threat may sound harmless, but begs to
introduce a chicken-and-the-egg scenario that could have some very serious
implications. The Post describes the directive as being “the most extensive
White House effort to date to wrestle with what constitutes an ‘offensive’ and
a ‘defensive’ action in the rapidly evolving world of cyberwar and
cyberterrorism,” but the ambiguous order may very well allow the US to
continue assaulting the networks of other nations, now with a given go-ahead
from the commander-in-chief. Next in line, the Post says, will be rules of
engagement straight from the Pentagon that will provide guidelines for when to
carry out assaults outside the realm of what is considered ‘American’ in terms
of cyberspace.
“What it does, really for the first time, is it
explicitly talks about how we will use cyber operations,” one senior
administration official tells the paper of the policy directive. “Network
defense is what you’re doing inside your own networks. . . . Cyber operations
is stuff outside that space, and recognizing that you could be doing that for
what might be called defensive purposes.”
“From his first months in office,” David Sanger
wrote for the Times, Pres. Obama “secretly ordered increasingly
sophisticated attacks on the computer systems that run Iran’s main nuclear
enrichment facilities, significantly expanding America’s first sustained use of
cyberweapons.”
Congress has fought tooth-and-nail in the months since to
plug any leaks that could potentially spill the
beans regarding any further secrets with the potential of effecting national
security, but those efforts appear unsuccessful given this week’s Post report
on Presidential Police Directive 20.
Now take the example of Iran: according to the Post,
Pres. Obama’s signature on last month’s directive means the US now has rules
and regulations when it comes to protecting its own infrastructure from
cyberattack, and can do so by means of launching what appear to be pre-emptive
assaults of their own.
“It should enable people to arrive at more effective
decisions,” a second senior administration official tells the Post.
“In that sense, it’s an enormous step forward.”
That comment echoes US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta’s
insistence earlier this year that “defense alone
is not enough” in terms of keeping the country safe. But what it also
seems to do is put on the books a presidential policy that equates an
overzealous offense with a solid defense. While the US has cited Iranian hackers as the key players behind a recent attack
on the websites of Capital One Financial Corp. and BB&T Corp.,
two of the biggest names in the American banking industry, the US has done
little — on the record — to reveal any similar assaults from abroad. Instead,
rather, it’s relied on fear-mongering to try and convince the country to accept
a cybersecurity legislation that will assure American’s safety from foreign
hackers, all for the small price of sacrificing their digital-age privacy.
While the Obama White House has failed to acknowledge the
Olympic Games program or any involvement in the Stuxnet or Flames viruses linked
to the initiative, computer researchers in both the US and Russia have tied
Washington to the cripplingly malicious coding. Earlier this month,
California-based Chevron, one of the world’s leaders in the oil sector, went
public with claims that Stuxnet had infected — but not affected — their
computers after the virus was unleashed.
The ability to slow down or speed up centrifuges in
nuclear facilities from thousands of miles away made Stuxnet a virus that had
very substantial powers. Refusing to speak of the Olympic Games program
specifically, former CIA chief Michael Hayden told the Times, “This is the
first attack of a major nature in which a cyberattack was used to effect
physical destruction.”
According to the Post’s latest, though, future assaults by
way of Stuxnet or similar worms could be considered by Washington as defense
mechanisms to make sure Iran doesn’t retaliate for what America has long-been
lashing out with. One source tells the Times that, before last month’s
directive, severing any link between a US-computer and an overseas server by
any means possible would be an act that would put America on the offensive. Now
even a preemptive attack that disconnects other countries could be considered a
defensive ploy according to the president.
“That was seen as something that was
aggressive…particularly by some at the State Department,” one defense
official tells the Post. With the signing of Pres. Obama’s latest order,
though, the paper writes that the directive “effectively enables the
military to act more aggressively to thwart cyberattacks on the nation’s web of
government and private computer networks.”
It is thought that, through the directive, any systems
linked even remotely with America’s can be fair game for an assault. Given the
expansion of cloud computing and the ever-expanding interconnection of
communities across the globe on the Web, though, that could essentially enable
Uncle Sam’s cybersquad to get away with a whole new slew of tricks to try and
topple adversaries of any kind that threaten the American way of life. When and
where those actions are necessary, of course, remains another topic of
discussion. Will those orders be signed in secrecy as well, though?
Shortly after the Second World War
ended, a great euphoria captured the imagination of a generation and expressed
how it felt to be free of war, oppression, and economic depression. Rock &
Roll was born and with it, came the “The Recording Industry” which would
capture the hopes, dreams, and aspirations, of millions.
Virtually overnight, “Records” had
supplanted “Sheet Music” as the largest player in the music business. Rock and
Roll bands became hugely popular as they began to emerge and make their way in
front of millions of adoring fans via the ever expanding radio airwaves and the
new broadcast format called television.
Rock n Roll music carried the
voice and energy of an entire generation with a popularity that grew
exponentially during the baby boom years after World War II. The planet was
alive in vibrant energy with a euphoria that put happiness back into the steps
of the masses. But it also put fear into those that were considered the establishment
of the time.
Rock and Roll had a nemesis with
envious eyes that was appalled by the rising power within the new emerging
music scene. Lurking in the dark places behind international power politics was
an establishment fresh off a military conquest, and they did not like the
empowerment music had on the youth. The new music embraced by a youthful
generation filled with energy, determination, and a new self confidence, rocked
the very foundations of the establishment.
First Attempts to Silence a Generation
The earliest rock stars of the
50’s experienced a series of attacks through a concerted effort by the
establishment to defame the emerging stars from their fans by a number of mean
spirited attacks.
By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper,
and Ritchie Valens, plus the manditory military service for Elvis Presley, the
prosecution of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, the infamous Payola Scandal and
the retirement of Little Richard proved that the power behind the scenes was
not ammused with the new Rock n Roll era and was decidedly against the powerful
messages that it brought.
What followed was
an assault on the music, where some suggest a “Feminisation” of Rock n Roll
took place seen by the flood of love ballads at the start of the 1960s being
aimed at the female audience.
However, the
voice within the music industry was not controlled as Rock n Roll evolved with
innovative developments and ways that built on rock and roll, including multitrack recording, developed by Les Paul, the
electronic treatment of sound by innovators such as Joe Meek, the
Wall
of Sound productions of Phil Spector, and the rise of surf music,
garage
rock and the Twist dance craze.
There were many
different streams of music that evolved directly from Rock n Roll, but there
was also a fusion of genres that would feed the growing appetites of an
expandingpopulation. From the
mid-1960s on through to the mid 1980s, "rock n roll" music evolved
into many genres that gave voice to the attitude and political thoughts of the
people. As the recording Industry evolved, so too did the form of
rebellion against the direction and drive of the political establishment.
Folk music gave rise to a youthful and very political
anti-war voice that carried its weight by unifying millions of people across
North America and Europe through clever ballads.
Protest music would become a battlefront for an
establishment that now had a new and powerful political opponent at home. Radio
airwaves across North America and Europe carried protest music that expressed
dissatisfaction against the establishments warlike stance and economic
stranglehold on the World.
The harder the establishment came down on political activism
or anti-war demonstrations, the more topics created within the lyrics of the
next album of songs by all who witnessed. It had the affect of strengthening
the resolve of the people which made the music more popular and more political.
The establishment found that they could not silence the voice against them
short of controlling the airwaves of the music and news mediums.
Decisions Made to Control the Entire Recording Industry
Back in the 1960’s and 1970’s there were a great many record
labels that an artist could approach to sell their talents. If one label did
not like the tone of the music or the musician, the artist could simply shop
his / her music to the record company down the street. Radio stations back then
were local and expressed the issues and attitudes of the people within the
broadcast signal, so there was no concerted control over what was played and
what was not.
Freedom of expression within the Music industry carried over
the television and radio airwaves and became the single most important reason
why the United States Government pulled out of Viet Nam in the mid 1970’s.
It was a battle that ended in victory for the people over a
warring establishment. The victory struck a huge blow to the establishment’s control
over the population but it was certainly not the end of the war for control
over the population by the establishment.
Before the Music Industry Collusion
Before CD technology changed the
direction of the music industry, there were hundreds, of small record labels
eager to go into partnership with artists, but more importantly, the smaller
label also had access to the radio airwaves. In reality, the small labels were
directly responsible for the variety of musical content carried by the radio stations.
The Radio content was also expressed by many different DJ’s through
personalized radio programs that catered to specific audiences. Radio music
shows had a great appeal to the public because the DJ’s had freedom to play
whatever they wanted while crossing a wide variety of topics.
However, the establishment did not
embrace free speech since peace, anti-war, and anti-establishment were the
topics in many popular shows and songs that drove straight at the power
structure. Free speech in music went against the status quo and considering
that public opinion, through news and music, forced the military congressional
complex out of Viet Nam in the mid 70’s, they grew more determined to silence
free speech…short of declaring marshal law.
If a military industrial
congressional complex was to ever sell another war to the American people, they
needed to take control of all forms of communication, news and entertainment.
The Establishment Strikes
Back
Control by the powerful few in the music industry happened when the largest
record labels owned by the establishments entertainment industry circles, went
into collusion in 1985. The American news industry was already going through a
take over by large corporate interests including the creation of an all day news
channel called CNN. The music industry was no different as several record
labels had been aquired by large entertainment industry interests with big
pockets.
Six major record labels “jointly
announced” that they were adopting CD technology within a six month period
following the announcement. They stated that they would no longer produce vinyl
records and only produce CD’s and 4 track cassette tapes. The big six recording
companies “Warner”, “Universal”, “EMI”, “BMG”, “Sony”, and “Polygram” used CD
technology, to corner the market and destroy all the smaller labels that could
not compete with a very new and expensive technology created by “Philips”.
The next move by the establishment
was to take control of the radio airwaves and block the smaller labels from
gaining access to radio promotion. They did this by quickly buying up radio
stations all over North America, placing them in syndication and implementing a
top 40 format that played only what the six major labels offered.
The slaughter was on and endless
amounts of capital was directed at controlling the music end of the
entertainment Industry, although the same thing was happening in the “News”
Industry and by the same conglomerates.
CD’s, and radio syndication
provided the answers of control that these C.F.R. (Council on Foreign
Relations) Entertainment Industry Corporations needed. Human rights and public
opinion are generally reflected through music, so controlling the art form was
certainly a decision made in the highest of circles.
Freedom of Speech Regained:
A long silence (1986 ~ 2000) ensued once control was established in the music
Industry. Most music from the past was not pressed into CD’s and most
everything that the Major Record Labels offered after 1986 was pre-packaged and
controlled. Everything out of mainstream music was contained in three genres,
“Lude, Crude, and Rude”.
Most of what came out of the
Controlled Industry was extremely negative. However, in all fairness there were
many artists that truly made good music, but they were few and far between,
unlike the pre-collusion years in music.
The Establishment had gained
control of all aspects within the entertainment Industry but especially in News
and Music. The test of their industry conquests would come in 1991 when the establishment
was able to get a 90% approval rating for going to war against Saddam Hussain
and Iraq. They controlled all paths of information including television, radio
and newsprint. Anti War movements could not arise because the establishment was
successful in silencing anti-war voices from being heard by the general public.
However, the establishment did not
anticipate that technology would get the upper hand on them in the late 1990’s,
especially with the combination of the computer, the Internet, file sharing,
and websites like Napster.
Napster brought the music and a
political voice back to the masses who’d been cut off from music variety and
real news for about 15 years. Technology allowed the music contained on old
Vinyl records to be digitized onto the computer via mp3 format. This practice
became hugely popular because the music that had not been made available on CD
by the big record labels was not only being digitized by music fans but was
being burned into CD’s on home computers.
Suddenly the technology to make
CD’s was available on the home computer. The very compact mp3 format made
sharing music by email a unique thing until a Napster came along and provided a
place for music fans to share the files they had with each other.
The sharing aspect of Napster
sparked great interest by many, especially by those who were new to the old
music; but most importantly, Napster gave rise to the “International Social
Network” where chatrooms became HUGE information sharing hubs that sparked the
beginning of the truth movement. People begun to find out just what the new
unipolar World Order was up to.
The Music Industry immediately
condemned file sharing and went after all the music sharing websites that
sprung up shortly after Napsters arrival. The effect Napster had on sharing old
music across the World on a social platform was like uncorking a bottle of
champaign, unmuting the sound from old records and letting the voices out of
the bottle to a new generation.
Most of the music shared wasn’t
even available on CD until mp3 and computer technology allowed people to make
their own CD’s; much like the Cassette allowed us to put our own favourite hits
together or tape shows from the radio in the 1970’s and 1980’s…all perfectly
legal back in their day.
The establishment lost the power
to control information. The genie was out of the bottle and there was no way
they could put it back in.
People started to communicate with
each other on a Global basis and found out that what they were led to believe
on a number of topics or what they were told went on in other countries by
their corporate news networks was in fact complete BS. The ensuing revelations
began a quest for knowledge and information, including the need to be in a
social environment with others that fostered open communication, information
and shared entertainment.
After Napster was handcuffed, the
enlightened Chatroom groups from Napster moved to other websites and social
networking exploded across the Internet through sites like MSN, and Yahoo. The
timing was very critical too considering that Napster made huge impacts on
people around the World in 2000 and 2001, right when a US election was stolen
and 911 happened.
Genie out of the Bottle
Afterwards, wherever the public
gathered to communicate, download music, or share information, the
establishment unleashed their corporate power and money to try and stop the
evolving social forums. However, the quest for music, freedom and truth
continued to evolved as other websites began making their way onto the Internet
as previous ones were bought out or shut down by a corporate oligarchy bent on
re-corking the bottle.
As the quest for truth expanded,
YouTube was born (2005 – 2006) and became a huge kick in the teeth to the upper
echelons of power because now the control and direction of the entertainment
industry was completely smashed wide open. All of a sudden, information, video
creation, alternative news and Independent music had a platform in the public
eye and it was in the hands of the people for the first time. Truth seeking
mushroomed into a movement, and now, even though YouTube was taken over by
Google, Facebook has become a police state tool of unwarranted spying by the
establishment, or that Twitter has been taken over by corporate interests, the
voice of the people, music, and information have evolved into a new age.
Today, in 2012, our personal
freedoms are still constantly under attack by the corporate establishment
regarding freedom of speech and social evolution on the Internet, but
resistance continues to grow, and evolve and it is a global movement.
Alternative News media has
exploded across the web. There is a new age unfolding where freedom of speech
has returned with truth and investigative reporting. Mainstream News
corporations are dying as more and more people are choosing to switch off their
televisions and get their information online with alternative news websites.
Music has evolved away from what
was once totally dominated by the major record labels. The emergence of Independent
artists, Independent labels, and Internet radio stations have grown
exponentially and begun to forge the future of the music industry. The major
labels are no longer required and have long since become redundant. Music is
once again filled with the political voices of resistance and individuality,
variety in music has returned, social networking and internet radio have become
the new promotional tools for music replacing the AM and FM radio airwaves.
Online digital music stores are replacing physical corporate music stores…costs
are no longer an issue and freedom of speech can once again be heard in the
many voices singing socially appealing music.
It will take some time to rebuild
the music Industry to its former glory, however the road to get there is very
bright indeed.
"The Revolution begins with Music!" ~ Stewart Brennan
Progressive Rock 2010 to 2019
Psychedelic Rock, New Wave, Dark Wave, Alternative 2000 to 2019
Police across Canada are urging Ottawa to resurrect a
controversial Internet surveillance bill that would allow them to monitor
Canadians' digital activities in real-time without a warrant.
The Canadian Association of Chiefs of Police has made a
plea to on the federal government to pass Bill C-30, also known as the
Protecting Children from Internet Predators Act ahead of a gathering by the
provincial and federal justice ministers next week.
The group is concerned that Parliament will be closed
down before the legislation is passed.
“We have a fear that it will die on the order paper,” said Vancouver
Police Chief Jim Chu, who is also the president of the association. “And if
it does, then our investigators will be constrained and victims will suffer
greater harm because of that,” the Canadian Press reports.
Deputy police chief Warren Lemcke agreed with Chu’s
assessment, saying that “right now there are gangsters out there
communicating about killing someone and we can't intercept that,” as cited
by CBC news.
The legislature, introduced in the Canadian Parliament
last February, demands that the country’s telecommunication industry provide
law enforcement with the “authority to intercept communications and to
require telecommunications service providers to provide subscriber and other
information, without unreasonably impairing the privacy of individuals, the
provision of telecommunications services to Canadians or the competitiveness of
the Canadian telecommunications industry.”
If passed, the law would also give the police the power to
make it a crime to use social media as a tool to injure, alarm or harass
individuals. It would also grant access to the individual’s private data such
as name, address, phone number and email without a warrant.
The law would ask the companies to place tracking bugs in
their programs so that police, if needed, could spy on conversations if they
got the necessary legal approvals.
Until now, C-30 has remained shelved by Parliament, and
has not been debated after receiving mass criticism when it was originally
released.
Critics claimed that the authorities would likely use the
powers to harass peaceful protestors and activists.
A number of social media protests were organized, one of
which circulated personal details from the divorce files of the bill’s sponsor
of the bill-Public Safety Minister’s Vic Toews.
People also marched on the streets, demanding checks to
the would-be unlimited police powers.
A public opinion poll conducted by Angus Reid after the
bill’s introduction concluded that "the idea of surrendering
subscriber data and identifiers without a warrant” is rejected by almost
two thirds of Canadians.
A Scottish cabinet secretary warns that the statutory
regulation of the press as expected to be announced by a government inquiry
into the ethics of the British media could damage democracy.
Scottish Secretary for Finance, Employment and Sustainable Growth John Swinney
said the government interference in the activities of the press could breach
the values Britain claims to represent.
“My personal opinion is that I don’t favor statutory regulation of the press. I
don’t think it’s a good thing. I don’t think it sits comfortably with a
civilized, modern, Western democracy,” Swinney told the Scottish National Party
Conference.
His comment comes ahead of a report by Lord Justice Leveson, who is leading a
public inquiry into the culture, practices and ethics of British press
following the News International phone hacking scandal.
Leveson, who was appointed as the chairman of the inquiry by UK Prime Minister
David Cameron, said back in November 2011 that his investigations aim to answer
whether the press that “provides an essential check on all aspects of public
life” need a guardian and if so who should do the job.
The inquiry’s report is to emerge next month and is expected to propose tougher
controls on the press.
Swinney has not been the first politician censuring the inquiry amid
criticisms, including by former chairman of the Press Complaints Commission Sir
Christopher Meyer, that the probe is no more than a “show trial” to justify
further government control over the media.
Cameron’s Education Secretary Michael Gove also raised fears in February that
the inquiry is having a “chilling” effect on free speech.
“The big picture is that there is a chilling atmosphere towards freedom of
expression which emanates from the debate around Leveson,” Gove said.
The accusations of the inquiry being a mock trial especially gained force after
revelations that Leveson attended two parties over the past year at the London
home of Matthew Freud who is married to daughter of News International’s big
boss Rupert Murdoch.
This comes as the British government had earlier used student protests and
anti-spending cuts rallies in London and other cities as an excuse to call for
tougher controls on social networking websites, sparking outrage among civil
rights campaigners.
Western
media quietly attempts to censor growing global opposition, begins with Iranian
media.
Iran’s Press TV reported in their article, “Press TV viewers slam EU move to ban Iran
channels as illegal, hypocritical,” that “Press TV viewers have
condemned as illegal and hypocritical the ban imposed by the European officials
on the broadcast of several Iranian satellite channels.” Nearly no mention is
made in the Western media regarding the blatant act of censorship – an act that
runs contra to all perceived notions of “Western values,” and an act that
directly undermines the narratives of the West supporting “freedom” and
“democracy” around the globe
Image: The West has spent billions trying to leverage
“freedom of speech” and “human rights” as a means to undermine, destabilize,
overthrow, and replace governments around the world, from the US-engineered
Eastern European “color-revolutions” after the fall of the Soviet Union, to the
latest US-engineered “Arab Spring,” and all across Southeast Asia. Now with the West
pursuing its own campaign of censorship, it is clear that these “values” were
merely selectively and opportunistically manipulated.
….
The news has been buried under reports regarding a new
round of sanctions passed by the EU which was recently awarded the
Nobel Peace Prize even while pursuing multiple wars across the globe, including
continuing operations in Libya, the subversion of Syria, and a
decade long occupation of Afghanistan which sees weekly civilian massacres by
NATO air strikes on both sides of the Afghan-Pakistani border. In fact, the
most recent NATO atrocity occurred not even a week ago, killing 3 children in
the Helmand province. Of course this was absent in Western headlines, but it
did make headlines in Iran’s Press TV, and
indicates a more realistic explanation to the EU’s decision to ban the Iranian
news service.
Clearly the
EU has no qualms over endangering civilian lives – its concerns over “human
rights” are a selectively applied value it uses against its enemies with
demonstrably no intention of holding itself to similar standards. Now, the EU
has applied this same selective application of supposed “Western values” to
“freedom of speech,” curtailing it when that speech endangers its own
interests, and pursuing “freedom” when it advances their agenda. And it is this
hypocrisy that the increasingly popular Press TV news service has been
illustrating, as a counterweight to the uniformly biased and compromised
Western press.
It was US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who
stated that censorship incurred “long-term economic and social
costs,” with oppression leading to “civil unrest and not security.” Many
Western politicians executing corporate-financier driven policy
have stated that a regime’s pursuit of censorship was a sign of weakness and
fear – an indicator that its opposition was gaining ground and that more overt,
visible, even desperate measures needed to be implemented. Censorship,
according to the West’s own narrative, is part of a self-defeating cycle where
legitimacy and the mandate to lead increasingly is fading.
With that
consideration in mind, the censorship of Iran’s Press TV should be a sign that
Iran’s efforts to balance global public perception skewed by the vast resources
of Wall Street and London are succeeding. Along with Russia Today (RT), Press
TV has provided nations who aspire to live in a mulipolar world where the
primacy of the nation-state prevails, a model to follow in combating the
unwarranted power and influence of Western media houses.
Above all,
it should be noted that a key contributing factor to Press TV and RT’s success
is the growing alternative media – media by the people and for the people –
whose legitimacy and reputation is measured in accuracy, consistency, and
objectivity, not slick graphics, expensive suits, and million-dollar studios.
The alternative media has provided content for growing national news agencies
seeking to challenge the West’s hegemony over information, and while national
news agencies ultimately pursue national agendas, the content they are drawing
on generally come from people simply seeking the truth.
The EU’s
act of censorship against Press TV is in turn a strike against the alternative
media. Instead of being seen as a setback, it should be seen as a success and a
signal to redouble our efforts as individuals to assert our own will and vision
for the future over that of the miniscule global elite who have so far gone
unchallenged in their designs and aspirations. The alternative media should be
only the first in a series of people-driven alternatives
systematically undermining and replacing existing corporate-financier dominated
paradigms.
Press TV is a voice that speaks for billions of people and
should be allowed to express the views of others on air or we descend into
another dark period when freedom of speech was not allowed in Europe.
Please sign the petition to maintain freedom of speech in
Europe
South Africa's Closing Argument Against Israel for Genocide at the ICJ
Freedom
Welcome!
World United News offers an honest approach to alternative news and opinion with back up links for readers to investigate information for themselves.
This blog also includes a number of important video playlists that cover specific topics, rare documentaries, debate, opinion, and viewpoints.
Please feel free to share anything that resonates with you or that you feel would benefit those in your circles. Comments are always welcome. ~Stewart Brennan~
I'm not in phase with what mainstream mediums have to offer, nor do I like being lied to. So I decided to build my own World where creativity, music, and truth prevail. Therefore I’m a photographer, Writer, Video Producer, News Reporter, Music Promoter, Radio DJ, Poet, Activist, Critical Thinker, and Problem Solver. Be sure to visit all my websites linked below for more of my world.
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