Exclusive: On Oct. 30, ex-CIA analyst Ray McGovern was arrested for trying to attend a public speech by retired Gen. David Petraeus. McGovern had hoped to ask Petraeus a critical question during Q-and-A but was instead trundled off to jail, another sign of a growing hostility toward dissent, McGovern says.
By Ray McGovern
Why, I asked myself, would the New York City police arrest me and put me in The Tombs overnight, simply because a security officer at the 92nd Street Y told them I was “not welcome” and should be denied entry to a talk by retired General David Petraeus? In my hand was a ticket for which I had reluctantly shelled out $50.
I had hoped to hear the photogenic but inept Petraeus explain why the Iraqi troops, which he claimed to have trained so well, had fled northern Iraq leaving their weapons behind at the first whiff of Islamic State militants earlier this year. I even harbored some slight hope that the advertised Q & A might afford hoi polloi like me the chance to ask him a real question.
Former CIA analyst Ray McGovern
However rare the opportunity to ask real questions has become, it can happen. Witness my extended (four-minute) questioning of then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld in Atlanta on May 4, 2006. The exchange wasn’t exactly the oh-so-polite give-and-take of the Sunday talk shows but it represented what Americans should expect of democracy, a chance to confront senior government officials when they engage in deception or demonstrate incompetence especially on issues of war or peace.
It seems a safe guess that somebody wanted to protect Petraeus from even the possibility of such accountability on Oct. 30. Also, let me make clear that I had no intention of embarrassing the retired four-star general and ex-CIA director with a question about his extramarital affair with his admiring biographer Paula Broadwell, which precipitated his CIA resignation in November 2012.
Many an aging male ego has been massaged by the attentions of someone like Broadwell, and she seemed happy to do the massaging to expedite the research on All In, her biography of the fabled general. I had decided to resist the temptation to refer to the Biblical admonition against entrusting large matters to those who cannot be faithful in small things.
The affair may not have been a small thing to Mrs. Petraeus, but it pales in significance when compared to the death and destruction resulting from Petraeus’s self-aggrandizing disingenuousness and dissembling about prospects for eventual success in Iraq and Afghanistan.
Petraeus Agonistes
Assuming that Petraeus’s expertise in counterinsurgency warfare was more than mere pretense, he knew both expeditions were doomed to failure. And he certainly now knows the inevitable answer to the question he famously posed to journalist Rick Atkinson in 2003 as U.S. forces troops began to get mired down in the sand of Iraq “Tell Me How This Ends.”
The twin conflicts in Afghanistan and Iraq “ended” if that’s the right word for these late-stage fiascos with two additional stars pinned to Petraeus’s uniform and with some 6,700 gold stars sent to the wives, husbands, or parents of U.S. troops killed, plus tens of thousands of purple hearts for those badly injured in both body and mind. A bad bargain for the American people and especially the dead and maimed U.S. troops not to mention the hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed Afghans and Iraqis but a pretty successful career move for Petraeus, if not for his fateful extramarital affair.
Surely, in the grim light of all the bloodshed, L’Affaire Broadwell can be seen as a minor peccadillo, the least of Petraeus’s sins. But many of his ardent admirers view the sexual indiscretion as the only blot on his otherwise spotless dress uniform festooned with row after row of medals and ribbons.
It was my intent to put the spotlight, via a question or two, on Petraeus’s far more consequentially dishonest behavior. And this seemed particularly important at this point in time, as his starry-eyed emulator generals seem no less willing than Petraeus to throw a new wave of youth from a poverty draft into a fool’s-errand sequel in Iraq and Syria.
In any event, it seems reasonably clear why they did not let me enter the 92nd Street Y on Oct. 30. Someone thought that the thin-skinned ex-general might be discomforted by a less-than-admiring question. His speech was to be another moment for Petraeus to bathe in public adulation, not confront a citizen or two who might pose critical queries. [For more on Petraeus and his acolytes, see Consortiumnews.com’s “Petraeus Spared Ray McGovern’s Question.”]
Lingering Mystery
But one mystery lingers. The “organs of state security” (the words used by the Soviets to refer to their intelligence/security services) were lying in wait for me when I walked into the Y? Why? How on earth did they know I was coming?
My initial reaction was that the culprit could be a lingering BOLO, the “Be on the Look-Out” warning that the State Department had issued against me earlier for my non-violent anti-war stances. In September, thanks to a civil rights lawsuit filed on my behalf by the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund (PCJF), the State Department rescinded that BOLO alert for me, under which State Department agents had been ordered to stop and question me on sight.
State Department documents acquired under the Freedom of Information Act showed that the damning evidence behind that draconian (and patently unconstitutional) order was “political activism, primarily anti-war.”
The proximate cause was my standing silently with my back to then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Feb. 15, 2011, to protest the unconscionably violent policies she had promoted, including her vote for the Bush-Cheney war of aggression against Iraq (which she thought politically smart at the time) and her infamous suggestion during her political campaign that we could “obliterate” Iran.
In response to my silent protest, I was roughed up, cuffed, arrested, and jailed as Clinton delivered a major speech at George Washington University admonishing foreign governments not to stifle dissent. Heedless of the irony, Clinton did not miss a syllable, much less a word, as she watched me snatched directly in front of her and brutally removed. [See Consortiumnews.com’s “Standing Up to War and Hillary Clinton.”]
The charges were immediately dropped, since there were simply too many cameras recording what actually did happen to me. A State Department investigation into my background came up dry; but the words “political activism, primarily anti-war” were enough to get me BOLOed.
The State Department assured my pro bono lawyers at the Partnership for Civil Justice Fund that State not only had rescinded the BOLO but also had notified other law enforcement agencies that the BOLO was “non-operational.” But I remained suspicious that, while the State Department’s assurance may have been made in good faith, God only knows (and then only if God has the proper clearances) what other organs of state security had entered the “derogatory” information about the danger of my “political activism” into their data bases.
Had my “derog” been shared, perhaps, with the ever-proliferating number of “fusion centers” that were so effective in sharing information to track and thwart the activists of Occupy including subversives like Quakers and Catholic Workers? However, as I reflected on the circumstances of my arrest on Oct. 30, I came to discount the possible role of the BOLO.
Taken by Surprise
As I walked up the steps to the 92nd Street Y on Oct. 30, I had no idea there would be a reprise of the treatment accorded me three-and-a-half years ago at Hillary Clinton’s speech.
My friend and associate in Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS) Bill Binney, a former Technical Director at the National Security Agency before he left in protest against NSA’s unconstitutional eavesdropping on Americans, long since advised me to assume that I am one of several thousands subjected to post-Fourth-Amendment surveillance.
So I had taken the precaution of asking a friend, who was in no way linked to me via email or phone records, to order the ticket for me, just on the off-chance the organs of state security might learn I intended to hear Petraeus speak at the 92nd Street Y and might do something to prevent my attending.
Actually, it was pure coincidence that I happened to be in New York on the day of the Petraeus event. Months before, I had committed to teaching classes at Manhattan and Fordham universities on Oct. 30. I learned of the Petraeus event much later.
At that point, I chose what I thought would be a safe way to purchase a ticket. But I apparently failed to practice the kind of “tradecraft” in terms of limiting associations that is needed to function in today’s democratic society.
How did the organs of state security learn I was coming? It is more likely to have been guilt by association than the residue from a BOLO. In short, when I travel to New York to teach, I normally email my friend Martha at Maryhouse in the Bowery the Catholic Worker house founded by her grandmother, Dorothy Day.
If there is a free bed, I gratefully receive Catholic Worker hospitality and have a chance to enjoy the company of those who have been placed at the margins of society, as well to witness the selfless kindness of those forming authentic relationships with them.
Here’s the catch. Catholic Workers are involved not only in extending hospitality but also in activism, trying, as Dorothy Day did, to make the world a less violent, more caring place. It is primarily the activism, of course, that brings scrutiny from the organs of security, but you might call it “political activism, primarily anti-war,” as the State Department did.
Moreover, the Catholic Worker Movement is an international organization widely looked upon as subversive of the Establishment, and this adds to the suspicion. In recent years, many of my Catholic Worker friends have been arrested for protesting the use of drones to kill foreigners dubbed “militants,” most of whom don’t look like most of us.
But the targets can now include American citizens, as President Barack Obama turns the Constitution upside down and takes it upon himself to act as judge, jury and executioner. Yes, the Fifth Amendment has gone the way of the Fourth, and the First has become an endangered species. Worth protesting before it too is extinct, would you not agree?
At The Tombs
In a kind of poetic justice, it turns out my friend Martha has the same court date as I have the morning of Dec. 8 at the New York City Criminal Court building (aka “The Tombs”) at 100 Centre Street in New York, where I spent the night/morning of Oct. 30/31. She was arrested with about 100 others at a Sept. 22 action dubbed “Flood Wall Street,” protesting the important role of the financial industry in facilitating air pollution and global warming.
In an aside, Martha told me that the police had as much trouble getting handcuffs on the “polar bear” sitting next to her that day as they did on Oct. 30 trying to bend my injured left shoulder back far enough to get the cuffs on me. I look forward to standing at the same dock where Martha will be defending her action which was very much in the tradition of “Grannie.”
My Catholic Worker friends comfort the afflicted, while in no way shying away from afflicting the comfortable, as the saying goes. And for that, they often pay a price, including being snooped upon, in violation of the Fourth Amendment, for exercising their rights under the First.
I am not making this up: In the fall of 2010, Justice Department Inspector General Glenn Fine criticized the FBI for conducting “anti-terrorism” spy operations against the Catholic Worker Movement and even the Thomas Merton Center in Pittsburgh. According to Fine, spies were sent into the Merton Center to “look for international terrorists.” One of the informers photographed a woman he thought was of “Middle Eastern descent” to have her checked out by “terrorism analysts.”
So my possible tradecraft lapse may have been contacting my Catholic Worker friends. On Oct. 26, I sent Martha an email with the innocuous title, “Room in the Inn?” It contained the usual request for simple lodging at the Catholic Worker together with details regarding my classes at Fordham and Manhattan and the Petraeus event.
While the title and other metadata accompanying that message might seem singularly unsuspicious, eavesdroppers covering Martha’s or my email addresses (or both) would have had no trouble ferreting out an email exchange following an earlier attempt to attend an event at the 92nd Street Y, three years ago.
On Sept. 8, 2011, a group of Catholic Workers, together with others all of us with valid tickets were summarily expelled, most of us 10 minutes before an event sponsored by the Jewish Policy Center. That event bore the title “9/11 a Decade Later: Lessons Learned and Future Challenges” and featured former Defense Secretary Rumsfeld, ex-Attorney General Michael Mukasey, and George W. Bush’s press spokesman Ari Fleisher. It was moderated by neoconservative talk show host Michael Medved.
Since I was not among those subjected to Y security’s preventive strike before the performance, I sat quietly for Medved’s opening rant about radical, fundamentalist Muslim terrorists, but then stood up in silent witness against the right-wing invective. I was unceremoniously, violently thrown out after a mere two minutes.
More relevant here: I still have in my email inbox a message of encouragement dated Sept. 12, 2011, in which Martha reminded me that every action, “successful” or not, is important; adding, “We of the Catholic Worker are ‘fools for Christ,’ as the saying goes.”
Only Metadata
You are perhaps thinking that the National Security Agency stores only metadata; and, if so, you would be wrong. Content is saved. So if the government wants to access the content of emails from the past, no problem.
As Bill Binney reminded me, former FBI director Robert Mueller let that particular cat out of the bag three-and-a-half years ago. In his testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee on March 30, 2011, Mueller bragged about having access to “past emails and future ones as they come in.”
Binney explains that the metadata is used to access the content. And, thanks to the documents provided by Edward Snowden, we know that under NSA’s PRISM operation, data is routinely collected directly from Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple (and God knows where else, again assuming God is cleared).
So my best guess is that I can blame the “subversive” activities of the Catholic Workers and the monitoring of them by the organs of state security, for my recent arrest and overnight accommodations in The Tombs.
The people at the World Can’t Wait in New York, who were also aware of my plan to take in the Petraeus performance, are known to have been targets of eavesdropping, too. With the surfeit of people sorting through emails from suspicious folks, it may be that both the Catholic Workers and the World Can’t Wait were monitored all to keep us safe, of course.
It seems the height of irony that it may have been NSA’s eavesdropping that enabled the White House to get rid of Petraeus, when he was getting too big for his britches (and I allude here not only to his dalliance with Broadwell). To Bill Binney, it is clear as day that the President was ready to move against Petraeus right after Obama’s re-election in November 2012.
A Final, Sad Irony
A couple of days after my arrest and jailing, I received a sympathetic email from “George” in Germany, who described himself as a national security whistleblower in his own right. George strongly suggested I ditch my Gmail account.
“Before Edward Snowden’s revelations last spring,” he said, “I too was using Gmail as my primary address. I was dismayed to learn that Google was an NSA PRISM partner.” George strongly suggested that I switch to a more trustworthy email provider outside the U.S. and actually suggested one in particular.
Why ironic? In the years after my birth in 1939, Germany was widely considered the cutting edge on matters of eavesdropping and enhanced interrogation techniques, and most Germans didn’t challenge these forms of oppression even when it touched them personally. Perhaps saddest of all, those with some pretense to moral leadership first and foremost the Catholic and Lutheran Churches could not find their voice. Is that history repeating itself in the U.S.?
In Defying Hitler, Sebastian Haffner’s journal of his life as a lawyer in training to become a judge in Berlin in the early 1930s, the author (whose real name was Raimund Pretzel) provides an eerily reminiscent account of what ensued after Berlin’s equivalent of the attacks of 9/11 the burning of the Reichstag.
“I do not see that one can blame the majority of Germans who, in 1933, believed that the Reichstag fire was the work of the Communists. What one can blame them for, and what shows their terrible collective weakness of character … is that this settled the matter.
“With sheepish submissiveness, the German people accepted that, as a result of the fire, each one of them lost what little personal freedom and dignity was guaranteed by the constitution, as though it followed as a necessary consequence. If the Communists had burned down the Reichstag, it was perfectly in order that the government took ‘decisive measures.’ … from now on, one’s telephone would be tapped, one’s letters opened, and one’s desk might be broken into.” (pp. 121-122).
Substitute Americans for Germans, terrorists for Communists, September 11, 2001, for 1933, and give some thought to where we seem to be headed. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. warned that “there is such a thing as being too late,” a quotation that, ironically, President Obama is fond of citing. It would be a good thing if we Americans woke from our lethargy before it is too late.
Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, a publishing arm of the ecumenical Church of the Saviour in inner-city Washington. He served as an Army officer and then a CIA analyst for a total of 30 years, including two tours in Germany. He now serves on the Steering Group of Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity (VIPS).
It is obvious that the November 2012 controversy at Boiling Frogs Post http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/11/05/david-swanson-on-voting-independent-a-few-words-on-the-real-but-unknown-history-of-the-not-so-real-real-news/ did not prevent BFP from presenting the 3 October 2014 conversation between Peter B. Collins and McGovern.
Equally obvious is the fact that the McGovern’s 30 October 2014 arrest at the David Petraeus speaking event did not prevent BFP from mentioning McGovern in the 1 November 2014 edition of the BFP Roundtable.
Irrelevant question: “What did the Führer know and when did he know it?”
Equally irrelevant question: “Is this or that ex-CIA analyst a despicable liar or a naive fool?”
Relevant question: “Is World War III (or IV, depending on your count) preventable and, if so, how are we best able to accomplish this?”
All else is processing distortion.
Mr.McGovern,
You are a courageous and righteous man you have earned the respect of many by your uncovering of falsehood in the bowels of power . Remember a coward dies a thousand deaths but a brave man dies but once . You are an inspiration to a younger generation and may you be blessed for your suffering
@ Abe – I have to admit that I am sometimes plagued by doubt about who is sincere and who may have duplicitous or ulterior motives. Briefly scanning some of the BFP headlines, links and comments, there are certainly a plethora of allusions, unfinished sentences and hanging assertions which might suggest cause for rethinking the reliability or fidelity of “pseudo-alternative” sources and their guests. I became suspicious of Paul Jay a long time ago, and my suspicions don’t end there. Something about artsy-tartsy, namby-pamby, fringy-cringy peripheral issue journalism of the Moyers variety stands my hair on end.
For me, its all about the language, the syntax and the orderly progression of the abstractions – the pearls strung in orderly fashion – that out the lies or the liars. McGovern probably has “buyer’s remorse”, as Edmonds more or less alleges, and her aspersions do contain elements of truth. But I noted on her site an email purported to be written by Ray McGovern that seemed superficially plausible. Having been educated by a few of those same Catholic schoolteachers Ray must have endured, I too had to diagram sentences. The letter contained “you could of(sic) thought” and “than(sic) it seems”, errors that Ray would never have made. The posting is obviously falsely attributed to him.
I have no religious convictions and define myself as an empiricist with an aptitude for discerning deliberate semantic manipulation of abstract concepts. “I speak English”, and that is a boast few can make. That said, I’ve been fooled plenty of times. Ray tends to put a religious spin on things, which I suspect he sincerely intends. I find it irrelevant, as morality in my estimation is a “stand alone” attribute. Linguistically, his ratiocinations are intact and I do not detect any intent to deceive. Granted, that is the highest art of the accomplished dissembler, but you have to trust someone. Pretending that the actions of the current administration amount to coercion by a group of cabalistic insiders intimidating an otherwise unwilling or unwitting Chief Executive, however, does seem a bit naive. Moral idealists tend to make those kinds of assumptions, but I don’t think it’s intentionally dishonest. One thing is clear: the difference between right and wrong has been so successfully obfuscated that almost any agenda can now be effectively implemented. We are all in a great deal of trouble.
The email F.G. mentions is located in the comments section at http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2012/11/05/david-swanson-on-voting-independent-a-few-words-on-the-real-but-unknown-history-of-the-not-so-real-real-news/
Perhaps Mr. McGovern would care to comment on the syntactic accuracy.
For sure, F.G., we are all in deep doo doo.
Why has Sibel Edmonds, who is also involved with the VIPS, asserted that McGovern is playing the “alternative media”?
see her comments here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=knWWAhiaApU
Are Edmonds comments intended to divide people into the “Sibel camp” or the “McGovern camp”, or is there something to her comments?
The relevant conversation about occurs at minutes 54:30 – 1:09:50. Highly recommended.
I personally agree with the Boiling Frogs Post panel that Obama is complicit in the machinations of the deep state.
“Does the Führer know?” This was the plaintive question that many decent Germans asked during the early days of the Nazi regime, before it became evident just how evil the Nazi cause was. The Führer did know, and he intended much, if not every bit, of the evil that was perpetrated under his authority.
The “ex-CIA analyst” refrain that our poor Führer is being manipulated by those despicable neocons and liberal interventionists is hogwash.
Peter B. Collins talked with Ray McGovern in early October:
http://www.boilingfrogspost.com/2014/10/03/processing-distortion-with-peter-b-collins-beltway-blame-game-on-islamic-state/
It’s not about camps, people. Yet.
general betray us, was the guy who as head of the cia….. see treachery is just oppourtunism, found out that his email messages were being monitored… maybe not the brightest bulb? the surge was a fraud-.
Mr. McGovern and other conscientious citizens in the U.S., Canada and Europe are being abused in preparation for the next major war.
Canada’s false Flag Terror:
Fingerprints of U.S. Involvement
By Barry Zwicker
https://truthandshadows.wordpress.com/2014/11/08/canadas-false-flag-terror-fingerprints-of-u-s-involvement/
Telltale hallmarks of false flag ops
1 The timing
2 Prior “involvement†of agents of the state
3 The chosen miscreants are “human wreckageâ€
4 The “lone wolf†or “lone gunman†narrative
5 “Lone wolves†tend to become quickly deceased
6 The branding
7 “Security exercises†and the false flag curiously overlap
8 Media manipulation on both sides of the border
9 Failure of media to ask fundamental questions
[…] a central theme that buttresses the official line: that there have been “security lapses,†that these lapses are serious, that therefore “security agencies†need “more resources†to do their jobs “protecting our security†and “making us safe,†and so on and on.
Included among the questions most frequently trotted out by the media: “How can we strike a balance between “the need for greater security†on the one hand, and “the protection of privacy,†on the other.
This endlessly posed question has embedded within it several unexamined major premises, concealed significant historical facts and trends, as well as an ambiguity serving both concealments and that drives conclusions among readers, listeners and viewers that are ill-based, self-defeating and that inoculate those who are so manipulated against gaining greater understanding.
The premises include that privacy is ever and always a stand-alone good; that every person’s privacy is at risk equally with every other person’s; that privacy for each person or group means the same as for every other person or group; that in fact the two sides of the equation are security vs. privacy (as opposed, for instance, to security vs. freedom, although that equation – much more relevant – is raised fairly frequently) and that it is the good-faith activities of “security forces†that endanger “privacy.†Left out of the equation are the proven bad faith activities of “security forces.â€
The concealments include that the threat to citizens can come from the good-faith actions of “security forces,†yes, but that in fact by a large preponderance come from rogue actions of “security forces†and “intelligence agencies,†both of which are virtually out-of-control now.
On protecting the identity of “intelligence sources
The historical record – not in the slightest acknowledged by the “security vs privacy†equation – shows conclusively that those most spied upon, whose personal security is threatened repeatedly, are those who question authority, those who are peaceful dissidents, those who seek and act for improvements to the status quo, specifically for more equality and justice, those who are left-of-centre up to and including revolutionaries. The danger posed to loss of privacy among those on the left is much greater than it is for those on the right or for those not politically involved at all, which is to say the vast majority of citizens. This historical record goes unaddressed in 99% or more of the discourse about the dangers of “loss of privacy.â€
The large majority of people have little reason to fear the state, because they pose no perceived threat to the state. Accordingly, their need or wish to protect their privacy – for instance about their personal sex or financial lives – is of less interest to, is far less important to, the national security state than are the personal facts and political beliefs or acts of those on the left who pose a perceived threat to the status quo, however lawful or justified their words or actions may be.
Providing deeper, almost impenetrable, cover for informants, otherwise known colloquially as rats or ratfinks, is far from a pressing need for national security.
Rather, the history of informants shows that the majority, and in particular those who are chosen or come forward to “intelligence†agencies (or are assigned by these agencies), are owed much less protection from identity than they even now enjoy.
[…]
A compelling but illegitimate reason for these agencies to seek total anonymity for their “informants†is that so many of these do not even qualify as such, but rather are individuals planted to manufacture false “intelligence†or carry out dirty tricks on targets chosen by these agencies. Documented history shows that typically the targets are law-abiding, well-informed, politically active (on the left) and even courageous citizens who nevertheless are considered “enemies of the state†by the security apparatus and its overlords.
Remember that the RCMP spied on Tommy Douglas to the extent that his dossier numbered 1,100 pages, only a few of which CSIS, which inherited the RCMP dossier, has released. The grounds for CSIS’s refusal are that it must protect the informants. This is the very group of unsavoury snitches that the Harper government wants to give deeper cover.
The otherwise much-touted need for transparency and accountability is not only forgotten within “terrorist threat†hysteria. It is turned on its head. It is claimed that transparency and accountability are threats to the public! And that anyone who suggests otherwise also is a threat. In a world of fear the good becomes bad and the bad becomes good.
The so-called “war on terror,†fed by the national security state to the public like slops to pigs, paves the way through regression to a world of “military tribunals†(an oxymoron), of Star Chambers, to a new Dark Ages.
Outcomes of this particular false flag op
• It makes the task much harder for those warning the public of the dangers of the government’s legislation endowing intelligence agencies with greater powers, more resources, fewer restrictions and less transparency.
• Providing […] spy agencies with even more anonymity for informants is a particular danger […]
• Reduction of civil liberties: easier detentions, extraditions
• Increased invasion of privacy
• Intimidation of legislative branch, as happened in spades in the USA in response to the “anthrax attacks.â€
• More pressure on the judiciary to bow to omnipresent low-level “terrorism†hysteria
• Marginalizing of both the legislative and judicial branches
• Increased integration of Canadian spy agencies with those of “our†allies, so that the globalist integrated deception apparatus can operate even more freely and in ever more sophisticated ways.
• Buttressing of the grand made-in-Washington pax Americana imperial design.
According to Professor Peter Dale Scott, the structural deep state events required to perpetuate the war machine and keep its profiteers on life support have occurred on the average every ten years. Considering the skepticism that has been generated since 1950 and the recent warmongering that has failed so far, the next “false flag” is not only overdue, but it’s likely to be a doozy. Only a full Nazi Gestapo program will be sufficient to squelch the “parlor games” so popular among those plagued by doubt. Torchlight parades and the Horst Wessel Lied are so much more exciting than getting out of jail free or collecting $200…why would anyone even consider “parlor games”?
When patriots march:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wnUdc2fD9pg
“…before it is too late.”
Seriously? I would say it is obviously, only too obviously, that it is too late. As if corporate-military complex-international finance “government” is just going to change for us.
The most bothering narrative to Ray McGovern’s arrest, is where is the reporting of it. I appreciate that Consortiumnews gives a platform for Mr McGovern, but where else in America is his story being reported? Just this past week I brought up to a conservative friend of mine (who happens to be a lawyer) of how the NYPD arrested Ray McGovern. My conservative friend, besides not hearing about this in the news, was appalled. This should not become a left right issue. Instead, this should be an important issue to all people striving to keep their freedom of speech. Why even have a Q&A at these events, if their going to be selective towards the audience participation.
The epitome of the preemptive arrest, incarnate; now that any vestige of Kennedy Democracy has also been rubbed out:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MExv2bSnikQ
Skynet is mortal[tronicall]y afraid of Snowdens; and Ray’s shaking Snowden’s hand in Russsia has been viral in the mainstream press for a year. That’s why Russia and now Ray must be made to look criminal, bad, evil. It’s really quite simple. It’s all about perception. Look at the U.S. dollar for the biggest scam of all. Do you think the trillions lost in Pentagon accounting was because it was too complicated? Hahahaha.
We are at the dawn of a police state promulgated by the two sole political parties whose quest for power and money outstrip their adherence to the Constitution and fairness to all Americans.
Erik Jan Hanussen was a “mentalist”, “psychic”, “clairvoyant” who gained notoriety in Weimar Germany. The son of Jewish stage performers, he joined the circus at an early age and became adept at feats of “prediction”. In the classic semantic strategy employed by manipulators of audience credulity, reversal of the orderly progression of abstractions served him admirably. Like all “psychics”, his predictions – for example, “predicting” the contents of a persons pocket or handbag, always involved predicting things that had already happened. A real “prediction” would involve predicting what one’s pocket would contain tomorrow.
Hanussen achieved a level of fame and notoriety commensurate with Harry Houdini, Kresgin or David Copperfield. His palatial villa in Charlottenberg was accoutered to accommodate both his assumed persona as a spiritualist and the tastes of the seamier side of the Nazi underbelly, including blackmail, prostitution, gambling and racketeering. Among his financial exploits, loansharking to Nazi myrmidons fallen on hard times may have provided incentive to reveal valuable information in return for debt forgiveness. He is known to have held thousands of “markers” which would have proved embarrassing to the Nazi hierarchy. It was in the midst of this ambient, illuminated obtusely from the edges of engraved glass panels and optically engineered to enhance the effects of smoke and mirrors that Hanussen performed “seances” to the delight of society notables and Nazi factota alike.
Assured of his immunity among these denizens, Hanussen made his BIGGEST prediction: the Reichstag fire, and the rise of Germany like a Phoenix from its own ashes.
Now, unless you believe in “psychics”, which I don’t (All of them have been debunked by the likes of Harry Houdini and James Randi.), you have to assume that the plans had already been laid and that a number of people were involved. Pardon me for impugning the intelligence of anyone who would believe that Goering’s discovery of the fire was mere coincidence. Or, that a Nazi plot was nothing but a “conspiracy theory”. But, you’d have to believe in psychics, and that makes you a moron.
A few months later, someone passing on a country road noticed an oddity in the rain-soaked muddy field. It was a shoe sticking out of the ground on the end of a leg attached to a bullet-ridden body. The body was removed from the shallow grave and identified as Erik Jan Hanussen.
It was too late for Hanussen, who should have been able to predict what was coming. It’s probably too late for us as well. People who believe in the psychic good luck of propitious stock market transactions and convenient t alibis are hopelessly gullible. I would say it serves them right, but they threaten to take us all down that muddy road with them.
Then as now, “job creators” applaud clairvoyance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UVHf2hnwZSA
100 center street is where you would go to resolve the case, he states early in the article he was taken to the detention center….no problem with that. Mr McGovern, thank you for the article, greatly appreciate and shared. the only addition info i would like is what is the email or server that could be trusted???!!!
The Tombs is not the 100 Centre Street Court building.
If McGovern went to the Tombs, he was jailed more than overnight.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Tombs
The parallels drawn by Mr McGovern between Germany in the aftermath of 27 February 1933 and the US in the aftermath of 11 September 2001 are frightening, the more so for being accurate. The notion that events like the Reichstag’s fire or the attacks of 11 September 2001 is some way justify or even mandate the destruction of civil liberties in the name of (an illusory) «security» is the core of the problem ; we should all do well to ponder the meaning of the Latin rhetorical term non sequitur….
Henri
Mr. McGovern should have noted that in 1933, the Weimar Constitution contained an explicit provision–Article 48–which provided for the temporary exercise of what we would call “emergency powers” and “martial law”, along with the suspension of certain fundamental individual rights that the Weimar Constitution recognized in other Articles. Hitler relied on this provision. Here in the United States, the Constitution contains no such provision, and cannot be construed to allow for such a suspension of any part of the Bill of Rights. So contemporary Americans who accept the post-September 11 state of affairs are actually worse off, and arguably more morally and politically culpable, than the Germans were.
per my prior post, last line should read as -thus denying “the spotlite on the rat on the stage”.
sorry…thank you.
david t. krall
from: david t. krall
one suggestion, If you “want to get in the barn” again and confront/inquire with
a serious, legitimate question or questions in a deliberate and calm matter, don’t put an unnecessary and unneeded/unrequired “spotligfht” on yourself (like standing up in silent protest) BEFORE the intended question to be addressed in a given forum, BUT use and save that “spotlight” as it will be be shared with the person being asked & will glow and resonate to everybody WHEN GIVEN THE OPPORTUNITY TO AND DURING THE QUESTION/INQUIRY BEING ADDRESSED TO THAT PERSON ON STAGE…The bizarre behavior of those in power and their blind disrespect to history and towards real democracy can be combated with uncanny common sense, discipline and using ones wits, forethought and perception…what happened here is a travesty, but if you want to “show a lite on rat”, don’t put a lite on too soon on or upon yourself, especially before asking the question…that “silent protest” defeated your whole purpose, the greater one, than “standing in silence” BEFORE you achieved your intended goal, to share with everybody else, and thus denying the “spotlite””on the rat stage”…
regards,
david t. krall
The USA today is a far cry from the 2 minute speech by Abraham Lincoln, Nov. 19, 1863 at Gettysburg, Pa:
” — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
It’s sad to see that this great nation has become a true capitalistic society controlled by a few rich people, banks and companies without any democratic principles. Consortiumnews shows this again and again and Ray McGovern’s experience proves again the US government’s corruption and incompetence in dealing with opposition.
Although Russia under President Putin is not considered a democracy by the Western MSM propaganda, at least he proves to be a leader who has a live public 4 hours question and answer program on TV each year (April 2014) where he answers EVERY question asked by the Russian people. Also the at the recent Valdai Conference in Sochi (Oct 24/25) he not only proves that he is a true and honest leader but also excels in his knowledge of Russian and International politics. Another reason why America wants to destroy this strong leader because he tells Obama and the US government ‘ I protect my borders and my people’ whether the West – especially USA – likes it or not. The USA is losing its world wide dominance and more nations want to become independent from US war machine, they want to develop their own economy without USA controlling their culture, their lives and their future. USA should forget it’s outdated MONROE DOCTRINE and respect the nations independence including that of Iraq, Syria and Ukraine. The USA has made this planet a very insecure and hostile environment.
Instead of bombing this world to ashes and murdering millions of people America should use its technology to improve our environment instead of destroying it.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rbZB2ZFpfDU&list=UUuFCfiQxxQFt3ELgYceCElw
One problem for all civilized people in the world, is that the uncivilized US government has the most well equipped military and imbedded spy apparatus at it’s disposal. That along with so many Americans, manipulated though they are, who falsely believe patriotism is backing and supporting their government when it is clearly overstepping it’s legal authority at home and abroad.
But I apparently failed to practice the kind of “tradecraft†in terms of limiting associations that is needed to function in today’s
democraticsociety.I’ve never tried the ‘strikeout’ HTML code, but if it works, your sentence becomes more accurate. But yes, your tradecraft probably failed as several levels. In the future you ought to consider adding some substantial makeup to possibly neutralize face recognition software until you’re safely inside.
Heedless of the irony, Clinton did not miss a syllable, much less a word, as she watched me snatched directly in front of her and brutally removed.
Even if Hillary was a freaking saint, she’s simply too old to become president of the US. But the woman the woman has demonstrated time and again she’d not make a respectable dog catcher for a small Arkansas town.
“We came, we saw, he died”
There are no circumstances whatever I’ll cast my vote for the smirking bitch.
Your misogyny makes you a big part of the problem you seem to wish to counter. FYI. Examine your hate.
Criticism of a misanthropic, self-serving demagogue who happens to possess a vagina does not constitute misogyny. Your comments suggest a level of intellectual self-deception evidently cynical enough to project your own infantile genital fixation onto political interpretations with an intention to emote deflection rather than counter with reason. Some would call that “penis envy”. But, in the final analysis, I think Judge Roy Bean said it best when he apologized to the marshals’ wives:
“I understand you have taken exception to my calling you whores. I’m sorry. I apologize. I ask you to note that I did not call you callous-ass strumpets, fornicatresses, or low-born gutter sluts. But I did say “whores.” No escaping that. And for that slip of the tongue, I apologize.”
In the same spirit of semantic fidelity, Judge Bean would probably call you a troll, but I would not expect him to apologize.
One of the best replies I have read in quite some time.
Well done !
I am no fan of Mrs Clinton either or of any ‘centrist’ Democrat. You, OTOH, sound like you just hate women.
Bitch be smirkin’ mane, tru dat.
Haters gonna hate:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dD9A8x_xn5g
“I hate that man Obama more than any man I’ve ever met, more than any man who ever lived,” said Bill Clinton to a friend after Obama suggested he was a racist in 2008 according to Edward Klein’s 2014 book, Blood Feud: The Clintons vs. the Obamas.
Hated the book. Must make me a book hater.
McGovern is awakening to something that was foreseen a long time ago and was not believed, in 1955, when Milton Mayer published “They thought they were free (but then it was too late).”
http://www.press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/511928.html
Now it’s becoming very obvious.