Notice: As we continue, as usual, to post Ray’s articles, speeches, videos, and radio interviews here at raymcgovern.com, please know that Ray has begun to tweet more often, and his Quick Tweets (QT) will not be duplicated here on the website. For those not yet following Ray on Twitter, his handle is: @raymcgovern.

Here’s a tweet from early this morning — launching the new QT approach:

 

Amy Goodman is good on ICE fascists, but naive on CIA’s John Brennan. Why does her headline today parrot the frivolous lede in Washington Post? Fact that Brennan did all he could, legally & illegally, to elect Mrs. Clinton should subject him to close scrutiny, not give him a pass.

Miracle and Myth: We Have Not Yet Blown Up Our Planet = Miracle; Our Luck Will Hold Indefinitely = Myth

A talk by Ray McGovern at Ground Zero, Pudget Sound, next to the Trident Submarine Base
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zfMj1aflgPU&feature=youtu.be
August 5, 2018 (talk is 49:30 minutes; Q and A runs from min. 50:45 to 1:32:00)
Among the topics covered in Ray’s talk …
Tribute to the King’s Bay Plowshares and to “Arch” — the late Archbishop Raymond Hunthausen, supporter/benefactor of Ground Zero.
Ernie Pyle finds deep racism in Pacific theater.
Two who helped prevent the world from being destroyed: Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov; Melvin A. Goodman
 
“The Doomsday Machine:” A MOST IMPORTANT BOOK
Autumn 1983: from KAL-007 to “Able Archer” — a very close brush with extinguishing the planet
Seeking Justice with little prospect of immediate results
Standing up to oppression: from Dan Berrigan to Helen.

… and in the Q & A:

Why Ray was “escorted” out of the Gina Haspel nomination hearing
Should we fear Trump meeting with Putin alone?
Iran: decades ago and more recent history
Comparing a thoroughbred National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) to a neutered/mongrel, evidence-free “Assessment” by “handpicked” analysts from only three agencies
Israel’s predominant role in U.S. Middle East policy making
 
WHAT ONE NEEDS TO REMEMBER IN ALL THIS:  As former FBI Director James Comey himself has admitted: “I was making decisions in an environment where Hillary Clinton was sure to be the next president.” Comey and co-conspirators, who decided — in that “environment” — to play fast and loose with the Constitution and the law, were supremely confident they would not only keep their jobs, but also receive plaudits, not indictments.  Unless one understands and remembers this, it is understandably difficult to believe that the very top U.S. law enforcement officials did what documentary evidence has shown they did.
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Ray had sent the following paragraphs ahead to Ground Zero to help with publicity and to give the organizers some feel for the issues he planned to address (most of which he did address):

It is a myth that attacking Japanese cities with atomic bombs was needed to end WWII (though that’s what most of us were told in school). Six of the United States’ seven five-star officers who received their final star in World War II — Generals MacArthur, Eisenhower, and Arnold and Admirals Leahy, King, and Nimitz — rejected the idea that nuclear bombs were needed to end the war. Sadly, though, there is little evidence that they pressed their case strongly with then-President Truman before the fact.

So why did Truman do it? How much had to do with the fact that he and Secretary of State Jimmy Byrnes were incorrigible bigots? Does white supremacy still play a role today?

In his masterful book, The Doomsday Machine, Daniel Ellsberg offers this challenge: “Whether humans can eliminate the danger of near-term extinction [by nukes] remains to be seen. I choose to act as if that is still possible.”

It IS possible. All we need are dashes of hope, flashes of ingenuity, and renewed commitment to get our act together. Annie Dillard’s dictum is encouraging — if challenging: “There is only us; there never has been any other.”

There ARE enough of us; we ARE the ones we’ve been waiting for.

And what an honor “being with those, whether in kayak or on shore, active in the shadow of the Tridents; with folks paying the same ‘rent’ as author/poet Alice Walker (a shipmate on the “US Boat to Gaza” in 2011).  Alice famously wrote: “Activism is my rent for living on this planet.”

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The talk was recorded at the annual Hiroshima-Nagasaki commemoration at the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action next to the Trident submarine base in Poulsbo, WA. The series of events included nonviolent protest actions. On August 4, a flotilla of kayaks and small boats in the waters of Hood Canal, outside the perimeter of Naval Base Kitsap Bangor, protested nuclear weapons; and on August 6, twelve people were arrested in for nonviolent civil resistance during an early morning vigil at the entrance of the base.

Thanks to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
Recorded on Aug 5, 2018; published on Aug 11, 2018

Is VIPS Working for Russia?

A fellow named Duncan Campbell, who many years ago reported on UK officialdom, clearly has had too much free time lately. He has concluded that VIPS is working for the Russians — perhaps as useful idiots:
https://www.computerweekly.com/news/252445769/Briton-ran-pro-Kremlin-disinformation-campaign-that-helped-Trump-deny-Russian-links

Inoculation from Campbell’s turgid prose can be found in two recent videos:

Bill Binney: It Was NOT a Russian Hack
Interview with Jason Ross
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3cDZU9Tp7wfo Joseph
August 6, 2018 (10 minutes)

and

Yes, Everyone Is Lying About The DNC Server Scandal
Jimmy Dore with John Kiriakou
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1oelJ0xN5AM
published on August 10, 2018 (10 minutes)

Other “investigators” are now spreading Campbell around like soup; none have had the courage to get in touch with Bill Binney or other VIPS — still less to challenge or debate.

VIPS are thick skinned, and take pride in being kicked by some of the same folks who are, as Julian Assange’s mother Christine put it in a recent tweet, “bravely kicking Assange while his hands and feet are tied behind his back.”. Their smear campaign is intrinsically invalid, and they should be told so at every opportunity. … [They] do not fight fairly or with honour. Their weapon of choice is smear. … What they fear more than anything else is an informed public!

Watch Consortiumnews.com tomorrow for Patrick Lawrence’s one-year-after follow-up to his August 9, 2017 article in The Nation “A New Report Raises Big Questions About Last Year’s DNC Hack” (which was based largely on VIPS #50 of July 24, 2017, “Intel Vets Challenge ‘Russia Hack’ Evidence).”

https://www.thenation.com/article/a-new-report-raises-big-questions-about-last-years-dnc-hack/
and
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/07/24/intel-vets-challenge-russia-hack-evidence/

Senator Richard Burr: a Longtime Fan of Torture

By Ray McGovern, August 11, 2018
https://consortiumnews.com/2018/08/11/senator-richard-burr-a-longtime-fan-of-torture/

Curious: Not a word of this story appeared in Ray’s home-delivered Washington Post on either August 10 or 11, even though a good report by the Post’s Karen deYoung appeared on the 10th in the Post online.  DeYoung’s online article was titled:
Torture of al-Qaeda suspect described in 2002 cables sent by CIA Director Gina Haspel.
( See:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/torture-of-al-qaeda-suspect-described-in-2002-cables-sent-by-cia-director-gina-haspel/2018/08/09/dfd79b5a-9c21-11e8-843b-36e177f3081c_story.html?utm_term=.2f64afbdd18e )

The NY Times, for its part, carried a long report by Julian E. Barnes and Scott Shane in both print and online editions on August 10:

( See:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/10/us/politics/waterboarding-gina-haspel-cia-prison.html )

The NYT online article was titled: Cables Detail C.I.A. Waterboarding at Secret Prison Run by Gina Haspel.  That headline was adjusted a bit for the print version (page A8 of the New York edition).  The print title was: “Cables Detail Torture at Prison Run by Current C.I.A. Chief.”