https://www.youtube.com/watch?
Miracle and Myth: We Have Not Yet Blown Up Our Planet = Miracle; Our Luck Will Hold Indefinitely = Myth
https://www.youtube.com/watch?
August 5, 2018 (talk is 49:30 minutes; Q and A runs from min. 50:45 to 1:32:00)
… and in the Q & A:
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.”
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.”
Thanks to the Ground Zero Center for Nonviolent Action
Recorded on Aug 5, 2018; published on Aug 11, 2018
FBI’s Peter Strzok May Have to Seek Honest Work After Firing
Ray was interviewed on August 13 for this story.
https://sputniknews.com/us/
Inspecteur Clouseau may have opening for the right man.
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.
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?
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?
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!
https://www.thenation.com/
and
https://consortiumnews.com/
Senator Richard Burr: a Longtime Fan of Torture
By Ray McGovern, August 11, 2018
https://consortiumnews.com/
Torture of al-Qaeda suspect described in 2002 cables sent by CIA Director Gina Haspel.
( See:
https://www.washingtonpost.
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:
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/
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.”
Newly released official documents show CIA head Gina Haspel directly supervised waterboarding at “Black Site” in Thailand. Sen. Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr and Vice Chair Mark Warner hid that, demonstrating once again that today’s Senate “oversight” means “overlook.” Hold your nose and read:
Recall what happened to Ray when he tried to expose this same information at the “open” hearing on Haspel’s nomination. Kudos to the National Security Archive. Here is brief excerpt from the Archive report:
… The released Haspel cables feature extensive redactions by the CIA, including their dates (although those can be ascertained from the declassified CIA Inspector General’s report, among other sources) and most of the information results from the torture (although those have been summarized by the Senate Intelligence Committee report and two of the Haspel cables even admit failure to produce actionable intelligence). [emphasis added.]
The biggest mystery in the released cables is whether Gina Haspel wrote Cable 11359, from December 1, 2002, which uses remarkably vivid language to describe the torture sessions: The interrogators “strode, catlike, into the well-lit confines of the cell at 0902 hrs [redacted], deftly removed the subject’s black hood with a swipe, paused, and in a deep, measured voice said that subject – having ‘calmed down’ after his (staged) run-in with his hulking, heavily muscled guards the previous day – should reveal what subject had done to vex his guards to the point of rage.”









