Friday, October 20, 2017

Mike Whitney — John Brennan’s Police State USA


John Brennan in the spotlight again.
This is a deliberate mischaracterization of what Brennan was actually doing. He was spying on the members of the rival party to gain a political advantage. This is how police state operates.
Whatever the facts, and there are very few reliable facts based on evidence on the table so far, it's clear that Russiagate is political.
According to a recent CBS Poll, a majority of Americans (57%) now believe that “Russia tried to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.” In contrast, only 34 percent of Americans don’t believe there was any Russian interference in the 2016 elections.
What the numbers don’t explain, however, is how one’s own political ideology shapes the results. For example, 71 percent of Democrats believe that Russia interfered, while a mere 18 percent of Republicans agree. In other words, one’s own prejudices (about Trump and Russia) have a much greater impact on one’s opinion than either facts or evidence. Propaganda campaigns try to exploit public bias to effectively manipulate perceptions. The CBS polling data shows that they have succeeded in that regard.
Whitney sees trouble ahead.
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda (In 2013, Obama gutted the Smith Mundt Act “unleashing of thousands of hours per week of government-funded radio and TV programs for domestic U.S. consumption in a reform initially criticized as a green light for U.S. domestic propaganda efforts.” (Foreign Policy Magazine)
In 2016, Obama paved the way for more domestic propaganda by passing the Orwellian-named “Countering Disinformation and Propaganda Act” as part of the 2017 National Defense Authorization Act. Ostensibly, the bill lays the groundwork for responding to “fake news” overseas, but in reality, it marks “a further curtailment of press freedom” and an ambitious attempt to suppress accurate, independent information.)
The loosening of rules governing the dissemination of domestic propaganda coupled with the extraordinary advances in surveillance technology, create the perfect conditions for the full implementation of an American police state.
But what is more concerning, is that the primary levers of state power are no longer controlled by elected officials but by factions within the state whose interests do not coincide with those of the American people. That can only lead to trouble.
Counterpunch
John Brennan’s Police State USA
Mike Whitney

2 comments:

Kaivey said...

This is nice, I consider Russians to be Europeans also -

Putin says-

"Russia is an inalienable and organic part of Greater Europe and European civilization. Our citizens think of themselves as Europeans…That’s why Russia proposes moving towards the creation of a common economic space from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean, a community referred to by Russian experts as ‘the Union of Europe’ which will strengthen Russia’s potential in its economic pivot toward the ‘new Asia.’”

Tom Hickey said...

Russia may be European but the Russian Federation is Eurasian. Chechnya is a member of the Russian Federation, for example, and it is predominantly Muslim.

This is a key difference that Western people ignore or overlook.

In addition, "the Russian world" (Russkiy mir) is not equitable with Russia geographically. It is bound up with the concept of "the lRussian sou" (Russkaya dusha), although this is more a literary concept in origin.

The Russian people regard these distinctions as socially and politically important. Putin pays careful attention to them. Since Westerns do not understand them they misunderstand and misrepresent the use that Putin makes of them.