I spent the summer of 1961 behind the Iron Curtain. I was part of the US-USSR student exchange program. It was the second year of the program that operated under auspices of the US Department of State. Our return to the West via train through East Germany was interrupted by the construction of the Berlin Wall. We were sent back to Poland. The East German rail tracks were occupied with Soviet troop and tank trains as the Red Army concentrated in East Germany to face down any Western interference.
Fortunately, in those days there were no neoconservatives. Washington had not grown the hubris it so well displays in the 21st century. The wall was built and war was avoided. The wall backfired on the Soviets. Both JFK and Ronald Reagan used it to good propaganda effect.
In those days, America stood for freedom and the Soviet Union for oppression. Much of this impression was created by Western propaganda, but there was some semblance to the truth in the image. The communists had a Julian Assange and an Edward Snowden of their own. His name was Cardinal Jozef Mindszenty, the leader of the Hungarian Catholic Church.
Mindszenty opposed tyranny. For his efforts, he was imprisoned by the Nazis. Communists also regarded him as an undesirable, and he was tortured and given a life sentence in 1949.
Freed by the short-lived Hungarian Revolution in 1956, Mindszenty reached the American Embassy in Budapest and was granted political asylum by Washington. However, the communists would not give him the free passage that asylum presumes, and Mindszenty lived in the US Embassy for 15 years, 79% of his remaining life.
In the 21st century roles have reversed. Today it is Washington that is enamored of tyranny. On Washington’s orders, the UK will not permit Julian Assange free passage to Ecuador, where he has been granted asylum. Like Cardinal Mindszenty, Assange is stuck in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London.
Washington will not permit its European vassal states to allow overflights of airliners carrying Edward Snowden to any of the countries that have offered Snowden asylum. Snowden is stuck in the Moscow airport.
In Washington, politicians of both parties demand that Snowden be captured and executed. Politicians demand that Russia be punished for not violating international law, seizing Snowden, and turning him over to Washington to be tortured and executed, despite the fact that Washington has no extradition treaty with Russia.
Snowden did United States citizens a great service. He told us that despite constitutional prohibition, Washington had implemented a universal spy system intercepting every communication of every American and much of the rest of the world. Special facilities are built in which to store these communications.
In other words, Snowden did what Americans are supposed to do—disclose government crimes against the Constitution and against citizens. Without a free press, there is nothing but the government’s lies. In order to protect its lies from exposure, Washington intends to exterminate all truth tellers.
The Obama Regime is the most oppressive regime ever in its prosecution of protected whistleblowers. Whistleblowers are protected by law, but the Obama Regime insists that whistleblowers are not really whistleblowers. Instead, the Obama Regime defines whistleblowers as spies, traitors, and foreign agents. Congress, the media, and the faux judiciary echo the executive branch propaganda that whistleblowers are a threat to America. It is not the government that is violating and raping the US Constitution that is a threat. It is the whistleblowers who inform us of the rape who are the threat.
The Obama Regime has destroyed press freedom. A lackey federal appeals court has ruled that NY Times reporter James Risen must testify in the trial of a CIA officer charged with providing Risen with information about CIA plots against Iran. The ruling of this fascist court destroys confidentiality and is intended to end all leaks of the government’s crimes to media.
What Americans have learned in the 21st century is that the US government lies about everything and breaks every law. Without whistleblowers, Americans will remain in the dark as “their” government enserfs them, destroying every liberty, and impoverishes them with endless wars for Washington’s and Wall Street’s hegemony.
Snowden harmed no one except the liars and traitors in the US government. Contrast Washington’s animosity against Snowden with the pardon that Bush gave to Dick Cheney aide, Libby, who took the fall for his boss for blowing the cover, a felony, on a covert CIA operative, the spouse of a former government official who exposed the Bush/Cheney/neocon lies about Iraqi weapons of mass destruction.
Whatever serves the tiny clique that rules America is legal; whatever exposes the criminals is illegal.
That’s all there is to it.
Copyright © 2013 Paul Craig Roberts
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Economic Policy and associate editor of the Wall Street Journal. He was columnist for Business Week, Scripps Howard News Service, and Creators Syndicate. He has had many university appointments. His internet columns have attracted a worldwide following. His latest book, The Failure of Laissez Faire Capitalism and Economic Dissolution of the West is now available.
True. Oppression is suffocating. And while it is also ture that, ” … the Obama Regime insists that whistleblowers are not really whistleblowers. Instead, the Obama Regime defines whistleblowers as spies, traitors, and foreign agents. ..” Obama is merely expanding and deepening the Bush swamp-like mantra of distorting and spinning the truth of anything to their own advantage … something like always winning a tennis match: like Dorothy Walker was reportedly fond of … always win no matter what. Obama does well in the Bush swamp land.
“The Obama Regime has destroyed press freedom.” … Again, Obama is just following in the footsteps of the Bushes need to squelch the truth, whether through intimidation of journalists or press people losing their jobs if anything the Bushes don’t like comes to light; to the persecution of Joe Wilson in the Valerie Plame affair over Iraq (?) and some plutonium, I think it was … to the countless dirty and countless ways the Bushes have of suffocating light like a match which dies for lack of oxygen to feed it.
“What Americans have learned in the 21st century is that the US government lies about everything and breaks every law. ..” I think it was GHWB, that King of Lies, the American Godfather, who has lied through his teeth just about every time he has opened his mouth–and it began in the twentieth century .. Obama … he put on the Bushes’ Crown and expanded on their evilness. I am sure that is worth of praise in the Bushes eyesight. Unless, of course, they deem it to be that Obama is winning the match game and that may make them unhappy … so they might unfurl another Bush upon us come 2016. There seems to be no one who stands for truth and light these days. Not in politics anyhow.
What Americans have learned in the 21st century is that the US government lies about everything and breaks every law. Without whistleblowers, Americans will remain in the dark as “their†government enserfs them, destroying every liberty, and impoverishes them with endless wars for Washington’s and Wall Street’s hegemony.
You got it in a pinch. It appears that tyranny is generally on the rise all around!
Rulers concede power to the Ruled when they are afraid they might take it otherwise. Mass war mobilizes and emboldens workers ww2, Korea, Vietnam wont happen again. The Rulers take power back again when it is expedient.When the Ruled’s lack of political understanding and willingness to act are signaled to the rulers they repress. The end of the USSR was the signal to the Rulers that workers are not to be feared but only exploited to the fullest. If the western working class wants to see the intended future planned for them they can look to Asia. The Rulers anticipate a response once the process is made apparent but are prepared. When reality moves faster than the manufactured consensual false reality, the gap between the two widens and people are surprised by the turn of events, 911 was like a Hollywood movie come true, as was the election of Obama. What next? More brutality, repression. impoverishment, deceit, corruption, professional army led profitable war.