Falling Further and Further Down the Rabbit Hole

Is anyone else questioning reality? Is anyone else asking how things in America could spiral so totally out of control in what is historically faster than the blink of an eye? Our country slipped from the enjoyably reassuring and positive (if less successful than hoped for) Obama administration into the Mariana Trench of political dysfunction and ineptitude. After electing the first African American president, an accomplishment many of us never thought we’d see in our lifetime, we suddenly fell into a dark canyon of seething, writhing white reptiles determined to take us back to the Pleistocene age.

How surreal is it? Somehow, Donald Trump became president of the United States. Donald Trump, a man who unquestionably represents everything that is, and ever was, wrong with America. Greed, misogyny, racism, xenophobia, you name it, it’s part of Trump’s DNA. The man is a walking medical chart of every ailment from which America suffers. His repulsive behavior knows no bounds. He is tacky, unsophisticated, unworldly, lacking intellect, wit and empathy. Every public situation in which he finds himself is awkward and uncomfortable. Even his wife finds him reprehensible.

Yet here we are, struggling to cope with a situation that thriller author Tom Clancy probably tossed out as too unrealistic. Who would believe the plot? A narcissistic man/child millionaire grows tired of the entertainment biz and decides to run for President of the United States, and wins. What? Wait, what about all that “checks and balances” stuff and the beauty of the democratic process and the will of the majority, blah, blah, blah. That’s all it is. So much ink on parchment paper. We thought it meant something, but obviously we were wrong.

And the icing on our surreal Cake? The downfall of the Trump administration may come courtesy of the true dark lords, our intelligence agencies. Trump has chosen to go to war with the CIA, NSA and others in that community, and that could ultimately prove to be the biggest of his many, many mistakes as president. The Russian debacle is the one scandal that could bring Trump and his administration down, and it is clear that the intelligence community is not on Donald’s side on this one, and further revelations could actually push Republicans in Congress to act against Herr Trumpenstein. So sane America find itself in the position of cheering for the spooks, whose undemocratic and unconstitutional efforts have had us screaming “foul” in the past, to dethrone the nut job who slipped into the White House while we were looking the other way.

Hold on to your seats, because as long as Trump is president, we’re going to keep falling down that hole.

The screaming of the weasels

It’s completely understandable if you’re confused about what year it is. Are we living in 2014 or 1214? If you are reading today’s headlines, you might think it’s the middle of the Dark Ages as the weasels who approved torture squeal out in their own defense. Former Vice President Dick Cheney, former CIA Directors Michael Hayden, George Tenet and Porter Goss and former Justice Department Attorney John Woo and others are flinging justifications for their illegal behavior as fast as the media will relay them.

Cheney, who treats any criticism with a disdainful “Fuck-you-and-the-horse-you-rode-in-on” sneer, called the Senate’s report a bunch of crap, and, true to form, brought up 9/11 as his magical justification for anything. Hayden said force feeding prisoners through rectal rehydration (shoving food up a person’s anus) was a benign medical procedure. Yoo tried to claim that the American people supported Bush’s post-9/11 actions, including torture.

The screaming of the weasels is a concerted effort on the part of a cadre of international criminals to justify the unjustifiable, and it all basically boils down to this: “If America does it, it’s not illegal.” It’s 2014 and we are still arguing the validity of torture.

I wish I had more faith that international justice would prevail, but like banks that are too big to fail, the individuals who authorized torture are probably too big to jail. They’ll continue making millions off of memoirs and speaking fees despite their horrendous crimes, while the families of those tortured and murdered at their hands will have only the memories of their loved ones to comfort them.

Torture doesn't work, but that's not why it should be outlawed

One of the things I find most troubling about the conversation sparked by the release of the Senate’s report on CIA interrogation excesses is whether torture worked or not. Contrary to the evidence, the director of the CIA, Cheney, Bush and Congressional Republicans continue to argue that it worked and saved lives. They’re wrong, but is that point even relevant?

Let’s step back for a moment. When we go to our history books and look at the horrendous torture devices and techniques used during the Inquisition or by Nazis during WWII or even in less developed countries today, do we ever ask, “Did it work?” What abhors us about torture is the cruelty of it, and that was the basis for numerous international treaties after WWII banning the practice. From the United States’ perspective, the simple argument was that if we as a country allow torture, we have no moral authority to criticize other countries that use it, and it could be (and was) used against our soldiers.

That all got thrown out the window after 9/11. Fear trumped rationale thinking, and the Bush Administration was quick to condone anything that it thought might protect us from another terrorist attack, even torture, without thinking through the ramifications. Worse yet, the practice continued for years, even though the results were consistently unhelpful and experts in the field told the Administration it was a futile tactic.

Torture doesn’t work, and we knew that before the attacks on the Twin Towers, but that should not be the core argument against it. It is an inhuman, morally repugnant practice that debases everyone involved in it. Why fundamentalist Christians in this country seem to support it and validate its use is a topic for another posting. We as a country must strongly denounce it in word and deed if we are ever to be looked at with respect in the world community again.

Your car is a surveillance target

Orwell-creep continues as we learn that over 2 million cars purchased with subprime loans are outfitted with GPS-based kill switches that can be used to turn off your vehicle if your payments are late. Cars have been killed in dangerous neighborhoods, at stoplights and while driving on a freeway. If you’d like details on the how and why of these devices, check out the story in today’s Salon.

My concern is the ever-advancing tentacles of the corporate state winding their way into our private lives. If I had written a blog a year ago saying I believed cars were having kill switches installed I would have been laughed at as another conspiracy nut. But here you are. Kill switches in cars. Today the NSA, CIA, FBI, DEA and other government agencies are deeply entrenched within the corporate world and are constantly developing new ways to insert themselves into our lives.

It doesn’t take a very vivid imagination to see where this is going. There will be a day when all cars not only have kill switches, but will be built with technology that allows the government to track them, listen in on conversations and, ultimately, take control the car. All of this will come under the auspices of fighting crime, in the same way that the war on terror lead to massive illegal surveillance.

The American security state is out of control. With little regulation and the ability to make up the rules as they go, the NSA, CIA and others wipe their boots on the Constitution as they develop newer and more devious ways to embed themselves deeper into your private life.

Stigma of “conspiracy theorist” label shouldn’t stop people from questioning authority

Not long after the 1964 release of the Warren Commission Report, the official version of events surrounding the assassination of President Kennedy in 1963, questions started to be raised about the Report’s conclusions. As dissenting voices grew louder, the CIA coined the term “conspiracy theorists” and had its contacts in the media begin using the phrase to disparage doubters as nut jobs whose wacky theories were way out of the mainstream. It has proven to be one of the most successful propaganda operations in American history.

However, recent research is telling us a different story. Various studies are showing that there are many more people who accept so-called conspiracy theories than we are led to believe, and one 2013 research project at the University of Kent in the UK found that of the 2174 comments they collected, those who questioned the official accounts of events like the JFK assassination and 9/11 outnumbered the unquestioning group by more than two-to-one. Other studies have shown that those who accept the official versions of events tend to be more hostile and more dogmatic in their beliefs.

Victims of the CIA anti-conspiracy theory campaign can be found on the left as well as the right. As I’ve mentioned before, I don’t understand how people like Rachel Maddow, who have made careers out of questioning politicians’ motives and government policies, can ridicule those who don’t accept the 9/11 Commissions findings.

There are, of course, conspiracy theorists who actually do belong in the wacko nut job column, people like Alex Jones and Glenn Beck, who see complex, sinister government plots behind every event that makes news headlines. Debunkers love to point these guys as typical conspiracy theorists when they are in fact, simply loony tunes with a megaphone who appeal to a very, very thin slice of the population.

Not every conspiracy theory proves to be real, and many are patently ridiculous, but that doesn’t mean we should be cowed by demeaning names into never questioning authority. I’d rather be called a conspiracy theorist than a blindly obedient tool of the government.

Brennan tells Senators, “You’re not the boss of me.”

The Senate is continuing to investigate the CIA’s admitted role in hacking into the Senate Intelligence Committee computers during an investigation into the CIA. In a particularly interesting development, CIA director John Brennan refused to tell Senators who ordered the eavesdropping on the committee. This incensed a number of Senators, as it should have, because the Senate Intelligence Committee is charged with oversight of the CIA, theoretically. 

Brennan’s refusal to accept the Committee’s authority reveals a lot about the attitude of the CIA and NSA toward oversight in general. They ain’t buying into it. Even more interesting will be the Senate’s reaction to this high-level “fuck you.” Our spy agencies have clearly grown too large and too powerful to be reigned in by a bunch of whining Senators. They see their work as beyond criticism or control and can keep a lid on anything by simply calling it a secret for national security reasons. And lord knows Obama won’t step in to help. He’s as cowed by the CIA as anyone in Washington, DC.

What will the incensed Senator’s do? Challenge the all-mighty surveillance state? Doubtful. Brennan and his buddies know too much.

In the crosshairs of the surveillance state

An article in the most recent issue of The Atlantic titled, “Does John Brennan know too much for Obama to fire him?” looks at an issue that I have brought up a number of times before. I think it is very possible that we are in a situation where the CIA, NSA and other spy agencies are allowed to virtually write their own playbook because they have potentially damaging information on top officials in Washington, including Obama.

The author of the article guesses that the information in CIA Director Brennan’s case might be related to illegal drone attacks that violated international law. Very possible, I agree, but it could be any number of things in Obama’s past that Brennan might hang over the President’s head. As I’ve said before, the extortion of those in the executive and legislative branches does not have to be explicit at all. No threats have to be made. You can assume that if you made an embarrassing misstep in your past, the CIA and NSA know about it too.

It will take a future President with a whole lot of courage (if there is such a thing) to truly rein in America’s bloated surveillance state.

Spy agencies turning to Snowden as convenient scapegoat

In something of a follow-up to yesterday’s post about the failure of our intelligence agencies to foresee Russia’s plan to invade Crimea, there’s this: It’s Edward Snowden’s fault.

According to an article in today’s BuzzFeed, hints and whispers coming out of the surveillance community are about trying to pin our Crimea intelligence failure on leaked Snowden documents. They somehow gave Russia a leg up on our spooks. Sorry, I just snorted coffee out of my nose. I’ve also heard that climate change and the Washington landslide are being pinned on Mr. Snowden.

There seems to be a large group within the intelligence community who really, really hate Edward Snowden, and it’s clear they will stoop to anything to try and discredit him. As is apparent, they’re not above shifting blame for their own failures to the fugitive hacker. The charges are ludicrous, but even if they weren’t, our spy agencies know that Snowden is not in a position where he can defend himself, so they can make up pretty much anything about him and toss it to the media. Glenn Greenwald does a pretty good job of batting back the insane claims of the agencies, but it’s a large task to take on.

We need to take anything and everything Washington, D.C. says about Edward Snowden with a huge grain of salt.

They come after you. Pelosi admits reps are cowed by intelligence community

Back in October I wrote a post speculating that the reason why Congress has been so lax in its oversight of the CIA and NSA is that the House and Senate members know that if they push too hard, these surveillance agencies could come after them with embarrassing information. No one has any firm evidence that this is the case, but it did seem to make sense to me as a distinct possibility. Now, however, there is some indication that this may in fact be something more than speculation. According to a March 13 article in Roll Call, House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi praised Sen. Diane Feinstein’s courage for alleging the CIA spied on members of the Senate Intelligence Committee in this statement.

“I salute Sen. Feinstein. I’ll tell you, you take on the intelligence community, you’re a person of courage, and she does not do that lightly. Not without evidence, and when I say evidence, documentation of what it is that she is putting forth. You don’t fight it without a price because they come after you and they don’t always tell the truth.”

They come after you. Here is the most powerful person in the House of Representatives telling the American people that even if you’re a Senator or Congressperson, the intelligence community will seek retribution if you cross them. Isn’t this admitting that blackmail is being used to keep representatives in line? Again, I’m sure that it is not overt. No one has spell this out. You just know that if you get on the bad side of the NSA or CIA, embarrassing events from your past can suddenly become very public. And, as Pelosi states, they’re not above making up shit about you.

How do you rein in a monster like this? Who has the guts to even try?

The American government is seriously out of control

The newest revelations that the CIA was conducting surveillance on Congressional committee members looking into the CIA is mind boggling. No one seems to be in control in Washington. The intelligence community is now a shadow government, operating in its own world on its own terms, and no branch of government has the power to rein it in. As I’ve said before, Bush and Cheney created a monster that now has a life of its own and answers to no one.

If you haven’t already, sign one of the numerous petitions online or write or call your Congressperson and tell them you want Congress and the President to put a stop to NSA and CIA mass surveillance. They currently have no accountability. Their leaders can lie to Congress and get away with it, their budgets are secret so we have no idea how billions of our tax dollars are being spent (although you can be sure a large portion of that is being used to spy on you), and they are involved in numerous operations that have little to nothing to do with national security.

On top of all of this, evidence is emerging that we (the CIA) played a part in instigating the turmoil in Ukraine in another attempt at regime change, which is of course, turning out to be an international nightmare.

It’s time to raise our voices and put a stop to this madness.