MESSAGE
| DATE | 2021-01-25 |
| FROM | Ruben Safir
|
| SUBJECT | Subject: [Hangout - NYLXS] John Brennan - Criminal
|
Every time former CIA Director John Brennan appears on cable news to
warn about some new “insidious threat to democracy,” I am reminded again
that he deserves to be in federal prison.
In this corrupt media environment, however, the official who oversaw an
illegal domestic-spying operation on the legislative branch of the US
government, who tried to cover it up and blame innocent Senate staffers
when discovered and who then brazenly lied about it to legislators and
the American people — this man is held up as a paragon of civic virtue.
We still don’t even know what role Brennan played in spying on his
political opponents during the 2016 campaign. We do know he went on TV
for years after, alleging to have insider knowledge of an unprecedented
seditious criminal conspiracy against the United States. Never once was
he challenged by his hosts. And when an independent multimillion-dollar
investigation couldn’t pull together a single indictment related to
those claims, Brennan shrugged it off by saying that he may have
“received bad information.”
Brennan was back on MSNBC last week, contending American intel agencies
“are moving in laser-like fashion to try to uncover as much as they can
about” the pro-Trump “insurgency” that harbors “religious extremists,
authoritarians, fascists, bigots, racists, nativists, even libertarians.”
Even a former Communist such as Brennan surely understands there is
nothing prohibiting Americans from being religious extremists, fascists,
bigots, racists, nativists or even libertarians. It’s definitely none of
his business, or that of intelligence agencies, to define what those
terms mean. (And the idea that libertarians, who can’t get a minyan to
agree on anything libertarian, are marshaling forces for a national
insurgency is nonsensical.)
As Brennan is a congenital liar, this may well be another one of his
convenient fictions. Yet, considering his history of abusing power we
shouldn’t entirely dismiss the idea that his allies are ferreting out
thought crimes.
Finding those who illegally threaten others with violence is well within
the bailiwick of the government. But the Capitol riot has given
authoritarians such as Brennan the pretext to advocate the chilling of
speech.
It has become normalized, even celebrated. Networks such as CNN employ
full-time anti-speech advocates who pump out cynical content meant to
shame tech carriers into taking their competition off the air.
“Extremists exploit a loophole in social moderation: Podcasts on Apple,
Google,” reports Tali Arbel for The Associated Press. Are Americans who
express their political views on the Internet really abusing a
“loophole,” or are Big Tech companies who censor them at the behest of
the powerful abusing a “loophole” in the First Amendment?
Only in the kicker does Arbel quote Jillian York of the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, who warns that the tide of censorship “is against
the speech of right-wing extremists . . . but tomorrow the tide might be
against opposition activists.” The problem is that censors never believe
they’ll lose power, and maybe this time they’re right.
see also
Why media love Brennan’s lies and other commentary
Those who rationalize state censorship almost always expand their
definition of “extremist” to include their opponents. The Washington
Post’s columnist Max Boot welcomed regime change by imploring the Biden
administration to regulate those who supposedly incite radicalism,
including Fox News.
Nicolle Wallace, Brennan’s MSNBC colleague, called for forcing
Republicans to offer “the truth” before they’re “allowed” to say
anything else. As we protect people from “counterfeit bills,” we can
protect them against “fake news.”
What made Wallace’s comment especially surreal was that her guest was
Ben Rhodes, the former Obama administration official who once bragged
that he’d duped a bunch of dimwitted reporters into becoming his
disinformation operation. Now Rhodes, too, seems interested in importing
Iranian-style censorship with a “firm and brutal” “detox” of bad ideas,
achieved through the “national security” officials.
I’m old-fashioned. I’d rather have a bunch of nuts ranting on podcasts
all day than one John Brennan deciding what we can say. To my ears,
Rhodes, Brennan, Wallace and Boot are the ones who sound like a threat
to “democracy.”
--
So many immigrant groups have swept through our town
that Brooklyn, like Atlantis, reaches mythological
proportions in the mind of the world - RI Safir 1998
http://www.mrbrklyn.com
DRM is THEFT - We are the STAKEHOLDERS - RI Safir 2002
http://www.nylxs.com - Leadership Development in Free Software
http://www2.mrbrklyn.com/resources - Unpublished Archive
http://www.coinhangout.com - coins!
http://www.brooklyn-living.com
Being so tracked is for FARM ANIMALS and extermination camps,
but incompatible with living as a free human being. -RI Safir 2013
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