RW Reagan to JR Biden Era Americans abstracted, careless of smoke and mirrors

Bamboozled, hoodwinked, duped, swindled!

At least two contemporary-era U.S. presidents, Ronald Wilson Reagan (40th) and Donald John Trump (45th), were actors involved in large and small screen film; and thus, would be (or would have been) intimately familiar, in more than one sense, with act and concept of smoke and mirrors.

 

Image examined closely proves illusion

Washington and Co Powers That Be (pageantries of puppet and puppeteers) in perpetual disguise (hiding their true face, covering their unspeakable acts) draw public attention away from hard facts, unpleasant reality; high crimes and consequences; deliberate causation of social, economic, political, governmental, health and educational, human and interpersonal, global crises.

One writer reflected on the current headline-grabbing, social and traditional media madmen (madwomen) promoting spectacle of indicters and indicted (accusers and accused, proponents and opponents). 

Don’t be fooled.

Essayist Eric London warns the working class about taking sides “in the conflict within the ruling elite.” It is necessary, he advises, “that the working class elaborates a clear and independent position by refusing to take sides in this crisis between two reactionary factions of US imperialism.”

The 38-count federal criminal indictment against the forty-fifth President of the United States neither references nor upholds “democratic rights” or laws enshrined in the Constitution of the United States (or focuses on the violation of these).

This latest indictment of convenience (lodged not many years ago against U.S. soldier Chelsea Manning and Australian journalist Julian Assange, also the same section used against a U.S. National Guard intelligence officer “for disclosing classified documents related to US involvement in preparing and prosecuting [undeclared] war in Ukraine”) is harnessed to “US imperialism’s most powerful statutory tool for guarding high-level secrets”: the 1917 Espionage Act.

In its original definition, dating at least a century (long before Woodrow Wilson or World War I), Espionage meant spying: “the practice of spying or using spies to obtain information about the plans and activities especially of a foreign government.”

Espionage Act 1917

Rooted in paranoia and exploited fear of “internal threats” (left-right / red-blue / difference-dissent in today's but not only today's terms) — “posed especially by foreign-born Americans,” the 28th U.S. President more than a year before the U.S. entry into World War I pressured the Congress to pass the “Espionage Act” whose enactment in 1917 became governmental entities and individuals’ catchall for targeting almost anyone (“including pacifists, neutralists, communists, anarchists, and socialists”) “who opposed war.”

Setting aside paranoia for the moment, it would appear that the Espionage Act, in its original intent, was to be used in a time of declared war, which means a formal document (a “formal declaration” catalogued by the federal register, congressional record, national archives and other official libraries) had been issued by the Government of the United States comprised of three branches documented and including the Executive signature and advice and consent of the Legislative Branch, stating outright that a state of war exists between the USA and some other nation.

The truth is the United States has not declared war in more than 80 years (the last time in 1942 war was declared against Axis-allied Hungary, Bulgaria, and Romania).

This means that for all the years after 1942, United States entities and individuals have commanded, committed and acquiesced to criminal (extra judicial) acts of aggression against nations. 

Not only that. They have done so wantonly, recklessly and with impunity against nations, leaders, peoples, various individuals who have never (not ever) in any way shape or form attacked or threatened the United States of America or its people.

Espionage Act (Silencer) 1918-2013 Debs to Snowden

World War I ended in 1918 and prominent labor leader, five-time Socialist Party of America presidential candidate, and staunch critic of U.S. involvement in the war (including speaking out against registration for military draft) Eugene V. Debs was charged and convicted under the 1917 Espionage Act.

• 1973 RAND Corporation think tank employee and military analyst Daniel Ellsberg (who exposed to the press the 37th President’s “decision-making process in conducting and continuing the U.S. participation in the Vietnam War”) was charged under the Act.

• 2010 U.S. Army Private First Class (born Bradley Edward Manning) Chelsea Manning (concerning disclosure to the press of “classified or sensitive military documents” regarding U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan) was charged and (2013) convicted by a military tribunal under the Act.

• 2013(June) Former CIA employee and U.S. government contractor Edward Snowden (involving leaks to journalists of “classified National Security Agency (NSA) documents dealing with U.S. global surveillance programs”) was charged under the Act.
• 
  

Espionage Act Today 

Today, the Espionage Act of 1917 continues to be used to criminalize “spying” or other acts interpreted as “aiding an enemy of the United States.” In what seems to be an acceleration of serial carelessness or individual convenience, the Act is being used against people “who, for any reason, divulge or share classified government information without permission.”

The current indictment barrage “is based entirely on defending the prerogatives of the military-intelligence apparatus…,” London writes. The cast of performers—promoters and detractors (left-right-center, indicted and indicters)—are equally “ruthless imperialist politicians” differing only in their choice of “tactics.”

Exposed in the prosecutorial charging narrative—heretofore hidden from the body politic, the people of the United States, the populace, the public and deliberately ignored by complicit media and press— is “advanced-stage planning for world war, including war involving strategic nuclear weapons.”

London explains:

“Behind the backs of the population—in rooms to which the public is barred from entering and without any serious inquiry from the corporate media—leading military and intelligence officials are gaming the impact of nuclear exchanges and tallying the cost to human life of various military options being planned in American imperialism’s desperate struggle for world domination.”

 

The problem (or rather part of a multifaceted problem) we have in the United States is this.

We are trying to run (stand tall and run) with one leg amputated sans prosthesis or crutch and one arm tied behind our back. We are hampered in being Americans, in performing (and taking pride in performing) our civic duties as citizens of the United States of America Americans because of the ideology, actions, the unprincipled and indeed anti-American nature an inbred gerontocratic, kleptocratic uniparty (and friends). 

Younger Americans never having been taught the meaning of citizenship give no thought to their citizenry duty. 

Older Americans are bitter, cynical, submissive; or all three. 

Incestuous anachronistic leadership and dominating noise in various media have sucked the life blood out of otherwise able-bodied citizens. 

Narcissistic actors and dreamers of world domination show themselves to be equally contemptuous and uncaring of America and Americans as they are of other nations and peoples.

London is right. Americans must not be fooled by the pageantry. Do not succumb to smoke and mirrors. Do not take sides with the destroyers. 

Instead, work out in detail and with other workers “a clear and independent position, refusing to take sides in the crisis between two reactionary factions of US imperialism.”


Sources

London, Eric, “Justice Department indicts Trump for retaining top secret military plans.” June 10, 2023, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/10/pxrz-j10.html
https://www.wsws.org/en/authors/Eric-London

Longley, Robert. “The Espionage Act of 1917: Definition, Summary, and History.” ThoughtCo, December 6, 2021, thoughtco.com/1917-espionage-act-4177012 https://www.thoughtco.com/1917-espionage-act-4177012

Related
Kishore, Joseph (perspective). “The indictment of Donald Trump: A politically bankrupt diversion.” March 31, 2023, https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/04/01/pers-a01.html
Martin, Patrick. “Trump indicted on seven federal charges in documents case.” June 9, 2023
https://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2023/06/09/gnso-j09.html

Other general reference sources

Composition and Commentary excluding quoted material and individual images

Copyright © Carolyn LaDelle Bennett

Author’s links: www.BennettsAmericanEpitaph.com

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Refusing to stop crimes against humanity connotes complicity in crimes against humanity

Jacob Appelbaum and his words

“I believe we are complicit in crimes against humanity when we know about them and when we don’t stop them. … It is quite clear that every single person in this room has in some way contributed to the war in Iraq and the war in Afghanistan

“…I wonder how you all feel about knowing that you were the ones, I am the one who has funded every bullet that has shot a child and every woman who has to come home to a family that has been decimated by troops…

“Where there is no justice

“Where people don’t have recourse of any kind whatsoever where the standard operating procedure is for someone to take a 50 caliber machine gun and shoot across the engine block and kill the driver.” 

“… When you are talking about how some information might be worth hiding and maybe there are some times when some secrets should be kept—

Remember, what you’re saying is that someone else is more qualified to make a decision than you are—

This is an extremely anti-democratic thought process and

You should reject it.” 

B

io briefly

American independent journalist, computer security researcher, artist, and hacker, Jacob Appelbaum “has displayed his art in a number of institutions across the world and has collaborated with artists such as Laura Poitras, Trevor Paglen, and Ai Weiwei.”

He is “known for representing WikiLeaks”; has been “employed by the University of Washington”; “was a core member of the Tor project, a free software network designed to provide online anonymity”; and has had his “journalistic work published in many news sources including Der Spiegel, its online sibling “Spiegel Online, “known in German-speaking countries mostly for its investigative journalism.”

S

alient events

2005: Appelbaum speaks “at the 22nd Chaos Communication Congress” on “Bringing Technology and New Media to Disaster Areas” and “Modern Disk Encryption Systems”

2010: Appelbaum represents “Wikileaks founder Julian Assange in a keynote address at the HOPE conference. FBI agents were planning to detain him after his talk, but organizers disguised him and slipped him out through an alternative exit.”

2012: Appelbaum is a contributor (with Andy Müller-Maguhn and Jérémie Zimmermann) to Julian Assange’s published work Cypherpunks: Freedom and the Future of the Internet

2013: Applebaum gives keynote speech on “Data Protection and Cyber-Security in India at ‘Consilience 2013’ organized by National Law School of India University, Bengaluru,” capital city of the Indian state of Karnataka.

2013: Appelbaum is among several people to gain access to former NSA contractor Edward Snowden’s top secret documents released in 2013”; and, as a journalist, Appelbaum “has contributed extensively to the publication of those documents.”

August 2013: Appelbaum delivers “Edward Snowden’s acceptance speech after he (Snowden) was awarded the biannual Whistleblower Prize by a group of NGOs at the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities.”

October 23, 2013: Appelbaum and other writers and editors at Der Spiegel report that “their investigations had led German Chancellor Angela Merkel to confront the U.S. government over evidence that it was monitoring her personal cell phone.” US President Barack Obama issues “an ambiguously worded denial and apology.”

December 28 2013: at the Chaos Communication Congress, Appelbaum presents documents showing that the NSA can turn iPhones into eavesdropping tools and (NSA) has developed devices to harvest electronic information from a computer even if the computer is not online.” A Der Spiegel investigative team, including Appelbaum, publishes simultaneously “findings (and) a descriptive list of the surveillance devices making up the NSA ANT catalog.”

[NSA ANT catalog: “a 50-page classified document listing technology available to the United States National Security Agency (NSA) Tailored Access Operations (TAO) by the Advanced Network Technology (ANT) Division to aid in cyber surveillance.”]

July 3, 2014: German broadcaster NDR/ARD carries disclosures by Appelbaum and others about the operation of NSA’s top-secret XKeyscore surveillance software, including source code proving that one of Appelbaum’s computers had been targeted.[

U.S. law enforcement agencies have repeatedly targeted Appelbaum.

C

hange of Domicile

2012:  Appelbaum changes his residency and works under a freelance visa in Berlin, Germany, because he “does not feel safe” in the United States, preferring Germany’s “strong German privacy protections.”

September 2015: Appelbaum since this date reportedly has been studying in a doctoral program “under Tanja Lange and Daniel J. Bernstein at the Eindhoven University of Technology,” a technical university in the Netherlands, operating in English; regarded “a leading European university in engineering and technology and a world’s top university in terms of research cooperation with industry.”

Sources

Appelbaum 2010 speech excerpt aired in a segment of The KPFA Evening News (Weekend) The KPFA Evening News (Weekend) – April 27, 2019 https://kpfa.org/program/the-kpfa-evening-news-weekend/

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jacob_Appelbaum

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eindhoven_University_of_Technology

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tailored_Access_Operations#NSA_ANT_catalog

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Der_Spiegel

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Assange: a Global Struggle for Free Press, Public Right to Know

The Imperative to Defend and Protect those who Expose Wrongdoing in and attached to Public Office; those who Challenge Abuses of Power

The right of a free press, the right to know, and the rights of the messengers are all under attack by countries and leaders who present theirs as “democratic” countries and by those who are clearly “undemocratic” and/or authoritarian.

T

herefore, taking just one well-known case, Julian Assange imprisoned in the Ecuadoran Embassy in Britain, and now further threatened by the relatively new regime in Washington: “Widespread sympathy for Julia Assange must be mobilized and transformed into a mass political movement of the working class, demanding his immediate freedom and an end to his persecution,” Oscar Grenfell writes.

[“P]reparations must be made for mass political action … in workplaces, factories, neighborhoods and on university campuses; including protests, demonstrations, and strikes.”

If the journalist and WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is expelled from the Ecuadorian embassy, he will likely face “extradition to the United States.”

I

n the United States last month, as Vice President Mike Pence was about to embark on an official trip to Ecuador, “ten prominent Democratic Party senators issued an open letter calling on the vice president to demand that (the Republic of Ecuador’s President Lenin) Moreno oust Assange.”

Grenfell terms the act by US senators a “brazen call for state persecution of a political refugee” that is indicative of a “feverish campaign in US ruling circles to force Assange into their (US) clutches.”

Free press under attack

Coming from around the world, “the attacks on Assange are one of the sharpest expressions of governments’ turn toward authoritarianism…: major powers are seeking to establish new precedents for the persecution of journalists, whistleblowers and political dissidents,” Grenfell writes.

N

oting the warning of WikiLeaks’ legal advisor Geoffrey Robertson, he reports that

Trump administration preparations to prosecute Julian Assange on espionage charges involve the creation of a ‘new legal theory’ that would curtail free speech protections under the First Amendment of the US Constitution by arguing that these guarantees do not extend to foreign journalists.

Defending Assange is to grapple with “a major free press issue.”

Julian Assange Case in Brief

Australian computer programmer, author, editor and founder of WikiLeaks, Julian Paul Assange has been imprisoned in the Ecuadorian embassy in London, England, since 2012; after having applied for and been granted political asylum by Ecuador. Its leaders reasoned that

‘…as a consequence of [Assange’s] determined defense to freedom of expression and freedom of press… in any given moment, a situation may come where his life, safety or personal integrity will be in danger’

E

cuador’s government granted political asylum to Assange “because of the threat represented by the United States secret investigation against Assange and several calls by American politicians for the assassination of Julian Assange.

Then-President of Ecuador, Rafael Correa, announced on August 18, 2012, “that Assange could stay at the Ecuadorian embassy indefinitely.”

The US persecution of Assange had begun after WikiLeaks released material provided by Chelsea Manning, i.e., “the Collateral Murder video (April 2010), the Afghanistan war logs (July 2010), the Iraq war logs (October 2010), and CableGate (November 2010).” 

As punishment, U.S. authorities began investigating WikiLeaks (and Assange personally) “with a view toward prosecuting them under the Espionage Act of 1917.” Then- US Attorney-General Eric Holder in 2010 confirmed “an active, ongoing criminal investigation” into WikiLeaks; and further leaked documents revealed a grand jury investigation and (denied by the US Government) a “sealed indictment” of Assange.

D

ocuments reportedly leaked by Edward Snowden and published in 2014 “show that the United States government had put Assange on the ‘2010 Manhunting Timeline’” and in the same period US officials “urged (US) allies to open criminal investigations into the editor-in-chief of WikiLeaks.” These leaked documents also contained a “National Security Agency” (NSA) “proposal” to “designate WikiLeaks a ‘malicious foreign actor’, thus giving cover or legitimacy to increased surveillance of a press organization, WikiLeaks.

Three months after the new federal administration took office in Washington, US officials told cable news “that they were preparing to file formal charges against Assange.”

M

ore recent news reports indicate that after six years confinement in the Ecuador embassy in Knightsbridge, under UK standing police guard for most of those years and under US threat for all of those years (and continuing) — Britain’s government may well be “devising a plan with Ecuador (now under new leadership) to evict Julian Assange from the country’s London embassy.”

If Britain and Ecuador carry out an eviction, they may well be hammering another nail in the coffin of a free press and signing a death warrant for WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange.

Sources

World Socialist Web Site “British and Ecuadorian authorities in talks to evict Julian Assange from London embassy” Oscar Grenfell July 16, 2018 http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2018/07/16/assa-j16.html

Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Julian_Assange

News Corp Australia Network news.com.au “Britain is reportedly in high level talks with Ecuador to evict Julian Assange from the London embassy” July 16, 2018 https://www.news.com.au/world/britain-is-reportedly-in-high-level-talks-with-ecuador-to-evict-julian-assange-from-the-london-embassy/news-story/5771e3cc9850eed390373fc2cced25b9

The current President of the Republic of Ecuador is Lenín Moreno (May 24, 2017- ); his predecessor, Rafael Correa (January 15, 2007- May 24, 2017) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_Ecuador

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