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Framing Reality, Endless War State propaganda psy-op stokes decades-long nuclear angst

5/11/2022

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Gene Marx
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Could it really be that long ago, a time when "Duck and Cover" drills were welcome distractions from arithmetic, and active shooter exercises were inconceivable? When learning that tomorrow wasn’t guaranteed, thanks to Nikita Khrushchev’s threat to bury us all. American pop culture was rife with Cold War propaganda and mass media rode the crest atomic war hysteria. The USA/USSR ICBM Missile Gap mythology and concurrent doom dramas on television and the big screen during the Eisenhower years stoked a fear-based Pentagon narrative and served as early progenitors for today’s unconstrained race to oblivion.

Wait. It was that long ago. You know, way back when it was easy to sort the geopolitical good guys from the bad guys. When evening news reports of the latest Soviet and US above-ground A-bomb testing were humdrum; radioactive milk and dead livestock from fallout were a small price to pay for freedom and President Kennedy was advising American families to build backyard bomb shelters - never a good sign. And a guy somewhere with his finger on a nuclear trigger was just as much a part of our everyday routine, our fear-based reality, as the Wonderful World of Disney and American Bandstand.
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While Kennedy’s idealistic Camelot agenda might have been a wisp of glory, it was cresting in DC and most Americans were convinced the dashing JFK would always foil the rapacious, godless Soviets. On Monday, October 22, no one was sure when in a televised speech a somber Kennedy announced that US spy planes had discovered Soviet missile bases in Cuba. These missile sites—under construction but nearing completion—housed medium-range missiles capable of striking a number of major cities in the United States. Somehow even my Northern California hometown seemed way too close to the first salvo for comfort.

Stunned, I watched on the living room Silvertone black and white as President Kennedy delivered his sober address to his “fellow citizens,” glued to every potent phrase. I had never seen him like that. While not saying we were screwed, exactly, Kennedy made it clear to anyone watching or listening how he would deal with this “clear and present danger.” The United States would not tolerate the existence of offensive weapons minutes from our border. He also made it clear that America would not stop short of military action.

“We will not prematurely or unnecessarily risk the costs of worldwide nuclear war in which even the fruits of victory would be ashes in our mouth; but neither will we shrink from that risk at any time it must be faced.”

It was the “ashes in our mouth” part that caught my attention, indelible to this day.

Now, Air Force brats knew why their dads spent weeks away from their families on alert status. A coping mechanism of my father’s helped with such separations. Like most Strategic Air Command aviators, my father had to compartmentalize worst case scenarios - in this case, the nuclear annihilation plot lines of my worst nightmare - in the Fail Safe recesses of his day job box. My father also had a compartment for his Jimmy Stewart reality, his adoring family the military had trained him to kill, along with the rest of humanity. And that week I knew where we ranked with SAC.


Read the rest of Framing Reality on Substack.

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April 25th, 2022   Group Think for Discourse

4/25/2022

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Gene Marx
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The danger of government-tied monopolistic tech platforms controlling worldwide speech
far outweighs the danger of whatever voice you might happen to dislike at any given moment.

Caitlin Johnstone


On April 14, Veterans For Peace Advisory Board Member and former CIA analyst Ray McGovern along with long-time VFP member and Global Network coordinator Bruce Gagnon joined former Pentagon analyst F. Michael Maloof on Peter Lavelle's Cross Talk for a much-needed, nuanced conversation of the Ukraine conflict timeline. Both Ray and Bruce had spent considerable time in Donbass, as well as other parts of Ukraine, which made their contributions to this Cross Talk episode, Heading Toward War, all the more absorbing. and Facebook shareable.
Picturethe team of moderators and admin didn't even notice Ray McGovern was wearing the VFP logo. It was a sure giveaway that it was unlikely Ray would be giving false or misleading information...mis. or dis
Oddly enough, though not totally unexpected, the VFP Discussion Group moderators determined that the content of this panel discussion, posted on April 22 by a lifetime VFP member on this private Facebook group site, did not make the cut for generating a nuanced discussion. Labeled "A sober analysis of the Ukrainian debacle, including the escalating potential for a nuclear exchange," the post apparently did not comply with group protocols. So it was arbitrarily removed. Disappeared. Gone.

The moderators' wobbly attempt at feedback: "RT has been identified as a not credible source in recent years, but rather a state run Russian mis and dis-information operation." The implication being that a long list of RT contributors like Ray McGovern, Bruce Gagnon, VFP Advisory Board member Chris Hedges, Lee Camp, Joe Lauria and others had been collaborative, even ceding to Kremlin misinformation. Or could it be more accurately called a fear-based or ideological acquiescence to the pro-war narrative managers?

In a recent interview piece with VFP Advisory Member Chris Hedges, Matt Taibbi describes the Hedges/RT affiliation:  "By the 2010s, one of the last places where media figures pushed off the traditional career track could pick up a paycheck was Russia Today. In an arrangement Hedges plainly describes as a cynical marriage of convenience, the Russian state was happy to give voice to figures covering structural problems in American society, and those quasi-banned voices were glad for the opportunity to broadcast what they felt is the truth, even understanding the editorial motivation."

Needless to say, with the advent of the Ukraine debacle, the entire six-year archive of Chris Hedges’ RT America interview show On Contact was removed by YouTube, as he suggests, ”in the name of censoring Russian propaganda.”

“They know it is not Russian propaganda,” says Hedges. “We rarely mentioned Russia or Putin, and the few times we did it was not in flattering terms. It's much more pernicious than that. RT gave a platform to a critic such as myself...It was a show that gave a voice to critics of the United States ruling class and the US empire. They knew I was not disseminating Russian propaganda, unless critiquing the ills of American society serves Russia's interest. To an extent it does. That's of course why RT gave me a show. But in a functioning democracy with a free press, that is the precise role of the press.”
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Global Network Coordinator Bruce Gagnon
So when - if ever - was a Pentagon imprimatur a prerequisite for any Veterans For Peace discourse in cyberspace? Yet, regrettably, this is how far down the thought policing rabbit hole liberals, even self-censoring antiwar progressives, are apparently willing to descend.

As luck would have it, this post will be shared even more widely. Maybe. You never know. McGovern and Gagnon will continue to inspire and inform as tireless antiwar contributors to any platform giving them a voice, upholding the first provision of the VFP Statement of Purpose: "To increase public awareness of the causes and costs of war."


And truth, always the first casualty of war, is still indisputably the truth, no matter its origin or platform.






The author of this piece is Gene Marx from Bellingham, Washington. Gene is a Vietnam veteran and former Naval Flight Officer aboard the USS Coral Sea in 1971-72. He is a past Secretary of the Veterans for Peace National Board of Directors and is currently the Communications Coordinator for VFP Chapter 111.

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Where did you learn what you think you know about Russia?

4/5/2022

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The story is that at the time of the Bill Clinton administration, Russian President Boris Yeltsin was running for re-election. The polls were showing that he was going to lose to the Communist Party candidate. Clinton sent his favorite political operative Dick Morris, along with a boatload of $$$, to bail Yeltsin out. The imperialist trick was successful.

We hear a lot of unproven claims that Russia helped Trump win his election over Hillary Clinton. But in fact Washington has had its dirty hands deep inside of Russian politics since the collapse of the former Soviet Union.

We have developed a very distorted view of Russia and Vladimir Putin. It's been going on so long that few in the US could tell you where they learned what they 'think' they know about Russia.

It's just part of the air we breathe. It's the dark wallpaper in our lives. And many across the west believe all that they have been led to think. It is called indoctrination and propaganda - served up by a CIA infiltrated western corporate media.

One would imagine that if the Russian people were not happy with their government they would have long ago found a way to replace their current president. But at this moment his favorability ratings are approaching 80%. Joe Biden would be thrilled with numbers that good - his rating is currently at 40% and likely declining as each day he has to walk back another nonsensical statement.The US has long been out to force regime change in Russia. Now, thanks to another slip of the tongue by Biden, it is in the public mind. But as many around the world frequently state, 'We knew that already'.

Joe Lauria is editor-in-chief of Consortium News and he writes:

"The U.S. got its war in Ukraine. Without it, Washington could not attempt to destroy Russia’s       economy, orchestrate worldwide condemnation and lead an insurgency to bleed Russia, all part of  an attempt to bring down its government. Joe Biden has now left no doubt that it’s true.

Once hidden in studies such as this 2019 RAND study, the desire to overthrow the government in    Moscow is now out in the open.


One of the earliest threats came from Carl Gersham, the long-time director of the National          Endowment for Democracy (NED). Gershman, wrote in 2013, before the Kiev coup: “Ukraine is the biggest prize.” If it could be pulled away from Russia and into the West, then “Putin may find himself on the losing end not just in the near abroad but within Russia itself.”

David Ignatius wrote in The Washington Post in 1999 that the NED could now practice regime   change out in the open, rather than covertly as the C.I.A. had done.

The RAND Corporation on March 18 then published an article titled, “If Regime Change Should Come to Moscow,” the U.S. should be ready for it. Michael McFaul, the hawkish former U.S. ambassador to Russia, has been calling for regime change in Russia for some time.


PictureThis is one of the key fake stories the west tells - 'Putin wants to remake the former Soviet empire'. But in reality Russia this year is spending $65 billion on its military while the Pentagon's budget is $1 trillion (when you add up all the hidden pots of gold like nuclear weapons in the Dept. of Energy budget). Add NATO member military spending to the US numbers and it is well over 60% of the global total. The real story is always on the other side of the mirror.

If we are honest with ourselves we will recognize that the US-NATO have been in the regime change business ever since the end of WW II. For example, the secret Operation Gladio was used by Washington-Brussels to create terrorism to ensure that no Communists came to power in Italy when polls showed they were likely to win. The US-NATO in 1999 (again during Bill Clinton's time in office) broke Yugoslavia into pieces and Washington opened up a large military base called Camp Bondsteel in Kosovo.

Then there was US-NATO take down of Iraq and Afghanistan that were followed by Libya - which today has open slave markets. No 'democracy' in any of those nations.

The 'North Atlantic Alliance' is still trying to destroy Syria, but Russia was asked by the Syrian government for help -
which is legal under international law.



The same treatment was slated for Russia but Putin and the Russian people understood the score and refused to cave in to western pressures. Now out of desperation the US-NATO has pushed this war in Ukraine (actually under way since before 2014) onto the world stage and made a hero out of the T-shirt wearing Zelensky - who is nothing more than an actor reading a script handed to him by his public-relations handlers.

Zelensky is presently calling on the world to ban the letter 'Z' that Russia paints on its military equipment. I guess we'll have to call him 'elensky' from now on....

One key element that runs through all of the US-NATO regime change operations since the early 1990's is the unrelenting demonization of a leader. This tactic has two purposes - reduce the support for a particular nation's leader inside their own country and brainwash the public globally so that when the US-NATO make their move to overthrow the 'new Hitler' people have become anesthetized to the operation and fall into line.

This is what is happening today with Russia. Ukraine is just a tool - a US 'exceptionalist' sword that the west uses to drive into the heart of Russia. It's illegal, immoral and dare I say - purely evil.

Sadly few (even many so-called 'progressives') pay enough attention to events around the world to really know what has been actually happening in Ukraine during the past eight years. Some who are out on the streets waving the blue and yellow flag because they feel the pain of war, also feel the need to join the accepted crowd. Most people don't have the gumption to go against the prevailing corporate media hype and regime change agenda.

The big difference between Russia and most of the rest of the other nations that were regime-changed in recent years is that Moscow has the ability to stand their ground and fight back. And they will - the Russians know that the western resource extraction corporations want to bust their country into smaller bits so their vast natural resource base can be stolen. One could say, it is an old story for the proud Russian people.

In the past 500 years, Russia has been invaded several times from the west. The Poles came across the European Plain in 1605, followed by the Swedes under Charles XII in 1707, the French under Napoleon in 1812, and the Germans—twice, in both world wars, in 1914 and 1941. Every 100 years the west makes its move and fails.

Now here we are in 2022 and the Modus Operandi of the west is on full ugly display. Most people don't appear to recognize that we are living in the midst of aggressive fascist states throughout the west.

When will the brainwashed masses in the west say STOP the US-NATO bullshit?


Hopefully before it is too late....

Bruce Gagnon
March 31, 2022




The author of this post is Bruce Gagnon. Bruce is coordinator of the Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space. He offers his own reflections on organizing and the state of America's declining empire. Read more from Bruce Gagnon in Space4Peace.



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Global Day of Action, Sunday, March 6, No to War in Ukraine

3/4/2022

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VFP-111 & WPJC Join
Global Day of Action,
Sunday, March 6,
No to War in Ukraine!

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  • This Sunday, March 6th, Bellingham's VFP-111 is co-hosting with the Whatcom Peace & Justice Center and the local peace community a downtown gathering (near Bayou on the Bay) to call for the U.S. to reject war with Russia over Ukraine. We will be standing in solidarity with other local and international peace communities to support the GlobalDay of Action for Peace/Against War in Ukraine. Come join us for a while - from 12 to 1 or for as long as you can stay.

  • If you can't make the gathering on Sunday, plan to attend the Peace Vigil on Friday, March 4th, from 4 to 5, at Magnolia & Cornwall. No war in Ukraine, No to NATO expansion!
 
  • Also, on Saturday, March 5th there will be an information and sharing circle at the north end of Boulevard Park at 12pm.
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Wait a Minute, We Got in this Ukrainian Mess...How?

2/22/2022

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PictureFeb 6, 2014, Victoria Nuland handing out food to insurgents in Maidan Square who overthrew the government two weeks later. US Ambassador to her left.







By Dianne Foster • Feb 20, 2022 • Topics: USA & World, War & Peace
 
Dianne Foster guest wrote this opinion article in NW Citizen about our involvement today with Ukraine. She has a B.A. political science/international relations from the U. of W., and is a former “PCO of the Year”, with the Whatcom Democrats.
 
I am writing with urgency to correct the mainstream media’s disinformation about Ukraine and supposed Russian aggression there. I clearly remember taking a group of peace activists including Occupy Bellingham, Veterans for Peace, and Whatcom Peace and Justice, into Representative Rick Larsen’s office after the February 2014 United States-backed coup in Ukraine. We helped overthrow the democratically elected president, Viktor Yanukovich, and installed the neo-Nazi Svoboda and Right Sector parties into power. Yanukovich’s election in 2010 had been validated by the U.N. as fair and square.
 
The image of then U.S. Secretary of European Affairs Victoria Nuland, a Dick Cheney appointee promoted by Hillary Clinton, standing on the stage in Kiev’s Maiden Square, throwing cookies out to the mobs of neo-Nazi’s and encouraging them to riot, is imprinted in my memory. On the stage behind her stood John McCain and Joe Biden, she had requested Obama send them as “point men” in this putsch. Shots were fired, Yanukovich left in haste for Russia, and millionaire Petro Poroshenko was selected to lead the country. Even Henry Kissinger, the king of “regime change” operations, protested in a Washington Post editorial, that this was over-the-top and Ukraine deserved their own sovereignty. Notably, Nuland’s husband, Robert Kagan, was a leading neocon architect of the Iraq War.  
 
It was no surprise, therefore, that Putin took back the historically Russian seaport of Crimea, the Black Sea gem that was bequeathed to Ukraine, for uncertain reasons, by Ukrainian-born former Premier Nikita Khrushchev in 1954.
 
Then there’s the history of the Svoboda and Right Sector political parties during WW2 in Ukraine: it is horrific. They were notorious for heinous crimes such as carving up Jewish children. Even today they are carrying out anti-Semitic pogroms, primarily by the Azov Battalion, a neo-Nazi  paramilitary group that is now incorporated into the Ukraine National Guard. Although Congressman Ro Khanna attempted to insure that no American aid went to that organization, it has unfortunately been funded in an attempt to oppose Russian interests there.
 
The neo-Nazi-leaning Ukraine government has been bombing the Donbass region of eastern Ukraine since the 2014 coup, prompting nationalist leaders in Russia to push Putin into some action to take back the entire country, though current CIA Director William Burns does not believe Putin will do it. During April of 2014, we Democrats in the 40th Legislative District passed a resolution condemning this coup, in accordance with the Whatcom Dems platform that states: “Our government should not engage in overt or covert efforts to destabilize other nations’ governments.” 
 
As someone whose father was a POW in Nazi Germany, I have spent much of my academic and personal life researching and opposing fascist movements. Many people forget that it was Russia and the Russian people who suffered the most in World War II, and without Russian leadership we would have lost to Hitler. If they hadn’t won the war in Europe, I wouldn’t be here today.
 
It should also be noted that when President Mikhail Gorbachev voluntarily ended the Cold War in 1990 by lowering the Berlin Wall, the U.S. promised in return that the West would not bring former Soviet states into NATO,  thereby guaranteeing a safety zone around Russia. How would we feel if Russia incorporated Mexico or Canada into their sphere of influence? By 1994, President Clinton reneged on that promise, as one country after another was admitted to NATO, whose purpose at that time was to perpetrate a new Cold War. For a brief period, Clinton proposed a “peace dividend” that would divert money from the military to social needs. It appeared the military-industrial complex was not too happy with that idea. Thus we have had “endless wars” and regime changes; one of the most tragic was in Afghanistan. I am, however, optimistic to see countries like Chile and Honduras reversing the trend and moving away from neoliberal imperial domination.
 
What is most disturbing about this narrative is that President Biden was there, in Ukraine: he participated in that coup, and is now blaming it on the Russians. We cannot have real diplomacy based on lies. I plan to call the White House and my congressional representatives and encourage them to tell the truth. They are provoking a potential nuclear war that would end history. I have attached the Veterans for Peace resolution that was passed nationally in March of 2014 by that organization; it provides accurate details.
Related Links
 
    Kiev Post article, Feb 6, 2014
    Victoria Nuland & US Ambassador leaked phone call - "Fuck the EU"



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How to Respond to War Threats on Russia! Zoom Call Discussion

2/22/2022

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Zoom call with speakers
Today, Feb 22 at 5:30 PT
 
Please click on the link below to register for the meeting:
 
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_ 10cVDLQuQR6T3WPeAkJwtw
 






Join us for this important meeting and discussion with leaders from the antiwar movement including (in alphabetical order):
 
    Leela Anand – ANSWER coalition
    Ajamu Baraka – Black Alliance for Peace
    Medea Benjamin – CodePink
    Sara Flounders – International Action Center
    Margaret Flowers – Popular Resistance
    Bruce Gagnon – Global Network Against Weapons & Nuclear Power in Space
    Joe Jamison – US Peace Council
    Margaret Kimberley – Black Agenda Report
    Jeff Mackler – United National Antiwar Coalition
    Nancy Price - Women's International League for Peace and Freedom (US)
    Susan Schnall – Veterans For Peace
    David Swanson – World Beyond War
    Joe Lombardo will chair. Ajamu Baraka will give an opening statement
 
Only a few short months after the chaotic US defeat in Afghanistan, the US is pushing a war with Russia, a major nuclear power. US officials insist that the Russians will invade Ukraine. Russia has repeatedly denied this.
 
In recent days the US and some of their allies have closed their embassies and asked their nationals to leave Ukraine. [The US and allies moved their embassies to Lvov in western Ukraine where Nazis predominate.]
 
The Ukrainian military has a force of 150,000 troops, that are U.S. trained and armed with modern US weapons, near the Russian border and the independent regions in Donbass. These independent regions have taken a stand in opposition to the right-wing, coup government in Kiev, since 2014. The Ukrainian military has started heavy shelling of the independent areas of Donbass, which have returned the fire.
 
Every U.S. war in our lifetime has been based on false information, repeated relentlessly by the corporate media. There is deep apprehension that the US and the Ukrainian government are preparing a “false flag” incident that could lead to a major conflict.
 
The US has tens of thousands of troops in Europe, it is putting troops on high alert and sending more. They are not only arming the Ukrainian military, but they are expanding NATO bases and sending additional arms and missiles to other NATO countries in the region.
 
It is important that the US antiwar movement come together to oppose these dangerous war moves. Please join us on Tuesday.



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Veterans For Peace Nuclear Posture Review Webinar, Saturday, Feb 12, 11:00 PT 2:00 ET

2/11/2022

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VFP Webinar

SATURDAY 11 PT (2ET)




Registration



Towards
Nuclear Disarmament

Veterans For Peace (VFP) has issued a remarkable Nuclear Posture Review that is what the US government should be putting out, but won’t.  The VFP Nuclear Posture Review warns that the danger of nuclear war is greater than ever and that nuclear disarmament must be vigorously pursued.  With the first anniversary of the UN Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons (TPNW) on January 22, the VFP Posture Review calls on the U.S. government to sign the treaty and to work with other nuclear-armed states to eliminate all the world’s nuclear weapons. It also calls for measures that would reduce the risk of nuclear war, such as implementing policies for No First Use and taking nuclear weapons off hair-trigger alert.  Join VFP members Ken Mayers, Gerry Condon, and Alice Slater as well as longtime anti-nuclear activist Joseph Gerson for a discussion of this document and how it can be used as an organizing tool.

            Saturday, Feb 12 11:00 PM Pacific (US and Canada)
                                      Meeting Registration


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Remembrance Reverie

11/11/2021

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Burial of the Unknown Soldier from World War I in 1921 at the dedication ceremony for the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier at Arlington National Cemetery in Virginia (www.worldwar1centennial.org)
Remembrance Reverie
Late night email retrospective on Veterans Day
 
GENE MARX


_______________________________________________________________________________
Dianne
to me                                                                                            2:26 PM (9 hours ago)

Wow, Gene,  did you know this about Jason?  So sad.



_________________________________________________________________________________________
From: Jason*
Sent:
Thursday, November 11, 2021 8:01 AM
To: Dianne
Subject: What my father lost in the war

______


Dianne -- It was May 1972. My dad was serving in the U.S. Air Force as a navigator on a cargo plane in Southeast Asia. They made regular runs to deliver supplies for troops serving on the front lines in Vietnam.

He wrote a letter home to his mother, admitting his deep frustration with the war. “We have no idea why we are here,” he admitted. “Everyone is just trying to survive and get home to our families.”

 He missed his family -- especially his wife and young daughter, my older sister.

 “I’m looking forward to being home and seeing my family again,” he wrote.

He had no idea that my sister had drowned in the family pool less than two weeks before he wrote the letter.

More than 30 years later he admitted to me that he’d never forgiven himself for not being there to save my sister. It was a wound that stayed with him for the rest of his life.

Veterans Day is a time to reflect on the sacrifices we impose on our service members, and the heavy price that often comes with those sacrifices.

No amount of “Thank you for your service” was ever going to heal the wounds my father carried from his time in Vietnam, or from what he lost while he was away.

I’ve rarely told this story. But those scars my dad carried for the rest of his days left a mark on me as well. It’s a big part of the reason I became an anti-war activist...I think about my dad, and the nearly 20 million veterans living in the U.S. today. I think about the wounds that never heal, and the promises our nation made but never kept.

Many young, underserved youth join the service on the promise of a free college education, medical care for life, and a long, rewarding career.

But reality is a pale shadow of that promise.

 Only a fraction of those who served ever take advantage of their free college education. The VA is consistently underfunded. Veterans in rural areas have difficulty accessing services. Claiming disability benefits is a complicated process. And for those still serving, there is always the looming spectre of the next war...

_________________________________________________________________________________________
Gene Marx
to Dianne                                                                                        10:09 PM (1 hour ago)


Most combat vets are damaged goods, Dianne. We all carry scars for participating in that invasion, myself included. Like Jason's dad, I didn't have a clue why I was there, and certainly not buying LBJ's Domino Theory of "containment". In short order I knew we weren’t the "good guys" in Vietnam, even sharing this "revelation" with our squadron XO during my annual performance evaluation.
 
My own life-altering moment came in March of 1972 during a return to the aircraft carrier after a strike over Haiphong. A SAM missile narrowly missed my aircraft, after we took an evasive maneuver from which we shouldn't have been able to recover. It was a double dose of terror.
 
Three days later I listened to a cassette from Victoria, telling me that my best childhood friend died from a similar missile attack over the Ho Chi Min trail - on the same night, the same hour - on his last scheduled deployment sortie. I had just mailed her a cassette, wishing I could be with everyone, celebrating with our gang, at what was sure to be a raucous welcome home party for our friend. It was devastating.
 
I have never observed or celebrated Veterans Day since, or any other such militaristic observance serving as a commercial distraction from remembrance, and worse, an obvious recruitment opportunity for future wars and countless victims. I never fought for anyone's freedom, for crissake, or ever acknowledge "Thank you for your service." I now respond with "I didn't serve...I was used." Much more civil than "You've gotta be shitting me...I was a mindless tool of the Empire."
 
And I feel so sorry for Jason's dad.





*Jason is a former public school math teacher and lifelong progressive activist who grew up in Washington state, and he's running for Congress.
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Blowback and Bias, Evidence Optional

10/4/2021

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Blowback and Bias, Evidence Optional
Grappling with Conspiracy Chatter in the Wake of 9/11
 
GENE MARX
September 20, 2021



 “Through my tears I see opportunity.”
— George W. Bush, September 20, 2001
 
This quote should still elicit the same revulsion and dread as it did twenty years ago.
 
Before retiring from the Federal Aviation Administration in 2004, after more than 30 years in air traffic control, including staff and supervisory positions from coast to coast, my final gig for the FAA was ​a Washington Operations Center watch supervisor position - fully certified in accident investigation – in Washington DC, the belly of the beast. Some higher-up somewhere must have concluded I had the street creds to navigate a new aviation security culture in the aftermath of the 9/11 attacks.
 
Day after day in a secure skiff on the 10th floor of FAA Headquarters, my responsibilities consisted of coordinating for our shop much of the attack’s official detritus: collecting and documenting data; audio and video conferences with Administration and military notables; timely responses to daily aircraft accidents and incidents; and the PTSD of peers, some wondering if there was anything else they could have possibly done on September 11th to stop the horror. More than two decades later many responders, now enveloped in the blowback of a much more dangerous world, are still wondering.  
 
After a glut of investigations and 20 years of second-guessing we can at least set aside such pangs of self-doubt with investigative certainties. Unfortunately, Months before the first throat was slit or flight attendant Betty Ong’s furtive call in the rear cabin on American Airlines Flight 11, an irrevocable choice had already been made by our federal government to ignore the signs or warnings of impending attacks.
 
From the mid-1990s on there was a long list of notables with Al-Qaeda as prominent bad actor. The 1994 Al-Qaeda connected Algerian plot to crash Air France 8969 into the Eiffel Tower, the 1995 Philippine Bojinka plot of blowing up 12 airliners over the Pacific, or crashing a plane into CIA headquarters at Langley, all prelims to the now infamous CIA-prepared President’s Daily Brief (PDB) headlined “Bin Ladin Determined to Strike in U.S.” In fact, as early as March of 1998 the FAA was actively considering the suicide hijackings of commercial airliners, later settling on explosives smuggled aboard, but settling on explosives smuggled on air carriers as the more credible threat. Moreover, the mishandling of information, inadequate threat assessment, and lack of imagination by entrusted intelligence and policy communities was endemic until the day of the attacks. In one instance, FBI Minneapolis Chief Division Council Coleen Rowley was denied by FBI Headquarters a probable cause warrant to search the computer of a suspected terrorist with ties to Al-Qaeda, the alleged 20th hijacker Zacarias Moussaoui, less than a month before 9/11.   
 
The State Department had compiled a list of nearly 61,000 suspected terrorists; the FAA’s no-fly list contained 12 names. Incredibly, neither list was shared with either agency or the airlines, so no one was barred from boarding. In fact, according to a 9/11 Commission hearing testimony in January, 2004, a terrorist on either did not necessarily bar that individual from flying unless he or she was an aviation threat!  At one point, an incredulous Commissioner John Lehman exclaimed, “Of course a young Arab should not be allowed on airplanes with four-inch blades, yet none of you applied common sense.”
 
Defense attorney Vincent Bugliosi once said, “All humans make mistakes. But there is no room or allowance in the fevered world of conspiracy theorists for mistakes, human errors, anomalies, or plain incompetence, though the latter, from the highest levels on down, is endemic to our society.”

Surprisingly, Bugliosi omitted “common sense” and worse yet, complacency.                                                              


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history.com
Could it have been an inside job, with Dick Cheney and Donald Rumsfeld working the Dark Side? Coordinating a shoot-down of United 93 over Shanksville, Pennsylvania; the controlled demolition of WTC Building 7; a Cruise missile, not a Boeing 757, striking of the west wall of the Pentagon, cornerstones of 9/11 Truther mythology, in order to spearhead Project for the New American Century (PNAC) hegemony and justify invading Iraq? Extremely heady stuff, but really? The US military’s disastrous Afghanistan drawdown planning should dispel this rumor.
 
International and domestic opinion polling assessing the authenticity of US government complicity for the attacks peaked during the Bush and Obama administrations but social media now drives the discussion. Gen Z hardly needs Zogby International to confirm existing biases. Zoomers and future generations might eventually employ I. F. Stone’s dictive that “All governments lie,” as a baseline for such confirmation, if they don’t already. And why shouldn’t they? Facts still matter and coverups, lies and misinformation with each new government misadventure are being unveiled at breakneck speed in independent media. Still, with corporate media unwilling to question or challenge authority, conspiracy theories spread like COVID variants with each anniversary.

 
According to Christopher Bader, a sociologist at Chapman University and lead author of the 2017 National Survey of Fears, “We found clear evidence that the United States is a strongly conspiratorial society.” The survey found solid minorities of Americans believe in not only 9/11 conspiracies, but government coverups of alien encounters, the JFK assassination, the true origin of AIDS and more. Not surprisingly, the 2020/2021 update, the Survey of American Fears, Wave 7, almost 80% of respondents cite “corrupt government corruption” as the top American fear.
 
Even so, the Bush cartel fucked up, from the day W was provided the infamous CIA Presidential Daily Brief in August until My Pet Goat on September 11 and beyond  – more than ample time to prepare for and counter an attack. However, it did recognize a new Pearl Harbor when it saw one, exploiting the chaos and our perceived vulnerabilities before the dust had even settled at Ground Zero. The first salvo of the Global War on Terror was launched as if Bin Laden had drawn up the battle plans. Over 7,000 US dead servicemembers, $20 trillion, and nearly a million civilian casualties later our interventionist foreign policy remains intractable.

 
Do I believe the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, the Pentagon and United 93 were inside jobs? Not a chance. The US government can’t effectively coordinate the use of pandemic masks. I do believe in the impact force of a Boeing 767 loaded with 10,000 lbs. of jet fuel striking 500,000 lbs. of free-standing steel and concrete at more than 500 mph; and the smoking holes remaining from a Boeing 757’s near-vertical collision with the ground at 600 mph or horizontally impacting limestone and concrete at 530.
 
After a 35-year career in aviation, including two years at the epicenter of aviation security, where investigative data and geopolitical motivation were hardly hiding in plain sight, strategic sourcing of information and fact-based responses became fundamental components to job security. As a result, my skepticism meter was usually pegged, but it wouldn’t take a quick study or another 20 years to arrive at the very same fact-based 9/11 conclusions. The terrorist planning that went into pulling off the most devastating, the most consequential attack on American soil was first-rate, undoubtedly priming partisan outrage along with inevitable back-fire discourse for generations.
 
That said, as with most murder-suicides, the victims never had a chance.

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Support the Tropes: How media language encourages the left to support wars, coups and intervention

6/24/2021

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ALAN MACLEOD
April 9, 2021



In an earlier piece (FAIR.org, 3/3/21), we explored some country case study examples of how the press helps to manufacture consent for regime change and other US actions abroad among left-leaning audiences, a traditionally conflict-skeptical group.


Some level of buy-in, or at least a hesitancy to resist, among the United States’ more left-leaning half is necessary to ensure that US interventions are carried out with a minimum of domestic opposition. To this end, corporate media invoke the language of human rights and humanitarianism to convince those to the left of center to accept, if not support, US actions abroad—a treatment of sorts for the country’s 50-year-long Vietnam syndrome.

What follows are some of the common tropes used by establishment outlets to convince skeptical leftists that this time, things might be different, selling  a progressive intervention everyone can get behind.

Think of the women! 

The vast majority of the world was against the US attack on Afghanistan that followed the 9/11 attacks in 2001. However, the idea had overwhelming support from the US public, including from Democrats. In fact, when Gallup (Brookings, 1/9/20) asked about the occupation in 2019, there was slightly more support for maintaining troops there among Democrats than Republicans—38% vs. 34%—and slightly less support for withdrawing troops (21% vs. 23%).

Media coverage can partially explain this phenomenon, convincing some and at the least providing cover for those in power. This was not a war of aggression, they insisted. They were not simply there to capture Osama bin Laden (whom the Taliban actually offered to hand over); this was a fight to bring freedom to the oppressed women of the country. As First Lady Laura Bush said: We respect our mothers, our sisters and daughters. "Fighting brutality against women and children is not the expression of a specific culture; it is the acceptance of our common humanity—a commitment shared by people of goodwill on every continent…. The fight against terrorism is also a fight for the rights and dignity of women."

Wars are not fought to liberate women (FAIR.org, 7/26/17), and bombing people is never a feminist activity (FAIR.org, 6/28/20). But the New York Times was among the chief architects in constructing the belief in a phantom feminist war. Within weeks of the invasion (12/2/01), it reported on the “joyful return” of women to college campuses, profiling one student who strode up the steps tentatively at first, her body covered from face to foot by blue cotton. As she neared the door, she flipped the cloth back over her head, revealing round cheeks, dark ringlets of hair and the searching brown eyes of a student.

The over-the-top symbolism was hard to miss: This was a country changed, and all thanks to the invasion.

Time magazine also played heavily on this angle. Six weeks after the invasion (11/26/01), it told readers that “the greatest pageant of mass liberation since the fight for suffrage” was occurring, as “female faces, shy and bright, emerged from the dark cellars,” casting off their veils and symbolically stomping on them. If the implication was not clear enough, it directly told readers “the sight of jubilation was a holiday gift, a reminder of reasons the war was worth fighting beyond those of basic self-defense.”

“How much better will their lives be now?” Time (12/3/01) asked. Not much better, as it turned out.

A few days later, Time‘s cover (12/3/01) featured a portrait of a blonde, light-skinned Afghan woman, with the words, “Lifting the Veil. The shocking story of how the Taliban brutalized the women of Afghanistan. How much better will their lives be now?”

This was representative of a much wider phenomenon. A study by Carol Stabile and Deepa Kumar published in Media, Culture & Society (9/1/05) found that, in 1999, there were 29 US newspaper articles and 37 broadcast TV reports about women’s rights in Afghanistan. Between 2000 and September 11, 2001, those figures were 15 and 33, respectively. However, in the 16 weeks between September 12 and January 1, 2002, Americans were inundated with stories on the subject, with 93 newspaper articles and 628 TV reports on the subject. Once the real objectives of the war were secure, those figures fell off a cliff.

Antiwar messages were largely absent from corporate news coverage. Indeed, as FAIR founder Jeff Cohen noted in his book Cable News Confidential, CNN executives instructed their staff to constantly counter any images of civilian casualties with pro-war messages, even if “it may start sounding rote.” This sort of coverage helped to push 75% of Democratic voters into supporting the ground war.

As reality set in, it became increasingly difficult to pretend women’s rights in Afghanistan were seriously improving. Women still face the same problems as they did before. As a female Afghan member of parliament told Phyllis Bennis of the Institute for Policy Studies (CounterSpin, 2/17/21), women in Afghanistan have three principal enemies:

"One is the Taliban. Two is this group of warlords, disguised as a government, that the US supports. And the third is the US occupation…. If you in the West could get the US occupation out, we’d only have two."

However, Time managed to find a way to tug on the heartstrings of left-leaning audiences to support continued occupation. Featuring a shocking image of an 18-year-old local woman who had her ear and nose cut off, a 2010 cover story (8/9/10) asked readers to wonder “what happens if we leave Afghanistan,” the clear implication being the US must stay to prevent further brutality—despite the fact that the woman’s mutilation occurred after eight years of US occupation (Extra!, 10/10).

Vox (3/4/21) asserted that the US occupation of Afghanistan has meant “better rights for women and children” without offering evidence that that is the case.

The trick is still being used to this day. In March, Vox (3/4/21) credulously reported that Joint Chiefs of Staff chair Gen. Mark Milley made an emotional plea to Biden that he must stay in Afghanistan, otherwise women’s rights “will go back to the Stone Age.” It’s so good to know the upper echelons of the military industrial complex are filled with such passionate feminists.

In reality, nearly 20 years of occupation has only led to a situation where zero percent of Afghans considered themselves to be “thriving” while 85% are “suffering,” according to a Gallup poll. Only one in three girls goes to school, let alone university.

And all of this ignores the fact that the US supported radical Islamist groups and their takeover of the country in the first place, a move that drastically reduced women’s rights. Pre-Taliban, half of university students were women, as were 40% of the country’s doctors, 70% of its teachers and 30% of its civil servants—reflecting the reforms of the Soviet-backed government that the US dedicated massive resources to destroying.

Today, in half of the country’s provinces, fewer than 20% of teachers are female (and in many, fewer than 10% are). Only 37% of adolescent girls can read (compared to 66% of boys). Meanwhile, being a female gynecologist is now considered “one of the most dangerous jobs in the world” (New Statesman, 9/24/14). So much for a new golden age.

The “think of the women” trope is far from unique to Afghanistan. In fact, 19th century British imperial propagandists used the plight of Hindu women in India and Muslim women in Egypt as a pretext to invade and conquer those countries. The tactic’s longevity is perhaps testament to its effectiveness.

Read complete article on FAIR.


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