Category Archives: Journalism

UPDATE VIII: Lessons About Wicked TSA Appied To WikiLeaks (Patriotism Or Statism?)

Environmentalism & Animal Rights, Free Speech, Intelligence, Journalism, Just War, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Military, Propaganda, Republicans, The State, War

You’ve already been designated a terrorist at the nation’s federally controlled airports. As you go about your business, trying to make a living, and pursuing familial and professional contacts around the world—you ought to have an inkling, by now, of what being at the mercy of this accreting evil is all about. I hope you are able to extend these lessons and sensibilities to the persecution of an admittedly far more courageous opponent of the Federal Frankenstein than you and I: Julian Assange, proprietor of WikiLeaks.

First up, here are my reservations about hailing Assange as a folk hero: I suspect that Assange’s opposition to the oppressive impetus of the American state is reserved for causes dear to the Left. Witness the posting by Assange’s WikiLeaks, on 18 November of 2008, the name, address, age and occupation of many of the 13,500 members of the rightist British National Party. This is a wee bit of a give-away. Does he not respect this small group’s rights to live unmolested? Apparently not.

UPDATE II: WikiLeaks was, likewise, nowhere to be found when the Climagedon emails were exposed.

The fascist Fox News is leading its reports on the latest leaks with headlines calling to “designate WikiLeaks a ‘foreign terrorist organization.'”

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton seconded the sentiment: “Leaks ‘tear at fabric’ of government,'” she lamented. Good.

Let me focus the story for you. Far more serious than the gossipy prattle among diplomats about Iran, revealed in the 250,000 classified State Department documents, leaked on Monday, are the exhortations issued at Foggy Bottom to SPY ON THE WORLD:

The leaks cited American memos encouraging U.S. diplomats at the United Nations to collect detailed data about the U.N. secretary-general, his team and foreign diplomats — going beyond what is considered the normal run of information-gathering expected in diplomatic circles.
Le Monde said a memo asked U.S. diplomats to collect basic contact information about U.N. officials that included Internet passwords, credit card numbers and frequent flyer numbers. They were also asked to obtain fingerprints, ID photos, DNA and iris scans of people of interest to the United States, Le Monde said.
State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley played down the diplomatic spying allegations. “Our diplomats are just that, diplomats,” he said. “They collect information that shapes our policies and actions. This is what diplomats, from our country and other countries, have done for hundreds of years.”

The fabric of such a government must be torn and shorn; it’s the stuff of society that needs rebuilding.

UPDATE I: I repeat the observation made in “Warbot Wants to Kill WikiLeaker” (08.07.10):

“The politicos, and now even the generals, preach the practice of left-liberalism at its most extreme in every structure of the military and the government. And then, when it appears that their affirmative recruits are crappy—they can’t abide by a code of secrecy (or by a contract); or are unable to refrain from killing their colleagues—then their bosses suddenly turn bigoted and want to kill them.

“These are the same generals and politicians who campaign for free and open sex for hets and homos in the military. What do they expect? Disciplined buttoned-up soldiers?!”

“You can’t run a liberal organization—structurally and philosophically—and expect your members to behave themselves. Left-liberalism is about license and lenience.”

UPDATE III: TRUER WORDS WERE NEVER SPOKEN. Julian Assange’s, that is. The Australian who heads the secret-sharing Web site” said that “the documents will skewer ‘lying, corrupt and murderous leadership from Bahrain to Brazil.'”

UPDATE IV (Nov. 30): CLIMAGEDON. Although WikiLeaks’ proprietor did not break the climagedon story, he did “host the full 120MB archive.” I’m not quite sure what this cryptic, Wikipedia statement means. Is Assange committed to exposing power irrespective of ideology? I still don’t know. There is no doubt that he has done liberty a tremendous service so far by pulling back the curtain to reveal the affairs of state we fund.

UPDATE V: Via Fjordman, of the Brussels Journal: “… in 2001, … two out of Norway’s three largest newspapers, Aftenposten and Dagbladet, reported that most … rape charges involve an immigrant perp, which again mostly means Muslims. Both newspapers have since then conveniently ‘forgotten’ about this, and have never connected the issue to Muslim immigration although the number of rape charges has continued to rise to historic levels. They are thus at best guilty of extreme incompetence, since their former articles about this issue are still available online. Norway’s Minister of Justice from 2001 to 2005, Odd Einar Dørum, mentioned the problem in 2001 but has later gone quiet about the issue. The reported number of rapes in Oslo is now six – 6! – times as high per capita as in New York City, yet the media keeps warning against Islamophobia.”

Swedish women, at least, can at last feel safe. The Swedish government is finally getting serious about their rape problem.?!!

“Interpol, at the request of a Swedish court looking into alleged sex crimes from earlier this year, has put WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange on its most-wanted list.
The Stockholm Criminal Court two weeks ago issued an international arrest warrant for Assange on probable cause, saying he is suspected of rape, sexual molestation and illegal use of force in August incidents.”

Now what a coincidence this trumped up charge is, don’t you think?

UPDATE VI (Dec. 1): It is interesting how the collectivist impulse has kicked in among so many so-called defenders of freedom. A single man exposes the wicked workings of the US empire—an arm of which is the terrorist TSA—and that individual has become the enemy of the good.

The use of the term “anti-American,” vis-a-vis Assange, moreover, is so childish and utterly inaccurate. Assange is anti-American only if one equates America with her government. Proceeding from this error, the people who can-can for the criminalization of Assange’s speech draw the conclusion that by opposing state criminality, Assange is anti-American. So far, the one Assange action to qualify as unpatriotic and awful is his exposing of the home addresses of members of the rightist British National Party. That was a bully-boy tactic; it certainly qualifies as an ideological stand; a show of hatred to rordinary, peaceful citizens.

This is not a neoconservative site. Yes, we despise the Obama regime, but we despised the rule of Genghis Bush just as much—and almost from its inception.

People confuse statism with patriotism. This is how this classical liberal writer has defined patriotism (which is why Bad Eagle is wrong: American Indians can be patriotic):

“Patriotism in my view is a very modest thing. I feel patriotism when I encounter many people in my immediate community, or among my readers. The arborist who came to trim my trees the other day told me he was not a Republican or a Democrat. He said he hated the war in Iraq and loved his guns as well as keeping what he earned. This independence of mind is quintessentially American. I feel patriotic when I encounter such an American. Ditto the gentleman who installed my alarm system recently. He too expressed his disdain for politics, and moved on to discuss his gun collection. The sight of the Jeffersonian arborist swinging heroically at the top of my giant cedars, giving them a trim, and the cowboy-clad alarm installer makes me patriotic. People like Dr. Yeagley make me patriotic. There are quite a few Americans such as these around. Not enough, but enough to make me want to fight the good fight for them. …”

“So what is patriotism? Here’s what it’s not: It’s not an allegiance to the government of the day, or to its invariably wicked, un-American policies. It’s an affinity for your community; it’s an understanding of the great principles upon which this country was founded—which have been excised by successive governments, Republican and Democratic alike. And it’s a commitment to restoring the republic of private-property rights, individual freedoms, and radical decentralization.”

UPDATE VII:

“I miss the old WND,” writes Clay Smith, at the Letters section on WND:

I was sadden to read Mr. Farah’s article, “Nobody asked, nobody told.” I remember under President Clinton, WND would be a beacon of liberty, questioning government on everything. Back then WND even honored the “informer” by naming its magazine “Whistleblower.” I really miss that old WND.
Who cares if Pfc. Bradley Manning is a deviant, godless homosexual? The message is what I’m looking at, not the messenger. An individual tells me my house is on fire … I don’t stop and ask him whether he is a godless homosexual. I check his sincerity and validity of the information. In the case of WikiLeaks, the information has showed us numerous forms of government abuse.
There are no secrets in a free and open society – only with governments that keep their citizens in the dark, dictatorships, empires and those who engage in black ops. This is the root cause of terrorism in the first place. Ron Paul was right when he said, “Truth is treason in the empire of lies.”

I read Joseph’s column. I did not take away that he opposed whistle-blowing. What I deduce is that he thought the military appointed the wrong people, a point I made earlier in this post: “You can’t run a liberal organization—structurally and philosophically—and expect your members to behave themselves. Left-liberalism is about license and lenience.”

UPDATE VIII: Vox day writes this on On the heroics of WikiLeaks:

“If WikiLeaks meets the legal criteria of a “U.S.-designated terrorist organization” then so does Wikipedia and the Encyclopedia Britannica. Governments always want to operate in the dark and keep their subjects in ignorance, which is why Julian Assange should not be assailed by the American people, he should be awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom, regardless of whatever his motivations in making all of this information available to the public might be.

WikiLeaks is nothing more or less than a technological blow for American freedom. Assange is no traitor; the accusation doesn’t even make sense considering that he has absolutely no connection with the United States. But it should come as no surprise to the readers of this blog that the verbal attack against the organization is being led by one of those freedom-loving Republicans.”

One Twisted Brother

Barack Obama, Critique, Elections, Journalism, Left-Liberalism And Progressivisim, Media

Dana Bash, a CNN reporter who is never bashful about covering the president favorably, cringed when forced to deliver John Boehner’s rapid response to Barack Obama’s “enemies” quip. Recall that “during an interview last Monday on the Spanish-language radio station,” Mr. Obama tried to galvanize Latinos by referring to his opposition as “our enemies” who need punishing.

Posted only much later in the day on CNN (@8:01 PM ET), and only after the Obambi-issued mea culpa had already gone up on the network’s website, here is the House Minority Leader’s rather good response to that twisted brother:

“Mr. President, there’s a word for people who have the audacity to speak up in defense of freedom, the Constitution and the values of limited government that made our country great,” Mr. Boehner is set to tell an audience in Cincinnati tonight. “We don’t call them ‘enemies.’ We call them patriots. … “We have a president in the White House who referred to Americans who disagree with him as ‘our enemies,’” Mr. Boehner’s speech says. “Think about that. He actually used that word. When Ronald Reagan, George Bush, Bill Clinton and George W. Bush used the word ‘enemy,’ they reserved it for global terrorists and foreign dictators – enemies of the United States.”

Sadly, we have [a] president who used the word ‘enemy’ for fellow Americans…fellow citizens,” the speech continues. “He uses it for people who disagree with his agenda for bigger government…people speaking out for a smaller, more accountable government.

UPDATE IV: A National Reviewnik Thinks He’s "Contrarian"

Debt, Inflation, Journalism, Media, Neoconservatism, Paleoconservatism, Pseudo-intellectualism, Republicans

He’s trillions of dollars and a decade too late, but Kevin D. Williamson of National Review can assure himself he’s “contrarian” for advocating an about face in the Federal Reserve Bank’s fiddling.

Williamson may be reading Austrian economics. By that I mean the reality based thinking of Ludwig von Mises (taught at the Mises Institute); preached by Ron Paul (whom the neoconery mocked during the Bush years), practiced by financier Peter Schiff, written about by Tom Woods in Meltdown: A Free-Market Look at Why the Stock Market Collapsed, the Economy Tanked, and Government Bailouts Will Make Things Worse; as well as by Vox Day, and in this writer’s columns and blogs over the past decade.

Being of the establishment, however, Williamson can just put his hands over his ears and tell himself over and over again “I’m contrarian,” and this will be so.

“So here’s a contrarian take,” Williamson assures himself: “The Fed should stop trying to drive down interest rates. It should instead work to raise them. Why? Our economy needs savings and investment. …”

As I said, trillions of dollars and a decades too later … (“PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!”)

Your host, writing in “Those Invisible Jobs,” did not anoint herself a “contrarian” for advocating that Fed supremo Ben Bernanke raise interest rates.” Not then, and not in 2000 (“The Central Bank’s Game is the Same, Whoever’s the Name”), and on all those occasions in-between.

Why? Because in the Austrian community, represented by some very prominent people, this is common wisdom.

Bloody annoying…

UPDATE I: I’ll be honest: it’s hard to know from Mr. Williamson’s wishy-washy articles exactly where he stands on matters of political philosophy (or if he is a neoconservative or not). However, this post’s point was pretty clear. It expressed annoyance that someone can call himself contrarian for proposing less quantitative easing. Granted, it’s a prickly post, but Mr. Williamson can understand, surely, why writers like myself get a tad testy? We’ve been marginalized for being right on foreign policy and fiscal matters our entire careers, such as they are. Then, when the rest catch up with us, a decade down the line, they pretend that truth began with them.

If I’ve learned anything about the American Mind it is this: Truth doesn’t exist until someone in the establishment pronounces it, usually a decade or so after it has been in circulation. I guess, better late than never, but why not acknowledge those who went before?

I saw Mr. Williamson go up against one or the other left-liberals on TV, and I remember thinking: much better than Rich. Still, I do not believe there is a sufficient amount of information to conclude that “better than Rich” is a meaningful statement.

Mr. Williamson is young (and presentable). He has plenty of time to correct any mistaken impressions I might have formed, not least of which is his sharing that horrible habit common among the Republican establishment of never admitting to being Johnny-come-latelies on Iraq, Bush, economy, QE, etc.

UPDATE II: Mr. Glisson, first, why don’t you provide hyperlinks and particular quotes in substantiation of your position that Mr. Williamson is never a neoconservative? Second, why misconstrue the point of this writer’s post, encapsulated again in the last two sentences of “UPDATE I”? Moreover, from a parenthetic statement about the neoconservatives’ attitude toward Ron Paul, Mr. Williamson concluded that I had called him a neoconservative. You do the same, for some reason.

Again, Mr. Williamson is better than Rich; way better. I am still unsure as to what kind of badge of honor this really is; or if Mr. Williamson is or is not a neoconservative. Isn’t that a condition of employment at National Review? John Derbyshire is NRO’s only paleoconservative (sort of). I’d love to see John thrust into the spotlight, but they keep him in the basement, so to speak.

UPDATE III (Oct. 17): We thank Kevin D. Williamson for responding to the intrigue he has generated on Barely A Blog. He remains a man of mystery, and that is not half bad. In the age of too much information (and letting it all hang loose), mystery is a good thing. We agree that Mr. Williamson ain’t Rich. Has Rich employed a non-neoconservative in the hope of generating some oscillation in the static National Review? Or because the readership has little patience with that old guard? Who knows? We also understand that a man has to make a living. To do so, he must often walk an ideological tightrope.

Nevertheless, those who went before—and remain permanently frozen out of mainstream—deserve mention. It gets terribly cold out here. Mr. Glisson seems to think I’m some kind of intellectual missionary, spreading the good word, pleased to turn the other cheek just so long as the new guard can adopt the gospel, even if they falsely pretend to be pioneers.

Rubbish. Nonsense on stilts. I’m all about justice. Intellectual justice included.

UPDATE IV (3/5/2016):

“NRO Writer’s ‘UnFollow’ Leads To Musing About The Manners-Morals Connection.”

Chris Matthews Lies: The Best Minds Are Not Keynesians

Economy, Elections, Journalism, Media, Political Economy

Chris Matthews has been repeating this lie almost every week in this ramp-up to the mid-term elections:

“This president came into office facing the worst economic outlook since the 1930s. He took action, bold action, the action prescribed by the best economic minds – following the best thinking there is in economics ‘since’ the 1930s.

First, even before taking office, he backed up his predecessor in preventing a major collapse of the financial industry. Everyone involved said it ‘had’ to be done to avoid catastrophe – the destruction of our country’s financial spine.

Second, he took the action – again boldly – to powerfully offset the white-knuckle drop in consumer spending and business investment. If he hadn’t, no one – including his worst critics – would have any idea what would have befallen us. We can argue about the name it was given – the stimulus bill – but the creation of this great boost in economic demand for goods and services as critical break on what was widely seen as an economic free-fall.”

Nonsense on stilts. And what a propagandist Chris is.

I’ll quote this blog, from 2009, on the so-call Keynesian consensus: “The Royal ‘We’ is unwarranted; and it’s not only me.

The following statement was signed by more than 200 academic economists, and posted by the Cato Institute. The Wall Street Journal buried the statement among a list of economists touting the stimulus package–and the “principle” of printing and borrowing the country out of a depression:

“Notwithstanding reports that all economists are now Keynesians and that we all support a big increase in the burden of government, we the undersigned do not believe that more government spending is a way to improve economic performance. More government spending by Hoover and Roosevelt did not pull the United States economy out of the Great Depression in the 1930s. More government spending did not solve Japan’s ‘lost decade’ in the 1990s. As such, it is a triumph of hope over experience to believe that more government spending will help the U.S. today. To improve the economy, policymakers should focus on reforms that remove impediments to work, saving, investment and production. Lower tax rates and a reduction in the burden of government are the best ways of using fiscal policy to boost growth.”