…Ellsberg & Snowden, from pg. 5
did not know it had not been a matter either of public sovereignty or congressionally informed consent or decision to be conducting that war and especially moving towards enlarging it. Almost nobody recognized that was
ɶɶ it had not been a matter of public sovereignty or congressionally informed consent. happening. I had special knowledge on that because I was told by the deputy to Henry Kissinger, that this was what Nixon was planning, but I believed it. There were only three of
ɶɶ if you can’t stand lying you can’t work for the executive branch for very long us at that time who had read the 7,000 page study of our decision-making from 1945 to 1968 and could believe that a president was deceiving the public as much as they all had, and that Nixon was still doing. I was told, me and other people, on a top secret basis, and I had clearance
at that time, what Nixon’s plan was and no one believed it, that he really could be threatening nuclear war a year after the Tet Offensive had shown that the war was not winnable. Now what I did has been misunderstood. The policy I was opposing, which is still not understood, is important, because we are still enacting it in various parts of the world. And that was this: Many people have said that the lesson of the Pentagon Papers was, first, that the government lied. Okay, that’s not why I put it out, because I’d known that from the first day I worked in the government, when I heard a lot of lies, and heard the next day and… if you can’t stand lying you can’t work for the
ɶɶ people went to prison, not in the belief that the war was not winnable, but because it was wrong. executive branch for very long. True, the public didn’t know that on the whole, but that was not news. It was not shared only by me. Second, the papers showed the war was not winnable. That is the thing you see over and over again and it really gets under my skin, because it has nothing to do with my motives or what the problem was at that point. Five thousand people went to jail, and I risked it myself. Not one of us did that because we thought the war was not winnable. Everybody knew the war was not winnable by that time. By 1968 and 1969 there was hardly anybody who thought the war was winnable except
Richard Nixon. And I knew that he thought it was, crazily. And was pursuing a policy that was going to expand the war and continue it not only for one or two years but at least eight years, and get larger. Larger in the air, probably bringing the Chinese in and eventually using nuclear weapons which I knew he was considering as early as 1969. The people who went to prison did it not in the belief that the war was not winnable but because it was wrong. And in my case I realized by the end that not only had it been wrong but that it was going on and getting bigger, which people didn’t realize and still don’t to this day, because they didn’t want to hear it. They don’t like to believe they’ve been fooled. Must watch movies: The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers is the 2009 documentary film follows Daniel Ellsberg and explores the events leading up to the 1971 release of the Pentagon Papers, exposing top-secret USA military involvement in their unjust Vietnam War. The government lied then. Today it is Afghanistan. Citizenfour is a 2014 documentary film directed by Laura Poitras, original footage doc. Snowden is a 2016 biographical thriller film directed by Oliver Stone, a wellacted movie. Both are great to watch. Edward Snowden’s autobiography Permanent Record is an intimate book where you get the true story in his own words. “A highly recommended read.” - Joseph Roberts, Common Ground. The above article is from A Conversation with Daniel Ellsberg https://edwardsnowden.substack.com/p/ ellsberg1 Daniel Hale and Reality Winner were drone whistleblowers. National Bird is a documentary that explores the drone warfare from a human perspective.
August / September
2021
Huxley’s Brave New World had Soma. What’s Canada’s?
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by Joseph Roberts, Common Ground fizer-Moderna has their obsequious, obedient, acting Prime Minister, Premiers, and Mayors. Think of them as political pimps for global drug dealers who are very generous with the self-serving tax-deductible philanthropy and arm-twisting patronage. That give us de facto Medical Colonization by the Multinational Pharmaceutical Corporations. They have captured our drug regulatory agencies, health ministries, and governments. Thus we drift toward unparalleled catastrophe... unless we become informed, associate among our peers, communicate our concerns, organize and act to protect our rights. Consider the following, see if it feels eerily familiar to what has happened over the last 500 days: Institutional Fascism (also known as systemic fascism) is a form of fascism that is embedded as normal practice within society or an organization. It can lead to such issues as discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education, etc.
This could also be called Normalized Fascism or Unconscious Fascism, Habitual Fascism, Socially Acceptable Fascism, Colonial Fascism, Political Fascism, Medical Fascism, or Empire / Empirical Fascism. It embodies Entitlement of one group of people over another where they feel superior or claim a difference that Entitles them to better treatment, service, rights or privileges over those they deem to be inferior or different. Generally those who hold power over others can fall into this category due to advantages their position in society or wealth affords them, advantages not shared by the poor, powerless or groups that have chosen the non-majority position. Institutional Racism (also known as systemic racism) is a form of racism embedded as normal practice within society . It can lead to systemic discrimination in criminal justice, employment, housing, health care, political power, and education. The term “institutional racism” was first coined in 1967 by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton who wrote that while individual racism is often identifiable because of its overt nature, institutional racism is
less perceptible because of its less overt, far more subtle nature. Institutional racism originates in the operation of established and respected forces in the society, and thus receives far less public condemnation than individual racism. Substantive Equality is one counter-balance to racism or its cousin fascism. Substantive Equality is a fundamental aspect of human rights law concerned with equitable outcomes and equal opportunities for addressing and preventing systemic discrimination in all its myriad forms. This can include discrimination between the vaccinated and the unvaccinated whereby such discrimination has lead to refusal of services, forced solitary confinement, house arrest, and enforced lockdowns on an identifiable minority that made an informed decision not to take an experimental drug, vaccine, or medical procedure. This could also be considered institutional racism or fascism where by an identifiable group of people are denied Substantive Equality. Learn about your rights and freedoms, it will serve you well.
