[Social]
Convicted Antinuclear Activists Speak Out: ‘Pentagon Has Brainwashed People’
by Marjorie Cohn
Posted November 13, 2019

The seven Catholic peace activists who were convicted on Oct. 24 for their symbolic protest against nuclear weapons at the Kings Bay Naval Base in Georgia are now facing a two-to-three-month wait to hear their prison sentences. They could face more than 20 years in prison.

The jury that convicted the Kings Bay Plowshares 7 activists was self-avowedly apathetic about the risks posed to humanity by nuclear weapons, and the judge and prosecution worked together to prevent the defendants from sharing information or arguments to raise jurors’ consciousness on the issue.

The manner that the judge allowed the case to be made did not make it clear that the house was indeed on fire — or even that there was a house. The reality of the nuclear weapons, the threat they pose, and certainly their illegality, were not objectively communicated” to the jury. More…

[Social]
Thanks to a Soviet Navy Captain — We Survived 1962
By Ray McGovern
Posted November 12, 2019

Captain Vasili Alexandrovich Arkhipov spared humanity from extinction on what has been called “the most dangerous moment in human history.

Much of this account of what happened on submarine B-59 is drawn from Daniel Ellsberg’s masterful book, “The Doomsday Machine” — one of the most gripping and important books I have ever read. Dan explains, inter alia, on pages 216-217 the curious circumstance whereby the approval of Arkhipov, chief of staff of the submarine brigade at the time, was also required.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., a close adviser to President John F. Kennedy, later described Oct. 27, 1962, as Black Saturday, calling it “the most dangerous moment in human history.” On that same day, the Joint Chiefs of Staff recommended an all-out invasion of Cuba to destroy the newly emplaced Soviet missile bases there. More…

The Facts:
The US and Soviet Union barely avoided a nuclear war in 1962.

Reflect On:
Consider how a person or an animal reacts when backed into a corner. Consider the wisdom [lack of] by backing any nation into a corner. Consider what US foreign policy has done to many nations in the past, and is doing in the present.

[Social]
President Eisenhower Warns Nation Against Military-Industrial Complex
by President Dwight Eisenhower
Posted November 11, 2019

Listen carefully to the words of President Dwight Eisenhower in his farewell speech to the nation. His words were almost prophetic. Listen carefully and see if his warning resonates with you and consider the relevance of his words to the situation of our society today. (Length = 2:30)

[Social]
President Kennedy Warns Nation Against Excessive Secrecy
by President John Kennedy
Posted November 10, 2019

Listen carefully to the words of President John F. Kennedy in his speech before the American Newspaper Publishers Association. His words were almost prophetic. Listen carefully and see if his warning resonates with you and consider the relevance of his words to the situation of our society today.  (Length = 5:24)

[Social]
The End of Accountable Government Is Close at Hand
by Paul Craig Roberts
Posted November 9, 2019

For about 70 years the CIA has been undermining a free press. It began with Operation Mockingbird, a Cold War operation against communism. The CIA recruited journalists into a propaganda network. The CIA paid journalists to write fake stories or to publish stories written by the CIA in order to control explanations that served the agency’s agendas. Student and cultural organizations and intellectual magazines, such as Encounter, were suborned into the CIA’s propaganda network. Thanks to the German journalist, Udo Ulfkotte, we know that every European journalist of any significance is a CIA asset. In 1977 Carl Bernstein of Watergate fame wrote in Rolling Stone that the CIA “has secretly bankrolled numerous foreign press services, periodicals and newspapers—both English and foreign language—which provided excellent cover for CIA operatives.” Like most other people, Western journalists were all too willing to sell out their integrity for money. The few who were not were blackmailed into submission.

The few honest journalists who remain have been forced out of the “mainstream” or presstitute media onto Internet websites. Wikileaks is by far the best news organization of our time. To bring this organization to heel Washington, using its Swedish, British, and Ecuadoran vassals, has persecuted Wikileaks’ founder, Julian Assange, for years. The CIA’s media vassals, including the New York Times and The Guardian, both of which published the material leaked to Wikileaks that is being used to destroy Assange, have joined wholeheartedly in the persecution of the World’s Best and Most Honest Journalist. More…