We’ve interviewed former senior CIA analyst Ray McGovern, on the air and off, many times over the years. We’ve come to consider him not just a source, but a friend and a national hero for his tirelessly non-partisan fight for truth and justice.
The man who once briefed Presidents directly, from Ronald Reagan to Bill Clinton, had long ago earned our great respect — from his courageousness in famously confronting then-SecDef Don Rumsfeld in 2006 about lying about Saddam and WMD (watch the classic confrontation on video here) to his calling out CNN on air for their abysmal failures in accurately reporting on WikiLeaks (video here) last December to his arrest weeks later at the White House with other vets and national heroes for “refusal to obey a lawful order” while protesting against the Obama Administration’s wars around the world — all while overcoming some enormous personal health issues at the same time.
So it’s little wonder that FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds, founder of the National Security Whistleblowers Coalition (NSWBC), found herself “way too upset to write a coherent piece” yesterday after hearing of the news that the 71-year old McGovern had been “brutalized and left bleeding” by security guards after daring to stand in silent protest during a speech by Sec. of State Hillary Clinton — on “the rights of individuals to express their views freely”(!) — at George Washington University on Tuesday.
Clinton didn’t even blink as the 27-year CIA veteran was dragged out of the room from where he was standing silently, back towards her, during her speech, some 15 feet in front of her as RAW STORY reports and as the video below suggests — or even as he finally shouted: “So this is America!”…
Rory O’Connor at Alternet reports on the incident this way…
Clinton’s talk, which emphasized the need to protect basic freedoms, included her observation that “The rights of individuals to express their views freely… are universal.”
Are you as shocked as I am that even Donald Rumsfeld turns out to be a better supporter of free speech than Hillary Clinton? At least the lying SOB former Secretary of Defense didn’t stand by and do nothing as his critics were beaten, arrested and taken away in chains!
But that’s what our current Secretary of State did when peace activist, veteran Army officer and onetime C.I.A. analyst Ray McGovern protested silently while she lectured the rest of the world about freedom this week at George Washington University.
Clinton’s talk, which emphasized the need to protect basic freedoms, included her observation that “The rights of individuals to express their views freely… are universal.†But even as she condemned other governments for arresting protesters and inhibiting free expression, Clinton demonstrated her own hypocrisy and profound disregard for those rights by saying and doing nothing while the 71 year old protester was grabbed by campus police, pulled to the ground, and dragged out of the auditorium. McGovern remained silent until just before he was pulled through the auditorium doors; then, bloodied, bruised & arrested, he screamed, “This is America?â€
McGovern had been standing silently facing the back of the auditorium where all the news cameras were. His supposed crime? “Disorderly conduct†– i.e. wearing a shirt that blocked the view of guests and the media, and therefore “disrupted†the speech by the Secretary of State.
“I turned my back to her and stood [silently]. When she came in I not only remained standing but I turned my back to her,” said McGovern in an interview about the incident with Rob Kall at OpEd News, “I didn’t think that would get me roughed up and arrested for disorderly conduct.”
Even Ray McGovern, the senior CIA spook who had once briefed Hillary Clinton’s own husband on top-secret issues of national security around the world, seems to have misunderestimated the turn to the dark side our country now seems to have taken…
“did not want the press to communicate with the public ” …ironic words .”So this is America!”…
Hillery’s demonstrated hypocrisy – praising protest in the Middle East but even smirking as government enforcers in her presence bodily remove a silent standing protester – is really no surprise considering her past statements and actions. Most politicians are renowned for similar hypocritical behavior, though typically it is not so well demonstrated and recorded.
The really unpleasant part of this episode to me is the passive audience and the fact that to date at another website where incident has been discussed is that no one has apparently realized that it is the enforcers who did the harm to Ray McGovern – Clinton didn’t raise a finger towards him nor even pay direct attention to him, as though he were merely an annoying insect.
Hillery Clinton, her boss Barack Obama and all their fellows in Washington DC (as well as all the 50 states and territories of these United States) do not get out and enforce the enormity of regulations/edicts/mandates/laws/etc as well as simple opinions. No, it is the enforcers – those human individuals, not robots, willing to initiate physical force on others – who are the key to all the harm that the US government is responsible for inside and outside its self-decreed boundaries. Therefore the enforcers are the key! Politicians and bureaucrats simply talk and write, even when it is to give orders, which I am sure that in this case, Clinton had done in general to her henchmen long before this particular episode.
When it becomes undesirable to large numbers of government enforcers (who are not convinced by verbal/written persuasion) to be *shunned* – recipients of public negative Social Preferencing, they will find other lines of work, hopefully truly productive. First though, it needs to be understood by (the far greater in numbers) non-enforcers – like the people in that audience and those reading this account – that they have it within their power to take the “teeth” out of government, by in large numbers withdrawing voluntary association with all government enforcers – agents of all the various law/regulation agencies of the various levels of government and the military too.
Street protests are not enough, as I’ve tweeted considerably nor even silent standing at speeches by politicians and as I wrote in general in “Tax/Regulation Protests are Not Enough: Relationship of Self-Responsibility and Social Order†– http://selfsip.org/focus/protestsnotenough.html
Though written with a target audience of North America, the general principles in this article are applicable anywhere there is not a self-ordered society without government – rulers, which is currently everywhere.
.… Kitty Antonik Wakfer said on 2/17/2011 @ 4:39 pm PT…
It is a real life metaphor of the hypocrisy of the United States. This is why the United States’ no longer has any moral authority around the world. The USA as a nation has been usurped by anti-American, democracy-raping, taxpayer-looting military/industrial corporations
This is messed up. I can’t believe people just watch as their own are beaten and taken away for exercising their rights. George Washington University students know nothing about their schools namesake and neither do their arrogant campus police! George Washington would be ashamed to have his name a part of this school!
Kind of funny that next to Hillary, even Rumsfeld looks good.
When the founding fathers gave the right to freedom of the press, they meant the printing press, the only technology available at the time for the mass-dissemination of ideas and information.
Realizing this, freedom of the press is really the same thing as freedom of speech: I write down what i want to say, copy it many times, give it to others.
Article 19 of the U.N. Universal Declaration of Human Rights brings this into the 21st century: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom . . . to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.†Which, as you can see, essentially combines the two concepts of freedom of speech and freedom of the press, and also adds a third, freedom to receive, which was denied the people of Egypt recently with the shutdown of the internet and cell-phone service.
If you think about it, all confidentiality agreements, including whatever the gov’t calls whatever they have a gov’t official sign before giving him/her a level of clearance, is unconstitutional, or at least any laws which enforce such agreements. The word “except†is not in the first amendment.
Imagine this – some dems actually voted for clinton for president!
Imagine what a disaster 32 years of bush-clinton-bush-clinton junta would have been
Imagine nothing. Obama is Bush the 3rd with a dash of Clintonista thrown in. Otherwise business as usual.
MOT
And you think 32 years of a bush-clinton-bush-clinton junta would be any different?
That would be 32 years of dur chimpfurher!
In Hawaii the know how to deal with things like this:
Beachgoers Complain About Homeless Defecating In Waikiki
Human Feces Found Regularly In Public Areas
HONOLULU — People who come to Waikiki don’t dream of strolling in an outdoor latrine and encountering human feces. Waikiki Beach is a world-famous tourist attraction and one of the loveliest places on earth, according to many. But more and more homeless are congregating in the area, and they often defecate out in the open.
mtranchi @6 wrote:
First, mtranchi, it would be helpful if you actually read the First Amendment before commenting on it.
The First Amendment reads, in pertinent part, “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press…”
For a more detailed explanation as to why “freedom of speech” and “freedom of the press” are not one and the same, I’d suggest you read my earlier piece, Citizens United: A Case Which Will Live in Infamy, which explains how the extension of “free speech” rights to corporations serves to undermine the “free press” rights of the U.S. citizenry.
Free speech entails the right of every citizen to openly express his or her views. Ray McGovern’s free speech rights, exercised by a dignified, silent protest, were trampled at this event, which is all too reminiscent to when Cindy Sheehan was arrested and removed from her seat in the Congressional gallery when she wore an anti-war tee shirt to a George W. Bush S.O.T.U.
Freedom of the press entails not simply the right of media to express views disfavored by the government but the right of the public to receive information vital to informed consent in a democratic society. That right requires not only restraint on government censorship but the obligation of the media to accurately report the news.
It was perhaps best explained by Justice Hugo Black in his concurring opinion in the Pentagon Papers case:
Welcome to the police state.
Actions by Obama, Clinton and other reactionaries at the top of the Democrat Party make a hash of Maddow’s assertion that what’s happening in Wisconsin is a battle for the continuance of the Democrat Party.
They say in War What Don’t kill You Makes You Stronger
Mac retired Gulf war Vet
But I think there are several hundreds of thousands of Gulf War vets who think we need to test this again.
It had been long assumed that the United States Government, shortly before Iraq invaded Kuwait in August of 1990, gave Saddam Hussein a green light to attack.
A State Department cable recently published by WikiLeaks confirmed that U.S.
Ambassador April Glaspie did indeed have a conversation with Saddam Hussein one week prior to Iraq’s August 1, 1990, invasion of Kuwait.
Amazingly, the released cable was entitled,
“Saddam’s Message of Friendship to President Bush.â€
In it, Ambassador Glaspie affirmed to Saddam that “the President had instructed her to broaden and deepen our relations with Iraq.†As Saddam Hussein outlined Iraq’s ongoing border dispute with Kuwait, Ambassador Glaspie was quite clear that,“we took no position on these Arab affairs.â€
There would have been no reason for Saddam Hussein not to take this assurance at face value. The U.S. was quite supportive of his invasion and war of aggression against Iran in the 1980s. With this approval from the U.S. Government, it wasn’t surprising that the invasion occurred.
The shock and surprise was how quickly the tables were turned and our friend, Saddam Hussein, all of a sudden became Hitler personified
.
The document was classified, supposedly to protect national security, yet this information in no way jeopardized our security.
Instead, it served to keep the truth from the American people about an event leading up to our initial military involvement in Iraq and the region that continues to today.
A few facts should be added hereâ€
Not only was this another war proven to be based on lies to get the U.S. involved at a great cost of tax payer money
As well as human life but this lie extended to not just the public but to the vets sent into harms way.
Dying not in battle but referring to the Gulf War Syndrome.
For 19.5 years we have denied that Gulf War Syndrome exists. As a result, many of our veterans have gone bankrupt because their conditions are not covered under any government programs for assistance.
We are not referring to the rare case; we are referring to hundreds of thousands of human beings.
Obama brought forth suggestion that the vets that for filled their part of the contract serving 20 years should pay for their own health care to a great extend that’s what the Gulf War vets have been doing.
Only given choices of
1. Either taking more drugs to mask the pain going through life not feeling the pain but nothing else either.
2. Buying their own herbs vitamins and doctors to try to get relief .
3. Just end their own life to escape the pain and attachment of serving to protect a nation a government which turns around & says your lying.
Not much of a choice ???
http://privateattorneygeneral.spruz.com/?display=107EE596-4526-439E-8835-4A98A3AE73E4&save=html
Please note that it was the University’s security that overreacted to Mr. McGovern [given the recent Gifford situation], not the Diplomatic services or gov’t security.
Anyone that has ever read, heard or met Mr. McGovern knows what a brilliant patriot he is. I can’t imagine that there weren’t people in the audience that knew him and respected him. What is wrong with these people? He spoke at a church I attend on occasion and I can assure you that had anyone from this congregation been present, they would have come to his rescue and there would have been quite a sence. They are aren’t a passive bunch. They believe in justice.
We are not even on the precipice any longer. Amerikka, has gone over the edge and is falling headlong into the abyss of totalitarianism.
Welcome to the land of the enslaved and the home of corporations.
Welcome to the land of the enslaved and the home of corporations.
and the banksters.
watch video of a heist:
http://bcove.me/xh82za7f
Sara (#15) wrote:
Do we have confirmation of that? I read it on one of the links but it seems off to me. In general, based on my experience with certain University security people, they don’t tend to be like that.
Ray had his doubts, too. He shouted, “Who are you?” as he was being dragged off. And he’s former CIA, so I bet his instincts are finely honed.
Here’s how the revolving door works.
Investigate the bankster. Then get a job with the banksters….
NORFOLK
Cassandra M. Chandler, once the highest-ranking black woman at the FBI, announced Thursday that she will retire from the bureau after serving two years as the special agent in charge of the Norfolk office.
Her last day will be Dec. 31. Following that, she will begin a new career as an investigative services executive with Bank of America in Charlotte, N.C. Her job will involve developing strategies to detect, mitigate and investigate both internal and external fraud, according to Bank of America. In other words, she will develop plans to ferret out cheats, particularly those involved in identity theft.
I don’t know who came up with this method of protest, (turning your back at presentations).
Brilliant!
Hillary has been exposed as brazenly cold and calculated in a peaceful manner.
The Times They [really] Are a-Changin’
Secretary Clinton? Yes a Mr. Foster on the line? Says he has message from a Secretary Brown? What’s it all about Hilary?